Faithful in Little Things

Okay, well, good morning to each one. It's good to be here with you. Happy Father's Day to the fathers.

Yeah, God bless you as you seek to continue being fathers. Happy Father's Day, maybe even to all the future fathers. Maybe there's lots of dreams for the future that you have, but either way, God has a plan.

We can be grateful for the fathers we have no matter where we are, whatever grief we're going through. You know, there's something about gratefulness that is a blessing. I'm grateful that my father is still living.

I'm grateful that my wife's father is still living, but I know many of you cannot say that so God bless you as you work through these things. But it's good to have everyone here, not just the fathers, not just the future fathers. It's good to have every single person here.

It's good to have every single people, married people, it's good to have the married people here too. It's good to have the Brackett family here with us, it's been a while. And everybody else, however far you've come, it's good to be here.

One other announcement I thought I would mention. We did have a brothers meeting earlier this week, Monday evening, and some of you have representatives in your family that can bring home the news, what was discussed, but maybe if you don't and you say, hey, I'd like to know what happened, I think the minutes are done. Jeremy puts them together at some point and I think if that is the best way for you to find out what was talked about in the brothers meeting, I think it would be fine to get a copy of that.

One of the things I'll mention from it that we did mention in the brothers meeting was simply thanks to everybody. Everybody who gave for the church, the budget, as more than what we need comes in, we made a decision a while back to give the balance, the remainder, over and above a certain amount to Bibles for restricted countries. And there was another 2,000 and some given.

That was because of your all generosity, so thank you for that. And that puts us up to, in the last year, a little over $12,500 for Bibles for China, restricted countries, and so forth. So thank you for seeking the kingdom of God.

Thank you for being involved in this. That is truly a blessing. All right, if you would turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 16, that would be a blessing.

I would, especially a young man, if you could have your Bibles open and just so that we're all using the same version. If it's possible to see a King James Version Bible, that would be great, or the closest thing to it. If you have an electronic choice, choose that one.

Okay, a while back I was preparing a devotional for the youth. I was planning to give it kind of in a short, kind of a private youth gathering that we were going to have. And I started preparing, I started preparing, and I got to discovering that what I was preparing was going to take a lot longer than what I had.

And I decided, let's just put this on the shelf and we'll wait and we'll give it on a Sunday morning sometime. And so what I have to share this morning is, at least was, primarily geared toward the youth. But I got to thinking, looking at what I have, I think everybody could possibly benefit at least some from this, but it's, you know, especially geared toward the youth.

And so you can listen with those kind of ears as you're listening to what we have here. But it's called faithful in that which is least. Luke 16, verses 10 and 11, it has this phrase in there, faithful in that which is least.

I prepared this at a time that I had just recently come through or was coming through tax season. And in tax season, there's a lot that I see. I see a lot of people's stuff that is private.

We don't share it publicly, but we see a variety of people's approach to how they approach life, especially their financial life. And so we're going to read this. In fact, I'd like if all the young men, let's just say if you're age 30 on down, if you could read in unison, Luke 16, verses 10 and 11.

Starts out, he that is faithful in that which is least. So read those two verses together. All young men and boys age 30 and down.

Could you read those two verses together? Go ahead. I'll get you started. He that is.

All right, there we have quite a statement from Jesus. He that is faithful in that which is least. Now, here's a question.

What does it say in this verse? In King James English is that which is least. Does somebody have an answer? Unrighteous mammon. What's that mean? Basically, wealth.

That's what it's talking about. And so that's he's talking about. He's talking about our wealth.

He's talking about our possessions. And he's saying being faithful in that it's not all that important in the in the in one sense. He calls it that which is least.

But he says it is important what we do with it, because being faithful in that is going to translate over to other things. Do we have a biblical example, someone who was granted small responsibilities? And I'm looking for some interaction, kind of like we maybe would have done had we done it in a private use setting. But when somebody is faithful in small things and then they get promoted to bigger things, give me one name from the Bible that comes to your mind.

Someone who is faithful in the least little things, but was promoted to something bigger. Can you think of somebody? Joseph, that's the first one that came to my mind. Maybe there's more.

Somebody else think of one. Daniel. Anymore? David, David, sheep, pen to King.

Good. What else? Stephen Marger. Wow, that's I never thought I didn't think of Stephen, but that's that's a good one.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right, that's good enough. That's those are some good examples, people that were faithful in small things and then were promoted on to to to to other things.

