Get Free! | FreedUp Week 1

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Hi, I'm Kyle,

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your community pastor for Crossroads Church online,

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and this is hundreds of pounds of safe

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spinning on a very small wire above my head. Why?

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Because this is what money feels like to a lot of us,

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a constant threat that at any moment

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can come down and crush us,

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whether you have a little bit of money or a lot.

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But today we're going to talk about

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a different approach to work and money,

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an approach that will produce freedom in your life.

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To get us started, we're going to play

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a little bit of a game

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with my fellow Crossroads teaching pastors,

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a game they don't know about yet, but in which

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they and me will be answering the kinds of questions

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you're not really supposed to ask each other about money.

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Let's get started.

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– Hey, everybody, thanks for being here.

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– Happy to be here.

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– Do you want to know what we're doing?

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– Yes.

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– I made a board game for us to play.

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And here's the thing, not just normal questions,

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these are the questions that

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you're not supposed to ask people about money

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and you all get to answer them for all of us.

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(crosstalk) – More awkward questions.

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– Yes, yes. Yes. Also...

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– More awkward questions.

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– The game does have rules that I will make up as we go.

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So I think you're in safe hands.

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Brian, you can go first, so go ahead and draw a card.

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And then read us what it says and we'll go from there.

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Is this fun or what?

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– We're having so much fun, Kyle?

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– It's super fun.

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– Most or least amount of money you spent in a single day,

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not including buying a house or car.

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It probably was when I went on a hunting spending spree

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at Bud's gun shop in Lexington, Kentucky.

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It was ridiculous how much stuff I needed for hunting.

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I had never rifle hunted before.

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Rifle, bipod, scope, binoculars, ammo,

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camo stuff, gun cases, orange for yourself,

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on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

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And I thought -- I thought I was ready for it

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until I got in there.

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I was like, "Oh, I need that too. Oh, yeah.

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Oh, I need that. Oh course. Of course I need that."

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– I'm going to be in the middle of nowhere.

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I've got to have that.

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– Oh, and that thing that could kill something?

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Oh, I definitely need that one.

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So it was, it was, it was a pretty big deal.

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That was a lot of money.

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– How did your wife feel

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about you spending all this money?

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Did you talk it through ahead of time

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or did you just like walk home from the store and go,

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"Yeah, I sort of spent a lot of money."

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How did that go?

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– Yeah, boy, Lib and I've been through quite a --

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quite a transformation in our money.

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We went from early on in our marriage where

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we couldn't afford to buy

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two rolls of toilet paper at a time,

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it was just like one roll.

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And sometimes it was when you're in a restaurant,

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you take some of their toilet paper.

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We went from that and we went from having our kids.

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Our first kid was charity care.

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Charity care, that's what the hospital has, charity care.

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So we went through years and years of actual poverty

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for us as a family.

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So we went from that significant thing to then

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counting all the stuff and having constant stress,

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tension points over what she's spending,

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over what I'm spending.

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And now we're in a place where we're empty nesters,

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I or her and go do something like that

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that wasn't thought out and planned out

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and it's and it's not a stress point.

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But that was --

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that's been literally decades in the waiting.

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And we worked really hard to get to a financial place

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where I could make those sort of --

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have those sort of impulsive days.

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– You now get to pick somebody else to answer the question,

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– Oh, I think that would be Alli.

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Most or least amount of money you spent in a single day,

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not including buying a house or car.

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– The thing that came immediately to mind

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when that was read the first time

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is travel with six people.

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Like a day that I buy plane tickets and hotels

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and food and think times six, it's a big deal.

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– Six friends, six -- this is your family.

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– This is me and my husband and our four kids.

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So any time you -- anything you do that's costly

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and you take everybody, it's times six for us.

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It's a huge deal.

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So travel, and we love to travel,

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and we want to travel with our kids.

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But when I have bought airplane tickets

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or booked hotel rooms or we're there,

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sometimes Bill, my husband Bill --

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– You need two hotel rooms, don't you?

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– Oh, yeah. – You can't – No, we could --

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We don't usually stay in hotels, we'll rent a house

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because it's just cheaper,

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you can buy your own food and all that.

