Matthew Matthew Son of Matthew Keep Moving Street Creature. I'm not the text connected.

Well, I'm guessing some of you have seen The Chosen. Yeah, if you haven't, that's uh that clip is from a really well-produced, well-made show called The Chosen. One of the coolest sort of depictions of the life of Jesus that I've ever seen. And that scene, if you're not familiar with the backstory, there's this young man named Matthew. He's a tax collector. And in his culture, he is the worst of the worst. He has betrayed his people. He works with the Roman government. Very often, tax collectors would uh would extort other people for money and use their authority as tax collectors to do that. So they were hated, just completely and totally hated. And Jesus chooses him to be one of his closest friends and disciples. And right off the bat, that should encourage you because all of us, I think, have a tendency to keep a running list in our minds of all the things that we've done that should probably exclude us from being included in what Jesus is doing on this earth. It's very easy sometimes for us to replay all of our failures and mistakes and feel like, well, I'm clearly, I'm clearly not someone God's going to use to do something important. That couldn't be further from the truth. Jesus likes underdogs, right? And so actually, if you're a person who's like, I mean, I think I'm a great candidate, uh, you're that's not good. But but I love that about Matthew, but I love the line that Jesus says there. You know, Peter, his one of his closest friends and disciples, one of the guys Jesus is really entrusting to be a leader one day, protests and says, What are you doing? Jesus, what are you doing? And Jesus' disciples ask that question a lot because he did things that they never expected him to do. And Jesus says, Look, Peter, you you weren't exactly like a top-tier choice either. And he says, Yeah, but that this is different. I mean, this is different. I'm not a tax collector. And Jesus looks at him and says, Get used to different. Now that's not a direct quote from Scripture. And the chosen is a show, it does a really cool job of trying to kind of tell the story and be true to Scripture and what it says, but also uh you know, fill in blanks and use the imagination. And some people have really strong opinions about that. I think it's great. But I do want to read this to you. Matthew chapter 20, verse 26, Jesus says, but among you it will be different. Among you it will be different. In other words, get used to different. To follow Jesus should mean a very different life than to not follow Jesus. It really should. Now I know most of us have made the decision at some point in time to follow Jesus here at church on a Sunday morning. All the other places you could be, like, I don't know, bed right now, you know. Pancakes are pretty good. You could be eating those right now, but you're here. But then others of us, we're kind of figuring this out, this whole Jesus thing. Is this for me? I want you to know on the front end, if that's you, it is for you. Jesus has something very, very different for you than anything else this world can offer. To follow Jesus means to live a different life, or at least it should. Now, very often in kind of our modern culture, what ends up happening with Jesus in church is he kind of, I call it like the cup holder, Jesus. Like he gets talked about like he's a nice little feature that adds a little something extra. You know, if you were shopping for a car and you put your dream on, oh, this has a nice cup holder. You know, I like this. This this fits my mug. Perfect. That's not who Jesus is. He's not like a little addition to your life that makes things just a little bit better. He's not the cherry on top, he's everything. He's everything. And when we give our lives to him and we really truly follow him, we find pretty pretty early on that wow, to actually follow Jesus, to actually do what he says, means to value totally different things and to approach life in a very different way. But I don't know about you guys. When I look at the world around me, I think different would be good. So Jesus says about us, his followers, you are the light of the world, like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house in the same way. Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. 1 Peter 2 9 jumps onto that idea and says, You are not like that. Those of you following Jesus, you're not like the rest of the world, it says, for you're a chosen people. Now, like Matthew, most of us are really interesting choices. But we're chosen. He's picked you. I want you to think about that for just a second. He's picked you. It wasn't like by default, he didn't have to take you. You weren't like the last one picked. Remember, like recess at school when it's dodgeball time or something, and they're picking, and like the person that's like, well, they're, I guess you. That's not who you are. You weren't the only choice. He knows you, he loves you, he's aware of all your stuff, and he's picked you. You're a chosen person. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. In other words, we're supposed to be different. But not just different for different sake. We're supposed to be different in order to make a difference. And if you look at the world and you think something needs to change, the reality is you cannot make a difference if you're not different. And so we're called to be people who make a difference, who live differently, who are a little bit unique when it comes to the world around us. And what we've been exploring for the last few weeks is different how. Like, how exactly are we supposed to be different? And today we're gonna talk about a relationship that all of us have that, if we're following Jesus, should look very, very different than the relationship that the rest of the world has with what we're gonna talk about today, and it's money. On the front end, I'm not gonna ask you to give money to our church. There is no thermometer that's being rolled out. This is not a message about giving money to the church. This is a message, really simply, about what does it look like to have a healthy relationship with money as a Jesus follower? I want you to do, do me a