[00:00:00] Well, good morning, everybody. And welcome. Welcome. Welcome. And I want to, I want to extend a very warm welcome to any of you on any of our other campuses today, or any of you on the online community. I want to say welcome to you. We are so glad to have you with you today. We're continuing in a series is called the God we trust, and it's a series that we began actually five weeks ago. We're going to finish it next week and I want to adjust, just address an issue. Why would we spend six? Talking about money. It seems like, like that just seems excessive. I want to suggest to you, I don't think it's it's excessive and that it's actually significant. And it's important. Let me give you a couple of reasons why we would talk so much about money. One because Jesus and the Bible talks so much about money. You might not know this Jesus holds 38 parables, 38 little stories. And 16 of them had to do with how you handle your money. If you read the gospels one out [00:01:00] of every 10 verses Matthew, mark, Luke, and John went out of every 288 and total deal with money. The Bible talks about money a lot. In fact, this is mind blowing when you get your brain around it, the Bible talks more about money than it talks about faith. The Bible talks more about money than it talks about. It's really hard to understand this. It's just, you just go in fact, ready for this. You ready for this, this mind blowing twice as much as faith and prayer. Why, why in the world would the Bible talk about it so much? And, well, I'm going to suggest that there's some reasons for that. I do want to say this though. You cannot, as a pastor. You cannot be consistent with the teaching of Jesus or the teaching of the Bible. If you avoid the subject. And the truth is, is most pastors avoid the subject, the real exposed. The truth is most pastors avoid the subject because they're [00:02:00] so poor at managing their own personal finances. They feel hypocritical to talk about it. And so it was just like, Hey, let's just, just go mum on. But you can be consistent with Jesus. So one of the reasons Jesus, the Bible talks about it so much. We should talk about it. Second is money is something that all of us can relate to. From the time you were little, you understood the power of money and money is something that gets our attention. Money is something that you think about. You can say you don't, but you can't live without thinking about it. So, you know, you start to realize that we all have a relationship with. And the, the trouble is, is where does money play into your priorities? Because Jesus said it this way in Matthew 6 21 for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. So wherever you place your treasure, your heart is going to go there. And then the Bible says as your heart. So you go, so if you fall in love with money, your [00:03:00] heart is going to go and then you're going to go that way. So we, we can relate to it. So we should talk about it, which leads me to the third reason why we would talk so much about it. And it's an extension of the second. And it's simply this because our relationship to money has huge spiritual implications. If you get God right, you can still get money. But if you get money wrong, there's no chance you're going to get God. Right. Let's let that soak in for just a moment. You can get God right, and get money wrong, but you cannot get money wrong and get God right. All of us have to choose. There's just no exception. Is, is it going to be God first in your life or is it going to be money first in your life? And nobody can decide this for you. This is a call you. I want to remind you of something else. Jesus said, Matthew 6 24, no one can serve two masters. Either. He will hate [00:04:00] the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Jesus just said, stuff like that. Jesus made people uncomfortable. He forced choices. And so again, one of the two have to be the most important or something else. If money is the most important God won't be. If God is muddy, won't be. And a fourth reason why I think we should talk about it for six weeks is simply this one, because our knowledge and commitments to do right leaks out of us, it just does knowledge is knowing the right thing to do. Wisdom is doing what you know to do. Let me say it again. Knowledge is knowing the right thing to do. Wisdom is doing what you know. Can I just confess to you? I don't always do what I know. Can I get an amen from anyone El Cassie? It's not good. I don't always do that. Why? Well, for a couple of reasons, this stuff leaks [00:05:00] out of me, it just leaks out of me. I can get the knowledge and I'm going to act, and then the knowledge just leaks out of me. And I forget, I just forget. I, you know, I, I understand about what you should and shouldn't eat, but. You know, something else I get distracted and you know, some meal comes along. That gets my attention and all of a sudden it's like, I know better. Well, the same thing happens with, with how I handle my money. I can forget or something else can come along. And all of a sudden I get distracted and there goes the commitment kind of out the window. Here's what happens when you forget or get distracted, ready, happens to every one of us old habit, reassert themselves. It comes back then. I, I don't even have to think about this as a habit. You see, knowledge is knowing wisdom is doing the knowledge and the truth is, is we don't always do that. We'll have habits by heart. Now, let me [00:06:00] see this and let's just talk about it. We understand that money gets really personal, that