18 - Lesson 10: Stewardship (Attitude toward Money), Part 1

Well, welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Discipleship. This is our class on an Introduction to Discipling.

We're glad to have you with us. We welcome all the new visitors that are watching. We're using a book to go through as a way of facilitating discipleship called

Growing in Grace. It's something you can get at our store. It's only about 40 pages long.

It's a small Bible study. That is what we're going through here so that we can use this to facilitate or just give a reason kind of to get together with someone and go through and to study the scriptures together and give a new believer specifically or maybe your family members,

Sunday school class or even homeschooler group, basically give them some overviews of basic things of Christianity.

It's just really a tool that we use here so that we can have something to get together and discuss on a regular basis.

By going through the lessons here, it'll get you together at least basically about three months worth of time which helps you to get to know a person.

After that, you can do other things together to continue fostering a discipling relationship. But this is something when you're starting fresh and new, this book just kind of helps out.

As we've been doing each week, as we've been going through each lesson, we've been looking to review the lessons.

We're trying to teach you how to disciple. Yes, we're using this book, but we're also trying to teach you techniques and different things to keep in mind.

Why do we keep reviewing? We keep reviewing because depending on the individual that you are discipling is going to depend on the need of how much review is necessary.

You may have someone that's completely new to the faith, doesn't know anything about the Bible, doesn't even know their way around the

Bible, they look in the table of contents. You're going to share the discipling time with them different than you're going to share with someone who maybe has been raised in the church, has been a false convert, knows their way around the

Bible, knows all the stories, heard lots of sermons, and they were never believers, now they are.

Totally different way of handling it. Why? Because for one, everything's fresh and new. For the other, they may have just confusing understandings.

You may have someone that comes out of a Roman Catholic background or a Jehovah Witness background and they use the same terminology, but they're confused on the meaning.

So you're going to want to handle that differently. So every individual is going to be treated as an individual.

You want to handle them separately and understand where they're at as a discipler. And as we go through this, we're looking to remember that we want to review for one reason, because especially if you have someone that's new, they may not have thought of questions from the last lesson.

And as you go to the new lesson and you review last lesson, they may say, you know,

I have some questions. Because something new may have come up. Now that you taught the lesson, as they went away for the week, thought about it, maybe some new things came up that they want to ask you about.

And so it's good to do a review so you give them an opportunity to ask new questions.

You don't want them to feel like, okay, hey, we're done with that. Now let's move on. We can't go back and discuss it. You want to have some fluidity to this.

You want to let there be some give and take, all right? So let us review last class.

This is, last lesson was on holiness. Here is just some review sheets that you can look over that you could do with them.

Again, these are available. You can email us if you need them. But on holiness, you see at the top, this goes into a little bit more than we looked at in the lesson by giving you some

Greek words for holiness in the top left there. But then at the bottom, you see we have the, what we should be separated from.

We see how we should be separated from the world. That's what the word means, to be separate. We're to be separated from false doctrine.

We're to be separate from an undisciplined Christians and then separate unto God. And you just see there with each one of those how we have the parts of the lesson underneath each one of those little clouds.

We have a memory verse that we would ask them to recite. I'm going to ask you guys to recite it.

I'm making it easy there, I guess, by just putting it on the screen for you. So just read it. There you go. But as he who called us, who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conducts since it is written you shall be holy for I am holy.

So we would review with them anything they have about holiness. And if there's no questions, we want to move into the next lesson.

Now, today's lesson is going to be lesson number 10 on stewardship. And we're subtitling this

Offerings for Our Lord, Offerings for Our Lord. Now, I say this with,

I guess, some caveats. We have fallen into a scenario nowadays where because there are so many televangelists, so many people that try to take advantage of people to try to get a hold of their money.

We don't talk about money at all. I am very guilty of this. When we do our different events,

I am horrible at asking for money. And it's just something I don't like asking people for money for our ministry.