And so that's my desire for you as youth. It's my desire for everybody here. But my desire is that you would be faithful in that which is least so that God would entrust you with the true riches that it's talking about here in Luke chapter 16.

God says, I'm going to look, I'm going to see what you do. And he wants to he wants to promote us to those true riches, the greater things that he has for us. So being faithful is important.

Now, there's a few areas of our Christian life we hold each other accountable for. We have accountability groups even in this church, things like Bible reading, things like our prayer life, things like our moral life. We hold each other accountable, send out text messages.

Hey, how are you doing in these areas? This is one area we don't generally we're not quite as diligent in. Maybe we should be. Maybe there's good reasons we aren't.

I don't know. But what would it be like if, hey, brother, send me a send me a text every week. How have you been doing? Have you been faithful with with your possessions? What have you done this week? Yes, no, yes, no.

Which one is it? Yes, I've been faithful. No, I've not been faithful. It's kind of a hard question to ask.

Maybe there's reasons, though, because God does say, let not your left hand know what your right hand do. Do it. So keep those there's some secrecy there involved for for humility's sake.

So that's one reason I want you to be faithful, not which is least so that God would entrust to you with entrust you with the true riches. That's one of the reasons I have. Another reason I'm gonna take a rabbit trail here, as I was thinking about sharing a sermon this morning, I was debating what to share, whether I share the one I'm already introduced or whether I share one that I preach back in Ohio.

When we were back there on a trip, I was asked to speak at my brother in law's church and and shared a sermon there that have the notes all for that makes it easy. You already have the notes. Hey, just get up here and try to remember what you said and preach it again.

But I decided not to, but I'm going to give you a little snippet of that sermon because I think it pertains to what I'm going to be sharing here, here, here for the rest of this morning. And the service simply called Trapdoors of Grace talked about this issue called Grace. What is grace? Grace is the.

As I looked up a definition, I pulled out there was a big, long definition of the word grace in a biblical sense, but I pulled out four words from that divine favor and divine influence, and it includes both divine favor. We think that's the mercy of God and that that certainly is included in grace, but that's not limited to that. It's also divine influence in our life.

That changes how we behave, it changes what we do, it teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust and so forth. That's what true grace is, and we need the grace of God. Grace of God is not something you can purchase.

It's a gift. It doesn't come from within. It comes from above.

It's not listed. Grace is not listed in one of the all the fruits of the spirit, for instance, say, hey, if you have this within you, grace will flow from your life. You have love, joy, peace and long suffering, a lot of other things, but not grace because grace comes from above.

It comes from God. It's a gift. And so but we've seen people that have grace, apparent grace in their life.

We've seen people that they live a very fruitful life. They're leading many souls to the Lord. They have maybe a wonderful marriage, maybe wonderful children.

You see the children, they're all obedient and kind and loving. You say that person has grace in their life. Job was a good example of the grace of God being poured out.

I mean, in the early part of his life. He had, you know, lots of things, lots of blessing from God before Satan come along and challenge him, and that was grace. But now here's the question.

What about that period of time that Job had boils and lost all his possession and his possessions and his wife even sort of turned against him? Did he have grace then? The answer is yes, he had abundant grace. And sometimes we see grace being manifest in different ways. Sometimes grace comes in the form of abundant health so God can do a work through you.

Sometimes it comes through sickness. Like Paul said, he had this thorn in the flesh. I don't know what it was, probably some sort of sickness.

But God says, I'm going to work through that sickness to produce grace in your life. Sometimes we see people with wonderful marriages that is a result of God's grace. But then other times you see people who don't have very healthy marriages.

Maybe the one of the spouses is not a believer, but I've seen it and you've seen it where the other one is just overflowing with gratefulness and love and peace and joy in spite of the fact that he has to go home to a very difficult marriage. And that is also an evidence of God's grace. The question is, if we need God's grace, what do we do? There's a popular myth that says since it is a gift, then there's nothing we can do to get it.

That's not that's wrong. This sermon I preach, I went and drew up on the I think I maybe I just described I think they did have a chalkboard there at this place I was preaching. But here's here you have this individual.

He's a Christian. He would like to have the grace of God. Well, up here you have a big reservoir of the grace of God.

Well, it looks like a funnel. And I don't know what the grace of God looks like, but it's all up here. This is all the grace of God.

OK, and he wants this grace to be poured out. And what's he supposed to do to get grace into his life? He just waits and says, well, I sure hope God gives me some grace today. Is that all he can do? And the answer is no.

