A Disciple Stewards EVERYTHING | Boot Camp | Pastor Josh Howerton

Hey guys, thanks for checking out this Bible teaching. Every week we release a podcast that corresponds to the sermon. It's like a little bit of a deeper dive where we hit some things that didn't make it into the sermon, some theological concepts. We talk about things that are going on in our culture and how to think about them from a biblical perspective. We call that podcast Live Free, an episode releases every Monday that corresponds to the sermon. If you would like to check out Live Free, just go to the Lake Point YouTube channel and look for the podcast tab there. We'll see you at Live Free. Now, enjoy this Bible teaching. All right, man. Good morning, Lake Point family. If you got your Bibles, head over to Luke 19. Happy Super Bowl Sunday. Anybody brave enough to say they're rooting for the Patriots? Anybody? Yeah. You pulled for Germany in World War II, didn't you? You did, didn't you? Hey, man, Seahawks fans, we got, why not, wait, wait, wait, wait, let me rephrase it so we're all on the same team here. Not Seahawks, people who are pulling for the Seahawks today. Where you at? Okay. Now listen, I'm just got, listen, I'm really sorry, brother. Uh, I'm just naming it Lake Point family. We're Seahawks fans today. The wide receiver one for the Seahawks, that Jackson kid, that's a rock wall kid. Okay. So listen, we're all in Seahawks today. I think he's been our church few times. And, uh, so that's it, man. That's it. So, um, all right, let's pray. We're done. All right. That's a joke. You guys got your Bibles? Let's head over to Luke chapter 19. Uh, I'm really excited about today. This is gonna be a really good day. I want to read you something, to let you know what's going on. Personally in my life, I've never been a part of something where we're just seeing a move of God like we're seeing right now in our church. And here's the deal. What we say about Lake Point is that we are a movement for all people to know Christ, live free, and change the world for God's glory. A movement for all people to know Christ, live free, and change the world for God's glory. Now the deal about movements is that movements move. The whole point of the gospel is for it to start from one point and to go to all nations, every tribe, tongue, nation, language. I got this text from my mom. My mom and dad are members of our church. and they lead a Rudy group. And then my mom also is a leader in Regen. Where's my, shout out Regen, by the way. All right, I see you, I see you. Okay, my mom texted me from Regen this week. She said this. She said, I'm pretty sure this will thrill your heart as it did mine. Hearing it at the Regen meeting tonight, a leader named Max has a family in Tehran, the capital of Iran. He said, many there have begun listening to Lake Point messages and Bible teaching. He said his uncle is baptizing on average about 10 people per day. And that with the regime change, many Muslims are hungry to hear the gospel and convert to Jesus Christ. Amen, amen, amen, amen. So man, if that's you and y'all are watching, we're with you, amen. That's gonna, listen, if that doesn't pull worship out of your heart, you don't got a pulse, something's going on. Okay, here's what we're gonna do. We are today in the second to last week of a series we're called Boot Camp Training for Team Jesus. What we said at the beginning of the series is this was a high bar series. Jesus said, man, if anyone's gonna follow me, he's gotta be willing to take up his cross daily and follow me. So this is high bar, just going, man, what was it look like? Now, for some of you who are in the little gifted and talented class, you read ahead. So this is a little diagram we've been using. Know Christ, live free, change the world for God's glory. This is how we make disciples at Lake Point. This is what the whole series is about. Some of you who are in the little gifted and talented class, you read ahead in your little field guide, and you came in today and you're nervous. a little tense because you know what we're talking about today today we're talking about money okay that's the deal some of you are nervous about it i'm not nervous even a little i listen even i'm about it and this is like you're gonna hear why this is a life message for me and janet change their lives when we're 22 i'll talk about that later but here's the deal i just want to give you a heads up here's the deal this is not a so you can't get up and leave early if you get up and leave early everybody's gonna see you and think that greedy son of a gun they're gonna see it So you're locked. I hope you went to the bathroom before the service. You're locked. But I'm real excited about this. Now here's the deal. I used to, I'm going to make a confession. I used to for a long time, I wouldn't teach passages like the passage I'm about to teach because in my head, it was like, man, people who are not Christians or people who are like dipping their toe in the water and they're just visiting, it's going to rub them the wrong way and it won't come back. But here's a decision I made a long time ago. You changed my preaching. What I decided I'm not going to do. I absolutely refuse to starve my sheep in order to attract some goats. I'm not going to do it. So what we're going to do, this is our thing at Lake Point. Thank you for, there's 8%. That's great. What we're going to do at Lake Point is just like, man, whatever the word says, we're in, man, because God is a good dad that loves to give good gifts to his kids. His commandments are not burdensome. So we're going to lean right in. We're going to have a lot of fun doing it. And it's going to be great. So if you've got your Bibles, Luke