(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right. What is it? A black man. Wow. All right. So we should go through all of this. That's what I was going to announce. It has to be said that I can tell everybody to have a name. They should also do that to the, what is it, victory? Yeah. Where I am. They should just have, I never know. OK, so how long do we wait to do the intro? So I'll say everybody turn in on three. And when we get to nothing, I'll do that conflict. When we get to the last part, fourth verse, it says, I, a child of hell. A child of hell is a child of God. I'm not a rebel. I've got a hand after trouble. Everybody can't mark out hell, God, and death. I'll say it. All three at a time. Let's sing all together. And then you can do this. OK. Even Jesse marked out the song because of that part. He put man in there. He put man in there. He put man in there. He put man in there. He put man in there. He put man in there. There you go. All right, everybody. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. Glad to have you here this afternoon. Let's go ahead and take out our hymnal and turn to song number 415, Victory Through Grace. Give you all a second to turn there. Song number 415. Song 415, Victory Through Grace. All together. Conquering now at still to conquer, right of the king in his mind, leading the host of all the faithful into the midst of the fire. See them with courage and fencing, clad in their brilliant array. Shouting the name of their leader, hear them exultingly say, not to the strong is a battle, not to the swift is a race, yet to the true and the faithful. Victory's promise through grace. Conquering now at still to conquer, who is this wonderful king? Reds are the armies which he leaded, while of his glory they sing. He is our Lord and Redeemer, savior, monarch, divine. They are the stars that forever ride in his kingdom will shine. Not to the strong is a battle, not to the swift is a race, yet to the true and the faithful. Victory's promise through grace. Conquering now at still to conquer, Jesus our ruler of all. Thrones in their scepters, all shall perish, crowns where their splendor shall fall. They are the armies how leadest, faithful and true to the last. Fighting thy mansions eternal, rest when their warfare is past. Not to the strong is a battle, not to the swift is a race, yet to the true and the faithful. Victory's promise through grace. Amen. Good singing. Let's borrow this word of prayer. Father, we just thank you that we could be gathered together tonight to hear the preaching of your word, and I just pray you bless Pastor Shelley right now, fill him with your Holy Spirit, help us all to be edified tonight by the preaching of your word. We love you, Father, and we thank you for the gift of salvation. Just continue to bless our church and our people. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Next song is going to be 449, Dwelling in Beulah Land. Song number 449. 449, Dwelling in Beulah Land. Far away the noise of strife upon my ear is falling. Then I know the sins of earth be set on every hand. Doubt and fears and things of earth in vain to me are calling. None of these shall move me from Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky. Praise God, I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm feasting on the manna from a bountiful supply for I am dwelling in Beulah Land. Far below the storm of doubt upon the world is beating. Sons of men in battle long the enemy will stand. Safe am I within the castle of God's word retreating. Nothing then can reach me. Tis Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky. Praise God, I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm feasting on the manna from a bountiful supply for I am dwelling in Beulah Land. Let the stormy breezes blow, their cry cannot alarm me. I am safely sheltered, here protected by God's hand. Here the sun is always shining, here there's not man for me. I am safe forever in Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky. Praise God, I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm feasting on the manna from a bountiful supply for I am dwelling in Beulah Land. Viewing here the works of God I seek in contemplation. Hearing now His blessed voice I see the way He plays. Dwelling in the Spirit here I learn of full salvation. Gladly will I tarry in Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky. Praise God, I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm feasting on the manna from a bountiful supply for I am dwelling in Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. I'm living on the mountain that never shall run dry. The Comforter has come, the Holy Ghost from heaven, The Father's promised gift, O spread the tidings round, Wherever man is found, the Comforter has come. Lo, the Great King of Kings, with healing in his wings, To ev'ry captive soul, a bold dilemma breaks, And through the vacant cells, the song of triumph rings, The Comforter has come, the Comforter has come, The Comforter has come, the Holy Ghost from heaven, The Father's promised gift, O spread the tidings round, Wherever man is found, the Comforter has come. O boundless love divine, how shall this song of mine, To wander more to sound the matchless grace divine, That I, a child of God, should in his image shine, The Comforter has come, the Comforter has come, The Comforter has come, the Holy Ghost from heaven, The Father's promised gift, O spread the tidings round, Wherever man is found, the Comforter has come. Amen. As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 27. Proverbs chapter 27, the Bible reads, Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Let another man praise thee in not thine own mouth, A stranger in not thine own lips. A stone is heavy and the sand weighty, But a fool's wrath is heavier than them both. Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous, But who is able to stand before envy? Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. The full soul loateth at honeycomb, But to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. As a bird that wandereth from her nest, So is a man that wandereth from his place. Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart, So doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel. Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not, Neither go into thy brother's house in the day of thy calamity, For better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off. My son, be wise and make my heart glad, That I may answer him that reproacheth me. A prudent man foreseeeth the evil and hideth himself, But the simple pass on and are punished. Take his garment that is surety for a stranger, And take a pledge of him for a strange woman. He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, Rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him. A continual dropping in a very rainy day, And a contentious woman are alike. Whosoever hideth her, hideth the wind, And the ointment of his right hand which bereteth itself. Iron sharpeneth iron, So a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof, So he that waiteth on his master shall be honored. As in water, face answereth to face, So the heart of man to man. Hell and destruction are never full, So the eyes of man are never satisfied. As the fining pot for silver and the furnace for gold, So is a man to his praise. Though thou shouldest pray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, Yet will not his foolishness depart from him. Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, And look well to thy herds. For riches are not forever, And doth the crown endure to every generation. The hay appearth, and the tender grass showeth itself, And herbs of the mountains are gathered. The lambs are for thy clothing, And the goats are the price of the field. And thou shalt have goat's milk enough for thy food, For the food of thy household, And for the maintenance of thy maidens. Let's bow our heads for a quick word of prayer. Father, we thank you for our evening service here at Steadfast Baptist Church. I pray now that you would fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit and enable to preach his sermon for us clearly. And Lord, I also pray that you would minimize distraction so that we can pay close attention to the message and learn as much as possible, and then apply the lessons that are being taught to us to our Christian lives. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Amen. So I started a financial series last Sunday, and my goal is to continually preach through this for the next several Sundays. It may be a morning sermon, evening, or both, but I want to try and do at least one of these every week, and so I'm continuing that series as part two. And the title of the sermon this evening is Net Worth, Net Worth. And look at verse number 23 that the Bible reads, Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds. And the Bible gives us a really good commandment here to basically tell us that we need to make sure that we're keeping track of our assets, of our possessions, of the things that we own. And really, when you think about flocks and herds, who owns a pet sheep or a pet goat or a cow? Anybody have a cow, maybe? Okay, we got something over here. But pretty much almost nobody owns anything like that today. And really, this is just a picture of, though, someone's assets, someone's money, someone's possessions, the things that they own, especially if you were a shepherd, essentially your wealth was tied to your flock and the money that you had. And obviously, there is spiritual application to every verse as well. This has carnal truths and spiritual truths. You know, me being a pastor, this also has a lot of relevance for me, right? I should make sure to understand how well our church is doing and the cares and the needs of the flock, so-called. And so, we have a lot of different applications that could be taken out of this verse. I don't want you to be limited in your understanding of any verse in the Bible. However, the carnal truths are still just as important and just as relevant to us in the fact that we should pay attention to the money that we have and to the possessions that we own and understanding their value, how well they're doing and making sure that we're doing a good job of being a steward of these assets. Go to Genesis chapter 31, if you would, Genesis 31. Now, there's a lot of stories that we could look at in the Bible and there's a lot of other verses, but I'm going to try and keep it simple to a few different stories and really show you what this means. But we have a person, Laban, in the Bible who ends up not being diligent and looking into his own flock, looking into his own herd, and his net worth instantly evaporates and switches to Jacob in the Bible. And look what it says in Genesis 31, look at verse number 7. And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times. Now, this is Jacob speaking here and he's talking about his father-in-law, Laban, who had served with him for a very long period of time. He served for seven years for one daughter, seven years for the next. And he's saying, this guy has changed my wages ten different times. He says, but God suffered him not to hurt me. If he said thus, the speckled shall be thy wages, then all the cattle bear speckle. And if he said thus, the ring-streaked shall be thy hire, then bear all the cattle ring-streaked. Thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father and hath given them to me. Now, this is a very important portion of the Bible to understand the whole story of Jacob and Laban because Jacob is a shepherd and he's taking care of all of Laban's flock. And at some point, Jacob is asking for his wages. He's basically been fed up with the fact that he's been getting ripped off. He's worked really hard for his employer, for his father-in-law, and his father-in-law is not giving him any money. And so Jacob basically tells him, this is what we should do. All of the flock that are basically pure as far as their coat is just pure white or there's nothing wrong with it, that that can be yours and anything that has ring-streaks or is spotted or speckled would end up becoming mine. But what ends up happening is God allows it to where the cattle end up all basically being produced and being ring-streaked, spotted, or speckled so then all the cattle become Jacob's and he takes away all of Laban's cattle. And what he's doing is he's explaining here and saying, look, no matter what the hypothetical scenario was, God was going to ensure that I was going to take his cattle. So if it had just ring-streaked, they would have all been ring-streaked. If it was just speckled, it would have all been speckled. If it had been perfectly white, it would have just been all perfectly white. Also showing that God's not a racist here, okay? Jacob took all the minorities away, but that's a different story. The essence here, though, as we have to understand is that Laban gets all of his cattle, all of his sheep and all of his livestock and flock taken away from him, from Jacob, and it's because God blessed it to him. And this is an important aspect that we'll talk about this evening, but it's better to be right with God than anything because God can change your net worth. God can change your situation overnight. And the reality is it's better to be right with God than to be a greedy person or to hold up, take away wages from someone because Laban was not righteous. Laban was not someone who was dealing well with Jacob. Look, he changed his wages ten times, notice, and because of that, God ends up taking all that flock away from Laban and gives it to Jacob. And here's the reality. When you're not doing good with the possessions that God has given you, he may just give it to another person. He may take all of your flock, all of your assets, everything that you have and just say, you know what, let's give it to this guy because he's going to do a better job with it. Therefore, it's important to know the state of thy flocks. It's important to look well to thy herds. And God also looks at this when it comes to his people. You know, if there's a bad shepherd, if there's a bad leader, and he's not doing a good job with the flock that he has, God may take that flock away from that particular individual and give it to someone else. It says in verse number 10, It came to pass at the time when the cattle conceived, that I lifted up mine eyes and saw in a dream, and behold, the rams which leaped upon the cattle were ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled. Now, what ends up happening is God chosen a vision to Jacob how all of the cattle are going to end up becoming ring-streaked, ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled. And so that's why he told Laban, like, I'll take all these ones. Why? Because he's basically putting faith in the Lord and the Lord ends up giving him all of his cattle. And this changes the net worth of both of these individuals. The net worth of Laban is all of the cattle, which I don't know, I can't put a number on that exactly, but maybe several thousand head of sheep or whatever, and all of a sudden it transfers ownership completely. So Laban's net worth goes to nothing, and Jacob's just skyrockets in a huge portion. Now go to chapter, you're in chapter 31, look at verse 14. It says this, And Rachel and Leah answered and said unto him, Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house? And so all of that wealth transferred onto Jacob because inheritance is tied in with ownership, and net worth is in reference to ownership, okay? Now what is a net worth? Now I'm going to give you a real practical, simple illustration so you know exactly what net worth is. I'm not going to really go into their example. I'm going to give you a modern day example of a net worth. Now in calculating net worth or if you ever deal with a bank or you own a business or you have any things, they have things known as a balance sheet. Now a balance sheet basically shows your assets, liabilities, and your net worth, okay? And you can make a personal financial statement, and a personal financial statement would also do the exact same thing, okay? So in a balance sheet, you're basically determining your personal net worth, okay? And you're going to have a couple categories. You're going to have your assets, you're going to have liabilities, and then basically once you balance these two, you're going to find out what your net worth is, okay? Now in today's society, you could still have sheep over here in assets, okay? Now assets are things that you own that have value. Anything that you own that has a value, that's an asset. A liability is something that you owe. It's some kind of a debt or something that you have to pay. And praise the Lord, there's no liability when it comes to salvation. It's not a debt, it's a grace, right? Now when we talk about assets, typically a bank or a financial institution, they're going to only care about certain assets, okay? Assets that have a real tangible cash value, okay? The really special baseball glove that your grandpa gave to you, it might be worth trillions to you in your heart, but no one would buy it because it's falling apart, okay? So that doesn't have any real cash value. So we're only talking about certain assets that actually represent a real physical amount of money. Typically, you know, your first category is just going to be cash itself, okay? So this is all the money that you have in the bank. Now for an example, I'm going to give you some numbers, and I just threw out random numbers, okay? They have nothing, they're just to give us an idea. Let's say you had $1,000 in the bank, okay? This is representative of all your checking, savings, just everything. You have $1,000 in the bank, okay? Then other categories would be stocks and bonds, okay? This would be owning, having some kind of ownership in a company, whether that be Apple, Google, whatever. Just something on the stock market, mutual funds, anything like that. Bonds, you know, you could buy a bond from the U.S. government where essentially you pay 25 bucks or 50 bucks or something, and then after a certain amount of years, it will increase, you know, it'll double or it'll increase by a certain interest rate. So those are stocks and bonds. For our example, I'm not going to give you an amount for a lot of these. I'm just going to tell you what's common, okay? Another one is the 401K. We're going to assume we don't have any stocks and bonds. 