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But he will sometimes bless me by paying --

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like by being the one that actually receives the bill

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at the end of the day, because it takes --

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it hurts me.

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– Just seeing the number

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just like causes stress. This must be bad.

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– Even though I know we budgeted for --

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like there's decisions we've made

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that have made this possible,

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seeing the number is hard for me.

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– That makes sense.

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Chuck, what's your quick answer?

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– Same thing. Quick answer for me is same situation.

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I do have to say though, I have a lot of joy.

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So it's probably been a day at Disney World,

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quite frankly.

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We'll spend money in a day than I have anywhere else.

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And my family will tell you,

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I tend to be tight when it comes to money,

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but when I come to Disney World, man, I'm like --

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you know that Burger King commercial

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where they're like shooting the money out of the things?

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Like there's just -- there's just something about --

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– That's you, $20s. – Make it rain. I love --

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And it's the one place I'm free when it comes to that,

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where I just love the delight

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that my family gets in places like that.

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I'm sure that's the place where I spent the most money.

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– All your answers are way better than mine.

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Mine is my air conditioner that broke last summer,

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which is never fun because it worked

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and then it breaks and then two days later

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you're out $6,000 and you have the same thing

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you had two days ago. Awful. Anyway, good news --

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– That is awful. There's nothing fun about that.

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Like all of ours had some fun stuff.

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– Not fun, it's just life though, right?

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I mean, there's things like that that happen.

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They pop up and you've just got to roll with it.

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I will say I was grateful to have the air conditioning.

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That was an honest thing because my house before this,

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the one we lived in four years before that,

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had no central air.

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So I did have a moment of going like, "Hey, you know what?

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I'm grateful that I have air conditioning."

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Because I've lived without that for a long time, it's great.

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Brian, you get to -- you gave a great answer.

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You get to go two spaces in any direction,

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you don't have to stay in your color line,

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unless you want to.

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– Two spaces.

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– Well, I will --I'll stand by one color.

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It's growing on me.

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– Ok, OK, that's great. – It's growing on me.

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– All right. Awesome.

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And this space comes with a roll of the dice.

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Now, if you roll a six, you get a teaching challenge card.

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OK? So just gonna tell you that. So let's see.

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Go head and give us a roll, see what we get.

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– Papa needs a new pair of shoes.

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(cheering) – A six, first try, unbelievable.

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– Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

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– Here's your challenge: You have to teach

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on being a faithful steward using, wait for it,

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this straight jacket.

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This is not a curtain, it's a straitjacket.

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So head off, go make that happen over there.

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– Go teach. – Like go right now and teach, where?

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– You'll see it, right now.

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Just that way, you'll see some people with cameras.

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Start talking. All right, great.

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I think that went really well.

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We'll see how Brian does the teaching challenge

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and we just get to hang out now, that's the other rule.

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We get to relax.

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You guys want to get a drink or something.

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– I like this game. – All right, cool.

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While he heads off to start teaching,

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let me tell you what we're getting into.

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Crossroads has partnered with

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an organization called Good Sense,

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an amazing ministry that has been helping people

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find financial freedom for decades.

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And together, we've created a new program called Freed Up.

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Freed Up is an app based program designed to help people

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no matter where you are on the financial spectrum,

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from barely getting by

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to having more than you know what to do with,

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you can find true financial freedom.

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So why are we doing this?

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Because almost everyone is stressed financially.

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Financial stress is one of the biggest causes

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of divorce and anxiety that exists,

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and God promises to fix it for us if we get on His plan.

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In fact, we want this for you so much

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we're literally giving it away free.

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Freed Up costs $100, but to everyone watching this series,

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it's free, totally free.

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And you can get it for your iOS or Android device.

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Now, I'll tell you right now, you could also relax.

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This is not a financial campaign.

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We're not asking for more of your money.

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We're not building toward some big ask in the future.

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If you do give towards Crossroads,

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I want to say thank you.

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Your giving helps us be able to do things like this

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that literally change people's lives.

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This is simply us wanting to help you

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with one of the most stressful issues in life.

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This will bring you financial freedom.