God has given us these little trapdoors with a string on it. And if you pull it, it opens up and it pours grace into his life. And if he pulls that string, he gets grace.

If he doesn't pull that string, he won't get the grace that God has available for him. And so I have these these different trapdoors and all of them hooked to a string, all of them that he can pull. It's his choice.

He's not helpless. He's not he's not just sitting there waiting to see, you know, if God gives me grace, maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. But there's there's things God has put in our hands.

We went to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter six, and there were some activities there. These included things like prayer, like fasting, like like almsgiving, things like Thanksgiving is another one, another string that we have that we can pull to pour out grace, humbling ourselves, humble yourselves under the hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. So we talked about various of these of these trapdoors, these these I don't know what you call them, but yeah, just a little door window.

The Bible even calls them a window in Malachi six. You know, you do this. I'll open the windows of heaven.

I will pour out grace. I had a caller yesterday who was. I forget his name, Jacob, I think maybe it was, but Jacob was struggling with he was he was a church, he was a I think a music leader, worship leader in their church.

But he said, you know what? I've been I shouldn't be doing this. I'm I'm I'm ensnared in pornography. And he says, while I'm leading the congregation on Sunday, he says, I'm indulging in sin during the week.

And he also had a problem with nicotine. He says, I guess I just have an addictive personality. And so he didn't know that he could help it, but he wanted to help it.

He knew it wasn't right. And but then he got to talking about somebody else that he knows, this other man in his life that he has has power. It's a missionary friend goes around.

I think it's within this country. Maybe he goes overseas, but for sure within this country, preaching the gospel, living by faith, he never asked anybody for money. But God blesses this man, this other man with money, this missionary friend.

And my caller, Jacob, was amazed at Jacob's life. He says, I want that kind of power in my life. I want to be like this missionary.

And so I just shared with him, I says, well, if everything you see is genuine, there's a possibility it isn't. But it sounds like it is. It sounds like it's genuine grace being poured out on this missionary friend of yours.

I said, I'm just going to make some guesses that this missionary friend lives a life in secret pulling some of these strings. I bet you don't see him praying, but I bet he is a man of prayer. I bet he does some fasting regularly.

I bet he's a giver. I bet he's a grateful person. I bet he has learned to humble himself and come to the throne of grace.

And what you see on the outside is this missionary with power people coming to Christ. You see these open manifestations of the grace of God, Jacob. But what you don't see are the things he's doing in secret to allow the grace of God to pour into his life.

And he took it. He was very open to getting the help. And to me, as I thought, why am I giving this teaching this morning? I gave you one reason.

I want you to be faithful in that which is least so that God would entrust you with the true riches. Number two, I want you to be faithful that in that which is least so that God would pour out his grace upon each one of you, young people, old people, all of us here. Grace is something that I want God to be able to say about them as a group.

Great grace was upon them all or individually. He was a man who feared God and great grace was upon him. So I want that's that's my desire for you.

If you if you young man again under 30 turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter nine. Have some more verses for you to read here. Let's go ahead and 2nd Corinthians chapter nine.

Find verse eight and if you could read just that one verse, maybe we'll read more later. But again, in unison, young man, it starts out and God is able that did I get that right? I have it written down here. OK, all together.

And God is OK and God is able to make all grace abound toward you. And there he is talking about, again, dealing with that which is least. Now, I have preached a lot of sermons on, you know, on on money and giving and things like that.

That's people who have heard me preach a number of times. No, that comes up, you know, my share of the times. Anyway, this one here, a lot of times it's more theory, though.

Here's what the Bible says. Let's go do it. This I want it to be a little bit more of a practical step by step, if you please.

Problem is, we don't have enough time for all the steps. But we'd like to look at one very, very practical step to help you become faithful in this area, this area of of financial management. If you all would turn to another passage, Proverbs 27, I'll have you read that in unison as well here in just a little bit.

So this teaching that we're going to give. It is going to apply a little bit more to the young men than the young women, it's going to that's that's and there's some reasons for that as as as life goes on. There's verses in the Bible talk about women being keepers at home and, you know, talks about a man.

I think it's mainly providing, you know, talking about men as if any provides not for his own. That's definitely women are involved there, but definitely it's talking about men. It's talking about, you know, people that steal, don't steal anymore, but rather labor.