401K is a retirement program, okay? This is the IRS designation for what that's called. This is assuming you're putting money in some kind of a program. It could be that the 401K is invested in stocks or bonds or a mutual fund or precious metals or all kinds of different assets. Then you could actually own precious metals yourself. Precious metals would be gold, silver, rubies, jewels, anything like that. People own these type of assets. That would be something. Real estate, this is going to be a very common one for a lot of people. This would be the home that you own or potentially a second property or potentially it could be you own lots of rental property or a commercial building or anything, just the real estate that you own. Then you could have vehicles. And you could even throw things in there like a boat or something, okay? I'm not going to put a boat because it's hardly an asset, all right? No, I'm just kidding. But just for an example, let's say you own a home and your house is worth about $150,000 and let's say you had $10,000 in vehicles. So essentially it doesn't matter if it's one, two, three, five, it doesn't matter. Let's just say you own at least one vehicle or two vehicles and they approximately are worth $10,000, okay? So in this example, this person would have $161,000 in assets, okay? Because you just add up these numbers. It's real simple, okay? Now let's look at the liabilities side. Now in liabilities, here's a common one for a lot of people, credit cards. This is a liability because it's not anything positive. It's something that you owe, right? So in our example, this person owes about $4,000 in credit cards. Then you also have student loans. Let's say you have a vehicle loan. Let's put this one down on the other one just so they're matching. Vehicle loan, student loans. Let's say you have a mortgage. And then other things that could be on there, taxes, tax burden, okay? And again, this is not a replete list. This is not a full list of everything that could possibly be on these sides. I'm just giving you big categories that are very common, especially from a personal perspective, okay? A business might have things like accounts receivable, accounts payable, and some other items listed on their assets and liabilities and other things like that. But just from a simplistic, this is your personal financial statement. Now let's say in this example, this person has $11,000 in student loans that they have a $9,000 vehicle loan, and they have a $140,000 mortgage, okay? These are some somewhat semi-reasonable numbers to come to a conclusion. Now if this is our personal, this is a snapshot. And the thing you have to understand about balance sheet personal financial statement is it's a snapshot in time. It's saying at the moment that I calculated this, it's associated with a date because it can change overnight. If we did the balance sheet for Jacob, his assets would have been zero. We don't know. He probably had no liabilities. And Laban's was like 1,000 head of flocks, okay, 1,000 head of sheep or whatever, and then all of a sudden it just swapped. And the next day, Laban has nothing and Jacob has everything. And so a balance sheet or these things, they change on a regular basis, and it's just a snapshot in time. But at this particular snapshot, this person has $164,000 in the liabilities. So here's the question. What is their net worth, okay? Now net worth is very simple. All you have to do is you take your assets and you subtract them from your liabilities. So what would this person's net worth be? This person would have a negative $3,000 net worth. And I don't know if you know this, but that's negative, okay? You don't want to be in the red. You want to be in the green. Now you at home, you could sit down and you could list out your assets, come up with a total number, write down your liabilities, come up with a number, and then you could calculate your personal net worth. And that'll change on a daily basis, on a regular basis. And I want to point out a few different things on this as we're kind of talking about them. Notice that, you know, these $10,000 car doesn't really add a lot to your personal net worth. It's $1,000 positive because essentially you have $10,000 versus $9,000, so it's about credited $1,000 to positive on your net worth. But the thing about vehicles is these numbers are usually about the same number, okay? Even if you had a $50,000 car, it's usually tagged in there with a $40,000 or $45,000 loan, meaning it's not adding much value. And the problem with cars is you might have $10,000 worth of cars right now, but a year from now, this number will probably go down because your cars typically aren't going to increase in value. They're going to decrease in value. So even as your loan may decrease, the price of your vehicle will decrease. Here's another thing. If you go and buy a brand new car, it will, and you get a loan for it, okay? You don't put very much money down. Let's say you put $1,000 down or $2,000, something very bare minimum. Most likely, you are upside down in that vehicle. That's why they will try to sell you gap insurance at the door. You say, what's gap insurance? Gap insurance is the fact that if you were to wreck your vehicle, the insurance to cover that car is based on what its current worth is. But the problem is as soon as you drive it off the lot, it's instantly worth like $5,000 or $6,000 less than what you just paid for it. And since you got a loan for more than that, you have that gap. And so you basically pay for gap insurance to even cover that additional amount of coverage, okay? Now, real estate, this is an interesting one. You have a mortgage, so this one's giving you a positive $10,000. Notice student loans, I could put over here education, but you know what the cash value of education is? Zero, okay? Now, obviously, I'm not downplaying education. I'm not downplaying wisdom, but here's the thing. Your education in gender studies is probably negative, all right? It's not even, I wouldn't put that in the asset category, okay? And student loans, you know, you have to ask the question, is it really even worth it? Some people have huge numbers over in this category, and they don't have it on other sections. You know, let's play with our numbers here for just a second. Some people, especially young people, they'll go to college, okay? And they're in the dormitory, so real estate, we have to knock that one off of our list, okay? They don't have anything here. Mortgage, they don't have anything there either, okay? And typically, their assets will look like this, so it's instead of $161,000, now it's $11,000. And then they really want to go to a really, really prestigious school. They want to go to a Division I school and get a degree in gender studies. And hey, that's $25,000 a semester or $40,000 a semester. They'll end up having literally $100,000 in student loan debt by the time they graduate. And then we look at their personal net worth, what would their personal net worth be? Let's recalculate our numbers here for a second. They would have $113,000 in liabilities. And their personal net worth would be? A hundred and what do we have, two? Negative? That's not very good. Now, here's the thing. If you can't pay this, you're going to end up having to go to jail or you could have all things repossessed or there's all kinds of horrible things that can happen. This is not a positive thing, okay? So obviously, you know, they want to say, oh, the best thing you can do is just go right to school and just rack up a huge amount of student loan debt. That's not a very good option necessarily, okay? Now, some people do this and typically the people that do this that end up not having problems are going specifically to become a doctor or