Trusting God Even When It’s Hard | The Good Life | Part 2

I wanna share with you my life story. And what I mean by that is, this is God's greatest work in my life. And I wanna shape the message by looking at one word from Jesus that I think we may have just missed what he really meant. And words can lose their meaning over time, right? Is this fair? Anybody else have a teenage son or daughter and they say a word and you're like, "What is that even?" That is not what that meant, right? When I was growing up, we used the word dope. Remember that? And old people would be like, "Where's the drugs?" We're like, "No, it's just like, it's just cool." My teenage daughters this last week, I said, "What are some words you guys using?" They said, "Well, when it comes to people's outfits, "we say drip or drippy." And I was like, "Does that mean they're falling off "their bodies?" They're like, "Dad, you're so old." It means, "Dripper, drippy" means, it's just a really nice outfit, right? And if you're old, don't try to use that word, right? Don't use that word. But this has been happening since the beginning of time. For example, the word terrific. Did you know originally, this came from a Latin word which meant to terrify. So if I said you look terrific, I might mean you scare me to death, right? How about if I said you look awful? You might be offended. Did you know up until the 17th century, the word awful was synonymous with awesome. It just meant to bring awe, like you'd open your Bibles to Matthew chapter six. One word that Jesus uses in this passage, we're gonna look at today, and the word is manan. Everybody on all of our campuses, and if you're online, you can type this in the chat, say the word manan, manan. Not manna, okay, manan. And to miss the true meaning of this word, I believe is to miss one of the greatest teachings of Jesus if you want to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus. Matthew chapter six, starting in verse 24, no one, no one, not one single person on earth can serve two masters. Anybody else ever worked in a company where you had two bosses at the same time? Anybody else been in a company where you had co-CEOs? This is sometimes tried sometimes. Before I went into the ministry, I actually worked at the Intel Corporation for many years, and Intel actually led the way on trying this. They called this two in a box. In other words, if you looked at an organizational chart with all the names on the chart, the top box is the top leader, and Intel thought maybe we should put two people on that box instead of one, 'cause two's better than one, right? And so they tried this, and I actually served in an organization where they tried this, and let me tell you what happened every single time you tried to put two leaders at the top. Two people called them the shots. It was an utter disaster, right? It was a disaster, and why? Because over time, maybe not the beginning, but over time, people choose. They choose to be devoted to one leader, and they end up despising the other one, or they really love one leader, and they don't like the other. So one of the leading leadership consulting companies called Bain Consulting came into it and told them they said, "This is stupid, get rid of it." And yet people still try it. Now, we didn't need a consulting organization because Jesus said this. You can't serve two masters, and then He said this, watch this. He said, "Either you'll hate the one and love the other, or you'll be devoted to one, watch this, and you'll despise the other." And then what Jesus says next, okay? 'Cause He's not talking about an organization. He's talking about our life. When it comes to the organizational chart of your life, you can only have one master, one. And anything you put above God will mean that you're actually gonna start not being devoted and not love God the way He wants. And so what Jesus says next is a bombshell statement because I want you to feel the weight of this today. This is the only place in all of scripture that Jesus says, "You can't serve me, God, and this." And you're like, "What is this?" He says it. You cannot serve both God and say it a lot again, "Mammon." Now, your Bible likely says the word money, but the actual word that Jesus would have used in the first century, because He spoke air-make was this air-make word, "Mammon." It was "Mammon." And the first question I think we have to ask today is what is "Mammon"? Well, it is an air-make term. And what's happened over time is, when you translate an original word to Greek in English, normally there's a very easy equivalent. But what happened with this word in air-make, there's not a Greek or English equivalent. So most Bible translators have simply used the word money and that's not a bad translation. I just want you to see today, it may be incomplete for what Jesus wanted to say. And let me put it this way. Is money, and I brought a crisp $10 bill today, is money good or evil? What is it? It's actually neither. Money is 100% neutral. You can use money for the greatest of good in God's kingdom or you can use it for something very evil. It can be destructive in your life. And some of you are pushing back, going, "No, no, the Bible says that money is the root of all evil." No, no, no, you know that is not what that verse says. I mean, just read it for you. First Timothy chapter 6, verse 10, "For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." It's not all evil, and it's the love of money. So you think, "Well, is that what Jesus meant?" When he said, "Mammon?" Well, he could have used this word that was very common in the Greco-Roman world of Jesus. He could have used the word love of money. He didn't. He could have used a generic word called money that he didn't use. He used the word "Mammon." So what does it mean? Here's what I want you to let sink into your heart today. "Mammon is a spirit. It's a demonic spirit and false God that is vying for devotion in your life." All right? And if the word