favor, like, do yourself a favor, really, engage your brain for a second. Try to remember when money became a real thing in your life for the very first time. Like, when was it when money went from being something that you thought of every once in a while? Like maybe you know, you're a kid and you get birthday cards and there's a few bucks in there and you're like, oh, sweet, to where money became something that was a regular part of your thought process, a regular reality for life. For me, it was the summer before sixth grade. We had a bit of land, we had five acres, and we lived in rural Missouri, and the summer before sixth grade, my dad said to me, You're gonna start mowing the lawn. Now, mowing the lawn is one thing, mowing five acres is a very, very different thing. But I was excited about it because I got to use the riding lawnmower. And as a kid who was, you know, 11 years old, that was like, I mean, the riding lawnmower, I mean, I might as well have been driving a car. That's how excited I was about it. Like it felt that grown up. And so every Saturday morning, I was supposed to gas up a lawnmower. My dad showed me how to use it, how to do it. Um and I don't remember the training being very extensive, but it was fine. And he showed me how to use it. I gassed it up. I would get my Sony Walkman tape cassette player, which I was super excited to have. I didn't actually have any cassettes. I had CDs that I would play like on a stereo in my room. And my older brother and sister, all they had were CDs. So the only person in our house that had cassettes was my mom, but I didn't have a portable CD player, I had a portable cassette player, so I would go rummage through her cassettes and I'd pull out something like Ario Speedwagon and uh, you know, put my headphones on, and I'm 11 years old, just Ario Speedwagon driving a riding lawnmower, and it was like the best thing in the world. Because I got paid seven dollars every week. And that's not much, but like that's the first time in my life that I started having thoughts like, okay, well, next week's gonna be $14. You know, how many, how many weeks is it gonna take till I can buy that thing that I want? And that's when money became like a persistent reality in my life. That's when my relationship with money began, and I'll be honest, it hasn't always been a good relationship. Money's a tough one, right? Some some relationships are just tricky. How many of you have children who are teenagers right now, or about to be, close to teenagers? Okay, that's a tricky relationship. It's just, it's gonna require so much patience. Like I'm having experiences with my oldest right now where the like the visage has gone. Like I'm no longer the wise person who knows things. Like he'll look at me sometimes like I'm just an idiot, and sometimes I am. And other times I'm not, he is, but he doesn't know that. He doesn't know that, right? So we have we have awkward conversations. That's a tricky relationship. Or relationships like in-laws, like that's just tricky. It's difficult. Some relationships are easier than others, some are a little bit more difficult than that. By the way, if you are a teenager who has parents, that's also tricky too. I don't want to leave you guys out. That's a tricky one. Um, if I could go back and do anything, I would have just said fewer things. That's what it would have been. So just take my advice, it'll it'll work out for you. But but some relationships are tricky. And the relationship with money, it it's a very, very tricky relationship for all people, and especially I think for Jesus' followers. Because money can very often be a trap. In fact, Jesus, one of his most famous parables, his most famous stories, is the story of a farmer who's who's sowing seed. And he describes four different types of soil that the seed lands in. Some of the soil, some of the seed rather lands in rocky soil or the road, and it doesn't penetrate at all, and just gets picked up and eaten by birds. And he said that means people who hear the gospel, the message of Jesus, that's what the seed is, as Jesus explains it. And they don't receive it all, it just bounces off, not interested. He says, sometimes the message it lands in the hearts of someone who he describes as having shallow soil, and so it's received, but there's no depth for growth, and so nothing really grows, it doesn't last long. As soon as the sun comes out and it's hot, it just withers away. And the third soil he describes as is thorny soil. There's thorns, there's there's weeds, and so the growth gets choked out, and then the final soil is the fertile soil, where the message of Jesus penetrates the heart and it takes root and it grows and it becomes a harvest. And that third soil is really interesting. Jesus describes the third soil this way. In Matthew chapter 13, he says, The seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God's word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth. So no fruit is produced. He says, the worries of this life and the lure of wealth. Those are what he mentions specifically. Money is tough. It can be really, really tricky to have a healthy relationship with it, which is why, by the way, very few people do. Most people in America right now are worried about money. That's the truth. 73% of Americans list money as their number one stressor. And what's really weird about that is that we actually have more money than pretty much anyone has ever had in the history of the world. Even if you adjust for our cost of living being higher than it is in other places in the world, the average American, average, still has 10 times more financially than people who live in other countries on average. Ten times. And 73% of us are worried about money. And if you extrapolate that to previous generations, like it's not even worth talking about. I mean, just the fact that we can pretty much bank on eating multiple meals a day sets us apart from most people who have ever lived in the history of the world. But we're we're worried about it, stressed about it. It's a struggle. And that's that's not to make you feel guilty. I've been there many different times. I've been there with my own finances, I've been there with the church's finances and trying