Time to Build | Week 5 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

the the part that's kind of funny for my my my wife and I is we were on staff at a church in San Diego for, you know, seven years or so and it was the church that I got I got saved in, my wife grew up in, and really our stories kind of unfolded in that church and so, all that to say, everybody kind of in the church knew our story and like our testimony and all that stuff. So it was kind of funny when we moved out to Arizona

to take a job out here

that we started to realize like, oh, nobody knows our stories. And we would have people come up to us and go like, oh, yeah, it must be easy for you to say it's like the perfect pastor family guy was like the perfect kids. And like, just like, oh, you you don't know our story at all, right, which is kind of funny. And so we've, you know, we've shared our story with people over time. We feel like god has given us a testimony we've had to steward. But again, kind of the the short version of our story, if you don't know, is I got saved at like 18, 19 years old as a knucklehead freshman in college.

I was a part of our a fraternity kind of literally living a lifestyle like opposite of what god would have you do and in the middle of all that, I walk into a church and I end up having kind of a pretty radical encounter with Jesus, and I just get completely transformed. That whole idea of, like, the old person that you are passing away in this new creation coming to fruition, like, that that was literally my story. This was who I was died in this new person started to come to life. I started to search the scriptures. I got into this bible study,

and I remember as I was learning about the things of god that just it just felt like my eyes were open to all these things I had never seen before.

And I vividly remember, you know, when I was 18 or 19 and coming across the scriptures that talk about how we're we're supposed to wait to have sex until we were married. I was like, wait, is that still a thing? Like, you guys still believe that stuff? Like, that's that's crazy, you know, totally new concept for me. And so I just knew

before I started to date again, I was gonna need God to just literally rewire so much of who I was. And so I felt like God asked me to give him six months where I just pursued him. I spent time pursuing him, spending time in ministry,

and not pursue dating at all. And it was a hard six months. I was fighting off people all the time, like all the suitors were coming and I'm just kidding. There was nobody I was fighting off. But

it it's kind of crazy though. Almost six months to the day, I end up in a church service and they do the like, hey, stand up and say hi to the people around you. And I turned around and I made eye contact with this girl that clearly I I I noticed her and obviously, she noticed me. And that evening, she sent me like the original sliding into your DMs. K? She she sent me a Myspace friend request. Alright? Anybody old enough to remember Myspace in here? Right? When then when things got real serious, you make the top eight and you gotta move Tom out of your friends and the whole thing. Like, if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can look it up later. Alright? And so me and this girl start talking on Instagram or talking on Myspace and having these conversations. And eventually, we realized, hey, her her brother is actually in my small group in the high school ministry that I'm leading. And so I said, hey, I'm going to your brother's football game on a Friday. Like, let's just get dinner afterwards. And we had our first date, and I called my mom after I dropped her off and literally told my mom, like, hey, I I just met the girl that I'm gonna marry. Like, I I know for sure she's the one. It would take my wife, you know, much longer to get there, but I I knew right away.

And I was also then kind of terrified because this was the first relationship that I'd ever had as a Christian. And I was like, this is very different than how I've ever dated before. So our our second date, I kind of just put my cards on the table and just say, hey, this is my past. This is not who I am anymore but there's still, you know, there's part of me that is freaked out that like, you know, I don't know how to do all this stuff and honor god and so I basically just said, I I think it's probably smart for us to not kiss or anything because if you get the train on the tracks, like, don't know if I can stop it. You know what I mean? Like, it's just I've only ever related to women in one way, and I don't I don't wanna do that. I wanna honor god. And so we made the decision to not kiss or anything for the first few months of dating. The amazing part now as a pastor, I've gotten to officiate multiple ceremonies where couples will literally have their first kiss ever at the altar. And it as somebody is a non Christian, I guess the craziest thing I've ever heard in the world, But I'm telling you, there's a beauty and a holiness to these ceremonies when you do these things God's way. And so we made this decision to just try to honor God. And she then came over to my house one night to watch a movie and my roommates were in the living room watching a movie that we didn't wanna watch. So was like, oh, it's fine. Let's just go into my room where we can close the door as we try to not kiss and we can just watch the movie in my bed. In hindsight, it was a terrible idea.