like demon or spirit kind of weirds you out a little bit, let me just remind you that Ephesians chapter 6 tells us, "Our battle in this world is not against flesh and blood." What's it against? It's against a spiritual world and evil spirits. So there is a spirit of "Mammon" that exists in our world today. And if you don't believe it, I would challenge you very cautiously, all right? You can Google the word "Mammon" and just look at the images that pop up. You'll see hundreds of images that look like this. That's not money. That's a spirit. And it's vying for first place and devotion in your life. You want to know some other places? You'll see the word "Mammon" in modern culture. "Mammon" is actually the arch devil of hell in the game "Dentons and Dragons." Did you know that? "Mammon" is actually the son of Lucifer in the movie "Constantine." And "Mammon" is the main villain in the comic spawn. So many other places that "Mammon" is used. And this is a little bit deeper, but just understand in the occult world today and in demonic literature, there's actually literature out there on how you can call the spirit of "Mammon" into your life. That's how deep this is. I just want you to feel and hear today. This is not just money, it's a spirit. And the definition I would give you today is "Mammon" is a false god that promises. Here's what "Mammon" promises, that you can trust money to give you what only god can. Now, this Aramaic term, watch this. The root word of this Aramaic term is this, that in which one trusts. This is the core issue is "Mammon wants you to trust money to give you what only god can." And the problem is, "Mammon's a liar." "Mammon promises you security." You ever thought to yourself, if I only had this amount of money in a bank account, I'd be secure for the rest of my life? "Mammon promises you a good marriage." We wouldn't fight about money anymore. "Mammon promises you that your kids and family would have what you need." "Mammon promises you happiness, joy, and peace in life." And here's the problem. Listen, only god can give you security. Only god can give you the marriage that you've always dreamed of. Only god can give you the family and the kids and give them what they actually need. Only god can give you happiness, joy, and peace in life. Yet, "Mammon promises you watch this." If you just had a little more money, you could do all those things yourself and you wouldn't need god. Do you see how he's going after you? And nowhere is the spirit of "Mammon" more powerful, arguably than in America. Now, I know all of you are not from America, but listen, in America today, what is written on every single piece of currency we have in America today? What does "Mammon" say? "Mammon is that in which you trust." We have on every single piece of currency in America in God we trust. God provides for our needs, not this money. Do you believe that? And the reason I get crazy passionate on this topic, is because for much of my life, Maman had power over my life. I worship Maman and it almost destroyed me. My life story starts when I was really young. I grew up in a very godly home and my parents were so godly, but the one core issue in my parents marriage is that they fought about money all the time. I still have this vivid memories. One of my most vivid memories is my parents around a kitchen table with a stack of bills in one hand, and a bank statement in the other, and there's so much tension between them. As a young child, I was so impacted by how often they argued about money that as a teenager in high school, I made this promise to myself. When I get married, I will never let money be an issue in my marriage because I watched it destroy their marriage. Well, fast forward, Jamie and I met in Bible College. When I graduated Bible College, neither of us went right into the ministry. We went, both got jobs at the Intel Corporation. Let me tell you something, when you both get jobs at one of the leading tech companies in the world with that salary and stock and bonuses, Jamie and I, when we first got married in our early 20s, we're making three to four times when my parents had ever made. And here's what I thought to myself. We did it. We will never fight about money ever. How many think that's true? I mean, I think that's true. Not even a chance. It was amazing. Like it was amazing to me. How fast we started arguing about money, the same exact way my parents did. And what we did, our cycle was we would work hard, we'd get paid and we'd spend harder, all right? Because I thought while my parents were missing, they didn't have enough stuff because they didn't have enough money. So what Jamie and I did is we centered our life around consuming and we consumed in gold metal fashion, all right? We got the house and the cars and the vacations and the stuff because we thought this is what my parents were missing and we make us, we got to spend, and how many of you know that when you center your life around consuming, you will never have enough. It's like drinking salt water. You think it's actually fulfilling you, but it's actually only making you more thirsty. I'll never forget the morning that I woke up after Jamie and I had a huge fight about money. Something about I spent too much on golf, which is holy, which is actually righteous, you know? And she spent too much on something else and we got in this knockdown dragout fight and I woke up the next morning and I don't know exactly how this happened, but God broke my heart. God pierced my heart because I realized that I was repeating the exact same pattern in my marriage that I had promised would not happen in my marriage. And I was so confused because we had more than I ever thought we'd have. And the only thing I could think of, 'cause I was trying to figure out what's wrong with us. The only thing I could think of is that I had grown up in the church, I gone to Bible college, I was getting my MBA, and here's what I realized, I have no idea what scripture and