to manage this and going, God, how's this gonna work? How are we gonna take care of this? I remember when our roof, you guys remember the roof that used to like not work? You guys remember that? Every time it would rain, there's just puddles everywhere. I was like, that stressed me out because the number of that roof didn't make sense to my brain. And I didn't know how it was gonna happen. God took care of it, but it was it was stressful. Money is a tricky relationship, but but I want us to know this. You are not meant by God to be stressed out about what is in your bank account. You are not meant by God to allow money to be the primary factor in the amount of peace and joy you have in your life. As a Jesus follower, we're meant to have a different view, a different perspective on money, a different relationship. I know it's a little odd to talk about a relationship with money, but I want us to use relational terms this morning because I think it's actually really helpful to process what does it really mean to be different when it comes to this part of our lives. So here's what I want to start with. I want to talk about the kind of relationship we're not supposed to have with money. What are we not supposed to have? And the first is this we're not supposed to be worshipers of money. We're not supposed to worship money. And many people do. Everybody worships, every single person on the planet is a worshiper. We were created by God to worship. It's just what do we choose to worship? Whatever you obsess over, whatever drives every single thing that you do, every decision that you make, whatever you would move time and space in order to make room for, that's probably what you worship. To some degree. It's a challenge. That's why we talked about this a little bit last week. Idolatry. It's one of the first things that God really warns us about is his people. Don't worship other gods, and it's easy to be like, I would never worship another God. I would never I would never do that. And like, oh man. The way I'm treating this part of my life, this area of my life, it's it's borderline worship. It's something I have to check myself on all the time. But we're not supposed to be worshipers of money, and yet so many people are. In fact, we have a phrase in our society that's been around for a few hundred years that actually reflects that. It's called uh the almighty dollar. You've probably heard that before, the the almighty dollar. It actually originated in 1837. An author, a man named Washington Irving, wrote this, first time it was ever coined. The Almighty Dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land. The Almighty Dollar. And that's that's spiritual language, right? Because God is Almighty. But many, many see money that way. And when it comes to worship, you've got to be really careful who you worship or what you worship. Choose a good God. Choose a real God, first and foremost. But choose choose the right God. There's a man that Jesus encounters really early in his ministry. Well, depending on how you read the timeline. Uh, but it's it's found in Mark chapter 10. It's interesting interaction. This man comes to Jesus and he says, Hey, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life? Like, Jesus, just tell me what's the cheat code? You know what I mean? Like, like when, how what do I need to do to just know, be a hundred percent sure that I'm gonna get saved? I don't know if any of you grew up in the kind of church culture that I grew up in. Some of us didn't grow up in church at all. I grew up in a church that was all about like, are you sure? Are you sure? What are you like, are you a hundred percent sure that if you died right now, you'd go to heaven? That question was asked all the time. And I'd always be like, I'm like 99% sure. But it's that 1% that's freaking me out. And so I got saved like seven times from the time I was, I did, like every summer. I would go to youth camp, right? Got saved again. This was just more like to be sure. But that's guys what the guy's saying. He's like, I'm just I'm not sure what I would need to do just to know, to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I'm I'm good with God. And and Jesus has a conversation with him and he lists out all the things that he does, and then it goes to Jesus saying, looking at the man, he felt genuine love for him. Picture the way that Jesus looked at Matthew in that video that we just looked at. There's still one thing you haven't done, he told him. Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. Same words he said to Matthew, same words he said to his his disciples, when he would call disciples, the men that he was asking, the people he was asking to be his closest followers, he would always use those exact words. Come follow me. He says that to this man. But at this the man's face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. And this amazed them. But Jesus said again, dear children, it's very hard to enter the kingdom of God. In fact, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Why? Because it's so easy when you have a lot to hold on so tightly to it that it becomes what you worship. Jesus isn't saying that to be his follower, you have to sell everything you have. He did tell certain people to do that. And then other people who followed him, he never says that at all. In fact, Jesus had followers who were wealthy. He had followers who funded his ministry. But Jesus recognizes that in this particular instance, this man, money is his God. That's what he worships. Because he can't let go of it. It's his number one priority, and it's a really, really bad God. As Jesus followers, we're supposed to be different. We don't worship money. That's not the relationship that we're meant to have. But it's not just that. We're not just supposed to not be worshipers of money, we're not supposed to be lovers of money. We're not lovers. We're not supposed to even love it. 1 Timothy 6, verses 9 and 10 says, But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people craving money have wandered from the true faith and they've pierced themselves with many sorrows. Proverbs 23, 4 and 5 says, Don't wear yourself out trying to get rich. Be wise enough to know when to quit, because