I have no problem asking people to support other good ministries. It's not that I'm not glad to see the work that Striving for Eternity is doing.

It almost to me always feels like it's self -serving in a sense that I'm asking people to support the work that I'm involved in doing.

So it always seems that way. And even when I was a pastor, it was uncomfortable for me to be preaching on the subject of money because we would be passing a plate around and asking for donations.

And we have fallen into a scenario where we've gone so far the other way that we never want to talk about finances.

And yet, the Bible speaks often about it. And we need to have a right attitude toward our money.

And so this lesson is going to talk about stewardship. Now stewardship really is broken into two categories,

I believe. One is our, well it's actually one category, our resources. Now resources could be our money, which is what we're going to talk about this lesson.

They could be our skills and talents and giftings, which we talked about in the lesson on church membership.

And another resource is our time. And any kind of service for God is going to require time.

So what is it that you are being stewards of? Well it's going to be your money, your time, your talents and gifts.

When you look at these things, when we go through these lessons, you can really substitute for some of them, any one of those.

And you could be asking yourself, what's my attitude toward the way I spend my time?

That could be scary, I know. But we need to ask those kind of questions. So when we talk money, we're going to be talking about money, but some of these, it's also going to be about how we use our time, how we use our gifts.

So the area of financial stewardship is an area that critics most often attack.

Even some of us sometimes for good reason. Yet the Bible speaks a great deal about money.

The word stewardship simply means management. And what our attitude toward our finances and how we handle them as Christians is very important to God, believe it or not,

He cares about the details. So let us start by looking at the attitude toward money.

What is going to be our attitude toward money? Well with this, the first question that we have in your book is, why is our attitude toward money so important to God?

It would be a good question. Well if you look there, there's three passages of Scripture that we're going to look at.

So let's look at those and asking this question, why is money, or our attitude toward money, so important to God?

Matthew chapter 6 and verse 24 says this, No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one or love the other.

He will be devoted to one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and money. Now if you're reading the King James, it says

God and mammon. And what's mammon? It's speaking of money. So the reason, the first reason, and this could be worded when you're just dealing with someone, it could be worded a couple different ways.

So don't, it doesn't have to be an exact thing. But why is our attitude toward money so important to God? Well our first reason is because you cannot serve

God and money. Or you can't serve two masters. Basically the point being is, you're either going to make an idol out of money and serve it or you're going to serve

God. But it can't be both. They're mutually exclusive. Any of those are fine answers. But you see the point.

The reason that we need to teach people that our attitude toward money is important is because well, you're either going to serve it or God.

Matthew 6 and 21, just a few verses before that, it says this, For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So here you see a second reason that money is, our attitude toward money is important is because this is going to determine where your heart is.

I mean if your heart is about money, money, money, money, money, money, then you're going to do things, maybe as a businessman, as a salesperson, you may be willing to lie to get the sale because the sale is going to get you the money.

If that's your heart's desire, if that's what you treasure, the view that you have toward God is just not going to be as important.

Okay? But if you're putting your treasure in God and seeking the eternal things, then you're not going to worry about where your next dollar comes from.

You're going to trust God for it. Even if it's not as much as you'd like and you wish you had more, God's going to take care of your needs.

Maybe not the way you wish he would, but he would. And it may be your needs and not your wants.

We'll get to that in a little bit. But the reality of what we end up seeing is that it identifies where our treasure is.

You know, 1 Timothy, Paul says this, "...but those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some wander away from the faith and pierce themselves with many pangs."

And so what you see here, I want to make a careful distinction here. Because the reason it's important is because the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

Now that is not saying that money is the root of all kinds of evil. It is the love for money.

It is our attitude for money that is the heart of all kinds of evil. So just keep that in mind.

It's not necessarily money as much as our attitude toward it. So second question that you have there.

So first question, why is our attitude toward money important to God? We said because 1.

