Breaking the Spirit of Mammon | The Blessed Life Week 4

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- Money. Is money the root of all evil?

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Money also some would call mammon.

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Today, we're going to talk about this epic battle

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of mammon versus God.

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We're doing a series called The Blessed Life.

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We did this series several years ago,

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and it's one of the most powerful series

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that we've ever done.

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And you're going to hear some stories

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from people who went through it before.

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So powerful that we're going to do it again.

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Now, I've got to tell you,

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that that kind of hurts my pride because

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we haven't really repeated very much at all

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at Crossroads the last 26 years.

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The first time we're going to repeat something

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came from somebody else.

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We borrowed this content

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from Gateway Church in Dallas, Texas.

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I had pastor after pastor, person after person

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say, "Oh my goodness, this material is,

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sounds like a really religious cheesy word,

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but it's true, is anointed."

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There's something special about it.

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And we found that's exactly what happened

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when we did that before.

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Churches have gone through this,

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they've gone through it multiple times.

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It's the first series, well, second series

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in 26 years we're going to actually repeat.

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And it's not even one that we came up with

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or I came up with.

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Man, why aren't the best things, things that I invent on my own?

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Well, you know how we're going to do it.\?

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It's because we want to bring

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the blessing of God into our lives.

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Now, listen, this is not a campaign.

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There's no commitment coming at the end

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where you're going to sign anything.

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There's no big ask of you

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to whatever, whatever, whatever.

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This is not a campaign.

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We are going to challenge you

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because Jesus challenges us.

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But we just want you to listen, consider,

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and ultimately be blessed. That's the Blessed Life.

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Woo! It's getting hot in here.

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So hot.

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If only I had enough money to buy me a fan.

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Oh. Mmm, smells so good. Oh.

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You know, the Bible talks about money a lot.

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And actually, a word that Jesus uses is the word mammon.

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Some translations say money. Some say wealth.

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But the original word He used was mammon.

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He could have used the word wealth

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or could have used the word money,

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but he actually used the word mammon.

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Let me read you one of those verses.

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It come from the Book of Luke, chapter 16.

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We're going to look today at a little chunk,

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and here's what He tells us, He says:

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I don't think it's unrighteous wealth that would tell us

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that all wealth is either unrighteous.

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It would also make us very, very paranoid,

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if someone has wealth,

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they must be an unrighteous person.

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He could have used different words for wealth and money.

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He actually used the word mammon.

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It's sometimes sort of translations

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try to make it easy for us

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because who knows what Mammon is?

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I'm going to tell you what Mammon is today.

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But tell me, understand,

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I don't think wealthy people should be demonized.

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I don't think people have a lot of money

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should be demonized.

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Recently, I was, a couple of months ago

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I was in Germany doing a tour.

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And on that trip were a bunch of people who had money,

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had a lot, a lot of money.

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And that's when the hurricanes hit South Carolina

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and hit Florida.

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And people were stressing out and texting home,

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like, "What's the state of my condo or my house?"

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They're all worrying about it.

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And I said, "I want to have a second house

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so I can be stressed about in the midst of a hurricane.

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I want to have a second house

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that I don't actually need to live in,

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that I can talk about

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whether or not it's going to be wiped out."

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And I was poking fun at them.

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I had gotten to know them after about 4 or 5 days

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so I could do that.

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I wouldn't do that on day one.

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But they got the point like,

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"Hey, this really isn't an awful, awful thing."

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Why would we get so stressed

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about all of the bills we have?

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And is my accounts too small?

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Why? Why do we have these inventions of the abacus?

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I don't even know how to use these things.

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I've just always known this is very fun.

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How about -- this is the new abacus.

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I get a calculator.

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Here's me, I'm going five plus three equals nine.

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No, eight actually.

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I'm like this.

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But some of us, your CPAs, your accountants,

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you're like --

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Like the thumb.

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I want to get that thumb thing.