We literally, we end up for the first time, we kiss, the train gets on the tracks, it does not stop. And the first night that we kiss, we conceive my daughter who's around here serving in kids ministry now that is 15 years old. So I used to tell my youth kids all the time as a youth pastor, don't kiss them, they'll get pregnant. Okay? Like it happens

like that.

And the crazy part, obviously, as much as I'm tongue in cheek about it, this was like a Friday or a Saturday night and I just would I was devastated. On Monday, I went to the youth pastor and just kinda said, hey, man. Here's what happened. I just I started to feel this, like, calling in the ministry, and I just felt like, okay, now that I made this mistake, God's gonna, like, strike me with lightning. You know? He's gonna I don't know what's next, and he kinda talked us off the ledge. And and truthfully, the reason that I I I kinda say all that to say, I was prepared. I knew we had made a mistake, and we'd fallen short of God's standard. I I was ready for, like, outside people to

say things about us and to criticize us a bit, but what I was not prepared for was the people inside of the church. Some of the people that held positions of influence over our life, some of the pastors in our lives that literally shunned us from their families, told us because of our mistake, we weren't we weren't allowed to be around their kids any longer, and they didn't know what to say. And that they kind of reminded us of the scarlet letter that we were going to now

carry and it has shaped the way that I I try to walk as a pastor because again, we we love stories of like, I I mean, I was a mess and then I met Jesus and my life was perfect from there forward But that's just not how we operate as humans. Right? It's like I I met Jesus, and I'm a little bit less of a mess than I was then, but I'm still trying to figure this whole thing out. And the reason that that I I I kind of start there is sometimes the most hurtful people in the world are people who fill the pews of churches on Sunday mornings. Mornings.

And if we're not prepared for it, sometimes when we try to step out in obedience, we saw last week, we will face external opposition, yes and amen. But some of that, like it makes sense, they're outside of our camp. But the most hurtful, the most damaging opposition that will happen to those of us who are trying to rebuild the ruins of our lives, it's not people outside of the church.

It is people that are inside of the church that can really devastate us and hurt us if we're not ready for it. The the reason that I start there, again, we've been walking through the book of Nehemiah of this guy that prayed a bold prayer and said, god, could you use my life to make a significant impact with the time that I've been given? And he believed that God could use him to restore the walls around Jerusalem that have been in destruction,

that have been in ruins for

almost a hundred and fifty years. And we've been watching how God has given him wisdom in favor and finances, and we watch as he rallied the people and they started the rebuilding process. And we saw last week in Nehemiah four, the walls are halfway done, and all of a sudden, they start to face this external opposition.

But in Nehemiah five, we're going to see them face a totally different challenge that had to have shocked Nehemiah that was probably the most hurtful part of the entire thing because it's not now going to be external opposition that's going to come against them. It's internal opposition. It's it's people within the four walls of church hurting each other that do the most damage but specifically, what we're going to see where they're doing the most damage is connected to their finances.

See, Nehemiah began to understand that the people of god, though they wanted to help in the rebuilding process, they literally couldn't do it because they were enslaved

based on some predatory lending practices that were happening at the time. These foreign nations had sold them essentially into slavery by mortgaging their fields and their families and their farms to pay for their next meal, and Nehemiah and his brothers come in at the cost of their own fortune and they've been buying the people of God out of these predatory lending practices. They're paying off their creditors and their debtors,

and then what Nehemiah is going to see in Nehemiah chapter five is that some of the people in the church saw an opportunity for financial gain, and some wealthy people in the church started to actually propagate and further

those same predatory lending practices against their own people. Here's what I want us to see today that I still think is one of the greatest challenges to God's kingdom being advanced on this earth. I wrote it down this way, kind of the big idea that we'll unpack together is that the greatest obstacle to fulfilling God's purpose on the earth,

it was and I still believe is, is the people of God loving money more than people.

I would say the number one God that exists in our world that we try to prop our lives up on is the God of money. And if we're not careful, we will we will love money and we will use people. That is not who we're supposed to be as the people of God. Nehemiah chapter five, here's how the story begins. It says, about this time,

some of the men and their wives raised a cry of protest against their fellow Jews. They were saying, we have such large families. We need more food to survive. In other said, we've mortgaged our fields, our vineyards, and our homes to get food during the famine. Another said, we've had to borrow money on our fields and vineyards to pay our taxes. We we belong to the same family as those who are wealthy and our children are just like theirs. Yet, we must sell our own children into slavery just to get enough money to live.

