Our first song is 310 footprints of Jesus.
310.
On the first.
Sweetly, Lord, have we heard thee calling,
come follow me.
Then we see where thy footprints falling lead us to thee.
Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway glow.
We will follow the steps of Jesus where e'er they go.
Think they lead o'er the cold, dark mountains
seeking his sheep.
For along by Siloam's fountains helping the weak.
Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway glow.
We will follow the steps of Jesus where e'er they go.
If they lead through the temple holy preaching the word.
Foreign homes of the poor and lowly serving the Lord.
Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway glow.
We will follow the steps of Jesus where e'er they go.
Then at last when on high he sees us our journey done.
We will rest where the steps of Jesus end at his throne.
Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway glow.
We will follow the steps of Jesus where e'er they go.
All right, let us pray, dear heavenly Father God.
Thank you for allowing us to be here in this church
and I thank you for this ministry, Lord,
and I pray that bless this earth
and I just pray that you continue to protect us
from all harm out there, Lord,
and I just pray that let everything be done
for all your glory in Jesus' name, amen.
All right, for the next song,
number 177, 177, When Love Shines In.
Song number 177, When Love Shines In.
Jesus comes with power to glide in,
when love shines in.
Every light that woke and set in,
when love shines in.
Love will teach us how to pray,
love will drive the gloom away,
turn our darkness into day.
When love shines in,
when love shines in,
how the heart is toot to singing,
when love shines in,
when love shines in.
Joy and peace to others bringing,
when love shines in.
How the world will glow with beauty,
when love shines in,
and the heart rejoice in duty,
when love shines in.
Trials may be sanctified
and the soul and peace abide,
life will all be glorified,
when love shines in,
when love shines in.
How the heart is toot to singing,
when love shines in,
when love shines in.
Joy and peace to others bringing,
when love shines in.
Darkest sorrow will grow brighter,
when love shines in,
and the heaviest burden lighter,
when love shines in.
Tis the glory that will throw,
light to show us where to go.
Oh the heart shall blessing know,
when love shines in,
when love shines in.
How the heart is toot to singing,
when love shines in,
when love shines in.
Joy and peace to others bringing,
when love shines in.
We may have unfading splendor,
when love shines in,
and a friendship true and tender,
when love shines in.
When earth victory shall be won,
and our life in heaven begun,
there will be no need of sun,
when love shines in,
when love shines in.
When love shines in,
how the heart is toot to singing,
when love shines in,
when love shines in.
Joy and peace to others bringing,
when love shines in.
Thank you for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you don't already have a bulletin,
lift up your hand nice and high,
and one of our ushers can come by
and get you guys a bulletin.
I think I had one up here.
Here we go.
Also we have on the inside our service soul winning times,
our church stats.
I continue to pray for our expecting ladies.
We also have a prayer list.
If you did have any salvations
or any of that kind of information,
make sure you're reporting that to your soul winning captains.
If you're unsure of how to do that,
then you can ask any of our ushers
or myself or Brother Dylan,
and we can help get that organized,
but we do have soul winning captains
basically record all of our soul winning data for us,
and we have the soul winning maps over here,
so make sure to turn those in,
highlight whatever you got accomplished,
that way we're making sure that we're
tracking progress appropriately.
Also on the back,
we have the note about the bridal shower, July 2nd.
We have a song leading class and music practice,
and there's a sign up sheet for that as well.
We have the men's conference August 18th to the 20th,
and then we had our congratulations
on our homeschool graduate, Ms. Elena Cardona.
There is still I think a poster that you can sign,
congratulate them and everything like that in that corner,
so if you'd like to sign and tell them congratulations,
that would be great.
Immediately following the service,
we're gonna be having root beer and Coke floats
in celebration of Father's Day.
Now here's the thing, kiddos, you can have one,
you have to serve dad first, okay?
So make sure dad gets one first,
and then you guys can have one too, all right?
Is that a deal?
All right, you can say yes, it's all right, okay?
Is that a deal?
All right, all right, let's do that.
Okay, so that's pretty much all I have
for announcements this evening.
Let's go ahead and go to our third song,
150, My Faith Has Found a Resting Place, song 150.
Song 150, My Faith Has Found a Resting Place.
150.
My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device nor creed,
I trust the ever-living one,
His wounds for me shall flee,
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me,
Enough for me that Jesus saves,
He sends my fear and doubt,
A sinful soul I come to Him,
He'll never cast me out,
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me,
My heart is leaning on the Word,
The written Word of God,
Salvation by my Savior's name,
Salvation through His blood,
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me,
My great physician heals the sick,
The loss He came to save,
For me His precious blood He shed,
For me His life He gave,
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.
Sing it.
The offering plates are passed around.
Please turn in your Bibles to Proverbs 30.
Proverbs chapter 30.
You're going to read the whole chapter before the sermon.
Proverbs chapter number 30.
You can follow along silently,
starting in verse number one.
Proverbs 30, the Bible reads,
The words of Agar, the son of Jacob,
even the prophecy,
Man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucol,
Surely I am more brutish than any man,
And have not the understanding of a man.
I neither learned wisdom,
Nor have the knowledge of the holy.
Who hath ascended up into heaven or descended?
Who hath gathered the wind in his fists?
Who hath found the waters in a garment?
Who hath established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and what is his son's name,
If thou canst tell?
Every word of God is pure,
He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him.
Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee,
And thou be found a liar.
Two things have I required of thee,
Deny me them not before I die.
Remove far from me vanity and lies,
Give me neither poverty nor riches.
Feed me with food convenient for me,
Lest I be full and deny thee,
And say, Who is the Lord?
Or lest I be poor and steal,
And take the name of my God in vain.
Accuse not a servant unto his master,
Lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty.
There is a generation that curseth their father,
And doth not bless their mother.
There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes,
And it is not washed from their filthiness.
There is a generation,
How lofty are their eyes,
And their eyelids are lifted up.
There is a generation whose teeth are as swords,
And their jaw-teeth as knives,
To devour the poor from off the earth
And the needy from among men.
The horse-leech hath two daughters,
Crying, Give, give!
There are three things that are never satisfied,
Yea, four things say not, It is enough.
The grave and the barren womb,
The earth that is not filled with water,
And the fire that saith not, It is enough.
The eye that mocketh,
The father and despiseth to obey his mother,
The ravens of the valley shall pick it out,
And the young eagle shall eat it.
There be three things which are too wonderful for me,
Yea, four which I know not.
The way of an eagle in the air,
The way of a serpent upon a rock,
The way of a ship in the midst of the sea,
And the way of a man with a maid.
Such is the way of an adulterous woman,
She eateth and wipeth her mouth,
And saith, I have done no wickedness.
For three things the earth has disquieted,
And for four which it cannot bear,
For a servant when he reigneth,
And a fool when he is filled with meat,
For an odious woman when she is married,
And an handmaid that is heir to her mistress.
There be four things which are little upon the earth,
But they are exceeding wise.
The ants are a people not strong,
Yet they prepare their meat in the summer.
The conies are but a feeble folk,
Yet make they their houses in the rocks.
The locusts have no king,
And go they forth all of them by bands.
The spider taketh hold with her hands,
And is in kings' palaces.
There be three things which go well,
Yea, four are comely in going.
