Collect the Right Wealth - Pastor Naeem Fazal

[00:00:01] Hey, guys, this is Naim, and you've reached the Mosaic Church Podcast. So excited that you're part of our listening community and love for you to be even more connected. So check out our website. There's more content there and there's more opportunities for you get connected in our ministries and events as well. Also, love for you to share this content. If this is blessed to you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it. So share this podcast you will. Lastly, would you consider supporting this ministry? This is made possible by other people's generosity, and I'd love for you to pay it forward. [00:00:39] Join us to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus together. So would you consider giving to this ministry? I know that God is able to do immeasurably more through us when we come together. Thank you so much. God bless you. Enjoy. [00:00:57] Good morning. [00:00:58] Good morning, guys. [00:01:00] Thanks, Lucia. Thank you. All right, so. Hey, friends. So if you're a guest here, welcome. If you're joining us online, welcome. We are kind of winding down our series that we've been in for last couple of weeks. And can you. Can you imagine, like, it's. We're winding down summer as well. Isn't it. Isn't it sad? [00:01:19] It's sad, man. Where did it go? Where did it go? But the series, it's been interesting. If you've been joining us. It's been interesting for me. I'll tell you why. Because every week I'm like, I don't wanna talk about this. I don't wanna talk about this. Cause here's why. Cause it's convicting. It's like, it makes me question, how am I living my life? Because this big idea of margin is making room for what? [00:01:40] For matters in your life. And so we've talked about emotional margin, spiritual margin, relational margin. And all these are just hard topics for me because I find myself just all in and always busy and all that. And this forces me to stop. So guess what? We're never gonna do this series again. Okay? We're just not gonna do this again. But you know what? It's so true, though. It's so simple. Because I've talked to so many of you and you've said, you know what? I do need it. It's a good thing you don't know what I've talked about. But you're like, margin, I need margin in my life. I need. Put it on the shopping list. I need it. I need it. I need margin in my life. And it's so important. The other day, I was talking to a guy, actually, we were in the gym, and we were working out together, and he was like, oh, my gosh. And he was like, this is so hard, man. Man, being 35 stinks. [00:02:29] And. Yes, okay. And then he looked at me, and I was like, yeah, wait till you get to my age. And he looked at me, he was like, what? [00:02:37] You're 38. [00:02:39] I know. I was like, first of all, I love you. [00:02:43] Second of all, I said, no, man, I'm 51. And he was like, what? [00:02:48] And I was like, yeah. He's like, you don't look. I was like, because I'm brown. [00:02:54] Because if, you know. If you're brown, you know, brown don't frown. [00:02:58] It's a thing. It's a thing, Jeff. Black don't. Black don't crack, and white people, Botox. That's all you got? That's all. Yeah. I'm sorry. [00:03:08] I'm so sorry. [00:03:10] So sorry. [00:03:13] But it's true. [00:03:16] Also proves that God loves us more. Anyways, joking, joking. If you're a guest, please don't leave. All right. [00:03:24] Well, the thing is, though, when I was talking to him, I was like, well, he looked. He was like, well, you look. You know, I said. Then he started asking me questions. He's like, so, what do you eat? What do you do? [00:03:34] What are you on? What do you. What's. And I'm like. I said, it's. [00:03:38] It's not a lot, man. I got. I'm not on. I'm not on steroids or anything like that. I'm not on anything. It's just, man, this is 20 years in the making. Like, it took me a long time to look like this at 51. And it's so true, because we look at other people, and I've looked at other people and I've been, oh, my gosh, how did you get here? Like, how did you. How do you. How did you. How do you know the scriptures so well? I'm like, oh, my gosh. How do you. What do you do? What do you do? And when I hear, what they always tell me is, no, I've been doing. [00:04:07] I've been spending time with God in 30 minutes, an hour, for 35 years. [00:04:13] It's not like, oh, the latest and the greatest thing. It's the one thing you need to make time for. It's just five minutes. It's 10 minutes, it's an hour. Whatever you make time for, when it comes to your emotions, when it comes to your health, when it comes to your Spirituality, when you make time for what matters most, you create. And margin. And margin is where miracles happen. [00:04:35] Margin leads us to where we want to be in life because so many of us want to live a life. You want to live a better life than you have been living right now. I think a lot of us, not all of us, because