chapter 19, I want to start by doing something that we did, a kind of an OG thing we did at my papaw's, a little Baptist church growing up. It teaches, this teaches, by the way, what I'm getting ready to do, it teaches us and our kids how to think about the word of God. So at all of our campuses, if you are physically able, would you please stand with me out of reverence for the reading of the word of God? Now heads up, the last verse I'm going to read is kind of savage, but I'm going to say, and all guys people said, and we're going to say amen, because whatever the word says is the word of God, and we love and respect it. So Luke chapter 19, as they heard these things, he, Jesus, proceeded to tell them a parable because he was near to Jerusalem. Bookmark that in your head. And because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. He said, therefore, so he starts telling a parable. A nobleman went into a far country to receive a kingdom for himself and then return. Now, what he's doing here is he's prophetically foreshadowing what he's going to do someday. Now, calling 10 of his servants, he gave them 10 minas. Now, Aminas was three to four months wages, so think like 20 grand. And he said to them, engage in business until I come. But his citizens hated him. And they sent a delegation after him saying, we do not want this man to reign over us. Bookmark that in your head. When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, to be called to him that he might know what they had gained by doing business. The first came before him saying, Lord, your mina has made 10 minas more. And he said, well done, good servant. Because you have been faithful in a very little, you will have authority over 10 cities. And the second came saying, Lord, your mina has made five minas. And he said to him, and you are to be over five cities. Then another came saying, Lord, here's your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief, for I was afraid, and everybody say afraid. I was afraid, afraid of you because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit and you reap what you did not sow. And he said to him, I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant. You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I didn't sow. Why then did you not put my money in the bank and at my coming, I might've collected it at least with interest. And he said to those who stood by, take the mina from him and give it to the one who has 10 minas. And they said to him, Lord, he already has 10 minas. I tell you, now this is Jesus' point, that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me. And all God's people said, amen. You can have a seat, okay. You can have a seat. Now, let me explain what Jesus is doing here. Jesus, the passage said at this point in the gospel of Luke, by the way, what I'm doing for the first half of this year, this is the year of discipleship. I am a disciple. What I'm doing for the first half of the year is we're just preaching a whole bunch of stuff from the gospel of Luke because we're disciples of Jesus and Luke talks about Jesus, okay? So what Jesus does here at this point in the gospel of Luke, Jesus has, for you Bible nerds, he has, quote, set his face towards Jerusalem. You'll see that phrase in I think three of the gospels. He has set his face towards Jerusalem. What that means is I think the Holy Spirit told Jesus at a specific point in his ministry, now it's time for you to complete the task that I have given you. And so Jesus knows he is reverse engineering everything in his ministry from getting to Jerusalem. Why? Because the son of man came to seek and to save what was lost, quote, and to give his life for a ransom for many. He came that he would die and he knew that he would die in Jerusalem. So at this point in his ministry, everything Jesus is doing, he's got his face set towards Jerusalem and he is a man on a mission. Nobody can distract him. Nobody can dissuade him. He's going to Jerusalem. Now, what he's doing here is he's prophetically foretelling what's going to happen when he gets to Jerusalem. When he gets there, what's not going to happen is everybody, all the Jewish people are gonna see, oh, he's the Messiah. Let's crown him as king. Let's do the thing right now. We bow down and worship him. That's not what's gonna happen. The gospel of John says he came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. And that's exactly what happened. When Jesus gets to Jerusalem, instead of crowning him, they kill him. That's why it says in this passage that the people sent him a delegation saying, we don't want you to reign over us. He's saying what the Jews are gonna do when he gets to Jerusalem. Now, if you fast forward, if you just Bible nerd out with me for a second, what I'm getting ready to tell you is gonna make sense of a lot of your Bible, and especially you people who are like super into the book of Revelation, what I'm getting ready to describe is what's going on in a large part of the book of Revelation, okay? What Jesus tells them in Luke 19, 44, in just about 20 verses, is he tells them because Jerusalem is gonna kill me instead of crowning me, even though I'm the rightful king, he pronounces future judgment on the city of Jerusalem. And he says, man, there's gonna come a day very soon in this generation when Jerusalem's gonna be destroyed. And then he pointed at the temple that sits on top at that time, sat on top of the temple mount, and he made a harrowing prophecy. He said, do you see that temple? And they're all like, yes, we see it. He said, I tell you, not one stone of that temple will be left upon another, not one, okay? Now, when he said that, nobody believed him because if you've