A lion which is strongest among beasts,
And turneth not away for any.
A greyhound, and he goad also,
And a king, against whom there is no rising up.
If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself,
Or if thou hast thought evil,
Lay thine hand upon thy mouth.
Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter,
And the ringing of the nose bringeth forth blood.
So the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you for Proverbs 30 and for our church.
I pray that you would protect our church, Lord,
and be with us as we go our separate ways after the service.
Fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit and enable him
to thunder forth the message laid on his heart.
In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Amen. We're here in Proverbs chapter 30.
Let's look at a verse that's kind of interesting.
It says in verse 8,
Remove far from me vanity and lies.
Give me neither poverty nor riches.
Feed me with food convenient for me.
And the title of my evening sermon is this,
Extreme Views on Money.
And I've been doing kind of a series
where I've been taking topics and kind of exposing to you
how there's often a very extreme view
on both directions away from what the Bible actually teaches
on a particular subject.
And we've talked about marriage.
We've talked about gender roles.
We've talked about the death penalty.
We've talked about a lot of different subjects already
where you can kind of see there's these extreme views
on different sides of a particular issue.
And the Bible's not extreme.
It's actually somewhere in the middle.
And I think when it comes to money,
this is a topic where I feel like a lot of people
have very extreme views
or they tend to lean in a very extreme direction
when it comes to money specifically.
And it's because the Bible brings up this topic a lot
in a lot of different ways.
And if you only get a diet of one side
of this particular doctrine,
you could end up kind of coming out
and having kind of a weird view
when it comes to money specifically.
Most things, if not all things virtually,
are kind of just abstract from morality
in the sense that it's contextually driven.
Everything really when it comes to sin
or something being bad, it's contextually driven.
Now I know there's some people out there
that think that certain words are just inherently sinful
and evil and wicked.
But I'm telling you here today that context always matters.
And when it comes to money itself,
it's not like money is just this evil, wicked thing
and everything about it's bad or something like that.
Money is just a tool that exists.
It's an idea that exists,
the thing that we have in our culture
and our society and the world.
And it's not really good or bad.
And when the Bible talks about this particular subject,
it brings up really both extremes
to help us have a balanced view.
Now the goal of this sermon is not really
to necessarily have three points in a poem.
The goal of this sermon is just
to help you realize that the Bible talks about this subject
from so many different angles
and really we just want to come across
with a balanced view at the end of the day.
So I'm not going to necessarily just sit here
and hammer only one point.
We're going to kind of go back and forth a lot,
but I think that'll help you realize,
okay, wow, the Bible actually talks about this
in an interesting way.
And I feel like this verse typifies the doctrine,
typifies the understanding today
that we shouldn't desire poverty
and we shouldn't desire riches.
Neither of those really should be what we desire.
We should desire somewhere in the middle
of those two basic ideas.
Now here's the thing that makes this subject
a little difficult.
Poverty and riches are a little bit subjective.
You can't really just know, like, what is riches?
You know, riches is going to mean
something different to every kind of person
and poverty is going to be different
to all kinds of different people.
Because in America, if you make under, you know,
$35,000 or $40,000 a year, you're, like,
under the U.S. poverty line.
It kind of depends on how many kids you have, too, okay?
So if you got 10 kids, it's like you could make,
like, $60,000 if you're under the poverty line.
You know, if you have no kids, it's like $35,000 or $40,000.
It's a little bit subjective again, okay?
But if you say, okay, well, I make $35,000.
I have a couple kids and it's hard.
Well, it's subjective because that might,
your life, though, might still be infinite
and definitely better than people living in Africa
or, like, some Central American area
or something like that.
But here's what I don't think is right.
I don't think it's right to just sit here
and negate the idea that anybody in America is poor
just because there's certain countries
that have it worse.
I personally, this is my personal idea
of looking at poverty and riches.
And again, I'm saying it's subjective, okay?
So if you have a different view, you can have your own view.
I believe that poverty and riches is circumstantial
based on the area that you're living.
So everybody has poverty and everybody has wealth
based on their particular area.
And just because you might make infinitely more money
than somebody in a foreign country,
I'm not going to say you can't be poor
just because that reality exists.
And even in these other countries,
some Americans, like middle-class Americans,
might make a lot more money than really rich people
in some of these third-world countries,
but they're rich based on their context,
based on their area, okay?
So when it comes to America specifically,
and I've preached on this topic before,
like where's the line of riches, you know?
And again, this is completely subjective.
Some people, I've heard people say,
if you have two cars, and I'm thinking like,
I've seen a lot of people with two cars
and they don't seem very rich, okay?
Like that's a weird thing.
Or they say like three-car garage or something.
Or a two-story house, or you know.
They come up with these weird things or whatever.
I personally don't really agree with that kind of an idea.
If I were to evaluate riches,
I would say it's based on net worth.
That's the metric that I would look at.
And I think it was a couple years ago,
I think I had placed it between like
$2 to $5 million net worth
would probably put you in a category
where I'd say you're probably rich.
With inflation, I would say you're probably rich.
With inflation, it's probably higher now.
I mean, you could have two million bucks
and you're probably still not even that rich
when it comes to the net worth
because they keep just cheapening our money
every single day.
I don't know what the number would be exactly,
but I would say you would have to have
several million dollars in net worth,
in my opinion, to be in this category of rich, okay?
And most people don't fit in that category.
And in fact, I personally think that
to get in those kind of categories
unless you're just extremely hardworking,
it's not even really possible
to get in those kind of levels.
It's very difficult to get there
through an honest working, honest living
unless you've got an inheritance
or something like that.
I mean, it would be very impractical.
You know, like our senators
or even our president,
these people that make three, four,
or $500,000 a year
and they have like $28 million in net worth,
it's like they didn't get there from their salary.
Okay, folks?
And here's what you have to understand.
Typically to get into the rich category,
you have to sin a lot and do wicked things.
And typically to get in the really poor category,
you just have to be lazy.
One of them's a lot easier, okay?
But really, you know,
that's why the middle road's a lot better
because you're not willing to go so far
as to go into wicked sin
to get all these extra riches,
but you're also not a little bit more
to get all these extra riches,
but you're also not a lazy derelict
so you actually make decent money.
You know, people in America
that make $100,000, $200,000,
$500,000, I don't look at them
as these wicked people
or something like that
because they make a good salary.
I wouldn't even consider them rich necessarily.
Okay, so that's not who we're talking about.
I want to define our terms
so that we don't have weird applications
to what I'm saying.
There's nothing wrong with making good money
and really, honestly,
if you work really hard,
you have a skilled position
or you own your own business,
you can make decent money,
$200,000, $300,000, $400,000.
Again, these numbers change every day
so someone listening to this sermon
10 years from now would be like,
that's nothing, you know?
The inflation is going up.
I mean, the numbers just change
like every day it feels like.
It seemed like when I looked
a couple years ago,
I wouldn't be surprised
in the last couple of years
if it's gone up to 85, 90, or even 100
as just kind of the median salary
because to try and keep up with inflation,
all the people moving here
and everything like that.
So money is always relative.
Money is always relative to the circumstance,
the situation.
There's probably plenty of people
in this room that make above
the median salary.
There's probably plenty of people
to make below.
