Money Myths | Pastor Joel Milgate

What's up, Men of God, Pastor Eric here, and I am so excited to bring this message to you. I want you to feel encouraged. I want you to feel hopeful. I want you to know that God is still working in your story. Our mission here at Victory City is to help every person take a step closer to Jesus. And can I tell you, man, as you're growing in the Lord, you're taking a step. So let's lean in, let's see what God has for us this week, and I know you'll be blessed for it, and I love you. Welcome to church. That's your favorite New Zealand brother. All right, surely I'm your favorite Kiwi, you know? Surely you have no others besides me. Yeah. Are there even any other New Zealanders in this church? No, I doubt it. See, I'm the favorite. It's like when you have one child, and like I've got one daughter, three sons. It's like you're my favorite daughter, you know? I'm your favorite Kiwi. It's good to be here. This feels like my home away from home. I love every time I get to be here. I think I'm here three times this year, and I love every single one of them. I love your pastors, Pastor Eric and Natalie. They are the best.

Can we give it up for them? Appreciate them and all they do and all they are. I love the whole staff team. I get to work with them, which is a great privilege. And I love coming here on Sundays and getting to meet you and seeing what God is doing. Since I was here last, we've gone from three services to four services. Come on, somebody, that's awesome. That's the most American thing I've ever said. Come on, somebody. Yeah, it's rubbing off on me, you know? Man, it's good. I love just the Spirit of God is here, and we're gonna have a great time together. I just need to bring you in a little bit of like my sort of personal crisis at the moment is I'm really struggling with feeling and getting older. Has anybody else like, I know somebody way older than me just laughed at me, you know? But like in my mind, I'm still 25. Like my body doesn't think so, but in my mind, I'm still 25. I was at a youth pastors retreat ministering a couple of weeks ago, a room full of hundreds of youth pastors. And I came in and I was just like, my people, you know? Like we're just hanging out. We're just kicking it. Like, you know, these are like,

we're all pretty much the same. And then about three songs into the opening night in the worship seat, I was looking around the room and I was like, wait, these people the same age of my kids. Wait, I'm friends with their parents, you know? I'm friends with their, and I was just, and then I had a moment, I'm like, I'm the oldest person in this room. How did this happen? And then that doesn't, it doesn't help that every time I open my Instagram, I have to stop opening it because it reminds me I'm old. Here's two things that keep showing up. I don't follow any of these accounts, but clearly the metaverse thinks this is where I'm at in life, okay? The first is there are so many things popping up in my account for lawn care. Okay, just people mowing their grass. Some of them are getting like scissors out and trimming their edges and stuff like that, thatching and things like that. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, who do you think, how old do you think I am? But the next one gets me. This is like, this is the most common thing to pop up on my feed, lower back stretches. I kid you not, I kid you not. So I don't know if anyone else is having a little crisis at the moment.

That's where I'm at, how about you? Yeah, okay, okay, we're all right. The younger people are like, what are you talking about? Some of you are so kind and thinking, you're not old at all, bless you, bless you. Man, we are here today to start a new series of talks and it's gonna be a great series. It's about everybody's favorite subject, money. I know, what a stitch up. Get the guest to talk about money. Thanks, Pastor Eric, bless you. Here I am to talk about everyone's favorite, I know some of you just start to pucker up a little bit. Just when I said money, it's like, whoa, oh no. Some of you brought a friend to church for the first time this Sunday, you're like, honestly, bro, we never talk about this. Well, I'm glad we're talking about it. I think we need to talk about it, but I do wanna acknowledge that we're entering a bit of a minefield when we talk about it. I feel like somebody sort of like, even right now, I'm looking at your faces, I'm looking at your postures. I can feel some of you grab your wallet tighter. It's like, I know we're walking in a minefield. for all sorts of reasons. And I thought we should just name some of that to just be like, he knows, he knows, okay?

