A Godly Approach to Wealth // 1 Timothy 6:17-21

tell that today is a significant and special Sunday as a church because we're partnering with compassion. Now, who is compassion, compassion, their mission statement, I love this, is to release kids from poverty in Jesus' name, okay? So why would we though spend an entire Sunday? And why would I spend an entire sermon talking about compassion and how they release kids from poverty in Jesus' name? Well, two reasons at least. There's a lot of reasons I'll give you throughout today. But the first reason is we love kids and the second reason is we care about poverty. Let's talk about those. Think about kids for a second, right? Like what is a kid? You know, you might go, "Well, not an adult." Okay, yes, yes, yes. Or you might say, "Why do we love kids?" Do we love kids because they're just like little and they're cute? Well, for honest, yeah, that's kind of one of the reasons we like kids because they're a little cute. But that's not a biblical reason to love kids. The reason that we love kids, listen, is Jesus loves kids. So this is really interesting. There's not that many times in the gospels that were told Jesus gets angry. But one of the times is when the disciples were trying to keep kids away from Him, which also tells us something really interesting. I don't know if you ever had this thought. It's not just that Jesus loves kids. You knew that. You know that answer. It's that kids loved Jesus and wanted to be around Him.

What kind of guy is the kind of guy that kids want to be around? No, we love kids. Now, what is a kid? I said, like, yes, not an adult, but how about this? When you think of a kid and every mom and dad knows this because as soon as your son or your daughter comes in the world, there's two things that you realize about this child at the same time. And this is true of every child. They're very vulnerable and they have a ton of potential. And it hits mom and dad like every time you're like every with every child. It's like, okay, first of all, they're like really, really needy and we're going to be up in the middle of the night every three hours and they need their diaper change and they don't know. They can't speak any language. They got to be educated. And so it's like immediately just, you know, how much need there is and then how vulnerable they are and what could I hope they're not sick and they're so small and how is their immune system? We feel that. But then we also feel potential like for all my kids, I prayed for their salvation. I prayed for their Christian service. I prayed for their spouse on the day they were born because you look at the kid and you go, every mom and dad does this, we're like, what would they be like? What would they be good at? What would their personality? What would they look like when they get older and who will they marry? And so listen, every kid represents both vulnerability and represents potential and possibility. By the way, this is why I think compassion is so wise. It's not only Christ centered.

I think it's, I think it's so wise, listen, to be child focused because when I was in Africa, Margaret and I were in Africa, summer of 2023, and here's what happens, some of you have been in Africa. You're just overwhelmed and then they take you on a bus. At one point, they take us on a bus for three hours. Okay? And so you're in a bus in Africa for three hours and you look out your window and everything looks the same for three hours, which is poverty everywhere. And you're like, how is this possible? How? You know, political corruption among other things, we're like, how is this possible? These are like so much resources everywhere, but everything's like, everybody's poor. And how do you fix this and it's like, well, you're gonna have to go, you're gonna need time to fix this. It's like, well, what do you do? Well, you start with a child and you think about the next generation and you invest deeply. So we, okay, so listen, first of all, we care about kids. Secondly, guys, we care about poverty, okay? Now in the Bible, you know this, but there's two types of poverty, right? The poverty of the soul and the poverty of the purse. There is spiritual poverty and there is financial poverty and now this is really interesting. Check me on this. The places in the world that have the most spiritual poverty also usually have the most financial poverty. Isn't that interesting? So a while ago, some of you who love moral emissions, you'll know this phrase, we talked about unreached people groups. So an unreached people group is a group of people that have no access to believers in Bibles. That's a good way to think about them.

And they're called unreached people groups because no one's reached them yet. And guess why no one's reached them yet? Because they're hard to reach. Do you want to live in Northern India? It's interesting, I knew a guy who lived in Northern India and I was like, Northern India, it's so hot there. I said, did the air conditioning work? He said, oh, we had air conditioning. I said, oh, thank God, he said, but the electricity rarely worked. The truth, okay? We care about financial poverty, we care about spiritual poverty. They're often connected in the poorest areas of the world and I love the compassion has a part to solve both. Now here's interesting. The Bible says people are poor for three reasons. This isn't a sermon on poverty, but the whole Bible says there's basically Calamity, that's one reason. Oppression, that's the second reason. Personal moral failure, that's the third reason. Here's what's interesting. Most politicians agree people can be poor for calamity and then politicians debate on whether all the other poverty is oppression or moral failure. Forget all that for a second. Here's what we know. When we're talking about kids in Uganda and all over the world, there ain't no personal moral failure on their part. Do you know the difference between your kids and the kids over-- I'm going to ask you a sponsor. The difference is that their geography became their destiny.

