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

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