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Like, you guys had this massive callus.

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Right there.

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Money can be fun, but to be very, very clear,

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it is and has on it a spiritual force.

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That's why Jesus uses the word Mammon. Mammon.

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There is a spiritual force on your money.

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It's either the spiritual force of this deity,

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this false entity called Mammon,

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or it's the spiritual force of God.

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Mammon, mam means babble.

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Babble we know is confusion, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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Babylon was an ancient, ancient civilization.

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When you have the on, mam and mammon, it means a system.

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So Mammon is a system of confusion.

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The reason why many of us don't want to talk about

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The Blessed Life, don't want to talk about money

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is because we're confused.

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It's a system of confusion

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that is upon us and is darkening us.

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I don't understand an abacus

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and we don't understand how to make money work.

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Or if we do, it becomes our God.

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Look at first Timothy 6:10, it says:

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The love of money is the root of all evil.

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The love of money, not money, not having wealth,

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but the love of money is the root of all evil.

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When we love money, or we love things that money buys,

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or we hate people who have money

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and despise the things that they may have,

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it may actually show us that the spirit of Mammon

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is on our money and on our minds,

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the spirit that actually confuses us.

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I like money.

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I like money because I get to buy things like DeWalt tools.

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There's no such thing as a tool

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that I don't want to own someday.

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And there's a few out there.

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I've got a lot of money in tools.

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I can justify it because I do all my handyman work

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at my house,

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all the construction I've ever done on my house.

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I do it all, so I can justify that

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I'm not paying somebody to this.

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But also at the end of the day, I just like tools.

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You know what? That's okay.

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It's okay to have money

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and use money the way you want to use money

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if money isn't using you,

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if the spirit of Mammon isn't over top of you.

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- Okay. So we're learning a new word today, Mammon.

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Can't say I use that very often. Do you?

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No, and I would say,

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don't look it up on Urban Dictionary.

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- Yeah, that's a bad idea.

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- Not going to be helpful to you.

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Hey, we say this around here a lot,

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like, we're community, not content.

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And we really mean that.

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Like, this stuff doesn't exist

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just so you have more stuff to watch.

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We do it because we think it will help you grow,

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help you connect to God and connect to people.

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We have communities all over the country and online

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of people who are looking to grow and grow together.

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So, if there's any way I can be of help to that,

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I would say I want to help get you connected

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both to God and to people.

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Send me an email, andy.reider@crossroads.net.

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That's my personal email.

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I will get back to you and help figure out

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how to get you connected to Crossroads.

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- And if anything in you was like, "Oh, man,

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I should do that."

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Do it right now while you watch this story.

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- My relationship with money growing up

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is that we didn't have it.

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So, when I got it, I needed to, like, use it.

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I would buy the video game I want

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or I'd buy the clothes I want,

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or I'd buy the toy or whatever it was at the time.

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I became very quickly, like, an impulsive spender.

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You know, I think about money

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and kind of like the stronghold that it can have

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in relationship to, like, wealth and having money

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and wanting to hold on to money

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and that kind of being the thing that sustains you

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more than anything.

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And I think, you know, there have been times

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where especially around saving,

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I never really witnessed saving,

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like, I didn't know what that looked like.

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And so as I got into adulthood and I learned like,

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"Oh, I should probably save an amount of money

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and stuff, like, especially through the pandemic,

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I was able to save a decent amount pretty quickly.

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During that time,

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the amount of money that I had saved up through COVID

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and stuff like that was basically to buy a house.

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Then I had a friend of mine who was --

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found himself out of a job and didn't really know,

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like, how he was going to pay for stuff.

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And he was on the edge of, like, being evicted.

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And when I talked to him, I was like,

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"How much do you need?"

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And the amount, he said, was, like,

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almost down to the exact amount that I had.

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And it was directly kind of in line with

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what I felt like God was pushing on me at the time

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and challenging me in.

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And so I gave him that money.