most people would talk about anything rather than talk about money, because most of us understand a very, very simple. If you have access to my spending, you can understand my heart. And then the same is true for you. If I know where your money went, I'll know where your heart went, but because we understand that that money follows the heart. And so what happens is we get really threatened and really defensive, like, no, I don't want. And like last week, which we'll talk about a little bit more today. When we talk about debt, we get real uncomfortable just because we realized that there was a trail behind us when it comes to this stuff and that you can re know it reveals a whole lot. I want to say this though, and you're going to understand my [00:07:00] heart in all of this in just a few moments, because I want to explain why I think this is real important to talk about. But I want to say this is really not a hard subject. There's there's only three things you can do with money. I don't know if you've ever thought about this. There's only three things you can spend it, which we're good at. You can save it. And by that, I mean, save, invest, or you can give it, that's the only three things you can do with money outside of that. There's nothing else. This three things, how hard can this be? I can spin it. I can save it and I can give it. And there's only three possible ways you can manage your money. There's only three and they're very simple. Let me, let me explain them to you. Number one, you can spend more than you make. That's a way you manage money. I spend more than I make, by the way. That's what most Americans do. Just so you know, spend more than you make that. That's what we talked about last week. That's how we ended up going into debt. And I want to just cause you to think about debt for. Because [00:08:00] debt is simply using money. I don't have for something I want now. And it's very, very common. Now when I say debt, I want to be very, very clear. I'm talking about consumer debt, not talking about your mortgage. I'm talking about consumer debt. Consumer debt is the new cars, the new boat. It's the vacation. It's the clothes. It's. The meals that you want to have out. It's whatever, the immediate thing you see, we get ourselves in trouble because we are prone to desire, instant gratification, which is I want it now and I want it fulfill now. And when this comes along, we start making really bad choices. All that debt means now listen carefully. All the debt means is that I'm borrowing against my future. That's all it means. In other words, I'm going to use. Money. I don't have, which I'm mortgaging my future. So I'm going to have something now that I'm going to use my future to pay for, which means in the [00:09:00] future, I won't have as much as I could have had because I had to have it now. And instant gratification is a huge issue and we can so easily fall into this. We live in a culture that makes a lot of money out of getting you in debt and me and. There's an industry that's more than willing to sell you two products. You can buy a car and you can buy a financial product, which is required to buy the car. If you don't have the money as called it's the loan. And a lot of people are going to make money on people wanting what they can't afford right now. And so we can get caught up and what's really hard is at some point you have to decide you want to be in that, on that little squirrel, you know, the little hamster wheel going around and around and around squirreling away. Or do you want to jump off of that and go, I don't. That goes nowhere. Well, again, you're going to have to choose, but I got to have it now. It's normal. Proverbs 21 5 says to the plans of the diligent lead to profit, [00:10:00] as surely as haste leads to poverty, haste is I gotta have it now. I gotta have it now. And we do so much buying on impulse. Buy now pay later. I have a friend Barry, Cameron who just retired from the. He had an acronym that I've never been able to forget and I've shared it before, but I would remind you, cause it leaks debt D E B T don't even buy that. I love that don't even buy that because you can't afford it. Don't even buy that consumer purchases what I'm talking about. All right. So there's only three ways you can manage your money. You can spend more than you make. Or second one, you can spend all the. Spend all that you make. And that simply means I'm going to live paycheck to paycheck, according to Forbes magazine. And you'll see different numbers here. 78% of us go paycheck to paycheck. But regardless of our level of income, don't miss this nearly eight out of [00:11:00] every 10 of us are just living by, by paycheck to paycheck. It doesn't matter if you make $40,000 or if you make $440,000, that's what they discovered. It's still paycheck to paycheck at, which means as long as I'm going to get paid on that Friday, I'm good paycheck to paycheck, just like treading water. Okay. I'm not going anywhere, but I'm not drowning. The problem is you're not drowning until there's a crisis. And then you start to realize. And you can't, you can't keep your head up. Well, not falling behind paycheck to paycheck, but I'm not getting ahead. And then the third option is obvious by now. I think you can spend more than you make. You can spend all that you make, or you can spend less than you make. And this is not normal in our culture to do that. You have to determine a couple of things are just not going to be important to you. It's not going to be important to you that [00:12:00] you look good to your peers. You guys, you've