So you can have to give again. That's I suppose there could be women thieves, but, you know, I think it's mainly talking about men thieves and says, hey, go get a job, buddy. But so so anyway, there's some reasons it's going to play a little bit more to the young men.

But I really believe this is this is applicable to everyone. So everybody listen. Men will probably get a full time job sooner and longer than women.

And here's the truth of this stage of life that you all are in right now as young men. If you were to look backward five years, most of you would say that was a period in life that I wasn't really responsible for hardly any of my finances. If you look forward five years from now.

It's likely that a good share of you will be responsible for all of your finances. It won't be up to your dad anymore to provide for you. Now, that's, you know, I'm not sure exactly what age that is.

There's going to be some variation here. But looking back five years, I didn't have to worry about finances at all. But looking forward five years, it's going to all be on my shoulders.

That's that's where that's the age that some of you, a bunch of you are in right now. But right now you're kind of in an in-between age. So it's going to you can apply it to whatever stage of that journey you're on.

These things that we're going to be talking about. But you're moving from that stage five years ago when I didn't have to worry about anything to that stage where I've got a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. So take it, you know, take it with that with that qualification that you're, you know, that you're you're in this transition period and life is going to go through changes and seasons.

But these habits we're going to talk about are good habits to get into that will help prepare for the future. So I have something to hand out here. And I would like for sure every youth to have one of these and then everybody else that there's enough for.

So for sure, every family, for sure, every member of the youth group. I don't know how many have pencils. I did not bring a pencil box or a pen box.

So if you want to share them around, that would be good. They're just pass these back again. Every youth take one and then just keep handing it back and we'll see how far they go and see if everybody can get within eyeshot of one of them.

And I would like you to fill them out. So borrow a pen, get a pen, somehow pencil. And let's go ahead and let's fill out these these sheets as we go forward.

Now, I said we're going to look at some habits, but it might only be one important habit that we're going to look at. We're going to learn about this from Proverbs chapter 27, verse 23. So if you young men have your Bibles open to Proverbs 27, I'd like you to read verse 23.

But before you read it, I want everybody else to be listening for a very important word. And it's what is it that it tells us to do in Proverbs 27, 23 starts with a K. I'll give you I'll give you an example, a hint there. OK, so go ahead and read it.

Proverbs 27, 23. I might find the first words I can help get you started. Start be diligent.

Is that how it starts? Be thou diligent. OK, so let's go ahead and read it all together. Be thou.

Let's go ahead and read verse 24 as well. OK, I'm going to read it again. And I got a little different translation here written down.

I don't have my Bible open to it, but it says be diligent to know the state of your flocks and to attend to your herds for riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations. So what's the key word? No, starts with a K. It's no. So you can fill in the blank there on that page.

It's one of our first responsibilities regarding money, finances and material possessions is the word that we are to know. How are we? Did those papers make it all the way back? Was there even a few extra? Anybody raise your hand if you'd like one. And again, if you have one, I would really be grateful if you would fill it out.

OK. All right, so go ahead. You have your first answer there.

Top of the page, Proverbs 27, 23 says that one of our first responsibilities regarding our money is to know where we are and how we're doing. This is one of the impressions I've gotten from taxes. Now, I know this is my job to know or to help other people know, but it is sometimes a little shocking how many people don't know these things before they come to me.

And I tell them, oh, how much money did you make? I didn't know I made anywhere near that much money. And or I thought I made a lot more or I didn't know I was getting so far in debt or whatever. And so what is this very simple thing of knowing where we are at financially is part of faithfulness.

And it takes work to know. It's not automatic to know. It takes pulling out a bank statement sometimes and balancing the thing and figuring out really where I'm at.

It takes maybe asking some difficult questions, maybe calling a credit card company and having a difficult conversation to know where I'm at financially in regards to this credit card. So there's some important questions. How much money is in my bank account? These are things that if you're a young person right now, I would encourage you to make it a habit to know.

Now, do you know every day? No, you're not going to know every day. You might know once a month. OK, when it's time to balance the checkbook, but you kind of if you know once a month where you're at halfway through the month, you're going to again sort of know where you're at.

So you don't overdraw your bank account. You don't write a check on money that's not there. That's a good habit to get into to know how much money is in your bank account.

Here's another another thing. It's good to know how much debt do I owe to other people? As you think of debt today, what are some common sources of debt? Does somebody give me a somebody give me an idea? So somebody give me a suggestion. What are some common sources of debt today? Mortgage.