You can't serve two masters. 2. It reveals where your heart is. And 3.

Because the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Second question, what should be our attitude toward money?

So this is different. First, our attitude toward money, why is it important to God? Second, what should be our attitude?

Well, let's look at what Scripture says. When we look at Matthew 6 .33

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.

So you see there is we should seek first the kingdom of God. In other words, the kingdom of God is more important than the money.

And that is something that is, it's a reason why I think for some they struggle.

Because they see the need for money. And they see that, they think that money will solve all their problems.

I got news for you. Money doesn't solve all your problems. I'm always amazed to think about the one woman who with Bernie Madock who scammed people out of lots of money.

There was a woman who had been worth, I think it was $25 million. And she lost $5 million with Madock.

And she took her own life in despair. Now I want you to think about it.

She lost $5 million. She still had $20 million. And she took her life in despair?

I mean most of us could live quite nicely on $20 million. But she was so focused on what she lost that she couldn't see continuing to live.

And you and I would think that's crazy. But that's what the love of money will do.

That's what can happen to someone who doesn't seek first the kingdom of God. Now to the person who maybe invested with that guy and lost, maybe they lost half or even most or all of their retirement or savings.

But they're a Christian. They're still going to know that they have eternal hope with Christ.

And so they're going to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And let these other things work their way out.

Alright? Second, if you look in your book, what should be our attitude toward money, toward the possessions,

I should say, God has given us beyond the basic necessities.

Well, 1 Timothy has an answer for that. So let's read that. 1 Timothy 6, 17 -19.

For as the rich in this present age charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hope on uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

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.

I like that. Which is truly life. What he's saying there, if you look there, is to be ready to give and to share.

You see, when you know that the things that God has given you is not everything, we have some greater, we inherit eternal life, you can give and share with other people.

You can give out of the abundance that God has given you, and sometimes it doesn't feel like abundance. But, you know, there's so much that God gives us, and we shouldn't think about just, we often confuse wants with needs.

Let's put it that way. God gives you what you need, not necessarily what you want.

Alright? And so, be willing to share with whatever you have. And it's not that we do that, let me dispel the notion, there's some who try to argue that you give to get.

You know, sow that seed and you'll reap a reward. No, that's not biblical, that you sow to get.

Because think about, what are you teaching someone if you say, well you gotta give to get. What's the motivation?

I wanna get. Self. If you already looked at the verses that we've been looking at, the goal's not self, the goal is

God. His righteousness, not our betterment, not our wealth, not our selfish desires, it's

God. That's the goal. And as you're seeing, God's gonna take care of us.

Now, it could be that God puts you in a position where you are so dependent on Him, you don't have a lot, and you need to depend on Him for everything.

There's a stage in my life where I was homeless, I ended up living on a woman's couch, a waitress at the restaurant that we'd often go to.

When I was working, I lost my job at one point, and I had no more way to pay for rent, and this woman let me pay $50 a week to sleep on her couch.

Because that's basically all that I could afford, and that was the only place I had, at least

I had a roof over my head during the winter, and so I was very grateful for the couch, but there were times where I didn't have money for food.

And there was a time where, out of none of those times, was I ever without food.

There was a time where a friend of mine came over, I hadn't eaten, this is the second day without food, and a friend of mine comes by with this big tray of lasagna.

And he says to me, hey, my mother made this, and it was too much, since he was coming over, he said,

I brought it over, you think you want to have some, you want to finish it? Yes! Especially because his mother was a really good cook too.

But there were times where people would just pop in with food, or I'd have a friend that said, hey,

I really want to go out to eat, and I was like, oh, you know, in my pride, this is the human pride,

I'm starving, I'm hungry, I, in my church, I was a deacon, responsible for the deacon's fund.

Deacon's fund is where we give money to those who are in need. And I am starving, knowing that there's thousands of dollars in the deacon's fund, and I won't use any of it,

I won't even let the other leaders know that I'm hungry, okay? And I'd have friends that'd be like, oh, hey, you want to go out?

