There's a tendency when you're reading the Bible to put
yourself in the role of the hero.
For instance, when you're reading the story of David and
Goliath, you might be tempted to think that you too, if you were
standing along the line the battle lines as the Israelites
squared off against the Philistines, that when the giant
of Gath, Goliath came forward and issued a challenge, that you
too would go I can kill this giant.
Or when you're reading about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
and how the Babylonian king had put up a giant statue 90 feet
tall in the plains, An issue that when the music is played,
that everybody is to bow down and worship this false God.
That when the music played and everybody else bowed, that you
too, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, would go, Nope, not
today. It's human nature.
It's what we do when we watch movies.
We put ourselves in the role of the main character and we allow
ourselves to go on the journey with them through all of the
emotional ups and downs. The problem is, is that when it
comes to Scripture, we're very selective about what role we
want to play because when the person in the story does
something that we don't agree with, we distance ourselves.
Quick Devo, when you are reading the Bible, which I think you
should do, when you're reading the Bible, you are not the hero.
The hero is a God who loves us, Jesus who saves us, and the Holy
Spirit who guides us and empowers us to live the life
that he has called and created us to live.
The different people that show up in Scripture for all of their
highlight reels and for all of their mistakes are there to show
us that God can use and redeem messed up people just like us.
I want to welcome all of our different locations.
Those of you watching online and inside, we're so glad that we
get to be with you. And I have a quick announcement
I want to make in the spirit of our core values, and I'm just
going to list a couple of them. One of our core values is
outward. We will do whatever it takes to
reach people who are far from Jesus.
Another one of our core values is relevant.
We will do fresh things in fresh ways to reach people nobody else
is reaching and then innovate. We will take big faith filled
risks and never insult God with small thinking and safe living
in the spirit of these core values.
On the weekend of July 10th and 13th, whether that's a Thursday
or Sunday depending on when you attend at your location, we are
going to start a four week sermon series called At the
Movies. And this sermon series is
specifically designed to give you a great reason to invite the
people in your life that are close to you but far from God.
Because of the nature of the series, pay attention online
audience, We will not be broadcasting the sermon online.
So unless you are at one of our physical locations all across
this region, you will not get to experience this series.
And you're So if you can make it to one of our locations, we
would love to have you. Now, if you're watching from all
over the place and you can't get to one of our physical
locations, we will still have services for you online, but
it'll just be the most watched sermons of the last year, 4 of
them. So if you're like, I didn't like
the sermon the first time you preached it, it'll just be rough
for four weeks. OK, now for the next three weeks
we're going to be in a sermon series called 3 Lies and a Bunch
of Gospel Truth. The Bible calls Satan a liar.
In fact, more than that, Jesus says that Satan is the father of
all lies. Let me set the stage.
Jesus, when he was carrying out his earthly ministry,
experienced extreme opposition and his primary opposition was
from people who claimed to be followers of God but weren't
from people who claimed to be, if I were to put it in modern
day language, Christians but weren't.
Their claim was that they were children of God.
But Jesus had this to say to this group of people.
John chapter 8. Jesus said to them, If God were
your father, you would love me, for I have come here from God.
I have not come on my own. God sent me.
Why is my language not clear to you?
Why is what I'm saying not make sense to you?
Because you are unable to hear what I say.
Why can't the people hear what Jesus has to say?
He tells them because you belong to your Father, the devil, and
you want to carry out your Father's desires.
He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the
truth, for there is no truth in him.
When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a
liar and the father of lies. Yep, because I tell the truth.
You do not believe me. Can any of you prove me guilty
of sin? If I am telling the truth, why
don't you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears
what God says. The reason you do not hear is
that you do not belong to God. Satan takes no days off trying
to get you to believe a lie. This has been his ambition from
the very beginning. The lies are to get people to
doubt the truth of God, what He's done through.
They are for them through the work and sacrifice of Jesus.
He lies to keep us from doing the very things that Jesus
expects of His followers. They're really, really big lies.
You guys know these lies. Lies about whether or not God
actually loves you. Lies about whether or not God
can forgive you. You 2 have probably sat across
the table from people who believe those lies that because
of what they've done, there's no way that God could ever love
them. Because of what they've been
through, there's no way that God actually loves them.
And there's people who are going, yeah, but I mean, you
have to look at the cross because when you look at the
cross, you realize that God loves everybody.
They're going, man, I've sinned too much.