God really says about money. So what Jamie and I decided to do out of a broken heart is for the next year we tried to study everything God's word says about money. And what we learned and what we begin to apply to our life has changed our life forever and it is God's greatest work in our life and not just financially. I'm telling you, nothing has drawn us closer together as a married couple, nothing has drawn us closer to God than what we learned and what we applied. And you might say, what was the one thing you did? You're taking notes say, here's the one thing we did. I took away Jamie's debit and credit cards, all right? (audience laughing) Let's close in prayer. God, thank you for what I did, you know? No, that's not, of course, of course that's not what I did. Let me tell you the summary. This is the summary statement that we learned all throughout scripture that changed our life. We changed our life's focus from consuming to giving. We saw all throughout scripture this overall theme that we were designed to be generous. Jesus said it this way, in Acts 20, it's more blessed to give than to what? And to receive. And generosity became the number one value in our family. Now there's so many practical things that led to that. And I'll just rattle a couple of them off. These are, this is a whole sermon in of itself. One of the very practical things we saw that led us to that is that all throughout scripture, did you understand all throughout scripture? God says you don't own Jack. Says you're not an owner, you're a manager or what's called a steward. And someone here today, a business leader, someone is thinking, God doesn't own everything I have. I made that money. And that's exactly what Maimon would want to tell you. And that's why God knew you'd think that. So we said this in Deuteronomy chapter 80, he said, "You may say to yourself, my power and the strength of my hands." You notice the my phrasing have produced this wealth for who? For me, but remember the Lord your God for it, is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth. And here's what God's telling all of us. I gave you the minds you have, the strength you have, the skills you have for the job you have, and I can take it away just like that. And I had to repent because I thought it was mine and that I was the one making it happen. And I realized it all belongs to God and God is watching what I do with His money in my hands. I'm just a steward, which means this, every spending decision is a spiritual decision. And that led us to number two, we started living on a budget because how can you manage someone else's money if you don't have a plan for it, right? Would you give someone your money to manage? If they didn't have a plan, they winged it? That would be no. Number three, we started to learn to be content because Jesus said life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions. And number four, we got radical about trying to get out of debt because we learned that Scripture says debt slavery. But all those things we learned in Scripture led to the number one thing we did, which is we learned to be generous. And here's how that applies to Maman. I'd say it this way, generosity is kryptonite to the power of Maman in your life. It's kryptonite because when you learn to be generous, you learn that you can trust God over Maman. That started small with us. Let me tell you how it started. It started the day I pulled out our budget 'cause we started budgeting and this looks self-spread, you don't never forget it. And I just wanted to get honest about what we were giving and where our money was going. And when I looked at what we were giving, I'll never forget it, it's etched in my mind. We were giving 7.6% of our income to our local church. And we were trying to be generous, but I realized in Scripture that the minimum baseline God wants from us, what He says is His is the tithe. That's a 10th, it's 10%. And we were below that. And so I'll never forget taking that Excel spreadsheet for the very first time. I plugged in giving 10% of our income to our local church. And I had all of our, what we got in income, all of our expenses and the bottom number calculated if it was positive or negative. And when I changed that number to a tithe, 10%, the number at the bottom went from a positive to a negative number. I looked at God and I said, "See, it doesn't work." And this is why I told God, God, we'll do it when we get a little bit more. When we just get a little bit more, who's that talking? That's Ma'am and you can't trust God. And then we realized in Scripture that tithing is the only place we're invited to test God. Did you know that? It's, it says right there, and remember the root word for Ma'am and what? That in which one trusts. Ma'am says, "You can't trust God with the tithe." And God says this, I double-dog dare you. It's what He says. I mean, just watch. He says in Matthew chapter three verse 10, bring the whole tithe, Ashley, not 7.6% bring the whole tithe. That just means a 10th, 10% in the storehouse that there may be food in my house. And test me in this. Like just test me. And see if I won't throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing, there won't even be room enough to store it. So I'd ask myself a question, in my trusting God or my trusting Ma'am and I knew the answer. And so almost shaking, Jamie, you remember this, we were so scared to tithe for the very first time. And I'll never forget we did it for the very first time and oh, God's so faithful. He can be trusted in this area. And he was so faithful that we began to sit down and actually write some goals out for our life financially. We took our budget out. We still have those goals to this day. Number one is we wrote this goal down, under no circumstances ever, will we not bring 10% of our income back to our local church in Truscott? We'll never do that. Never we will not ever give up on that. Number two, we said we will get radically out of debt, including