Future Church Brisbane
Join Luke Kennedy and friends at Future Church in Brisbane, Australia.
Talks from our gatherings as well as deeper discussions and Application panels around the practicals of Following Jesus.
Future Church Brisbane
Finance: Principles and Practice
We then navigate the delicate balance between giving and receiving, tackling the pitfalls of the prosperity gospel while advocating for a balanced, biblical approach to managing finances. Learn why it is essential to integrate spiritual and financial practices, and how being a good receiver is just as crucial as being a responsible giver. Through personal stories and practical advice, we illustrate the importance of sustainable giving and the invaluable nature of certain life experiences, guided by the teachings from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
Our conversation wraps up with an exploration of tithing's true essence, extending beyond the mere act of giving 10%. Reflect on personal anecdotes about instilling financial stewardship in children and the evolution of giving from obligation to genuine participation in God's work. We call for a renewal of vision and generosity, encouraging listeners to create margin in their lives to bless others. Seek God's guidance to align your financial practices with His wisdom, inspiring new dreams and a purposeful future. Don't miss this inspiring and thought-provoking episode.
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Well, you picked a good day to come to our Sunday gathering because today I'm going to speak on the subject of finance. Wow, there's a couple of people that are excited, amazing. So if you brought a friend to church today, you're like hating life right now. Oh man, I'm just so glad when I bring a friend to church and the pastor talks about money, it's going to be great. No, it's going to be an encouraging talk.
Speaker 1:I think and I actually haven't spoken on finance for a year and a half of our whole church we haven't spoken about finance and we haven't talked a lot about money. We've talked a lot about a heart for others, a big picture, generosity, but we haven't talked about finance really at all, because I haven't taught anything about that from the Bible. So today is a bit of an overview. Later on in the year, I think, we will do a practice, like we've just come out of Sabbath. That Sabbath practice has been wonderful a practice of generosity, about basically how to integrate generosity into our whole lives, about basically how to integrate generosity into our whole lives. But today's a little bit of a primer, I guess, for how Christians think about finance and what we have thinking towards others. Next week, will is going to speak about basically using your time and your talents so like serving. So as sort of a part two of this kind of like, how do Christians think about our stuff that we have? So I'm sure some people would tend to think about when we talk about money in church. Some people would tend to think, oh, here we go again, pastors talking about how much we should give, and that's kind of been the context of talking about money has been like, okay, you guys need to give more because maybe the church finance is not very good or we have a big offering coming up. Now, zero for two on that one for us, I'm sorry. We have no big offerings coming up and our church finance is actually pretty stable, so that's a good thing. So that's not my motivation. My motivation would be to help you understand God's wisdom for your life and for you to build a life around God's wisdom.
Speaker 1:For you To be a disciple of Jesus, a follower of Jesus not a believer in Jesus, but actually a follower of Jesus means that Jesus' ways become our ways over time in every area of our lives and we don't separate out an area and say, jesus, you can talk about these areas, but this one is for me. We don't do that. We say Jesus, come and enter into every area of my life. So let's start with the big picture. When you think about your future, what do you see? What do you hope for? What are you dreaming about? When you think about the future of your life and what God would want for your life, what do you think about? Do you think about becoming rich? If you ask a lot of young people today what's your dream of your life, they might say I want to become famous, okay, or I want to become rich.
Speaker 1:The thing is, the Bible doesn't have a lot good to say about rich people. It talks about riches and sorrows being added together when we pursue riches. But that is not a godly pursuit. Riches, rich people, are not talked about well in the narrative of the Bible, mostly because the heart of a rich person is selfishness, it's greed and selfishness. Part of a rich person is selfishness, it's greed and selfishness. But there is a different kind of richness, I guess you could say, and that is to become a wealthy, generous person. And those people in the Bible are spoken about glowingly very well, people who make a big difference through generosity. And some of those people were extremely wealthy but extremely generous, and God speaks about those people very well.
Speaker 1:I think if you know Jesus, the more that you walk with Jesus, your desire will be, when you think about the future, is I want to make a difference in the world. Why is that? Because that is God's plan. There's something that God is working into your heart. If you stop and think, above all of the maybe a little bit below all of the noise of our lives, if the Holy Spirit is working inside of you, there is a desire in you to be part of what God is doing in the world, to make a difference, to be part of the change that God is renewing the whole world. Romans 8 talks about this when it talks about all of creation is being renewed, that God has a plan to create a new heaven and a new earth, that we are part of that plan and God wants to take what we have and use it to be a blessing in the world. This has been the same from the Garden of Eden story all the way to where we are right now.