some of us are like, you know what? I'm living the life I want to live. But some of us were like, man, I wish I was here. I wish I was there. And here's my thing to you, is, let's start today, let's create margin today. If it matters most to you, if it matters to you, then you need to create what you need. You need to create margin. Margin. So as we've talked about emotional stuff, talked about relational stuff, talked about spiritual stuff, today, I wanna talk to you about something again, I don't wanna talk about. But here's the thing. As I was studying about this, I thought, I do want to talk about this. And for some of you, you're like, I've got this down. I'm good for others of you, but there will be a challenge in the middle of this too, for those of you who got it together when it comes to this topic. Others of you, I don't know if you've ever heard this. And as I look at my kids, I look at my college kids, I think, I don't even know where they've heard this. And what I'm talking about is financial margin. I'm talking about how you manage your money. [00:05:40] Do you have margin when it comes to that? In fact, how do you do that? Who taught you how to manage money? Because I don't know about you, but I grew up in a certain context. [00:05:51] You know, I have two brothers, two sisters in the Middle east, came here as an immigrant. My relationship with money and resources is different from you. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, some of us are immigrants, but it's a different scenario for others of us. We grew up, maybe everything was provided for us. We grew up with this idea of, like, money just cometh. Money just cometh. It just happens and everything happens. And then you're like, oh, dad, mom, why am I paying all these school bills? Well, because we didn't pay for. Like, no one's told you, hey, actually, this is connected to how you live your life. [00:06:28] Because I don't know if you know this. Like, if you spend or earn money, you can't ignore it. [00:06:35] Like, if you. You're like, oh, I don't know anything. And I don't need to know money. Just if you're spending it, let me just tell you it's gonna affect you. And the stats are so real. They're so real. Like, money affects us. And that's why the scriptures actually talk about it. That's why God talks about money. And again, let me just tell you right now, if you're watching, you're listening here. You're like, oh, my gosh, this is gonna be a tithing thing. Oh, my gosh, you're gonna be asking me for money. I'm not. [00:07:00] I'm not. [00:07:01] I'm not gonna be asking for money. I'm not asking you for tithing. In fact, if you're just watching, you're like, I belong to another church. Tithe there if you want to. [00:07:09] This conversation is about money management. It's about why God says, I need to heal your heart and soul when it comes to your resources and money. Because it's affecting you. Because here's what we've already realized. Just studying ourselves, right? Studying ourselves, we found out that money and the lack of money resources affects us emotionally. It causes so much anxiety. Come on, you know this. It causes so much stress in our lives. It causes distress. It causes us to withdraw. Sometimes it affects us relationally. Relationally. I mean, you would think it's not true. Like, you think, oh, love makes the world go round. But in fact, money greases the wheel, apparently. Because if you don't have money, people argue about money. Best friends break up sometimes because of a money situation. You owe them. They borrowed this. Da, da da da, da, da da da. Something happened. Spouses do the same thing, argue about it. And stats tell us like 45% of people argue about money. And then spiritually, Spiritually affects us. I'll tell you why. Because here's what happens. What happens is you begin to, like, realize that, well, maybe I should be giving more or I should be doing this, or then you are in environments like church environments where people like churches will ask you and make you feel guilty to give. And so what happens is spiritually, when it comes to money, you either have shame or guilt or confusion or manipulation. [00:08:41] And so you're like, ah, don't talk about it. I don't know what you're saying. I don't know what you're saying. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you like a, hey, shame free, guilt free. I'm not asking for anything. I just want you to know that God wants to help you. When it comes to your anxiety, God wants to help you when it comes to your relationships, and God wants to help you when it comes to your finances, because it's affecting everything that you do. It just affects everything and every relationship. And so we want to jump right into it. Can we do that? Let's do. Let's just do that. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go to the book of Proverbs. Okay? Can you say the book of Proverbs? [00:09:21] Proverbs. Okay. Proverbs. Now, if you don't know the scriptures, if you don't know what the Bible is, it's like. So the Bible is about. Literally means library. Okay. Bibliotheca. You know, the whole word. Okay. Yeah, Bible. So you got. You got Old Testament stuff. Then you got. In the middle, you got these. These random things. Like you got the Psalms. There are a lot of. And then you got these proverbs where Solomon, this guy wrote down all these wise sayings. Like they're like quotable quotes, you know, basically. And then you've got the New Testament. So this is in the middle. It's in Proverbs. And so what happens here is that he's throwing nuggets of things. And so I want to talk about some of these things. And what we'll find out, number one, is we'll find out the first thing you need to ask yourself when it comes to your finances. By the way. By the way, all the stuff that I'm saying. Not all the stuff, all the points, all the scriptures are in your app if you wanna follow along. So what the Proverbs tells us is that when it comes to money management, there's several questions that I feel like we need to ask ourselves. [00:10:18] But then here's what's interesting. Cause I'm really excited about this message. And I'm like, this is actually a pretty good message. I'm like, seriously, I'm like. I'm complimenting myself. Yes. Okay. I'm like, you know what? It actually gives us four traits that if you are a middle schooler, a high schooler, college kid, young, professional, single, married, retired, or gonna retire, like, these are four character traits that God wants to shape in your life in regards to your finances. And so we'll see this. Okay? And the first character trait is actually wisdom. Wisdom, okay. So the first question where we need is to ask ourselves this is, where are you when it comes to your finances? Where are you? Like, the other day, I was. [00:11:06] Asher, my son, he's in College in Boone. And so I was trying to get to him, and he has a new apartment, and so I was trying to get to his apartment. So what I did was I went to. [00:11:16] I think I went to Life360. Anybody heard of that? Life360. Who uses find My Friends? Any of you use it? Find My Friends? Yeah. Yeah, I do that, too. So I was just. I think I got on one of those apps. I clicked on his location, like, where he was, right? And I was like, just map to it. Just map to it. Didn't think anything about it. And then I show up there and I'm like, this is not the place. This is kind of a shady place. I'm like, where, bro? What are you doing? He's like, I'm not part of a drug deal. What are you doing, son? I'm gigging all kinds of scenarios in my head and all that. And then I called him. I was like, where are you? And he was like, where are you? [00:11:51] I was like, well, my phone tells me you're here. And he was like, when did you check the location? [00:11:56] 30 minutes ago. I was like, oh, right, you moved. [00:12:01] Okay, that's funny. That's funny. Have you also noticed that Instagram is now wanting you to put your location in? You guys hear about that? [00:12:09] What is this thing we see movies about, like, people, like, thinking like that. If you know where all of humanity is, there's power in that if you know where everybody else is, okay? And I think some governments are probably trying to do that, right? They wanna know where everybody is. Everybody is. Because knowing where people are is powerful, right? But imagine if you did not know where you were. [00:12:31] How dangerous is that when it comes. Do you know where you are financially? You're like, ah. Some of you like, I know, but I don't wanna talk about it. I don't wanna talk about it. I'm closing my eyes as I walk through this, okay? I'm hoping some of us, if you're married, if you got a partner, you're like, wondering, actually, you know what? They take care of it. And I just spend and I just do. They pay the bills, they do all the number things and the Excel stuff, and I just do other things. And you're like, I don't know. I don't know. But we have money. I do know that we have money. [00:13:10] You, my friend, you need to know where you are. [00:13:14] You have to start with honesty. Here's why. Do you know 50% of people, okay? One study showed 50% of people in relationships Hide purchases. [00:13:31] Half of this room, people. [00:13:33] You're like, uh, oh, we should have gone to the other church. [00:13:38] Should have. [00:13:39] What you do is you hide. Some of us hide debt and some of us hide. Some people have separate bank accounts that your partner or spouse does not know about. [00:13:51] What? [00:13:52] Are you kidding me? Yes, it's true. You just kind of. I was talking to a person the other day. They're like, oh, yeah, I did that early on. [00:13:58] I just take a little money and look, this is what I want from my money. [00:14:02] No one needs to track this. [00:14:04] It's just the thing. You just hide. Why? Because you don't wanna explain to your person why you need this. Because there's