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So let me just say, when you start to study God, as we looked at Psalm 131 there, there's mystery because God is incomprehensible. And so when you start to think about some of the hardest things of God, one of the joys you have is realizing that I don't have to understand everything. There's some things that are too great and too marvelous for me. But you can calm and quiet your soul by just trusting in Him that He has it handled.

Right? I don't know how he decided who the elect are. I don't know why he created Satan. Some of the questions, we don't know the answers. And they're not clearly given in Scripture. We can postulate about some things.

But there's some stuff that's just mysterious because he's incomprehensible. And just like a little baby, they just drink their mother's milk. They don't care where it comes from. They're hungry. They want fed. And that's what you need.

You get fed by God. And just quiet your soul. Just calm yourself about some of these hard things. In fact, in the passage we're going to study today, there's a quote about people that have a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words. So if you turn to 1 Timothy 6, 17 to 19, Lord willing, this will be the last sermon in the series about the Ten Commandments.

So of course, me having said that publicly probably means I'll decide it's not during the week. But that's the goal. So if you were just waiting for it to end, come back next week. It's going to be great. Lord willing, we'll be starting something new. I've narrowed it down to actually like three possibilities.

Two of them start with J, actually. and then I debated going through the book of Ruth because that's what we're going to do in the Bible Bee and that's not really a real contender I guess we'll do it in the Bible Bee so no need but pray about that about what I might go with next I'm pretty sure but still leaving it open to one of two books now in 1st Timothy 6 17 to 19 I'll read to you those verses and then we have some explanation and hopefully some application for you 1st Timothy 6 17 now I'm reading from the LSB which the other decision I've basically made in the recent times was that I'm just I think I'm going to switch to the LSB so if you are ESV only is you're not going to like it if you've been loving the LSV since you've gotten to look at it, you may be really happy right now. I personally think it's a better translation overall, even though I think the ESV is more readable in some parts, especially the New Testament. But I just love their translation of Yahweh so much in the Old Testament and the recent effort that's gone into it that I thought for future generations that I'll be teaching and raising.

I just want to get on that now. And then when people are older, they don't have to have the debate about, well, should I change Lord to Yahweh? It'll just be written correctly. Verse 17, command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty or to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.

Command them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed. It's a reading from God's Word. We will be hanging out in the end of 1 Timothy 5 and chapter 6 today for a little while. If you're not familiar with the Timothys, Timothy was a young pastor who Paul had, I believe, led to the Lord.

Or at the very least, he was discipling him because he said the scriptures Timothy had from his youth were sufficient to save him. and Paul wrote a couple letters to Timothy they're classically called the pastoral epistles along with Titus and it gives you information about how the church ought to function as well as how a pastor ought to function and how a pastor ought to be selected so for example if you read a couple chapters earlier in 1 Timothy 3 you'll see the explanation that Paul gives Timothy for selecting pastors and deacons And although we have all the scripture like first Peter and Titus with the same types of explanations, if Paul wrote a letter to Timothy in Ephesus about how to choose a pastor, and then he wrote another one to Titus in Crete, and then Peter wrote one to what Cappadocia, Galatia, Asia, Bithynia over there in first Peter. You can assume at the very beginning, these letters were not being copied and then distributed yet. Okay, so the people that Paul wrote to when he wrote to Timothy who read that letter, they didn't have all the other information.

What they had is the Old Testament explanations of men of God and then what Paul said specifically about pastoral qualifications. So even if you just looked at 1 Timothy 3, you'd be way ahead of a lot of people trying to understand how to decide if someone's pastoral. But so a few points of application that I want to make from these chapters here and some explanation.

Number one, when you look at verse 17, he says command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty So I going to remind you I should have done this already I going to remind you we are in the context of the 10th commandment We are thinking about what it means to be covetous. And so what you're doing is, as we read through Paul's commands to Timothy, I want you to remember that Paul would have always had in mind these 10 commandments. When he was writing commands to Timothy, he wasn't making up new ones.

Oh, by the way, the original ten weren't good enough for morality. If anything, Paul was just always explaining them further, creating more application. Do not be prideful. That's your first application. All your wealth comes from God. Now, it says right here in the verse, not to be haughty or set your hope on the uncertainty of riches.

