Amen. Well, if uh if it's your first time or or maybe your first time in a while, we started a series a few weeks back called By Faith. 2 Corinthians 5 17 says, We live by faith and not by sight. And faith and sight are often in conflict with one another. It's a conflict that the Bible calls the battle between our spirit and our flesh. I believe her name was Courtney that got baptized earlier, and I think she described it so beautifully. Our spirit is that that deep part of our soul that wakes up whenever God comes into our life. The Bible actually says that when we put our trust in Jesus, that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, joins with our spirit. There's a union that happens, and he begins to make us a new creation. He begins to reshape us from the inside out into the person we were created to be. That's our spirit. But then we have our flesh. And our flesh is anything that causes us to be afraid, to worry, to have anxiety, to be selfish. It's those things that hold us back from being the people that God created us to be. Our flesh and our spirit are in conflict with one another. And our spirit must prevail. And so we're going to be people that live by our spirit, that live by faith and not by sight. Each week we're going through Hebrews chapter 11, which is a chapter in the Bible all about faith, and it gives us example after example to follow. Example after example of how we can be people that live by faith. Last week we talked about Hebrews 11:3, which says that by faith we understand God created this universe by command. In other words, God spoke and stuff happened. And that's a pretty crazy concept to think about. We may ask ourselves, how is that relevant to my life today? But it absolutely is because that same God is still speaking. And he wants you to hear his voice. We have a God that wants to speak to us. And his voice is so powerful it can create a universe. And when his voice speaks into our lives and into our hearts, it creates something within us as well. We want to hear God speak. And so if you were here last week, or maybe you're here today and you go, I've never heard God speak, but I want to. If you desire that, if you listen to him, if you if you study his word so you can learn to discern his voice from all the other voices that are vying for our attention, you will hear the voice of God in your life. You were created to hear him speak. So desire that. Today we're going to move on to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 4. But before we actually go through that, I want to ask a really obvious question. Obvious questions are the best because they're just a formality. We already know the answer. Anyone dealing with some stress today? Just like a little bit of stress this last week. Right, obvious question. You don't have you raise your hand, that's awesome. I am too. In fact, my wife is definitely dealing with more. Uh I said yesterday I was sick, and and I wasn't like violently ill, but I was just feeling a little off and my stomach was feeling weird. And when I'm sick, you know that stereotype of men being babies when they're sick? That's me. That's me, I'll admit it. And that's hard for my wife because we have two babies that live at home. We have a four-year-old and a one-year-old, and so when I'm sick and I'm acting like a baby, that's three babies and one adult. And Megan has to deal with all of that, and I love her for it. This last week was just a little stressful for us. The whole environment in our home was kind of stressful because we have this beautiful one-year-old girl. Her name is Lily. She has no hair, but she has my heart. I love her so much. Okay? And and Lily is going through this thing called attachment phase. Now, those of you who are parents, you may be familiar with this. There are scientists, neurologists who have studied the brains and the development of children. And they found that children up to about a year old do not have a concept of self. The part of their brain that realizes that they're a unique person has not been turned on yet. They actually see themselves as part of their mother. And that makes sense, I guess, because we begin as part of our mother's body. But at about one year, they start to realize that their mother is a different person than them. And it's not this freeing experience, it's not that they start to go, I'm me, this is wonderful. They freak out. They freak out because they realize their mother can go away. And so and so they they just have a hard time dealing with that. Liam dealt with that a little bit, but Lily, oh my goodness. If Megan so much as puts Lily down for a second, it is it is screaming nonstop. And and I don't understand how so much air can fit inside such a small package. Because she can scream at a volume, okay, and at a at a level that does not make any sense. If she can keep this up for the rest of her life and hit the notes that she can hit now as an adult, we're looking at a very lucrative record deal in our future. So that's that's good, I guess, but she can just scream and scream, and that's how the last week has been. Megan has basically carried her every second of every day. And if she she puts her down to get ready in the morning, it's just screaming. I can pick her up, but it helps none. It actually makes it worse because she doesn't want me, she wants Megan. And there are just some times when you cannot physically hold your baby, like when you drive. Now, driving can be a relaxing experience, can be enjoyable. You can go for a