no need for it. [00:14:12] There's a want. It's a serious want, but there's no need. And you just hide. See, here's what happens. What happens is when you start not knowing where you are financially, the first thing we start doing is we start lying to ourselves. [00:14:25] We start hiding from ourselves. Oh, I'm not as bad as. I'm not. No, no, no. Here's the problem. No one likes to jump on a scale, but you got to do it financially. You got to do it. Proverbs here says this. He says. Here's what it says. It says, know how well your flocks are doing and keep your mind on your cattle. You're like, ha, ha, good thing. Cause I have no. I have no flocks and I have no cattle. So this doesn't apply. The principle applies. Basically, he's like, hey, know the health. Like, for me, as a pastor shepherd, it says, know the condition of your flock. Like, know where people are. You got to know where people are. You. You gotta do that. Another. Another passage actually, in Luke, it says this, okay? It says, jesus says this. He says, suppose one of you wants to build a. What? Tower? Again, some of you guys, like, don't want to build a tower. Don't want to do that. Don't want to do that. Okay, won't you. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost and see what. See if. What if you have enough money to complete it? Like, do you know? Like, have you thought about where you are right now? Because all of us want to know where. Kind of have an idea where you want to go, but can you get there from where you are? [00:15:39] Where are you? And this, friends, is gonna take wisdom. [00:15:43] Wisdom, wisdom. Why? Because you've got to figure out, like, hey, we wanna. Like, I don't know, financially, are we. Are we doing. Do we have good spending habits? Do we have good saving habits? Do we manage our money? Well, see, we do this as an organization. We ask other, like, companies that come in, like, before we do, like, a building campaign or something. We take a risk at trying to purchase space because we've purchased different spaces. We built a whole gymnasium next door. Before we did all that, we had to sit down with someone and say, hey, are we healthy enough as a church, as an organization to. To pull this off? Where are we? [00:16:24] Why? Because we can always pretend like, oh, we're great, we're good, but where are you? [00:16:31] So do you need to talk to someone? [00:16:34] Maybe a professional? I mean, we have professionals here. One of the guys, Sheldon, Sheldon May is one of our trustees. Great guy. He has his own company called Financial Butler, which is hilarious. [00:16:49] But he really has a heart for helping people out. And so maybe people you need to talk to about, like, hey, where are we? Maybe the hardest thing you can do, but the wisest thing you can do is maybe ask your person that you are living together. Live with, as in, like you have a life with. You're spending money together, you're earning money together. Hey, where are we? Are we in a good place? Are we not? What's the condition? Where are we? It's a great thing to ask number two is where do you want to go? Where do you wanna go? So you have this idea of wisdom that God wants to create wisdom in you by asking what the wise thing is. But the next thing God wants you to do is ask you purpose is to give you a life of purpose. Live a life of wisdom, but then also live a life of purpose when it comes to your money. You're like, my purpose is to buy whatever I want. That's what I want. Well, okay, that's great. I mean, but where do you wanna go? You're like, Cancun. [00:17:48] No, no, no. Tahiti. No, no. On vacation. No, no. Where do you wanna end up? [00:17:56] Where do you wanna end up? And this is where you think of purpose. [00:18:02] And especially those of you who are starting relationships and you're like, this is the one. This is the one. This is the one. Find out where he wants to go. [00:18:10] Cause you might not be able to Uber back from there. See what I'm saying? [00:18:14] You just might end up in a place you're like, oh, gosh. Yeah. Wait, where? No, no, but he looks great. Awesome. [00:18:23] Awesome. She. Oh, she's so fine. That's great. [00:18:27] But where is she going? [00:18:30] Where does she want to end up? [00:18:32] Where does she want to end up? And so that's why I ask people like, hey, where do you want to go? Like, let's write this down, have a dream. [00:18:41] You're like, my dream is just to pay the bills. I get that. That's a season and we can figure that out. But then you gotta dream a little bit. Hey, how do I want my kids think future? I was talking to a guy the other day, and I was like. He was like, so why did you do this and why'd you do that? I said, man, I don't think it's something like finances. I think decades. [00:19:05] I think decades, like ash. And I'm like, okay, in my 50s, and by the time I'm 60, I want to be able to do this. [00:19:12] Like, we think decades. Not week to week, not day to day, not