This is where you basically
can't even get food on the table.
You're struggling paycheck to paycheck
and riches is like you have
this exorbitant amount of extra money
laid up in a net worth somewhere
whether that's in your equity
or bank account or something like that.
So those are really the more extremes
that the Bible is laying out.
Most of us probably don't even
fit in this category.
I really doubt very many people do, okay?
So I just want to make sure
I'm laying out the groundwork
for chapter number six.
Go to Matthew chapter number six.
Now if you have a different
definition of riches,
I mean I've heard people say
if you have two homes you're rich
or something like that.
Again, I've known plenty of people
that have two homes and I don't
think they're rich at all, okay?
In fact, a lot of people probably
have a bigger net worth than them
even though they technically
have two homes.
So I don't like these metrics
because there's only one house
in San Francisco.
So it's like, I mean,
you've got ten trailer parks
versus one really nice house.
This is kind of a weird metric.
To me it's got to be more like
of a net worth kind of delineation
or something like that.
But typically if you're rich,
in my mind if you're rich,
you don't think about money
in a sense of when you spend it.
You don't have to worry about
the price of any good.
You don't have to worry about
the idea of the lifestyle
someone is rich, okay?
And someone who's poor is
constantly needing to buy things
and they can't because they
just don't have the means.
They don't have the ability to
buy that. Those are some kind of
ways to look at it, but again,
I would probably go to some kind
of level of net worth or something.
Matthew chapter number six,
look what it says in verse 24.
No man can serve two masters
and this verse is saying
you can't serve money
and God simultaneously
because you're ultimately going
to pick one. You're going to
ultimately have to decide
what's more important to you,
money or God. And a real
practical application of this
in my opinion is someone that
wants to get really involved
in a church like ours
in 2022 America because
let me tell you something,
if you want to make a ton of
steadfast opinions or
affiliations is not that route.
Can you imagine if a business,
it doesn't matter, any business
just put up a giant banner that
said Steadfast Baptist Church on it.
I mean they'd probably get their
building burned down. I mean they
would get harassed and attacked
and everyone would hate them.
When you're a business owner
and you're trying to sell to the
world, the last thing you want to
do is come across with really
the Bible and when you come
across, what if they put a big
Leviticus 2013 banner up?
I mean they're going to get
smoked. And again, you even
should be careful because you
put it out there publicly like
I stand with Steadfast, people
are going to find out where you
do business and where you work
and the people that make a lot
of money will lose their jobs.
People that are in really high
profile jobs or have a lot of
visibility, I mean I'm just
saying it's a legitimate risk
that you could lose that job.
So that's why people shy away
from those kind of views, shy
away from that kind of a church
or not want to get associated
with them because ultimately
they're picking money over God.
Now I'm not saying that having a
high profile job and using
discretion is bad because if I
was in that position, I would do
that and I would just keep
writing that way. But at the end
of the day, I don't want to stop
reading the scriptures and not
tell people I'm a Christian or
any of those types of things in
an effort to make money. And I'm
not going to compromise on
certain principles and rules that
I have for myself. I'm not going
to start drinking alcohol so I
can make more money. Typically,
again, these people that make a
lot of money, you have to go out
and wine and dine the customers,
you have to take them to the
gentleman's club, you have to go
and do all kinds of things that
a God-fearing Christian would
probably be willing to do. And so
a lot of times it's incompatible
being a God-fearing, free-to-thrive,
soul-winning Christian and then
just putting 100% effort in the
world trying to make money.
Typically, it's very incompatible
and ultimately you'll end up
picking when you're like, well,
I'd rather take the high road of
money and fame and the easy path
or whatever as opposed to saying,
you know what, I'm going to stick
with church and just see what
happens. Now, look, I'm not saying
though that if you're a God-fearing
Christian, free-to-thrive, that
you couldn't make really good money
and be able to provide for your
family because you absolutely can't.
We're saying you're not going to
get to the rich factor. You're not
going to be Jeff Bezos. You're not
going to be any of these high-profile
people. You're not going to make
that kind of money. You're not
going to be Mark Zuckerberg.
You're not going to be Bill Gates.
And if you study these people's
rates that they're at through all
kinds of crooked, wicked deals,
ripping people off, they're
constantly being sued by all their
best friends and all their business
partners for all the shady things
that they did. I mean, Bill Gates
ripped off the Apple guy so that he
could get his computer. Mark
Zuckerberg, I mean, he got hired
by two guys to build Facebook
basically and then just stole their
idea, made his own company and then
the Winklevoss twins sued him for a
lot of money. And then after they
sued him and they got all the money,
they're now trying to sue him again
because they're like, well, I don't
feel like it was enough money. And
he lied about how much the company
was really worth when it happened. He
even diluted a lot of shares to try
and screw over one of the other
founders of the company. So he
basically just kind of ripped him
off in the whole process. And then
of course, you know, that's not even
to say how many snakes came into
Facebook and tried to rip Mark
Zuckerberg off. And you know, Jeff
Bezos of Amazon, this guy ripped off
all kinds of mom and pop shops,
four little widow women, four
immigrants and everything like that
who have a good idea, a good product
or good service. They put it on Amazon
thinking they're going to help them
and then they just undercut their
business model, start making their
products and underselling them and
then basically completely destroy
these people's businesses. I mean,
they've destroyed thousands and
thousands of these companies. And
they've been doing a great job
in the practice of lying to these
people and tricking them into
basically giving them the blueprints
of their business model, giving the
blueprints of their products. You
know, why do you think there's all
these laws and regulations on
copyright and invention and patents
and these types of things in our
culture? Because if someone knows
exactly how to make your product and
they have more money, they'll find
someone in China to make it cheaper
and if you say, you know what, I
don't feel like that's right. I
don't like looking at the poor widow
woman and ripping her off and taking
her money. I don't like making a deal
with my friend, making a handshake
and then behind his back diluting all
his shares and ripping him off. I
don't like having to deal with lawyers
all the time. I don't like having to
deal with all these problems. Then
you're just not going to become rich
because the people that really want
to get rich, they love that kind of
stuff. They are cutthroat. In fact,
when you get money at that level and
that type of extremity, these people
are willing to kill people in order to
cut the right business deal. I mean
the drug lords, there's an industry
with a lot of money, a lot of death,
a lot of evil that's going into these
places and you know when you store up
all these treasures and you have all
this wealth, you increase the number
of enemies that want to come and take
it from you. You have a lot of people
that look, I like all that treasure you
got there. I like all that money. I
like that business. I like that car. I
like that car. And so you build up all
these enemies and at the end of the day
you can't have it both ways. You can't
be just this God fearing Christian who
has principles and doesn't want to
violate his commandments and then also
be just catering to the world and
serving the world and doing whatever
the world wants. Now go to 1 Timothy
chapter number 6, 1 Timothy chapter
number 6. Of course that isn't to say
that there isn't been God fearing
people in the Bible that have a lot of
money because there are. In fact,
Solomon was the richest guy to ever exist
probably. Joseph helped Egypt become the
richest nation in the world. Abraham had
great riches. But here's why those guys
had riches is they weren't seeking them.