drive, but if you have a baby in the back seat screaming, mama, mama, mama, mama, at the top of our lungs for an hour, it's not so relaxing. And that's how this last week has been. It's just been a little bit stressful. All of us deal with stress, all of us deal with some level of anxiety. That's something that Elon talked about a few weeks ago, anxiety and how we deal with that. This morning, we're gonna talk about the number one stressor in the lives of Americans. Anyone have a clue what it is? You can shout it out if you do. Anyone? Money. Wow, you guys are good. Okay, so that you're right. Money is the number one stressor in the lives of Americans. In fact, ABC News released a report this last week. And it said that for the eighth year in a row, money has beaten out family relationships, work, and health concerns in terms of stress. There are more people in America today worried about money than there are people worried about dying. Think about that. It's the number one stressor. Utah State University did a study that found that money fights, fighting about money is the biggest indicator of divorce in America. There are more divorces that happen as a result or greatly aided by fights over money than any other factor. Money is a major, major stressor. We're gonna talk about that today, about our relationship with our finances. Now, let me just say this: this is a disclaimer. This is a topic that has been absolutely butchered in church culture for a long, long time. People have used verses out of context to get people and manipulate people to give, to abuse money, to spend lavishly on things that aren't really needed. Today is not about you giving to his hands. That is not what we're talking about. We are not announcing a pledge drive, there's no capital campaign. If you're new here, we don't even pass a plate, we don't believe in peer pressure. That's not what today's about. Now, to those of you that do give, I want to thank you. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart and from the bottom of a lot of people's hearts because your generosity is what keeps this place going. Your generosity is what allows God to work in the lives of so many people here, these people that got baptized, the thousand people that have been baptized since this church opened. It's so much because of your generosity and your giving. My wife and I give. There's a lot of causes we give to, but I believe that the cause of reaching this world for Jesus is a cause that deserves to be well funded. So thank you for giving, and I'd encourage anyone to give, to experience the blessings that come from that. But today is not about you giving to this church. Today is about us having a right relationship with our finances. Today is about us being free from the stress and the worry that comes from money. We'll kind of get to this later on, but I want you to know that you were not created to be stressed out about your resources. You were not created by God to live in constant worry and anxiety about money. God created you for so much more. And in Hebrews chapter 11, we get an example of how we can think about money the right way and use it in the right way to please God and to be free from the stress that so often comes with it. Hebrews 11:4 says this it was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain. Abel's offering gave evidence that he was a righteous man, and God showed his approval of his gifts. Although Abel is long dead, he still speaks to us by his example of faith. So it was by faith that Abel brought an offering to God that was acceptable. If you know this story, the story of Cain and Abel, it's one of the oldest stories in the Bible. They're brothers. Cain is the older brother, Abel is the little brother, and Abel gives a gift to God that God is pleased with. Cain gives a gift to God that God doesn't care for so much. And if you've ever been a big brother, you know how hard it is for a little brother to surpass you in any way. That is a humbling experience. I grew up as both a little brother, I have a brother that's eight years older than me, and a big brother. I have a brother that's six years younger. And growing up, there was a lot of sibling rivalry, especially with my little brother, because we lived in the same home. My older brother didn't really live with us from the time that I was a kid. And so uh so my little brother and I would have some intense, intense battles, especially in our driveway. We both play basketball. And so we'd we'd play one-on-one all the time. And uh, and because I'm six years older, whenever I left for college, I think he was in the sixth grade, he didn't do so well in most of those early matchups. And some of you might be saying, Oh, are you serious? You mean you never let your little brother win? And if that's your your question, I just have to say to you clearly, you have not been an older brother. Because that is not how things work. Right? You do not let your little brother win. Now, now, yes, you might let them win every once in a while, but you make it perfectly clear that they understand that you let them win. But you do not get beaten by your little brother. Little brothers, though, have this weird tendency to get bigger. And I remember that whenever I left for college and and I stopped playing basketball quite as much, I got married, I got a job, I gained a little bit of weight, and I would come back and I would visit and we would play again. And he was older, he was in high school, he was playing all the time, he was in the best