Speaker 1:So there is another voice, though, that will rob you of this kind of desire that you have to make a difference in the world. It's a really powerful voice in our generation and it's the voice of discontentment. It's the voice that constantly says I don't have enough and if I get this one thing that I'm trying to get, then I'm going to be happy. But that happiness always seems to me just out of reach. Marketing is based on this If you just have this experience, or you have this product or you buy this thing, you will be happy. It's discontentment. I'm never truly happy with what I am. And this is the voice of, even in the very beginning, the snake in the garden. His voice said to Adam and Eve every tree except for one, that's not enough. You need every single tree, even the one that is for God. You need that one as well. You need to consume, consume, consume and then you'll be happy. And we know that story didn't end too well. But you can have millions of dollars in the bank and still be discontent, not happy, not enough. Because there's a small voice inside of you and that voice doesn't stay with discontentment. It ends up becoming this ugly ogre called greed. Right, greed, I must get more. I must get more.
Speaker 1:Cs Lewis, in the Screwtape Letters he put it like this. He said prosperity knits a man to this world. He feels that he's finding his place in it, while really it is finding his place in him. We are so blessed in this country right, we have the third largest disposable income in the world in Australia per person. We are extremely blessed in this country, and some of us might not be feeling that because we have different pressures in life, and I absolutely understand that. But if you stood back and looked at our lives big picture, we're extremely blessed. I hope that you also understand that as well in the middle of the day-to-day challenges that we go through.
Speaker 1:But that prosperity that we have often causes us to look away from God. Hugo and I were talking about this yesterday. We were talking about he asked me why does Solomon have like 300 wives? And I was like he's not a smart man. It's just one wife is enough work, that's, one wife is enough. But we were talking about this discontentment and wanting more and more and more. But what ended up happening was the blessing of God in Solomon's life caused him to actually forget about God. And how much is that true in our own lives as well? The more blessed we become, the more we forget about God, who is the one who's blessed us and we need to be careful about that the Apostle Paul. He's antidote to this.
Speaker 1:You've probably read this verse a little bit out of context before, I'm sure, but let me read it for you the whole thing. In Philippians 4, verse 11-13,. It says and, by the way, paul's in jail at this time he says I'm not saying this because I am in need, for I have learnt to be content whatever the circumstance. I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learnt the secret of being content in any and every circumstance situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Many of us have heard that last part of the verse I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Many of us have heard that last part of the verse I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, as if it's like a lotto ticket to do or a blank check to do whatever I want. But what he's actually saying is I can do whatever I.
Speaker 1:He doesn't say that. He's saying I can be happy in any circumstances through Jesus, and that is the basis of learning how to live financially free and with contentment is the foundation of building a blessed life. Not a grabbing for more and more and more, but a thankfulness for what I have right now. In this season of your life, maybe you're a poor uni student or you feel like that, or you're looking for a job or something. Right now, contentment is a powerful weapon for you to think clearly about the future and learn how to build a life of blessing. It frees me from the trap of discontentment and allows me to see the wisdom of God. Proverbs 10 talks about bringing blessing into our lives, but not bringing the sorrow with it. That's the kind of life that I want to have. That's the litmus test of God's blessing. Blessing is it's not bringing sorrow with the blessing, but it's bringing joy.
Speaker 1:So two mindsets, or two big ditches I think we need to avoid when it comes to finance. Number one is a poverty mindset. Poverty mindset would say that money is evil. The Bible doesn't say that. It says the love of money leads to all kinds of evil. That's true, but it doesn't say money's evil, or maybe even that money doesn't matter. Money, ah, who cares about money? It doesn't matter. That's a poverty mindset. That's not the wisdom of God.
Speaker 1:The other mindset we want to be careful of, the other side of the ditch on the road, is the prosperity gospel. God is like a Santa Claus and he's like a slot machine. If I put in $1, I get out $10. If I put in $100, sow this seed of $100, I'm going to get back $1,000. That is not what the Bible teaches and usually the preachers who preach that their prosperity is tied to your giving. Okay, so that's also known as a scam. All right, you'll never hear that preached here. You'll never hear jesus preach that that you can somehow strong arm god or manipulate or gamify god into giving you what you want through a manipulation called giving. That's not what you will see in the bible, okay, so so one of those things will have you having no plans for your finance and the other side will have you gambling basically to get rich.