paycheck to paycheck. No decades. Why? Because you can't have purpose in your life. You can't be a person of purpose in any arena of your life. If you just go one step at a time, relationally, financially, career wise. If you're going to live a life of purpose, you got to think long term. [00:19:36] Long term. And because you got to start making margin for what matters most in your life. [00:19:44] Here's Proverbs 29:18 says this. It says, if people can see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves. But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed. There's wisdom in that. And basically he's saying is, like, if you have not had a conversation with God, where God is showing you, hey, this is. Maybe this is where you wanna go. This is what you should do. If you haven't had a conversation with God, I'll tell you what you end up doing. You're gonna end up jumping on the next thing that comes up, the next investment, the next opportunity, the next whatever, and you're gonna jump doing that. And sometimes we do this, sometimes we do this financially. We're like, oh, we're excited about this. Like, I can't tell you how many friends of mine who've jumped on a Ponzi scheme just to make a quick buck. I mean, a couple of bucks and lost it. And I remember telling someone, I'm like, this is not real. And they're like, whatever. [00:20:37] I'm like, this is not. [00:20:39] You gotta have a vision for it. You gotta have a dream. You gotta write this stuff down. So maybe, maybe you wanna write down, what level of rich do you wanna be? You're like, what? [00:20:50] Yeah, what level of rich do you want to be? [00:20:54] What? Because if you don't if you. Because you're gonna keep chasing. [00:20:58] Because I'll tell you what, the rich just want to be richer. I mean, like, you know, Jeff Bezos has never thought, I'm just too rich. [00:21:07] I'm just too rich. No, he's waking up, probably thinking, how can I make another billion? [00:21:13] How can I do that? How can I do that? [00:21:16] How about, like, where do you want to go? Maybe put it on a prayer list. Because now you have a purpose with that. [00:21:22] Align with God and see. Because when you. When he reveals something to you and then you work towards it, it says, you are blessed. If Proverbs 21:20 says this, the wise. The wise store up choice food and olive oil. But fools, what? Excuse me, they actually do what the word says. [00:21:43] They what? [00:21:44] They gulp theirs down? [00:21:46] Basically, he's saying is, again, again, there's gonna be so many opportunities, so many things. The latest and the greatest is always gonna come out in everything. The latest music, the latest fashion, the latest phone, the latest everything, whatever's just gonna come out. It's gonna come out, and then you're gonna spend it on whatever the latest thing is. And you're going to end up being a fool. [00:22:08] Fool. Why? Because you're not. [00:22:11] You don't have a purpose. So really simple questions, right? Where are you? Where do you wanna go financially? Where do you wanna go? Okay, third. It's getting super practical. [00:22:22] This is hard, though. This is. How are you going to get there? [00:22:28] Like, how are you gonna get there? You're like, I know where I wanna go. Okay, you wrote something down. You talked to your friends. You talk to your person. Okay, we wanna go there. We wan. [00:22:38] We wanna have this. We don't wanna be in debt. We want whatever it is. Okay, how are you going to get there? This is where you gotta ask people to help you. Or this is where you gotta get the right people around you to go, okay, this is where you have to have courage in your life. You live a life not just of wisdom, not just of purpose, but you live a life of courage. [00:23:06] Cause here's what you're gonna need. You're gonna need a lot of courage to sit down with someone and say, hey, I don't know what I'm doing. [00:23:15] You're gonna have to be really brave or humble, whatever you wanna call it, to sit down with someone and go, hey, you know what? I didn't grow up with a family that they talked about money. [00:23:25] They didn't talk about money. No one talked about money. And then I was in college and Then I graduated, and then there was a thing over there and a thing over there and $40,000 in debt, okay? And the grad school and this and that, but no one taught me. I have a master's, but I have no idea how to spend money. [00:23:44] You gotta have courage. You gotta have courage to sit down and go, hey, how are we gonna get there? See, some of us. Some of us. [00:23:51] Let me talk to those of you. I was gonna say guys, but that's not necessarily true. Let me talk to you. Those of you who are like, I know what I'm doing. [00:23:58] The person who goes, I know what I'm doing financially. Do you, though? Could you learn some more if you think, no, I couldn't. We got a problem. [00:24:08] Could you. Could you. How? Like, could there be a better, faster