That's it? They were born in a different zip code. That's why they're there and your kids are here. We'll get to that and talk about a little bit. So then, why compassion? So I know I'm spending some time with this. Don't worry. We're going to get to the text. If you're nervous, type 2, turn 2. First Timothy 6. I'm going to meet you there in a few minutes here. Listen, I want to tell you why compassion. Not just because they're Christ-centered. Not just because they're church-driven. Not just because they're child-focused. I love all that. But how do you solve massive problems? I think you can't think about situations. You have to think about organizations. So say you leave here today. In somewhere, you see somebody that is homeless. And you're pretty sure they're homeless. But you also feel like they may have mental illness. How are you going to fix that problem? The chance that you will engage that person and help them is probably 0%. For a very-- this is a good principle to understand. It is very hard to make things better. It is very easy to make things worse. So what you would do if you were wise,

you'd say, well, hold on a second. There's like 10 organizations in our city who know how to deal with this. Maybe I can help this person get connected to that organization, because that organization has a track record of helping. Well, I want you to know this. Compassion has been releasing kids from poverty for 70-plus years. Seven decades. Yes. Amazing. OK. So here's what we want to do. And I think you're going to like this, especially you businessmen and business women, especially when you lean in and listen here. It's important. We want to do what is important in an effective way. I feel strong every time I say that. I want to say that again. We want to do what is important in an effective way. I can't think of many things more important. I can't. Then releasing kids from poverty in Jesus' name. It's like top of the list on God's heart. God loves the orphan. God loves the widow. God loves the poor. God loves the fatherless.

Top of God's list. Well, then how do we do it in an effective way? How do we be not just faithful, but be fruitful? And I'll tell you more about this at the end. I think child sponsorship is it, because here's the last thing. And then we're going to get to the text. What I'm going to ask you-- so what are we trying to do today? I'm not hiding anything. We want to get as many kids' sponsors. As possible today. I told our staff, I'm like, hey, we have roughly 600 kids in our kids ministry each week. I would love to have a kids' ministry here. And a kids' ministry in Uganda. And I'd like them to be the same size. I'd love to see at least 600 kids get sponsored this week. And let me encourage you. You kind of saw the power of discipling your kids by connecting them with these kids, these compassion kids. Here's what I want you to think about for a second. Whenever I'm going to talk about sponsoring kids, here's the temptation for us to think only one way. Here's what you're going to think. You're going to think, you know what, those kids need us. The poor people in Uganda need the wealthy people in Winston, and that's true. But I want you to think one other thought, we need them. The wealthy people in Winston need the poor people in Uganda to give us perspective. So I'll tell you about this later, but my family,

we sponsor three kids, one girl, two boys. And when we first sponsored them, when we went and got the packets, which you have a chance to do, my daughter looks at the packets and says, dad, why do none of the girls have hair? And I'm embarrassed to tell you, I didn't know the answer. That all the girls have shaved heads. I said, I don't know the answer. I think it has something to do with like, they're so poor, they don't have time to think about their hair. Or maybe it's with disease or whatever, it's like, what happens is when you have a compassion kid on your fridge, it puts your problems in perspective. And you still have problems, but now you have problems in perspective. So with that said, I want to show you how biblical this is. Turn me to first Timothy chapter six, okay? Look at this, little Paul says, "As for the rich in this present age." Okay, full stop. I know it's some of your thinking, come, give it to him. Give it to these rich people. I hope the Joneses are here. Ha, ha, ha, ha. I hope, if your name's Joneses, it's something, okay? I don't know. Okay, here's the thing. When we think rich, we think other people. When we think rich, we think, because rich is Like, I've talked to somebody before who made seven figures and said, "I'm not rich." Because you're never gonna be rich if you're thinking about everybody who's rich.

Remember how they said Abraham? Do you remember how they said Abraham was from the land of Ur of the Countines? I think every American wants to live in the land of Ur. Rich Ur, thin Ur, funny Ur, happy Ur. We wanna live in the land of Ur. Which is so interesting, so this is the fifth or sixth time in this short letter where Paul talks about money. And last week he talked to people who wanna be rich. You can go back and read it. And this week he talks to people who are rich. So he said, "There's two types of people in the world. "Those who wanna be rich, and those who are rich, "and the people who are rich, they wanna be rich Ur." So here's the problem with you and me. We have off fluenza. Have you heard of this disease? You've heard of influenza. Okay, that's when you have the flu. Off fluenza is a little bit different. It's when you have so much stuff that makes you sick. It's been described kind of like, and I don't mean this in any disrespectful way to anyone who struggles with anorexia. I'm actually very compassionate, but here this help. Off fluenza has been compared to anorexia because what's the problem with somebody who has anorexia? Well, usually they don't even know they have it. And the problem is every time they look in the mirror they're never thin enough.

And everybody else like mom looks at her and goes, "Honey, you're wasting away!" And she can't see it. And our problem often is that we have all of this stuff. So let me tell you this. According to my research assistant, chat GPT. In a couple other ones, I double checked this stuff. You're in the top 1% in the world of income earners. If you have a combined household income of somewhere around $50,000. So when I say rich, don't think Jeff Bezos, don't think Elon Musk, okay? But here's the thing about being rich. And I'll tell you a secret about rich people. By the way, I think almost all of us are rich. So I'm just assuming you're rich. But here's actually a great question to ask. If the people reading this met you, would they think you're rich? Even the rich people that Paul was talking to, you're like, "Hold on. You can go to the bathroom and just flush it." And you can get in your vehicle and it can take you 70 miles an hour and you can set the temperature while you're in it. And you can listen to any song in the world while you do that on your $1,000 phone. It's like, okay, we're all rich. Now, since we at Alken know that we're rich, let me tell you a secret about rich people.