We've already sold some of our daughters and we are helpless to do anything about it. For our fields and our vineyards are already mortgaged to other people. See, here's what's happening. Nehemiah realizes that though people have great intentions,

they can't actually fulfill it because they they want to rebuild the walls, but they can't spend any time doing it because they've gotta work on their farms to service all of these loans that they've stacked up. See, what was happening inside of Jerusalem because of the ruins of the city is there was a famine that was happening nationwide.

Inflation was through the roof. Interest rates had skyrocketed and all of these people had bought loans from neighboring communities to make sure that their kids could literally have a meal to eat but the only things that they had left to mortgage after they mortgaged their houses and their farms, it was their children.

And some of them are like, we've literally had to already give our daughters and our sons to be slaves to these people. And Nehemiah and his brothers have come in and they've been trying to fix all of this, and now Nehemiah realizes that it's not outsiders,

but it's insiders that are coming in and taking advantage of each other. And the crazy part is is this isn't something that's technically illegal. It was totally allowed morally based on what was happening at the time.

And sometimes this is the difficult thing is because the the scriptures, they don't always say, hey, just follow the letter of the law because for us as followers of Christ, the the letter of the law is just the the the barrier to entry. It's the the floor, not the ceiling but there's an incredibly high standard for those of us who have been called, who've given our lives to Jesus. Again, if I if I had three hours, I would walk you through the book of Deuteronomy and the book of Leviticus that guided how the people of god were supposed to order their finances.

Now, I think often times, we forget just like the people during Nehemiah forgot

that god cares immensely what you do with your money. Do you realize the scriptures? There was a comprehensive study done in the seventies by a wealthy business guy to try to get his head wrapped around how much the Bible actually talks about money, and he figured out that connected to faith and prayer, there's about 500 verses you can find that talk about faith and prayer but if you search all of the scriptures, there's about 2,500

verses talking about money, possessions, treasure, and idols. It begins to tell us that when you look at the totality of scripture, again, Jesus's parables, almost 40% of them were connected to money. He talked about money and treasure more than he did heaven and hell combined.

The Bible says a ton about our money. In the book of Leviticus and the book of Deuteronomy told the nation of Israel, here's how you're supposed to structure your life. As a follower of God, here's what you do with your money. Here's how to trust people. Here's how to loan money to people. He told him, you never charge them interest. He would tell the farmers that when you're harvesting the crops, leave the outside perimeter alone because there's people in your community that can't afford to eat and they need to know that they can come to the perimeter of your farm and take what is there because it's not yours, it's ours and we have a collective responsibility to take care of each other and what happened when the nation of Israel was brought out of slavery from Egypt and they crossed over into the promised land into Canaan,

people were all about it. They were taking care of each other. They were trusting god. They were living out the promises of scripture. They were living out the commands that God had given them through the prophet Moses. But now we find ourselves a thousand years removed from that moment,

and the people of God are sitting around going, well, what do those archaic rules have to do with us in today? There's no way a Bible written fifteen hundred years ago could actually have anything to say to us sitting here in 2025. It's void of context, it's void of culture, it doesn't make any sense,

And you've got to understand the scriptures are abundantly

clear. We as the people of God, the primary thing that we're supposed to do with money is to realize that it's a tool. It's a resource that can be leveraged to do incredible things, but we will have a propensity instead of using money as a tool, we will fall in love with it, and we will unintentionally

use people as a tool. I wrote it down this way if you're taking notes, that we are meant to love people and use money, but too often we use people and we love money.

The greatest thing that was stopping Nehemiah from accomplishing God's purpose on the earth that day was that the people of God had fallen more in love with money than they had God's people and God's mission, and they had forgotten who they were. They had forgotten the calling and the assignment that was on their life.

And when you and I forget who we are, the responsibility and the burden that we've been given,

because following Jesus is an incredible gift, but it also comes with a catch. You are now on the team. You now have a mission and you have a purpose, but when you get disconnected from that, what you will begin to do is just try to build your own kingdom. And you'll go, no. It's all about amassing more stuff for me. And what you will unintentionally do is you will stop using money as a tool in loving people,

and you will unintentionally start to fall in love with the money and again use people in that byproduct.