They didn't actually seek for those
riches. It was just a gift given to them
by God. God just basically just handed
it over to them. In fact, Abraham got a
lot of his wealth by screwing up. Abraham
went into Egypt and is like, this is my
sister even though it's his wife. After
God rebukes Pharaoh and the rebukes of
Bimelech, they both gave him a whole
bunch of money and a whole bunch of
wealth. It was like, that was a weird
story. He screwed up and then God just
gave him money anyways. It's because God
wants to bless his people and wants to
do good on his people. I'm not saying
that having money or having wealth is
bad. What I am saying is seeking after
it is what's bad. First Timothy chapter
number six is probably the most famous
portion of scripture on this but it says
in verse five, perverse disputings of men
of corrupt minds and destitute of the
truth supposing that gain is godliness
from such withdrawal of thyself. There
is a doctrine out there that teaches that
the more money you have the more godly
you are. That is false. The amount of
money you have is not indicative of your
walk with God whatsoever. You could be
the poorest person in this room and that
doesn't prove to anybody if you are godly
or not and you could be the richest person
in this room and that doesn't prove if
you are godly or not. It literally has
nothing to do with it. But of course
people that have money they create this
doctrine of like, well I am obviously
more godly than everybody else because
look how much money I have. I am a better
person, smarter person, I work harder or
whatever. That is kind of a typical
ideology. Verse six it says but godliness
with contentment is great gain. For we
brought nothing into this world and
uncertainly we can carry nothing out
having food and raiment let us be there
with content. They that will be rich all
into temptation and a snare and into many
foolish and hurtful lusts which drown them
in destruction and perdition. For the love
of money is the root of all evil which
while some coveted after they have erred
from the faith and pierced themselves
through with many sorrows. So here is the
sin. The sin is not having money. The sin
is wanting lots of money. That is the
sin. If you have a desire for lots of
money you have something wicked going on
in your heart. And it does not matter if
you achieved that or not. There could be
someone that has tons of money and does
not really like money and does not care
about money. And there could be someone
that has no money and they are obsessed
with money. Now here is a way you could
tell that person that is obsessed is
probably going out and buying lottery
tickets, constantly gambling, constantly
doing shady things to try and increase
wealth, and they are trying to get rich
quick. And this is a bad attitude. It is
a very evil attitude. If you want to get
rich quick you will literally say I have
no morals. I mean the people that desire
to be rich quick are willing to kill,
steal, destroy, sell drugs, pour
themselves out, all kinds of evil things
in order to get that riches. That is why
it is dangerous to desire money and
desire riches. It is dangerous to
desire money and desire riches. It is
dangerous to desire money and desire
riches. It is dangerous to desire money
and desire riches. Go to Proverbs chapter
11. Go to Proverbs chapter 11. So you
have seen a couple of things. We do not
want poverty nor riches. You cannot
serve both money and God. I Timothy 6
the love of money is the root of all
evil. And anywhere you see a lot of evil
going on, know for a fact that there is
money somewhere behind it. Why do you
think that every business in America
virtually, especially main brand,
corporate America, is putting up a
sodomite flag on their establishment
it has nothing to do with the fact that
they like sodomites and everything to
do with money. That is the only reason
they are doing it. And if they believed
that putting it up would cost them
money, most of them would not even do
it. Some would still do it. I mean
Disney would still do it. Okay. We
understand. Starbucks would probably
still do it. But there are many
businesses in the United States that
would still do it. There are many
businesses in the United States that
would still do it. There are many
businesses in the United States that
would still do it. Most companies, if
they thought putting this up is going
to cost me a lot of money today, they
wouldn't put it up. They are only
putting it up. And some people, they
get really mad at the businesses. But
look, let me tell you something.
Businesses are just a reflection of the
culture. They really don't care. I mean
they would put a King James Bible up if
they thought that would get them more
money. They would put Leviticus 2013 up
in a big banner if they thought it would
give them more money. They would put
anything up. They will put Caitlyn
up if they thought it would give them
more money, right? They will do
anything. And you say, why do you know
that? Have you ever seen any ad?
Advertisements have literally every
filthy thing you can imagine trying to
sell their product because they will
put anything up if they think that will
get them money. They will put any kind
of joke. They will put any kind of
picture, any kind of image, any kind of
message. They will endorse any kind of
person. They don't care what the person
has done. If they think it's going to
bring them in revenue and in the money,
that's why it's important to not have a
love for money. Because when you have a
love of money, you have no morals. You
have no principles. You have no
fundamentals as it were. And we're a
fundamental Baptist church. So you can't
be a fundamental Baptist and have a love
of money, you know, you're going to end
up picking one of those at the end of
the day. And if you do pick the Lord
though, some good things happen. I mean
the Lord will still bless you. Look at
Proverbs chapter 11 and look at verse
28. He that trusted then his riches
shall fall, but the righteous shall
flourish as a branch. So notice when you
trust in money, you end up not even
getting what you wanted, but when you
just trust in the Lord, he helps you
flourish anyways. He still allows you to
basically have the things that you need.
Look at chapter 13 and verse 7. There is
that maketh itself rich, it hath nothing.
There is that maketh himself poor, it
hath nothing. There is that maketh
himself rich, it hath nothing. There is
that maketh himself poor, it hath
nothing. There is that maketh himself
poor, it hath great riches. The ransom
of man's life are his riches, but the
poor here is not rebuked. Notice you
could make yourself poor and somehow be
rich and you could make yourself rich
and somehow be poor. And we see this in
a lot of different contexts. You know
you make yourself rich, you won't have
any friends and nobody will like you.
But you could take all those riches and
give them all your friends and then
you'll have a lot of friends. And you
think about what the Lord Jesus Christ
did for us, he made himself poor so that
we could be rich. You know and there's
a blessing and a spiritual picture here.
If we go to Proverbs 23, Proverbs 23,
you know, we have to make sure that we
have the right balance, we have the
right attitude when it comes to money
because money is a dangerous thing.
Obviously it's the root of all evil.
We've got to talk about it. We've got
to make sure that we have the right
heart and the right attitude. Proverbs
23 verse 5, Wilt thou set thine eyes
upon me? Wilt thou set thine eyes
upon that which is not? For riches
certainly make themselves wings. They
fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
You know if you trust money, here's the
thing that's bad about money is they
could go away like that. You could just
work your whole life for a whole bunch
of money and just lose it like that. I
mean you could just sweat and work and
make a hundred thousand, two hundred
thousand, three hundred thousand, four
hundred thousand dollars, put it all
down on the house and then the market
just crashes and you just lose all of
your investment, you go bankrupt and
you lose all of your money. Or you
could store up all this money and then
someone just steals it. And you were
just thinking like I worked so hard for
this and they just stole it. And good
luck getting justice in this justice
system. You could make a ton of money
and then just make one mistake, make
the wrong investment, get caught away
with the wrong person. I mean I've
known a lot of people where there's
these churches and they'll have these
like 401k gurus and they'll like come
out of these and they'll get everybody
to invest in these special mutual funds
and then after everybody's invested they
disappear and so did everybody's mutual
funds. And we're talking about old sweet
old ladies and sweet people, sweet
couples that invest all this money and
they think everybody at church is a good
person and these criminals creep into
churches where people are so trusting
and you know these types of the hallelujah
over the top types, they would never say
a four letter word, okay, because they're
righteous but they'll tell you hallelujah
and praise the Lord and then they'll
just take all your money and run.