I've made too many mistakes. There's no way that I could be
forgiven. But there is no sin so great
that it outpaces the grace of God and the blood of Jesus.
But then there are some subtle lies with big implications.
Lies like you're saved, Satan whispers.
Lies like you're a Jesus follower, when in reality we're
just following our own selfish desires.
Satan lies when you're reading something in the Bible and you
don't like it and you go, well, this verse is for other people.
This verse isn't for me. And so we distance ourselves.
This verse is not for you, it's for somebody else.
Let me show you Luke chapter 18. A certain ruler asked him, him
as Jesus good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
Why do you call me good? Jesus answered.
No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments.
This is still Jesus talking. You shall not commit adultery,
you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give
false testimony, honor your father and mother.
All these I have kept since I was a boy, he said.
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, You still lack one
thing, sell everything you have and give to the poor and you
will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.
When he heard this, this is the ruler, he became very sad
because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said how
hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God.
Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of
God. And when you saw the word rich,
did you think of you or did you go?
Boy, I'm glad so and so's here. I hope they're listening.
It's nice to have a weekend off. Where did you go?
Yeah, this one's actually for me.
I know that today I'm speaking to a wide range of people, but
for the most part, with a few exceptions, I'm speaking to a
group of rich people locally, globally and historically.
Let's start locally. Locally the average household
income in our region across all of our different locations spans
between 42,000 and $56,000 a year.
So if your household earns between 42 and $55,000 a year,
you are average and some of your like that's us.
We've been average our whole lives.
I've never seen a be on my report card this I just kind of
hang out in sea land. But there are others of you who
you are 2X the average household income, 3X4X5X.
Some of you are 10X and 20X. You'll be hard pressed to see
yourself as not rich if you are a factor larger than the average
household income in our region. Some of you are going, but hey,
that's where we are. OK, well, I haven't got
everybody yet, so let's go globally.
There's so much to be said here. Presently, the top 1% of income
earners in the world manage 47% of the entire global wealth.
The bottom 53% of income earners steward a mere 2% of the entire
global wealth. And this is where a lot of us
want to point fingers at the professional athletes, the tech
CE OS from Silicon Valley, the Wall Street bankers.
Those are the rich people after all.
But to be in the top 1% of global income earners, you don't
have to earn $1,000,000 a year, you don't have to earn $100,000
a year. You don't even have to make
$50,000 a year if you are in the top 32 or if you are in the If
you make $32,000 a year, you are in the top 1% of income earners.
The chances of me talking to 1 percenters today is really,
really high. When I preached this on
Thursday, the only people that were still smiling at this point
in the message were the high schoolers.
They were like man, mom and dad, you should listen to this one.
We had to go through the social media one, but this sermons for
you. Well, let me get everybody.
Historically, we are the richest society ever.
How many of us have more than one vehicle for our family?
Recently, we were sitting around the table at my house and one of
my sons was talking about the car he was going to get from us
when he turned 16, as if this was just a done deal.
And he goes, when you guys give me that car, I'm going to sell
it and I'm going to get something different.
I mean, it's just. And my wife goes no.
And he goes, yeah. I mean, once you give it to me,
it'll be mine. And my wife's like, no.
Even when you get to drive it, it still belongs to us.
But the fact that that goes through the minds of my kids.
You've been there. But we're just expecting.
All right, I'm 16 now. We need another vehicle.
How many of us are? Driveways are more like parking
lots. Many of us, we have houses for
our cars. We just don't call them our car
house. We call it a garage.
And many of us, we can't actually park in our car house
because we got so much junk that doesn't fit in the real house
that we put it in the car house and we put the junk under roof
and the stuff that depreciates faster than lightning out to get
baked in the sun. And then some of us, we still
have too much stuff. And so we go and we get
ourselves one of those storage units to keep our other stuff
that we're never going to use. We have stuff.
Why? Because we're rich.
Many of you today, you had a hard time getting ready and you
uttered these words. I have nothing to wear and you
walked into a closet. Some of you have a walk in
closet and you have to like move stuff aside to hang something
up. It's not it's not that you don't
have anything to wear. It's that you have so many
choices. You don't know what to wear.
It just takes too long to figure out what are we wearing today?
Can you imagine talking to somebody from 500 years ago,
1000 years ago, about life with us today?
Imagine having somebody from 1000 years ago over to your
house to hang out and it starts to get a little hot in the
house. And so you go, well, you know
what? It's a little warm in here.