way to get where you want to go? [00:24:18] You've all used maps before, right? How many of us have used maps? Anybody? Anybody? Anybody not use maps right now? [00:24:25] Anybody open up the thing and look at maps. [00:24:29] You remember that was a thing. Those of you who don't know, that was a thing. I remember in college going, oh, my goodness, what's happening? What are we doing here? Because maps tell us. And then also in maps, what happens is they'll give you, like, routes to get there. [00:24:43] 41 minutes, 44 minutes, whatever, whatever minutes. And you pick. Whatever. [00:24:49] I wonder. I wonder, though, if you need to tweak your budget, tweak your savings, tweak your investments. [00:24:59] See, you can't change something that you haven't kind of like, I don't know, like, measured. [00:25:07] You can't really change anything. Like, for example, like, if you wrote down every dollar that you spend for 30 days, you're like, okay, first of all, that's a nightmare. Who wants to do that? Okay? I don't even track my calories. You know what I'm saying? That's hard enough. I don't do that. [00:25:26] But if you figured out, like, okay, how much. Like back in the day, when we were first got married, we used to have this envelope system. You remember that, Ash? We used to have an envelope system. We took the money out for the month. Or was it for the month? Yeah, and I got. I don't need. I got 20 bucks for the week or something. It was ridiculous. Okay? But we did that. [00:25:45] If the money ran out, the physical money ran out, it ran out. [00:25:51] We are overspending for the week. If we have to take out more money. [00:25:55] I know. Crazy system, right? But I'll tell you what it's worked for. How many years now. 20, 26 years. And I gotta be honest with you, I mean, it's like, people go, okay. [00:26:07] Like, hey, it's small things over time. That's all we've done. We haven't. We're not super smart about this. We're just consistent about it. And so we've done this. [00:26:21] Like, we just. We. We. We have a strategy. Our. One of our strategies was we don't want to carry debt. We just don't want to carry debt. That's why I worked my butt off three jobs when I graduated from college. I had no debt. I just was. I mean, I didn't have a college life. I didn't. But I also didn't want my kids to, like, I wanted my kids to have a certain kind of life as well. But they're. They're working as well. They have worked because there's a. There's a. There's a purpose to this. I want them to be wise when it comes to this, and I want them to be courageous because they gotta be. Figure out how they're going to get to where they want to go in life. Hebrews 13 says this. It says, keep your lives free from the. Help me out from the what? [00:27:03] Love of money? And be content with what you have. Because God said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. He says, hey, listen, let me just tell you, if you don't figure this out, if you don't have a strategy on how you're going to get there, this love of just acquiring stuff, of hoarding wealth or just keeping stuff, depending on how you were raised, you're just going to end up doing that. And you might not call it love of money. You might not call it, I don't love money. I don't love money. Yeah, but you protect it more than your kids. [00:27:37] Like, I remember the first time, like, you know, like, I got a new car and Asher could drive, and he was like. [00:27:44] And I just said, hey, take the car. And he was like, you let me drive. [00:27:49] I'm like, yeah. [00:27:51] And he's like, my friends. Dads would never. And then he took the car out and all that. And I said. I said, I love you more than the car. [00:27:59] Like, you're more important than the car, by the way. If you scratch it, it's over. [00:28:05] You're going to be meeting Jesus. [00:28:07] I'm just kidding. I love you. No, but I mean, yeah. Have you met people who are, like, so protective about their stuff? [00:28:15] Are you one of those people? [00:28:17] Like, you're like, ah, ah, you don't love money, but you definitely controlled by it. [00:28:25] Here's what Proverbs 22 says. The rich rule the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender. [00:28:34] Oh, what is it saying here? What it's saying is like when you wrap, when you allow money to enslave you, to make you enslaved, because now you owe someone else, because you over committed here and you did this there and you did that there, and you didn't have a purpose and you didn't use wisdom and you didn't use courage, you're gonna end up, you're gonna end up being a slave. You're gonna be ending up being ruled by companies, by your job, by everything. Why? Because you can't afford to quit this terrible company. Why? Because you've maxed out everything. You can't leave, you can't make a career change because you haven't created margin to create anything. You haven't done all the stuff. So we got to go. Okay, how are we going