1:01 It's kind of a storage uh for what we've worked for. And so we recognize that the way the Bible describes money or defines money is probably the best definition that I I know of. And again, I looked at worldly finances for many, many years, 1:16 and it's amazing that this book uh gets it and and can explain it. And if we have its perspective, we understand what money is. And then we looked at giving and especially giving in secret, not letting our left hand know what our 1:29 right hand is doing, and giving in biblical ways. A lot of giving this time of year. A lot of people know that hearts are big right now for Americans, and there are a lot of solicitations for giving. I want to give according to 1:41 this, though. So, I don't want to just give because somebody reached out their hand. I want to give according to what the the scriptures say. And we looked at debt and we looked at that verse that's not often taught on in Romans 13:8. It 1:52 says like, "Oh, nobody. Pay off everything you owe. Don't be in debt to anybody. The only debt that you're you're going to owe is to love them because God loved you." So, when it comes to finances, we don't want to be in debt. We don't want to owe. talked 2:06 about discipline and recognizing that discipline is a fruit of the spirit and it's also critical to our finances. And the people I respect the most when it comes to money happen to be some of the most disciplined. They're not 2:17 necessarily the wealthiest. They're not necessarily, you know, anything fantastic the world appreciates, but they seem to be very disciplined in areas of finances. And so we talked about that, talked about possessions. And we said that we we saw in scripture 2:31 that those that are disciples of Christ cannot have possessions. they can't possess anything. And so we recognize that as Christians, we keep our hands open and we're like Job. Job if Job said, "Lord, you give, you take away. 2:43 Blessed be your name." And that's how we want to live. We don't And and when we start to I think Elijah was talking about this this morning, right? He he saw the grabbing in his life. He held on to something like we don't want to live 2:54 that way. If the Lord wants to take something away, God bless him. Let him take it. So we're not we're not we don't have possessions now. We have things that we, you know, we can use in this lifetime and but we don't possess any of 3:06 them. We we we grab onto one thing and that's God himself. That's what we're aiming for. And then last last time we talked about that very thing grabbing. And we looked at some examples of how, you know, when when we when when people 3:18 grabbed it wasn't it didn't go well for them. And we don't want to grab. If the Lord wants to give us something, we'll say, "Thank you, Lord. You gave me food today. You gave me a a house to live in. You gave me a car to drive. Thank you. 3:31 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But we recognize I don't ever have to grab. My heavenly father knows my needs. And just like he takes care of the sparrows, he'll take care of me. All right. So, that's where we're at. I 3:42 always said I said from the beginning, every time you guys should have these memorized. I'm not saying you need to memorize the reference or the verses themselves, word for word. I'm not interested in that. But this concept I 3:53 said that every time I talk about money and we're on lesson number seven. I'm going to look at these verses because I want you to love God. Even as we look at money, I want your love for God to increase. And I want your uh hatred of 4:07 money to increase. And that sounds weird, but as we look at these verses and as we consider these concepts, this is what I want to be happening in us that our love and I hope it's happening. I hope you're loving God more. And also 4:19 too, when you when you think about this, I hope it's in impacting your prayer life a little bit. I hope that when you pray about your finances or you're you're praying about things, you're like, you know, there's something in 4:28 your heart that's now crying out like, "Help me to love you more, Daddy. Whenever, you know, I know I bring all my financial problems to you, but I I also want, you know, through this to love you more and and I want more light. I want you to open my eyes 4:41 on what it means to hate money." I hope it's impacting your prayer life as well. So, you know, you know this verse, everybody familiar? I need some head nods if you know this verse. Okay. And then and then Luke 16:11, right? This is 4:55 the other verse. I said two verses. I said the other one will be Luke 16:11. You know this one? Yeah. It's the one that tells us that money if we're if we're faithful in it. And when you think of faith, you know, when I say, "Do you believe in God or do 5:09 you believe what your faith?" When I talk about faith, do you ever think of it in terms of money? But this what that's what this verse is saying. He says, "Listen, when you talk about your faith, if you're faithful in money, your 