in the blink of the eye, in the blink of an eye, wealth disappears. It will sprout wings and fly away like an eagle. I will not ask for a show of hands of those of us who have had that experience in life. We know who we are. It hurts. See, money is a really bad lover if you choose it to be your lover because it is not faithful to you. It will run off with whoever. Just whoever. It's not even picky. Whoever. But it says so clearly that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It's not money that's the root of evil, it's the love of money. When you love it, when you crave it, when you long for it, that's the language that it used longing and craving. Those are the languages of those are words of deep desire. When you hunger for it, when you obsess over it, that love it will lead you astray. Many of us know what it's like to love something that doesn't. Love us back. Or to love someone who doesn't love us back. It never ends well. It's painful. And as Jesus followers, we're called to have a different kind of relationship with money. We're not lovers. Some of us need to have like a breakup conversation with our bank accounts. Say, hey, I don't love you. And some of us that's really easy because there's not many zeros. Right? I don't love you at all. And others, maybe it's tougher to say, I just need you to know money, my money, I just need you to know, thanks for what you do. I'm glad you're there. But we have a platonic relationship. My life does not revolve around you. You don't get to tell me what to do, because you're not my lover. We're not supposed to have a love relationship with money because that love will lead to ruin. We're also not to, we're not supposed to be slaves of money. There's a lot of language of slavery in the New Testament because slavery was a major part of the world in which Jesus lived. And it wasn't the kind of slavery that we've experienced in our nation's past. It wasn't based on race or ethnicity. People of all types were slaves. In fact, the phrase bondservant might be more appropriate because the way slavery worked in the Roman Empire is if you were in debt, let's say, you would actually enslave yourself to someone, and they would essentially say, Yes, I will cover your debts by you working for me for X number of years. And very often slavery was a long but still temporary situation, and people would enter into that willingly so that they could get their debts paid off. There was no such thing as a bank that would loan you money that didn't exist. And then eventually they would be set free. And oftentimes it was a path to citizenship. There were all kinds of ways that it was done, but it was so common. In fact, about a third of the Roman world were slaves. It's a huge portion of people. And so we see a lot of language in the New Testament about this because that was the reality for many of the people following Jesus. Many of them were slaves in the Roman Empire. And so we see a lot of this language, and one of those examples is actually in Matthew chapter 6, verse 24, Jesus says, No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, you'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. Can't do it. It's impossible. You can't serve God and yet be enslaved to money. Now, now that language is interesting because we might ask ourselves, well, how in the world would I know if I'm enslaved to money? And I think the simple test is, are you afraid of it? Or better yet, are you afraid of losing it? Are you afraid of missing out? Are you living in fear directly related to money? Because fear, that is what masters would often use to motivate their servants and their slaves. Now, as Jesus followers, we're different, right? We're actually supposed to have a healthy fear of God. Scripture says the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. There should be something in us that just recognizes God is God. He is big. He's like, He's really big, he's really powerful. If I don't recognize who he is and who I am in comparison, something's wrong with me. But God does not use fear as his motivator. Scripture actually says that it's his kindness that leads us to repentance. It's his love, and actually love, scripture says cast out all fear. But if we live in fear related to money, that's very often a sign that there's a sort of slave master dynamic going on with money. If you can't let go of it. Because it's not your money that provides for you, it's your God. And whatever money you have is a tool that God has given you that you can utilize in a variety of different ways, but to be enslaved to it, it's a bad master. It's a bad God, it's a bad lover, it's a bad master. So we're not worshipers of money, that's not the relationship. We're not lovers of money, we're not slaves of money. You know what else? We're not, we're not owners of money. This is where it gets really tough for me, to be honest with you. Because I have a tendency, I don't know about you, but I like if I look at my bank account, I go, that's mine. That's mine. It's my house, right? It's my car. That's that's my money. In fact, sometimes my children will talk about things being theirs. And there's a part of my brain that's like, that's not yours, it's mine. It's all mine. And I've had that conversation with them sometimes, you know? There's nothing that I own that someone else won't own one day unless I destroy it. That's the only exception. I got my house, I own it as far as the deed is concerned, I guess. I don't know how though I haven't paid it off yet, so I really don't own it, actually, the bank does. But one day I hope to own it. But I don't really own it because someone else will live in it one day, surely. My car, I don't I don't own that car. I have it paid off. Somewhere in a in a little safe we have in our house, there's important documents in there. I'm pretty sure I have that document that says paid off, it's in my name. But I someone else is gonna own that, and I'll tell you who it's gonna be. It's gonna be my 11-year-old. Because he hates it. He hates my car. It's old, it's a 2006 Scion. It's been paid off since 2010 or so. Uh it's got about 200,000 miles on it. One of the mirrors doesn't match the color of the rest of the car because it fell off, and