The the crazy part is is for Nehemiah, he's talking to people who are thousands of years removed away from the the slavery that they were brought out of. And this is the dangerous part for you and I because we have like spiritual amnesia.

It is so easy for us to forget what God has done in our life. When I was newly saved, man, I'm telling you, it was like a daily thing just on my face. Like, God, I can't believe you could save a wretch like me. That God's grace was so abundant to me. But seventeen years into this faith journey now I go like, was it really that bad? Like, I'm pretty awesome. I've worked pretty hard. I've done a lot myself.

It's why David always prayed this simple prayer in the Psalms of God, take me back to the joy of my salvation. Let me not lose the magnitude of what grace used to look like in my life. The depths of what you saved me out of.

Because when you forget how far gone you were when God found you, all of a sudden you will have the audacity to think that your life is your own, your resources are your own, and that you can do whatever you want with your life. Again, what was happening in Nehemiah five is the same thing that can happen to you and I. The further you get away from the miracle, the easier it is to forget the miracle.

As the miracle gets further and further in the rearview mirror, it's easier to forget what God has done in your life. And you will start to again take the reins and to try to take control again.

It's why all throughout scripture, God tells the people, build an Ebenezer here. Build a tabernacle. Write down what I've done. Remember my faithfulness because there's gonna be a day where you will forget it. And what we're witnessing in Nehemiah five is a bunch of people who are thousands of years removed from being taken out of slavery that have forgotten what God has done, and instead of building God's kingdom, they are they are building their own. See, all of God's laws around money in the Old Testament existed for two reasons. The first one is to remind us that God has been incredibly generous to us. All of the 2,500 verses connected to how to use your money, how to steward them is to remind us that god has been incredibly generous to us that while you and I were still a long ways off, while we were in the middle of our mess, god saw us and he ransomed us and he rescued us out of a spiritual debt that we could never have paid back on our own. So how dare you have the audacity to turn around and believe that you can charge interest to the people of God who are just broken like you are.

God's laws and rules around money is to remind us of the generosity of God, and secondarily, it's to remind us that our money is not our own.

So you and I will constantly trick ourselves, especially in the culture that we live in. We we love the idea of like a self made person and just pick yourself up by your bootstraps. And are we supposed to work hard? Yes and amen. But you gotta understand biblically, there's no such thing as a self made person.

You're a product of your community. You you are a byproduct of the grace and mercy of god. Even the business idea that you may have started and risked to make happen, the breath in your lungs, the idea in your mind, those all come from God. And the scriptures are abundantly clear when it comes to resources.

You and I are not owners. We are managers, and we are stewards. And when we forget that, we get ourselves into some really, really dangerous

waters. Here's the kind of throat punch of this message that we've just got to look at hard take a hard look at kind of face on. Our relationship with money says more about our relationship with God than we realize. In Nehemiah five, the thing that none of them wanted to admit was that money had become their God.

I think you and I are living in a culture where we have to understand the number one way that the enemy is going to tempt you to be the god of your own life is gonna be connected to your finances. We live in a culture that idolizes

money. We specifically live in a sub context of that culture where people have more affluence and we have more things than anybody else, and we will be tempted to find significance, purpose, value, meaning in our things and in our possessions,

and you've got to understand that your relationship with money says more about your relationship with God than you realize. Jesus literally tells us, Matthew chapter six verse 21, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. He says, if you wanna know where your heart really is, look at your treasure.

And notice what Jesus says here, because often what we do is we tell ourselves, I I I will give to God. I will trust God with my finances when I have enough to trust him with it. But right now, I'm barely paying the bills.

But Jesus says, no. No. No. You've got to start by investing your treasure into the things of God, and your heart will follow. See, if you wait to trust God with your money until you feel like it, I promise you that day is not coming.