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Now, these teaching episodes are just a taste

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of what you'll get in the app,

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combined with practical guidance

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and application and some creative surprises.

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Now, this entire program is based on three big ideas

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that we see in the Bible, and we've summarized them

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like this: big idea number one,

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we are free when we are faithful stewards.

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A faithful steward is simply a diligent earner

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and a prudent spender.

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A prudent spender is a generous giver first,

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a wise saver, and a cautious debtor.

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These are the three big ideas that,

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if you understand them,

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can unlock financial freedom in your life.

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So if you're ready to take a step towards freedom,

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head the crossroads.net/freedup and get started today.

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– You ever feel like this? I have numerous times.

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When my wife and I were married, in my young 20s,

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and we had this debt consolidation program

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where we consolidated her debt and my debt

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into the marriage, we had payment booklets.

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Yeah, they used to have these thick things

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with piece of paper that said

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how many months in debt you were.

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We had payment booklets and credit card debt.

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We had car loans and we brought it all in the marriage,

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and what do you know? We couldn't make it.

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Do you know how humiliating it is for a 22 year old guy

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to actually live with his in-laws

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because he can't make the ends meet? It was awful.

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That's the bondage I was in.

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Every expenditure it just kept getting tighter

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and tighter and tighter.

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And it's not just when you're 22, if you're not careful,

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it'll still get you even when you're 50 and doing OK,

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because you can look around you and see

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all kind of people who are doing, you think,

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better than you are and you can feel like a failure.

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You can feel like a loser.

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Book of 2 Corinthians 3:17 says:

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Now the Lord is the Spirit,

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and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is...

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religion, no, no, no, it doesn't say that.

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Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is rules.

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No, it doesn't say that.

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Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's regulations.

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No, it doesn't say that.

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It says where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

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We're going to give you some principles

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that can bring you true freedom.

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We're not going to give you rules.

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We're not going to give you regulations.

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We're not going to give you religion.

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We want you to get free.

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And where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.

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And the Spirit of the Lord has some time tested principles

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that simply work, that have been freeing people like me

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and people like you for a long, long time.

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This is what we're about.

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We're about your freedom and we're going to get you free.

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How you handle your money matters to God,

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because God knows that your money is one of the things

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that's going to define whether or not you're free.

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You control your money or your money controls you.

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One of the things that none of us like

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is being controlled and being constricted,

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whether it's a worldwide pandemic.

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Who would have seen one of those coming?

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Or whether it's a diagnosis from a health professional

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that comes your way.

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These are things that the constrict you,

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that put you in bondage.

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But with those things, at least, it happened to you.

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You're sort of an innocent victim.

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But what really gets me is when I'm put in bondage

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by my own choices, by my own decisions.

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And God doesn't want to see it happen with His children.

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He knows that money does this to us.

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This is why there's over 2000 times in the Bible

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where God references money,

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more than just about anything else.

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Jesus talks more about money

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than He does heaven and hell combined.

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He gives 39 parables, which are stories about life

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that are supposed to impact our life.

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Eleven of those 39 are about money.

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He says things in Matthew 6:24 like:

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you cannot serve both God and money.

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You either control it or it controls you.

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In first Timothy 6:10, it says:

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For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

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The love of money, not money itself, the love of money.

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Where we're totally drawn into a love affair with money

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and we can't control it and it causes us

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to have all kinds of evil and, yes,

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it is evil to be perpetually stressed out

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and freaked out about money,

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to give more of our emotional space to money

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than it is to God.

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Why is it that many of us feel like

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I'm just not getting where I need to financially?

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Why is our finances a stress point for us?

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It's not by accident.

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It's because there is an enemy who is

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intentionally trying to hurt you and I,

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an enemy who's intentionally trying to draw us away

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from sensing the love of God

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and to put us actually in bondage.

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And that enemy rules the microphone in our culture.

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Culture has so many myths about money

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and things that we're following after,

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that's putting us into bondage that it's no wonder

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we're as stressed out as we are.

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Just think about the cultural myths that exist today

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that fuel destructive behavior.

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Like things can buy me happiness.

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No, they won't. Things will rust.

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They won't buy me happiness.

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Or just a little more money will solve my problems.