got to determine. And it means I'm second thing. I'm not going to worry about keeping up with my peers and I'm not going to worry about the appearance because so much of this stuff is, is based on how do I look compared to so many measuring myself against when you decide I don't care, then all of a sudden you can start making wiser decisions. It's voluntarily taking it down a notch, just choosing. I don't need to live there. I don't need to live. Uh, that house, it's a decision I'm going to save money and what I want to spend the next few minutes, I want to just compel you to think deeply about whether or not you're actually saving money or just spending it. But when you don't spend all you make and you actually saved money, what you're going to end up with is a surplus. You're going to have extra money. Now when you have extra money, some really, really cool things start to happen when you buy that car. Now follow this. When you buy that car, it's actually. W why is it cheaper? Because your money was making money while you were saving [00:13:00] it up while you were saving it up, it was making money. And when you buy the car, you don't have this financial product to add to the price of the car. So the price of the car, because your money made money is actually going to be less than somebody else would pay these, gotta understand what you're actually doing. That you can, you can buy stuff. When you, when you, when you save that you don't have to stress over. It's no big deal. You can actually then choose to give. Without regret or with the reserve, you can just go. I just, I have the surplus. I have all the, I could imagine having, I want to say this, this all seems so obvious to me at this stage of my life, but I got to explain it to you. It was not obvious to me, always at all. I, I don't know where you learned about money, how to manage money. Many of us would say it was my parents. The truth is, is I didn't get that from. Uh, only had a mom, but I didn't get that. Did you learn how to manage money in school? [00:14:00] Did you just pick up books and just start? I mean, most of us learn, honestly, in fact, nowadays, if you follow Tik TOK, there's all kinds of financial wisdom on Tik TOK, but tic talks soon. The school at Tik TOK soon becomes the school of hard knock. When you start to realize a lot of stuff, it gets pawned off as wisdom is just not. But there's all kinds of people giving me all kinds of advice about what to do with your money, but where did you learn how to handle money? Now, I want to say this when you learn from any and everybody, you can learn some pretty shady stuff. And that's what I learned. And that's what I was living by. I want to explain something that I didn't, I say this innocently, because you might relate to me here. I I've never mismanaged money. I've never been in trouble with money, but I gotta tell you, I, I did not know when I was younger, that paycheck to paycheck living was not normal. I didn't know. I should [00:15:00] consider saving money. I didn't, nobody taught me that. I never heard of an emergency fund when I was younger. Never, never an emergency fund to me when I was younger was a credit card. Amen. This is, if I get in trouble, I'm gonna use this card to get me out of trouble. And then I had to dig myself out of the trouble. The card got me into great system. I just didn't know any better. And nobody had, had just taught me paycheck to paycheck. Works fine until it doesn't work until the crisis comes. I'll very quickly. I very clearly, very vividly. Remember my crisis here. Th we used to live by the Mesa campus and it was a house that the air conditioning unit went out on it. And I got the price of a new one and I have no reserves. I have no emergency money. I didn't know to have any, which didn't seem so silly to me, [00:16:00] but here's what I can tell you. Nobody taught me the church. Didn't teach me. I didn't learn it from my parents. I didn't learn it from school. I didn't learn it from books. I didn't learn it. And nobody taught me. And so what I vivid, my moment of coming to Jesus on this was when my air conditioning unit went out and they told me how much it was going to cost to replace it. And in Arizona, you don't have a whole lot of options. Yes. And I said, how much? And I realized what it's going to take to get out of debt on that sucker. And here's what I remember vividly laying in bed. Maybe you'll relate to this. I literally laying in bed at night, having cold sweat. Which is a way to keep cool, frankly, with fear and anxiety and stress and going, this cannot be what God wants for his children. I love Jesus. This cannot be what he has in mind. And sadly for me, I was [00:17:00] in my mid thirties before I began to realize the Bible says a lot about this, and I've just not been. Now again, I think culture talks about this, but it talks about it from a different worldview. It talks about it from the love of money. How do you read this stuff? If you have a love of God, love of God first, it's a different reading. And again, when I look back, if I were critical, I would be critical of the church. Why didn't the church never teach this? Why didn't nobody in the church ever explained it? And I don't, I don't want to be guilty of that. And so every year I go, we're going to cycle back and we're gonna remind people cause it leaks. And so here we go. Now I want to make this statement and I want you to just let this soak in. Okay. No one who was financially bound can be spiritually free. Yeah. Let that let's think about that for just a moment. If you're [00:18:00] financially