5:20 heavenly father through his spirit wants to bless you with spiritual gifts, with spiritual treasures, things that are truly valuable." And I believe that most Christians don't get to the truly valuable because they haven't been 5:36 faithful in money. And I don't I don't want that. I don't want that for you or me. Like, I want to I want to do what the scripture says. I want to be faithful in these things. So, I want to learn these concepts and not just learn 5:46 them up here. I want to put them into my life. I want these things to become more real to me. Faith doesn't necessarily mean unreality. It should be a reality. I trust God, so I'm doing these things now when I when I couldn't. And we cry out to him for 6:03 help. He does he's not leaving us stranded like, "Hey, go figure all these financial things out." You know, sometimes parents do that. Hey, look, you're 18 years old. Go figure it out. That's not what your heavenly father 6:13 does. He'll give you his spirit and he'll say, "Look, if you want it, I can give you a different spirit that looks at money a different way and will teach you and enable you to do these things." Absolutely. So, we're on number seven. 6:26 And what we're going to talk about this morning, um, I'm going to need some imagination. If you take a look at this picture, you see a gota I got to make sure it's the right picture. Uh, it's a puppy, right? It's a I think it's a pug. It's a young 6:41 puppy and he's staring at a tray of devild eggs. I think that's what that is. And you can see very clearly from that puppy's face that he wants those devild eggs. Do do you guys see it in his face? Right. And this guy's honest. 6:56 If you ask this little puppy, hey, do you want those devil eggs? You know, you know, all basically all you have to say is go and he's going to go. And so I need you to be honest this morning. Not out loud. I don't need you to voice 7:07 anything. I just want you to sit there and I want you to be honest as we consider these concepts and as we work through this because this is something I've thought about for many years and I'm not there yet. I'll be I'll tell you 7:17 honestly I'm working towards this. I see it clearly but I I I I don't fully know yet. And so it's a concept that I need some imagination to understand because it's it's contrary to what I've been taught. And I'll explain that what I 7:30 mean by that. So I need you to imagine that you're very hungry. All right. How about this? you haven't eaten in three days. It could be because you you you fasted or it could have just been practically speaking there wasn't food 7:44 around for you to eat and you you haven't eaten in three days and you're and you're hungry. Now, I know Jesus was hungry when he didn't eat and I know Josh is hungry when he doesn't eat. So, I'm going to assume that if you haven't 7:55 eaten eaten in three days, if you're honest, you're very hungry and you've experienced hunger. I'm going to assume that. All right. So, I need you to think about hunger uh for a second. So, I need you to use your imagination. You're very 8:07 hungry. Now, I used to use this illustration. I used to use pizza, but I heard this morning that Suririn loves biryani. So, I'm going to use biryani. All right, you following me? Everybody know what biryani is? It's a It's a rice 8:22 dish. No, no, nobody knows. Okay, so it's kind of like a rice dish. Very tasty and delicious for those that you don't know. So you have not eaten in 3 days and suddenly you are given money to buy biryani. You understand the scenario? Do 8:37 you feel the grumbling in your tummy? I need your imagination because that's the only way to work. Is your is your tummy starting to rumble right now? You're hungry. And so right now you're at a zero point. If if there was some 8:51 way to measure this on the on the left side I have your happiness level, right? Again, use your imagination. And nobody I don't think any of you have a meter that you can actually measure them. But if we if we look at your happiness level 9:03 on the left side and across the bottom if we consider the bowls of biryani that you eat, right, your happiness is probably going to have some relationship with the amount of biryani you eat. Again, is your imagination tracking what 9:16 I'm saying? Give me some nods. I need some some feedback. Okay. So, you eat one bowl of biryani. You purchase a bowl of biryani and your happiness shoots up to a 30. It's delicious. In fact, one of you sisters, I think, cooked it. One of 9:30 you that's very good at biryani, you know, provided it to this restaurant. You were able to purchase it and you jumped to a a 30 and and you still you're still kind of hungry, right? One one little 4 oz bowl of biryani didn't 9:42 quite do the trick. So, you're like, I'm going to buy a second bowl of biryani. So, you buy that second bowl of biryani and it shoots up to a 70. So, you went from a a a 40 on the first bowl to a 70 on the second bowl. Again, it still 9:56 increased your happiness or whatever you want to use. We could