Because as we talk about this, this is some of what's going on in the room. Number one is there's been some real abuses by the church in relation to money. I'm not here to defend those, I acknowledge those. That some pastors and some churches have handled the whole money conversation very poorly, have been abusive, have been manipulative. And some of us have experienced that and are scarred by that and so we can just acknowledge that's in the room. We could also acknowledge that if you're married here, that money may be one of the greatest points of tension in your marriage. So when we talk about money, now we're not just talking about money, we're also talking about marriage and we're bringing stuff up. I know that's in the room. I know that for some of you, you've decided, God, you can have it all, but this isn't included in the all. You've created a no-go area for God, for discipleship, for church. And look, I'm sure if I was able to sit down and hear your story, I'm sure there's some very legitimate reasons why there is that. But I acknowledge that means I'm like, I'm pushing up against something for some of you. I know that there are different stories of shame,

of guilt when it comes to finances. I know there's some stories of failure in the room, of addictions to things like gambling or whatever it is. And I just wanna name that and acknowledge that. I think when we talk about money and our mindset, we're talking about something that we would maybe consider quite private. And so when we talk about it publicly, there can be sometimes a little bit of uncomfortableness, discomfort in that area, because there's sort of like two last areas of privacy in our world. One is the browser history. And the other is the bank statement. These are incredibly like private spaces. And the reason I think we keep them private is because they don't lie. They don't tell any lies. They're just concrete places that show what you care about, what you're thinking about, what you're up to. Your bank statement doesn't lie about your priorities. And it can be uncomfortable. You're like, isn't this private, Joel? Why are we talking about this in public? And I just wanna rest your minds at ease right from the get-go here. Sometimes when we talk about money, we start sort of like getting uncomfortable because we're like, I know where this is going.

At the end of this message, he's gonna ask me for money. We're gonna take up an offering or something like that. And the only reason we're talking about money is because they wanna take up an offering. I just wanna rest your mind at ease. There is no offering at the end of this message, okay? I want you to know this from today and from the next few weeks. God doesn't want anything from you. He wants something for you. God doesn't need your money. He just doesn't want your money to get you. God doesn't want something from you. He wants something for you. And my heart is that we would get a biblical mindset, a God mindset around money, a God habit around money, and our vision here is to help every person take a next step closer to Jesus. I pray everybody takes one step in their financial area of their life closer to Jesus. Are you in with me? Amen. Look, I'm a guest. I got nothing to lose. Worst come the worst, I don't get invited back, whatever. I'm good. But I just, I believe the Lord wants to bless you through the word today. He wants to unlock some things through you. So let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we just give you these next few minutes, Lord, and we say, have your way. Lord, we remind ourselves about your word, and we place it as the authority in our lives, Lord. We pray even through this time that your spirit would work on our hearts, whatever work is needed, Lord, that you would set us free, that you'd help us to see these things from a heavenly perspective, Lord. And at the end of our time together, would all that is from you would remain, and would all that is not from you, would it disappear? In Jesus' name. Everyone said? Amen. Amen, amen. I don't know what sort of home you grew up in when it came to money. I grew up in a home that wasn't of faith. So I didn't grow up in like a church-going Christian home. and that's pretty normal in New Zealand to grow up that way. My parents would later divorce when I was an adult, but when I was growing up, they were together. But here's what money was like in my household. My dad was a blue-collar worker. He worked in the printing press industry. My mum was between a stay-at-home mum and a craftsperson. She would make things and go and sell them at the markets or those sort of things.

So she was part entrepreneurial, part artsy, part, you know, stay-at-home mum sort of thing. And so growing up, there was different money mindsets in my house. I don't know about yours. My mum was the budgeter. My mum held the, we would say, the purse string. She controlled the money. She did the budgets, and she is the most frugal, tight person you could ever meet, okay? She's just like disciplined. She's never had a problem saying no, ever. That's like her default, no. You know, like, we're not spending that, we're not doing that, we're saving that. My dad, not that. My dad was a hippie. You know, my dad was just, just loved to splurge the money, loved to spend the money, loved to be generous with the money, loved to be at the bar, the pub. Do you call it a pub here? Yeah, be at the pub, shout around for everybody. Like, that's my dad. I just wanted to be liked by everybody, didn't count it. And so my mum used to have to give my dad pocket money. You know, that created marriage tension, you know.