some student loan debt. And we wanted to get out of debt with our house as well. And number three, this is the big goal we set. Is we sat down and we said, if generosity is the number one value of our life, we're gonna start at 10%, but every year we wanna challenge ourselves to go a little bit more. And so we got excited, Jamie, I remember this, we were talking, we said, man, what's the point? What if we could give 11% one day? What if we could give 12%, what if we give 13%, and I don't know who blurted it out, but one of us said, what if one day you could give away half your income 50%, and we laughed, we're like, that's stupid, but let's write it down as a goal. (audience laughing) And we thought maybe on our deathbed, we do that one day. And what I tell you next, remember, this is just our story. We wrote those goals down right after that, Jamie and I were both seen down at Intel for our reviews and both of us got some of the largest raises we've got ever. And listen, that just, we went back to our budget and we said, God, we wanna increase our giving. So we went from 10 to 12.3% on there, forget it. The next year, we went a little bit higher. The next year, we went a little bit higher, but as we got a few raises and promotions at Intel, what happened is Intel started giving us more stock and more bonuses. And Jamie and I were like, what are we gonna do with this? So we decided, we're gonna take all that and if we worked really hard at making some extra payments and we're disciplined with our mortgage, let's take all that money and we're gonna set it aside in the count and we're gonna save it way back here. And we calculated if we put all that aside that in five to seven years, we might be able to become completely debt-free in Cleveland or our house and we are so excited. And then literally within the next year, our church stood up and said, we're gonna open a brand new campus. And so Jamie and I started praying. God, we're so excited about this new building that's gonna open up and we know new buildings equal people following Jesus and we wanted to give. So I just started praying to God, God, what do you want us to give towards that? And I was in my prayer time one morning and I felt like God whispered to me, hey, you know all that money you set aside way over here? And I looked at God and I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. (congregation laughing) He's like, yeah, you do. It's way back there. And then I started arguing with God. I was like, don't you dare. I put that aside for debt and your word says to get out of debt. Get out of, why do we argue with God? So Jamie and I sat down and said, Jamie, I think God's telling us, I don't know why. And he's told us to give that. And in faith and trust, we did it. Here's what we figured. It just means that we won't pay off our debts and our mortgage in five to seven years. It's probably gonna be 10 to 15 years. And by the way, it was back in the days, the little different day with mortgages now is something, you know, but we just figured that's what we'll do. Not 10 years later. Not five years later. Three years later, Jamie and I moved out of our house and we downsized to a slightly smaller house and we moved in 100% mortgage free. Okay. (audience applauding) Only God can do that. And listen to me. When you pay off your mortgage, that is one of the largest raises you will ever get. And we just begin to ask God, God, this belongs to you, what do you want us to do with that? And so we started increasing our giving even more. And I want you to hear what I say next in the spirit in which I mean it. This isn't our story. This is God's story of faithfulness that you can trust him over, ma'am. And Jamie and I have been on this generosity journey of trying to increase our giving every year for the past 22 years. And a few years back, we crossed over that 50% threshold. (audience applauding) Good. Listen. What we have learned is you cannot out give God. You just can't. And you can trust him over, ma'am. Listen, this isn't a message of give to get, right? This is not, that's a prosperity gospel makes me sick. When you get generous, oftentimes God blesses that you understand his blessings or so that you can be a bigger conduit to his kingdom, not your own kingdom. You understand the difference? Prosperity God also says, when God blesses, it's for you, no more to be a river, not a reservoir. And when God blesses you financially, which you often does when you get generous, it's only so we can do more. And understand that God's blessings are not always financial. I would tell you the greatest blessing that God has given us on this journey is not financial. It's this, that I am more in love with my wife today than I've ever been in my life, okay? (audience applauding) And that's something money can't buy. Now, this is the part in the message where you think pastor's probably gonna pour it on pretty thick for us to give, right? And I'm not. But I love you too much to not challenge you to do something with the words of Jesus. He said, "You cannot serve both God and man." And so I wanna just ask you today, who are you serving? Who are you trusting? And you might say, "Well, how would I know? Just take out your budget." And if you don't have a budget, just look at your bank account. And just get honest with yourself and say, "When I look at how I'm managing "the resources God's given me, "does it say I trust God?" Or does it say I trust Maman? But I'm just telling you now that Maman will be so destructive. So you have to choose to trust God more and more. And that might mean for some of you that you've never trusted God with a tithe and bringing back the very first to God in the local church. It might mean for some of you that Maman God's really blessed you and you know what? It's started to take hold of your heart. And you just need to push your generosity to a different level to trust God. I don't know what it means for you. I just wanna challenge you to be