Let me walk over here to this little magic box and turn it
down. Like, what are you doing?
I'm making it colder. That box controls the weather.
Yeah, we're sorcerers. Or you're to say, hey, let's
let's go to this place. It's about 100 miles and like,
Oh my goodness, we got a pack. It's going to be a multi day
trip. Like, Oh no, we're going to,
we're going to get there in under 2 hours.
How are you going to do that? We're going to take a car.
You have horses? Not not really.
We have horsepower. What's that?
Well, you you take a whole bunch of horses and you shrink them.
You feed them nothing but gas and oil.
You get in the car. You like?
You hungry? Yeah, I am a little hungry.
And they pull out their bow and arrow.
We got to go hunting. Oh, no, no, no, no.
We just go to this magic place. That's why it's got a big M on
it. You just roll up.
I know this is going to sound crazy.
You just roll your window down by pressing a button, and they
just magically hand the food out.
You have servants. Well, I didn't really think of
it that way, but yeah, kind of. They're called servers.
Can you imagine talking to them about life with us today?
Some of us, we have travel agents because the hassle of our
vacations is just too much for us.
So we want somebody else to navigate all the details.
And we're trying to explain that to them.
And they go, what's vacation? And we go, well, it's where we
don't work and still get paid. What?
Yeah, we have this thing where we can work and we we can work.
We cannot work so many days and they still give us money.
Person from a couple 100 years ago, we didn't have that one.
We had the you don't work today and you die.
That's kind of that was those were the worker conditions that
we had. Now imagine for just a second
you invited people from all over the world today and people from
all throughout history over to your house for a Bible study and
you were to read this passage of Scripture.
How obtuse do you have to be to not read that Scripture and
realize you're the rich person in the room?
How bad is it? How good is Satan at his job?
I just told you all that you're rich and none of you look happy
about it. Like I did not like today's
message. Why?
What did he say? He said we're rich.
Why? Why don't we look happy about
it? The sad truth today is that the
lie that we have been clinging to from Satan is that he keeps
telling us you're not rich and in reality you are.
Why does this matter? Well, because Jesus says it is
easier for a camel, the largest mammal in Jesus time in that
region, to go through the eye of a needle, the smallest opening
then for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Why is Jesus saying this? Now hear me, hear me, hear me.
Jesus does not have a problem with you being rich.
Turn your neighbor, say Jesus doesn't have a problem with you
being rich. OK, some of you guys like, OK,
all right, fine, Jesus has a problem with your riches having
you. First Timothy chapter 6 gives us
some insight into this command. Those who are rich, that's us in
this present world, not to be arrogant or to put their help in
wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God.
Who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be
generous and willing to share what happens when you do this.
In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a
firm foundation for the coming age so that they may take hold
of the life that is truly life. When you are rich, you have a
tendency to put your hope and your trust in you and your
stuff. You have a tendency to have a
hard time taking hold of everything that Jesus offers
because you have such a firm grip on everything that the
world offers. What's the solution?
The Bible tells us to do good, to be rich in good deeds, to be
generous, and the end result is that we lay up treasure in
heaven and then we are able to take hold of the life that is
truly life. You can't hold on to your riches
and hold on to Jesus. And you would think that since
Jesus says it, rich Christians would do it.
However, the sad truth today is that rich people are not
generous. Studies show that the wealthier
you become, the less generous you become.
Vanco did a study and they said this Only 5% of churchgoers
tithe. That means that only 5% of
people who claim to be Jesus followers are honoring Jesus
with their finances, being generous, laying up for
themselves. Treasure as a firm foundation in
the age to come that only 5% of people are truly taking hold of
the life that Jesus says is truly life.
Now remember, Satan is the father of lies.
And so he has convinced us that we are not rich when we really
are. And he has further convinced us
that we are generous and we're not.
Jesus gave a warning in John chapter 10 verse 10.
I use this verse a ton. The thief, this is Satan comes
only to steal and kill and destroy.
I that's Jesus have come that they may have life and have it
to the full. Satan is trying to steal, kill
and destroy, but Jesus wants you to have life and have it to the
full abundant life. He wants you to be able to take
hold of the life that is true life, but you can't hold on to
Jesus and hold on to your stuff. And that feeling that you have
in your gut right now is where war is taking place.
