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Well, I thought I'd start 2019 and attempt to get in a bit of trouble. Here is Matthew chapter 6. This is a very popular passage. It's the it's the Sermon on the Mount. I mean, this is Jesus's teaching a summary of everything that he taught.
And it's fantastic and there's so many layers to this. I mean, you know You could go through the Sermon on the Mount for two years in a sermon series and you know. Not run out of things to talk about but this is a very popular section of a very popular passage.
It says this no one can serve two masters either. He'll hate one I'm sorry. Either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
You cannot serve God and money. Probably even non-believers have this verse memorized. And what I was thinking about over the last 24 hours is how do you know if you serve both God and money? Because on the one hand it makes a lot of sense.
I mean in fact Jesus commends good business people who take Some money take some capital and are able to do and transact business to increase it. And so that's actually commended in order to you know.
So so if you're a business person or you're you know in sales or even in anything if you have any kind of job. And you seek to increase your earning potential you seek to increase your income your wealth that is commended.
That's something that you should do as a Christian. That's something I certainly try to do. I'm trying to Increase my business in 2019. I want to have more income coming in in 2019 than I had in 2018.
That's something that I'm attempting to do intentionally and that's a good thing. But what I was thinking about is how do you how can you make sure? That you're not falling into this trap where you're serving both God and money because something else we know from the Old Testament is that Even though financial prosperity is a blessing from God.
So if you have good income, that's a blessing. You should thank God for that. It can also be a double-edged sword. It can also be a curse in Deuteronomy. We hear about how people Are prosperous financially materially prosperous and then they forget about God and ends up becoming a curse.
So, how do you know that you cannot serve both God and money and so this is something I found on the gospel coalition. I wanted to look this up on gospel coalition in particular and This article, you know, I'm gonna read this section here.
He says there's by taking stock of our priorities. We're able to see how every spending decision affects every other decision and we're able to make decisions based on previously determined goals and objectives.
There's no financial financial silver bullet. The only silver bullet is around creating and maintaining a financial habit or discipline. Motivated by our financial goals and priorities begin by prayerfully asking the question Lord What would you have me do in my financial life?
That's how you can tell if you worship both God and money if you're getting your cues and you're doing what you're with your money. What God says to do? Then you're not worshiping that money. See, here's the thing God has a variety of things that he says we need to do with our money.
One thing is save it. So if you're not saving any money, you're not obeying God and there's a problem there. You might be worshiping money. That's a that's a good warning. If you're not saving money if you're not Investing in increasing your money.
There might be a problem there because God talks about how you should be good stewards and you're you should increase what you have that's something that you should think about if you're not giving to the poor if you're not giving to Two causes that help the poor there might be a problem there with you worshiping money because God very clearly Says we should have an open hand to the poor.
And so if you're rich, but you're giving to the poor you're saving you're investing you're giving to the church things like that. Then that's a pretty good sign that you probably don't worship money, right?
But if you if you're rich and you're not giving to the poor and you're not saving and you're not Investing and you're not giving to the church and things like that. That's probably a warning sign that you're attempting to worship both God and money you see the reality is how you know if you're worshiping money is You have to figure out what are my priorities?
What's driving my decisions when I make a decision financially? What's the motivator? Am I asking God what he would have me do am I reading the scriptures and searching them to see what the scriptures say to Do with the money or am I letting something else motivate it?
Like like, you know, for example, like, you know, if you lend money to the poor, right? God is very clear. You don't charge interest. So if you're charging the poor like I see this all the time with micro loans, right?
Like there's a lot of Christians that get involved with these micro loans that have these ridiculous interest rates. That's sinful and you might think well, I'm doing something hell I'm doing I'm helping the poor by giving them these little loans to start Their businesses.
Yeah, but if you're charging interest then something else is motivating that that's not what God says to do. Do you see what I'm saying? So that's how you know. If you worship money is if you're not letting God speak and and and take control over how you make financial decisions.
It's not about profit motive profit motive is a good thing. But if it's profit motive at the expense of obeying God's commands, that's when you know, you have a problem. Let's get to what I the title of this video is because I think it's directly related the modern Reformed ish Christian left like gospel coalition like woke church like all of these people that I've been talking to and and criticizing their beliefs over the last year they worship Minorities and diversity and you see here's the thing, right?
They don't bow down to minorities, right? I'm not saying that I'm not saying that they're literally bowing to an idol, right? Not saying that just like most people don't literally bow down to dollar bills.