Speaker 1:So how you think about a vision for your life, the good life that's coming up, will really affect the way that you relate with God and the way that you relate with money. I think we've got to start there A desire to be part of God's plan for the world. That's what I want. So today we're going to talk about giving, yes, but I also want to talk about receiving, because there's two parts to this. Many times when we talk about giving money in church, it's mostly about giving okay, but actually there's two parts to this. There's giving and there's receiving. We need to become good at both, because they are both really, really important. Okay, all right, really important. Okay, all right, it's important. It's really important because my spiritual life and my stuff are very connected. So generosity and righteousness are often linked in the Bible. Did you know that In fact, there's like 2,000 plus verses in the Bible that link generosity and righteousness, that link generosity and righteousness. Meaning, if I have a good relationship with God, my natural response will be to become generous. That's the natural response.
Speaker 1:Stinginess and following Jesus don't usually go together. Maybe cultural Christianity and stinginess, but not really following Jesus and sinfulness. They don't really work. They're like oil and water. The closer I follow Jesus, the more generous I want to become to the people around me. Adam Dodds is a great friend and theologian for me in this church. He said I cannot claim to be a follower of Jesus and not allow his teaching on finance to change the way that I live. I must allow Jesus to come in and affect the way that I think about finance. Okay, the wisdom, tension of finance.
Speaker 1:So let me talk about three things, all right, and then we're going to get really practical. Okay, three things about giving in finance. The first area is responsible receiving. Okay, responsible receiving. Now, if we only focus on receiving, that can become a really toxic place. Right, if we only focus on receiving and getting, then we can become very, very selfish. But if we don't have any receiving, you're also going to become broke. Okay, we have to learn how to receive blessing from God. That's a good thing.
Speaker 1:Personally, I feel much more comfortable giving than receiving. I don't like receiving. If someone tries to pay for stuff for me, it feels awkward. I much rather be the one paying than being paid for. Does anyone else feel this way? It it feels awkward and then, like, I'd much rather be the one paying than being paid for. Does anyone else feel this way? It just feels awkward.
Speaker 1:I'm not necessarily a great receiver. It's more of a discipline to be a better receiver. Okay, that's one part of it to be a good receiver. Another part of it is to be a generous giver. That's another tension of the wisdom of God to be a responsible receiver and generous giver. If we go too much over this way, though, this is a tension. If we go too much towards generous giving without being a good receiver, we're going to get broke. We're going to be the person who empties our bank account into the church building fund every year, and we're going to be broke. Does this make sense? So we've got to balance the tension of wisdom that God has with being receiving and giving. That's why we talk a lot in our church about regular, responsible giving. We don't want people emptying their bank accounts every week in the church, because we actually care about your family. We want your kids to be blessed. We want this community to be a place of flourishing for your family.
Speaker 1:There may be times when God calls you to do something big, to take a big step of faith. Izumi and I have done that. We have emptied our bank accounts into church before to keep the lights on, did that without talking about it, just prayed and felt that was the right thing to do, and we got blessed through many different ways through that giving. That was a great thing, but that is not an every week thing, guys, there's a few times in your life when you will have the ability to do something significant and extraordinary with generosity. That is not every week. What is every week? It could be regular, responsible giving. It's just simply part of your life, and we're going to talk about that in a moment.
Speaker 1:The third tension is meaningful experience, meaning some things are more important than money. Yeah, is it more important for you to work that extra overtime or is it more important to be at your child's birthday party? Some meaningful experiences you cannot buy back with extra money, that you just need to be there. And that is the wisdom of Ecclesiastes Is you know, we're all going to die. This is the reality. This is the reality. This is like a bit of a downer wisdom in Ecclesiastes.
Speaker 1:Proverbs is more like when everything is working right in the world, this is the way things work. That's Proverbs. Ecclesiastes is like here's the reality of how things are going to go for you. You might experience some bad stuff, so you could spend your whole life saving, saving, saving, saving, saving for the future, and not experience the things that are right in front of you. And then and Ecclesiastes would say, we're all going to die. So that could be tomorrow. You don't know when is your last time, so enjoy the moments that are in front of you.