shape of his life, our games got much more competitive. I'll never forget the first time that he beat me. And I mean he won. He didn't win because I let him win, he didn't win because I had an off day. I played my best, he played his best, and his best was better. And that was a jarring moment in my life. It went from the little brother doing everything he could to surpass the big brother to the big brother doing everything he could to hold on to the power that was rightfully his. Because I was born first. But see, that one loss turned into two and then three, and and now if we play one another, I'm happy if two things happen. Number one, we split. He wins one, I win one, or whatever. Number two, I don't get injured. If I walk away and I can still walk away, I'm a happy man. In fact, now I actually position myself as the underdog if we ever play, because I'm in my 30s and he's in his mid-20s. Remember your mid-20s? Wasn't that amazing? How you'd wake up in the morning and nothing hurt. Wasn't that cool, right? So he's in his mid-20s, so now if I beat him, I'm like, oh my goodness, you got beat by an old man, right? I'm in my 30s, my knee hurts, I had ankle surgery two years ago. I cannot believe you got beat by someone as ancient as me. And obviously that's a big stretch, but I'll do anything I can to continue having the upper hand when it comes to my little brother. I love him, but he's the little brother. That is a dynamic that has existed for thousands of years, since the beginning of time. It's a dynamic that existed with Cain and Abel. And when Abel, the younger brother, surpasses his older brother when it comes to this offering, Cain does not take it very well. He is not just humbled, he's not inspired, he's not motivated, he's enraged, he's full of jealousy. And if you know the story, it leads him to actually murder his younger brother, Abel. And all of it, all of it centers around an offering. All of it centers around their understanding of money, of their possessions, of what they had, how they thought about it, how they used it. The Bible tells us that Abel was a shepherd. So Abel, the younger brother, he raised, he raised livestock. Cain, the older brother, was a farmer. He cultivated the ground. And so Abel brought his version of money, which in that time was not coins, it wasn't paper money, they didn't have that yet. It was whatever your possessions were. He brought an offering to God, he brought an animal to God. And God liked it. Cain brought his crops. God wasn't such a fan, and you might think, okay, is this like a classic meat versus vegetables kind of ordeal? And let's just be honest, if you throw a party, I want to I want to know the truth. If you throw a party and people come, who do you like better? The person that brings the vegetable tray or the person that brings barbecue? Let's just be serious. I mean, we don't mind the person that brings the vegetable tray. We say, thank you for reminding me at my party how I need to eat better. I appreciate that very much. But if someone shows up with smoked meat, that's your best friend, right? That's your best friend. And there are some of us in the room going, no, I actually prefer the vegetable tray. And I want to ask you, do you really? I mean, honestly. It comes with ranch dressing for a reason, okay? If you take a piece of cauliflower and you absolutely submerge it in ranch dressing, yes, I guess technically it tastes pretty good, right? But you don't need to do that with meat. The Bible often says that a good offering to God is a pleasing aroma to God, and I just want to point out that for most of history, that pleasing aroma was the smell of burning meat. All right, God seems to like that. Maybe that's why, maybe that's why he liked Abel's offering over canes. He's a carnivore or something like that, but that doesn't really hold water. Okay, first of all, God created everything in Genesis chapter 1. He said everything was good. The vegetation was good, the meat was good, everything was good, the animals, all of that. He doesn't seem to prefer one over the other. So what's really going on here? We get a picture if we actually go back to Genesis 4, verses 2 through 4. It says, When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd while Cain cultivated the ground. And when it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift, the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. And this made Cain very angry and he looked dejected. Now we start to get a little bit clearer of a picture of what's really happening. We have to read between the lines, but not so much. It says that Cain brought some of his crops. It doesn't say he brought the worst. It doesn't say he brought what he didn't want. It just says he brought some. He brought a representative sample of what he had. But Abel, Abel brought the best. He brought the best portions from his firstborn. It was the best of the best, and that is what Abel brought and laid at the feet of God. Ever had a relationship that you've been in for a while that you just don't appreciate as much as you used to? You sometimes take it for granted, and when that happens, you begin to go through the motions a little bit. You start to do things in a routine way. We had Valentine's Day, just about a week ago. Right? The very first Valentine's Day I ever had with my wife. We were in high school, we weren't even officially dating yet. We'd been on one date, but I really liked her and I wanted to seal the deal. I wanted to make it official. So I wanted to do