You and I aren't led by feelings. We're supposed to be people who we walk in obedience to God. We say yes to what he's asked us to say yes to. And so we we invest our finances, and then what happens is is our our heart follows. I don't know if you ever sat with somebody who got the principle of tithing decades ago, and they're now sitting on the other side of twenty, thirty years of trusting God with their resources. If you get a chance to sit with somebody like that, and there's tons of them in our church, which I love. There's so many people who model this. They are the people that I look at and go, their relationship with Jesus is what I want mine to look like. They've unlocked this principle. I'm telling you, if you ask any of them, hey, all the money you've given the church, do you regret it? Do you wish you could have all the money back? Almost every single one of them will tell you, man, I I am so

blessed. I've learned that no matter how much I give, I just can't out give God. And I know some of you were sitting there like, yeah, of course, you would say that, bro, because you're trying to get our money. Here's the thing that I I hope you hear genuinely.

I I don't want or need any of your money. The amazing part is is because of faithful people who've trust God with their finances, man, our bills are covered. God has been incredibly generous and kind to us, but I do believe that the enemy has convinced you and I of a brutal

lie. You know, the data says that only four to 8% of Christians that attend church regularly actually tithe their income.

And I hear a stat like that and go, the enemy has lied to us and he's robbing us. And you and I have got to be careful because we potentially are the reason that God's kingdom can't advance in our communities because we are sitting here holding on to what is not ours because we are not owners, we are stewards, and we are managers.

All of that is kind of the setup where Nehemiah now, he's going to hear about all of this and here's what he does with it. Verse six says, when I heard their complaints, I was I was very angry. Understatement of the year. Right? He's leveraged his own resources,

his own wealth to buy these people out of this, you know, these horrible circumstances to learn that the people of God have put them right back into those same circumstances. Like, he was beyond angry, but here's why I love Nehemiah.

Verse seven says that after thinking it over, he doesn't respond out of anger, he allows the anger to drive him to his knees, to sit down in prayer, to think it over,

and then he says, I spoke out against these nobles and officials, and I told them, you are hurting your own relatives by charging interest when they borrow money. Then I called a public meeting to deal with the problem, and at the meeting, I said to them, we are doing all that we can to redeem our Jewish relatives who have had to sell themselves to pagan foreigners,

but here you are selling them back into slavery again. How often must we redeem them? And they all had nothing to say in their defense. And then I press further. What you are doing is not right. Should you not walk in the fear of our God? And here it is. The fear of our God in order to avoid being mocked by enemy nations.

You know what Nehemiah reminds us of? That for those of you who have gone public with your faith in baptisms and you posted it on social media, for those of you who share bible verses, the people in your life who are close to you but far from God, they're watching how you live. They're watching what you do.

And sometimes us unintentionally making decisions to trust God in this arena but not in these arenas. What we're unintentionally doing is we're making a mockery of God to the people in our lives that are watching us.

Nehemiah says, don't you realize that people are watching you? You are supposed to be the nation of Israel. The whole purpose of god calling this ragtag group of people to be his. The whole purpose of that was so that the world would have an example of what it looks like to follow god,

to have a provider that's in heaven, to have a heavenly father that doesn't take advantage of you, that loves you, but he's given us rules to follow, things to walk in so that we can live in his obedience and to get his blessing that we go, no, I think I got a better plan.

He says, sometimes what you're doing is you're making a mockery of who God is to the people who are looking at your life going, can I trust this God? Nehemiah says, remember guys, people are watching us. Verse 10, I myself as well, my brothers and my workers have been lending the people money in grain, but now let us stop this business of charging interest. You must, not you should, not I'm recommending. You must restore their fields, their vineyards, their olive oils, their olive groves, and homes to them this very day, and repay the interest you charge them when you lent them money, grain, new wine, and olive oil. The people replied, we will give it back. We will give back everything and demand nothing more from the people. We will do as you say. But Nehemiah is like, I don't trust you fools. I'm getting a priest.

Then I called the priests, and I made the nobles and the officials swear to what they had promised. This next verse is like the most gangster verse in the Bible if you see it. K? Nehemiah then says, I shook out the folds of my robe. This is an angry dude in a robe. Right? Like, who's going to mess with a dude in a robe? He says, but if you fail to keep my promise, may God shake you like this from your homes and from your property.

The whole assembly responded, amen. And they praised the Lord, and the people did as they had promised. This angry dude in a robe shakes it out, he's like, if you don't listen and give back all their money in their land, God's going to shake you out of your homes and your land like I just shook out my robe. You're like, yes, sir. Here's the money. Right? Like you don't say no to a dude shaking his robe, right? With the priest right there, like this is a warrior.