it's a funky car. But, you know, it's gonna be, it's mine now, it will be his. When he makes fun of it, I'm like, dude, you're making fun of your car. This is sad. Don't do that. This is what you'll drive. And he's like, no-uh. I'm like, how and how are you not going to drive this car? Like, what what scenario are you imagining where you're gonna just who's gonna know? This is your car. And then he told me that my father-in-law actually said that he was gonna give Liam his car. And I will not let that happen. He's driving my car because my son will not drive a nicer car than me at 16 years old, okay? Unless God really wants him to, but I don't think so. We have a tendency to look at our finances, at money, is what we we own, but scripture gives us a different perspective. Luke chapter 12, really interesting story. Someone called to Jesus from the crowd, Teacher, please tell my brother to divide our father's estate with me. In that time period, the oldest son would get everything, and it was up to that oldest son whether or not he wanted to share any of it with his siblings or family, or just take it all for himself. And Jesus replied, Friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that? Then he said, Beware. Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own. We should pause there and let that sink in. Life is not measured by how much you own. He told him a story. A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. And he said to himself, What should I do? I don't have room for all my crops. Then he said, I know, I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. And then I'll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods, and I'll sit back and say to myself, My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, You fool, you will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for? Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth, but not have a rich relationship with God. Now, this is one of those stories that we could extrapolate a lot of different lessons from. But Jesus says explicitly that what measurement of value you have in your life should not be related to what you own. And this man in the story, he's like, look at all I've got, it's all mine. And God's like, No, it's not. Someone else is about to get it. It's so important, it's so vital for us to remember that everything we have ultimately belongs to God. Everything we have. And there's nothing that deep down inside we truly own. Like nothing. I don't own my children. They're not mine, they're God's. I've got them on loan for 18 years. I hope. There's a lot of them. So spread out. It's I'm gonna be old. You know, I need some time. But they're not mine. My wife, I love her with all my heart. She's not mine. In fact, about a year ago, I was I was spending some really focused time in prayer about my family, and I was praying about my wife, and I said, God, just, you know, I would love for you to give me something. Give me a word, God, for for her. And what he told me is not what I wanted him to say, but he said to me, just remember that she is that you are not her first love. Just remember, Justin, that you're not her first love. I am. And I was like, that's important for me to remember, Lord. I received that. Thank you. We don't own anything. God owns everything, it's all his. Whatever we have will either go to someone else or it will pass away. But everything belongs to God. And as Jesus followers, we're meant to see life that way. There's a famous story of an old preacher, very, very well-known preacher, 150 years ago or so, whose house burned down. And people came to him and said, I'm so sorry. And he said, Why? It's just one less thing to worry about. Now, like, those stories, like, I kind of don't believe. You know what I mean? Like, maybe that wasn't his first reaction. Like, maybe there were some cuss words, and and then like when he got himself together, he had that line. Because if that if that's your immediate reaction to seeing your house on fire, like, I don't know if that's healthy or not, but but I will say that that perspective, that it's not, that's not mine. That's not my house. Everything belongs to God. I heard a pastor, and again, this is not, this is extra biblical, this is not scripture, but it was interesting. I heard a pastor once talk about how he views he viewed that with his debt. He got to a point in his life when he was younger where he was like, God, you owe Bank of, you owe like the credit card company a lot of money. You know? God, I hate to tell you, but you've reached your credit limit. You know, you're gonna have to figure this out. And it's it's playful and it's comedic, but there is something about recognizing that like at the end of the day, it's all God's. We're not owners. So we're not worshippers of money. That's not the relationship. We're not lovers, we're not slaves, we're not even owners. What are we? That would be important to talk about. Not just what we're not, what are we? And at the end of the day, we're simply this. We are managers. Stewards would be another word you could use, but we are we're managers. Another one of Jesus' most famous stories. It's in, let me go here, let me find it. Here we go. Uh, Matthew chapter 25, verses 14 through 30. Jesus says, again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To the one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. And the man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work, he gained five bags more. So also the one with two bags of gold gained two more, but the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master's money. Believe it or not, this is really a common thing that happened in that part of the world. There weren't really banks, so you would often hide your stuff, dig a hole, and then really try your best to remember where it was. That was your way of at least knowing no one else is going to take it. Okay, after a long time, the master of the servants returned, he settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. Master, he said, You entrusted me with five bags of gold, see, I have gained five more. His master replied, Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things, I'll put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. The