something on Valentine's Day to make it clear to her how I felt. So I got her sister to give me the key to her car. And I skipped my first period class and I opened her car and I filled it with roses. I wrote a card and then I filled it from floor to ceiling with balloons. Red, pink balloons, which in retrospect is not a very good gift because I made a huge mess that she then had to deal with later. But but I filled it with balloons, and then I got someone to go tell her teacher that she left her lights on, so her teacher let her out of her class. If you can't tell, I had a great appreciation for being in class when I was in school. And so she came out of class. I'm hiding, I'm somewhere where she can't see me. I see her look at her car and she laughs and she runs over to it, she opens it, balloons come out, they're everywhere, she's digging through it, she finds the roses, she finds the card. I jump out, I'm like, happy Valentine's Day. And uh, and even if it wasn't that great of a gift, it showed some effort, right? I had some gumption and she appreciated that. This year for Valentine's Day? 10 years into our marriage, 13 years after that first Valentine's Day, this is what I did. A few days before Valentine's Day, I said, Hey, are we doing anything for Valentine's Day? You wanna you wanna do anything? And she said, No, it's let's just let's just relax. And I was like, deal. That's that's Valentine's Day. Just become a little bit more routine. Now, I know when I when I say that I look like the most unromantic man on earth. And and I will let you know we did something for Valentine's Day. We went to a restaurant with our children and we ruined the meal for everyone else in the restaurant because Lily screamed the entire time, but we've just learned to tune it out. All right? I'll also say this there's a reason that I'm not teaching the marriage series. It's Ken, right? So I'm I need to take notes too. Uh next year, Megan, I will not go through the motions. I'll I'll be that same man I was 13 years ago. Uh, I just won't make a big mess in your car. So sometimes when we've when we've been in a relationship for a long time, it's just it becomes routine. The same passion isn't there. And you sort of see that with Cain and Abel. I mean, Cain's bringing an offering to God, and he's just sort of going through the motions. He's he's giving some to God. Abel, though, you see this passion, this excitement to give the best of what he has. And in this instance, it's not it's not the actual gifts that are given that God is evaluating, it's their heart. Jesus said in in Matthew chapter 6 that wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. Our heart and our soul is so closely tied to how we view and how we use the resources that God has given us. Our relationship with money is a massive factor in our relationship with God and our relationship with life. And so, how do we have a relationship with our money that pleases God and frees us from the stress and the worry and the fear of not having enough? The opposite of faith is fear. And so often we live by fear when it comes to money. We're afraid that we do not have enough. We won't have enough to provide, we won't have enough to be comfortable, we won't have enough to have the lifestyle that we want, we won't have enough to retire one day, we won't have enough to enjoy, we won't have enough to leave to our children so they can waste it. We we have all those fears, right? We want to have enough, and money is something that we tend to live in with fear. We live by fear and not by faith, and so we are overwhelmed with stress. How do we be free of that? How do we get a relationship with money that works? We don't often think about money in terms of relationships, but we do have a relationship with our possessions. I'm gonna bet, just as a gambling man, there's at least one guy in this room that refers to a car, a boat, or a motorcycle as she. Or a TV or something like that. And maybe you say she's a beauty, she's my baby, I love her. She doesn't love you, she's a motorcycle, but it's okay. Keep keep saying that. Keep saying that. We think that way. That is a way that we actually perceive money. We live in a world that tells us all the time, in marketing and in all kinds of different promotions, that money is our friend. We just need more money. If we have more money, we'll be good. In fact, there was a study done of people of different income levels asking them how much more money they needed to be happy. And it did not matter how much money someone made, they all had about the same result, the same answer. They said, if I made about 10% more, I'd be happy. The person that made $30,000 a year said 10% more would make me happy. The person that made $300,000 a year said 10% more will make me happy. It did not matter what level of income. Every single person said, if I had about 10% more, I'd have enough. The Bible speaks to this relationship that we tend to have with our finances. It speaks to it in 1 Timothy chapter 6. Verse 10, it says, For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Now, money is not evil. A lot of us are taking Dave Ramsey's FPU, and Dave Ramsey explains it like this. He says, Money is amoral. It's like a brick. You can use it to build a house, you can throw it through a window. Money in and of itself is not good or bad, it just depends on who has it and who's using it. But the love of money, 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. They have hurt themselves because of a love for money. In