Then it says, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Haughtiness is effectively pridefulness. And there isn't a commandment in the Ten Commandments that just says, hey, thou shalt not have pride or thou shalt not be prideful. As a matter of fact, every commandment you break, there's an element of pride in it. Some of them may be more so than others. sometimes pridefulness is more obvious.

But you realize that in Proverbs, when God says there are six things that Yahweh hates, seven that are an abomination to Him, He says, haughty eyes. So what that tells us is, one, pride's pretty bad if it's an abomination to Him. But number two, even your eyes can portray your haughtiness. And so some of you kids, I know your mom or dad will look at you and tell you to wipe that smirk off your face, or they'll say that you have a bad attitude, and you'll say, I don't think I do.

But in fact, they can see it on your face. They can see it in your eyes. God hates the proud. All your wealth comes from God. So I'm preaching to the wealthy today. I would dare say that if almost anybody who lives in the United States of America was in this room today, I would be preaching to the wealthy still.

We happen to live in a place where, this is a quote from somebody else who visited the United States, and he said he couldn't believe how wealthy we were, and they asked a guy from this other country, what do you mean you can't, like, what stood out to you? He said, even your homeless people are fat. That was his explanation for why this country is so wealthy.

That even if you're homeless here, you have enough to eat and in fact be overweight. And that goes with Psalm 73 a little bit for you. So the point here is that your wealth comes from God. Look at James 1.17 if you want, real quickly. James says, every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above. coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

Turn to Proverbs 16. One of the reasons why you're not to be prideful is you didn't create any of your wealth. Now you may have worked hard and produced some of the things, but even your work ethic, even maybe some of the fortunate breaks you had along the path that helped you out, these were all things that were given by God. In fact, the fact that you live in a country just with an abundance of wealth is a gift from God.

Proverbs 16, if you turn there, a couple of verses for your thought process about not being prideful about your wealth. everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to Yahweh assuredly he will not be unpunished I don't know whether to call this a promise or a threat Proverbs 16 5 it's a promise you will not be unpunished if even in your heart you're proud if you remember the Pharisees were the most outwardly righteous people at the time of Jesus Jesus commented on this and it is well known and in their hearts they were proud and so one of the purposes of the 10th commandment is to help us to do what we might call heart surgery is to help us to be able to open things up a little and look a little deeper Because I can't watch you walk into the church building. I can't watch you sing the songs. I can't watch you make a meal for your church family.

I can't watch you pour the cups and do all the things. And you know, you can't watch me do all the stuff I do. And you can't know for sure what's going on in my heart. You just see me outwardly doing things that will say appear godly. And what I will contend with you and submit to you is that it is your job, which is one of the reasons we do communion, it's your job, which is one of the reasons we proclaim the Ten Commandments to you, to look at what God has said is right and wrong, and to actually try to figure out, am I trying to follow God?

Do I find it a burden to put away my own pride and ego? Or do I enjoy humility? If Jesus Christ was able to humble himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, I think you could at least just try. Proverbs 16, 19. It's better to be humble in spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoiled with the proud. So it's better for you to be humble and to not even get to hang out with proud people if proud people are dividing the spoil This is Asaph problem basically He wanted to be with the proud who had all the money and all the stuff in Psalm 73.

And so when you decide who you're going to hang around, it's not even necessarily about your own pride sometimes. Do you want to be hanging around people who are proud? if they have all the stuff? Or would you rather, like I prayed, live in a righteous nation, even if it meant the destruction of a lot of what we call comfort? And just since you were already there, verse 1 of the next chapter, better is a dry mortal and tranquility with it than a house full of feasting with strife.

I was just thinking, I'd rather, you know, the point here is you'd rather have good things, you'd rather have peace with your family than a big meal, a big feast. Back to 1 Timothy chapter 6. The second point I want to make is to be content with what the Sovereign Lord has provided. Be content with what the Sovereign Lord has provided. Verse 17, the verse we read, says, command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty.

It says or to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches. It says but on God. So if you rearrange that sentence a little bit to take out the meaning, it's saying set your hope on God. Don't set your hope on this other thing, but on God. It's the same as saying set your hope on God. So if you turn back, if you need to, in your Bible page to verse 5.