The part that's amazing to me with this whole story is you got to understand, Nehemiah doesn't have an army.

Nehemiah doesn't have title. He doesn't have prestige. He doesn't come from the royal family. Theologians tell us that who Nehemiah is probably speaking to here are the royal families that kind of still existed in this area. He was speaking to the only people in the community that probably if needed to could rally an army.

And yet to that power and to that authority, a guy that has no title, no prestige, that is representing a king that is hundreds of miles away in a community that is far from where they are, somehow he looks at a bunch of influential wealthy people and tells them, you are wrong, and you gotta change what you're doing.

And they listen. And I look at that and I go, man, what did Nehemiah have

that people who were living in disobedience were willing to listen to this guy that didn't have title? They had no reason to listen to him. See, the part that the reason I love the book of Nehemiah so much, the reason I think there's so many lessons in here that we, as people that are living in a a cultural moment that is very similar to the times that Nehemiah was in, there's so many lessons in here we have to learn. And one of them is right here in Nehemiah five.

See, Nehemiah shows us the the power and the potential of a person that's willing to believe that God can do something crazy with their life, And they're willing to actually walk out their faith, and they're not just gonna talk about it. They're going to actually

live it. See, the only thing that Nehemiah had that I'm I'm praying that we could be people that also have is he had this thing called moral authority. Moral authority, the definition I wrote down, is the credibility you earn by walking the talk. See, think my fear

is that being a pastor in America, the the the number one reason that people are skeptic about our faith or skeptical about Christianity is so often we are known as people who are above above everything else, hypocritical. We say one thing and we do another thing. And yet Nehemiah somehow resolved

to doing what he said he was going to do, and it gave him influence and anointing that changed the entire trajectory of a group of people. I just wonder what would happen if we stopped letting biblical authority be the thing that we lead with. If we stopped trying to lead with just like moral superiority,

where we sit here with people and we take the Bible and we use it as a tool to bludgeon people over the head with. When the truth is is all we're really doing is we're pointing out the parts of their life that they struggle with, that we don't struggle with. Well, all the meanwhile,

we're we're ignoring all the parts of our life that are in complete chaos and we're walking in disobedience to god. See, the world is watching us and if you and I want to make a significant impact with the time that we've been given in this world, I'm telling you one of the things we need to learn to walk with again is moral

authority, where we don't just say we're about it, we actually live it out. James says we are not supposed to be just hearers of the word, but doers of it as well.

Imagine And what would happen if the world looked at a bunch of crazy people living in the East Valley that actually took God at his word and said, we will trust you here. We're willing to walk this stuff out.

See, my commitment to you, hope and my my my sincere desire as the lead pastor of this community is I don't claim to be perfect if anything, man. I am far from it. But there's one thing that I've witnessed in the seventeen years of being around church and being in ministry. I've seen a lot of guys start really well.

But at some point, a lot of those guys lost the platform that God had given them. And almost every single time it was connected to them losing their moral authority.

My hope, my sincere prayer, and what I encourage our staff to do is, guys, we have to be the people who are willing to go first. I I refuse to stand up here and ask you to do something that I'm not doing myself. I will not stand up here and ask you to give to a building campaign that me and my family are not giving to first.

Our our staff is committed to going. We will walk and model the road as best as we can because leadership, real Christian biblical leadership is not is not pointing people down a path saying, guys, this is the path to follow. No. No. No. It's what Paul did. Remember what Paul did? Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ. Mirror my life. Look at what I'm doing. Follow me as I imitate Christ. Just continue to do it. See, it's not enough to point people down a path. You gotta walk the path and then tell people, follow me as I walk this path in this journey.

What happens is when you begin willing to step out and take simple steps of obedience with the anointing and the hand of God on your life, all of a sudden, man, you can make a difference in your home, that you can change a community, you can change a work environment.

And it's not about prestige and power and intellect. It's about obedience, willingness, and moral authority.

I know you're sitting here like, man, what does this have to do with any of us? Because we're not, you know, charging interest rates to people in the church, bro. Like, chill out, you know?

Again, I I don't think that that's the way that we are not walking in obedience when it comes to finances today, but I still believe I'm crazy enough to believe that the greatest obstacle to fulfilling God's purpose on the earth, it is still the people of God loving money more than people.