Rich people don't want you to know they're rich. Most times, there's certain people and they flaunt it. I wanna tell you why rich people don't want you to know they're rich. Because if people find out they're rich, they're going to hold them responsible to do things with that money. Did you remember a couple of years ago when they gave Jeff Bezos a hard time about this? I mean, he'd be the extreme example. They're like, dude, you're like the only billionaire who doesn't have a charitable fund. Like, what's going on? And he got to work on it. I was like, you're right, what am I doing? That's an extreme example. But everyone looks at rich people and goes, you should, this is why we won't even let ourselves know we're rich. Because as soon as we might say that we're rich, by the way, rich just means in the Bible, I have more than I need. So a lot of times people go, I don't wanna be rich. I just don't wanna worry about money. That's the definition of being rich. Literally, I don't wanna worry about money. That is the definition of being rich. Okay, so with the rest of our time, here's what I wanna show you. Paul is going, I'm gonna read the whole thing to you.

In verse 17, we're just gonna cover three verses. In verse 17, Paul tells rich people what not to do. In verse 18, Paul tells rich people what to do. And in verse 19, Paul tells rich people why to do it. That's it, okay? So that's what we're going to do. Let's look at verse 17. Here we go. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. Okay, so I love that Paul starts with the heart, right? We often say here that the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. And so what happens is people, some of you, right? I've told you so far, I've been doing this for a long time. I raised personal support with college ministry. So I know that I talk to people and they're normal until I talk to them about money. I've seen this for 20 years. Like, there's normal you, there's normal you, there's normal you. We talked about money, there's money you. Anyway, so I don't want that to happen with you. So basically, here's the thing. We're not even going to talk about money for a few minutes. We're going to talk about your heart. That's what Paul wants to do. He says, let's start with the heart.

And then he says, and this is good to know, he tells you the two temptations rich people face. This is it. It's like there's two major temptations, people with money face, okay? The first one, do you see what he says? He says, let me just read it. I want you to see it in the text. As for the rich in this present age, charge them. So that's what I'm doing. You're like, Kyle, why are you talking about this? Because I'm supposed to. Look here, it says charge them. Look, not to be haughty, okay? Now some of the young single people go, I'm looking for a haughty. That's a different type of haughty. I know your language, someone with riz and all that kind of stuff, okay? So, that's a different type of haughty. Okay, this is H-A-U-G-H-T-Y, haughty. Okay, so here's what this means. It's a word we don't use a lot, but it's an important word because in the Greek, it's two words put together. It's the word high and the word minded. So, here's the thing, possessions tend to make people prideful. I'm not saying it does it for everyone. I'm saying the more stuff you have, the more inflated your status and significance

tends to be in your own mind and heart. Right, because the more money you have, the more people do things for you. Somebody else cut your grass, somebody else watches your kids, somebody else cleans your house. It's hard to keep your ego in check when that's happening all the time. It's hard. It's hard when you have access and have special treatment. You get on the plane and you turn left and everybody else turns right. And once you sat in first class, you can get very much used to it. And so, here's, look, I'll tell you a story from my own life. So, I had this very basic Nissan Altima. It was like the bottom of the barrel version of it. I had it for years and I didn't think much of it. And to be honest, I didn't take the best care of it, but it was basically just a normal car. And when I drove that car, I felt like a normal person. But I was at my parents' house, this was years ago, and my dad said, "Don't take your Nissan Altima. "Take my car." And my dad had one of the really big Lexuses and like new version and it was just awesome. And I just sat and I'm like, "I'm the man.

"I just had that thought." And then I'm driving to get something. And I just, I used to go to the drive center and be like, "I just didn't know. "I hope you guys get my order right." And I pulled up in that thing. I was like, "You better get my order right." You know what I mean? I was like, "I'm telling you guys. "It has a tendency to do that to the human heart." Well, I'm gonna show you the solution. This is the only time we're gonna jump out of the text. I wanna take you really quickly to Deuteronomy. I'm just gonna show you two verses. Deuteronomy eight, you just write these down. I think he's a really helpful. Basically, I'll give you the background. God basically says to these you're like, "Hey, listen, you're gonna go on the promised land. "It's gonna be awesome. "And you're gonna make a lot of money. "And your crops and your herds are gonna multiply "and you're gonna have lots of kids." And then he says this. He says, "But don't do this." Verse 17, "Beware lest you say in your heart, "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth." He says this, "Look, you shall remember the Lord your God "for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth, "that he may confirm his covenant

"that he swore to your fathers as it is to this day." Now, I've told you this before, God says the reason that we have, you have to feel this. You can't just nod. You can't do the Christian listening noises to this kind of stuff. You have to really believe everything I have is because God gave it to me. And it's such a great thing to know and to feel. This is for example, here we are, we're in the West. Do you know what the number one factor of success is in the West? How high your IQ is? I can't remember where I read this. I can't remember all the details. It was something like, it would be better to be born with a high IQ in a poor family in America than to be born with a low IQ in a wealthy family. I mean, that's how powerful your IQ is and you didn't pick it and you can't fix it. If they can figure out how to raise the IQ, the Nobel Peace Prize will be given to that person. You can only lower your IQ by being malnourished as a child. You cannot do anything. So if you're like, well, I work so hard yet, you're also really smart and God gave that to you. Well, I have this great work ethic. Well, where'd you learn that? Oh, my dad, well, who gave you your parents?