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And so what God was working on in me at the time

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was that my purpose wasn't necessarily wrapped up

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in the plan that I had or the places I wanted to go.

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And so any amount of money that I could save

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doesn't actually hold a candle

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to what He has in store for me.

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And so, if anything, giving it would expose

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more of where my heart is if I wanted to give it

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or if I didn't.

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And if I didn't, that would show a lot more

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about the hold that money had on me

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that was present in my life

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and the circumstances that I had at the time.

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The heart change for me really has just come emotionally

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and I feel like, I feel like more than anything,

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as I give more, whether that's money, time, energy,

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especially to missions and things I feel called to,

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I get more and more contact with people

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having a heart change of their own.

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I do feel joy. I feel peace.

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It brings me transformation

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and a reminder of kind of what God's doing

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and that I want to be a part of that.

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- Let's keep looking in the Book of Luke

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and see what else Jesus says about this.

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Now, as we've looked in this series, we've seen

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that Jesus affirms the tithe.

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He's speaking to a Jewish audience

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who all understand the tithe is very, very core

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to the Bible's meaning and message.

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Now, who doesn't like this message?

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People who don't want to release 10% of their money.

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That's who doesn't like it.

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It's always people who are under the spirit

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and influence of Mammon that have a hard time

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with this idea of returning to God what is His own.

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This what Jesus is referring to here.

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That first 10%, that first tithe,

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that first 10%, that's God's.

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He wants it returned to Him because it is His.

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And so when we spend 100% of what we make,

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we are actually stealing from God because that is God's.

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And so what Jesus is saying is here

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the way that you know the spirit of Mammon

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is on your money and on your mind is if you can release

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and return what isn't yours to begin with.

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Because what money does is when we release it,

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when we tithe it, we break a curse of Mammon that is on it.

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While I was over in Germany,

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I was really wrestling with all of the atrocities

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of Nazism.

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We visited Auschwitz, which was Nazi death camp

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where 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, were eliminated.

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Buchenwald, a work camp where awful things took place.

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And I saw and wrestled with in that culture

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how a tide had just swept through an entire culture

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for about a decade and caused everybody to be wrong.

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I was actually there to study up on

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the life of Martin Luther primarily,

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but the Nazi regime just had me gripped

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and negatively mesmerized.

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And you can't go to a place like Auschwitz,

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which is actually in Poland,

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and not ask yourself the question:

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If I was alive in 1937, what would I have done?

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See, we can all right now say, "Oh, ho, ho.

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If I was alive, I would have never --

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I would have never stood for that.

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I would have gone to death with it.

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I would have done that."

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I'm not so sure.

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I'd like to think that, but I have to remember

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that right now I have appropriately done enough work

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and study and reflection to understand

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that racism in all forms is bad,

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and it's very insidious.

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I'm a 21st century person who has been educated

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and has met a lot of different people

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and God's worked on my heart.

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And it's actually a cultural value,

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positive cultural value that we have here in America.

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I can't just transport 2022, 57 year old Brian Tome,

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stick him there and and then have him behave.

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I'd have to take my DNA, who I am now

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extracted from America and put there.

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And would I stand up to it or not?

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I see college age white males down south

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pulling down statues of civil war generals.

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They're making a statement, like, this is awful for history.

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And I look at that and go, "Who are you kidding?

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If you were a college male during the Civil War,

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you would have served under Robert E. Lee.

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You would have, not because you're white necessarily,

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but because you're right now going along with the masses.

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That's what the masses are all saying you should do

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in your in your class.

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Well, and back then, you would have gone along

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with the masses and said let's go against the north

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and the war of Northern Aggression."

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And so same with us.

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We look back and we say, "If I was there in Germany,

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would I have done?"

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And here's what I've come up with,

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the only way that you know

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that you have stood on the side of God,

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the side of righteousness is if right now,

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right now you are taking faithful steps

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to be faithfully subversive,

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faithful acts of subversion.