man with two bags of gold also came, Master, he said, You entrusted me with two bags of gold, see, I've gained two more. And his master replied, Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. Then the man who had received one bag came, Master, he said, This is really this is a really bad way to approach a conversation. I know that you're a hard man, harvesting where you've not sown and gathering where you've not scattered seed. So I was afraid, and I went out and I hid your gold in the ground. See, here's what belongs to you. His master replied, You wicked lazy servant. So you knew that that I harvest where I haven't sown and gather where I haven't scattered seed. Well, then you should have at least put my money on deposit with bankers so that when I returned it would have received a little bit of interest. So take the bag of gold from him, give it to the one who has ten, for whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they will have, will be taken from them. And then throw that worthless servant outside into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That's an intense ending. That's an intense ending. Now, how many of us show of hands, be honest? How many of us feel bad for the final servant? You're like, that guy, that wasn't fair. He only got one bag of gold. What's he supposed to do with that? Well, interestingly enough, uh bag of gold is a way for us to translate what was actually said, which was the word talent. In our world, a talent is like your gifts, your abilities, your talents. That understanding of the word talent actually comes from this story. That's not the way that word was ever understood before this story. The word talent in their culture meant a specific measurement of money, and it was weight. It was 75 pounds. Do you know how much 75 pounds of gold is worth right now? Over two million dollars. Okay, so so it's not like the guy just got like 10 bucks and he's like, what am I supposed to do with this? Imagine, imagine someone giving you two million of their dollars, saying, Hey, do something with this. I'm gonna be gone for a really long time. I want you to use this, do something with it. I can't wait to see what you do when I get back, and then they return. You're like, I dug a hole and I put two million dollars in a hole in the ground because you're a jerk. Right? That's exactly what happens in the story. And you have to kind of read between the lines here, but I've always read this thinking, man, I could almost see the scenario being the man had used it and lost it, and the master would rather that have happened. Okay, you you tried, it just didn't work out. Better that than, I don't know, dig a hole in the ground and leave it there for what must have been years. We're supposed to be managers of what God gives us. We're supposed to take what he gives us and use it. We're not owners, everything belongs to him, but what we have, whether it's a lot or a little, we are called by God to manage in a way that honors him. In a way that honors God. I will say this: there is nothing greater than you could accomplish with whatever God has given you than to simply bring him glory. In fact, there's a story, I know I've got a lot of stories this morning. But John chapter 12, verses 1 through 8 says, Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus, the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus' honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. And then Mary took a 12-ounce jar of expensive perfume. Mary would be one of the sisters of Lazarus. A 12-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from the essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus' feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance, but Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said that perfume was worth a year's wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor. Not that he cared for the poor, he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples' money, he often stole some for himself. But Jesus replied, Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me. Now Jesus isn't being flippant with the poor. He spent his entire life helping, healing, feeding the poor. But what he's not saying is that it's a waste for this woman to take the most valuable thing she has and dedicate it to him. Because everything belongs to him. At the end of the day, we're called to be managers whose primary passion, focus, goal with whatever we've been given is simply to bring honor to God. What would bring honor to God? And we're gonna wrap up with three words. How do we effectively operate as managers of what God has given us? No matter what it is. What does it look like to be a good manager? Yeah. I don't know, couldn't hear.

That's not three words.

Oh, that is true. That is not three words, but the three words are coming. I appreciate that. That's good. That sounds exactly like what my 11-year-old would say to me, so I'm used to that. Here's the three words just for you, okay? Generosity. Generosity is the first. Wisdom and enjoyment. Generosity, wisdom, and enjoyment. If you want to be a good manager, have the right relationship with money, a different relationship than the rest of the world, who tends to either be a worshiper, a lover, a slave, or at least believe, pretend that they're an owner. That's not who we are. We're just managers. But the way that you effectively manage what God has given you is some mixture of generosity, wisdom, and enjoyment. Now, on generosity, 2 Corinthians 9, 7 through 9 says you must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure, for God loves a person who gives cheerfully. Very often churches use this to talk about giving money to the church. That is not what it's talking about at all. It says God will generously provide all you need, then you'll always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others, as the scriptures say, they share freely and give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will be remembered forever. I have grown to enjoy being generous. I get excited about it. And for me, that's come in a few different ways over the years. Tithing would be one, tithe means 10th. And since I was in my early 