other words, they have a relationship with money, and it's a love relationship. They love money, they crave money, and it hurts them. Have you ever loved something that did not? Love you back. You may love your house, but your house does not love you back because it keeps breaking. You have to keep fixing things. You love it, it doesn't have a reciprocation of your love. If you've ever loved a person that didn't love you back, is there anything more devastating than that? I'm experiencing that with Lily, my little girl that I talked about earlier. See, a few months ago she could not communicate. She's learned to communicate, and one of the first things that kids learn to say is, What? No. Isn't that a great day in the development of your child, the day they say no? It's always before the day they say yes. And Lily doesn't say the word no, she just nods her head very, very demonstratively. See, a few months ago, I'd walk up to her and say, Lily, do you want daddy to pick you up? And she would just look at me blankly because she didn't understand what I was saying, and I would pick her up anyway. It was a rhetorical question. So I would pick her up and I'd kiss her and I'd dance with her and I'd hold her and I'd hug on her. Now I'll go to her and say, Lily, you want daddy to pick you up? And she'll go. And it breaks my heart. I pick her up anyway, right? And I hold her and I kiss her and she'll push me away sometimes. And see, I know what she's doing. I know it already at this young age. She's using that against me. And one day she's gonna use it against me, and it's gonna work. I know it's gonna work. I've I've already admitted defeat in those ways. But see, I want her to love me. I want her to respond to my affection. There is nothing harder than loving something that does not love us back. And I do want to say this some of us have experienced that on a deep level with a parent or a spouse or a child or someone that we should never have that experience with. You will never have that experience with Jesus. Jesus knows what it's like to be rejected. He has loved many who will never love him in return because he loves everyone. Not everyone loves him back. But there has never been a person that has loved Jesus that has not had that love reciprocated and given back to them tenfold. So if this whole concept of loving someone that doesn't love you back, if that cuts you a little deep, that is never going to be your relationship with God. Even in the story of Cain and Abel, God does not reject Cain. Cain makes this mistake and he gets mad about it. God actually goes to Cain afterward and gives him advice. He says, Cain, this is what's happening in your heart right now. You need to be careful, you need to be on the lookout for sin. It's crouching at the door. He tells Cain what to do. Cain ignores his advice. And after Cain kills Abel, Cain is afraid that he's gonna be killed. But God protects him. And God says, I will make sure that no one ever touches you. That God does not reject the people that love God, even when they make horrific mistakes. You'll never be rejected by God. But there are many things in life that we love that do not love us back. If we love money, we are in for some hurt because money does not love us back. Money is a bad lover, it is unfaithful, it runs off. It goes to people and to things that don't care about it half as much as we do. We work hard to have it and then it just runs away. It's gone. And so if we love money, we're gonna experience the exact thing that 1 Timothy 6 says. We will experience sorrow because our money will never love us back. The relationship that we have with money, it is not meant to be a lover relationship. Jesus actually tells us what the relationship is really supposed to be. He hints at it in Matthew 6, 24. He 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 both God and money. So here we go. Now we're getting somewhere. The relationship that we have with money, it is a servant master relationship. The only question is who's the servant and who's the master. Either money will be our master, or we will learn to master money and to master what we have and to use it in a way that pleases God and blesses us and blesses other people. But it is a servant-master relationship. And if we're gonna be honest with ourselves, and as God's people, we've got to be honest with ourselves. If we're gonna grow by faith, we have to be honest. And I'm speaking to myself. If I have fear, worry, and anxiety about money, and if I have that with somewhat frequency, it means that money has at least some degree of mastery over me. Whether we like to admit it or not, if we spend time worrying about money, fearful of money, stressing out about money, it means that money has some level of mastery over our hearts. And we've got to take that back. Because we were not created to be mastered by money. It is a servant-master relationship. So how do we turn the tables? How do we do our best impression of a jerk little brother beating his big brother in basketball for the first time and taking the balance and the order of things and throwing it away? How do we do that? How do we become the master of our resources? How do we become the master of money and get away from serving money? Because if we serve money, we're serving a bad master. Money rules by fear, and fear is the opposite of faith. Abel, he gives us the example. Abel's the one who we can look at, we can follow in his footsteps, we can look at how he viewed money and how he used money, and we