What sort of home did you grow up in? What sort of mindsets around money were in your upbringing? For me, if I look at it, I'm more like my dad than my mum when it comes to money. I'm more that way. Look, could we be so bold? Who's like, who's a saver in the room? You got no problem saver. Where are our savers at? And then the person sitting next to them, where are my spenders at, you know? Somehow they find a way to be married every single time. It's yin and yang, God brings them together. Just so that we've got more to work on in our marriages. Glorious. The thing is, because I didn't grow up in a church household, I didn't grow up with a money framework from the Bible, when I became a Christian, I actually became quite passionate about learning about everything the Bible had to say about money. I'm like, this is a discipleship area. I wanna know what the, I know what my mum did, I know what my dad did, I can see what my friends did, but what does God say I should do? And that's what I wanna encourage us with

as we begin this series today, is where do your thoughts about money come from? Where do your beliefs about money come from? Do they come from your parents? Do they come from reactions to your parents? Do they come from your grandparents? Do they come from a church hurt video? Do they come from a bad experience, or do they come from here? If you wanna experience the life Jesus has to offer you, in any area of your life, your mindset, your worldview, your habits, they have to come from here, not from somewhere else. This is God's plan to experience God's ways, God's provisions and God's blessings. Remember, God doesn't want your money, He just doesn't want your money to have you. God doesn't want something from you, He doesn't need anything from you, but He does want something for you. And the truth is, is that money directs us more than we would ever want to admit, right? Money decides where we go to school, or the lack of it. Money, or the lack of it, decides where we live. Money decides what we do for a job often. Often, if they all paid the same, you probably would have chosen a different career, right? Because money decides these things more than we would like. It causes arguments, not handled well,

it leads to divorce, debt has people trapped, and no doubt has people trapped here in this room today. And on top of all of that, money is the great revealer of people. When people get money, their character, their true character starts to come out a little bit. There's a revealer and a masker of what's underneath, but we are Christ followers here in this church. And we want our perspective, our principles, our habits to be shaped by His word above all else. And what I want to say. is that the Bible's got a lot to say about how you handle your money. Not just whether or not you give, but how you handle the 100% of what you have, and God has a plan for the 100%. So I want us to talk about some money myths, just as a way of sort of covering some ground today, some myths, okay? Myth number one is this, that the church shouldn't focus on it or talk about it. Like this is a myth, this is a mindset. Some of you, when I began talking about money, you thought, I don't think the church should be talking about this. I don't think the church got any business talking about this. Some people think churches talk too much about money, and that may be the case, but that is definitely not the case here in this church.

And I just, once again, does that perspective come from the Bible? If you look at the teachings of Jesus, do you know that more than half of Jesus' parables touch on the subject of money or possessions? More than half. Do you know that he taught more on money than heaven, hell, and prayer combined? The only thing he talked about more than money was the kingdom of God itself. And he didn't talk about it because he wanted it from you. He talked about it because it's a place where discipleship shows up. It's a place where worship shows up. It's a place where rival idols show up in our lives. He doesn't talk about it more than faith in the sense of he more talks about it because that's where faith shows up in our life is the real everyday areas like money. In fact, 15% of everything Jesus said, 15, one of 5% of everything Jesus said was about money and possessions. If we were to put that into our teaching diet in the year 52 Sundays, that means Jesus would preach eight of them in the year about money. That's how much. So when we go, we shouldn't be talking about this, well, Jesus thought we should. Jesus thought we should. Money matters to our faith.

That's why he talked about it. Matters to our future. Money matters to your children. Money matters to your marriage. Money matters to so many different areas. So he doesn't avoid it, he goes right there. Don't we want the reality of Jesus to touch every part of our lives? Don't we want the things we come to learn about in church? Don't we want it to like bless our mental health? Don't we want it to help us in our work? Don't we want it to help us in our singleness or in our marriage? Of course we do. Well, I want it to help us in our money too because that's a big area of our life and Jesus wants his word to get there too. In fact, I would say the opposite to this myth. I think we don't talk about it enough. I think we don't talk about what God's plan for the 100% of our finances enough. I think we might talk about giving enough, I don't know, but we don't talk about managing all of it in a godly way enough, I think. Myth number two. Hey, just a disclaimer, I'm not saying that about this church I'm just, you know, in general, the church, you know, just a general blanket statement. Anyway, sorry, Pastor. Myth number two, you ready?