Speaker 1:Some things are more important than money. You could do that in reverse, though, young people. You could say I'm going to enjoy the moment, the moment, the moment, the moment, and you're going to be broke later on in your life and have not a lot of dignity later on in your life. So there's a tension here, just like everyone. There's a tension of giving, of saving and of experiencing. So let's get very practical. If you want to be generous and apply God's wisdom to your life, this is for you. If you have no interest in lives, this is for you. If you have no interest in that, just don't worry, we'll be back in a few minutes. You can scroll through Instagram or something like that for a few minutes. Okay, let's get very practical.
Speaker 1:A lot of people ask me about tithing in the church. Okay, tithing is giving 10%, or at least that's the way it's been taught, and people often shudder at this, and I totally get that, because tithing is often being taught as simply give 10. Okay, the bible actually teaches three different types of tithing. Okay, much more rounded and holistic concept than the way that it's been presented to many of us. Okay, so let me just go through these three, and I think this will. If you've struggled with the concept of tithing and I totally understand why then this might bring some clarity to the situation for you. Okay, so let's jump into it.
Speaker 1:The first tithe that the Bible talked about is a tithe to my community, to my faith community, to the church. That's the one that many of us have heard about, right Give Malachi 3, verse 10. You've heard the giving messages. But there's also another tithe that the Bible talks about and that is a tithe to yourselves. Has anyone ever heard about that one? Not so much. This is called savings. Okay, the Bible teaches this tithing to our community and also tithing to ourselves. Or you could say it like this tithing to my future, tithing to my family's future through savings. It's very difficult to be generous long-term, by the way if you don't have a practice of saving Generous long-term, by the way if you don't have a practice of saving. And the third thing, the third Bible teaching about tithing, is to take one of those, to take the tithe to yourselves every third year and give that to the poor. Okay, this is a pretty amazing concept when you put it all together. It's take care of my faith community, take care of my family's future and take care of the poor. If you scale this, it actually sounds like a pretty amazing system to be a part of this. It actually sounds like a pretty amazing system to be a part of.
Speaker 1:Tithing has often been taught only in the context of giving, but it's actually about giving and receiving Giving, receiving and looking after the poor. I often heard tithing taught as if you give 10%. Basically I own the rest of of it and I can act in any way I want and God's going to bless it because I've given 10%. That's certainly not what the Bible teaches. We've actually got to apply God's wisdom to our lives if we want to see God's results in our lives. So it's three-dimensional, it's not one. All of these things work together. You can't pick and choose your favorite part. You have to buy into God's system of how it works.
Speaker 1:Okay, so to say that you're against tithing in this context, to say that I'm totally against tithing when you understand this context, is basically to say I don't really care about the poor, I don't really care about my family's future and I don't really care about my faith community and nobody here would say that, unless you're kind of a jerk. But there's no jerks in this church. We're all amazing people, so you wouldn't really say that. So tithing is a wisdom framework you could say. It's not a way to scam God into giving you more money. It's not even a law that you must follow or God's going to punish you. A law that you must follow or God's going to punish you. It's a wisdom framework of how to build financial success in God's ways into your life. That's how it works. It's a way for me to learn how to build trust with God. It's a practical way for me to learn that God is good, that God is faithful, and I am also learning how to be good and how to be faithful.
Speaker 1:So when our kids were really little, we used to sit at the kitchen table every Saturday morning and we would give them their pocket money, their pocket money. It might have been $10. You remember this Huka and we had three envelopes and the three envelopes were number one was giving the kids church. That was the first envelope, okay. Back then, when we had cash okay, does anyone remember cash? This is Japan, so everything is cash. Right, it still had cash. Okay, does anyone remember cash? This is Japan, so everything is cash. Right, it still is cash, and so that would be.
Speaker 1:We'd ask them how much money do you want to put into kids' church envelope? Okay, and then we'd have another envelope that was to the poor. Okay, so that was for India, remember India. Okay. So for India kids. Okay, so they could. For India, remember India. Okay. So for India kids. Okay, so they could have a food yeah, so they would choose how much money they wanted to put into the India one. And then the third one was the spending. Okay, so they would say how much money do we want to put into spending? Now, depending on the personality of a child we have a few different ones in our family Then it would be different amounts and we'd go into different things. All right, some of them were more savers, some of them were more spenders, and what have you? Okay? Well, this is very similar to the way that God teaches us. The categories are very clear. They got to decide how much they put in, but the categories are really clear. We give to our community, we give to the poor, we give to the future. We enjoy the rest.