Still think the number one reason that God's move is not happening as fast as it could be is because the people of God, we've fallen in love more with money than with people. And I'm just a firm believer that vision, it moves at the pace of generosity.

And that you and I, as we begin to learn to be obedient to God and trust him with our resources, what we begin to do is we get begin to unlock miracles. And so specifically, what I wanna kind of close with and talk about real quickly is this this principle that is all throughout the scriptures called tithing.

The the data tells us that only about four to 8% of Christians that attend church regularly tithe,

and that is a mind blowing statistic to me because it tells me that the enemy has convinced a bunch of people to settle for best than God's best for their life, to settle into just going through the motions, and you you are literally robbing god of the ability to bless you. There's a story

that's recorded in Micah chapter three. It's a prophet that's talking. He's he's literally the voice piece of god, and I gotta show you the story. Malachi chapter three, it says this in verse six. It says, I am the lord and I do not change. Okay. This is really important for people that go, well, tithing is an old testament principle

and in the new testament, we don't have to follow the law. It's like, well, sure, Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law, he fulfilled the law, but like it's still wise to, you know, not murder and not commit adultery, rather you would agree with that.

And what Malachi tells us here is that this is God speaking and he does not change. And so the principle that we see in the Old Testament, there's so much of it that carries over to us in the New Testament. So, this is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed. Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now, return to me and I will return to you, says the lord of heaven's armies. But you ask, how can we return when we've never gone astray?

Should people cheat god? Yet, you've cheated me but you ask, what do you mean? When did we ever cheat you? And here again, this is god speaking, not not a prophet, not your pastor, this is god. He said, you have cheated me of the tithes and the offerings due to me. You are under a curse for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so that there will be enough food in my temple. If you do, says the lord of heaven's armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great, you won't be you won't have enough room to take it in.

The only time in scripture that we're ever seen to be allowed to test god is right here. He says, try it. Put me to the test. You sitting here going, there's no way. I hate when the church talks about money. This is the only place in scripture where God says, test me.

And it's amazing to me that God says that you are robbing me. If you really think that all of all of this is God's, whether the dollar is in your pocket or in the church's bank account, it's all God's. So then the question has to be asked, what are we robbing God of if we refuse to bring

The tithe is a word that literally means 10%. It's all throughout the Bible. I'm gonna do a whole series on it in the fall. That's when for some of you can schedule your vacation during that series, but it's all throughout the scripture.

To ignore the principle of tithing, you'd have to overlook so many passages in the Bible. It's this idea of that we bring God 10%

of what he's entrusted to us because we are not owners, we are stewards, we are managers, and we bring it back to the storehouse. We bring it back to God's church. And the beauty of the tithe is that the 10%, it scales. Whether you make a dollar or you make a million dollars,

the standard that God has asked his people to entrust him with is a penny of every dime that we've been given. And if if God says that we're robbing him, but it's all his anyways, well then, what are we robbing God with if we refuse to trust him and to tithe? What you're robbing God of is the very end of this prophecy.

You are robbing God of the ability to open up the gates of heaven and to pour out his blessing on you.

That that's what you're robbing yourself of. That's what you are cheating yourself of. And sometimes, again, we we sit there and go, well, I don't feel like it. When I feel like it, I'll do it. No. Jesus says that where your treasure is, your heart will follow. Invest in your treasure. Say yes. Test God here

and see if he will not be faithful to do what he promises that he will do. It's the only place in all of scripture where we've been allowed

to test him. And I know for some of you like, well, what what difference would my little bit make? It's such a small amount. It's not gonna matter. I've got a quote I wanna share with you from John Rockefeller. He says, I never would have been able to tithe the first million dollars I ever made if I had not tithe my first salary, which was a dollar

50 a week.

See, we convince ourselves that once we make enough money, then we'll trust God. But kingdom economics don't work that way. See, the scripture say that he who is faithful with the little things, God will make faithful with much. And so God is asking, literally, right now with what you've been given, will you trust me with it? Will you give me 10% of your money, bring it back into the storehouse and trust?

Here it is, that you'll trust that me and my blessing with 90% of your income will go further than you on your own with a 100% of your income. Think about it for a second. There are people who are sitting here.