bound. Um, you're gonna, you're gonna find yourself preoccupied with things that you shouldn't be preoccupied with at the cold sweats. How am I going to get out of this mess? I'm in, this is not what God's word has for you. It's just simply not. I believe that God's word clearly teaches there. There is a way to be blessed and I'm going to say this, most people aren't going to do this. I'm just going to say most people are not going to, they're going to hear it and they're going, Nope. Here. Here's where I will testify 30 years ago, Lisa and I decided we're not doing the world's way of money anymore. It's too stressful. And we decided we're going to apply what God's word says, and we're going to do it that way 30 years ago now. And I got to. Uh, half of my life without the word and half my life with the word, Lisa and I have zero regrets and would never, ever, [00:19:00] ever go back to the way the world teach us to manage money would never do it. We are fully convinced. No. I want to just give you a simple formula. This is not, you have to find this in the Bible. You're just going to find the wisdom of this in the Bible, a simple formula. Okay. It's just numbers. You got to get in your head. These are simple numbers. 10, 10, 80 simple formula, a 10, 10 80. What do those numbers mean? The first 10 that's the first 10th was called the tithe that goes to God. Got it always gets the first and God always gets the best. Now I want you to repeat after me. Now. You might not believe this, but I want you to hear yourself say it the first and the best always belongs to God. Just, would you say that out loud? Just to hear yourself saying it the first, I can't hear you the first and the best always belong to. [00:20:00] That means I give first informal. I give now when I say I give, I don't just give to the United way, I don't just give to the girl Scouts I give to God. I give to God. And for his purposes, the second 10th, well, it's not a biblical principle, like a tie. The concept is so simply put in here that the second 10th you, you give to yourself and that's called saving. All right. And by the way, you're giving to your future. You're doing it today, but you're setting your future up. You're giving to your future. You save it. You invest in your wellbeing. The first 10, first and foremost always belongs to God. Second 10th. I need to make sure that I'm taking care of my future. The third number is 80 and 80 represents the standard of living. You have to acclimate yourself to 80%. You, you can, you can spend whatever you want. You can not just anything, but you can. You live [00:21:00] on 80% and 80% becomes your new 100%. Your worry, your financial worries are over when 80% becomes your new 100%, your financial worries are over. They're going to be behind you. Now. It's hard to do. And most people again, won't do it. But from that point, I'm telling you, God will bless you. Now, you don't have, you're going to have to process whether or not you're going to believe this or. But I just want to remind you of a couple of things. Okay. The only three things you can do with money, you can spend it, you can save it and you can give it all right. Three things. Most people use their money. Exactly. In that order spend it. I don't have anything left. I spent more, I went in debt. I don't have anything beyond what I got. I sacrifice my future. And so I have nothing to save. If they do save, then they say whatever is left after their spending [00:22:00] and giving is a joke. Like you gotta be kidding. I don't have anything to give. I have anything left and we go exactly. Now I need you to understand Tintin 80 reverses the order. It is a flip upside down it's God's values. God. The first 10th goes to God. The second 10th is my future and the 80% is what I'm going to live on. And I just need you to understand it's it's, it's incredible when you shift this around. Now, I want to be really clear about something. When I say give a 10th doesn't mean I can't give more than a 10th. And when I say save a 10th, it doesn't mean you can't save more than a 10th. It's just got to come out of the 80% and then you go, well, I just going to kind of keep trying to figure out how to reduce. So I have more to give them more to save if you're so inclined, but I'm telling you the world turns around, you've got to do it, but he's got to do it intentionally. Now let me just spend a few moments. I just want to show you what the Bible says about saving. Just so we're [00:23:00] clear because you might think of the Bible, this even addresses folks. The Bible addresses this constantly. It's just constantly, let me, let me show you a couple of things. Proverbs six, six. It says, go to the ant you sluggard. Awesome. Hey, you lazy person. Look at an ant. That's literally what Solomon is saying here. And this strong go to the ant. You sluggard consider its ways and be wise. It has no commander, no overseer or a ruler yet a sources provision in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there? You sluggard. When you get up, here's a very rich man, by the way, if you don't know this, when will you get up from your. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come on. You like a thief and scarcity like an armed man. I just find this fascinating, this very wealthy man says, just follow the example of an ant. How [00:24:00] big of a brain does an ant have? It's not a compliment to us folks. It's just not, but he's saying, you know what? The aunt has, it has a. Of the future. It's going to gather while it can, cause it's not going to be able to gather later and it needs provision published 21 20th. And again, I just think you need to know this in the house of the wise, not the foolish and the house of the wise are stores of choice food. What's that mean storage stored up extra surplus of choice, food and oil, but a foolish man devours all here. I was a foolish man was taking everything I could get and devouring it. You see what happens is to save. You have to go opposite the world. You have to choose delayed gratification over instant gratification. You'd have to choose that. I want this right now, but it's not in my [00:25:00] best interest because I'd sacrifice my future. Delayed gratification. Now you can take this too far. Somebody who won't spend any of their money, because they're only just trying to save up there and say, but we call that person a hoarder or a miser. Miser is the root word of miserable. So don't, don't keep everything, but, but delayed gratification is the key to having a surplus. And I would just make this statement. It's obvious. Save money by spending it. There's the only three things you can do. You can't save money by spending it. So, and folks, Americans, we are not good at saving money. I want to read to you some numbers, according to a go banking rates survey, 40%, four out of 10 of us, four out of 10 of us have less than $300 in savings. Now, again, if you have way more than this, this is my shot. [00:26:00] But this is when surveyed what, you know, this is a family feud who asked people this, what they said 40% have less than $300 in savings. 50% of Americans have less than $600, 5,010 of us. 57% of us have less than a thousand dollars in savings. And by the way, just 30%, it's just three out of 10, actually have a financial plan that they follow. I just gave you a plan. 10, 10 80. I followed that for 30 years. I've been incredibly blessed by doing it, but most people don't even have a plan. I'm going to spend whatever. I see, whatever I want. And if there's anything less, I'll try to save some. Why don't we save? Well, I'm going to give you two reasons and then we're going to wrap it up. Why, why don't we say. Well, two reasons there's many more than two. I'm just, I don't have time for two. We don't understand the benefit of two things. All right. [00:27:00] There's a reason when we don't understand the benefit of time and compound interest, we don't get it in our, in our thinking. We just don't weigh this out to Proverbs 13. 11 says whoever gathers money, little by little makes it grow. We want to hit the bid. We want to win the lottery. We want to just get the grand prize. The Bible says, no, that's not the way. The way to get wealthy, a little gathered, little by little and, uh, watch it grow. Now. I want to say this and again, I know there's a diverse ages here when you're young, you, I don't have any money. You know, the greatest asset of a young person is not money. It's time. They have time when you're older, you don't have time, but you have money. So when you're young, I got all of the rest of my life, but I don't have any money, but I want to just cause you to think about something. A dollar is never more valuable to [00:28:00] you than when you're young and time just does miracles, man, with invested money time with this compound interest it time is the greatest investment tool. W when you're young and you don't have much money, but you have, you commit to time, it's going to become huge in the future. And I'll just give you a little glimpse of that. And it's this thing called compounding interest. So here's what they figured out. Now. You've probably have heard this and it's an important thing. So I'm talking specifically, if you're younger, if you save a thousand dollars a year from the time you're 20 to the age of 30, a thousand dollars. Okay. A thousand dollars a year from 20, till 30. And your, your friend waits until they're 30. So you are going to invest a thousand dollars from age 20 to age, and then you're going to stop. You're not gonna put any more money in there, but your friend's going to start at [00:29:00] age 30 and he's going to retire at age 65. He's got every year for those 35 years, he's going to put a thousand dollars. You from $1,000 from 20 to 30, we'll have more than he'll have when you retire compound interest and folks, this has been run over and over and over again. It is astounding. So you've heard the expression of a penny saved is a penny earned. I want to explain something. A penny saved when you're 20 is a dollar earned when you were. A penny saved when you're 20 is a dollar earned when you retire. In fact, that's the big idea right here. That's a big idea. A penny saved is a dollar earned. Every penny you invest when you were 20 will become a dollar. Now here's technically how it works. Every dollar you invest when you are 20 becomes $88 when you retire. If that [00:30:00] 67. All right. It's. Now I want to explain a concept to you that has rocked my world. And when I'm going to try my best to explain this where it just makes sense. So I had a friend who was telling me about a family member of his, who owned a company, but he had to do all the work. And so they were trying to get him to go on vacation. He couldn't go on vacation because if he goes on vacation, none of the work would get done. And if none of the work gets done, he can't get paid. So my friend was coaching him. You know, what you ought to do is you ought to figure out a way to get some employees to share the workload with you. And then they could work what, while you're actually on vacation. And the guy said, I don't understand. He