Speaker 1:My first job was picking up horse poo on a horse stud. I'm a farm kid. That was my first job, picking up horse poo, all day in the sun with a wheelbarrow, out in the sun, and I was paid you ready for this, guys $20 a day. Now I heard someone complaining yesterday about being paid minimum wage, and that's $23 an hour. I was paid $20 per day in cash. All right, per day in cash, all right, all day under the sun. It taught me a little thing about work, and sometimes I would take $2 of that not all the time, because I was still learning about trusting God, but sometimes I would take $2 of that and I would give it into church.
Speaker 1:I was still thinking, though what can I get away with with God? What's the minimum that I can give God? And he's kind of happy, you know, keeps him kind of on my side. You know what I mean. That was how I was thinking as a 14-year-old 14. A little bit has changed since then. Okay, not so much thinking what can I get away with without God being angry at me, more moved towards how does God actually want to operate things in the world? What's God's wisdom and how can I actually apply that to my life? How can I be part of what God's doing in the world? They're the kind of questions that are more motivating to me now.
Speaker 1:So some of you might be saying, luke, I get all of that, but you don't understand. Luke, I don't have money lying around to do three different tithes. I'm like 105% of my budget is going to bills and debt and just surviving living. Luke, it's not like I just have some money like oh yeah, 10%. Oh, luke, that's what I want to do with that 10%. That's leftover. I don't have any leftover. I understand that.
Speaker 1:Okay, to change your life and to add God's principles to your life will take time, and to add God's principles to your life will take time. Okay, and this should not be a guilty process. I don't want this to be a guilty process in our church. I want it to be a gracious process of gradually moving away from the world's wisdom of consume, consume, consume, consume and more towards God's wisdom of generous giving, responsible receiving and also being a part of what God's doing in the world through amazing experience with people. That wisdom is going to take time, so how should we start?
Speaker 1:Well, maybe you're not in a place of those. Buckets of tithing are possible for you. But what about 1%? What could you do with 1% of your income? Maybe 2%, 5%, maybe 10% is too much for you right now. But what about 1%? You could do something. You could make some adjustments in your life with 1% and move one step forwards with applying God's wisdom to your life, because 1% today sounds like nothing, but 1% over a lifetime or over two years or over five years from now, actually makes a big difference, actually changes your lifestyle, changes the way that you think, changes a lot more than you think. So if you want to make a difference through your life and through generosity, the biggest thing I want you to take away from today, the biggest thing that you will have to change, is you will have to create margin in your life. The idea that I can spend 100% of what I have and apply God's wisdom to my life is not going to work. You're going to have to create some margin in your life somewhere.
Speaker 1:Leviticus 23 talks about this. Okay, now, this is agricultural. Think about a field of like rice or wheat, probably in Australia. It says when you reap your harvest of your land, do not reap it to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings from your harvest, leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord, your God. So what they would say is if you've got a square farm, do a big circle in the middle. That's for you, the part on the outside, the edges, that's to give away. What it works out to be is if you do a circle in the middle of a square. I don't know this, I'm terrible at maths, but what they say is it works out to be basically 80%. 80% goes to you and then 20% goes out. That was the way they thought about it. A very different way. Creating margin in my life probably looks like for some of us.
Speaker 1:Some lifestyle things need to change. So here's some questions to think about. We're coming to an end. Okay, here's some questions to think about for you if you want to be generous. If you don't want to be generous, then don't worry about this, but if you want to be generous, this is the way to do it. Think about it.
Speaker 1:Am I giving too much money away to some things in my life that could be different? Okay, let's just go through a few practical things. I feel silly even talking about this, but here we are. Am I giving too much of my money to coals and woolies? I'm just walking in with no plan. Lockie calls this the $100 bottle of milk. Right. Walk in there for a bottle of milk and end up coming out with $100 worth of groceries. Have you ever done that before? Some of us need Chelsea's Cookbook to help us here how to go into a shop and spend $10 and only spend $10 and come out with a great thing. We need a little bit more planning.
Speaker 1:Some of us are spending too much money on alcohol. Alcohol is extremely expensive in Australia. If you've lived overseas, you know this and you can waste incredible amounts of money on alcohol in this country. That's something to think about this country. That's something to think about. Gambling Gambling in Australia is a massive problem and people spend so much money gambling, online gambling, all different kinds of gambling. I'd encourage you to think about it. Let God speak to you about it. If there's a problem for you that's actually potentially robbing your future, it's something to think about.