There is a part of you that wants to trust God and honor
God. And at the same time, Satan is
trying to tell you that there is no way you can honor God, no way
you should honor Jesus. There's no way you can obey God.
There's no way you should obey Jesus.
Jesus in his goodness, all throughout Scripture, even God
does this in the Old Testament, Jesus affirms us in the New
Testament, helps people start their generosity journey, and
they start their generosity journey with something called
the tithe. Tithe means 10%, your first 10%.
Now let me clear this up because there's a lot of people who say
this all kinds of bad. When it talks about tithing in
Scripture, it is not about tithing your time.
It's not about tithing your talents.
Tithing is about your treasure. It's about your increase.
It was always about giving back to God.
What is God's. Christians believe that
everything belongs to God. That's what it says in Psalm.
The Bible also tells us that it is God who gives us the ability
to produce wealth, that everything we have is from Him,
it all belongs to Him. And what God does as an act of
building our faith, strengthening our trust,
honoring Him, we are to give the 1st 10% of our increase back to
His Kingdom for its advancement. So let me kind of walk you
through what this would look like.
This would be like second grade math.
You guys will all do great. OK, so if you were a high
schooler and you mow yards, I don't have someone mow my yard,
but is what is that 2 yards, 3 yards, 4 yards.
I used to mow like 10 yards for 100 bucks, but whatever,
probably now it's like a front of a yard.
It's pulling 2 weeds. OK, If you made.
If you're a high schooler and you make 100 bucks, high
schoolers like, hey, leave us alone.
We were enjoying the weekend off.
A tithe would be how much smart people $10?
Yeah. Let's say you got a summer job
as a lifeguard. I don't know how much lifeguards
get paid. I would make a horrible.
I'm a buoy, that's what I am. And I wouldn't save people.
I'll be like, you got bad breath.
There's no mouth to mouth, but I'm going to pray for you.
Breathe, breathe. If you made $1000 being a
lifeguard, A tithe would be $100.
You guys are super smart. Let's say you started doing some
side hustle stuff and you kind of have some skills, talents and
abilities and you're under, you know, you, you had some space in
your life and you're like, you know what, I'm going to start
doing all kinds of little side projects and your side projects
brought you in $10,000. A tide would be $1000.
Let's say you're really starting to take some ground in your
profession and the people around you are realizing that your
replacement value is skyrocketing.
And so they give you that first six figure check and you're
like, come on baby, let's go. This feels great.
A tithe of $100,000 income would be yeah, let's say you're
killing it and you are. You got $1,000,000 let you know
this is, you know, your grandpa, your great grandpa, your
grandpa, they're all farmers. And you said, forget that I
ain't farming, I'm selling, OK. And you got you're going to sell
a piece of land for $1,000,000. A tithe off of that $1,000,000
would be whoa, that's a lot of money.
And let's say you invented something just wicked sweet and
everybody wanted it, and you were making $10 million.
A tithe would be 1,000,000 bucks.
It's the same math every single time.
So whether you make a little or you make a lot, every time you
experience an increase, you give back to God, honoring him,
recognizing him, acknowledging him, and participating with him
in the advancement of his King of the Kingdom.
Now let's go back to the story of the rich ruler.
Jesus asked him to give it all. Why is that?
Because when you come into a relationship with Jesus Christ,
what you are saying is everything I am and everything I
have belongs to you. My house is yours, my life is
yours, my marriage yours, my kids yours.
He asked the ruler to give him all of his wealth to the poor,
but he asks every person, you and me, to give a tithe off of
our increase to begin our generosity journey.
And we begin our generosity journey at the tithe.
Now watch what happens in this story, OK, Because this is going
to freak you out. After Jesus said this, after
Jesus said it is really hard. It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter the
Kingdom of heaven. There was this burning question
that the people around him started asking.
They were overhearing this conversation with a rich ruler
and guess what? They asked verse 26.
Those who heard this asked who then can be saved?
Did you catch that? The people watching the
conversation with Jesus and the rich person put themselves in
the position of rich people and said who then can be saved?
If it's hard for rich people to get into the Kingdom of heaven,
we're rich, how can we be saved? Jesus answered, You're going to
love this. Jesus is so good.
Verse 27 Jesus replied, what is impossible with man is possible
with God. How are people saved?
It's not by our abilities, it's not by what we bring to the
table. It's because of what God can do.