ever been, we all need to go together sometime. Some of y'all in this room, we've been at the Temple Mount together in Jerusalem. It's amazing, okay? The people who would have seen it, they would have been like, there's no way, Jesus, because the stones that made up the temple in Jerusalem, them they were one to three tons each and if you ever go there are some stones that range up to 13 tons these are stones bigger than your minivan you drove to church in today so everybody was like ain no way jesus ain no way every single stone is gonna be pried down ain no way Okay now for 40 years everybody was like Jesus missed it temple still there everything good But then in AD 70, if you're taking notes, write that down. In AD 70, you can look this up later, there was a Roman military leader, a guy named Titus, who came to sack the city of Jerusalem and put down a Jewish uprising. Before his soldiers got there, Josephus tells us this, a historian, Before his soldiers got there, he told them, hey, I don't want y'all to touch the temple. Leave the temple alone. But one soldier, according to historians, disobeyed and he took a torch and he threw it through the window of the temple. Now here's the problem with that. Number one, whole bunch of flammable stuff in the temple. Number two, whole bunch of gold in the temple, whole bunch of gold. So as the temple starts to burn, reportedly the gold begins to melt. And guess what happened? As it began to melt, it cascaded down the sides of the interior walls of the temple. And some people report that some of that gold got in the cracks in between all the stones in the temple. So what happened is all these soldiers, they get like a kind of gold fever or whatever. And they get in there, they start looting. And guess what they begin to do? They pry every single stone, every single one off of on top of the next one. And to this day, if you ever go with me to the temple mount, There is not one stone left. And if you look over the Western side of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to this day, that's what you're gonna see. I took that picture. You're gonna see this. Guess what that is? Every single stone of the temple, not one left upon another. Why? Because Titus issued a command not to destroy the temple, but Jesus Christ had issued a prophecy that it would be destroyed. And listen, here's why that matters. Here's why that matters. Every word came to pass. Here's why that matters. Because if what Jesus said would happen, did happen, then listen, what Jesus says is gonna happen, will happen. That's why that matters, okay? Now what's happening right here, what's happening in this passage is Jesus is then telling his disciples, that's you and me, we are blood-bought possessions of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's telling us what to do with our lives and our resources in between the time of his first coming and his second coming, okay? Now, this is a bit of a life message for me. Buckle up, here we go. I'm gonna give you three principles for how God wants us to steward. The title of the sermon today is a disciple stewards all that he has, okay? Three principles for how God wants us to steward our lives while we got them, okay? Here we go, principle number one. You need to understand this spiritual law, a spiritual principle. You are a steward, not an owner. a disciple is a steward not an owner of all the stuff now go ahead and toss that word up on the screen this is let's go and do it right now steward here's i'm not mispronouncing the name steward somebody thought that last time i talked about talking about this is what this is okay now notice in this passage we're gonna keep this up here for a second i want to explain this word notice in the passage what the nobleman does is he essentially grabs like his three senior vps and he goes hey man i'm gonna trust you trust you with a little bit of my investments and you a little bit and you a little bit. And check this out. The deal is even while they're managing the investments, they don't own the investments. They're managing on behalf of them on behalf of somebody else who owns them. So the question is, what's this word steward mean? What's this word steward mean? Okay. Well, let me put it like this. There's a difference between selfishness, stealing and stewardship. Okay. Check this out. Some people live their lives with a mentality. Now, what's mine is mine, what's mine is mine. The Bible calls that selfishness. Selfishness is what's mine is mine, okay? I made it, it's my thing, what's mine is mine. Now, some people, they don't do selfishness, they don't do what's mine is mine. What they do is they go, what's yours is mine. The Bible calls that stealing, unless you're the government and then they call it socialism, but that's a different sermon, different sermon, okay? So now, some people, they don't do what's mine is mine and they don't do what's yours is mine. Some people, what we do, what disciples do is they go, what's mine is God's. And what's mine is God's. That's not selfishness. That's not stealing. The Bible calls that this word. The Bible calls that stewardship. Stewardship is a spiritual law. It's a spiritual principle that a disciple understands everything that I think that I own is actually just on loan. That it came from God is going back to God. Oh, by the way, you came from God and you are going back to God. And that for from him and to him and through him are all things to him be the glory. That's what a steward understands. so nothing that I have belongs to me it's been entrusted to me for a little while by my heavenly father now anyway this is this kind of thing it's like it's simple it's uh it's simple but it ain't easy