But the reality is that there is something driving their decision-making process. That is not godly and you can easily see it. If you would just look here's the thing like one of the things that I one of the one of the videos that I put out Last year that that got the most hits right was that was about this women's conference the gospel coalition and you know The gospel coalition women's conference in general.
I know because I know people who went in general was really good. They had a lot of good things to say and women got a lot of benefit from it. But there was some evil going on at that conference and it was supported and defended Vigorously by people in this woke movement including Sabiti Yanyabwili.
Here's the thing that that that that fellowship event that Christian fellowship event that was segregated intentionally no whites can come to this thing because we want our black and brown sisters to have a place where they can come together.
And do whatever it is. They want to do now. I heard that white people showed up. Anyway, fine. I'm okay with that, right? That's great. But they were an intentional attempt to segregate and here's the thing if you look at what that was that was the definition of Partiality that was the definition of partiality.
That's a definition of breaking God's law and you might say well We're doing it for a good cause because God cares about diversity. So let's just say I grant that to you, right? God cares about having a diverse church.
Okay, I grant that. That's fine, but you can't do it by breaking God's commands against partiality if you do I Suggest to you that's a warning sign that you're attempting to worship Diversity and God at the same time and you can't do it.
You have to do things God's way. You know if if I grant to you that God wants a diverse church Then you have to use whatever means that God says are appropriate. You can't use other means that break that law.
Do you see what I'm saying here? Because if you start doing that and if diversity starts driving your decisions instead of the Spoken word of God what God spoke to his church. That's a problem because if you start to here's the other thing too If you start to get this idea that you know What's in Scripture is not enough to get diversity then you're saying something about Scripture that I think you don't want to walk down that Road, right if Scripture is not enough to create a diverse church.
You've got something real soul-searching to do and I think that some people that believe this would say yeah The Scripture isn't enough but not the reformed left. The reformed left is committed to that the Scripture being enough, right?
So you need to really think about that because here's the thing if the Scripture doesn't allow you to show Partiality in your pastoral hiring decisions and you do show partiality in your pastoral hiring decisions like we talked about in 2018.
Matt Chandler was one of the most famous ones. He wanted a black guy. He wanted a black guy. He was using skin color as one of his Qualifications for elder now he was using the rest of them, too I I would assume he was looking at the Scripture and saying okay.
Well, here's the qualifications for elder. So I want all these things but in addition I want black skin. See here's the problem that's how you know, you're worshiping both diversity and God where you're attempting to and Scripture says you can't do that.
Like it's not possible to worship diversity in God. So if you're you know using skin color as one of your hiring Qualifications and and Matt Chandler look Matt Chandler very specifically said he was doing that.
So much so that he would actually take a less qualified candidate if he had the correct skin color. That is sinful that's an attempt to worship both God and diversity at the same time and you can't do that you can't do that look if The scriptures qualifications are not enough for you to find the kind of pastor that you want I think you really need to take a good look in a mirror do some soul-searching.
Why am I in a position here where what the scripture says to do? Isn't good enough for my goals. You really got to think about your goals and what they are because are they really? Scriptural if that's what you're doing, you see I have no problem with diversity.
I think a lot of people, you know, I've been I've been talked about and and people say well I'm against justice and I'm against diversity adamantly against diversity and I'm not I'm not against diversity.
But here's the thing right? This is the whole point of this. If you really love black people if you really love Latinos like myself if you really love them. You first need to love God you first need to love God and do what he says and If you don't do that first if you don't listen to what God says to do first any other attempts to love Minorities outside of that is going to lead to disaster.
It's gonna lead to disaster. I think that the women who attended that Latino and the sisters of color event at the gospel coalition I think they were damaged by what you did. I think that they ended up they came out of that more Sinful than they they let then they they entered it.
I think that they were damaged by that. I think if you engage in partial any kind of partiality in your hiring or anything like that I think that the people that you end up hiring will actually end up damaged by what you do.
They won't be helped. So if you love Latinos if you love black people you need to love God first. And I think we understand this in marriage, right? Like if you tempt to love your wife without loving God first, you're gonna destroy her.
It's just that simple. You have to love God and say what does God want me to do with my wife and God has a very clear thing He wants you to do for your wife. He wants you to lay down your life for her.
He wants you to love her covenantally just like Christ loved the church, right? And so if you do love God first. Then you're going to naturally love your wife. And if you do what God says you're gonna love your wife.
Well, it's the same with minorities because here's the thing if you really love minorities. You better not show partiality in your fellowship. You better not if you love black people and Latinos you better not hire anybody because of their skin color.
That's ridiculous and that'll end up destroying them and and and you can already see this. There's a lot of bitterness out there a lot of bitterness that's cultivated and encouraged in minority communities with the Christian reformed ish left.