It's my money and it doesn't matter what I do with it. Look, I know some of you thinking that, hey, good on you, Pastor, for talking about it, but it's my money and it doesn't matter what I do with it. Faith's over here, my spiritual life's over here, my money's over here, it's mine and it doesn't matter what I do with it. Whose is it? I know the world teaches us it's ours, you earned it, right, you worked for it, you got given it, whatever, you inherited it, but how does the Bible teach us to see money? It's that it's the Lord's, that's right. In 1 Chronicles 29, King David, he's collected all of the materials for the building of the temple and he says this, yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty. I mean, we were singing that before, everything in the heavens and on the earth is yours, Lord, and this is your kingdom, we adore you, the one who is over all things. Wealth and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and at your discretion, people are made great or given strength. O our God, we thank you and we praise your glorious name. That's like a worship song. But who am I and who are my people

that we could give you anything? Everything we has has already come from you, and we give you only what you've. first gave us. We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in a land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace. Oh Lord, our God, even this material we have gathered to build a temple to honor Your holy name comes from You. It all belongs to You. I know, my God, that You examine our hearts and rejoice when You find integrity there. I know I've done all this with good motives and I've watched Your people offer their gifts willingly and joyously. Whose is it? It's God's, yeah. Psalm 24 says it like this, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all His people. I know we grow up in a world that teaches us it's yours, it's yours, it's yours, but as you get immersed in the kingdom world, it's trying to teach you it's His, it's His, it's His, it's His, right? It's trying to get you to capture. All is not as it seems. Yes, you earned it. Yes, you worked tirelessly for it. Yes, you took some risks, you built that business, the heartache, everything. Yes, yes, but the Bible teaches us that even your ability to do those things ultimately come from God, that your life is more graced than you could ever imagine, that if He took His hand off you, you would have nothing. And so what we want to see is that it's not mine, it's His. Not the first 10%, the 100%. It's all His. Everything I own, everything I produce, everything I'll ever produce, anything I'll ever inherit, it doesn't matter where it comes from, it matters whose it is. It's all God's. We're just stewards. We're not owners. It's just passing through our hands. It's just passing through our bank accounts. It's just passing through our wallets. It's just passing through our Venmo. But it's not ours. And so when we come to use it, we want to go, how would you have me use it? How would you like me to steward this in a way that pleases you? How would you like me to handle this money? It matters what you do with it. You know, we got four kids and so sometimes we'll give them money when they're younger, right? We'll go on a trip and we'll be like, hey, here's your money. Here's your money. Have some fun. But I can tell you, I watch what they do with it to decide if they're going to get any more of it. A hundred percent. They go, well, it's mine. I can do it. That's like Christians, they haven't understood. The kids go, well, it's my money. I can do with it what I want. It's like, good on you. You know, like, this is like children. Like, it's mine. I