What else? There you go. Not paying the youth fund. I think that was a hint.

Right. OK. What else? Credit card.

Very common. OK. What else? Car loans.

Semi-loan. Fuel loan these days. What? Personal loan.

OK. Between two people. OK.

I trust you. OK. Good.

What else? If I'm a little bit behind on my rent, that would be a debt. If I'm late on my power bill payment, that's a debt. Do I know where I'm at on these things? This is important.

Not always easy. Not automatic. But knowing where I'm at.

Something else came to my mind. But as well, yeah, you know, I'm in a grocery store and I want to buy something and mom's there and I don't have my money. Hey, mom, can I borrow? I need to buy some candy.

Can you I'll pay you back. That's a loan. If you get home and forget.

You've now violated this little principle to know where you're at financially, to know about the debt that you have. OK. And this is not endorsing debt.

It's not. I'm not I'm not making comments about whether you should have debt or not. I'm just saying if you do, you should know it.

OK. That's the important thing I'm making here. If you have a debt, you should know what that is.

Don't forget about it. Don't walk away and say, hey, I borrowed money from this guy, but now I don't believe in debt anymore. So, yeah, that's not good.

You should know if you're in debt. OK. You should know how much money is in your bank account.

You should know what your debts are. All of them. A third thing that you should know.

How much am I making? How many of us know how much money I made last year? If you've done your tax return, I can tell you which line of your tax return you can find that number on. It's line nine, front page, form 1040. That will tell you how much money you made last year.

It's not all going to be taxable, but that's supposedly if you did your taxes right. That's supposed to be all the money that is reportable income. All right.

So if you want to go home and look at it now, that maybe isn't something you know every day. But knowing approximately how much you're making is important again to being financially faithful. To be faithful in that which is least.

And I am afraid that many people aren't knowing where they're at on some of these things. They don't know how much they make. They don't know how much debt they have.

They don't have much cash they have in the bank. And as a result, they're not being faithful. And as a result of not being faithful, I'm really afraid they're blocking this grace that God wants to pour into their life.

And so my burden is be faithful. Allow this grace to pour into your life. OK.

Let's talk about John Wesley a little bit. He gave an outline for financial faithfulness. We're going to talk about here.

Does anybody know what the first word is? What was John Wesley's summary of the Bible's teaching on financial faithfulness? First one is start with an E. Earn all you can. Number two. Save all you can.

And the last one is give all you can. So go ahead and fill in the blanks there. Earn all you can.

Save all you can. Give all you can. Now the and the save all you can.

He's talking about controlling our spending, being careful with what we we spend. And I appreciate John Wesley. Appreciate his life.

He was one of those men who had grace flowing into his life by the fruit of his life and everything. At least historically speaking, what we can read about him, he was full of grace. But it wasn't an easy life.

He had a very difficult life. He had a very difficult marriage. But it seems that maybe God used some of those difficulties to keep him humble while God used him mightily to change society around him.

To change the church, to change the the whole country of England and other countries as well. So anyway, I appreciate his little summary here. Earn all you can, save all you can and give all you can.

So now you also have the first one for point number one. And the question to ask is, how much money did I make last year? So you can fill out blank number one. You probably can't fill out the box at the end.

So you can take this home with you and you can fill it out later in private. This doesn't have to be ever public. Nobody else needs to know about it.

But for you to know is the key. A lot of these questions are not for other people necessarily to know. But part of financial faithfulness is that you know.

You know really where you're at. Because Proverbs 27 says that we should know the state of our flocks, our herds, whatever. And it's part of being diligent.

Be diligent to know where you're at. So that's the first question. How much money did I make last year? The next question is, how many? And there's a blank there.

So let's talk about this just a little bit. If I was to write a number on the board, you probably already have a clue, some of you do. I'm wondering whether this number rings any bells.

Two thousand and eighty. Anybody know what that number represents? Raise your hand if you do. Don't say it.

Brother Mike does. Dennis does. Caleb thinks he might.

Anybody else? Trevor thinks he might. All right. Well, that's a gift to you.

That two thousand and eighty. Again, primarily young men, girls, it applies. But God gives you at the beginning of every year a certain number of hours for free.

He doesn't charge you for them. And that's the number right there. How many work hours are in a year? So let's go through the math and you'll figure out how we came up with this.

You can go down to the bottom of your page. First question is, how many weeks are in a year? Fifty two. So there's 52 weeks in a year and we live in an economy right now that's geared around a five day work week.