something where they're going to end up making $250,000, a half a million dollars right out of the bat. Like they're going to go to school, they're going to rack up this much debt, but they know in the short term they're going to still be able to cover that and pay that off. If you're going to get a gender studies degree, you're screwing yourself, okay? And a lot of degrees will not yield a very high income after the fact, so you have to ask yourself the question, what's the point in even doing this to myself, okay? Now, some of you probably already understand some of these numbers. This is a very basic thing, okay? If you go to college or even high school, you can take an accounting course, you take things. This is a very simplistic, simple model, but I'm just trying to illustrate a few things to you and teach you some basics and then we're going to apply them to the Bible. Go to Matthew 6 if you would. Go to Matthew chapter number 6. Now, that was kind of a negative example. Let me give you a different example again because I just want to show you a few different things. And we'll play with some of the numbers here one more time. I'm going to come back to our balance sheet. But I already taught a sermon called Wise Investments and I said something about more, you know, real estate and gold are pretty much typically the best investments you can make. And really when it comes to net worth, they make a big impact. Now, I'm going to show you a couple of differences between mortgage, like owning a property, and renting because we all have to live somewhere, okay? We all have a roof overhead pretty much in this place and most people are going to have that. And I tried to do a couple of calculations. I looked at the average median price of a house in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Now, this thing has just been jacked up. In Dallas, it's $315,000 and in Fort Worth, it's $280,000. So I just took $300,000, okay, which is crazy. That's the median home price today is $300,000. Now, in order to buy a house like this, and there's different financing options, you typically have to put at least 5% down. In some places, you might have to put more or less depending on your circumstances. I'm just giving you kind of an idea. And so if you're going to do that, you would have to put down 5%. Also, you'd have to pay all the closing costs and everything else associated with that. And so you'd have to be putting like $15,000 down. Your closing costs would probably be anywhere from $7,000 to $10,000. I'm just giving you some idea of what that would look like, okay. But if you did that and you purchased it, that would mean you'd have to acquire a mortgage. That would be $285,000. Okay, this is your mortgage amount. Now, you could get a couple different options when it comes to mortgage. I'm going to show you a few. There's a 30-year, which I looked at rates today. A 30-year mortgage average rate is 3.27%, okay. Or we're going to look at another one, a 15-year. And its rate was approximately 2.57%, okay. I just want to show you how different these are when it comes to the regards of net worth, okay. If I get a 30-year mortgage for this property, put 5% down, I have a $285,000 mortgage, okay. And I looked at a house in the area that's $300,000, what its taxes and insurance were. Approximately your loan payment would be 144. This is how much it would be per month for the principal and interest and the PMI, which you'd have to pay. And then with taxes and insurance, it would end up being 2,077 per month, okay. So if you wanted to purchase a property about $300,000 today in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, you'd have to put at least 15% or 5% down and you'd have to about, you know, $7,000 to $10,000 in closing. Now, there's ways you can finagle that. You can get the seller to pay closing and other things like that. But you'd have to have approximately 20, $22,000 to make this purchase. Now, if you did a 30-year mortgage at this interest rate, this is what your monthly payment would be, okay. If you did a 15-year note at this interest rate, then with the monthly payment as far as the principal and interest, it would be 2,118 per month. And then your total payment would be 2,749 per month. Now, the difference between these two numbers is $672, okay, per month, more than you'd have to be paying. And I want you to keep that in your mind. But what I did is I looked at these two numbers and I said, okay, let's say I live at this house for five years. I live at this house for five years based on these two different scenarios. So we're starting in April 2021. So by April 2026, I will have paid down this note to the point where I owe $254,000 and $64.66, okay. Now, let's plug that number in for a second because I'm just giving you some of the examples. So in our scenario, we bought a house, we have real estate, and it's $300,000. Let's assume it's still at $300,000, okay. And then I had my mortgage. At the day that I bought it, you know, it's $285,000. So let's calculate our let's get rid of our student loan debt because we weren't we didn't get the gender study degree. We got a real job, okay. But let's say we had this kind of a scenario again. All right, so we'd have $311,000 as far as our assets. Our liabilities would be we got $293,000, $297,000. If I ever say something wrong, just correct me, okay. $297,000, so that would mean our net worth would be $14,000 in the positive, okay. This is the day that we bought the house. Let's assume we took all the cash that we had saved up, we bought a house, and we have $14,000 net worth. After five years, though, of being in that property, our mortgage number has changed. And it was what, $254,000. Now for quick math, we'd have $263,000, $267,000. So that means now our net worth is $44,000. So in five years, we gained approximately $30,000 by doing what? Just owning the property. There's nothing really, you didn't do anything special. You're just making the payments that you had from owning that property. You have to live somewhere, right. And so if I rented for those five years, well, I just take both these things off of the net worth equation, don't I? And so nothing would really have changed. My price to rent versus my price to own is about the same. I will end up, you know, having a huge difference in net worth change just from the fact that I'm not owning a property. And that's the reality of net worth is by, you know, not owning certain assets, you're just going to, you know, deteriorate as far as a net worth perspective. Let's change this to a 15-year, though, because I want to show you something, okay. Let's say instead you could make a higher payment, you have enough income that you could make a little higher payment. So you're going to pay, you're going to do the 15-year. At the five years, you would only owe $200,423.91, okay. So again, you're doing nothing different except for just paying more money as far as your monthly payment. There's nothing different about any of the scenarios. You're literally just how much you're paying on a 15-year. And notice the interest rates are a little bit different, so obviously the lower interest is going to end up being better. But what would that be difference-wise? Well, if you subtract these two numbers, you get $53,640.75, which would mean that's a big number, okay. But that's not a fair proposal because you were paying $672 more, right. But even if you take this $672 and times it by 60 months, which would be the amount of time that you're paying that extra money, you would still have a difference of $13,320.75. So you would end up making this much money more by having paid down on the 15-year note. But let's compare this also with the net worth perspective, okay. If I only owe $200 here, now what am I looking at, $213? Now you're at $98,000, okay. That's some big differences. And again, you're not doing anything different. It's just the amount of money that you're paying. And I'm going to preach a whole sermon on interest, but let me tell you something. Interest is your enemy. Interest is an evil thing that will hurt you and harm you. But notice from a net worth perspective, by just changing a few little things here, it makes a huge difference. Also assuming that in five years, your real estate hasn't changed value, okay. The way that our society is working right now, our government is doing hyperinflation, okay. Where they're just the price of goods is just skyrocketing. Five years ago, a house that was worth $300,000 in this area was most likely anywhere from $200,000 to $220,000. And I'm not joking. So not only would you have that, your house could potentially in five years increase to be $350,000 very easily just due to inflation alone, which would then also change this number