use blessedness or we could use joy. Whatever you want to use. I just need to to kind of consider this concept. And if you've ever I've watched your faces when some of you eat 10:06 and I can tell there's something that happens that brings the happiness. It's you may not know that you're communicating it, but I can see it in your face. So that second bowl of biryani brought you up to a 70. So what do you do? You're like, I see the way 10:19 this is going. So I get that third bowl of biryani, right? Oh man, a 90. Is that what I put? Yeah, we're up to a 90. And notice it's not quite in increasing as that first bowl of biryani as far as how much it went up. First one it went up 40. Now it 10:35 goes up 30. The third bowl only brought you up about 20 more. And so what are you going to do? You're not going to stop, right? Because you know, you're like, I know how this works. So I need to buy another bowl of biryani. So you 10:48 buy number four. And look what happened. you're starting to get full. And so your first bowl or your fourth bowl of biryani actually brought you down a little bit. It didn't quite bring you the happiness that number three did. And 11:02 by eating four, you actually came down a little bit. And of course, all of you recognize what's going on and you stop eating at this point. Correct. Incorrect. Some of you keep eating. And okay, I won't bling at this point. For some reason, he's 11:18 like, I love the taste of it. Even though I didn't quite get that same satisfaction, I'm still better than I started. So, I'm going to eat that fifth bowl of biryani. So, here we go. Right. Have you guys ever been here? 11:31 All right. [laughter] I'm at a 30. I'm at, you know, I've dropped from an 85 to 30. Five bowls was probably not a good idea. And then somebody says, "Hey, we should get a sixth bowl." Right? Sure. Sure. Like maybe it was maybe something happened. 11:50 Maybe five wasn't the right amount. Maybe if I go to six it'll go back up. Oh no. Right. Have ever has anybody ever had this meal where by the end of the meal they ate so much that they feel worse than when they started and they were 12:02 hungry. I think it's happened to all of us. Right? Like oh no this was a bad idea. I should have stopped at where do we where should we have stopped? 3.29 bowls of biryani would have been perfect, right? Because then we would 12:16 have been at a hundred. If I would have stopped at 3.29 bowls of biryani. Perfect. I should have I should have stopped there. I should have had the fourth one. No, no, no. Fill it up. No. Take a little out. Put a little No, no. 12:27 Right there. And so we understand. Do you guys understand this concept? Is it is it clear like kind of what happens there with that curve? Well, here's the problem. As a red-blooded American, I have been taught this my entire life 12:40 when it comes to money or anything money can buy. that it's not it's not what we saw with the biryani when it comes to money. This is the reality. I've been sold this my entire life and most of us have been sold this in our entire life. But here's the deal. 12:58 You know, we may say it, Josh. I know money doesn't buy happiness. But the reality is most people live their lives as if it does. And I don't care what you say when it comes to money. I care what you do. I'm going to say that again. I 13:11 don't care what you say about money. I care what you do with your money. And this, if my biryani illustration is correct, it tells me that this is not the curve. This is and I'm asking you to use your imagination and I'm asking you to ask 13:28 yourself these deep questions to yourself. And I want to ask, does this exist? Is there a level of money and material things where it hits the top of that curve? And you should be good at that point. or do you live and have you been taught 13:44 and you continue to go no it's that it's the other curve it's the one that keeps going up and if you looked at the increments on there I put millions of dollars at the bottom and I put happiness like one to 100 or something 13:55 like that right do you really how do you act brothers and sisters how do you act do you act with the linear curve that always goes up whenever money increases or do you think no Lord is it it's possible that this may be it and I'm not asking 14:11 you to figure this out. I don't I don't want to hear how many bowls of biryani that you know you've analyzed or how much money that you've analyzed and you hit it there because what I've discovered is that it's very hard to 14:22 figure out what this is. And so I'm only asking you to ask, is it possible that this exists? Not I'm not asking you to figure out where it is. You know, when I studied finance and when I studied money, I remember the the 14:34 number that stands out for me is 2 million. Everything said that if an American can save $2 million, they're good. They have enough. They can retire. They can relax. 