simple to understand it it's not easy to to kind of get down in your heart so let me help you get it so here's the deal I got bad news you're gonna die okay happy Sunday every single one of you you're gonna die I'll leave now here's what's gonna happen I know this because leading up to this sermon I did a little research it was hard to get this stat but I dug in it was this crazy thing. In the counties of every single campus that Lake Point has, the death rate's hovering right at 100%. It's nuts. I looked it up this week. So everybody's going to die. Now, let me just tell you, because we don't think about it, let me help you understand what's going to happen when you die. When you die, what they're going to do is they're going to take your body that you're all into right now. They're going to dig a hole and they're going to put your chemical infused body in that hole. And they're going to throw a whole bunch of dirt on your face and your body. That's what we're going to do. Then once they finish covering you up, all your friends, they care about you so much, you care about so much. They're gonna go back to the funeral home. They're all gonna eat potato salad and talk about what a great guy you are. That's what we're gonna do. When they're done doing that, what's gonna happen? Funeral's done. Then what's gonna happen is you've got kids. All your kids are gonna go back to your house. You're gonna be separated from your stuff and your kids are gonna go through all your stuff and the whole time they're doing it, they're gonna be making fun of you. That's what they're gonna be doing. They're gonna be making fun of you. So they're gonna go through your stuff and 99.9% of your stuff, they're gonna think it's stupid. They don't want it. They don't want anything. They're going to be going through your stuff. They're going to be talking about your mom jeans. I can't believe she wore these. They're going to be going through your stuff. And ew, mom had a crop top. Gross. They're going to be all the things. They're going to be doing that. And then when they're done, after they're finished making fun of all your stuff, they're going to take, just throw it all in a big minivan or big old truck. And they're going to take it over to Goodwill. And they're just going to give it all away. Okay. And then what's going to happen is somebody else is going to buy your stuff for like one 100th of what you paid for it. And somebody else is going to be wearing your jeans. and they're going to look better in them than you. Okay. Now it's not just the ladies in the mom jeans. For the dudes, here's the deal, man. You just need to get this in your head. It's your golf clubs. Your kids, they're not going to want your golf clubs. And if they do, they're going to use them for six months. They're going to realize they're the wrong length and they're going to do something else. Okay. So what they're going to do is those golf clubs that you just had to have, that you just spent thousands of dollars on and they were custom fitted. What they're going to do is they're going to take those golf clubs. They're going to toss them over at Goodwill. Somebody else is going to buy your thousand dollar golf clubs for 50 bucks. and then some other dude's gonna be playing golf with your clubs and he's gonna be better than you. And then all the stuff that's not that, they're gonna take it, they're gonna put it in the driveway and they're gonna have a garage sale except if you're making bank and then they're gonna do the same thing but they'll call it an estate sale. It's a little bougie. But they're gonna sell all your stuff. Okay, now here's the deal. Listen, listen, just get this in your head. Everything that you think you own is just on loan. Listen, it didn't come from you. It came from him. it's going back to you, you can't take it with you. Everything that you think you own is really just on loan, listen to me. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all who live in it. Every single thing that you have came from him, through him, and it's gonna go back to him. Now, here's the deal. What we are is the Bible says that God is our father, we're his spiritual children. And man, I'm just like you, I'm the same way. As a spiritual child of God, just like kids, sometimes I can be dumb and I forget stuff that's really, really obvious. So let me just like put this in perspective and let me move to principle two. So I got three kids right now. I got, it's 15, yeah, it changes every year. It's 15, 11, and six. Right now it's 15, 11, and six. So pray for me, we're doing a driver's ed thing right now. We're gonna have a whole prayer night just for that. 15, 11, and six. So my kids are amazing. I'm all about it. I'm all in on being a dad. You don't get my eyes leaky, start talking to me about my kids. My kids are absolutely amazing. I love Jesus, love us. They're doing great. They're doing awesome. But even though they're awesome, every now and then, you know, my kids can forget some very basic realities and I do not mind reminding them of those basic realities. So every now and then, not usually, every now and then, me and Jana will say something like, hey guys, I need you to head up to your room and clean up your room because there's a bunch of stuff on the floor of your room. And every now and then, not very often, every now and then, one of them will say something like this. Oh, what do I got to clean up? It's dead, it's my stuff. Now, parents, you're going to help me with this part of the sermon. whenever they say that, I do not mind reminding them of basic realities. I'll say something like this. They'll say, that's my stuff. I'll say, oh, that's so cute. Bless your heart. Let me remind you of