You and I saving ourselves is impossible, but nothing is
impossible with God. Salvation happens when you and
I, through faith, lay hold of what God did in His grace on our
behalf through the person and work and cross of Jesus Christ
and when He moved on our behalf, able to lay hold of that through
faith. Here's what I'm saying.
Pay attention. You can't give enough to be
saved. You can't serve enough to be
saved. You can't pray enough to be
saved. You can't read your Bible enough
to be saved. You can't invite enough people
to come to church with you to be saved.
You Can't Sing worship songs enough.
You Can't Sing worship songs loud enough.
You can't lift your hands high enough to be saved.
It is impossible for us to earn our salvation, but what is
impossible with us is possible with God.
God moved on our behalf. In a mighty act of mercy, God
took filthy sinners who owed an eternal debt, and he saved them,
purified them, redeemed them, repurposed them, and he took his
enemies. And through Jesus he made them
his sons and his daughters. What God is saying, what Jesus
is inviting you to recognize, is that if you can trust God with
your salvation, you can trust him with everything else.
Watch how the rest of the story plays out verses what is it
verse 28 and 30? Peter said to him, We have left
all we had to follow you truly, I tell you, Jesus said to them,
no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or
parents or children for the sake of the Kingdom of God will fail
to receive many times as much in this age and in the age to come
eternal life. Jesus saying, I know, I know, I
know what you have given up. I know what you have done
without. I know what you have left for
me. I know what you have lost for
me. I know what you have given for
me. I know.
And I will reward you. If you can trust me enough to be
your Savior, you can trust me enough to be your Lord.
And that's the question that rich people like you and me have
to figure out. Will you trust him with more
than just your salvation? Will you trust him with
everything else? We're moving to a time of
decision. Recently, I was talking to
somebody about the struggles of life.
And I don't have to tell you guys, this life is just hard.
There are challenges everywhere. Seems like just as soon as you
get one problem figured out, two more problems pop up.
You're like playing whack A mole with life.
And there are lies everywhere. Lies about God, lies about
ourselves, lies about the future.
Shame and guilt are just dripping off of us.
We're just in it. And I told him this, that there
is not a part of you that is unknown to God.
There is not a part of you that God doesn't know about, and
there is not a part of God that doesn't love every part of us.
And if you are here today and you've never started an
intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I want you to
hear this. 2nd Corinthians chapter 8, verse 9 has this to
say. For you know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, he became poor for
your sake, so that through his poverty you and I might become
rich. Here's what this looks like.
Jesus was wrapped in all of the perfection and all of the
holiness and all of the honor of heaven, and he took it off and
he came down and he wrapped himself in our sin and our
rebellion so that you and I could be wrapped in his riches.
He was treated like we deserved so that you and I could be
treated like he deserved. Though he was rich, he became
poor so that those of us who are poor might be able to be rich in
Him. He gave up everything so that
you and I could have everything we need in Him.
And to those of you who have never started an intimate
personal relationship, that verse can become true for you
today. And so just a few moments, the
people around you are going to stand and sing, and some of them
are going to come to the steps and pray about all kinds of
things that are going on in their life.
But I want to encourage you to walk right over here underneath
that screen next to the baptistry and talk to somebody.
If you're watching online, just say, hey, I would like to talk
to somebody and they'll take you into a private prayer chat where
you can kind of go through what you're going through without
everybody on the screen knowing what's going on.
And one of our team members would love to connect with you
and pray with you and talk with you.
But there is no reason today why you can't begin the right
relationship with Jesus Christ. That changes everything to the
rest of you in the room, to those of you who already have a
relationship with Jesus Christ. I just got a serious question.
What's holding you back from trusting him with everything?
Not just trusting him as your Savior, but trusting him as your
Lord, saying I'm trusting with the biggest thing in my life,
which is my salvation. God, I need your help to trust
you with every part of my day-to-day living.
Would you guys stand with me? Heavenly Father, you know what's
going on in every heart and every mind.
God, you know every fear, every doubt, every frustration.
God, you know the step that every person in here needs to
take. I don't, but God, I know that
there are many of us that are going, man, today could be the
day. They're tired of being shackled
by the same old stuff, feeling guilty about the same old stuff.
And Satan has been lying to us for so long that it's just
really hard for us to hear your truth.
But God, I pray that through your power, through your
strength, that we would be able to take a step that we never
thought possible, an experience of victory we never thought
would be ours. You know my pray.
Amen.