2 million was the number. I read recently came across the number is now 14:49 four million. Boy, I'm glad I didn't set my sights on two. I'm way behind when they change it, when they double it and make it four. And again, it's that linear path, right? You need to get up to four million. You need to get then you'll be happy. I'll 15:04 tell you that is a lie. Enough will make you happy. When you get to enough, you'll be you'll be good. But most of us have not been trained to even seek for enough. We've been trained to seek for more. More always makes me happy. I know it with 15:20 the the first, second, third, and fourth uh bowls of or not fourth, but the the first three bowls of biryani, it kept getting more. More brought more happiness. So, how do we know where enough is? We know where enough isn't. There used to 15:35 be a television program, I don't know if it's still on anymore, but like a decade ago, I remember somebody telling me I had a show called Hoarders, and we would watch these people that had clearly exceeded enough in their life, and they 15:46 were overwhelmed with all the stuff that filled up their house so much they could barely move inside the house. And I could never watch that show. It bothered me to watch the show because I felt like this. I felt like I can't 16:00 get any pleasure of watching people that, you know, are are consumed like this. I didn't want to look down get my pleasure from looking down on somebody else. And that was the nature of the entertainment, brothers and sisters. And 16:11 I I try to avoid that. If a television show or program or movie or something makes me entertained by looking down on somebody else, um I I don't want it. I don't want to do that. But that's what that's what the nature of it. So, when 16:26 we talk about enough, it's very easy for us to say, you know what, I'm good. But, you know, my brother-in-law's cousin should have heard this message because, you know, their house is overrun with X, whatever it is. They're the ones that 16:41 have blown by enough and they're so overconumed that it's it's making them miserable. But, brothers and sisters, this is for this is for you and for me. In preparing, I had to go through this again. And I'm constantly going through 16:55 this enough. And so the question that we have for us, not for anybody else, don't look on, don't look at anybody else. Please ask yourself, what is enough? So how Josh, how do I know how can I discover what's enough? I mean, like I don't 17:13 know, you know, with everything I have to make so many decisions in the day. How do I know what's enough at each thing I have to buy or each level of responsibility I have? How do I discover that? Well, we look to scripture. 17:28 First passage, I want to look at two passages and and I cannot in the time I have left cover these thoroughly. I'll tell you, I would encourage you to go back and and look at these. So, write it down, make a note, and go examine these 17:40 for yourself. So, the first passage I want to look at is in the Old Testament. It's in the book of Proverbs. And I think it has a lot of New Testament principles. But the writer of Proverbs seems to be crying out to the Lord. And 17:55 he says this. He says, 'Two things I ask of you. Do not refuse me before I die. Keep deception and lies far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is my portion, 18:13 that is that I not be full and deny you and say, "Who is the Lord?" or that I not be in want and steal and profane the name of the Lord. I like I love this passage and I'll tell you why. One reason is it's a it's a hum there's a humility in 18:33 it and I I want to have that same humility. Lord, you know, you made me an American in the year 2022 about to become 2023. You give me a good job. I have a house. I have things like cars. 18:49 I honestly don't know what enough is. I don't know. But it's it's desperate, Lord. You know, so the two things that I ask of you, Lord, I I don't want to ever lie. I don't want deception, especially when it comes to the area of finances. I don't 19:05 want to be in my job and be able to falsify a report and get a little more money for myself. I don't I don't want to be in that situation. And it's a cry of humility and it's a cry of weakness. It's like, I don't know, Lord, help me. 19:18 Keep me out of these situations. Lead me not into temptation. If you look at this passage very carefully, you'll see that it's almost the L the way the Lord taught uh his disciples to pray, isn't it? There's some elements in there that 19:31 you'll find in there. You'll notice this passage ends with I don't want to profane the name of the Lord. I want his name to be hallowed. I don't want to be put in a situation of compromise when it comes to money. and I would do anything to dishonor his name. 19:46 So Lord, please help me. I'm weak. Help me. I want your name to be honored. Give me my daily bread. Give me that enough. What is I don't know what it is, Lord. I'm going to trust you for this. I know the warnings. Notice there's not 20:03 really any specifics here. By the way, I I believe this was written by King Solomon. This was a this was a rich king. He was rich