No, no, no, I'm watching the budget, I can't go out to eat. Oh, come on, I'll buy, come on, let me buy.

I'd be able to stop by with food, I'd get invited to people's homes, and they didn't know that I was without money.

I was starving. But God always provided for my needs, but you know what I learned during all that? There's times like that where I'm so dependent, my prayer life was never better, my devotional life was never better than that time.

I was so close to the Lord, because I was so dependent on the

Lord. And there are times where, you know what, the best thing we could do is be hungry. Because we're close to God when we depend on Him for everything.

Sometimes when people have enough, or too much, they lose that dependency on God. Let's move on or we'll never get done.

Alright, so, number three there. What type of riches should we primarily be concerned about?

Let's look at Proverbs 11 on this. Proverbs talks a lot about money, by the way. So we're going to spend a lot of time here in Proverbs.

But it says, riches do not profit. And you go, wait a minute, wait a minute. Sure they do.

I get a lot of value out of riches. No, let's keep reading. Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.

Now, this is, if you took our class on hermeneutics, you'll see that this is a style of Hebrew poetry where you see a repeating thing in the opposite.

This is a contrast poetry. Riches do not profit and then what does profit?

So you see the riches being contrasted with the righteousness and then you see the profiting being compared to the delivering on that day of death or day of wrath.

So what do we see? We see that from that verse what type should we be looking at?

Well, righteousness. We saw that in Matthew 6. God's righteousness, that's your blank there.

We should be seeking God's righteousness. That's the type of riches

God would desire us to desire. In Proverbs 10 10 verse 3 we're going to see there actually hold on, let me read what it says.

Do we even have that? No, we don't. Alright, do we have

Matthew 6? Okay, we have Matthew 6 Okay, so let's put that one up then. Matthew 6 31 32 says therefore do not be anxious saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear for the

Gentiles seek after these things and your Heavenly Father knows you have what's that need of them.

So God provides, according to this, the needs for His people, and that's your blank there the needs for His people, and that's what

I was saying earlier. We can fret and worry over a lot of things and especially during bad financial economic times, but God's going to provide your needs.

They may be basic needs, they may not be as much as you want but God's going to provide.

That's the thing, really the most valuable lesson I learned during my time of hunger was that God really

He took time to show me in a great way how He provides. I have a friend of mine,

Mark Spence who used to say that he and I have a lot of similar life experiences and he said that he had a time where he was praying and saying, you know, he was out of food and out of money and he's like,

Lord, you know how the human body works, right? I need to eat preferably three meals a day but I need to eat to live and God knows our needs and He's going to provide for them so we can trust

Him. He knows better than us and sometimes we forget that lesson, that He actually knows better than us.

Alright? So, let's see some things here. We'll just do these verses, asking for the next six passages

I'm going to put up and answer the blanks there with this thing. It is better to have little

It is better to have little and have what? I'm going to give you verses and that's what we're going to be looking to answer.

What is it better to have? To have little money but better to have this.

Well, Proverbs and these are all going to be in Proverbs. So, Proverbs 15 -16

It is better Better is a little with the fear of the

Lord than great treasure and trouble in it. So, the fear of the

Lord is the answer to that one. Okay? The first one is it's better to have little money but have the fear of the

Lord. Much better. Next, in verse Proverbs 15 -17.

Better is a dinner of herbs. Which means it's not like chicken or fish or some meat or a big meal.

It's just a couple herbs. Whatever you have. not just a salad but I know for some that would be torture just to have salad.

But it's to have little. Better is dinner of herbs where love is than the fatted calf and hatred with it.

So, there your answer to your blank is love. It's better to have very little but have love.

Love is better. It's better than eating the king's houses but have hatred there. Proverbs 16 -8

Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.

So, your blank there is righteousness. Better is to have a little bit with righteousness.