People have talked about the Bible says six. Yes. But the economy we're in, it's geared around five.

And some people have talked about making it four, you know, but whatever it is right now, it's five. So if there's five work days in a week and there's 52, how many days are there in a year? All right, I'll help you. 260.

260 days in a year. And I don't have a calculator here, but I'm pretty sure if you take that 260 times eight hours a day, which again is what our economy is right now, you would come up with 2,080. This is how many hours, days and weeks in a year.

All right. So those are things that this is what God has given you, 2,080 hours. And I think it's a healthy exercise to know how many of those 2,080 hours did I use last year in some sort of a profitable vocation? Now, you could have been getting paid for those.

And most of the time in our economy you are. There are some exceptions, though. There's voluntary service work.

I think that ought to be included in the number of hours you put down in this blank. Doing work for the poor and needy, but it's profitable work. What should not be included in that blank are things like playing video games.

That should not be in those hours, should not be. Sleeping and eating should not be in those hours. But doing some sort of profitable work.

Most of the time today we're getting paid for it. At least minimum wage. Not always, but productive hours worked.

I think it's a good question for all of us, especially men, but all of us. How many hours did I work last year? How many of these 2,080 hours that God gave me did I use? And how many did I let expire unused? All right. So that's your answer for number B there, letter B. How many hours did I work last year? I don't think you know the answer.

I don't think anybody here probably knows the answer. I would even have to, I'm sure I would have to do quite a bit of calculation if I were to go back and figure out exactly. Sometimes, you know, you can look at your W-2.

If you're a paid employee, you can look at your pay stub. You'll at least get a starting point there, but it's good to know. Again, Proverbs says to know faithfulness involves knowing.

You can't make changes to your life until you know. So it's good to know. So now John Wesley said, earn all you can.

Well, does that mean I don't do any voluntary service then? Well, no, there's conditions to this earn all you can. Does that mean I double this? Instead of 2,080, I'll just work 4,000 and 4,160 hours and I'll do nothing but work. Is that what this means? Again, the answer is no.

When John Wesley said earn all you can, he put a whole string of qualifiers on there. He says, make sure you deal with the things that are important that you have a responsibility to do, taking care of your family, discipling, you know, just speaking to your neighbors about the gospel. There's, you know, dealing with church issues, maybe going and volunteering somewhere and doing free work for people.

But with those qualifiers, John Wesley said, go ahead and earn what you can. Use up, you know, do something profitable with as many of these 2,080 hours that God has given you at the beginning of each year. Okay.

Second one that John Wesley said is to save all you can. And so what's the right question then to ask to test whether or not I am saving all I can? Here's the question I have in mind. How much money did I spend last year? I don't know how many people know how much you spent last year, but it's good to know.

It's good to know. How much did I really spend? If you don't have any idea how much money you're spending per month, per year, per day, maybe, it's going to be hard to be faithful financially. It's going to be hard to be faithful in that which is least.

So there'd be different ways you could figure. You could keep track of every penny, every receipt, every check you ever wrote. You could add all of that up and you would know how much money you spent.

The problem is it takes a lot of work. Here's a short, here's a few shortcuts. You could start by how much you earned last year.

And then look at the bank account at the beginning and the bank account at the end. That's going to give you a clue how much you spent. Subtract out how much you gave away.

That's going to be an important tweak to that. Or if you went and borrowed money and you're further in debt now at the beginning than you were at the end, that gets added to that. So you can start with what you earned and back into here's what I spent.

But knowing how much I'm spending every year, every month is a good thing. It may not be fun to know those things, but it's healthy to know those things. It's healthy to know how much money am I really spending every year.

Here's another question. Question number B under save all you can. Am I current on all the money that I owe to others? Are there people that I owe money to and I've made an agreement, I'm going to make a mortgage payment, I'm going to make a credit card payment, I've made some sort of agreement, and have I met those requirements that I've agreed to do? Not telling you you should have debt, not telling you you should have or should or shouldn't.

I'm just saying if you've made an agreement, it's a good question to ask. Am I current? Am I gaining ground? Am I falling behind? If I was to ask my creditors, my landlord, if I was to ask the credit card company or the bank, is this man faithful, this person faithful, this young boy, is he faithful? What would they say? These are good questions to ask. Not that it's always fun to know, but it's healthy to know.

It's part of being financially faithful to know where these things are. All right. And then the last one is give all you can.