Invest in ABC company, you know. And you
don't want to invest in HIV company or
AIDS company or any of these companies,
okay, you want to invest in the Lord. So
you never know, I mean why would I want
to just trust in money, I could lose it
all tomorrow. You might be the wealthiest
person in this room and God might just
take it all away from you tomorrow and
you have no idea. I mean you could be one
of the greatest surgeons and then God
just puts you in a car accident and you
break your hand and now you can't even
do surgeries and now you're worthless.
Now you're meaningless. You could be a
great construction guy, break your legs
on the job, worthless. You could have a
stroke and just be in the hospital and
just lose your job and just be completely
worthless tomorrow and then you could
lose all your money in medical bills. I
mean medical bills are never expensive,
are they? I mean you could have anything
happen. God could just pull a job on you
at any moment in time and it's silly to
trust in riches which are not permanent.
They could fly away in an instant. Our
government could just take it all. Our
government could just bankrupt the dollar
and it wouldn't even matter you had money
in dollars. Well what about Bitcoin? Have
you seen Bitcoin lately? Have you seen
the pyramid scheme for what it is yet?
I mean you know what a pyramid scheme is?
The guys at the top are the only ones
that make money. Everybody else gets
ripped off these multi-level marketing
schemes. You know my wife had told me
about one. I didn't know anything about
this and it was like they made a
documentary about it but it was like
this company that made leggings and they
got like super popular. I can't remember.
Who knows what I'm talking about? What
is it called? Lulu? Yeah. Lulu what? Is
it just Lululemon? Okay. No, Lularoe.
That's what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lularoe. So there's like this company
called like Lularoe. People are like
giving like 10,000, 20,000 dollars to buy
all this merchandise to then resell it
and they at first were making tons of
money because it was like such a hot
item but here's the thing. Once you
saturate the market then all these people
they kept upping their ante and getting
into the inventory then finally got to
a point where they can't sell it and now
they have 50,000 dollars worth of
leggings that nobody wants to buy. Like
talk about worthless and even some of
that inventory got spoiled or was bad
and then the company just has all these
internal problems and lawsuits and it
just seems like at first these people
that get in on that company they were
like oh man I'm making all this money
and I have no problems and then all of a
sudden it flipped the script and now
some people had horror stories where they
made like 20, 40, 50,000 dollars in a few
months. I mean that's a lot of money
coming in but then all of a sudden they
got so upside down now they owe 50,000
dollars less all the money they'd made.
Like they just completely easy come easy
go and what I'm telling you is that you
know it's silly to start trusting in
money because it's gonna always have
wings and just fly away. Go to Mark
chapter number 10 go to Mark chapter
number 10. So we're trying to get a
little bit of a balanced view here and
we've already looked at some positive
we looked at some negative mentions. One
thing I'll say this you know I personally
believe if you're really if you really
work hard if you're really industrious
if you do a good job especially in
America right now I mean you're gonna
make really good money. I mean honestly
the reason why people don't make good
money is typically because they're lazy.
And the reason why people make too much
money is because they're wicked. So if
you work hard and you're not wicked
you're gonna be fine. If you're lazy but
not wicked you're gonna struggle. If
you're lazy but wicked well you have a
lot of money but the problem is your
world could come crashing down on you at
any moment. It's just the house of cards
but most important is being right with
God and serving the Lord and trusting in
him and allowing him to just bless you
financially. And there's a lot of people
that have just worked really hard and
they weren't really seeking to have a lot
of money but then it just happened anyways
because they were just a hard worker.
And you know if you work hard and you're
not just spending every single dollar
that you earn you can acquire a
reasonable amount of wealth for yourself
and sustainability for yourself and
there's nothing wrong with making good
money. There's nothing wrong with working
hard. The sins with but with money is
loving and desiring money and just being
lazy. Those are the two big sins you got
to worry about. Look what it says in Mark
chapter number 10 verse 24. And the
disciples were astonished at his words
but Jesus answered again and saith unto
them children how hard is it for them
that trust in riches to enter the kingdom
of God. Now here's the thing. It's not
that rich people can't go to heaven. The
problem is that rich people are often
very prideful and they trust in
themselves and they trust in their money
because most rich people honestly you
know we're not talking about the Bezos
we're just talking about your normal rich
people kind of you know like just people
that are really athletic maybe a Tom
Brady type maybe not him but other people
the linebackers you know the guys that
are still making a couple million bucks
or you know some business owners and
stuff like that. Most of the time these
people are some of the most hard-working
people. I mean they'll wake up at 6 a.m.
they'll work out for a couple hours
they'll study really hard they'll do a
lot of training or business owners
they'll work 60 70 80 hours a week to
get to the point where their business is
really thriving they study a lot of
things they work really hard and
everything they have was really hard to
achieve so they end up building a lot of
self pride and they think like I I can
earn everything and I can get everything
on my own and because they have all this
money and they built them a name for
themselves and they worked really hard
to say well I need somebody else to save
me they basically in their mind save
themselves and because they trust in the
riches it's just so hard to get them to
believe in Jesus Christ and get saved
whereas poor people and kids think about
it they depend on everybody all the time
why do you think it's easy to get kids
and poor people saved because they have
to depend on everyone to do something for
them the fact they have to depend on
Jesus to get them saved is also easy too
there's a direct correlation to that and
so you have to understand that hey
there's nothing wrong with having money
but you know what sometimes when you
acquire a good amount of wealth you can
become pretty prideful about it become
pretty arrogant about it and start
trusting in your money rather than God
and you know what that's a scary place to
be we want to make sure our trust is
always in the Lord look at Luke chapter
6 I need to speed up a little bit here on
some of my verses Luke chapter number 6
look at verse 20 and he lifted up his
eyes and disciples and said blessed be
poor for yours is the kingdom of God
blessed are you that hunger now for you
shall be filled blessed are you that weep
now for you shall laugh blessed are you
and men shall hate you and when they
shall separate you from their company
and shall approach you and cast out your
name is evil for the son of man's sake
rejoice in that day and leap for joy for
behold your reward is great in heaven for
in the like manner did their fathers and
the false prophets but woe unto you that
are rich we have received your
consolation you know so many people they
would rather just stick with their wealth
than being named as an as a hateful
preacher as a hateful person oh you go to
that church you know what blessed are you
you know what blessed are you and men
hate you because you like Jesus blessed
are you when men hate you because you
like Leviticus blessed are you when men
despise you for not having riches or
wealth or just falsely accusing you for
being Jesus Christ's namesake you know
blessed are you when you go and you knock
on someone's door and they curse you out
of the door I mean what could be more
righteous than going and knocking on
someone's door and trying to give them
the gospel I mean what could be a better
word for the Lord Jesus Christ than that
you know and blessed are you when you do
that you know when you're poor you don't
have as many opportunities afforded you
that a lot of times helps you serve God
better you know there's positives to both
there's positives of being poor and
there's positives of being rich but I
don't want either you should want to be
somewhere in the middle you know when
you're poor it's easier to serve God when
you're rich it's harder to serve God when
you're rich your life's easier you know
in the sense that you don't have to worry
about as many things when you're poor
your life's a lot harder there's a lot
more frustrating and a lot more problems