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No, it won't solve your problems, because

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all of us over the years have had just a little more money

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and it hasn't solved our problem.

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Or I'm not a very financially motivated person.

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Money doesn't motivate me at all.

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I wish it did.

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If money motivated you a little bit more,

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maybe we'd have less stress.

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We just parrot all these phrases that other people say

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and they're just not true and they're just not real.

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The truth is, God cares about us

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and our relationship with Him.

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He cares about money and He cares about His money

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that He's put inside of our pockets.

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The truth is that He will reward us

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and hold us accountable for how we manage the money

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and the possessions that He's entrusted to us

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and that He's blessed us with.

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In order to beat the enemy

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that's trying to put us in bondage,

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we have to have a plan.

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Everything big, everything important has a plan,

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everything.

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I've built a few houses in my life

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and it's crazy that someone actually expected me

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to come up with a plan and to follow it.

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Of course they did. You're building a house.

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Could you imagine a plumber coming in saying,

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"Well, you know what? I don't really need a plan.

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I'm just going to stick the water line into your house

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and we're just going to trust that the water

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gets to the right room at the right time."

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You would never, ever do that.

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You would have detailed plans for

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I'm going to want this size line going to this room.

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I went this many lines going to this bathroom.

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I want this."

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You'd have it all mapped out because you need

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the right amount of water in the right room

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at the right time.

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How we operate our finances is so antithetical to that.

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We have the plumber put his line in

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and then we just open up. Where's my money going?

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And it comes out and it's going and it's going

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and it's going and it's going.

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No rhyme, no reason, just everywhere.

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This is why we have stress, because

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money's come into our lives and it hasn't been ordered.

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It hasn't been directed to the right place.

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Nothing wrong with going out to eat. I go out to eat.

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Nothing wrong with buying new clothes.

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Nothing wrong with having nice things.

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Nothing wrong with it at all,

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so long as you planned for it,

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so long as it's in your plan,

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so long as you're telling your money where it's going

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instead of it telling you where you're going.

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If you know how much you're going to spend

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on entertainment and it fits in the plan, awesome.

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If you know how much you're going to put in savings

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and it fits with the plan, great.

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If you know that you're going to take expensive vacations

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and it fits inside of a plan, great.

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But you have to be in control,

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not money and culture being in control. You.

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God is both an artist and an engineer.

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We look at all of creation and there's just beautiful,

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beautiful landscapes, all different kinds of textures.

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It's just gorgeous. He's an artist and he's an engineer.

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He's ordered things in culture.

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He's made it so that life exists.

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He has the planet just the right amount of distance

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away from the sun and just the right oxygen level

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to maintain life and all works together in harmony

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because He is a god of order.

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Now, if you want God to bless our lives,

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and specifically bless our finances,

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why do we think that we can do that without order?

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I need order.

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I need to -- I need to --

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I need to say here's my money that's coming out

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and I'm going to create a system,

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I'm going to create a plan to capture all of my money

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and have it go where I want it to go.

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I'm capturing it. It's going where I want to go.

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The amount of savings, the amount of spending.

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I am ordering my money around,

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instead of my money ordering me around.

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How can we expect a God of order to bless our finances

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if they are in disorder?

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We're going to put them in order

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and we're going to find freedom.

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– When I was in my 20s, for me, success looked like

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trying to portray an image so that people would look at me

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and say, "That guy's attractive or that guy is cool.

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I want to be around that person."

00:19:10

And that influenced me in a lot of ways

00:19:12

that started influencing things like

00:19:16

the clothes that I wore and feeling like every week

00:19:18

I had to have something new so that I could look fresh

00:19:20

and feel and look attractive to people.

00:19:23

It meant that I had to have the right car

00:19:25

because if you just didn't have the right ride,

00:19:27

then people would look at you a different way.

00:19:29

I didn't realize the hole that it was creating for me,

00:19:32

but over time, you know, I was spending

00:19:34

a little more money that I didn't have

00:19:36

and a little more money that I didn't have.

00:19:38

And it just snowballed into this thing

00:19:41

where after a very short period of time, I looked up

00:19:44

and I had over $30,000 of credit card debt.