Paul writing to Timothy says about these false teachers. There's a few more sentences, but he says, in constant friction between men of depraved mind, this is what happens with the false teachers, and deprived of the truth. And then he says about them, he says, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. So these people will show up at a church building, they'll wear a suit, they'll preach something that is maybe truly biblical they'll sing the songs, they'll even write songs they'll donate 90% of the money they get to the poor because they think godliness is of great gain to them or because they think that godliness is gain to them because they think outwardly acting like a godly person is gain and isn't it true? who are some of the richest people in the United States other than like the weird Hollywood elites and stuff and don't mention pro athletes every pro athlete is basically broke after a few years except like 12 of them that have money managers the richest people are Joel Osteen Rod Parsley what is it Copeland is like a billionaire right one of the worst false teachers of them all guys over a billionaire here?

Godliness is a means of gain for many people. And now when Paul is saying godliness for them is a means of gain, he's talking about their outward godliness. That they have learned that if they play the part of a religious person, they can make money. And yet, in verse 6, Paul says, and I love what the LSB did here, he says, but godliness actually is a means of great gain.

The LSB tossed the actually in there to show the contradiction. Godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. So your role as a Christian, as a person who says, I want to obey the 10th commandment, is to be content. And in fact, your godliness if it's accompanied by that contentment actually is great gain. We need very little to be content.

If you look at verse 7 and 8, we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. And he says, if we have food and covering with these, we shall be content. I don't know many people in the United States, including myself, who that's all I really need to be content. I haven't been tested in this area, to what I know. But when you read stories of these guys that were tossed in jails for the Lord Jesus Christ, and they were even hanged or burned to death, and all they had was Jesus Christ, you read some of the greatest stories of contentment.

But some of you aren't even practicing for that. You're not ready for the air conditioning to stop working for three hours without being irritable. you fast for many reasons other than this, but one reason to fast once in a while would be so that if you ever have to not eat for a little while, maybe you can draw on the experience that you fasted and prayed and you learned that you could live through 24 hours without food or water. So that if you're ever forced to by evildoers, you don't instantly turn into a sinner.

If you turn to Philippians 4, we have a wonderful explanation of contentment. In Philippians 4, verse 11 through 13, Paul says, Not that I speak from want, for I learn to be content in whatever circumstances I am. So Paul learned contentment. He says I know how to get along with humble means and I also know how to live in abundance In any and all things I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry Both of having abundance and suffering need.

Paul's proclaiming, I've learned how to be content no matter what my situation is. And he says, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. It's in Jesus Christ. it's his reliance on Christ that allows Paul to remain content even when he had stuff and it allows Paul to be content with the sovereign God's ordination of where Paul was at any given moment which was a lot of times in way worse situations than any of us will ever see Paul learned to be content but then listen he just described knowing how to be content with nothing but then he says in verse 14 I want you to remember this when we get to the next point so the first point was don't be prideful.

The second point was to be content. The next point is about generosity. Listen to verse 14 and 15. He says, nevertheless you have done well to fellowship with me in my affliction, he tells them. And you might ask yourself, what does it mean to fellowship with him in his affliction? Would they pray for him?

Did somebody come join him in prison? He says, and you yourselves also know Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church fellowshiped or partnered or co-labored with me in the manner of giving and receiving, but you alone. Paul commends the Philippians for their generosity to him. So even though Paul has learned how to be content with basically nothing, he then commends the Philippians for providing for his needs and co-laboring with him in the preaching of the gospel wherever he would go. the Philippians who had were called to share it.

So in 1 Timothy 6 again, I hate to make you jump around too much, but that's kind of how today is going to be. In 1 Timothy 6 verse 18, continuing in the passage I read at the beginning, about rich people in this present age, Paul says, command them to do good. To be rich in good works. And then he says to be generous and ready to share. so the generosity of the Philippians was significant to Paul and to God remember when Paul commended the Philippians for their generosity when he wrote to Timothy to command people to be generous it's also the Holy Spirit inspiring Paul to do this right this is God's command to you it is necessary for us to be generous we're to be generous first with the household of God you should be bringing in your things to Christ's kingdom, to the church.

The church should be using the money to advance His kingdom, to do what we need to do. That's one of the reasons why we have a treasurer guy, and he takes care of the books, and then we have meetings, and we haven't done a whole lot yet, because we're small and new, and there's a lot of things we're trying to figure out. But one day, I hope that this church is able to use money to advance the kingdom of Christ, to serve those who are in need, in particular, saints. who are hurting.