20s, I've been giving 10% of my income to this church. I had someone say one time, isn't that cheating? Because you work there. It's not how it works. It's not how it goes. It's not like every week. We're like, hey, divvy it up. What do we what percent? It's not how this works. I've got to where I enjoy that. And there's a lot of different reasons. Some people will tell you to give money because God will give it back to you, and there are scriptures that talk about that, but I don't think it's a system to be gained, or gamed rather. Like, oh, if I give, I'll get more. So really, no. My favorite thing about giving is that it has broken the hold that money used to have over me. Because I don't need all of it. And I recognize that. Like if God calls me to give to something, to someone, if there's a need that I become aware of and God puts it on Megan and I's heart, we should give to that. Even if the amount that we pray about hurts a little bit, because sometimes it does, it's always so good because what it reminds me over and over again is, oh yeah, hey, money, you're not my God, you're not my lover, I'm not your slave, I don't even own you. It puts that proper perspective there. And it breaks that hold that money often has on people. Generosity is a huge part of the process. In fact, when you look at those unhealthy relationship dynamics we talked about earlier, worshiper, right, owner, lover, slave. Like generosity is kind of the solution to almost all of those. If you're generous, if you can let go of it when God tells you to, it doesn't have power over you. So generosity is very important to God. Number two is wisdom. Just read the book of Proverbs if you have time. It doesn't take very long. Read a chapter a day. It'll take you a month, a chapter a day, five minutes at a time. And you'll find proverb after proverb that talks about things like being a diligent worker, being honest about your finances, paying taxes. I know. Jesus said to do it. He said it. It talks about being honest. It talks about investing and saving and leaving an inheritance for your children. Those are all, those are all wisdom decisions. And then finally, enjoyment. Ecclesiastes 3.24 says, this is a man named Solomon who just so happened to probably be the richest man who ever lived. And toward the end of his life, he says, I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. Later he writes, What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on all of us, yet God made everything beautiful for its own time. He's planted eternity in the human heart. But even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end. And so I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy all the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. God wants you to enjoy your life. He wants you to enjoy what he's given you. He does. Now, this is really important. There's a difference between consuming and enjoying. We've all consumed things that we did not enjoy. It's called buffet pizza. It's not that good. You can consume a lot of it, and then if someone asks you, did you enjoy it? You go, actually, no. I did not, but I just kept putting more in my mouth. Right? We've all had things in life that we've consumed, but not really enjoyed. I've sat in movie theaters and I could have gotten up at any moment in time. And I'm like, I don't, I do not like this movie at all. I don't, I'm not enjoying myself at all. But I'm gonna sit here and because I bought the ticket. That's how you think sometimes. We live in a world that's really good at consumption. That's what we are ultimately as Americans in most people's eyes. We're just consumers. But consuming is not the same thing as enjoying. God has actually called us to be people who enjoy what He's given you. Now, this is what I would just ask all of us to pray about. This is a this is a between you and God thing completely. Typically, with every single person, it's gonna be one or two of those that we do really naturally. It's easy. Like some of us are really good at enjoying what we have. Like, got it, I'm good at it. I enjoy all that I have. I love it. Some of us are really good at the wisdom thing. You're you're very methodical and you have a plan and you're you're investing, and you've got the 401k and all the other uh things that go with like all that stuff. I don't know that world that well, but like you've got all those things, all the letters and numbers, you got it all figured out. I've got some friends who are really good at that, and and for the first time in my life, a few years ago, I started investing. I've called them so many times, been like, like, how does tell me what to do? Because this, I don't understand this stuff, and it drives me a little nuts. But that's that's wisdom. It's good to do those things. And some of you are really good at being generous. You're the kind of person who would just give a stranger the shirt off your back, right? And you know who you are, but but it's a combination of those that actually makes us good managers of what God has given us. And so there might be people who are really good at generosity and spending, but they lack wisdom. And so what that means is that one day they'll they'll have something they desire to give to, or they'll desire to enjoy, but they won't be able to because they haven't been wise enough to set that aside, to have that opportunity to really do something big later on in life. And so if that if that's you, then great. You just pray, God, give me wisdom. Help me be more wise as a manager. And he'll do that. He's good for that. Some of us maybe were really good at the wisdom thing, maybe even really good at the enjoyment part, but generosity, the idea of like giving money away, that's hard. When I was an intern in college at the company that I was I was interning at, my my boss was talking to me and I did the church thing. He didn't go to church at all, and he he asked me a question. It was really pointed. I was like a college kid. He's like, hey, are you one of those people that gives money to your church? And I was like, Yeah. He said, You give money. You just give it every single week. And I was like, well, not every week, I give monthly, but yeah, he's like, that's gonna change. One