And like I've told you before, none of us would have anything that we have Anyway, so you have to feel that in your heart. Like God, you have given this to me and it is a great stewardship. Okay, so that's the first thing. The second thing, I'll show you this here. Let's go back to the verse. Verse 17, here's what he says. "Nor, I'm in the middle of the verse, "nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, "but on God who richly provides us "with everything to enjoy." So he says, "Here's a second temptation "to hope in riches." So they're both sorry, they age. To be haughty or to hope, right? To be prideful or to put your trust in them. And he calls on the uncertainty of riches, right? Which some of you are feeling with the stock market right now? I was just meeting with a guy. I mean, he's not in our church. He's in his 60s, fairly successful guy. And I was like, "Why are you still working?" I said, "Are you going to be close to retirement?" He's like, "I'm not going to be retiring "if the stock market keeps doing this." That's the uncertainty of riches. Interest rates, inflation, identity theft.

You know, we love, we love. They make movies about the rags to riches stories. They make, and we love to watch them. You know, there are just as many riches to rags stories. I mean, it's still amazing to me that during the Great Depression, there were guys who jumped out of skyscrapers in New York City 'cause they lost everything overnight. They went to bed rich and they woke up poor. And so he says, "Wealth is really uncertain, okay?" And he says, "The thing is, "we can't put too much trust in it, but it's hard." Okay, so here's an interesting thought. Why does it say, why does the Bible say you can't serve God in money? Why doesn't it say you can't serve God in sex or something? Why does it say money? Because, and it took me a long time to discover this, because money is the most God-like thing on earth. And you go, "Well, how? "It's an inanimate object. "What do you mean?" I mean, it makes promises. That's what money does. That's what your salary does. That's what your bonus does. That's what the inheritance does. It's like, it makes promises and based on what you want, it makes different promises to you.

Okay, so this is interesting. I couldn't find this again. But when I was in seminary, I had to take a lot of church history classes. And it's hard to tell causation correlation. But I learned in one of my church history classes that there seems to be a direct connection between the invention of life insurance. And people no longer going to church. And it's, well, you think about it. Like, well, I guess from a sinful, logical mind, it's like, well, why do I need a church community that take care of my family when I'm gone? I have a great life insurance policy. That's just, it's one little picture of how when we have security, it's hard to know, are we really trusting in God or our bank account? It's very hard, I would just say this to all of us. It's very hard to experience a certain level of living and then take a step back. So a couple of weeks ago, I was in Puerto Rico, which I thought was gonna be, it's my first time Puerto Rico. I thought it was gonna be a lot more like America. It was a lot more like Dominican Republic, okay? And I get there at my daughters with me and she's 13 and we get to the Airbnb and I hate to tell you this, but you should know this about me. I'm kind of high maintenance, okay? You guys are like, I know, I know, I know, but I am, you know?

But okay, so I'm at this Airbnb and the missions team picked it all in this great location, okay? I trust you guys. So I get there and there's a gate. I'm like, not like a nice gate, okay? Not like a gated house, like a gate, like what is this? So it has a key lock and I open up the key lock and there's seven keys come out. I'm like, what do we have seven keys for? My daughters are like, dad, why do we have seven keys? I don't know, it's a safe place, I guess, I don't know. So I close that gate, there's another gate. It's like the middle of the night, I'm trying to, anyway. Then there's two more doors, I have to unlock and thinking to myself, I just don't feel super safe here. Anyway, so then I get into the house and the first thing that hits me is that it's hot in the house. Like, am I supposed to live without a AC for four days? I'm so embarrassed, okay, it gets worse. So then there's air-conditioning units in the bedrooms, there's two bedrooms, so like, all right, we'll be okay, turn that on, okay, but then it was like day two and I'm like, I miss my Topo Chico. My glass-bottle Topo Chico that I like to drink. And I'm looking everywhere and I can't find it. And you know, if you ever done a mission trip, it's just like, it's amazing and it's life-changing. And then like, you just like a couple days, and you're like, I just miss America. And so the final night, Addie and I are driving around

and we're like, we just, you can see the American food. I know more Puerto Rican food, let's see the American food. And we're like, a Popeyes. but I do like it when I do eat it. And so I was like, let's go. And so we went there and we're like, ah, we ate it. We're like, this tastes like 50% like real Popeyes. And I'm just being honest, like we can get so used to our lifestyles and we don't even know that we're not trusting in God, but we're trusting in ourselves. Let's just why, look at what it says here. Here's what it says, look at the other part. So this is kind of a sigh of relief, right? This is this part right here. So, you know, he's kind of hardening. Don't be prideful and don't trust in your money, but then he, this is the tension of the text. Then look what he says, but on God, look, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. So here's the interesting thing. He's like, all right, he doesn't condemn rich people. And he says, hey, listen, you're rich. In fact, the Bible assumes rich people in the first church. He says, you're rich and there's gonna be two temptations for you to be prideful about it and for you to trust in an ultimate. And they said, but guys, don't do those things, but enjoy what God gives you. It's like, well, good luck enjoying that tension.