again, $148,000. And look, you didn't do anything again really. Now obviously if you fix your house up or you let it go, that could affect these numbers, okay. I'm just doing very simplistic numbers to show you things here. But this is just how to understand how net worth works. Now Matthew chapter number six, I had you turn there. I want you to look at verse number 19. The Bible says, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. I already preached the whole sermon on making money and the fact that we need to make sure when it comes to making money, net worth, or any of these topics that I'm talking about that we never let them usurp the priority of God in our lives. God is number one, okay. And number two is we want to make sure that we not only have making money in its proper priority, but we have the proper purpose of making money or having net worth, that it's not to be rich. You know, if you have a desire to be rich, that would be a sinful desire. And lastly, I said you need to have prudence though, being a good steward of the things that God's given you. Now what I've illustrated to you, you know, it's nothing about priority because I have to live somewhere, okay. You know, me living somewhere is not shifting my priority from God, right. And then determining how I'm going to budget and how much money I'm going to spend on things and where I'm going to put my money. Again, that's not about the purpose. You know, my purpose is not necessarily I'm owning the same assets, I'm doing the same things. But notice my net worth has major consequences to the prudence of my actions, meaning where I'm putting my money, how I'm using it, what I'm doing with it. It can have a significant impact on your net worth. And again, why would I want to be foolish with my money or the things that God's given me? I could, of course, make all kinds of different decisions with my money. Hey, I could go buy a fancy Corvette and go live in the ghetto, right? How many people live in the ghetto, they don't own that property, they rent it, yet they have a $50,000 or $60,000 vehicle sitting in the driveway. Who's seen that? Okay, every hand in the building, okay. Why? Now here's the thing, if I have a $50,000 vehicle with a $45,000 loan on it, what good is that going to do me? And here's another thing, is that $50,000 Corvette, how good is that going to be in five years or ten years? My house might jack up $50,000 in five, ten years, but my Corvette's going to go down by $50,000 in five to ten years, okay? That's a depreciating asset. Now what's depreciation? There's two words in accounting, like appreciation or depreciation, okay? Appreciation means things that are increasing in value. Depreciation means they're decreasing in value, meaning as soon as you buy it or over time it gets worse and worse or it's worth less money, whereas appreciating means it increases in value. Very few things appreciate in value. Some do, land, gold, silver, these type of things, but most things depreciate. You know, your clothing, your cars, your boat, you know, all the other things that you have are going to pretty much go down in value. And notice in verse number 19, he says there's certain treasures you can lay up where moth and rust, that's corrupt. You know, there's certain things you can buy that end up just depreciating over time, having no real tangible, you know, value to them, and so they're not very good from a net worth perspective, okay? They're not a good thing to necessarily own. They're not going to really add a lot to your personal net worth. And so that's something you have to think about and you have to consider. Go to Ecclesiastes chapter 10, go to Ecclesiastes chapter 10 for a moment. Additionally, when it comes to your personal net worth, you know, we're talking about the proverb that we've been given, we're supposed to be diligent and know the state of thy flocks. Just because you have real estate over here and it was worth $300,000 when you bought it, doesn't mean through lots of neglect and not paying attention to your asset it couldn't decrease in value. There are plenty of houses where people just let them go to crap, they let everything break down and wear down and they don't treat it well, and that could have a major impact on your net worth as well, right? If you're not taking care of your assets and the things that you own, look at Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verse 18, By much slawfulness the building decayeth, and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through. Now when you're renting, you know, theoretically you don't really care. That's why landlords are picky over who's their tenant, right? Because people that don't take care or maintain their assets or their property are going to end up having a detrimental effect on it. But if you own it, sometimes that changes your attitude. You know, I don't want to just treat it poorly, I want to make sure it's well taken care of, I'm not damaging it, doing bad things to it, and so it's important to consider the things that you own, the things that God's given you, so that God will continue to bless you with more. Because we already noticed Laban was not very good with his possessions, and so God just gave them to somebody else, didn't he? Go to Proverbs chapter 13, Proverbs chapter 13. And in fact, I believe Laban was saved. You know, when you study the Bible, he's probably saved, yet that doesn't mean just because you're saved that God will not take things away from you. That doesn't mean that God won't punish you. You know, God wants us to be good stewards of the things that we have, and it's important that we're diligent to know the state of these things. And really knowing the state, I can't think, to me, especially having a little bit of a financial background, you know, I served in a bank for a long time, and I've even worked in having my own business. Having a state, that's like a balance sheet, because it's that snapshot of like, where am I at? And you should, on a regular basis, know where you're at financially. Know what your budget is, know where your assets are, know what your debts are, know, you know, do I have credit cards, do I have these debts, do I have loan payments? You know, making sure you're paying everything on time, and you're not getting taken advantage of by interest, by late payments, by all these other inventions that they have to rip you off. But when we're talking about net worth, really, a word that's tied to this is inheritance as well. Because if I'm going to give something to someone, it's through inheritance, meaning my children or my parents give something to me, the only way I can get something is if this number is positive, okay? If you are in the red, there's nothing to inherit, okay? Inheritance is meaning they have assets that are above the liabilities number here that you're going to acquire from someone else, okay? Whether it be your parents, grandparents, whatever. You heard of trust fund babies, okay? They basically have these assets, they give them unto their children. They're going through and transferring them through a trust, which is a different sermon too. A trust can be very beneficial from tax purposes. Because unfortunately, our government says give me money anytime anything happens, okay? If you die, did you know they'll literally, the government will figure out what your balance sheet is, and then they'll assign a tax associated with this number is, and then you have to pay that. I think it's called probate, is what the term is that they refer that to. If you have a trust, the trust is ever living, and so it just transfers to the children. They don't have to pay the probate on all of the assets that they have. But I mean, they'll hit you with 15, 20%. So for people that have a million dollar net worth or something like that, or $2 million in assets that they're passing on to their children, I mean, they could get hit with $100, $200,000 in taxes that they have to pay. So they'll have to sell off some of those assets just to pay the government. Because the government likes money, I've heard, you know, I don't know. But look what the Bible says in Proverbs 13 verse 22. A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children, and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. So notice a good man would leave an inheritance unto his children's children. That means he would be in a, you have to be positive here. If you're not positive, it wouldn't even be possible to give anything to anybody. They don't want to take your credit card debt. And, you know, my wife, she worked for a while for a student loan payment center where they're collecting on student loans. And, you know, one thing that was good for them is if you died, they just marked it off. Your