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If right now you're standing against the majority,

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if right now you're doing something

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that puts you in harm.

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If right now you're entering into a practice

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that makes you less well off.

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That's what tithing does. That's tithing.

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Now, I know it's called A Blessed Life,

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and I do believe there's unique financial blessings

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that have come my way because I'm trying to honor God.

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I believe that.

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I'm not backing out on that at all, at all.

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But understand every time I choose

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to return to God what's His and I take a look a

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t the amount of money that goes out of my account

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to go towards the local church that I'm part of

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and the Kingdom of God, I recognize I'm doing that

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because it's an act of faithful subversion.

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And if you can't return to God what's His to begin with,

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10%, and you think you'd have stood against the Nazis?

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Oh, come on.

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You can't live on 90% of your income.

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You choose not to.

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You choose not to live with 90% of your income.

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You wouldn't have chosen to given up your life.

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You can't change it alter your life right now for that.

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You wouldn't have done that for that either.

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Because it's a matter of who you're ultimately serving,

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our own self or own comforts, the spirit of Mammon on us,

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or God and what He wants to comfort others with.

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This is what Jesus is getting to.

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He's going to be what -- which do you want to be about?

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Let's keep going and see what He says, verse 13 he said:

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You can't serve God money.

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Being wealthy is great.

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There's people who are very, very close to God

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and the Kingdom of God

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and God is cheering on their choices,

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who have multiple houses.

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They're doing some other things that God knows about

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and their heart knows about.

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It's not about not having wealth.

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It's not about having not having multiple houses.

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It's about the prioritizing.

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If you want to have The Blessed Life,

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prioritizing, return to God what is God's,

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and maybe going beyond that.

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I'd love to have a second house someday.

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It's be wonderful.

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I can't have it right now because I know

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the things that God's asking me to give means I can't.

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I could easily, easily afford another mortgage

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and a prime piece of property, easily.

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A couple of them, actually, if I wasn't making

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the giving choices that I'm making now.

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And I also wouldn't be as fulfilled

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and as close with God if I had more properties

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that was putting money into and managing

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as it is knowing

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that I'm actually getting people to heaven.

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That's what she mentioned earlier,

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I'm actually getting people to heaven with my giving.

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There are going to be people in heaven

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who are only there because of my giving

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who they're going to be thankful for me,

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and there's going to be unique rewards waiting for me.

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This is clearly talked about

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again and again in the Bible.

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And we don't see this, we don't want to focus on this

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because we would rather have just these things.

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And that's because the spirit of Mammon

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is falling upon us.

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Jesus says you can't serve both God and money.

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How do you know -- or money --

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How do you know -- or Mammon.

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How do you know if you're serving Mammon?

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If you can't release it.

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It's a test. Who do you serve: God or money?

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If you're not releasing it and returning it to God,

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then you serve Mammon and not God.

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That's why I look at who on staff is tithing and who isn't.

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I look at the records and I know,

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there's somebody who's not faithful.

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We have conversations, I know them.

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When my daughters were dating,

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we would have young men come over.

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I had different ways to send them a message.

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Some guys I put one of my guns out on the counter.

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So, they come into the house and just see a gun there.

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You know, they went away.

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And I would also just want to talk with them.

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One guy I would take -- took actually --

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He's actually running camera right now.

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He's actually my son-in-law right now.

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I actually took him out to --

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took him out for a milkshake when he thought

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he was going to take my daughter out on a date.

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I said, "No, no, no, you're going to take me out."

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And I actually sat him down

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and I try to understand what his heart is.

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What I should have done, because I know better now

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I actually should have understood

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what they do with their money,

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because if they're not faithful with God in their money,

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why do I think they'll be faithful with my daughter?

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See, it matters. It makes a difference.

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You can't release something that owns you.

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The reason why I were crushed when our boyfriend

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or girlfriend leaves us

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is because we thought we owned them.

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No, no, we actually don't love them.