like us. Yes, you are rich. If you live in the United States in this day and age, you are wealthy. You may not feel like it, 20:20 but it's it just depends on who you're comparing yourself to. If you've never been to a third world country, I encourage you to go and then come back here and you go, I live in a land of milk and honey, right? So, we're rich. And so, you got a 20:32 rich we're rich people crying out, "Lord, I don't know. I don't know. I know the dangers. I know that if I if you give me too much, there's a very good danger. this weak man that uh I'll be tempted to forget about you. I won't know you. How 20:46 desperate is that? If you've read, you know, Matthew 7, you know the Lord, the seriousness of the Lord saying, "I never knew you." Lord, don't put me in a place where I get so consumed with wealth and money that I forget all about you that I 20:57 don't know the Lord. But Lord, at the same time, like there are daily needs and I I have to meet those and there's a lot of pressure on me and I have to provide for a wife and for kids and my parents are dependent on me for money and I'm expected to send 21:10 money to my sister and there's so many pressures. Lord, help me so that I don't dishonor your name. There's a lot more in here in this in this passage we could go through, brothers and sisters. That's homework if you want. It's optional. 21:24 But asking the Lord in all humility, Lord, just give me enough. Just give me enough. As I was thinking about it, I thought of another passage. In other words, yeah. One thing I put on that graph is like, give me the top of that bell curve. 21:41 Lord, one of the things I've seen is that more is not always better. I want to live at that top of that bell curve where it's enough. Next passage I want to look at is actually in the new covenant. And as I was thinking about 21:53 the old passage I'd planned to share on the new p the on the on the one in Proverbs and the Lord reminded me of this of words that he said I guess when he walked on earth. And so here it is Luke 22:38. You're welcome to turn in 22:07 your Bibles or I'll put it up on the screen. But Jesus disciples said to Jesus I'm going to take it I'm just I'm just not going to give you the context yet. I just want you to think about this one verse. disciples said to Jesus,"Lord, 22:22 look. Here are two swords." Right? Jesus, look here. There are two swords right here. What did Jesus say? Does anybody remember how Jesus responded? Oh, I was blessed to see this 22:42 because it it, you know, it confirmed for me what I was supposed to share on. It's like the Lord confirmed for me. Yeah, you need to go tell your brothers and sisters about enough. I think your brothers and sisters are a lot like you 22:55 and they always assume that more is better. I want to encourage you to go tell them they should seek for enough. Okay, Lord, I'll do it because those are your words. But to really help you appreciate this passage, I want to go 23:08 back a couple verses and look at it from the beginning. So these we're going to look at four verses. This is Jesus talking to his disciples. And I believe the context if you read the the the passage um Luke said he put things in order and I believe this is at 23:22 the Lord's table. So as they're having discussions about who's the greatest and as Jesus has given him all the uh wonderful nuggets that you find in in the book of John particularly uh chapters 13-1 17 that was all the Lord's 23:35 table. I believe this is that the Lord's table. And Jesus says to his disciples says he said to them when I sent you out without a money belt and a bag and sandals you didn't lack anything did you and they saidn nothing 23:51 and if you go back and read those passages in Matthew 10 and and Luke 10 as somebody that was is genuinely trying to follow the Lord you come to those passages and Jesus says basically give everything away and trust me and so if 24:05 you're sincere if you're really wanting to follow Jesus is you've wrestled with that verse. You've come across this passage and you go, "Lord, am I really supposed to do that? Are you calling to me to do that?" And this passage 24:16 encourages me that he's not calling me to do that. He called a very, very specific time. He asked a very specific group of disciples to do that. And he did it for a very specific purpose. But that's not for all of us. And I hope that sets you free 24:32 when you read those passages. He's calling the disciples there. But but he asked them about that at the Lord's table. So as he's about to die, he says, "Hey, I want you remember that time that I asked you to, you know, not take 24:46 anything with you and just trust me and go out. Do you remember that time? Did you lack anything?" And I think the application for us, I think most of us in this room are probably better off financially today than we have been in the past. And I 25:01 feel like one of the applications for this is like Josh, do you remember that time when you had nothing? You had nothing. You were very poor both spiritually and materially and in so many ways. Do you remember that time? 25:15 Yes, Lord. You know, did did I not provide for you? You did, Lord. You took care of me then. And so the the meaning is obvious, right? Will I not take care of you now? Yeah, he will. And so he said 25:34 uh he said to them, "But now, now it's different." And I believe that now is for us. So now he says, "Whoever has a money belt is to take it along. Likewise also a bag and whoever has a s a sword is to sell his coat and buy one, right? 