Speaker 1:Fashion Australians spend the most amount of money in the world on fashion per person. Did you know that? That's crazy. In fact, there's something like. I read this it's actually. What was it 244 million tons of clothes that we throw away each year in Australia? It's an incredible amount of money wasted on things that we will throw away, so it's something to think about. Maybe it's worth thinking about buying less clothes but better quality, thinking about that stuff, rather than just continually spending money on fashion Tars.
Speaker 1:Tars are a massive money suck in this country. The average is $700 a month in repayments on a car, and a lot of those cars are bought to impress your mates, your mates. It's a lot of money. The average spend on transport, according to the AAA, is $384 a week on transport. It's a lot of money. It could be done differently. I could go on. There's many more things, but I think that's a good primer for you to have a think about.
Speaker 1:I believe if you pray and ask God, god will speak to you about some things in your life that have maybe gotten too consumeristic, that actually need to change, not just so that you can give more to church, okay but so that you can live in God's wisdom for your life and actually be a blessing to the world. That's not his way, okay. Debt is a huge one. Can we just talk about debt for a couple of minutes and then we're going to finish. Debt is a huge one. Debt is so often an enemy to me. Being generous, I wonder what your life would look like if you had no debt. Have you even thought about that? How free that would be. Maybe you can't even imagine that yet because you haven't felt the freedom of having no debt for so long. You're so used to being under the pressure of debt.
Speaker 1:The Bible describes debt like this Proverbs 22, the rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender Slaves. Actually, debt is basically a form of slavery. I'm not saying that debt is sin okay but I'm certainly saying that debt is not God's wisdom, especially consumer debt. We have one of the highest consumer debt rates in the world in this country 1.3 credit cards per household. $4,000 of credit card debt per household in this country. It's a lot of fast fashion and impressing your mates on a Friday night and basically, credit cards are just debt rebranded.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's jump into. I'm just going to share one last verse and we're going to finish in a moment. Okay, 1 Timothy, chapter 6. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, not to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God their hopes. On the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasures for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may be able to take hold, that which is truly life. Some of us here, we need to get a vision for our lives that is different, a vision for our lives that includes margin and the ability to be generous, and we need to start working towards it. That could be a 1% change, a 5% change. Some of us could make a 10% change right now, but we actually need to start taking seriously putting into place God's wisdom for our lives, rather than just following the crowd around us into more and more consumerism.
Speaker 1:Okay, what this does is what Mar. Margin does for your life is incredible. Margin creates space in our lives to take care of the people around us. Margin is terrible boss insurance, meaning if I have some margin in my life, I don't need to be under a terrible boss, I can say sayonara to that terrible boss and I can go and get a better job. What margin does for me is the ability to say this career that I'm in it's not what God wants me to do. I can go and actually pursue a new career, take a risk, start a business, go and do something significant in the world. That's the power that margin gives me, if I don't push everything to the edge of my square field.
Speaker 1:It looks like the ability to give without being stressed. Have you ever given and then thought, oh gosh, I probably shouldn't have, given that? That's not a good feeling. I don't want to live like that. I want to live being able to give and being happy that I'm giving. It means the ability to say yes to God when he says help that person. I want to be able to say yes when God says that. So we're encouraging people to get a new vision for life. Okay, three things. I'm going to finish. Three things on the screen.
Speaker 1:Some of us here need to get a new vision for life.
Speaker 1:Margin the ability to bless others and take care of those around me. Some of us need to get a new understanding of tithing and work towards that wisdom. And, lastly, some of us here need to deal with the greed that's in our hearts, that's come through the voice of discontentment. Some of us literally need to pray and a big Bible word repent, which means to say, god, I'm sorry, I've been doing it my way. I need to come back to doing it your way. Greed has been allowed into my heart and I need to come back to generosity. Let me pray for you guys. We're going to finish. Thank you, god, for your word. That's just so full of wisdom for our lives and I pray this would be an encouragement to people that it wouldn't be a guiltful process, but I pray it would be a gracious process of learning your ways and helping them become our ways.
Speaker 1:I pray for people here that maybe have let greed in their hearts. I know I have God at different times and, yeah, god, we just want to come back to your way right now. Deal with that in our hearts. God, help us For those who need to make changes practically. God, I pray you give them wisdom. You would lead them to make those changes. We thank you for God and I pray for those who, god, who need a fresh vision for life, need to see a picture of the future, of making a difference. God, that you would stir that in their hearts today, that you would birth new dreams and new visions in spite of them and lead us into the future that you have for us. In Jesus' name, amen, amen.