That's a hard tension. How do I enjoy what God has given me without being enslaved? And I think the answer is, we have to ultimately thank God for it. So there's nothing I enjoy more. I mean, like literally, you know, my death row meal would be a medium rare ribeye steak. I just love it, okay? Amen, yes. And so, but here's what I think. The Christian should be way more thankful for his steak than the Unbeliever. Because the Unbeliever thinks something somewhere for a steak, I thank God for creating the cow, okay? And all of the different meals that come from it. It's like, we can be so unbelievably grateful in our hearts when we realize God has given us these things to enjoy. Okay, so that's what to do, or sorry, what not to do. Let's look at what to do. Verse 18 is what to do. He says this, they are to do good. You'll see four commands and they kind of clump together. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that, which is truly life, okay. So four commands, I'm gonna kind of clump them together.

The first thing it says is that they are to do good. Now that's different than being good. My fear, this is a fear, 'cause it's interesting, like this is, I know a lot of you, you're, you didn't grow up in a Christian home and you're raising your kids as first generation as Christians. And here's one of the temptations, I think, for parents, is to focus on our kids being good and not focusing on them doing good. And so if you only focus on your kid being good, then they grow up thinking about the things they can't do. Even if you didn't intentionally, it's like, well, you know, and all those, this is what we can't watch and this is where we can't go and this is what we can't say, and that's fine, because the Bible does say we're to be holy and we need to be good. But I would challenge us to consider teaching ourselves and our kids about doing good, which is mission and adventure in our lives. It's meeting needs in Jesus' name. What it means to do good is it means to see a need and to meet it. And there's so many different opportunities to do good. Now here's the thing, doing good is not the same as looking like you're doing good. And in the social media age, right? Remember, okay, this is what happens. It's so easy to post about something,

for or against something and I'm a good person. Did anyone else, you know, we've all had our aunt and uncle who does that, right? They post online, it's so interesting because it changes during COVID, they were an infectious disease expert. During the Russia-Ukraine conversations, they were a foreign policy expert. And since Trump has announced tariffs, they are an economic expert. Isn't that interesting? Here's that my conviction, guys, I really believe this deeply. It is very hard to be a good person. I don't think it's easy. I think it's very, very hard. I think it's very easy to look like a good person. So, for example, and this might offend some of you, but I was in Whole Foods yesterday, okay? And I never go to Whole Foods, okay? My father-in-law calls that place Whole Paycheck, and I agree, okay? But I found myself in there, 'cause there's like two or three items I won't go into it that they do have that I do like, and so I went there. Anyway, and I have the same conversation with myself every time I enter Whole Foods, which is like, oh my goodness, I'm gonna see people here, I don't see anywhere else in all of them, okay?

That's first conversation. 'Cause it's like, where are you from? Anyway, but here's the second thing. And this is gonna be connected one time up. I literally have a conversation with myself, okay. And I've even told my kids for me to take it on. I said, guys, we're gonna play a game as we enter Whole Foods. It's called Count How Many People Are Still Wearing A Mask. I said, my kids are, I'm like, don't, don't, points! You know, they come afterwards. Elon's like, I counted 14 people. I'm like, oh. Okay. This is not medical advice. And if you're afraid for anxiety issues, that's the whole other thing. But I genuinely think not all, but many people wear a mask to say, "COVID's been over for four years, but I want you to still know I'm a good person." It's like, man, woman, it is so hard to be a good person. It's so hard. You've got to deal with yourself so much. There's so much you need to repent of. It's so easy to put a mask on. And so, rich people, he says, "Be good, but do good." And do good. Don't just look like you're doing good. And then here's the last thing he says, positively. He says, "They are to do good, be rich in good works and be generous and ready to share." So, it's interesting. He says, "There's rich people who aren't good at being rich." So, within this room, most of us, according to world standards, are rich. There are people who are in here and we're good at being rich, and there's people who are in here and we're not very good at being rich. And part of what he says is, "Okay, do good." And he mentions good works, and that's all connected. And then the second thing he says is he says, "Be generous and share." So, I want to talk about generosity for a moment, because I do think, and I thought about this a lot, and maybe there's other ways, I'm not sure if there's another way to make sure you have stuff, and stuff doesn't have you, then to give it away. I mean, I remember, so, you know, I told

this for, when I became a Christian, my youth pastor taught me, "If you make a dollar, you give a dime." And if you make $10, you give a dollar. And if you make $100, you give $10. And I'm like, I understand that. And I was working at McDonald's at the time. And I was making $5.15 an hour, okay? And so, that is fine. And I started to tithe off that. And I'll never forget this moment. But my parents threw me, I was a brand new Lord, my parents threw me a graduation party. And I still remember, this was, I mean, I hate to say this. What was this? This is 2003. I graduated. So, this is 22 years ago. So, I'm graduating. And I'm like, you know, you know how it is when your parents are throwing your graduation party, you're like, "Invite all the rich people, please." You know? And if I can't come, I'm still sending them an invitation. Maybe they'll say, "So, so basically, I find, you know, I remember going up to my desk and I had all of the cards, all of the cards from the, you know, and I had never made any money, a lot of money up at the top point. So, I had all, I had my McDonald's job and I had all these cards and I opened them up and I remember counting. And it was something like $3,100 came to me. Again, 22 years ago. And I'm not saying, by the way, as a rule, that if you get a gift every time you've got to tie off of something somebody gave you as a gift, I'm not saying that. But for me in that moment, I just felt the Holy Spirit said, "You need to tie off this." And $310 to an 18-year-old kid about the head to college. It was like a, it was like, you look back here and have the moment, you're like, "That was it. That was it." I did it. I'm in. I'm ready. That was, that was, I think one of the hardest things I'm going to do. And if I did that, I can do other things. That was a moment for me. Well, then here's what happened this week. You know, I don't know if you guys, if you don't know this, our taxes are due soon, okay? I kind of forgot, you know? And this happens to me every year and I'm like, "Oh, no, I got to like get away from that." Anyway. So, I'm like, I'm doing the whole like, you know, fill it out and everything. And there's the charitable donation section. And the way that mine was set up, it said, "Grab all your charitable nations." And then it said, "Add them up together. Put the final amount in here." And then we'll upload the documents later. So, I grabbed my, you know, giving from two cities and giving to compassion and a couple other things we do. And I think you should know this. You don't need to know all the details, but I think you should know that, you know, my family, you know, we give more than 10 percent away, okay? I just want you know, that's as I talk about the timeline. But I saw the number this year,