Saints who are having a tough time, not because they're too lazy to work, but because something happened and they need help. Book of 1 Timothy, right before we got to here, Paul explains how they're supposed to be taking care of widows. What are the criteria for doing so? It's here to be generous. Romans 12, 13, another generosity verse, real good one.

Contributing to the needs of the saints and pursuing hospitality. Romans 12 is the culmination of 11 chapters of here's all the doctrine you need to understand how you got saved and then Romans 12 is and boom here's what you should do and I can't even count them now there's at least probably 40 commands in there 40 verbs, actions that we're supposed to be doing as Christians to show that this election that God just explained in chapters 9 through 11 is true about us and in our hearts. Be generous.

Your generosity will be in inverse proportion to your covetousness. So if you're covetous for money, you'll be less generous. If you're not covetous for money, you'll be more generous. Even if you have very little, your generosity will be big. in the eyes of God, if it's in proportion to a lower level of covetousness in your own heart. I don't know any poor people in the United States, I told you, but I've known people in the United States that don't have a lot of money, who are very covetous people, and they think they can't be because they don't have a lot.

You don't have to have a lot to be covetous. It's what's going on in your heart. So, back to 1 Timothy 6, continuing. In this section, 1 Timothy 6, 17-19. Verse 17, Paul says, Command those who are rich in the present age not to be haughty. Okay, so don't be prideful.

Set your hope on God. Be content with what God has given you. And he says, Do not set your hope on the uncertainty of riches. So the fourth point after don't be prideful, be content, be generous, is set your hope on certain things. not on the uncertainty of riches i hope you can understand that paul didn't write this the holy spirit didn't inspire this god didn't cause people to make 3500 copies of this so we know what the new testament said because the love of money was just some random thing that six people had in the first century this is one of the predominant problems with every culture in the history of world. set your hope on certain things.

If you turn to Luke 16, verse 10, Jesus says, He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much, and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. He's giving us a principle. He says, therefore, if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? So if you're not faithful in the wealth God gives you in this land, He's not going to give you anything after this.

But He says, and if you have not O-F, no servant can serve two masters. For he will either hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. So Jesus is letting us know that you can either really serve God or you can serve money. You can't serve them both. If you are serving money as your master, you're not going to be serving God.

And then he says in verse 14, God tells us, Now the Pharisees, listen, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at him. Lovers of money is what they were. Hebrews 11.26 important thing to know about this great man Moses the meekest man on all the earth we're told Hebrews 11.26 we're told about Moses he regarded the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt for he was looking for the reward set your hope on certain things Moses did Hebrews 11 26 he regarded the reproach of Christ which is interesting because if anyone says well Christ wasn't revealed yet well he wasn't completely revealed but Moses was looking forward to him but he was regarding the reproach of the Messiah greater riches than the treasures of Egypt Hebrews 12.28 is turning over a page therefore since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe focus on the kingdom that's to come not on what you have here and that's how your mind will be changed into living appropriately according to the 10th commandment and not being a coveter of money our works will show themselves in the end if you look at 1 Timothy 5 the last two verses you'll see that some works are conspicuous later some are obvious at the time some come out later the sins of some men are quite evident going before them to judgment for others their sins will follow after he says so also good works are quite evident and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed you may live a humble life in this world and nobody might notice you may wish that there were more people that would help you in your poverty God notices and you and your focus on what God will provide later is the key here keep in mind that Hebrews 12 even Hebrews 11 is in close to the context of Jesus, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, suffering the shame.

Jesus Christ was always looking ahead to what was before him, what God would do later. So, do not be prideful. Be content with what you have. Be generous. Set your hope on certain things, not on the certainty of riches. verse Timothy 6 18-19 back to 1 Timothy 6 command them to do good we're told to be rich in good works to be generous and ready to share so as a result of setting your hope on good things because your works will become evident later therefore be rich in good works so Paul he doesn't say instead of loving money just do good stuff He actually uses the same word.

He says, be rich in good works. He's pulling the whole analogy together to show you these things don't really live together. You can't focus your energy and your time and your effort and desire money and love money and be rich in good works at the same time. You have to chase one or the other as your richness and trust that God will provide for you. And through working and through doing the things we ought to do for God, oftentimes He has abundantly blessed His people.

He has made Christians some of the richest people who ever lived. And many of them have done many very great things with that wealth they've been given. Turn from the evil of covetous love of money. Go back to verse 9. He says, but those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.