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They're a possession for us, so it was making ourselves

00:19:56

feel better and more comfortable.

00:19:57

When money is a possession for us,

00:19:59

it makes us feel better, more comfortable ourselves.

00:20:01

We can't -- We can't release it.

00:20:03

We can't give it away.

00:20:05

You don't love your girlfriend when she tells you

00:20:08

she wants to break up with you and crushes you.

00:20:10

Because if you loved her,

00:20:12

you'd want what's best for her.

00:20:13

And if she says the best for her

00:20:15

is you not to be in her life,

00:20:16

then you should be able to get okay with that eventually.

00:20:20

But we don't because we're serving the idea

00:20:23

that you are mine.

00:20:25

Just like when we have money and can turn to Mammon

00:20:28

because the system of disorganization

00:20:31

disorganizing our mind making us

00:20:34

want it more than we want God.

00:20:40

You can have money, you can have God.

00:20:42

We've got to return to Him what is His

00:20:44

and tell Him that you're faithful

00:20:46

by the subversive act of faithfulness known as tithing,

00:20:51

then maybe going beyond.

00:20:53

That's all I've got for you.

00:20:54

Let's pray. God, I'm thankful for Your goodness,

00:20:56

Your patience with people like me. Help us.

00:21:01

Help us to see the truth that You've given us. Amen.

00:21:06

- Another great message in this series.

00:21:08

Good Job by Brian. Incredible.

00:21:10

- Yes.

00:21:11

Hey, we talk about being community, not content.

00:21:14

Did you know that Crossroads

00:21:15

actually has 28 regional leaders,

00:21:18

28 people all over the country?

00:21:21

So, no matter where you live,

00:21:22

you've got somebody close to you.

00:21:25

We'd love to help you connect with them.

00:21:27

Again, just to make it simple,

00:21:28

you can email me directly andy.reider@crossroads.net.

00:21:31

I want to help get you connected to people in your region.

00:21:36

- Well, we want to help you in any way we can.

00:21:38

If this series is hitting you,

00:21:39

if you want to take a step towards tithing,

00:21:41

we've made a simple way for you to engage in that too.

00:21:43

Take some of the some of the angst out of it, maybe.

00:21:45

It's called the 90 Day Tithe Test.

00:21:47

Super simple, works like this.

00:21:49

You try tithing for 90 days

00:21:51

and if at the end of the 90 days you're like, "Meh,"

00:21:53

we'll give you all your money back.

00:21:54

Just that easy, no questions asked.

00:21:56

Sign up at crossroads.net/tithetest.

00:21:58

- That's right.

00:21:59

Hey, next week, we're going to be continuing

00:22:01

with The Blessed Life, but this is a special one

00:22:04

because actually Kyle will be teaching

00:22:05

and you just got back from the other side of the world.

00:22:08

- Yes, yes. I got to go to Israel

00:22:10

and learn specifically for this message.

00:22:13

And there's some things I found there

00:22:15

that I'm pumped to uncover.

00:22:16

I'll just small thing.

00:22:19

I learned something that's fundamentally changed

00:22:21

the way I view how Jesus ministry happened

00:22:23

that changes how I think about generosity going forward.

00:22:26

So anyway, watch next week and you'll hear all about it.

00:22:29

- See you next week.

00:22:36

- Would you like to be rewarded by God

00:22:38

and have Him multiply the impact of your life?

00:22:41

I know I would.

00:22:42

- Yeah, me too. - Same.

00:22:44

- Okay, cool.

00:22:45

Well, it comes down to the answer to the question:

00:22:47

Am I generous?

00:22:51

- Hey, make sure you hit the playlist button ahead

00:22:54

so that you can keep up to date on videos just for you.

00:22:57

And don't forget to hit the subscribe button below

00:23:00

to keep up to date on all the latest content

00:23:02

coming your way from Crossroads.

00:23:09

- This is only the beginning.

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