25:51 Or a house." If you if any of you have houses, if any of you have cars, if any of you have, you know, bank accounts or money, that's what a money bag is. If you guys have these things, that's fine. Use them on your journey. Your journey 26:06 is Christlikkeness and being conformed to his image and doing his will. Whatever he tells you to do, he's saying, "Use those things." Now, it's a different It's a different calling for you guys. It's not the time when you had 26:18 nothing. Now you have things. use them for my glory. And he says, I'm going away. I'm going to be numbered with the transgressors. I'm going to be killed. I want you to I'm giving you some final instructions. Use the things that I've 26:30 given you uh in practical ways for whatever I give to you in ministry. And then that verse, the one we looked at, he says the disciples said, so now we have the context, right? So at one point Jesus said, "Hey, for you guys, you disciples in this very 26:48 specific day and age, I want you to go out with nothing and I want to see I want you to see the way that I took care of you." He says, "But now you can have things. You can use these things." And it's a very interesting thing. I mean, 27:00 it's a passage if I don't fully understand this passage, but I uh I find a treasure in it. And one of the things that I I find is the way that Jesus says that something is enough. And so one of the lessons I learned is if I don't know 27:13 what enough is, like Lord, is the number really 2 million that I need but save up for for retirement or is what I have now enough? In the context of this verse, I picture this. If the disciples had said, "Look, Jesus, there's one sword here." 27:29 Jesus would have said, "Okay, sell the coat and go buy another sword because I want you to have two swords." If the disciples had said, "Hey, look, Jesus, there's three swords here." Jesus would have said, "Okay, you only need two, so 27:43 sell one of them and and and and give that money to the poor." Something like that. In other words, Jesus knew specifically what was enough. And notice the disciples did not obey the commandment. Jesus told them very specifically, "Go and sell your coat and 27:59 buy a sword." But they didn't do that. Upon further questioning of Jesus, they said, "Well, here's what we have right now as far as swords go." He says, 'Th that's good. Here's what I learned from that. Whatever I have, whatever I have 28:14 in my life, I can always go to Jesus, my Lord, and say, "Hey, here's what I have. I have a a house that's about four minutes from the Lion's Club." He goes, "That's enough for the Magguire family. That one house is enough. That's good." 28:27 Lord, we also have we have three cars. [snorts] Okay, that's enough. Don't buy four. Three is good. And yeah, keep keep three. You don't need to sell one and go down to two. Three is enough. I'm giving you some examples in my life. 28:42 Don't compare yourself to me. Don't don't watch hoarders. Ask the Lord. Go to Jesus and say, "Here's what I have." And let him tell you whether it's enough or not. That's what I get from this passage. At the end of his life, that's what he said. 28:59 Trust me, I'll tell you what enough is. Does that not bless you? That you don't have to look around at the world around. Look at all the other brothers and sisters and see how much money they make. How much how much should I be making? I 29:12 seem to make a lot less than some of these guys that are really smart and work for these really cool companies. I'm only making so much. Neither do I look around and say, "Oh, that that brother or sister has a lot less, so I 29:24 must be good." No, I go straight to Jesus. Here's what I have. And he'll tell me what is enough. I was so blessed by this that curve. If I don't know where it is, and I don't most most the time in my life, Lord, is it here? Is it here? 29:41 He'll tell me. He's such a good God. He's concerned about even the practical things in our life if we'll listen to him. All right, let's recap. Okay, we started about we started out talking about biryani. I would have used pizza, but I think most of you like 29:59 biryani more than pizza. And Sarin confirmed that for me this morning when he said that he loved it. And so we looked at bowls of biryani. And we considered something that happens whenever we buy bowls of biryani and we 30:12 eat them that that something happens to our level of happiness. And so we said that, you know, what we've always learned about money may not be true. That $6 