to get there and come up with a game plan to do it? Come up with a game plan to do it now. [00:29:30] In the app, I gave you three things just to help if you guys want this, I mean, obviously there's so much information out there. Okay, it's as simple as simplify your life, kill bad debt, have an emergency fund. I mean, all those things, but you can figure those out. Let me give you the last thing, okay? This is really important. The last question you ask yourself is what will you be known for? [00:29:54] Okay, so let's just go through them really quick. Okay, so, well, number one, where are you? How you gonna get there? Right, sorry. Where do you want to go? How are you gonna get there? And then lastly is, yeah, what do you want to be known for? [00:30:09] What do you want to be known for? Well, you might say, what does that mean? What does that mean? Okay, let me just tell you something. [00:30:15] You write, you and I are writing a story. [00:30:19] Writing a story or telling a story by how we spend our money. [00:30:26] You're like, what? Okay, let's be honest here, okay? We all have opinions on how stingy or generous the person we know that we hang out with. Everybody in your friend circle, in your family circle knows your attitude when it comes to money. [00:30:44] They've thought about it. [00:30:46] Some of us, we are known for being stingy and cheap. [00:30:51] Some of us are known to be just unpredictable, generous. [00:30:57] Everybody is known for something when it comes to money. You're like, think about it. We all have. If you have a Friend group, you know, you go out, who's paying? You're like, so and so is never gonna pay for this. They always forget this or whatever, to whatever and da, da, da. And this and this. Or they're the first ones to offer. Like who? Like who? [00:31:19] What I wanna know is, if you're with a group of people and one person says, oh, let's get an appetizer to share who's paying for that appetizer? That's what I wanna know, right? I gotta check myself sometimes. Like, dude, name, calm down. Like, you better pay for that. [00:31:32] That's on you. Cause, I mean, I'm gonna eat some of that guacamole for sure. That's happening. But you said it. You all. You know what I'm saying? [00:31:43] You should get most of it, you know? Yeah. See, we all have stories. [00:31:47] We all have stories. We all. People are going, and here's what's really funny. Your kids, if you have kids, and if kids know you even that they have an opinion about you when it comes to your money, they will. They will tell stories about it. They just will. Regardless if you have a lot of it or none of it, they just will. [00:32:11] Here is what Paul tells his protege. He tells him in First Timothy, he says this. He says, command. He says, command those. [00:32:18] Command those who are rich in this pleasant world not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth. Command them to be good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. [00:32:34] He's like, hey, command them to do this. Because you and I are writing a story when it comes to that. And the character here is this character that I kind of love this word, is a character of nobility, being noble. [00:32:49] Noble actually means generous, but being noble when it comes to your money. So just, let's just think about it, okay? Before we end in prayer, think about the idea of, like, could God be speaking to you about the one thing that causes so much fight, so much anxiety, so much pain in your life? Could he be asking you to be a person who is wise, who has purpose, who's courageous, and then who is noble? Like, noble is like this act of nobility is you step in and give grace and generosity to people because you create margin in your life to do that. And here he's saying, tell them. Tell them. Command them. Like, make them do this. Make them do this. Those who are very rich, make them be people who are noble. [00:33:37] You know, I think of nobility as nobility of birth. You're just born into nobility. No, in scripture, it talks about Being a person who is noble, which means being a person who is generous. So are we going to be those people? Imagine. Imagine with me. Imagine with me what does hang in the balance if you just keep on. Don't listen to what I'm saying, don't listen to the scriptures and just keep on doing what you're doing. Are you gonna get where you want to go? Are you gonna actually end up living a life with no regrets or going, you know, I wish I would have done this 10 years ago. See some of us. Are you listening to this? And you're like, oh, my gosh, I think I'm already far behind. The good thing is you can start right now and change right now. Make the steps right now, change those things right now. Take all the stuff that your family has given you, either a lot of stuff, which was not really good because your dad used to always get stuff on, always use credit cards, always used to do this. Mom always used to do this. And