goes, well, you've got to figure it. You got to think differently because all you're doing is exchanging your time for immediate money. What if you started thinking strategically and started getting employees and then you, you pay them to do the work and you could actually take some. [00:31:00] And it revolutionized this guy's thinking, and he became a successful businessman, but here's the principle listen carefully. Every dollar you don't spend today, and you invest becomes an employee that you hired, you hired an employee and that employee is going to go to work for you. And that employee is going to work 24 7 365. And what's remarkable is that employee will never get sick. The economy will get sick, but the employee will never get sick. That employee is going to stay healthy. And every though misses every thing that employee earns gets put into your bank account, this is mind blowing when you get it, every dollar you don't spend, which you actually invest becomes another employee whose. Accrue to your credit. [00:32:00] So how many employees would you desire to have working for you? And the answer is as many as you can afford, and you start to understand, this is what the Bible teaches. This is the concept, and the only way you can hire these employees to suspend less, I could say that five times now. Now second reason, and this is hard that we don't save money. As we're driven by our present desires and impulses, we are, we get our priorities all wrong. And if I can be so bold, I want to suggest where we get this wrong is now over then today over tomorrow, the present over the future. And I've got so much evidence of this. We want it when we want it. We want it now, which means instant gratification. Over delayed gratification is the norm. And I'll tell you where you see this one folks, and this is sobering. It is sobering. You see them [00:33:00] in retirement statistics. And if you can handle this, let me just say some, let's just say some, you know, common sense stuff, most likely, and all of our lives, retirement is coming. You're not getting younger. You know that it's coming now, whether you. Choose to retire. That's a different thing, but how are you going to retire? As most people would say, because I've been eating company, oh, come on. Retirement is a long ways off, man. I'll worry about that. When I get there, I might not even live. Why would I worry about that now? Or they'll say something like this, you know, social security is going to cover it so security or this one, which is crazy. Now if I can get, and if I don't want to be offensive, but I want to be. I'm just going to work until I die. Well, you're going to die sooner than you think if you plan that, because here's the deal who, and I don't mean this as a put-down. I just it's. Realistically, as we get older, we slow down, [00:34:00] we have health issues. We don't have the energy and we just think we're just going to, there's just going to be somebody who's just more and more than willing to just keep us employed until we die. As our health is declining and all. Which means simply this folks we should think about what what's it going to be like in the future, which is what the Bible has been trying to teach us. Think about the future. Now I want to, I want to do something sobering. Okay. This used to be offered online canvas participate in this. How many of us are, he might not want to do this? Okay. I'm over the, how many of us are 50 or older? Okay. 50 or older, are you ready for this? All right. This to me is a little bit mindblowing, 50 or older right now you are, half of us are going to live until we're 80 or more [00:35:00] 80. Now of the same people who raised their hand. 25% of us are going to live past 90. How are you going to afford that? Who's going to pay for all that. Social security. Well, the average social security payment right now is $1,500 in change. That's $18,000 a year. On average, the median retirement accounts for those in their forties. This is important. You got to hear me, the median retirement account of those in their forties. Not their fifties in their forties is $63,000. The average median, the median average, the median. Uh, retirement account, all people $65,000. Stay with this. The median retirement immediate means middle more, just equal on this side of the road equal on that side of the road, just as it's the middle. All right. The [00:36:00] median retirement of those in their sixties is $120,000. Now listen to me. Okay, please listen. Most people when you ask. I believe that when they retire, their standard of living is going to go up. They're going to have all kinds of time and they're going to have all kinds of desires and somehow they think it's all going to get paid for. So the median is $120,000. They're saying that when the average couple retires, they're going to have over $200,000 in medical expenses. So if the median income is in the fifties to sixties, we have a couple of years saved up and that's it. And then we're going to just not, can I show you a verse that it's just [00:37:00] challenging as if the rest of this hasn't been proper is 22 3. Man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. And the Bible is gone. Be wise like an ant, be wise in how you handle money, be wise, the wise person. And I love this the wise person. Doesn't just see what's in front of them, which is this product. I want this new car, this new boat. They don't just see what's in front of them. They see what's ahead of them. So are you looking at what's in front of you or are you looking at what's ahead of you? So let me just