something. Hey, here's what you need to understand. You don't have any stuff. Me and your mom have stuff and we let you use some of our stuff for a little while. You don't have any stuff. Okay. And then they might go on and they might say something like this. Oh yeah, dad, but we bought it with our money, I'll say, oh, bless your heart. Let me, let me help you understand something. You don't have any money. You don't have any money. See me and your mom, we work hard and we make all the money. And then we let you out of the gracious kindness of our heart. We let you use some of our money for a little while, but you don't have any money. So, oh dad, but, but it's all the stuff. It's in my room. Oh, bless your heart. Just saying, let me help you understand something. you don't have a room. You see, you don't have a room. See, see me and your mom, we work really hard to pay the mortgage for this house. And our house has lots of rooms. And we, out of the abundant grace of our heart, we let you use one of our rooms for a little while till you're 18. Then we're kicking you out and you ain't coming back. That's how it works. Okay. That's how it works in our house. Amen. Parents, does that make sense? Okay. Now, okay. Now here's the deal. You're clapping. We're clapping. But listen, we're the spiritual children in God's family Can I just remind us all of something that we just forget this Hey you don have a house Our Father has a house And He has graciously let us use His house for a little while. Hey, let me remind you of something. You don't have an income. Our Heavenly Father has an income. And He has graciously diverted some of His resources to you for a little while. Let me talk to the dudes real quick, you know, because guys say this all the time. Hey, man, you're not all that. you don't have talents. Guys like to say this, man, I'm a self-made man. That's real interesting. You're a self-made man, it's real interesting. All this stuff, interesting you say that. You remember that time when you were picking out who your parents would be? I don't either, I don't remember that either. There's a whole bunch of stuff about who you are you had nothing to do with. It was just a grace gift from your heavenly father. Let me do one last one, listen. You don't have a life. you're a blood-bought possession of the Lord Jesus Christ and he has entrusted and purchased your life and given you one life to use it for one purpose for his glory forever okay that's it so principle number one you have listen this is key man if you're going to be a disciple of Jesus you got to get this in your heart principle number one we are stewards we are not owners of anything Okay, now principle number two, stewards use his stuff to do the master's will. Stewards use his stuff to do the master's will. Now, let me just recap. So in this sermon, what you got is you got, the one dude turned one mina into 10 minas. And watch this, the master says, well done, good and faithful servant. One guy turned one minas into five minas, and he kind of gets the same vibe one of the other gospels says that the master says, well done, good and faithful servant. Then there's one guy, and I had you say the word afraid out loud earlier for a reason. There was one guy who, think about this, he was well-intentioned. He was actually trying to do the right thing. He was just afraid, man, I'm not gonna have enough. What if I run out? What if I don't have anything left to return to the master? And in his fear, what he did is he buried the one mina in the ground so that when the master returned, he hadn't turned a prophet on the mina that the master had given him. And the master says to him, I'm gonna read it to you. I will judge you by your own words. He says, you wicked and lazy servant. Now check this out. It's got a bit of an edge to it, but just check this out, man. Someday, every single person in the hearing of my voice, you will stand before God. And whether you hear well done, good and faithful servant or you wicked and lazy servant will depend on how you stewarded what God entrusted you with during this one life that you have. That's what this is saying right here. Okay. Now the question then becomes, okay, then what is the master's will? What does he want me to do? Now the next three minutes of this message is the, if you've never leaned into this part, you can take the verse down. If you've never leaned into this part of discipleship, the next three minutes of this message is maybe the part that you've never leaned into before, hardest part to receive, just track with me. This is like a life message for me. It changed me and Jana's life when we were 22. Let me just say it and let me talk about it. Because God is before all things, that's what the book of Colossians says, he is before all things. And God gave his first and his best to us in the person of Jesus Christ. God loves who he gave, his firstborn son. So God, because God is before all things and he gave his first and his best for us, he asks us, commands us as stewards to return our first and our best to him of what he's entrusted us. Now, the Bible uses a word that a lot of people don't understand. The Bible calls this a tithe. Let me just teach on tithe real quick so you understand what this is. It's all over the Bible. Let me read you a couple of verses. This is Leviticus 2730. It says, a tithe of everything, notice this word, belongs to the Lord. Some of the verses just say, it is mine. Now, when you see the word tithe, the word tithe, it means 10th. So it means 10%. So every now and then somebody would be like, oh man, I tithe 4%. Well, that's giving, but that's not a tithe. Tithe means 10%. So you can't tithe 2% or 6% or 8%. A tithe isn't tossing a