And he says, for the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil. He says, and some, listen to this, and some by aspiring to it, have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. The love of money the covetous desire for the wealth in an unrighteous way in your heart is enough that it separates you from the faith of the saints So it's real easy to say, oh, if you're marching in the gay pride parade in a couple weeks down in Columbus, where maybe we'll go preach, we'll share the gospel, we'll give out tracts. it's easy to say, well, we don't think those people probably have the Holy Spirit if they're doing that.

It's easy to look at somebody that's actively fornicating or committing adultery or a known thief or a murderer or somebody killing their own child and say, there's no way I can affirm you as a Christian if you're doing those things. But you need to understand that in the Bible, the sins of your heart, like covetous love of money, are enough that God knows that you belong in hell and not in his heaven. Do you understand me?

And so even though none of us can ever truly get rid of all the vestiges of sin that is in us, because of our flesh that still has its corrupt nature, we come to God repenting. And that is how we get the assurance that even though we fail regularly in some of these areas, we're His. Be a good steward. Have the right thoughts about money. Don't love money.

So that's like the big take home. So if you're like, I don't remember anything, don't love money. How's that? If you're a kid, don't love money. Now what did I not say? I didn't say don't work and make money.

I didn't say don't acquire wealth. In fact, righteous men leave their children and their children's children and inheritance. You don't do that by spending all of it or just giving all of it away. Right? So there's a reasonability factor that we always have to apply to the commands of God. We could all drain our bank accounts today, send it over to a country somewhere that's very poor, feed people maybe for a month, I don't know how long, and then we'd all be broke and not even able to get to work.

So you can't just be unreasonable about it. You still have to live, you still have to do things. That's what makes it a little more difficult. It's easy to say, well, I'll just never commit adultery. Okay. So I won't do things that put me in a position to commit adultery.

Okay. Well, you have to work. You have to make money. You have to spend money. You have to buy things. In Lindsay's case, you have to deal with employing people and paying them money.

There's complications to all of these things. That's why it's so important that your heart attitude is always right. So here's some ways that you can think about whether you're valuing money more than you ought. All right? And just so you know, I have nobody in mind. So if you're like, how did he know that?

Like, boom, that's the Holy Spirit dealing with you, okay? These are just some ideas I had. If anything, these are things that apply to me personally. So that's me. Some symptoms, all right? Overspending.

Okay, so the obvious ones are easy. Like you're out there like stealing, taking money from others, hoarding. Okay, let's eliminate the obvious excesses here. These are the things that maybe you didn't think of. Overspending. Overspending seems innocent, especially if you've gotten to a point where maybe you have a little savings.

So overspending doesn't hurt you immediately. But overspending can be a symptom that you want more than God has provided for you. Do you have a budget? You need one. I can't pick a bible verse that says you need a budget you need a budget everyone should have a budget if you gave somebody else all of your money one day and you told them to take good care of it you'd want them to have some plan for what they were going to do with it God gave you an abundance he richly supplies all your needs have a plan for it you need a budget a budget ultimately if you don't know what a budget is It's when you make a plan, I've got $1,000, I'm going to do this much with some of it, this much with some of it, this much with some of it.

And there's all sorts of different variations with actuals and different things in accounting. But just for now, I'm going to spend $800 on groceries, I'm going to spend $200 on the church, we'll say. That's what I'm going to do with my $1,000. That's your budget. If you can't stick within your budget, that gives you a little bit of clue that you're having an overspending problem. you need to look at yourself from the heart and say why when I'm limited in how much money I have am I spending more I realize there's things that come up somebody's got to go to the hospital and you don't have enough money for whatever the procedure is that's required to save your loved one I get it, some of these things happen it's one of the reasons why we plan for emergencies too but some of us have stuff in our house that we don't need and then there's other stuff we should have bought or could be helping others with and we can't because we bought something that in the end and we really didn't need it we realized so a budget is good for you and i'm going to tell you because a budget is what you decide to do with the money that god has given you while you're sober minded to keep you from doing things under impulse.

All right. So I'll just go out on a limb and I'll guess that everybody in this room has made an impulse buy where there was a time in your life. Maybe it's only once. Maybe you're awesome sauce. I'm not. OK, I'm an impulse buyer.