can do it. I can buy all the ice cream I want. They blow it in the first day. It's like, cool. Well, you're probably not going to get any more. But that kid who's like, I'm going to, I'm going to do like $3 a day. I'm going to space this out. You're like, I'm going to double yours. You know, no, I'm not playing favorites with my kids, but you know, you're watching. And in the same way, God is watching us because money is a testing ground. Here's what Jesus said in Luke 16, verse 10. It says, whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will be dishonest with much. Whoever, I'll add this, Jesus didn't say this. Whoever can't steward what they have won't steward more. Many people think, oh, I'll be generous when I have more. Well, just be generous with what you got. I'll save when I have more. Well, just start saving with what you got. I'll pay off the debt when I have more. Just start paying off the debt with what you got. God doesn't ask you to be faithful with what you don't have. He asks you to be faithful with what you do have. And so Jesus goes on. And if you have been not trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who can trust you with true riches? Other translations say the true riches of heaven, godly things, not earthly things. And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? Here's where it's at. No one can serve two masters. Either you'll hate one and love the other, or you'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money, or in other translations, God and mammon. Mammon. This is why it matters. How you handle money is a testing ground for the greater things of God, the greater gifts of God, the greater anointing of God, the greater purposes of God being outworked in your life. And there is an earthly testing ground for the spiritual things, and it's money. I'd imagine if you do a survey of all of the greatest like pastors and evangelists and people doing great work for God around the world, I'd imagine for the most part, you will find they're good with money. The ones with integrity, the ones with like, the ones that's like, it's clearly God's hands on them, they start well and they finish well, those ones, I'd imagine you'll find they've been trustworthy with earthly things, with finances. This money is, Jesus is trying to say

there's a rivalry happening for your soul when it comes to money. He could have used any word there where you can't serve two masters, it's only God or money, but he used the word mammon. Mammon isn't even a Greek word, it's an Aramaic word. And what he's trying to do is he's trying to personify the idea of money. He's trying to say, money's not just money, it's a rival God in your life if you don't put it under God's authority. If you don't handle it well, if you don't get a handle on this thing, it can become like an idol and it doesn't announce itself, it doesn't go, it never has an altar call, it just subtly slips into our life for a rival affection, for a rival, like, look, nobody loves money, we love what money gives us. Oh, I feel secure when the bank account's full, I feel safe, I feel in control of my future, I feel free, I've got options, we love all that stuff. And that's why Jesus says it's a rivalry because those are all the things you should be looking to God for. It's idol worship, money worship. That's why he says it matters so much because everything money can falsely give you, everything it over promises and under delivers, God under promises and over delivers on. Amen.

And so, our myth, you know, it's mine and it doesn't matter what I do with it, it's like, well, it's not yours and it does matter what you do with it. It really, it really matters. I love, I heard this little joke and it's like, two guys got stranded on an island one day and they're lost, one guy's stressing out, he's trying to write SOS in the sand, he's trying to light a fire, the other guy just makes a little bit of a chair in the sand and chills out and at some stage, the stressed out guy goes to the other guy, why are you so chill, man? We've got to get rescued. And he goes, look, man, I'll tell you a few things about myself. I'm really wealthy, I earn a lot of money every month and I tithe faithfully to my church every month. I know my pastor's looking for me. And that's it. Money is, it's amoral. It's neutral. But when it hits our hands, it can get a spirit on it, depending on what we decide to do with it. And they can either have a spirit that pulls us away from the Lord because we take care of ourselves first, or it can end up with a spirit

that puts it under the Lord's rulership, where we honor God with our first and our best. And this is what honoring God with our first fruits, this is what giving Him the best and the first of what we have is about, is about attacking the rivalry and going, as for me and my house, you know, the Lord will come first. As for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord. Yep, God lets me keep all of this and I'll shoot it in a godly way, but I wanna make sure money never gets my heart. I wanna make sure it never pulls me away from the Lord. That's why I give Him my first and my best. Okay, myth number three, money is evil. There can sort of be an assumption in church, right? It's like being poor is good, being broke is holy, and being wealthy, well, you know, that's a little bit evil. Like maybe just being a little bit wealthy is okay, but being a lot wealthy, that's definitely evil. But the scripture doesn't say that money is evil, it says that the love of money in 1 Timothy 6 is the root of all kinds of evil. Money is a good servant, but a terrible master. This is, we're back to this rivalry a little bit. 1 Timothy 6 verse 17, do not trust in their money, which is so unreliable, over promises and under delivers.