Benjamin in every now and then. That's not a tithe. Listen, there's a difference between tithing and tipping God, okay? So you tip somebody that you appreciate who serves you at a restaurant. You tithe to show adoration to the one that you serve. Listen, by all means, tip your waiter. But listen, the Lord God deserves a tithe. Because he is first. He's saying, hey, I want you to return your first to me. Let me give another one. This is Proverbs 3, 9 and 10. It says, honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits. Everybody say first fruits. With the first fruits of all your crops, then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine. Okay, now, why does it say first fruits? Okay, well, here's the deal. The tithe, it's not just 10%. It's, listen, it's the first 10%. Well, why the first, okay? Here's what it is. It's the first thing in priority. So if you're like, I'm a spreadsheet guy, I'm a budget guy, we sit down, we make our little budget. It's the first thing on the spreadsheet. It's the first and priority. Or we got a motto in our team, as we call our family, that we say we automate what's important. So what I'm not gonna do is automate my Netflix subscription because that's really important, but then leave my tithe up to my memory. I'm not gonna do that. It's whatever is the first thing in priority in your life. Now you may say, man, Well, why the first 10%? Well, think about this. Here's why. Because it takes faith to give the first. It doesn't take faith to give the last. If you're a rancher or a farmer, think about this, agrarian society, and you have a crop coming in, it takes faith to return the first part to God. It doesn't take any faith to wait and see how much comes in and then see what you got left over and then turn that back to them, okay? So it's the first, the first 10%. Now, here's why I say this. And listen, this is something that every disciple, this is a test you will face in your life. Some of you are facing it right now. What you need to understand, if you go, man, why 10? For you Bible nerds, if you study your Bible, what you're gonna notice is that all throughout the Bible, watch this, the number 10 is a test. What God is doing here, let me say it and explain it, is every time you get a paycheck, God is giving you a test. What's gonna be first, okay? So let me show you this in the Bible. I wanna have fun with this. So you're gonna see this theme, 10 is a test. So I'm gonna give you some quiz questions and y'all help me out and we'll answer these out loud and just have fun with it, okay? So you're gonna notice a pattern begin to develop and you can roll with it. So pop quiz class, how many plagues were there in Egypt? Here we go, 10. You can answer out loud so it helps me have fun with it, okay? How many commandments are there? 10, that's it, with vigor, here we go. How many times did God test Israel in the wilderness? 10, okay, next one. How many times were Jacob's wages changed? 10. Here we go. Pattern. How many days was Daniel tested? 10. Here we go. Let's keep going. How many virgins were tested in Matthew 25? 10. Here we go. Here we go. How many days of testing are mentioned in Revelation chapter 2? 10. Last one. How many disciples were there? I got some of you. I got some of you. Okay. I got some of you. Now, are you seeing this? Here's a big principle is that in the Bible, 10 is a test. so every time you get a paycheck what god's doing is he's giving you a test will you put me first and trust me by returning the first tenth back to me now you may be going okay well what's what's the test that i'm facing let me um this is the spiritual principle that's under all this let me show you what it is so um i'm a um i'm an 80s baby but the 90s made me so i went to elementary school in the late 1900s when everybody was riding dinosaurs to school and everything. And when I was in elementary school in the 80s, there was two games we played at recess. By the way, that I've now learned, both these games had been banned at elementary schools now. The first one was Red Rover. Anybody else play Red Rover? So apparently, do you guys know they canceled Red Rover? I don't even know what he did. They don't do Red Rover anymore. Too many injuries, okay? They're getting soft. Everybody's getting soft these days, okay? They canceled Red Rover, okay? But the other one is, I lived in rural Kentucky. So in the corner of our little research patch, there was a little hill. Does anybody know what the other violent game was that we played in elementary school? King of the Hill, not the propane and propane accessories, King of the Hill. This was a game, okay? This was a game. Now, if you never played King of the Hill, honestly, it's a really dumb game only a bunch of dudes could have made up. If you're playing it, here's all it is. there's a hill and you try to get at the top of it and knock off the other guy that was on the hill. That's the whole game. So what you do, you know, it's like one guy gets up there and then you try to knock him off and you get off. If you knock that guy off and you're on the top of the hill, then you become the king of the hill. It's amazing. And it feels awesome. Here's the problem though, is when you get up there, you don't stay very long because the next guy comes up and he just spear tackles you, and then he's the king of the hill. Okay, but every now and then, it was kind of rare, every now and then, there would be a moment, very rare, where the recess bell would ring, indicating recess was over. And listen, it happened to me a few times, if you were the king of the hill, when the bell rang, you were the last guy at the top of the hill, man, you felt like this. It was just like, come on, bro. Are you