I'll admit it. Where one time in your life, at least you emotionally wanted something real bad. you were at a concert you just had to have the t-shirt you didn't have the money for it you saw the ad on TV I remember one time I think I was sleeping I woke up there was that Snickers commercial with Marv Levy and the Buffalo Bills Remember Anyway I went out and bought a Snicker like immediately That was an impulse buy. I didn't rationally think I needed a Snickers that day.

That was a long time ago, sweetie. That was before I met you even. So don't, yeah, I'm not confessing to buying things without you knowing. a budget is when you sit down sober minded with your spouse usually and you say here's all the wealth that god's given us maybe it's a little bit maybe it's a lot and you decide this is what we're going to do with it and then when the difficult moment comes where you want to do something different you have to ask yourself well do i agree with the sober minded person that sat down and together and maybe even prayerfully with my spouse decided what we should do with the money or do I listen to the person who today just really wants to buy the thing right and that's the idea the idea is is that you just you're just creating your own guardrails for yourself it's not supposed to be overly restrictive it's just hey this is what I want to do I don't care if you want to buy hats with your money what I care about is if you are setting a limit for yourself on money.

And then the day comes when you don't even follow your own limit. You're certainly not going to follow God's. So you need a budget. I think that's important. And as a person who's had a budget for over two decades, I will just tell you that I don't always do it well myself. So if you're like, who's this guy preaching to me?

Well, I'm the guy preaching. I'm trying to tell you what I think God thinks, not what I can do or what I think. I'm telling you what Jesus Christ accomplishes for you and can help you with. Second symptom that may mean you value money more than you ought. First one being you overspend. The second one is if you have debt.

Proverbs 22 6 tells us that the borrower is a slave to the lender. Now if you want to be a slave to Christ and Christ said you can't serve God and money, there is a point where you have to acknowledge that there are certain amounts of debt or certain types of debt at the very least that take you away from serving Christ because you have to serve that master. Now, I'm not going to try to tell you that every single type of debt that could ever happen is always bad all the time.

It's not the purpose of the sermon. So if you think, well, I have that one exception, fine, maybe you do. Maybe you could teach me something about it. My point I'm trying to make to you is, you usually end up in debt because you overspent. Because you had so much money available to you, and you wanted to spend this much, bigger amount. Or you had enough to buy the thing, but rather than buy the thing you wanted to keep a little bit of money for yourself as a just in case something else.

There are situations where it's very difficult not to have some amount of debt. A good example is the American way of buying a house and having a mortgage. Very hard for especially a young person to not have debt situation. But I would say, just because it's very hard, that doesn't necessarily mean it's godly. It may be a worldly thing for us to participate in the worldly system the way many of us do.

And so, I think having the attitude of, I want to not be in debt, I want to owe no man anything, I want to be able to freely serve the Lord Jesus Christ with my time, my energy, and my money and not be a slave to some lender. I think that's the ideal. What could you do with the money that you're sending for the interest on your debt? So let's say you actually sat down and you tried to do some numbers and you figured out, this is how much money I spend every month that only goes to pay interest.

So interest is what most of us are paying on our debts. What could you do with that money? Do you even know what that number is? You should know. You should go home and today, probably not because it's the Sabbath, I'd rather you not worry about these details, but tomorrow or this week, you should make a list of all of your debts and all of the payments you make on them and you should be able to know, this is how much I spend every month on interest.

And even if it's a low number, you may be convicted of the fact that you'd rather just not have debt to anyone in this world. I recently was convicted of this with my wife. I'll share a personal story. We had a couple of things we bought. One of them we could afford. but we bought it with one of those zero interest credit card things then so I could keep the money in my bank account and just pay the minimum, right?

And I thought, oh, I'm making interest on it. The other one, we actually had an outstanding credit card but it was still 0% and so I justified it in my mind. It was just a monthly payment. It would be gone in a few years, whatever. And we recently were just very convicted that, no, we just, even though it was zero dollars interest, We didn't want to be owing these different entities.

And so we paid them. But how much more could you give to the church? How much more could you give to missions? How much more could you give to men out preaching in the United States? How much more could you give to abolitionist campaigns and people who are fighting to end abortion in our land How much more could you give if you didn pay interest on debts It might mean downsizing certain things.