00:19:48

It's scary because you get so far in, you just feel like

00:19:51

there's never going to be a way out of this.

00:19:53

My life just wasn't working and there were many nights

00:19:57

where I stayed up the entire night. I couldn't sleep.

00:20:00

It would just crush me.

00:20:01

It was one of the most stressful times in my life.

00:20:04

In some ways I think I looked at it and said,

00:20:07

"Well, I'm so far gone, I'm so far out that,

00:20:11

well, what's a little more?

00:20:13

What's another credit card that was maxed out?

00:20:15

You know, I'm already in this

00:20:17

and I don't know how I'm going to get out of it."

00:20:19

I think there was a point where

00:20:22

trying to look at it rationally just went away.

00:20:25

The big turning point for me started when my church

00:20:30

had a challenge to think differently about money.

00:20:33

And it was a campaign that was going on.

00:20:36

And we talked about if our church could give

00:20:38

above and beyond what we regularly give,

00:20:40

here are all these things that we could go after.

00:20:42

Here's some amazing things

00:20:43

that we could see change in the world.

00:20:46

And those were all things that I wanted to have happen.

00:20:48

And it forced me to stop and think

00:20:51

what if I participated in this?

00:20:54

And it was really then easy to see

00:20:59

how much power money had over me.

00:21:01

It was exactly in that moment that I felt

00:21:03

like God was giving me an opportunity

00:21:05

to get to a new place in trusting God.

00:21:07

And in fact, one of the things I realized

00:21:09

is that not trusting God was a lot of

00:21:12

why I was in this mess in the first place,

00:21:14

that God really wasn't a part

00:21:16

of any of my decision making process.

00:21:19

And I wanted something different.

00:21:22

It was the first time that I could actually say,

00:21:25

"God, I want to trust you even more

00:21:28

than I want to look successful,

00:21:30

even more than I want to feel successful,

00:21:32

even more than the money coming in.

00:21:34

I just want to do something to take a step and trust You."

00:21:37

When I was taking that first step,

00:21:39

it made absolutely no sense.

00:21:41

You know, the idea that I'm in tens of thousands

00:21:44

of dollars of credit card debt,

00:21:47

I'm barely making minimum payments

00:21:49

on multiple credit cards,

00:21:51

and then I'm supposed to trust God

00:21:52

and give some of the money that's coming in away,

00:21:55

that felt like it didn't make any rational sense,

00:21:58

but rarely does following God make rational sense.

00:22:03

And that was also the time that I met the person

00:22:06

that I would later get married to.

00:22:07

You know, everybody brings in their baggage

00:22:10

and garbage when you get married.

00:22:12

It's really tough, though, to say, "I'm the party

00:22:14

that's bringing in tens of thousands of dollars of debt."

00:22:18

That's a bummer and you want to talk about

00:22:19

feeling unworthy to a spouse.

00:22:22

And there was a lot of shame.

00:22:25

I'm really grateful

00:22:26

that she just chose to walk with me in it.

00:22:29

That's a beautiful thing when you're not alone,

00:22:31

when you feel like you have help.

00:22:32

I just knew that I had support in that process

00:22:35

and that was a really big deal.

00:22:36

I wish my story was one where suddenly

00:22:39

all my debt just disappeared

00:22:41

and everything got really easy from the beginning.

00:22:44

But it was really more of this slow build

00:22:48

of just trusting God with a little bit more

00:22:50

and a little bit more.

00:22:52

The more that I slowly trusted God,

00:22:56

the more freedom I felt, the more hope that I felt.

00:23:00

And I got to see money start to not have a power over me.

00:23:06

One of the things I'm really grateful for is that

00:23:09

I get to invest in so many things that actually last now.

00:23:13

Previously I was buying clothes that I would wear one time

00:23:17

and then I'd get rid of them

00:23:18

and I'd invest in a car or a phone

00:23:21

that would have this short, useful lifetime.

00:23:23

And then the new thing would come out and I would want it.

00:23:25

And I just knew that was a losing game.

00:23:27

But now I get to invest in things like

00:23:31

friends that are doing amazing work around the world,

00:23:34

or I get to invest in local ministries

00:23:37

that have an impact.