We have said yes to Jesus. Like, we would say yes. I believe that if I were to walk out of here today, get in a car accident and somehow tragically pass away, that I would spend eternity with Jesus because I believe that two thousand years ago, he stepped out of heaven. He became a human. He died for me. He is what some theologians say is the tithe of heaven where god gave his best. He he loved the world and he he gave and he gave his first and he gave his best and when his best was given and sacrificed,

the rest could be blessed. You and I would say, yes. I believe that Jesus is who says that he is, and I believe that I'm gonna spend eternity with him because of my faith in him. And then on the exact same breath, you'd go, but I can't trust him with my $10. You'll trust him with your eternal resting place,

but you're scared to trust him with a few $100. I look at that and I go, that is spiritual warfare.

And I know right now, you're sitting here like, dude, this is because you guys are the the end of this twenty one days of prayer and fasting and trying to raise money for your building. You know what's crazy? We're trying to raise a half $1,000,000.

If you run the numbers, a church of our size right now, if our church was tithing across the board, every single one of us, dollars 500,000 would probably be about our monthly budget. It's far from what our monthly budget is in case you're wondering. But

we wouldn't have to do these things. We wouldn't have to try to go before us and go, hey, let's raise this money because it would be here. It would be in the storehouse in god's mission, god's plan, his kingdom could advance.

All of that to say, I know you're sitting here like, dude, I I I don't love that we're talking about money. Here's my simple ask and my request. What are you putting your trust in?

What are you putting your hope in? Is it in god or is it in your ability to provide? Here's what's crazy. I don't if you've ever seen this, but this is a $100 bill. No big deal. I just have one of them. It's a small flex, but

the crazy part is that so many of us will spend so much of our life trying to stack piles of these things.

These small little pieces of paper with a dead president on them that have been told to us. This this is how you will find meaning and significance and and value in this world. Well, you'll have assurance when you have enough of these things. And what's amazing to me is that somebody, somewhere in the line or somewhere in our founding fathers,

they knew that our temptation would be to find assurance and salvation and hope, not in god but in this thing and you know what's crazy? If you flip over a $100 bill, on the back of it, it's almost like there's a warning label written across like a cigarette package that you will see that says, hey, warning. If you smoke these, you're going to get cancer. On the back of every single $100 bill, it says, in god,

we trust.

It's a reminder that says, this thing, I'm telling you, it'll always let you down. There will never be enough of these things. Every month, you will need more. But if you remember that your trust is not in this, it's not in what you can do, it's not what you can provide, but it's in God that we trust. It is the most freeing thing in the world. When I realize that the burden of being a provider,

of being a dad, and being a husband, it can be a heavy weight. But when I remember that god cares about my family way more than I do and that all I have to do is return back to god 10% of his and he promises that he will take care of my family, that he will provide for me, that's freeing.

That's where you begin to experience the the yoke that is easy, the burden that is light of following Jesus. We don't have to give. We we get to give. It is a privilege, and it is an honor, and my prayer and my hope is that you would realize, man, you can't out give god. Here's what I'm gonna ask you to do. I'm gonna ask everybody right where you are. Just stand to your feet.

I'm gonna ask the band to lead us through this song where we talk about laying our crowns down. And I believe for some of us here, this is a a a moment, like a a fork in the road type of moment for us. They say that there's typically there's two conversions

of people. There's the conversion of their heart and the conversion of their wallet, and both are powerfully important in our faith journey. And so I don't know where you are today.

I don't know if what I'm saying is is hitting you with a bunch of conviction, but just allow God to minister to you. And let's respond and tell him, God, we're going to lay our crowns down before you. We're gonna set down all of our achievements, all of our abilities,

and we are right now in the presence of all of these people in you, we're going to acknowledge that you are our savior, you are our provider, and you are our provision. Amen? Let me pray for us. Father, god, we thank you. God, we thank you in for the hope that we have in heaven. Jesus, because of what you did on the cross of Calvary,

god, we have hope that life can be different, that what is in ruins in our life can be brought back into revival. And father, I pray through the power of the holy spirit that you would speak

to your people and that, God, you would give us the courage and the boldness to take you at your word and to trust you with our resources, the things that we hold so tightly to. And that, God, as we trust you, as we return back to you what is yours,

that you would open the heavens and pour blessing out on our lives and our marriages and our children. It is in the mighty name of Jesus. All God's people said, amen and amen.