you know we want to keep a balanced view
we want to try and be somewhere in the
middle we don't want to just be these
dirt poor people that are just lazy and
arrogant prideful people and you can see
this in churches can't you you can see
the church is just so poor they have
they have nothing going for them and then
you can see the church is so rich that
they would be horrified of a poor piece
of person even showed up they don't want
a whore poor person to come into their
church they don't want any kind of fall
you don't want any kind of real doctrine
to come in their church they find false
doctrine flooding their church because
they're more concerned with their money
than they are with the truth look at
chapter 16 Luke chapter number 16 you
know you got to be careful we live in
America we live in an opportunity where
you can have a lot of nice things you can
have a good job and have a nice house and
and just kind of skate by in life not
even thinking about God and so you know
sometimes it almost seems like being poor
is probably better in general and you
know Jesus is even just saying blessed
to be poor because let's be let's be real
most people that are going to be in
heaven were the poor people like if we
were gonna look at the bank if we could
just see a bank account over people's
heads in heaven there's gonna be a lot
of like negative numbers it's like you
are poor and you are poor and you're
poor and you're poor it's like you know
most and so inherently obviously if you
had to pick one you probably better off
being poor and I would say this it's
probably really good for every person to
be poor at some point in their life
because it gives you character and it
helps you realize like what it's like to
struggle or you you you don't take things
for granted you know if you just were
born with a silver spoon in your mouth
it's a lot of times hard for those people
to have character integrity to be normal
you know that's why you know blessed to
be poor but at the same time this there's
not this desire to be like or I think
some people they think that they're
better than rich people because they're
poor that's a stupid attitude too okay
we don't want to have these just weird
views but look at Luke chapter 16 verse
19 there was a certain rich man which
clothed in purple and fine linen fared
sumptuously every day and there was a
certain beggar named Lazarus which laid
to the gate full source and desired to be
fed with the crumbs which fell from the
gate to source they came to pass that the
beggar died and was carried by the angels
in Abraham's bosom rich man also died and
was buried and in hell he lived up his
eyes being in torments and seeing Abraham
afar off and Lazarus in his bosom so if
you had to pick between these two guys
life which one would you pick we all know
which one you'd pick blessed be poor hey
blessed is the guy that's born blind or
maimed or halt or poor his entire life
but then he goes to heaven rather than
the guy that lived it up had everything
you could ever want in this life and is
burning in hell for all of eternity you
know some people think like oh man look
at look at that church it's just having
all these kids and how are you gonna take
them all to college and how are you gonna
afford everything and how are you gonna
buy them a brand new Mustang when they
turn 16 and how are you gonna you know
do all these things for them it's like
I'm not how are you gonna have a
$20,000 quinceañera for every one of
your daughters I'm not how are you gonna
have the $50,000 wedding well steadfast
those number three you know it's like
well yeah what blessed be poor you know
my kids need the gospel that's what they
need my kids need the rod of correction
my kids don't need money my kids don't
need all the toys my kids have way too
many toys we should we should get rid of
more toys you know and and we teach them
that even you know and it's good like
we'll be like all right start packing up
some toys we're just gonna get rid of all
these toys you know and they're like okay
and it just count at the end of the day
you know I don't want my kids to be these
spoiled rotten brats and I feel like
unfortunately they probably are to some
degree because you know me and my wife
have done well we get to eat whatever we
live in a nice house we get to go to a
nice church and you know I'm trying to
invent ways like how can they struggle
like I want them to struggle you know
I'm gonna have to make them work really
hard and and I may you know when they
become teenagers you know force them to
make their own money if they want to make
money to buy their own car or something
like that I don't want I don't want to
spoil my kids and then to turn out
terrible and this guy fairing
sumptuously every day just has no problem
at all you know we need to be careful how
we treat our children go to Proverbs
chapter 6 go to Proverbs chapter number 6
you know there's other things you can do
to help you know if you if you do provide
a really good home for your children
there's other things you can do to help
them not develop a bad character and a
bad attitude you know one thing that we
do is we make them clean up every toy
every time so in the morning they have
to clean it all up for lunch they have
to clean it all up go down to nap they
have to clean it all up when we leave
they have to clean it all up when we go
to bed they're gonna so they get used to
this pattern of constantly cleaning
constantly working constantly doing
school you know I don't want my kids to
just have this attitude of well mom and
dad take care of everything for me you
know and that's a blessing of having lots
of kids because you can't even do it and
if you have lots of kids stop doing
anything for them make them do
everything make them clothe themselves
and bathe themselves make them take the
trash out make them put up the dishes
clean the table I haven't cleaned the
table in a long time you know I'm getting
ready for my boys get stronger because
then I'm gonna be I'm gonna be doing
nothing okay I'm gonna try this fairing
sumptuously everyday thing okay I can
handle it but my kids can't so we're
gonna have to get them where they're
working hard and it'll teach them
integrity and teach them character you
know that's more important than anything
I want my kids to have character and
integrity not money not riches now if
you teach your kids how to have money
or how to have integrity not money
character not riches then they won't be
like these people look at Proverbs
chapter 6 verse 6 go to the ant thou
sluggard consider ways to be wise which
having no guide overseer ruler provided
her meat in the summer and gather their
food in the harvest how long will thou
rise as I sleep get a little sleep a
little slumber a little folding of the
hands asleep so so thy poverty come as
one that travel it and I want as an
armed man notice the reason why this
person is poor the reason why this
person has poverty is because they're
lazy and you want to look why most
people are poor it's because they're
just lazy and I'm staying in America
okay maybe other countries is different
but let's just focus where we're at if
you are in this country and you're
anywhere hearing the sound of my voice
the reason why you're really poor is
probably because you're just lazy in
some way you know refusing to get
education refusing to learn more
refusing to get skills refusing to work
hard refusing to show up early for the
job I mean whatever it is we could
probably point to some level of laziness
in your life and you know the country
that we live in today is educating
children to be lazy because what do they
do they go to public full system and
which is a joke academically it's a joke
on challenging children with real kinds
of effort and work I mean most kids just
cheat their way through school anymore
even it's not even hard anymore because
they you know everything's the right
answer anyways two plus two is five and
you know you know whatever math's racist
you know that's what you have to learn
you also learn how to be lazy because
think about it most kids what do they
spend all the time video games watching
TV hosting tick-tock videos and in fact
I guarantee most teenagers going in a
public school today you know what they
really want to do with their life they
want to be a professional youtuber they
want to be a professional tick tocker
they just want to this is what they want
to do because they're on their phone all
day they just want to just tell everybody
what they think and then people just
take all their view all their videos and
not have to do anything and just make
money off ad revenue they're just
learning how to be lazy learning how to
be idle learning how to be wicked and
let me tell you something this
generation is gonna be very poor because
they're gonna go to school and they're
gonna get their gender studies degree
and they're gonna get their underwater
basket weaving degree and they're gonna
get hit with reality eventually when mom
and dad die and they're kicked out of
the basement and nobody wants to hire
video games all day nobody wants them to
you know I think Elon Musk said hey