there's this finagling going on, and there was a returning this and playing all these games. [00:34:46] Let's leave all of that stuff behind us and say, let's start anew. If you're starting a family together, hey, this is a great opportunity to go, you know what? Let's just. [00:34:56] Let's just do this new thing here. We're gonna figure this out. We wanna be people, we wanna raise kids. We wanna be a friend that is noble, that's courageous, that's wise, that has purpose in life. Let's do that with our resources. Because guess what? Money's not going away. [00:35:12] And it's always going to want to enslave us. It is the one thing, friends, that Jesus said, hey, it's just gonna get you. It's just gonna get you. If you don't get it. [00:35:24] So what are you and I going to be known for? [00:35:30] For those of you who are like, you know, what name. Thank you for this message, but I do this already. I'm good. [00:35:35] I'm glad. Worship was great, because this, you know. [00:35:39] So here's what I want you to do. I want you, if you already do this, I want you to be like the writers of Proverbs. See, the writer of Proverbs was like, you know what? I figured out some stuff. I'm gonna put it down so I can help and encourage some people. [00:35:54] So here's what I need you to do. I need you to figure out some people and you ask God, hey, who can I help when it comes to money? Who can I encourage when it Comes to money. Because some of us, we need so much encouragement. Why? Because we're trying to work a process, and it's so hard. [00:36:11] You know what I'm saying? Because part of the process might be you have to be broke for a season. [00:36:17] You know what? And you're broke for a season because there's a reason to it. Why? Because you don't want to be broke forever. [00:36:23] And so we just need encouragement. We need, in a community like this, people who go, I can help. I can provide. I can do this, I can do that. There might be some people in your life that you're like, you know what? Hey, listen, don't pay for that. I got you. [00:36:37] I got this. [00:36:38] Don't do this. Let's not do this alone. So I want to challenge those of you who kind of figured it out. [00:36:44] Me as well. Cause people have come up to us and said, hey, what have you been doing? I'm like, it's not a pill. It's a process. [00:36:51] This is what you do. You just end up doing it. [00:36:55] What if we change the narrative about money right? At church especially? What if we change the money, this narrative about what God wants? Like, God does not want your money. [00:37:05] He wants you to become more like how he created you to be. He wants you to live the life that you dream about, be the person that he created you to be. All. All of it. To have, you know, like, open and honest conversations and relationships. Be courageous enough to be so vulnerable, and then be someone who is known for their generosity. [00:37:27] So can I just pray that over you? Let's do that together. Lord God, thank you so much for your love for us. [00:37:34] Thank you, God, that you are a God who wants to speak to us. You are a God who desires for us to live a full life. Not, not. Not a life that. That. That could have been something. No, a life that is something. [00:37:54] And, God, so often, we just want you for spiritual things. We want you for our emotions. [00:37:59] We want you for our mental health. We want you to come and provide for us in different ways. And, God, what you actually are doing in this moment is you're reminding us that it's wisdom, that what we need to seek beyond anything else is just wisdom to do the things we need to do. [00:38:19] God, you're giving us. You've given us the scriptures to learn from, to grow from. So, God, I just pray that as we. As we move to this point, as some of us go to the. [00:38:33] And start praying and use candles to pray for prayer requests. God, maybe. Maybe they just put a prayer request of where they want to end up in life. Lord, God, financially, and they're praying for that. God, for some of us, we put something on the cross and maybe it is the old way of guilt and shame. [00:38:53] God, some of us, we do not have faith. [00:38:57] We do not trust you when it comes to our finances. We just don't. [00:39:01] And that is a real thing. So, God, I pray that today for some of us, we would just put it on the cross and we go today. God, I'm going to trust you. I'm going to trust you because I need to trust you. [00:39:14] You'll never leave. [00:39:16] You've never forsaken us. You can be trusted. God, God, some of us need to receive communion today, reminding us, God, you're the God who gives everything. [00:39:27] And so, God, I just pray that as we spend this time responding, you would change us, shape us, align us to where you want us to be in Jesus name. [00:39:38] Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. [00:39:43] For more audio and video content, visit us at Mosaic Church tv.