faithful to God and his work that he's doing because we know our time on earth is short. And the only thing we can take with us to heaven is people we impact for Jesus, all right? And I don't know of another church in the world that's impacting people for Jesus like this church. So it's a worthy place to want to be generous. You know, I wanna invite my wife up to stage because this isn't just my story. It's our story. Would you help and just welcome my wife up to the stage with a, no. (audience applauding) I just wanna tell you, like thank you for being on this journey because it really is God's greatest work in our life. Anything you'd say or correct in this message, you know what? (laughs) - I think it's really emotional for us only because this is God's story. - Yeah. - This is where we felt incredibly hopeless. God made a way. It's when we chose to break the spirit of man and trust in the spirit of God. - Yeah. - Yeah, and I just wanna acknowledge that there's someone here today, your marriage is hurting because of this topic. And there's a way to break free. Or you're not married and you're just struggling. And I just wanna challenge you to trust God. Trust God more and more and just be faithful. He can be trusted. And I'm telling you, ma'am, and cannot. Would you pray for us and just pray for anybody that needs that today? - Love to. Father, thank you for your word and thank you that your word brings life. Thank you that we get to choose it. And today, this week we choose you. We choose your word, so we choose life. Help us to take steps of obedience this week and steps of faith against the spirit of man and towards the spirit of God. We love you and we thank you for who you are. It's in your name we pray, Amen. - No, no. No. (audience applauds) - So powerful. Thank you both. - Come on, church, can we tell them? Thank you. Love you guys very much. What a personal and pastoral message. And I know it spoke to you as it did me. And today, all of our churches would you join me and those around you in prayer. God, thank you that you are worthy of our praise and God through and through you are trust worthy. Build our faith, God, to believe the words of Jesus that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive. Today, at all of our churches is you're reflecting on what God is saying to you. I wonder how many of you would like to grow your trust in God in this area? Before you answer, let me just kind of tell you what it means. It means when you trust God more, you probably will be more generous. So don't raise your hand if you don't want to be more generous. But you say, yes, I really do. I don't want to serve man. I want to serve God. I want to grow in my trust and my faith in God in this area. Would you lift up your hands right now? Just all of our churches say, yes, that's me online. Say, I want to grow to trust God more with my money and father. We do with open hands. We worship you, acknowledging that everything that we have is yours. God, I thank you. Thank you for those who will trust you for the very first time with the tithe. Returning back to you in an act of worship and praise, 10% of what you bless us with, and God, I thank you for those who will see blessings and grow to become maybe out of debt and maybe grow the generosity even more and more and more. God, I pray for your blessings upon your people as they are blessings to other. You've used them, blessed them to be a blessing to your church, to people, to ministries around the world. God, we thank you that you're working today. Help us to grow and trust in you. We honor you with the tithe. God, we want to be able to give you more. God, we want to listen to you and honor you. As you keep praying today at all of our churches, I am, I'm sure there's some of you right now that you recognize. And God is really not first in your life. This was my story growing up. I would go to church some and believed in God, but he was not first. And the thing about God is, he's God and he really wants to be first. It's a jealous God. And he doesn't want anything to be more important in our lives than him. And let me tell you why he should be first because he is a good God who loves you so much. You feel distant from him. He loves us so much that while we were still sinners, he became one of us in the person of his son, Jesus, and Jesus was without sin perfect in every way and gave his life on a cross. God raised him from the dead. So anyone in this includes you who calls on the name of Jesus, your sins would be forgiven and you would be completely new. Today some of you recognize he's not first. He's not the Lord of your life. And guess what? Today can be the day of your salvation. What will we do? We're going to step away from our selfishness. We're going to step away from our sin and we're going to declare his Lordship, call on Jesus, make him first. As you do, God will hear your prayer. He'll forgive your sins today at all of our churches. Those who say, that's me. I don't really know him. He's not first. But by faith today, I step away from my sins and I make him my Lord. I call on Jesus, Jesus, take my life. I give it to you that's your prayer today. We lift your hands high right now. And all of our churches say, yes, praise God for you today. He's saying, yes, all of our churches, I call on you Jesus. I need you. Would you be first in my life online? You can type in the comments section. I am surrendering my life to the Lordship of Christ. I'm trusting Jesus today. And all of our churches, would you just join your faith with those around you and pray Heavenly Father. I surrender to you. Be first in my life. Jesus, my Savior, and Jesus, my Lord. Fill me with your Spirit so I could know you and trust you and serve you in every area of my life. Especially in generosity. Use me to bless others. I surrender my life completely to you. Thank you for new life. In Jesus name I pray, could you celebrate today, praise God for those being born into the Kingdom of God.