say this. If you're young, I know you, I know. Okay. So, um, practical takeaways and we'll be done if you're young, be inspired [00:38:00] to change for the better. Oh, by the way, if you're old, be inspired to change for the. Let me, let me explain if you're young, I get it. Diapers have gone up 20%. Got it. It's brutal. Every penny you save will be a dollar in your future. Every dollar you save, $88 in your future. If you're not so young, be inspired to change. If you keep going down the same path you go, I, I don't have any savings. If you keep going down the same path, where do you think that's going to end differently than where we are today? Be inspired to change and go, you know what? I gotta fix this. I gotta change. I gotta make it. Hey, make a tweak. And you know what? The sooner you change it, the better it will be. It might not be as good as it could have been, but it will be better than it would have. But you gotta be [00:39:00] inspired and go, you know, I'm going to do that. I have, but my prayer for this sermon by the way has been, please, God, don't let me depress people bummed them out. Helped me to say it in such a way where people go, I can do this. I've just got to approach it differently. I don't want to discourage you be inspired. The future is coming. Get ready. Start today to get ready for it. Second thing, make your savings. Automatic men. Don't go through a weekend and week out hassle over the debate as to what you're going to save. Make a decision, set it aside, have it withdrawn. That's what I'm saving and it's not going to change third, make your saving systematic. What does that mean? Maximize. Put your savings and tax sheltered retirement funds put your, if your employer offers, and this is astounding to me, how many people, their employer will match them up to a certain percent and they won't put anything away. Don't walk [00:40:00] away from your employer's willingness to match you to whatever degree, take admin systematic. Figure out how to do it, do a consistently good times and bad times for takeaway have short, mid and long range saving for retirement is not saving for your next car. Have long-term been term short term and then fifth and last determined to become financially literate. This is one of the things I am. If you haven't figured this out, I am so passionate about this. This so matters to me because I have lived on the other side of this sucker and it's miserable. And so in our church, since I became the lead pastor, we started a ministry. We hired one of the best people on the planet to lead this ministry. It's called enrich. And Dave Briggs is a phenomenal resource to our church, to you, to me. And there's all [00:41:00] kinds of things. We have financial peace university, which is Dave Ramsey's thing. They, they run this in our church all the time. They have a thing called money smart, which is another series of classes. They have one-on-one coaching where somebody would sit down with you and just help you. You don't have to go into the future the same way that you've gone into the past. And I encourage you check it out. There's all kinds of opportunities under that. And you can do that on online now. So I'm going to close with this illustration that we've talked about around here for years. It is one of the most significantly thought provoking realities, because you might be here and you go, man, pastor, you really made me feel bad today. No was not my intent, not my intent, but someone needed to make me feel bad earlier than I, then I figured out I should feel bad about what I'm doing and nobody was there to teach me. Nobody was hurting. And so forgive me, but this illustration that I've never been able to get out of my head. And I've spoken about this many times [00:42:00] is, um, the simple question. When is the best time to plant an orange tree? I love oranges. When is the best time to plant an orange tree? You know, the answer 10 years ago, and you quite implanted on orange street 10 years. Yeah. You know, when the next best time to plant an orange streets right now, right now, this will not change. If you don't change it, it will not change on its own. It will only change if you determine I'm going to live differently, I'm going to let the Bible instruct me on how to handle this resource. I want what God has for. And I realized it's not what the world has. It's a different set of values. It's yours to decide. And I hope that you will now we'll finish this next week. I can't wait for next week. So you be sure to be [00:43:00] here, uh, for our online community, other campuses. Thanks for joining us. Let me pray. And we'll, we'll be done. So God, I do pray that you help us to think this through not to be discouraged, not to be overwhelmed. There's time there's today. And today we can start making decisions that will. Uh, our future. Now, again, we might not be able to fix everything, but we can learn, we could take financial peace university or take any of these other courses. We could seek counseling through Dave and his ministry. We could do any number of things, but God, we got to make a decision. And a wise man looks not just in front of him. He looks ahead. He sees danger coming and he changes. Course he takes refuge. Thinks about a better way to live. God, you have done all this thinking for us. All we have to do is just go, okay, I'm going to do it now. And Lord, I know from personal experience, it changes everything. Help us to be wise, help us to be, uh, full [00:44:00] and brave. And I pray for this in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you guys.