COVID is over if you want a job you want
to keep working for me you actually have
to go to work and work because he was
like this COVID thing everybody's lazy
they're just going on zoom and whatever
and they weren't really working working
from home but they're really just playing
at home and in this world in this country
if you want to make good money it's still
out there there's opportunities out there
but not for the lazy and we're gonna
have a huge class of people that are poor
and impoverished and have nothing and
they don't even realize it they're just
renting an apartment working at Starbucks
actually they probably have four jobs
they work at Starbucks American Eagle
Target and you know some other derelict
job and they basically made just enough
to feed for themselves there's gonna be
a whoremonger they can and their rents
is gonna keep going up and the wages
aren't gonna match and they have no
food skills you know what they have
TikTok they have Netflix you know they
have all these things you know being
poor is typically a result of just being
lazy look at the ant is doing things
when he doesn't even have to in the heat
he says he's providing her meat in the
summer and gathering her food in the
harvest you know you need to work when
other people won't and he'd be like oh
I'm so this person's so ungodly because
they're desiring to make more money and
have a good job that doesn't make you
ungodly what makes you ungodly is having
a love of money and doing crooked things
to make money look what it says in
Proverbs 13 verse 18 Proverbs 13 verse
18 poverty and shame shall be to him that
refuseth instruction and he that
regardeth reproof shall be honored look
at chapter 20 in verse 13 chapter 20
verse 13 love not sleep lest thou come to
poverty open thine eyes and thou shall be
satisfied with bread look at chapter 23
verse 21 chapter 23 verse 21 for the
drunkard and the glutton shall come to
poverty and drowsiness shall clothe a man
with rags look at chapter 28 verse 19 he
that tilleth his land shall have plenty
of bread but he that followed after vain
persons shall have poverty enough look at
verse 22 he that hasteth to be rich hath
an evil eye and consider it not that
poverty shall come upon him soon as this
guy has the problem of love of money and
he's poor at the same time so you could
literally be poor and have the love of
money I mean that's the worst combo you
know if you're poor but humble about it
that's okay you know and if you have a
little money you'd at least want to be
rich what kind of a failure is that
someone that has a love of money and no
money at the same time I mean you're just
a complete failure but really we want to
get rid of all the love of money and we
want to work hard and then you'll never
fall into these categories you'll never
be this person and you'll have everything
that you need you know I've not seen the
righteous forsaken nor is seed begging
bread they'll be with the first Samuel 8
first Samuel 8 some people will bring up
there's a lot of passages in the
qualifications of the bishop you know
that he's not supposed to be greedy of
filthy lucre and it brings up this concept
of filthy lucre or lucre often but we
have to understand about that word and
we have to understand about the
definition of this is in first Samuel
chapter 8 it brings up lucre look what
it's attached to verse 3 and his sons
talking about Eli's sons from sorry
Samuel's sons and his sons walked not in
his ways but turned aside after lucre and
took bribes and perverted judgment so
what is lucre associated with bribes you
know perverting judgment so filthy lucre
in the Bible is when you essentially do
something wicked in exchange for money
as abroad that's what a bribe literally
is okay or perverting some kind of
judgment and that would be a bad person
to put in a position of power in the
church what if someone committed a sin on
1st Corinthians 5 and you approach the
person and they say hey pastor what if I
just give you like five thousand bucks
you just look the other way that would
be wicked for the pastor to do that now
often it's probably not happening that
way go to James chapter 5 go to James
chapter 5 this is how it's actually
happening the pastor knows someone's
committing fornication or drunkenness in
the church and then they go and they look
on their books and they see how much is
this person tithing every month and
they're like ooh that's a lot of money
not gonna preach on that topic hey you
know this person's dating a Jewish guy
not gonna preach on that topic yeah this
person is you know got a son that's a
homo not gonna preach on that topic well
this this person's Catholic and they're
not even saved yet I'm not gonna preach
on that topic and then you wonder why
you come to church and you hear a watered
down gospel is the only sermon every
single week it's because they look at
everybody as dollar signs and they are
too afraid to preach what the Bible says
that's someone that has is greedy of
honor this desires money and is not
willing to preach the Bible it's not
about how much money the guy makes now
there's nothing wrong with a pastor
taking no paycheck and there's nothing
wrong with a pastor taking a good
paycheck because the Bible even says
that they're worthy of double honor now
it doesn't say a hundred honor Joel
Osteen it doesn't say a thousand honor
it says double honor but look double
honor would be a good paycheck wouldn't
it nothing wrong with the pastor making
good money in the connection with his
congregants and you say what's double
honor well I think you know and I've
already explained this but whatever the
you know people are making in your area
whatever is basically the average salary
that would be honor double honor would
be about double that doesn't mean the
pastor makes that that's what he's worthy
of you know and he could take a lot less
than that he could take you know
considerable less than that I'm just
telling you there's nothing wrong with
that and just because he even took that
you know I don't know anybody that does
that even in my opinion I'm just saying
if I found out a pastor was doing that
let's say a pastor's you know working
somewhere like in California an average
salary there's like a hundred and fifty
thousand bucks if the pastor is paying
himself three hundred thousand dollars
you know what that's great that's
wonderful I'm not gonna attack him for
making three hundred thousand dollars
whereas a guy in podunk decides to pay
himself thirty thousand bucks or
something that's fine you know he can
pay himself whatever you know is
appropriate according to the scriptures
like oh this guy's greedy of filthy
lucre no the guy that's making thirty
thousand but won't preach the Bible he's
in more violation than that than the guy
making three hundred thousand ripping on
you know homos okay because it's not
really about the money just like in this
room there are people in this room that
make a lot of good money and they're
great Christians and there are people in
this room that don't make very much money
and they're struggling and then vice
versa because it's not about it's about
what's in your heart and it's about
what's in your heart and if you want to
avoid the problems with money don't be
lazy and don't love money this is where
you get the balanced view and extreme
view again most people kind of lean in
one direction they think they're better
than everybody because they're poor or
they think they're better than everybody
because they're rich and we need to
decide that the amount of money you have
has no impact here's here's the problem
you desire a lot of money you have a
problem are you lazy you have a problem
I don't care what your bank account looks
like I care about what your heart looks
like and that's all that God cares about
now here's another rebuke here for the
rich people look what it says in James 5
verse 1 go to now you rich men weep and
how for your miseries that shall come
upon you your riches are corrupted in
your garments are mopping your gold and
silver is canker and the rest of them
shall be a witness against you and shall
eat your flesh as it were fire you have
been gave for the last days now let's
just stop for a moment if you just read
that few verses by itself wouldn't you
come across the idea that every rich
person is a wicked person I would I'm
just being honest if I just read that
I'd be thinking like everybody that has
riches is the worst person ever is a
horrible person destined for hell but
wait a minute we have to pay attention
what it also the saying here look at
verse 4 behold the hire of the laborers
who have reaped down your fields which
the riches of you kept back by fraud
riot and the cries of them which have
reaped or entered in the ears of the
Lord have sat by off you have lived in
pleasure on the earth and been want and
you've nourished your hearts as in the
day of slaughter you have condemned and
killed the just and he does not resist
you so there is a group of people out
there that have a lot of riches why did
they get there because they cheated and
they stole and they defrauded people and