You may have to live differently in order to actually obey God. That's okay. You understand me? Men have done that for centuries. Women have done it for centuries. what freedom would you have if you didn't have some of the interest payments and payments you make so a lot of this is about freedom uh one thought that a guy came up with a guy that sells some budgeting software that i like listening to sometimes is he says that having debt stifles innovation so if you can just run your credit card to buy something you'll just run your credit card to buy it and then you'll make a minimum payment or whatever you need to do.

But he says if you force yourself to wait until you actually have the money to buy something, it may actually produce innovation in you. You may come up with a new way. How can I make let's say you want $2,000 for something and you don't have it. Instead of running a credit card and paying $50 a month for the next four years, you could be forced to think, how can I go make $2,000?

What can I sell? What can I do to help me just make the money that I can buy for myself? So what freedom would you have? What innovation might you come up with if you didn't have credit? Another symptom that you value money more than you ought. So we had overspending and debt.

Another symptom is complaining. Or if you have difficulty in being thankful or expressing thanks. And I'll say particularly for little things. If we're told if we have food and covering with that, we'll be content. Then I'd like to believe on a daily basis you could thank God for food and covering. You know, there's no scripture in the Bible that says, Thou shalt pray before thou eats.

Or thou eateth, I guess it would be. But you know what? I think it's a pretty good habit for Christians to thank God before every meal. and we joke sometimes if we eat a meal and then after a while we have dessert do we need to pray again? maybe sometimes we should because I think we take for granted a lot of the things we have and for us we say we're thankful for the food but wow if it didn't taste good I don't know if we'd be so thankful I think I'm not outside the bounds of being a fourth teller by saying, I think we live in a culture where things could be very different in the next two years, I suppose, but in the next ten years.

What you have understood as the way life is in the United States could be very different. Things changed real quick in Venezuela. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up or ask Elijah. He probably knows off the top of his head. He knows all that stuff. Oh, okay.

He's a contemporary news guy. He knows all the stuff. Venezuela was a nice country until socialism took over, and now they're eating themselves, eating each other. And that's what happens when God curses a nation eventually. So, if you find yourself to be either a complainer, and if you don't think you are, just ask your spouse. Say, hey, do I complain?

They'll tell you. They'll know, first of all. And they'll tell you. Ask your kids. Or even better, if you hear your kids complain, ask yourself, where did they learn that from? Because, especially in some of your homeschool families, they didn't learn it at the public school, right?

They learned it from watching you. Yeah, I said it. That was an old 80s commercial quote, so only one person was old enough to remember it. They learned it from watching you, alright? Be thankful in the little things. You may have to force yourself.

Have you ever thanked God just lately for eyesight? Because I know you'd be praying for it to have it back if it was gone. Even for a minute, wouldn't you? When you're vomiting, you're all about praying to not be sick anymore. But when you're not vomiting, how often do you just say, God, thank you for my health today. Some of us just take it all for granted all the time. maybe have a more thankful heart for a lot of little things will keep your mind from fancying the things you can't afford the things you don't need and finally, and we already touched on this the final symptom is your generosity is your giving where you think God wants you to have it I hope everybody just says well no, I want to give more that's a great attitude but I think you can measure yourself a little bit you know I think you can ask yourself some questions for example do you do things where it's unnecessary and that money could go to help someone poorer than you or that money could help a missionary that money could help your church do you know that there's people of God and our confession talks about this people of God whose entire livelihood is completely dependent on the other people of God, effectively making money in secular ways so that they can co-labor with and fellowship with those people so that they can study and preach the gospel.

And our confession actually tells us that we ought to do that. I hear of missionaries that want to go and do things that are very hard and I think, I wish I could give them more. Or maybe if I didn't like chicken fingers so much, I could. but we're covetous for what we want. You understand? And it doesn't always come out as money. Sometimes you just want stuff.

And you think, oh, I don't love money. I just love buying stuff. Well, you love money. You love money because of what it gets you, right? All the evildoers in the world, eventually people maybe want something more perverted or something different, but they all want the money because they think the money will get them the thing they want. Whether it's power, prestige, usually some type of immorality.

So where is your treasure? Jesus said, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. And he says, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So in what do you trust today? Or maybe a better question is, in whom are you trusting?

So I'm going to close by reading the section of 1 Timothy 6 that I skip verses 13 to 16. I charge you in the presence of God who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ which He will bring about at the proper time. He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.

To him be honor and eternal might. Amen.