Alright. The next one is

Proverbs 17 -1 Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feastings with strife.

So, the one here is quiet. It's better to have quiet. It's better to have a quiet spirit.

Not that you have silence. But you don't have the strife. You have people getting along is the idea there.

Proverbs 19 -1 Better is a person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.

Here you see that integrity is what it's better to have.

It's better to have integrity. Have less money. Be a poor person.

But walk with integrity than a person who's crooked with his speech. That's really an important one because people are tempted to, with this one, people are tempted to, for illegal gain or dishonest gain, to try to get something, to give up their integrity.

I always think of a friend of mine, Pastor Mike Woods, he had received a check in the mail made out to Mike Woods for $25.

And he got the letter and it was a graduation gift. And he noticed and looked at it and realized it wasn't made out to Mike Woods plural, but Mike Wood singular.

Well, his name is Woods. And he realized from the memo that says,

Happy High School Graduation, that this check was not for him. Could he have cashed it?

Yes! I mean, no one would have questioned it. It was sent to his address. Someone must have looked up and done a search for Mike Woods and found

Mike Woods and instead of Mike Wood, found Mike Woods and put the address. And he realized, had he cashed that, he would have realized something.

He said, if he would have cashed that, then he would know how much his integrity was worth.

$25. You see, if he cashed that check dishonestly, then he knew that he was worth, his integrity was worth $25.

Because he's willing to give up his integrity for $25. And he decided his integrity is not worth $25, $25 ,000, or $25 million.

Alright, the last one that we had there is Proverbs 22 .1 A good name is to be better, is to be chosen rather than great riches and favor better than gold and silver.

So, loving favor or a good name, either one of those fit in there. Good reputation could be the answer for that as well.

That's the idea there of a good name. So, what you see there is that these are some things that it's better to have little money but have the fear of the

Lord, have love, have righteousness, have quietness, have integrity, have loving favor or a good reputation, good name.

Okay, so we looked at what our attitude toward, why is our attitude toward money so important to God? What should be our attitude toward money?

Letters C there. What should be our attitude, what our attitude, let me try that one again.

It's the first day with a new tongue. What should our attitude not be toward money?

So, this is the opposite. What should our attitude not be? And again, we go to Proverbs because Proverbs has so much to say on the issue of money but the first thing that we see is let's go to Proverbs 23.

Proverbs 23, 3 and 4. Do not desire his delicacies this is speaking of a king for they are deceptive food.

Do not toil to acquire wealth. Be discerning enough to desist.

So, with this we would say that we should not look at employment simply as a means of money.

When I read this verse I always think of Daniel and the others.

Daniel in the time of Daniel, they were taking captive into Babylon and one of the first things that happened was they laid out a feast before these captives.

Kind of get them to forget about the way they grew up in their homeland. But the king gave them a great feast.

Give them all this food. Why? Basically what he was trying to do was deceive them into serving

Babylon and not Judah. Not the land of their homeland.

And so he was trying to make them into Babylonians that would serve him. And Daniel and his three friends said uh uh, we are not going to do that because this food you have put before us it's not honoring to God.

Now think about the others. Think about the other Jewish children. You're dealing with like 13 to 17 year olds that were taken captive.

So these guys, you know, average 15 years old and they're being taken captive and I could just see the people as Daniel and his friends are saying no, we're not going to do this.

I could see the other kids going, uh, Daniel guys, shut up.

You're going to, I mean we're going to lose our head. We're going to be thrown into this food tastes great. I mean, bacon is a good thing.

You know, if I had bacon for the first time, I was like this stuff is great. What do you mean? So the reality is that as we look at that, there would be this struggle that I'm sure that they had.

I'm sure these others were like look, just keep your mouth shut and go for it. We're getting a good deal here.

We're living better than we did before. But Daniel and his friends said no. It's not worth it.