again, for me. And there was about 10 percent of my brain that was like, "What if I had invested this in Bitcoin?" You know, but really, my heart is like, man, what a genuine privilege it is to be able to give to the different elements of the kingdom of God. And just, and there's something about it that says, "Man, my treasure isn't here." It's the whole idea that we have to increase, not just our standard of living. And that's understandable. Some of you are like, "You got to figure it out. You got to get your starter home and you want to find your forever home." And I think the tension for some of you, because some of you are the emerging affluent and all that kind of stuff, and I'm talking about you will be the rich among the rich, you're going to have to, and we're not religious about it here, you're just going to have to just And then, you know, I wanna increase my standard of giving, but I wanna appropriately increase my standard of living, but the problem for us is we keep increasing our standard of living and we kind of say we're gonna increase our standard of giving and it doesn't happen. So he says that, we're gonna end with this, encourage him. Why? Let me show you the why. Here's what he says. In verse 19, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that, which is eternal life. So he gives us, he told us what not to do, what to do and now why to do it. And he says, here's what you're doing. Let me say it this way, when I talk about compassion, then this is what a lot of non-profit leaders can do when they're talking about something, is they can only talk about need and need is massive.

Hey guys, abject poverty, kids live off of less than $2 a day and you can just feel it in your heart, the need and that's a biblical value. But also I like to talk about giving as investing. And the biblical teaching is this, you can't take your money with you but you can send it on ahead. This doesn't happen anymore I don't think but there used to be, now the credit card is so ubiquitous but I remember traveling internationally when you had to change currency and there'd be these big boosts at the airport. You're like, all right, here's like $500 American, I need to get $500 in Canadian or whatever. And that was, it's almost like God saying, you're gonna need to have some currency transferring and that happens as you give to the kingdom of God. See, here's the thing, generosity is the one thing. And I don't know how, I mean, God's wisdom. What I've seen is generosity is the very thing, let me say this, the very thing that takes the Christian the deepest takes the mission the farthest. And it's interesting, some friends of ours who lead a different church, they have just decided, they've been doing it longer than us, they've just told us, they're very confident about this. So like generosity is the sign of maturity for the believer. Full stop. It is not Bible study reading, is not praying,

is not community group attendance, is not serving your church. The sign that God is doing something deep in a person's heart is it affects their finances. And here's what's so amazing, generosity has the ability to both free you and free other people at the same time. That's kind of the hoity that it takes you the deepest and takes the mission the farthest. The same generosity that takes you to a place of going, okay God, I'm gonna trust you, I'm not gonna be prideful and I'm not gonna hope in this, is the same generosity that can release kids from poverty in Jesus' name. So here's the thing, I wanted to, here's what I love about this. So I just, you know, whenever it comes up, I talk about money, right? So I just talk about money for whatever it was, 35, 40 minutes. And the application is not two cities is taking up a special offering, you know, for our church or something like that. That's not what it is at all. It's not even, oh no, we're in trouble and there's a need in our church. So Kyle, get up there and talk about money. It's not that. One, it's it rosin out of the text. The second is, I thought, man, what a great opportunity to say,

I want our church to be unbelievably generous. I want you to respond to God's word through sponsoring a child and none of it comes to our church. So if some of you, you've never given our church, that's totally fine. We're just saying, would you give to the kingdom of God today through compassion? Let me tell you how our family did it. So three years ago, I got a picture. We sponsored three kids, okay? I think we've got this picture in a second here. Yeah, so there were my kids. That was my kids three years ago. That's our three kids. We did same gender, same age. So Joshua, Aisha and Jesse, okay? Now it's so funny. I told my kids, you can take that image down. I told my kids, I said, guys, this is so cool. That, you know, I tried to let them in on some inside stuff as pastor kids. And I said, guys, this is so cool. We're going to do a compassion Sunday and we're going to sponsor a bunch of kids from Uganda. And my boys are so excited. I'm like, this is uniquely excited. They're like, I cannot believe that we get to sponsor kids from Wakanda. (audience laughs) You know, this is years ago.