children could not inherit your student loan debt, and so she was constantly having to mark things off for that. But, you know, I don't want to inherit that either, okay? Praise the Lord, you don't have to inherit that. But you could inherit liabilities. You know, you could inherit an asset from a family member where they're upside down in real estate vehicles or whatever with loans, and then you could end up having a negative inheritance. That would not be fun. But, look, a good man is going to leave an inheritance. Not only to his children, to his children's children. That means it's pretty substantial in what he's leaving. Now, obviously, more important than a physical inheritance is a spiritual inheritance, like we saw this morning, from what? Lois and then Eunice, right? That was a great inheritance to have received. But just as much, you know, a physical inheritance. Look at Proverbs chapter 19. Go to Proverbs chapter 19. Again, the Bible has a lot on this subject. Proverbs 19, look at verse 14. House and riches are the inheritance of fathers. Now, you know why it says house and riches? Because those are the things that you're going to find on this side of the equation, right? The gold, the silver, cash, and real estate. Notice you're not getting the boat, okay? Because it's not an asset, all right? You know, you're not getting other things. Obviously, you'd get the boat, but I've heard the best day in a boat owner's life is the day he sells it, so. If you want to talk about things that have value, it's typically real estate, some kind of a gold or silver. And then the best thing you can get is a prudent wife. Now, prudence, again, we're talking about prudence. Thinking about things that have value. And, you know, also you say, well, my wife doesn't deal with the finances or anything like that. Okay, that's fine. Your wife doesn't have to deal with the finances per se. You know what, when she understands net worth and she understands these financial things, she can end up agreeing with your budgeting program because she says, okay, let's have less money to spend so that we can do the 15-year mortgage then, okay? Or let's sacrifice in these ways or let's do these, you know, other things. I don't have to have the fancy car because it's not really something that's necessarily going to add a lot of value. Here's another thing. Eating out is not on this list over here, okay? Eating out is on this list, isn't it? Clothing. I don't see it. Why? Because it's just, you know, it's funny, in the banking world, I was a senior credit analyst, and so I would put together loans for lots of different people and they'd give you balance sheets. Every once in a while, someone would put clothing on this list. And it was just funny because you're just like, no. Like, no one wants to buy your clothes. You got suckered into buying that for $5,000 or whatever. Go to Luke chapter 16. Go to Luke chapter 16. The reality is you need things that have a tangible cash value. And I'm just showing you the carnal truths here, okay? I'm really expounding you with some very clear carnal truths. Unfortunately, the school does not teach a lot of these things anymore. You know, math's racist now apparently, okay? And I'm sure having a net worth is racist now, but you know what? I'll keep preaching it because they're going to call evil good. And good evil. And, you know, the Bible teaches these things. Look at Luke chapter 16 verse 1. And he said also unto his disciples, there was a certain rich man which had a steward, and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. Now, I don't think I have enough time to go through everything I want, so I'm just going to summarize this parable. But there's a steward, he wastes the goods of his rich master, his Lord, and so he has to give an account of his stewardship. He says in verse number 3, what shall I do, for if my Lord take away from me the stewardship, I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed. He's saying, like, if I get fired, I don't have anything. I don't want to be a bomb. I'm not going to go out there and bag, you know. So what am I going to do? He says in verse 4, I am resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they receive me into their houses. And he says in verse number 5, so he called every one of his Lord's debtors unto him, and he said unto the first, how much oweest thou unto my Lord? And he said, a hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, take thy bill and sit down quickly and write fifty. Then said he to another, and how much oweest thou? And he said, a hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, take thy bill and write four score. Now what happens is this is a net worth transaction, because the guy has a hundred measures of wheat on his liabilities, and the guy's going to cook the books. The steward, he's going to come over and say, hey, write fifty down. I'll write fifty down. And then all of a sudden, you just gained fifty measures of wheat and net worth like that instantaneously. The guy that had a hundred, I'm sorry, that was the oil. The measures of wheat, he went from a hundred to four score, which is eighty. So he instantly gained twenty measures of wheat as far as his numbers, and he's ripping off his employer. His employer's net worth is shrinking instantly, and the men that he's, the Lord's debtors are increasing their net worth exponentially just right off the bat, and it's giving him the ability to then, after he gets fired, go to these guys and be like, hey, remember when I hooked you up on your bills or whatever? I mean, imagine your mortgage company calls you up and says, hey, how much do you owe? And you're like, two hundred K, and he's like, just write a hundred down real quick. You're like, sweet, you know? And so you do that. If that guy comes over, you're like, hey, yeah, come over, have some dinner, you know? What a good guy, what a nice guy or whatever. And when it comes to business, you know, there's a thing called accounts receivable and accounts payable. Basically, this guy is screwing them over on accounts receivable and basically decreasing his accounts payable for these debtors. But the reality is, in the world that we live in today, the number one reason that people lose net worth is because of employee theft, in my opinion, okay? And not only that, just statistically, employee theft is one of the most common ways that people lose money. Let me give you some statistics. Ninety-five percent of all businesses have experienced employee theft. Three out of four employees admit to stealing from their employers at least once. Nearly 40 percent of employers have stolen from their employer. Three out of ten employee theft cases last for more than five years. Not only that, they're saying that 30 percent of the time, they steal from their employer for a five-year straight. Employee theft cases lasting more than ten years cost, on average, $5.4 million. Employee fraud typically goes on for two years before it's detected. Non-cash property theft nearly doubled in the period from 2002 to 2018 from 10.6 percent to 21 percent. Eighty-nine percent of occupational fraud is misappropriation, asset misappropriation. Now, that's exactly what this guy did. He was a bad steward, and because of that, it says their average loss is $114,000. This is just the world today. This is the world we live in today. Employees, just by being a bad steward of their owner's goods, are losing $114,000 from their employee. In comparison, a financial statement fraud is only ten percent of total occupational fraud cases, but the median loss is $800,000. So, from a financial statement perspective, they're having an average loss of $800,000. Now, it's funny, because that's exactly what this story was. When the guy's, like, changing the bill numbers or whatever, it's a financial statement fraud where they just end up misappropriating goods or losing all kinds of money. And, in fact, I looked at industries with the highest cases of occupational fraud. This is 2018. Number one was banking and financial services. And next was manufacturing. Next was government, which there's probably a lot more than they realize on that one, okay? Healthcare, retail. Now, look at Proverbs 15. Go to Proverbs 15 for a moment. Now, why explain all this? Why talk about this? Because the reality is, whether you like it or not, you are an employee of God. You are an employee for the Lord. And let me ask a question. How are you doing with the assets that He's given you? Are you doing a good job? And look, you know, when we talk about net worth, this is God's assets that we're talking about. You know, some people have the wrong idea about what I'm saying. I'm not saying, hey, maximize your profits so you can become rich. But at the