million having $6 million is always better than $5 million. Seven is 30:25 better than six. And even though that the world tells me that and there's something in me that has learned that that it's not true that I see in scripture that there's something else. And I see that the that uh this idea of enough is right where I 30:42 want to be. I don't want to be starving, but neither do I want to be so full that I forget about God. And that's exactly what the proverb said. Again, you guys are going to go home and you're going to think more about that. And you're also 30:53 going to think more about it in connection with the Lord's prayer in the way we're supposed to pray. And you're going to say with humility like,"Lord, I don't know where enough is. I just don't know. I don't know if I've saved enough 31:05 up for if my one of my kids gets sick and needs a very expensive medical procedure. I don't I don't know. I probably should do that. I should be like the aunt. I don't I don't want to be a slugard or sluggish. I want to make 31:15 sure that I'm disciplined and I save, but I don't know how much to save because I don't know the future. You know the future, Lord. So, I'm going to trust you. I know the danger. I don't want to ever lie or be deceptive when it 31:29 comes to money. I want to be right where I need to be, and I'm going to trust you and keep seeking you for that. And then we saw the passage in Luke that confirmed uh this message today that Jesus, you know, wants to tell us that we just need to 31:46 ask him, Lord, is this enough? You know, do I have enough of this? I like I like that he used a sword because it kind of makes you scratch your head. Why did he use a sword? Why didn't he lose like a box of bread or something 31:59 like this? Are this is this enough bread? Right? Is this enough dinary? He uses a sword. And so I see the application is okay, he used the sword. Pick anything you want. Anything you have, you can put in that blank and you 32:10 can go to the Lord and say, "Is this enough or do I need more of this?" And the Lord will tell you that's enough. Brothers and sisters, um, like I said, I'm not there yet. I I want to live at that place of enough. You know, one of 32:24 the things that was in that Proverbs, it says before I die, in other words, to the end of my life, I want to live at that place of just thankfulness and having enough. And I'm going to trust you to show me where that is. God bless 32:36 you. Thank you brother Josh for this wonderful reminders. A couple of verses that come to my mind 32:56 uh when I think about money is my lines have fallen in pleasant places. God has determined the boundary around me. So if I am if I know that God has drawn those boundaries I can seek for that contentment. Lord whatever is you have 33:10 determined for me. And uh regarding how much is enough. [clears throat] Uh whenever I think about working hard or investing and growing the wealth and all that all of that I think about this uh story of this uh proverbs uh where it 33:24 says go to the ant and learn uh during summer it works so hard for the food uh because winter it won't be available. So I I I always wanted to balance that without loving money at at the same time uh be like an ant work 33:40 hard uh when you have the opportunity to work. But about this subject of being enough, I heard this story sometime back in the church and I want to share this. I think this really touched me. So this is a story of a small fly. Okay. It was 33:54 born on December 1st and this fly grew a strong slowly started eating and it became a little bit stronger fly and it even found a place on a small tree and uh so it was uh grabbing the food from the garbage or whatever leftovers and 34:12 things like that and every day it has to go out and uh grab this food and then one day it thought oh I can't do this every day so let me go work hard and store up the food. I have this space left in in this tree. So, let me go grab 34:27 the food every day and work hard. So, actually flies are not meant for storing food. But this fly really worked hard every day going and grabbing this food from this garbage stuff and it it actually hoarded a lot of things and 34:42 then one day it was going and then it saw another garbage and says, "Oh, this that's it. I have I if I can get this I I'll be good. that would be enough and then as it was going to this garbage and it's a lot of food and slowly it started feeling pain 34:58 in the stomach and it was not able to move and one of it fly is not able to fly it's slowly coming down and then it doesn't know what's happening and then there's another fly going hey my friend what's happening why are you like that 35:10 why are you not able to fly I don't know what's happening I I feel very weak um I cannot fly anymore what what were you trying to do I was just trying to get this food I I think if I can get I'll be enough. And then um of this other 35:26 is 28 days old. Oh, nobody told you that a fly the average lifespan of a fly is 28 days. So, oh man, I wasted all