I said, guys, no, that's where Black Panther is from. No, no, no, no, no, no, Uganda, okay? It's a little different. What was really special is two summers ago, I had the opportunity with Margie to fly to Uganda and meet all three of my kids. Very, very meaningful. I think we have a picture of that as well. Here's how organized they are. They found every one of the kids brought them on a bus to us or on a car to us. Each kid, this tells you a little something about you, but each kid had their own language interpreter to speak to us because all three kids speak three different languages. And we were able to meet them and pray over them and give them some gifts and see firsthand the ministry of compassion, because you know, probably like some of you, my, and I hate this about myself, but I can be cynical. And I can be the person who, you know, you vacuum the whole floor and I'm like, you missed the one spot kind of thing. And so when I went to compassion, which I've gone with them twice to the Dominican Republic and then to Africa, I was on, in a healthy way, but on edge, is there something out of order? Nothing out of order, everything smelled like Jesus. And so what I wanna tell you, look, that's my story, that's our story.

What I wanna show you right now is the story of a compassion child who went through the program and her life's changed. Turn your attention to the video. (gentle music) - I grew up in the third largest slum in Arabic, Kenya, which is called Karobangi. We lived six of us in a house, which was 10 by 10, he became not cemented and the walls were made up of iron sheets. My mom was not working and my dad was a casual liberal. And, you know, he was on and off. And if he had to work, he would get like $10 a month. Our house rent was $6. So literally we survived the month that my dad had a job, we survived on $4. When we in the slum, there's sewer that passes right outside the house, there's no water, there's a lot of drugs, there's a lot of bucks to the portion and a lot of bad influence, you know, prostitution going on in the slums. But one of our greatest problem was food. I and my family went for days without eating 'cause my parents will not afford. And if we had to eat, it was a rotten food. That we had to go and pick from trash can. And I grew up as a very bitter child. Very bitter child at one time. I wished that we were all dead. I didn't see any bright thing about life.

I had no hope. I accepted Christ when I was at the Compassion Project. And things changed in my life because, you know, we were physically poor and spiritually poor to mean we didn't have any hope. But now with accepting Christ, I started receiving hope. And I started, you know, feeling like I was different. That I will go home and the days we don't have food. I will steal whole hands with my family and say, God, thank you, we don't have food today. But I know tomorrow you're going to provide. But the other amazing thing that Compassion gave me apart from Christ was my sponsors. These are people that I have never met. They will write letters to me and these letters were so encouraging. And every time I will get a letter from my sponsor, I will run and current it like this. We call white people Mzungo. That I have a friend who is Mzungo and has sent me this letter. And in all their letters, they would have scriptures. They would have encouragement. And they would ask questions. And I remember most of the time, you know, there's a time. They wrote me a letter and they said, Marine, we love you so much and we pray for you every single day. And so the letter continued that we love you. You are so beautiful.

I had never known that I was beautiful. And after they told me those words that I was beautiful, it didn't matter what somebody else was going to tell me. And the letter continued that Marine were praying for you, poverty does not determine your future. It transformed me. It gave me hope. I have Jesus that nobody can take. And I believe to whom much is given, much is expected. Once a sponsored child. And currently my husband, who was also a formerly beneficiary of compassion in the same compassion project, who sponsored two kids through compassion, one in Mexico and the other one in Kenya. And it's so humbling that somebody walked with me. And now I'm also able to walk with someone and give the same hope that I was given. Not just any hope, but hope in Christ. Amen. (audience applauds) - You weren't expecting her to show up. (audience applauds) Yes! Maureen is what we call a compassion alumni. Someone whose life has been completely transformed and changed through compassion. And I just wanna ask you, what would you say to a bunch of people who have an opportunity to influence and affect someone's life? Like, your life was affected by your sponsor

and even the letters that they wrote. So, what would you tell us to encourage us as we think about sponsoring children? Just allow me to thank you and to City Church for having me here a living testimony that compassion works and the name of Jesus works. It's true and it's real. Thank you so much for that. (audience applauds) And I'm here to tell us that the hope of Jesus Christ will write stories. It will rot mine. I went from being last in class to graduating from college. I went from living in Islam to helping teenage mothers escape from the Islam's darkness. I went from being a sponsored child to sponsoring children with compassion for to be exact. So, my life is a full story. Thank you or a full cycle. Thank you so much. I went from wanting to die to living a life of purpose. I went from bitterness to loving Jesus so, so much. So, my life and my story is a proof of three things that God is good. The gospel changes lives and compassion program works. When I watch Natalia, and I'm here just to say, thank you so much, Natalia, for sponsoring a child regardless of your age. Age does not matter. Thank you so much.

And to all those who sponsor through compassion, may God really bless you. And, you know, Jesus never looks away or walk away, but he always leans in. And so, my prayer is that today, you will prayerfully consider to release children from the darkness of poverty in Islam. Children like me in Jesus' name and allow them to become fulfilled Christian adults in Jesus' name. Amen. (audience applauds) Would you pray for us? Just pray for our church, please. Thank you. Dear Jesus, we love you. Our Father in Heaven, have not be the name. May the kingdom come today and now in this church, O God. May your will be done. May you be given all the glory, all the honor and all adoration for you are good. You are great. This morning, we enthrone you, Jesus. We say that you are holy. Holy, holy is your name. You reign on high. There is no other goal like you, Father. This afternoon, Father, receive our thanksgiving. Our lips are full of praise because you are good. You will forever remain to be good.