they killed people so that they could
get to that position so yeah there's
something wrong with that person but why
did why did they get there because they
had a love of money in their heart and
they ended up killing and destroying and
ripping people off to get there you know
the Pharisees are like this the Pharisees
would devour widows houses and they had
lots of money and they had lots of wealth
and they are very covetous persons and
they were supposing that gain as
godliness and if you want to look at the
worst people in our country it's the TV
preachers and it's those rich rich rich
pastor because you cannot get to the
position that they're in you can't have
the wealth that they have doing that
which is right you know there's nothing
wrong with a pastor you know making
decent money but if he's just making
millions and millions dollars in our
current you know obviously inflation
change every second okay right now if
he's making millions millions dollars
there's something really wrong there and
he's probably cheating a lot of people
out of the money he's probably lying to a
lot of people and he's probably doing a
lot of wicked things and so we have to
make sure that we understand this is not
saying richness makes you wicked the
Bible's not saying being poor makes you
wicked you know makes you wicked being
lazy you know it makes you wicked having
a love of money that's what makes you
wicked so we want to have the right view
on getting money go to 2nd Corinthians
8 those last place will have you turn
over to 2nd Corinthians chapter 8 so so
how do you approach this passage Shelley
what should be my view on making money
instead of instead of giving you the
negative let's give you the positive
okay this is how every man should be in
our in our church I'm gonna work as hard
as I possibly can to provide for my
family unwilling to compromise on
anything the Bible says that should be
your philosophy I'm gonna work as hard
as I possibly can I'm gonna study I'll
do over time I'll show up you know early
and go late I'll learn all kinds of
skills I'll do anything and everything I
can but I have this boundary called the
Word of God called the Bible and I'm not
gonna get outside of that like I'm not
gonna start forsaking church to make
money like I'm not gonna lie to make
money I'm not gonna steal to make money
I'm not gonna cheat people to make money
I'm not gonna compromise on what I do to
make money I'm not gonna be like I don't
know steadfast just so I can make money
I know not the man no no I'm not gonna
do those kind of things I'm not gonna
compromise on what the Bible says I'm
not gonna compromise on the Word of God
and at the same time I'm gonna work as
hard as I can the people that are gonna
run into problems are ones that well I'm
just lazy or the ones they're willing to
compromise on what the Bible says in
order to make money that's how you get
into danger that's how you get into
issues and problems and I'm telling you
if you work super hard and keep the
Bible your boundaries you'll never be
Jeff Bezos anyways and you'll also never
be the derelict in the gutter who's
addicted to meth you won't be either of
those people and that's what I want to
be I want to be neither of those people
I want to have enough food for my family
to be well taken care of I want to have
a nice house and cars that'll get me to
A&B and and you know but I don't have so
much money that I don't even think about
it anymore I don't know that would that
would be terrible you know I don't think
about prices or I'm not worried about
any kind of issues no we should be
somewhere in the middle and when we think
about money at the end of the day though
you know and there was other verses I
wanted to get to the Bible says but who
so half this world's good and see this
and shut up his vows compassion from him
I'll dwell the low of God in him you
know the Bible didn't say but who's who
out this world's good is a wicked person
I said hey if you end up having riches
why don't you consider blessing other
people with that so if you work really
hard and you don't have you're not
immortal you'll probably acquire a little
bit of wealth in this world you'll have a
little bit of money and then here's the
question what do you do with that well
the Bible says if you had some some money
you would bless the poor you do good
unto those that need that's a great
attribute why would I just want to be a
taker my whole life and be a poor person
that's always on the take and on the need
why wouldn't I want to be a person that
works so hard that I can bless others and
my cup runneth over and I can be a
blessing unto other people that makes a
lot of sense okay and when we think about
it that's what Jesus did for us second
Corinthians chapter number eight look at
verse number nine but you know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he
was rich yet for your sakes he became
poor that you through his poverty might
be rich you know what I like about this
verse and you know it proves beyond any
shadow of a doubt that what I said is
true God is both the richest and the
poorest person at different times in
history but he was still the most godly
I mean the Lord Jesus Christ is
literally the richest person to ever
exist in heaven and he gave up all the
money he was rich he has a cattle on a
thousand hills the Bible says he was rich
proving the fact that you could have all
the money in the world and not be
ungodly because guess what Jesus has it
all he laid it all down to where yet
even where do you lay his head he had
nothing zero nada he gave it all up for
us so that we could have riches with him
when it comes to money you know what we
have to do is we have to say you know
what who cares about money I'm just going
to serve God and then God will give it
to you anyways just think about this you
could be poor your whole life but if you
serve God eventually you'll inherit all
the riches that this earth has as well
rule and reign with Christ and will reign
forever and ever with him and our streets
will be paved with gold I mean you see
some of these rich people the things they
do they have like gold-plated toilets and
stuff and you're thinking like that's
not good but at the same time God he has
so much money he's just like look we'll
just make the street gold itself it
because money to him is just it doesn't
even matter he has it all it's all his
and then we get to inherit all that
anyway so quit laying up treasures on
earth for moth and rust that corrupt and
these breakthrough and steal we're
supposed to worry about laying ourselves
up treasures in heaven anyways but that
doesn't mean that we don't need to work
hard and still make money to provide for
ourselves we want to have a balanced view
on the scripture don't get really
imbalanced with any topic in the Bible
look at it from both sides study
everything and try to get the right
perspective so that you don't get some
kind of a weird attitude in any in any
topic let's close in prayer thank you
Heavenly Father for the Word of God thank
you for helping us understand that we
need to work hard and as men we need to
provide for our family I pray that in our
efforts to provide for a family in our
efforts to get what we need that we don't
get a prideful attitude that we don't
become arrogant that we we don't put our
trust in riches or in money and we
ultimately even if we lose it all we
don't care we just want to put all our
faith and trust in you and that we don't
want to try and just lay up as much
treasure on earth as we can but rather
we'd lay up treasure in heaven and I pray
that you would just bless the families in
this room you bless the men in this room
that if they would get their hearts right
and they would trust in you that you
would just give them everything they need
anyways in Jesus name we pray amen
for the final song let's turn to our
psalmist number 161 161 our great Savior
and that's 161 our great Savior
161
Jesus what a friend for sinners Jesus
lover of my soul friends may fail me
foes assail me he my Savior makes me
a Savior Hallelujah what a Savior
Hallelujah what a friend saving helping
keeping loving he is with me till the end
Jesus what a strength and weakness let
me hide myself in him tempted tried and
sometimes failing he my strength my
victory wins Hallelujah what a Savior
Hallelujah what a friend saving helping
keeping loving he is with me till the end
Jesus what a help in sorrow while the
billow saw me roll even when my heart is
breaking he my comfort helps my soul
Hallelujah what a Savior Hallelujah what
a friend saving helping keeping loving
he is with me till the end Jesus what a
guy and keeper while the tempest still
is high storms about me night or takes
me he my pilot here's my cry Hallelujah
what a Savior Hallelujah what a friend
saving helping keeping loving he is with
me till the end Jesus I do now receive
him more than all in him I find he had
granted me forgiveness I am his and he
is mine Hallelujah what a Savior Hallelujah
what a friend saving helping keeping loving
he is with me till the end
all right you're dismissed happy Father's Day you have a good day