my life holding this one holding this food and then I'm going to die today. And then it it had such a regret and then it 35:43 breath it last. So this story actually when I heard it's really really touched me because sometimes we lose a focus of the eternity or our time on this earth because we are like a vapor God has given a finite amount of life. uh if I 35:59 even though working hard and uh ha having uh be like an ant is is important but at the same time if I lose a focus of eternity and God's main purpose for me I'll be lost and I'll have the life of regret and uh I trust that God would 36:14 help us uh to do well. Thank you. really appreciate the message. Um, even I think when Bonoy posted in the chat 36:33 the title of the message, it said money part seven enough. So, I didn't know if Josh meant that's the last message or but he didn't. Uh, I think we could hear about money continually every every day. Uh, you know, I know the Lord speaks to 36:46 us, but um, one thing that was an encouragement and a warning to me is if you think about some of the household names in America, at least of the richest men in our country, uh, the richest people in the world, whatever, 37:00 if if they were going to come up here and stand here and give you money, advice, I think, you know, we'd have this building full to capacity. There'd be people out in the parking lot wanted to hear, "What does this guy say? He's 37:11 so rich. He's got all he must be wise. He must be this wonderful person and if he got up here and he said money is not going to make you happy. You're never going to have enough. We would I think it would just be a shock. But one thing 37:24 I haven't read everything they've ever said, but I don't hear them saying that. I think I don't know that they've discovered that. I don't know. You know, I'm not judging them, but there's this pursuit. You know, if we look at the 37:33 rich people or if we just look in our own heart thinking, I just need a little bit more. I just need a little bit more. And the Lord spoke to me out of Ecclesiastes in chapter 5. Um, if you think about Ecclesiastes, I believe it's 37:45 written by Solomon also, but the one of the richest, most successful people in history up to that time, he was rich. He he developed a whole fleet of ships to go across the world to get gold. And he even had peacocks and apes and all this 37:58 just what do you need that for? It's just extravagance. Spending 13 years to build his own house. Just a supremely ex just immensely wealthy person. And in Ecclesiastes [snorts] 5:10, he says, "He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. And he who 38:14 loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity. When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except just to watch it go by?" And so this was an encouragement to me that how I can kind 38:29 of, you know, assess, you know, the Lord uses this to assess in our lives. If I walk into a room and it's really really hot, I'm going to go into the thermostat and I'm going to say, "Oh, somebody set this at 85 degrees. That's why it's so 38:41 hot." I can go to the thermostat and that'll explain what's going on. And in my life, if if I'm constantly saying, "I just need a little bit more. I just need a little bit more. It's not enough. It's not enough." I can look at this verse 38:51 and say, "Well, he who loves money will never be satisfied." It'll never be enough. You'll never have enough if you're if our hearts are set on money. if we're relying on that money to satisfy us or just give us a break or 39:02 and don't get me wrong, we do have financial needs and we should seek the Lord and be diligent in our work to to meet those needs. But it's that hard attitude like Josh has shown us every week that we cannot serve two masters. 39:12 We cannot serve God and money. And if we do love money, we will never be satisfied with money. And here we have Solomon, the wisest person in the world, one of the richest at the time. And he's he can testify. He's like, "Listen, I've 39:23 been there. I have it all. And it doesn't satisfy. There's an emptiness." And you look at those who have trusted the Lord. Look at Apostle Paul rotting in a jail and the joy of the Lord in his heart. What does he have to his name? 39:35 But he has Jesus Christ. And that's where the Lord wants to bring us through even financial trials. And Josh talked about all the different things in finances. And even those financial trials uh can bring us to the place 39:45 where we just need him. And just one last verse in in Acts 17 where Paul is talking and I think someone mentioned it uh that God sets the boundaries of our habitation that we might seek the Lord. So God sets even our boundaries where we 40:00 live on our income that the purpose of that boundary is so that I will seek Jesus and I will not keep seeking for more of that money. So just praise God for his freedom and he does correct us when we need it. But there is hope in 40:10 Jesus Christ and he can set us free from even the love of money.