You are the one who changes not O God. You change our story. Rewrite our stories and give us a new name. Give us a new song, O God. Thank you because your word says that many are the affliction of the righteous, but you deliver us from all of them, not some, but all of them, Jesus. Thank you for delivering us from our afflictions, from our pain, from our shame, Jesus Christ. God, we thank you because your word says that you will never leave us, not forsake us. You are always with us. I thank you, Jesus, for loving us. Oh, Jesus, this morning, we are so desperate for you. So desperate for your love. We are lost without you. We are nothing, O King of Glory, Father. Thank you for everything that you've given and to us, O God. Our roof of our head, O God, clothes, food, O King of Glory on our table, shoes on our feet, O God. Thank you for our families. Thank you for the much that you've given and to us. We say thank you, O God. Thank you even for your word, even an opportunity to come to church. We don't take it for granted. And even call you a name. Oh, God, without fear, God, we say thank you. Thank you, Jesus, for you are good.

You are holy, O God. And I pray that this church, they will forever decrease as you increase, more of you, and less of them, O King of Glory, Father, that they will experience you in a mighty way, O God, because the Lord, you are their shepherd. They have everything that they need, O God. Thank you, God, because even though they walk through the valley of the shadow of death, they will fear no evil for you or always with them. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for your power, O King of Glory, Father. Your name is a strong tower. We run unto age and we are safe, Jesus. Thank you, because you are our refuge, O God. You are raffa, O God. I love you for the children that were sponsored in the first service. Thank you for the many children that were given hope. Oh God, and we are beginning to rewrite their stories. Oh Jesus, thank you for the many more that will be sponsored. Oh God, God, may we have an encounter with you even as we sponsor. Oh God, may that not take your place in our hearts? Oh God, so God, we worship you we honor you. We thank you for Pastor Kyle. Oh God, but I pray that you will continue to announce his head with oil and his cup will overflow with your goodness with your blessing. Oh King of glory that even as he serves in this church. Oh God, you will be seen. Oh King of glory. The week will say they are strong because they've had an encounter with you. The sick will say that they are healed. Oh God, because you are right here in this place, we pray. Oh King of glory for our spiritual life. Oh God, that we will have more of you. Your presence will be in this place. Oh King of my testify them. God, we pray for our prayer life. We pray for our wild study. Oh God, and a deep relationship with you. Oh God, so we thank you. Oh God, and we give you all the praise on our end of the relation for you are good. The hour you are good. We thank you, and we give you praise in the mighty name and much less name of Jesus Christ.

Amen. Amen. All right. I think it's safe to say they teach the Bible a compassion. That was just so you know, I mean, I've been in both services and that was a completely different prayer. And so, so powerful, so personal, so grateful for her. Guys, here's what we're going to do. Listen, this whole passage Paul says, hey guys, if you're rich, why don't you do good and be generous? And as soon as you hear that you go, wait a second, that's my whole life. My whole life is somebody who was rich. Jesus Christ became poor so that I could become rich. And the cross is the central act in human history of somebody else doing us good. And so it's interesting. Here's what I want you to know about compassion. When you sponsor a kid, and maybe you're going to do it, but we do as a family. Maybe you want to get a kid for each one of your kids. Maybe you're single. You want to grab a kid and whatever it is, whenever you sponsor a kid here's, I want you to know this is so cool. This is what's going to happen when you sponsor a kid and like a week or two, someone's going to knock on their door at their wherever they're in the new ganda and wherever they are around the world. And that person's going to get down on one knee and say, Hey, I got really good news for you. And the kids are going to think, wait, I live in a world of only bad news. There's good news. I have good news for you. Somebody you never met loves you. And somebody that you've never seen chose you. And somebody that you don't know yet paid a price for you to be free and have a different life. So here's what they say. It's very easy to teach those kids about the gospel because when they get him around and they say, you know, someone paid a price for you. Someone loves you that you've never met, never seen. And they talked to talk to him about Jesus. He's they say a lot of times kids go, that sounds a lot like my sponsor. Part of what you're doing is opening the door for the next generation to hear the gospel. To sponsor a kid, it's $43 a month. If you're like me, you waste $43 every time you go to Costco. Okay. This is what I do. No, but it is it is an investment, but we believe a strategic investment wisely used to invest in the next generation. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to pray and we're going to get to work. But we have tons and tons of these packets. And this is where you can go and you can say, okay, which child? Maybe you want to look for a certain age or a certain gender that connects to your family or something. But you grab one of these packets and they're going to be on this side and on both sides here. And then what basically we're going to help to escort you, you'll fill this packet out and then you're going to be able

to head out. You don't need to come back in the worship center. What we're going to do is sing about two more worship songs. And instead of responding the way we normally respond, we thought there's no better way to respond to what God's word says here than to be generous, to hundreds and hundreds of kids across the world. You know, and I'm not here to manipulate you. Okay. But I do want you to think about this. What would you want someone to do for your kid? And let's respond as an act of worship. Let's pray and then we'll come forward. Or do we just come to you in Jesus name? We thank you for the gospel of Jesus Christ. We thank you Jesus that you are the one who did us so much good. You were so rich in good works that really the story of both the creation and salvation is your willingness to be generous and chair. Lord, thank you for just creating the whole world. The whole world was created because out of an overflow and abundance of all that you had and you shared it with us. Would you loosen on us the grips of materialism and consumerism? Would you set us free, Lord? And at the same time, would you use us to set others free? We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]