can we can follow his example and be free. Do we want to be free today? Is it possible as God's people for us to live our lives and never be stressed out about money? And the answer is yes. That may seem like a pipe dream. It may seem unrealistic. I'm thankful that I have a God that is not realistic. We can be people that live without stress and fear of money ever again. And few people that have ever lived, few people that have ever breathed have lived that way. We can be, we can be these amazing people, these blessed people that are free from the fear of money. We just have to follow Abel's example. And it all begins with how we think, with our mentality about money. That's where it starts. I think the key word in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 4. It was the word offering. Said that Abel gave an offering. We speak about money as if money has emotions, as if money has a heart and a will of its own. And so you hear people say that, oh, money, money would offer me something. Money might offer me a life that I want. Money could offer me the things that I want. Money can offer me comfort. If we think about money in terms of something that can offer us what we need, that means money's our master. Because only the master can offer the servant something that the servant needs. But Abel did not view money as his master. He did not see his possessions as something that offered him anything. Abel saw his possessions and what he had as something he could offer. Our mentality has to go from being a mentality where we see money as something that offers that offers us what we need to seeing money as something that God gives us for us to offer. And if we see it that way, we have mastery over money. 1 Timothy chapter 6 talks about this. It's one of the greatest chapters in the Bible when it comes to money and the resources that we have. This is what it says in verses 17 through 19. Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable, right? We covered that a moment ago. Money is not reliable, it leaves us. It's fickle. Don't trust in money. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Now let's park there for a moment. Because this is huge. Why does God want to bless you with more? For your enjoyment. God does not simply want to give you more so that you give it all away and don't enjoy any of it yourself. Those of us who've experienced giving find that we actually enjoy giving it more than we enjoy receiving anyway. Giving can actually be the source of joy. But it's it's important for us to understand that our God, our daddy, our father in heaven, he wants to bless us. He wants to give us what we need for our enjoyment. God wants you to enjoy your life. And he wants you to have enough to enjoy your life. So Paul goes on, he says, Tell them to use their money, to see it as something they have to offer. To use their money to do good, they should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this, they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life. God wants life for us. Jesus said, I've come to give you life and to give you abundant life. And Paul says that when we have the right view of money, when we have the right mentality, when we use it to offer, to offer what we have, to bless people in need, to honor God, that we experience life. We are free from worry, we are free from stress. Now, can't skip over the fact that those verses begin with the phrase, those who are rich. And maybe we're reading that going, oh, well, teach those who are rich in this world, and we're like, not me. I feel that way. If you're to ask me, are you rich? I would just honestly naturally say no. I'm not rich. I don't drive some super nice car. I don't have a vacation home. We don't really go on vacations. If my wife's parents are going on vacation and they're generous enough to invite us along, then we're like, yes, we're there. We have children, we're trying to pay the bills like everybody else. And so I would say, absolutely not, I'm not rich. And yeah, I could go with the whole, it's a wonderful life, I'm rich in love and in friends and all those kinds of things, right? But when it comes to money, no, I would not consider myself rich. See, in Paul's day, the word rich, it just meant enough. If you were rich, it meant that you had enough. The average person was lucky to eat one meal a day. The average family would have meat once a week. Poor meant you don't have enough, rich meant you have enough. There was no concept of the middle class. It was richer poor. And so when Paul says to those who are rich, he means anyone that has enough. This is really interesting. And it's challenging, but there's a website called givewhatyoucan.org. I'd encourage you to go there later today. It's really cool. Givewhatyoucan.org. Go to this website, you put in where you live, you put in your combined household income, how many people live in your home, and it calculates your living expenses, how much you make, how much you have, how many people you provide for, and it compares you to the rest of the world. And it's an eye-opening thing to do. So check this out. If you have a combined household income of $45,000, that's your combined household income. You are in the top 10% of the world's population when it comes to wealth. You make 11 times more than the global average. People are always saying they need 10% more, according to that study that I mentioned earlier. Well, if that's you, it means you could give away 10% of your income and still be in the top 11% of wealth in