00:23:38

And what I'm really proud of is those are all things

00:23:41

that I can point to and say,

00:23:44

"Those things are probably going to last beyond me."

00:23:46

And they're things that,

00:23:47

not only can I be really proud of, but I love

00:23:49

that I get to show my family and my kids

00:23:51

and other people around

00:23:52

that I got to be a part of that.

00:23:54

I got to be a part of God

00:23:55

doing something really special there.

00:23:57

Now I'm regularly thinking about

00:24:00

how can I use this to honor God?

00:24:03

How can I use this to have an impact?

00:24:06

How can I have fun with money?

00:24:08

How can I use that to actually create enjoyment?

00:24:11

Because I have margin for the first time in my life.

00:24:15

And that was a total changing point,

00:24:17

was to start to think about money in a different way.

00:24:21

That scripture that says, "Test Me,"

00:24:24

God says, "Test Me and see."

00:24:25

I'd tell myself at 20years, "Test God."

00:24:29

I think that I would have avoided a lot of pain

00:24:33

and I would have experienced

00:24:34

a lot more financial freedom sooner

00:24:37

if I just would have tested God early on.

00:24:40

The great thing is God didn't give up on me

00:24:44

and God gave me grace and I'm experiencing

00:24:48

that financial freedom a lot later than I hoped I would,

00:24:52

but I'm still doing it now and I'm grateful for that.

00:25:00

– We've covered a lot of ground today.

00:25:02

And you might be asking yourself, "What do I do next?"

00:25:06

One of the best things you can do when wrestling

00:25:08

with a new idea or a new challenge

00:25:11

is to take it before God.

00:25:13

We're going to do that right now.

00:25:16

My friends, Robbie and Amy

00:25:17

are going to help us process what we've just heard.

00:27:19

– Let's silence the noise, the to do list,

00:27:22

the wave of work, expectations, pressures,

00:27:25

all the things that are waiting for us

00:27:27

on the other side of this video.

00:27:30

I want you to do something right now.

00:27:32

Empty your pockets of all of their contents:

00:27:36

your keys, your wallet, your money.

00:27:39

Everything that feels like a burden or a debt

00:27:42

or responsibility and for a few moments

00:27:46

I want you to imagine giving all of that,

00:27:49

all of your responsibility to Jesus

00:27:52

and join me in this prayer.

00:27:54

God, look at all the stuff we're carrying.

00:27:57

Will You take this burden from us?

00:28:00

Will You clear our racing minds?

00:29:51

– We believe this to be true,

00:29:53

that when Jesus shows up, He makes things right.

00:29:57

We see again and again in the Bible

00:30:00

that He never shows up empty handed.

00:30:03

What is it that you would ask Him for?

00:30:06

What is it that you hope He's bringing your way?

00:30:09

Tell that to Him right now.

00:30:12

You can simply say: Jesus, I invite you to show up

00:30:16

in this area of my life.

00:30:19

We'll give you some time to do that right now.

00:32:21

– In the book, 1 Samuel, it says:

00:32:23

God wants our obedience

00:32:25

more than the gifts or sacrifice we can make.

00:32:28

Is there a way He's asking you to move now?

00:32:32

Is He asking for control or obedience from you.

00:32:36

Take some time to sit and listen

00:32:38

for what God might be asking from you,

00:32:41

then simply say yes to Jesus.

00:35:01

– Interested by what you heard today?

00:35:03

Well, a great next step for you

00:35:04

is to download the Freed Up app.

00:35:06

It's a personalized experience designed to guide you

00:35:09

to a new place of financial freedom.

00:35:10

Now normally it cost $100.

00:35:13

But from now until the end of May, the Freed Up app

00:35:16

is available to the Crossroads community,

00:35:18

that's you, for free.

00:35:21

Just head to Crossroads.net/freedup

00:35:23

to download it. We'll see you next week.

	Should I Ask These Question? 🙋‍♀️	0:52
	3 Big Ideas	7:43
	Money Weighing Us Down	10:04
	Your Money Matters To God	12:09
	When Jesus Is Near	19:01

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