Our trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. I just wanna say in the church, poverty isn't a virtue. It doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor, but one isn't more holier than the other, okay? There's nothing evil. about wealth. God doesn't want your money, just doesn't want your money to have you. And money can be like, it's like a fire, you know? It's like a fire. It's really good when it's contained, when it's ordered, when it has some structure around it, but if it gets outside of the fire pit, if it gets outside of the fireplace, it's destructive. And this is the spirit that money can carry if we don't put first things first. Myth number four. Everyone still with me? Following Jesus means scarcity. God's blessings aren't material. I just want to start with a disclaimer here because I don't want anyone to accuse me of being a prosperity preacher, okay? I believe God wants to prosper us, but not so that we can have more stuff. God wants to prosper us, not so we can have everything we want, but so we can have everything we need

to accomplish God's purposes for us on this earth, okay? He doesn't want to prosper us so that we can be the ultimate consumers, okay? So it's my little disclaimer, but God is for us. God does want the rich, satisfying, and abundant life that Jesus came to give us to enter every part of our lives. So question, was Jesus poor? Well, yes and no. I mean, like, yes, he was rich, and he gave up all of his rich and wealth in God. He didn't give up his divinity, but he gave up the privileges of his divinity in heaven. It tells us in Philippians chapter two to come to earth. And was he rich or poor on earth? Well, a little bit of both. It depends how you define it. Like, he didn't collect assets, so if that's what you mean, then he was poor. But he was rich in other ways, as in he had a very expensive garment. They wouldn't even rip it at his crucifixion because it was valuable. He had enough money for every meal he ever wanted. He had every need that he ever had. It was met. He even had a treasurer in the ministry. His name was Judas. He was pretty bad at it. But there was a supply for the need. So there was provision.

There was a purposeful prosperity in his life. But what Jesus tries to tell us is that he was trying to do something in his journey for us. In 2 Corinthians 8, 9, it says, you know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for our sakes, he became poor so that by his poverty, he could make you rich. Now hear me, Bible accuracy matters. In this context, he's not saying rich as in money wealthy. He's saying like rich as in you have access to the full grace and glory of Jesus Christ. But with the full access to the grace and glory of Jesus Christ is a heavenly father that loves to give good gifts to his children. Who loves to make sure that if they're on kingdom purpose, that every kingdom purpose need is supplied. That as they're raising their family, that their family doesn't go without food and the necessities that they need. God is on your side when it comes to finances. That's the whole point that Jesus came from heaven to earth so that he could bring a bit of heaven to our earth, to our lives. This is the story of the gospel. This is why I don't understand why people don't trust God with their finances. God gave us Jesus. He didn't hold back his one and only son.

He gave us his most valuable, you know like, it's not even a thing. I don't wanna use something theologically unangry. He gave us his only begotten son and that son gave us his whole life. He was despised, he was beaten, he was misunderstood. He was poorly treated and he willingly gave up his life for you and me and the whole world. He died on that cross for our sins. He brought the power of death in that grave and he was resurrected on the third day so that whoever could believe could come to him, not on our merit, not on our goodness, not on our good behavior, but because of his grace, his love, his mercy. That's the gospel. If you need good news today, that's the good news for you, that Jesus loves you and he has abundant life for you. Why wouldn't you trust him with your finances? I mean, I'm trusting him with my eternity. I'm putting it all on the line, right? I'm trusting him with my soul. I'm trusting him with everything. That's way more precious than my house. My soul's way more precious than whatever's in my checking account. My soul's way more precious than what's in my 401k. My soul's... And if I'm trusting God with that, and He can be trusted, He gonna do good by you and your finances. You can trust His ways.

You can trust His principles. You can trust that it's not just the slogan. He genuinely doesn't want something from you. He wants something for you. Everybody coming to Christ thinks, yeah, what does He want? Yeah, He wants you to surrender your life and become a Christian, but why does He want that? So that He can bless you with the full satisfying life that is in Christ. Why does He want you to obey Him with your finances? So He can bless you, so He can meet every need in your life, so that He can show Himself strong and mighty on your behalf, so that He can pour His favor on you. He doesn't want something from you. He wants something for you. Here's a verse I keep coming back to in my journey, 2 Corinthians 9, verse 8. I just think it's so inspiring. This is the Word of God, guys, and God is able to make all grace abound to you. That you, always having a sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. What? That's good news. That's crazy. There's three big words in there, that God could make all grace abound to you. He's saying, I can make all favor come your way. I can make all freedom come your way. I can make the energies of heaven that are working on your behalf. He can make those come your way. He can make those come our way. Why? So that there would be a sufficiency. What does sufficiency mean?