the world and still make 10.8 times more than the world average. Slide that number up to 60,000. If you have a combined household income of $60,000, you're in the top 6.4% of wealth in the world. You make over 16 times more than the average family. Which means you could give away 10% of what you have to people in need, you'd still be in the richest 7%. You'd still have 14.5 times more. I don't say that to make any of us feel guilty. But it's important for us to have the right perspective, to know that we have been given more than almost anyone on this planet. In fact, if if we're just an American today, it means that by and large, we have more resources at our disposal than almost anyone who has ever lived in history. And we've got to be honest with ourselves. Because if we're going to be masters of what God has given us, we cannot have a mentality that says, oh, I'm not I'm not wealthy enough. I don't have enough. If I had more, because when we do that, we make money our master. We say that if money would give me more, I'd have enough, then I'd be generous. I'll just be honest. The most generous people I know just so happen to be the wealthiest people I know. And they're not they're not generous because they're wealthy. I used to believe that. But they're wealthy because they're generous. Solomon wrote in Proverbs 3, 9 through 10, he said, Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce, and then he will fill your barns with grain and your vats will overflow with good wine. In other words, if you are generous, God will give you more. God is on the lookout for people that he can trust. He loves you so much. He cares about you, he wants to meet your needs, he wants you to enjoy your life, he wants you to have enough. But if you show God that you're someone he can trust and be generous, God will give you more. That's who God is. He is a how much more God. God does not want to put us on some measly allowance. You know, there have been people that have abused this in church that have used this to say, oh, God wants us all to be in the top 1% of wealth, and he wants us all to drive really nice cars, and he wants us all to live in big mansions and all this kind of stuff. And so if you'll give my ministry, pull out the handkerchief, $10,000 today, then you'll be blessed. And you know what? If you ever do that, that's between you and God. Good for you. But the truth is, God says, God says in his word, that if you'll show me that you're generous, I'll trust you with more. But if money is our master, if we believe we need more and more and more, and money has something to offer us, we'll never be able to do that. We can't let go of it. We have to have a new mentality. And it's as simple as this, and we'll start to wrap up. God, what do you want me to do with my money? God, how do you want me to use what you've given me? You tell me. I know from your word, God, that you want me to have enough. I know from your word, God, that you want me to enjoy life. God is not going to say, don't buy your family groceries this week, just give it away. But God, what do you want me to do with what you've given me? Because when that is our mentality, we become the masters of what we have. See, all this is about your identity. This is about who you are. In Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, God said, Let us make human beings in our image to be like us. They will reign over the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground. So God says that He created us and He created us to reign, to rule over life. But so often it doesn't feel like we're ruling over life. It feels like life is ruling over us. That is not the way it's supposed to be. You were created by God to rule and to reign over everything that He's given you. Not the other way around. Psalm 8, 3 through 6. This is so beautiful. David wrote, When I look at the night sky and I see the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you set in place. What are mere mortals that you should even think about them? Like who are we compared to God? But yet you made them, you made human beings only a little lower than God. Think about that. Only a little lower than God. That's not that's not me saying that, that's scripture. And we're not equal with God, but we are the only thing, we are the only thing in the universe that God says he makes in his image. He says, You made them only a little lower than God, you crowned them with glory and with honor, you gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority. It is time for us to be who God created us to be. It is time for us to be people that recognize our rightful place. This is not about pride, this is not about arrogance. This is us saying, God, I'm gonna be who you created me to be. Money is not gonna rule over me anymore. My finances are not gonna freak me out, it's not gonna scare me because you did not create me to be mastered by money. You did not create me to be mastered by anything. There is one thing on this planet, there's one thing in this universe that is supposed to be my master. It's God, and that's it. He created you so special, he created you so completely unique that he is the only one that rightfully rules over you. And life itself and the cares of this world and money and finances, these are things that we were created to rule over. We were created to have mastery over. So it's time for us to start rejecting the lie that money offers us happiness, that money offers us freedom, and it's time for us to be people like Abel, who recognize