That's gonna destroy them if it's not corrected and I look I have a lot of faith in God being able to Do good things through crooked, you know sort of methods, right? So like just because my methods aren't perfect I still have faith that God will accomplish his good purposes and no matter what right?
So I'm not saying that God's not powerful enough to overcome these things. But what I am saying is if you really do want to love minorities. You have to do things God's way take a good look in the mirror if you're showing partiality.
Are you attempting to worship diversity and God at the same time? Because if you are you can't do it. I encourage you to stop. I encourage you to stop. You know, this is another thing like what people talk about.
Well, let's order our worship. Let's yeah. What was it Russell Moore said well if our worship styles are or whatever, let's crucify our worship styles and I'm saying no. No, you don't order a worship and you don't come decide what songs to sing and what to talk about and to do in Order to attract a certain skin color.
You don't do that because presumably I thought we were attempting to have a worship service that was According to scripture like as close to scripture as possible. I know we have disagreements on that stuff.
But when I you know me and my co-elder we decide what our worship service is gonna look like. We look to the scriptures and say what does the scripture say? We should do in this worship service and we might have some things wrong, right?
I'm not saying we have it perfectly but we're attempting to follow the scripture. And so no, we're not gonna change our worship style to attract a certain skin color because there's nothing written in the scripture about that.
Scripture talks about preaching the Word of God the scripture talks about singing songs hymns and spiritual songs hymns and spiritual songs. The scripture talks about praying lifting holy hands and things like that.
And so we do we do those things, right? We take the Lord's Supper. We do those things that the scripture says. But we dare not we dare not attempt to worship diversity in addition to God by saying, okay.
Well, we got to add something into our worship liturgy. That is increases diversity. Look if the scripture is not enough to achieve the kind of diversity that you want I think you need to take a good look in the mirror.
I'm speaking to reformed ish type Christian, you know liberals. That's what I'm speaking to and and even if you think you're conservative, but you're kind of falling on the liberal side. It's I'm speaking to you, right?
I'm not speaking to crazy, you know. Theological liberals because they don't care about the scripture, right? I'm talking to people who do care about the scripture if you're thinking that the scripture what the scripture prescribes.
It's not enough to achieve your goals. Are your goals really worth even attempting to achieve? Because here's the thing I'm gonna say this directly to the camera you cannot worship diversity and God. Because you'll either hate one or love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other.
I think that's what we're seeing in a lot of this stuff. We're talking about literally Organizing our lives and our ministries and our thought processes in order to do what diversity demands of us. And that's not right.
I You know really comes down to who's your master right that's what Lord means it means master and so the reason why you can't Worship money and God at the same time or diversity and God at the same time is because you can only have one Master and a master is someone who tells you what to do.
You obey that master you fear him you assign weight to that master. So what the master wants you to do, that's what you do. And so that's why I called Jesus my master my lord because I seek to do what God wants me to do and I don't do it perfectly.
But that's the point. So so here's the thing if there's nothing in that Bible that says here's what's okay to do in order to Accomplish diversity. Oh, yeah, it's okay to show partiality. There's nothing in the scripture that says that by the way, it's okay to To to do these types of things to segregate worship and fellowship and things like that in order to accomplish this.
This purpose that you think is good. If it doesn't say that then you have a different master in that area. It's not Christ. It's not Christ because here's the thing you look in the scriptures and you can see these examples of the Apostles doing something like a lot of people will point to the in Acts when they when they Elected deacons and they elected all these Greeks and they say well see that there you go.
You see there it is. But you see if you notice the scripture says what the qualifications were there and it was the same for Greeks and non Greeks. And so the qualifications for whites and blacks and Latinos is the same.
Skin color is not one of them skin color is not one of them. So if you add that to the scripture. Then I would suggest you you have a different master in that area and you can't do it. This is very important.
This is very important because imagine imagine if I had a church, right and I said, you know what this church. We want to attract rich people. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna get very comfortable leather-bound seats.
And what we're gonna do is we're gonna sing a really high-class music. We're gonna have professional orchestras and things like that. And what we're gonna do is a rich people really like to be catered to so we're gonna have You know Starbucks inside the worship service free Starbucks for everyone and Danish and all this stuff.
We're gonna do that because we want to attract rich people in our worship service. Oh and by the way. What we're also gonna do is we're gonna actually change how we worship in order to attract these rich people.
You look at me like I was crazy, you know churches do do this churches do this already. You can't serve two masters. I mean, that's just it. That's just it.