You've got enough. You've got enough. That there's no more need. Not no more want. Don't make this what it doesn't say. No more need. That Jesus wants there to be such a grace towards you, that you would have all sufficiency for the purposes of God in your life. That in all things, there might be an abundance. I love that. That amplified version, I think, says that you might super abound. That in quality and quantity, not only would there be a sufficiency if you're more than you need, but there would be an overflowing abundance. Remember Psalm 23, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Now dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Victory City Church, God wants to do that work in your life. Not so you can collect things, not so you can consume more things, not so you can have 10 houses for 10 houses' stake, but so that there might be grace abounding to you, that there might be a sufficiency for every purpose of God in your life, and there might be an abundance from that, so that every purpose of God on this earth will always have the supply it needs. If you're a young person starting out in business, make this your verse. God, I'm believing for you to be able to do this through my life. If you're struggling in debt, and if this feels so far away from where you're at, make this the verse. God, I'm going to live your principles until I experience your truth. I'm trusting you, because myth number five, if we had one, was I'm stuck. I don't want to say there's no one stuck here. You might feel stuck.

You might have debt up to your eyeballs. You might feel like there's no way, but there is a pathway for everybody in the Lord. If you live the Lord's ways, if you set your heart on His ways, on His word, I promise you, over time, you will find the truth of this verse, as I have found it in my life, becoming the truth for your life. Money matters. Money says to vision, I can release you. Money says to need, I can help you. Money says to time, I can direct you. Money says to debt, I can free you. So here's my challenge today. Do you have a perspective, a God perspective of money? Or are you still carrying an inherited one from somewhere else? Come on, are your convictions, the things you're so clear about when it comes to money, are they from God? Have they been wrestled with, or have you just collected them through your story rather than from the Word? Maybe a question for others, have I drifted from what God had called me to in the era of my finances? Maybe there was a time you'd be like, yeah, I was aligned, but I've drifted from there. Here's a big one, is everything surrendered? Come on, are you that person that says, God, you could have it all, but not this? If God is a Lord of all, he is a Lord at all. And here's one I think for Christians, have I activated what I believe?

I think if I asked people, most people would be like, yeah, I'm supposed to be generous, yeah, the tithe, yeah, this, yeah, yeah, I'm supposed to save whatever, oh, yeah, I'm supposed to be building a future, but the problem is we haven't activated what we believe. We haven't set it up, haven't aligned our beliefs with our habits and transactions. Just imagine Victory City Church, what we trusted Jesus with in our salvation, if we would trust him in that same level with our finances. Imagine your life with enough for every good work and every God purpose in your life. Imagine a church with enough supply for every good work. Come on, I know the future's bright for Victory City Church, I know. I know that there's great kingdom purpose ahead for us, and I know that God's plan is that there would be an abundance supply for that, but that only happens when there's an abundance supply in your life, when you start living by godly principles. Because God doesn't want something from you, he wants something for you over these next few weeks. So keep your heart open, say, Holy Spirit, have your way. Show me where I need to change. Let's be disciples ready to take a step closer to Jesus in the area of our finances. Sound good? Shall we pray? Come on.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for providing for us. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for breathing your breath of life into us, Lord. Thank you for your goodness, for your love, for your power, for your intimacy, God. Thank you for the promise that you anoint our head with oil when our cup overflows, that your goodness and mercy shall follow us for every day of our lives, Lord. Lord, I pray over these next few weeks, Lord, that you would have your way. Mess us up, challenge us, encourage us, help us to break through into new areas. Man, would there be such an energy behind people getting out of debt and getting set free in those areas, Lord, wherever we're clogged up in our mind, set us free with the truth of your word, Jesus. Because we just want you to have your way and we want you to be glorified through our life and through this church. It's in your name we pray and it's for your glory we live. Everyone sit, amen, amen, thank you, church.