that we have been given great resources by God. And we've been given these resources to offer. I want to read a story as we wrap up and pray. This came in, uh it's a story from a couple parents that I know here, very, very amazing, generous people. They said they were driving the other day and they passed a homeless man on the road. They gave money to that man and they asked, uh, and their daughter, this five-year-old girl, she asked as soon as they drove away if they could pray for him. We asked her to lead the prayer, and she specifically asked for God and Jesus to take care of the man and to give him a house, a bed, and food. We're humbled by the fact that she prays not just for our family, but for total strangers who she notices who are hurt and in need. In her bedtime prayer, she ends with this I pray for everyone I know and love and those that are strangers. In Jesus' name, amen. And then she prays, please let bad guys make better decisions. She's good. She's five. You know, we we often think that, okay, I need I need thousands more to make an impact. So I'll just give you one practical example. I waited tables uh when I was in college. I worked at Chili's. And this one night, and this is a little bit of a tangent, so worship team, I'm sorry for delaying. They're like ready to jump out in the back. Stay on your toes. Um so I didn't work Sunday mornings. I worked Sunday nights, though. And there was this really big church that was close to where we were, and it wasn't uncommon for uh for for them to come, a lot of those people to come to eat on Sunday nights after their Sunday night service was done. This one night uh it was 8.55, and we close at 9. It's 8.55. And there's no one in the in the restaurant. So we've already started to shut off the grills, the cooks are cleaning up, we're we're doing our cleanup work, we're putting chairs on tables, we're sweeping. And at 8:55, this group of 35 people walk in. And they asked us, they said, I was there and said, Hey, what time do you guys close? And we said we close at 9. And they went, awesome, there's 35 of us. So we got to go back and tell our cooks who threw towels and cussed, but thankfully in a language we did not understand. And uh, and we got to wait on these people, these these godly people, and they were the rudest, meanest people. I mean, they complained about how long it took for their food to come out, they complained about how long it took us to get them seated, and I remember they tipped us horribly. It was awful. And so here we were, we put in an extra hour. And so when I when I worked in the restaurant business, it was just known that the church crowd is your least favorite crowd. It's like they use up all their generosity at church, and you did not want to wait on those people. So, like I said, today's not about giving to his hands, today's about us being free and saying, God, how do you want me to use my money? The difference between a $5 and a $10 tip to a server when you eat out today, that five dollars, that five dollars buys that person some joy. That five dollars buys that person some peace. I mean, you can't do much for five bucks in this world, but I I can tell you from experience that when you look at a tip and what should be five is ten, I mean it makes your your shift, it makes your day. On the flip side, if you look at a tip that should have been five and it's two, it's only three dollars. You only lost three bucks. But it feels like so much more than that. It does not take much to bless people. We are generous people because we have a generous God. So my prayer for his hands is not that we would be people who give. My prayer for his hands is that we would be people who want to give, that we would be people who have mastery over our finances. We're not afraid, we're not worried, and we can go, God, I'm gonna give this person five dollars. Five dollars extra. And I trust you. Bless them, bless me, but God, I trust you. If we are generous people, if we give to those in need with a heart that they have enough, do we really believe that our God will not make sure that we have enough? I don't believe that at all. I believe we can trust God with our finances, I believe we can trust Him in every way, and that is how we walk in freedom from stress and from anxiety. It's time for us to be free. So, your question this week as you pray is very simple. God, what do you want me to do with what you have given me? God, how can I offer what I have to you and to people in need? And if that is the attitude of our hearts, then we're like able and we're living by faith in our finances. Please pray with me. Jesus, thank you so much. Thank you so much for speaking to us about money. I mean, it's been it's been butchered in church so much, God, that it's very easy to avoid this subject. It's something I know I've I've dealt with as I prepare, but how helpful would your word be if you never talked to us about money? This huge area of our life that causes us so much stress, Lord Jesus. I pray that you would free every person in this room from fear and from stress and from anxiety related to finances, that you would give every person in this room the courage and the boldness to take their rightful place and not be mastered by money, but have mastery over it. Tell us what to do, Jesus. We're yours. We belong to you. We're gonna use what you give us in the best way possible. And Lord God, we look forward to seeing what you do through our faithfulness, through our generosity. We pray all this in your name. Amen.