Number three. So here's the question. How much money did I give last year? Again, maybe say, well, I don't know.

And if you don't know, probably nobody around you knows, which actually is a good thing, because nobody around you is supposed to know, according to the Bible. You don't let people around you, you don't give for the reason to let people know, to gain glory of men. That's not the reason.

However, to hold yourself accountable is a good thing. And so I would encourage you to know how much money did I give last year? Leave that last one blank. Take this home.

You can fill it out later. But let's do something else with these hours that we have. If we would take these numbers and round them off work.

So does that come out right? Yeah, 10 days off work or two weeks off. So I'm really only working 250 hours, not 260. I'll round this to 50 and I'll just round this to 2,000 hours.

So roughly 2,000 hours makes all the math a little bit easier if you use round numbers instead of the exact numbers. But here's some questions I would like to encourage you to ask. Here's one that's more common.

If you know how much money you gave last year to people that are needy, physically needy, spiritually needy. And by the way, I can tell you where to find out on your tax return, too. If you open up your tax return that was filled out by someone last year, turn to Schedule A, line 11.

It might have the number on there that you gave away last year. It might not, because you may not have itemized your deductions. But if you did, that's where you would find it.

Another reason you might not be on there is because if you're a farmer, they have the ability to do something that the rest of us don't have the ability to do. They can give away their grass seed or whatever to, they can give that to a charity. Now you say, what in the world's a church going to do if a whole load of grass seed shows up in their parking lot? They don't ever receive it.

That's not how it works. It all goes through a grass seed company or a grain bin or something. And they can get sold, the church gets the money, and that actually never shows up on your tax return at all.

It's actually a very efficient way to give money. It's a better deduction than putting it on line 11 of Schedule A. So just a little tax thing there. You may need that sometime if you're a farmer or an accountant.

Okay. But here's the question. Once you come up with that number, how much did I give away last year? I would encourage you to ask this question.

What percentage of that is that number of my income? We already answered the question, or we were going to answer the question. Back, if you go back to number one up there, how much money did I earn last year? What's my total income? Now the question is, when I did my giving, what percentage of that did I give away? That's a good thing for you to know. Not a good thing for you to broadcast to the whole world, but it's good, it's healthy for you personally to know what the answer to that question is.

What percentage am I giving? God in the Old Testament, he had these things called tithes, which I don't know if I can point to a verse, but commonly it's thought to be 10%, one-tenth, and sometimes there was even two or three tithes that they were talking about. So it ties those two together. I'm going to give you something maybe you haven't thought about though.

So instead of asking exactly what percentage of my money am I giving away, what about looking at it this way? How much did I give away per day? There's 250 days, working days, in a year if you worked all of them. Some of you didn't, obviously. Some of you, you know, maybe because of school or, you know, maybe doing VS work somewhere, there's lots of reasons we don't work all 250.

But if we did work the majority of those 250, how much did I give away per year? Let me just put some numbers up here. Let's just suppose we go through item one, I go look at line nine of my tax return, and I discover that I made, at least my accountant says I did, $50,000. And I wonder, well, how in the world? But he says I did, so I'll take his word for it, I'll pay the tax.

But that's the number. And then I add up the giving. Well, what would it be if I was to give 10% of that number? Very easy math, it'd be $5,000, OK? So $5,000 is my giving if I have a goal to give 10%.

If I look at this number and discover it was only, say, $2,500, now I know I gave away 5%. If this number is $10,000, I know I gave away 20%. So do the math, it's pretty simple.

But to know that answer is a healthy thing for you to do. Again, we're talking about being financially faithful according to what God says financial faithfulness is. But now that we have this number, let's just say you know that you gave away $5,000.

I wonder if it would help you think about this a little differently if you would compare this $5,000 to the $250 and say, I worked 250 days last year, I gave away $5,000. How much is that per day? Anybody have it quickly, math? $20, I think, per day. So that means every time I get out of bed and drive to work, $20 I'm investing in the kingdom.

If this number were $10,000, I think that would come to $40 per day. There's several reasons. Number one is be faithful.

But another reason is a vision for God's kingdom is stimulated and watered and fertilized when I am constantly investing in it. When I am constantly putting money into the kingdom of God, it increases my vision. Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

And so when you get out of bed and you drive to work that morning, you know somebody is going to benefit X number of dollars because of what I'm doing here. And maybe some of that goes to the church. That's not at all what I'm talking about.