same time, why would you not maximize your profits? Because it's God's money. Imagine God coming to you and saying, hey, here's money. What are you going to do with it? And look, that's every paycheck. That's every time He hands you any kind of money. And here's my question. What are you doing with it? Do you just blow it? Do you even, how do you manage it? And notice the guy that's an unjust steward or the guy that's a bad steward who has asset misappropriation, you know, he's going to lose his job. Now, obviously, in that parable, the Lord ends up commending the unjust steward because he was wise and he took advantage of his employer and it caused him to end up having relationships that he could lean upon. But you have to understand is he's using a bad example to illustrate something that's a carnal truth, okay? And the carnal truth is being friends with people that have money is a good thing, okay? Stealing from your employer, though, is not a good thing. And that was not the part of the parable that he was commending the unjust steward on. And at the end of the day, you know, you can gain net worth by stealing from your employer. You could gain net worth by doing a lot of bad things. But if you gain a lot of net worth through doing bad things, you're going to be cursed. You want to have a good number here because you were diligent, because you were hardworking, okay? Not because you were stealing. Look at Proverbs 15, verse 6. In the house of the righteous is much treasure, but in the revenues of the wicked is trouble. Just because that guy ended up figuring out a way to screw over his employer doesn't mean he's not going to reap what he sowed. Doesn't mean that he's not going to get screwed over and have bad things happening to him. And you know what? I don't want a bunch of dirty money. I don't want a bunch of money that I've acquired through unjust gain or deceitful practices or anything like that. Because notice, Laban acquired a lot of wealth through deceitful practices. What was his deceitful practice? He paid a slave wage. Some people make a lot of money because they pay slave wages. Or they basically offshore all of their work to China. China. Where they're in a factory and they make their workers work for like pennies on the dollar when it comes to how much they're paying them. And then they have to put suicide nets up around the building so they just won't kill themselves. Because it's so horrible. Oh, that's Apple. Sorry. That's your phone. It was made by a Chinese slave that wants to kill himself. Hey, I have one too. I'm just as guilty as you. I'm just telling you that's the reality. But you know what? Those riches can be taken away from you when you're Laban. Look at verse 16. Better is little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith. We want to have good assets and be a good steward the right way. And you know what? You could be really diligent, hardworking, and never have a big number here. And that's fine. But you shouldn't have a negative number or a low number because you're lazy, because you're a bad steward, because you don't have any prudence with the things that God's giving you. And basically the mantra I have for this whole series is there's nothing wrong with giving all your money to the Lord. But there's no glory in giving it all to the devil. Being a bad manager of money is not something in glory. And the fact is most people don't have much net worth or are very poor because they're bad at money. They're just not making wise decisions. And unfortunately the reason why a lot of people make bad financial decisions is because no one has ever taught them how to be good with money. No one's ever actually showed them or taught them all the principles of how to be a good steward, and managing your money, and making good decisions financially. That's why I'm preaching a whole series on it, okay? Is I want to help you. Now, we want to make sure we get our money correctly. Go to Jeremiah chapter 32. Go to Jeremiah chapter 32. God's not against people owning things. Look, He gave the children of Israel the entire promised land, okay? And inheritance was a very important thing when it comes to the Bible, okay? And inheritance is owning possessions, having goods. And in fact, in order to even give a free will offering, you must own something. You can't give something that's not yours. That's called a Democrat, okay? That's called a liberal. And it's not in the Bible way, all right? You don't want to – Robin Hood is not a reality, you know, as far as being a good moral. Taking from the rich and giving to the poor, that doesn't really work. We need to be people that are wise with money and, you know, we give it to the right people. I'd rather give my money to church and to poor people and my children than to the government, the casino, to the banker, you know. I don't really want to give my money to them. And interest is one of the most evil things. I didn't – for sake of time, I can't really say everything I want, but when you look at these two scenarios, we bought that house for $300,000, okay? In this equation, if you pay the entire term of this loan, you'll have paid $360,000 approximately, okay? So you'll pay $60,000 in interest. In this scenario – I want to make sure I get my number right. I think I have it written down. You'll have paid $487,000. $487,000. And in fact, what's really crazy about these numbers is this is a historically low interest rate. When I bought my first house, my parents helped me buy one. It was a long time ago. Our interest rate was 6%. And at a 6% interest rate, you're paying anywhere from two and a half to three times the amount that the house is worth in interest, okay? It's insane how much money these people are making. Don't feel bad for the bank, okay? Now, that's unjust gain though. And I'd rather have $10 to my name and be right with God than have $100,000,000 through unjust gain and be there with the wicked. But let me show you an example of someone that buys something according to the Bible. Look at Jeremiah 32. Look at verse number 8. So Hanamiel, mine uncle's son, came to me in the court of the prison, according to the word of the Lord, and said to me, Buy my field, I pray thee, that is, an anethon, which is in the country of Benjamin, for the right of inheritance is thine and the redemption is thine. Buy it for thyself. Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. So God even tells Jeremiah to buy it. Then his uncle son comes unto him. He tells him he needs to buy it. And then he's confirmed in his mind, I need to buy this piece of property. And so he ends up weighing him 17 shekels of silver. They buy it. They exchange all the paperwork associated with the deed, essentially. Look at verse 14. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Take these evidences, so he's talking about the paperwork and everything that he used to purchase it. This evidence of the purchase, both which is sealed and this evidence which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land. Now, Jeremiah is told right before the destruction of Jerusalem to buy some property. Now, it's probably what you would call a buyer's market. Now, buyer's market means that properties are distressed in their price of goods. Because, you know, when you're about to be taken over and brought into captivity, you know, real estate's not a high value. Okay, and so he probably got a good deal on this, but maybe paid a fair price. It doesn't really matter. The point here is this, that God is fine with him buying this property. He wants him to buy it for a lot of different reasons. Now, again, he's buying this property, and it's going to be an asset that he can have in the future, and it's really more of an inheritance for his children, if you think about it. He's not going to get to enjoy this. He's not going to come back and physically get this land, but his children will. And, you know, so he's laying up a good foundation for his children. But more important than a physical inheritance is a spiritual inheritance. And what's cool about this story is the spiritual pictures that are tied here, and then the spiritual net worth that we're going to talk about just for a few minutes. But he has the evidences which are sealed. Now, here's the thing. You, let me tell you this, you are God's inheritance. Just like we have real estate or whatever, we are literally his inheritance. Now, when you buy real estate, especially right now, typically you'll put down what's called an earnest payment. Earnest payment means that you're promising you're going to make the purchase, and it's typically one, two percent of the house value. So in the $300,000, you might have to put $3,000 up front. That's going to come off the price once you end up closing the deal. But it's just saying you promise to buy it. If you walk away, you lose that earnest money. Now, the reality is you have that earnest as a picture of the evidence of the fact that you're going to purchase it. He already purchased it, but then they have this sealing, okay, and then it's in earthen vessels. Now, the reality is when you get saved, the same thing happens. God ends up taking the Holy Spirit and putting it inside of you and sealing you with that earnest. Go to Ephesians, if you would. Go to Ephesians, chapter number one. And he puts that down payment and the fact that he is going to redeem you. Now, here's the thing. When you get saved, nothing changes physically. And here's the reality. When Jeremiah bought that property, he didn't end up getting to enjoy it or go and hang out and build a house or anything. It was going to be later that his kids were going to get to build and enjoy that land and do whatever. And the same way with us, when we get saved, when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, our physical bodies don't change at all. But because we've been sealed with the Holy Spirit, there will be a day when our physical bodies change and he redeems us and we take that full possession unto him. It says in Ephesians, chapter one, look at verse number 11. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated, according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ, and whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and whom also after that you believed you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory. So notice we are in the same way, that same type of transaction, where there's the earnest and we've been purchased and basically that's the evidence. And just like in the book of Jeremiah, it was in earthen vessels. Well guess what? We're the earthen vessel that God uses and we have that sealing. We have that Holy Ghost that's the evidence of the fact that we've been purchased. We've been bought and paid for. But you know what? Our body will not be fully redeemed until the coming of Christ when we're caught together with him in the air or we come with him from heaven. But that's when we'll have that full purchase and you know what? We're going to have that spiritual net worth. Now whenever that happens, something else happens. You will have a spiritual net worth reckoning. It's going to be a snapshot in time. Now go if you would to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Why have I been leading up to this? Well, again, it doesn't matter to me how much money you have. And in reality, it doesn't matter. If you have a negative net worth, I'm not saying you're a bad person. If you have 10 bucks, if you fill out this and you have 10 bucks, I'm not saying you're a bad person. If you have a trillion dollars, I'm not saying you're a bad person. I don't care. What I do care about is this, that the number is representative of the best that you can do. Being a wise person, being someone that's diligent with the money, applying God's principles. And in the United States of America, if you work hard and you make wise decisions, you can have a very good number as far as net worth. There's a lot of opportunity and you can have this. Now, of course, you could take all that money and be like a Barnabas, sell it and give it to church, give it to the poor, give it to another person. You could just give all your money away. There's nothing wrong with having a zero dollar net worth. In fact, Jesus Christ, it was zero. He didn't have anywhere to lay his head. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. So don't hear what I'm saying and take it like, oh, well, that guy doesn't have much money and that guy doesn't have much net worth. I'm better than him. No, wrong. Okay. Or thinking, well, that guy has a lot more money than me. He's not as godly as I am. Well, that's probably because you're just poor and lazy, you know, and you're just not good with money. There's no glory in being bad with money. There's no glory in just wasting all your money on frivolous things. Okay. But the same could be said spiritually. And the reality is there's plenty of people. They have a zero dollar net worth spiritually. They have no assets like tied to their name. They have nothing to account for. And there will be a day when Jesus Christ is going to perform a spiritual net worth assessment of you. And guess what? He's going to decide what's good and what's bad. Sorry. Let's go to this side. What's good and what's bad? How many assets did you have laid up and how many liabilities? Okay. And everything's going to get smoked on the liability side. It's just going to all burn up. And so if all you laid up was liabilities, it doesn't matter. In fact, this number, your personal net worth number, it's going to be toast to. Okay. It doesn't really benefit you when it comes to spiritual things. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse number 11. Look, your spiritual net worth will be evaluated. And no matter what this number was, again, let's say it was $148 million. Whenever you stand before Christ, all of that's burning up. If it was a negative $148,000, that's burning up too. So you're just like, sweet. All right. Okay. That doesn't really matter. But here's the thing. Why those numbers exist matters. You know, if he's like, well, you were really lazy and you didn't do anything with the assets that I gave you, or hey, you gave all your money to the poor, reward, cha-ching. Hey, you were going out preaching the gospel, cha-ching. You got that person saved. Hey, you blessed somebody. Hey, you gave a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, cha-ching. Can't lose that reward. Hey, you were faithful in church and you were tithing in church, cha-ching. But here's my question. How many assets are you laying up spiritually? What does your spiritual balance sheet look like? And I'll tell you this. Oftentimes, people that are good at the carnal balance sheet are going to be good at the spiritual balance sheet too because they understand the importance of it. And so I'm wanting you to understand both. Hey, let's be good on both sides of the equation. Let's be good with our carnal net worth. But more importantly, let's work on our spiritual net worth and make sure that we have something to inherit, something laid up for us in heaven. You know, Jeremiah bought that land and that was fine. You know, what's more important is buying a piece of land in heaven, is buying a nice house in heaven. And you know what? Jesus said there's many mansions. Otherwise, he wouldn't have told us. Why would he tell us that there's mansions in heaven if we don't get to have them? You know, you may have a really crappy house today, but you could have an awesome mansion in heaven. And so the reality is, look, we should do both. Now, again, I want to make it clear. You put God first. But at the end of the day, we all have money. We all have to live somewhere. We all have to do these things. We might as well be as wise as we possibly can and make the best decisions that we possibly can, both carnally and spiritually. Let's go in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for giving us so much wisdom from the Bible. And thank you for offering to help us in not just our carnal needs, but also our spiritual needs. I pray that we would be diligent to know the state of our flocks and that everything that we're given, we would realize that we're entrusted by you and that we should be a good steward of the assets that you give us, of our children, of the gospel, and even of just the unrighteous man. And I pray that we would be faithful in that which is least, not just the things that we think that are important, but in everything that you give us, and that you would also continue to entrust us the true riches and that we could lay up a spiritual inheritance, a spiritual net worth. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. With that, let's close it out with one last song for tonight. Take back out your hymnal and turn to song number 203, The Windows of Heaven. This is a short one, so we're going to sing it twice. Song number 203, The Windows of Heaven. The windows of heaven are open The blessings are calling tonight There's joy, joy, joy in my heart Since Jesus made everything right I came in my own tattered garment He gave me a robe of pure wine I'm feasting on manna from heaven And that's why I'm happy tonight The windows of heaven are open The blessings are calling tonight There's joy, joy, joy in my heart Since Jesus made everything right I came in my own tattered garment He gave me a robe of pure wine I'm feasting on manna from heaven And that's why I'm happy tonight Amen. Thank you all for being here tonight. God bless. Take care. Thank you.