not entertained? You know, it's like, take that guy down. I don't like me in a dress under any circumstance. It's just like, I'm just like, ah, you know, it's amazing. Keep the hill, that kind of thing. Now, why do I tell you that? Listen, only one thing can occupy the highest position in your heart There is a throne in your heart and listen to me Only one thing can sit on that throne And listen listen listen Jesus said for you as a disciple your entire life there would be a battle to be the king of that throne of your life, and he told you exactly what it was gonna be. I wanna read this to you. Jesus said, no one, no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other. Listen, you cannot, he didn't say it's hard. He didn't say it takes extra strategy. He didn't say it's a suggestion. It's really difficult. He said, you cannot serve both God and money. Can't do it. Listen, you know this. Your entire time as a disciple, you're gonna be facing this battle inside of your heart. Which one goes first in my life? God or money? That's the battle. Now, what some people do, let me say something with a bit of an edge to it. I'm telling you this because it's in the word and I love you. What some people do is they say, oh, Pastor Josh, God is first in my life, but what really matters is just your heart. That's all that matters is that he's first in your heart. Well, yeah, but listen, but Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So listen, we can say all day long that God is first in our heart. If he's not first in your finances, he's not first. This is what they're saying. Now, what I know, every time I teach this, what I know is there's like all this little, there's tension in the room. And because you're me when I was 22 years old and what you're hearing in this Bible teaching is you're sitting there and you're going, man, pastor, I see it in the word. Okay, I get it. And you may be even feeling conviction of the Holy Spirit inside to begin to walk in faith that way. But what you're doing is you're going, man, I would love to do that, but I just, I can't afford to tithe. There's no way, okay. Now this last principle, number three, I want to finish with it. This last principle is the thing that you need to understand to change your life. So that leads me to point number three. Now I'm going to tease it. I'm not going to tell you what it is. Let me point something out to you in this passage that's a little un-PC. So notice it's like in this passage, Jesus is like whatever is the opposite. He's like the reverse Bernie Sanders. What he does here is he takes the guy who had the most and he gives that guy more. So the guy that was the best steward and made the most, he goes, oh, I'm gonna entrust you with more because you were a good steward. And then the guy that was the medium one, the five, he entrusts him with five more. He's like, because you were a middle steward, I'm gonna trust you with middle more. And then the guy who had the least, he takes everything that guy had. He goes, man, I'm gonna take this one and I'm gonna redistribute it to the people who were better stewards. Listen to me. He did not give more to people who had less. he gave to each one according to his ability to steward. That's how it works in the kingdom of God. Listen to me. God does not primarily give according to your need or according to your want. He, watch this, here's the principle. He gives more to people who know what the more is for. This is really important for you to understand. It's a spiritual law. God gives more to people who know what the more is for. And listen, if you're a selfish or you're a fearful steward that keeps what God has asked you to give, over time, he will take what he's given to you and he will give it to someone else. Now, check this out. Listen to me, because some of you got little alarm bells going on in your head. What I'm not talking about right here is I'm not talking about something people sometimes call the prosperity gospel. There is a terrible teaching. You see it on TV all the time. It's people with big hair and weird accents all the time. And it's kind of this principle of, hey, Christians give in order to get. So it's this vibe of like, hey man, you give 10, he's gonna give you 100. You give a hundred, he's gonna give you a thousand. You give a thousand, he's gonna give you 10,000. Listen to me. What the prosperity gospel does, it is a form of reverse discipleship. It is actually discipling you out of the image of Jesus Christ because it promises health, wealth, and happiness while ignoring stewardship, sacrifice, and suffering. Listen, it creates Christians who pretend they love God, but what they actually love is money. And they're using God to get money instead of using money to please God. It disciples you out of the image of Jesus, okay? So listen, listen, here's the big idea, man. Jesus died for you, but it's not all about you. And listen, we don't follow Jesus because he makes life better. We follow Jesus because he is better than life. That's, so listen, here's what a Christian does, amen. What a Christian does not, our primary motivation in giving is not giving to get. The primary motivation of Christians is to please our father. That's our motivation. Now, that said, I'm not talking about prosperity gospel, but we still gotta take seriously the promises of God. So listen, man, it's gonna take a pair of scissors to get it out of the Bible that God gives promises to give blessing. And is it always financial blessing? It's various ways. But God promises to bless people who return the first to him. I'm gonna show you this. This is Proverbs 3, 9 and 10. Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of all your possessions. So, in other words, if you do that, your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow. Jesus said this. So this is New Testament, Jesus' mouth, Luke 6, 38. Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Malachi 3, 10, check this out. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. It says, test me in this, says the Lord Almighty. and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing, there will not be room enough to store it. Now, check this out. So you're seeing the promises of God here, okay? Here's what I need you to get. I wanna share something with you that my parents shared with me when we were growing up in their house, they were discipling us, man. So there's a reason this is a life message for me. I'll talk about it later this year, maybe, but here's where it came from. So my parents, my mom and dad, they love Jesus. they are capital D disciples. They're disciple disciples. Have been my whole life. And when we were growing up, mom and dad would sit us down at the dinner table and they would tell us the story of when they got married. And my mom and dad, they eloped in college when they were like 20, 21, 22. And when they eloped, they're in college. They're doing college, they're doing little side gigs. So they had like no money, no income at all. So they would tell the story. they sat down after they got married, young Christian couple, and they got the spreadsheet and they're looking at on this side, what's coming in? And then on this side, what's going out? And they're looking at it and they're going, man, the math ain't math. What are we going to do? Now, my dad had been like very radically saved when he was in college. Like my dad was that guy, very radically saved. So they're looking at it and their first year of marriage, they got to decide what are we going to do? It doesn't look like there's enough. and mom and dad would tell me and my brother this story growing up hey we made a decision when we first got married that it didn't make sense but we were going to walk by faith and put god first and return the first to him and then we were just going to trust that man we maybe we can't trust savings but we can trust the god who saves and so they started doing that from the time they were married and then they would sit around the dinner table and they would tell us these stories. They look us right back. Man, guys, you'd never believe it. We didn't think we were going to make it. And then we would have somebody slip a little envelope under the door and the exact dollar amount that we needed for our rent was in there. Or man, just when we ran out of food and all we had left was peanut butter, somebody would drop off two bags of groceries or I'll go janitor at this church and somebody be walking through the halls and they'd slap me a little hundred dollar handshake. And they would tell us about the faithfulness of God and what happen when they walk by faith. And listen, they would tell me and my brother this sentence that I've never forgotten. They would say this. They would say, hey guys, here's what we learned. You will never be able to afford to tithe until you tithe. And here's what they were saying. They were pointing at these verses. And listen, you got to understand this. What God says he's going to do is when you trust him and return the first him, what he does is he's going to put a little super on top of that natural and he's going to make sure he's like, I'm going to bless you. I'm gonna take care of you because, watch this, because I'm teaching you and your children to walk by faith. And watch this. If you've ever met disciples who have done this, what you're gonna notice is they all got a story. So I wanna do this. It's a little weird at all of our campuses. If you've ever had a moment, you personally, where it's like you stepped out in generosity and then you saw the supernatural provision or blessing of God afterwards, would you just raise your hand right now? Would you do that? Keep them up, lock them. Look around this room. Look at that, look at that. listen, don't ever let somebody convince you that your God is not faithful. Never. Because here's what you need to understand, man. Listen, you get this. It's going to change everything. Listen, what you need to understand is check this out, man. God and 90% of your income can do more and you in 100%. Let me say that a different way. 90% with the blessing of God is going to go farther than 100% without it. Why? Because he's a good dad that loves to give good gifts to his kids. and when you walk by faith, he's gonna follow. So man, this is one. It's a moment. It's like a decision you gotta make. And I wanna pray. I wanna pray that God will begin to disciple that in your heart. So at all of our campuses, would you bow your heads and close your eyes? And Heavenly Father, right now, I am asking Lord, no spirit but the Holy Spirit. Father, we have not been given a spirit of fear, but a spirit of sonship by which we cry, Abba, Father. So Lord, I'm praying for my people. I'm praying that we would be people to a man and to a woman that we have decided to walk by faith. And we have decided that you are before all things and in you all things hold together, that from you and to you and through you are all things. So Father, would you plant that in our hearts, not just for us, but for our children to grow up watching and our grandchildren to watch their forefathers and foremothers walk by faith so that we pass the most important inheritance down to generations, the heritage of watching their parents walk by faith. So Father, we love you, we praise you, we exalt your name, and we pray it in the crucified, risen name of Jesus Christ. And all God's people said, amen.