That's why we have the church. You know, we say, hey, we're going to cap the amount of money in our account and everything above that goes to somebody who truly needs it. Somebody who needs a Bible.

I would encourage you to look for those opportunities. Look for needy ministries that minister to needy people, that feed the hungry, close the sick, pass out Bibles to those who need it. Build the kingdom of God.

Look for those opportunities. Pray over them. Find those things.

Here's another thing. You know, I wrote a book called How to Shake the World with $100. And you know, if you think about that $100 per day, I don't know if anybody has a dream of being a millionaire, but you know, $100 per day is $25,000.

If you start at age 25 and go till 65, that's 40 years. If you do it for 40 years, that's a million dollars. Now, how much better is a million dollars? Let's say you had a choice.

You had a million dollars in the kingdom of God or a million dollars in Bitcoin. Which would be better? Or a million dollars in the bank of Key Bank when the world burns up, which one's going to be better? Obviously, we know the answer to that because Jesus said to do it. So look at your own finances and do some of this analysis.

Look at what you're doing and say, God, how would you have to me to be more faithful? Because when you're faithful in that which is least, there's grace, there's power. And this is only one of them. If I get around to preaching this other sermon that I have, there's going to be other trapdoors.

We're only looking at one of those trapdoors here. There's many others that God says, and maybe those are some of the things that he says are greater. Maybe he says you're faithful in that which is least, we'll move on to something that's even greater.

But at least to be faithful in that which is least, because my desire is that everyone here, young men, especially you're at an age where you can make these choices. Is God's grace being poured out on you? Young ladies, is God's grace being poured out on you? Is he looking at you and saying that young lady, that young man is being faithful in the unimportant stuff, relatively speaking. And so I'm going to entrust them with something greater.

Here is here's a little story. This is real life stuff. Now, a grocery shopper stands.

This is very recent past. A grocery shopper stands crying in a store aisle. She has stood for hours waiting to get into the store.

She needs supplies for her family, but the shelves are basically empty. A man in a drugstore lays his merchandise on the counter, a bottle of shaving cream, a razor and a stick of deodorant, ignoring the shuttered credit card machine and cash register. He carefully counts out tiny chips of gold from a folded napkin into the digital scale on the counter.

A haggard looking mother at a pharmacy begs the cashier to sell her a vial of insulin for a diabetic son, tearfully waving a large fistful of large denomination bills. The cashier shakes his head. It's not enough money.

Besides, there's no insulin available. A father roots desperately through the pile of garbage on the curb looking for something, anything edible to take home to his 10 month old baby. Nearby, a street artisan weaves a beautiful handbag out of 800 pieces of large denomination banknotes.

The money is worthless. Welcome to Venezuela. It wasn't always this way.

Venezuela used to be the wealthiest country in South America with the highest standard of living. It has abundant natural resources and the highest proven oil reserves of anywhere in the world. Yet even more than, yes, even more than Saudi Arabia.

It has gold, minerals and fertile land, but its people are starving. The money in Venezuela was not always worthless. In August of 2012, 10 Venezuelan bolivars were worth around one U.S. dollar.

In 2021, it took four million to equal one dollar. What if you lived in Venezuela before the crash? What if you had substantial holdings of Venezuelan bolivars money while they were still valuable, but you knew the crash was coming? Thankfully, you had a friend, an utterly reliable friend who offered to borrow your money and pay it back to you in gold after the crash. Your money would be safe.

Would that be a deal? That is the deal we're being offered. The crash is coming someday. These American or Canadian dollars will be worth this.

But we have inside knowledge. We have a perfectly reliable super investor who would offer a secure deal, loan him our money now, and it'll be safe through any circumstance, no matter what. God has made us that offer.

It's sound. It's absolutely safe. He's warned us that the crash is coming.

He told us in his foreknowledge that this world is not a safe place for our valuables. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust is corrupt and where thieves break through and steal. He gives us a safe alternative.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth or rust is corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal. He tells us how to make him the loan. He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord and he that which he hath and that which he hath given him, he will repay him again.

Proverbs 9 verse 17. This verse was read earlier in 2nd Corinthians 9 8. It says God is able to make all grace abound. Let me read the two verses before that and we'll close.

2nd Corinthians 9 verse 6. But this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one of you give as he has purpose in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity for God loves a cheerful giver and God is able to make all grace abound toward you that you having all sufficiency in all things may have abundance for every good work. And that is my prayer for each one of you here.

Thank you for your time.