day you're gonna have kids, it's gonna change. And you know what's funny is the church that I was going to at the time, I was giving to, and actually had a really weird experience where I felt like they really mismanaged the money. It made me really mad. They were building a gym and they presented it to the church as this big ministry opportunity, and people were gonna come and they were gonna be able to use the gym, and it was gonna be a chance to reach out. And I gave that summer as a college kid, I gave a thousand dollars to the gym. I was like, man, I I love that's cool. I can't, that's a cool thing. Kids can come and they can reach out to those kids in the gym, it'll be great. And then I went back to school and I came back the next summer and the gym was built, and I was like, I'm a contributor of this gym. I've never, my name's probably on a brick somewhere. I don't know how they do it, you know. It felt really cool. And I walk in and they say, Hey, do you have a membership? And I was like, Yeah, I'm a member of the church. Like, no, no, have you purchased a membership to the gym? And I was like, What? Kind of. You know? I mean, there might be a brick with my name on it somewhere, I'm not sure. But it blew me away because they were talking about it like a ministry, and then you had to buy a membership, and I was like, ah, but you know what? Even though that happened, I'm not mad at all that I gave. Because that was between me and God. And I knew that God was pleased with what I did. And also this morning I'd like to announce a gym that we're gonna-I'm just joking, that's a total joke. Um it's for the community, you know. No, like, it didn't make me mad at all. It made me mad at them, but not like regretting what I'd done, because it was between me and God, and I did what God told me to do. And when you do what God tells you to do, God's pleased. And whatever other people do with it, that's between them and God. And I don't think God was happy with that whole gym thing. But he was happy with me because I just did what he told me to do. So for some of us, maybe the generosity is there. For some of us, it's enjoyment. You're generous, you give, and you're wise, but you don't enjoy what God has given you. Enjoy it. He desires you to enjoy the blessings of your hard work. And so, like, your takeaway, this might be hard for some of you, but your prayer and your takeaway is God, what fun thing do you want me to do? I actually know a young man who goes to this church, he's one of my closest friends, and the thing he struggles with the most is just enjoying life. And he's really disciplined, and he's he's super he's gonna know who he is when he listens to this. He's super disciplined, he's amazing, he's faithful, he's generous, he does all that stuff, but he just struggles to have fun. And we were having a conversation on the phone just a few weeks ago, and he's like, I you what do you enjoy? Go do that. Just go do that. Because it's hard for him to recognize that, oh, God cares about my joy. Being a wise manager, a good manager of money, it just means some combination of generosity, wisdom, and enjoyment. Who likes the idea of that out of curiosity? That's like the way money would work in your life. Yeah, a combination of those things. That sounds good, right? That's better than being a worshiper, a lover, an owner. It's definitely better than being a slave. That is the relationship with money that we're supposed to have. I know we covered a lot of ground today. A lot. But I think this is one of the most practical and necessary conversations that we can ever have as people. Because our culture is obsessed with money, it's obsessed with wealth, and everyone's stressed out about it, and that's not how we're meant to be. So I want to ask all of us, and we'll wrap up, I want to ask all of us to just commit this week to a simple thing. Pray. Between you and God and say this. Pray this. God, show me the kind of manager you want me to be of what you've given me. And really seek and say, Lord, what area do I need to grow in? Is it generosity? Is it wisdom? Is it enjoyment? Whatever God gives you, just start doing that. Little by little, small steps, and trust. Trust that He who owns everything, as you walk in obedience with Him, He'll bless you. He'll bless you, He'll give you joy, He'll give you peace. You'll you'll understand the purpose that you have in this life a little bit more. But it's between you and God. Pray about it. Ask Him how you can be a better manager. Which of those words do you need to focus on this week? See what he says, and then just do it. Just do it and enjoy it. It's a very different way to live than the rest of the world. But it's good. It's really good. So let's pray. Father God, thank you so much for trusting us to be managers. We're all in management. That's actually really exciting. Every single one of us, we're in management. And Lord, I pray that when it comes to this topic, God, I pray that you would just open our hearts to really hear from you. This is one of those topics, God, that for a variety of reasons we can really close ourselves off. It's very, very hard sometimes for us to trust you when it comes to the area of our finances. It's hard for us to trust ourselves sometimes too, Lord. But I pray that you would just encourage us, that you you trust us. Because everything that we have, you have entrusted to us. You own all things. There's nothing in this world that at the end of the day you can't claim belongs to you. And yet you trust us. And everything we have that you've given us, you've given us for a purpose. And Lord, sometimes that purpose is to give it to someone else, sometimes that purpose is to store it away, sometimes that purpose is just to enjoy it. But I pray, Lord, that you would speak to every person listening, that you would speak to all of us, and help us understand how we can be the kind of managers you would have us be with our money. That we would have a right relationship with money, that unlike the rest of the world, we wouldn't be worshipers or lovers or slaves or even owners, God. That we would just be, we would be good managers. Lord, help us grow in that way. We know it pleases you. We pray this in your name. Amen.