It's just not it's not a means of making money. So being, so employment's not just about the money.

Why does that make a difference? Well, are you willing to step on someone to get that promotion? You willing to put someone down or maybe do something a little dishonest just to get that promotion?

That might tell you about your attitude. If it's just about making money, you might be willing to do something like that.

Someone gets ahead of you. Well, hey, are you still providing for your family? It's going to change the way you work.

See, if you're working to honor God not to make money, you're going to look to work really well.

You're going to be hardworking. Why? Because if you're hardworking to make money, you're going to be hardworking only to be seen by others.

If you're going to please God, you're going to be hardworking to please Him. You don't care if others see.

Typically they will. But it's amazing when you see Christians on a job site and everyone knows they're

Christians and everyone knows their integrity. And people know, don't ask that person to do that.

They won't do it. They know that you're not going to break God's law. That stands up for what

Christianity is about and why it's so different. When you act like the world in your job, just seeing it as a way of making money, then you know what?

It becomes something where people see that as well. How are you any different than them?

Next, Proverbs 11, 28 says, whoever trusts in his riches will fall.

But the riches will flourish, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.

We should not trust in riches. Don't trust in riches.

Don't trust in money. It's not going to last. Okay? The next one is

Proverbs 27. Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied.

And never satisfied are the eyes of man. Also in Hebrews 13 it says this, keep your life free from love of money and be content with what you have.

For he said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. That's a great thing to rest in.

But the thing there is that we should not want in greed riches.

That's the blank there, is want. But I'm saying in greed. We can want things. It's okay to want things that are good.

It is not okay to want things greedily. Okay? There's a difference there.

So we want to be careful with that. Okay? No, I'm not going to finish this.

Just looking at how much we have in the syllabus, I will not finish this week. No. And that's okay.

Remember when you're discipling someone, you don't need to finish then either in a week. You may be dealing with someone that depending on their background,

I've dealt with people who I've been discipling who have nothing. I mean,

I've had to provide for them. And I've dealt with people that make more in a year than I'll make in a lifetime.

And both times, you're going to have very different counseling in how you're going to deal with them when you're discipling them.

With some, you're going to be telling them you got it. You're going to be focused on the trust God. God will provide your needs.

On the other, you're going to be saying, God doesn't want you living for that money.

You know, God may be calling you to give that up. And that's a hard thing for someone that may have a lot of money to say, oh,

I'm going to give it up. I'm going to give it all up. But God may call us to do that. And you may need to explain that to some people.

Interesting thing is I find the most giving people are those that don't have a lot. I find that to be an interesting thing.

But it's just a general principle I've noticed. Okay. So, we talked about our attitude toward money. Let's now talk about our procurement of money.

How we obtain money. Well, basically there's two ways. Improper procurement and proper procurement.

That makes it kind of simple. So, let's look at the improper and then we'll look at the proper.

So, again, most of this is going to be in Proverbs. If you really want, if you want to study this subject out, what

I encourage you to do is look into the book of Proverbs and read Proverbs. A lot of it deals with this.

You could see a lot of that. Proverbs 20 17. Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth will be full of gravel.

Now, when you look at that, what that's saying is, you know, you steal some bread.

That's the idea there. You steal some bread and it tastes so sweet because you got away with it.

But that sweetness doesn't last long. Yeah, maybe the guilt comes in and you have to deaden that guilt and things like that.

But the idea there is, it doesn't last. The idea there of deceit is that we should not use lies to obtain money.

Lies or deceit. That's your blank there. Now, there's some people who I know struggle with that.

I was discipling a young man. Wait. Oh, he was only a year younger than me. That made him young.

well, he was young in the Lord. But I remember he was in sales all his life.

He was good at sales. He could sell anything to anyone. He was just that kind of person.

And he would deal with in sales prior to salvation. He would just convince people that they had a need for something.

Even if he had to lie to do it. And as we got through this lesson, he started to realize. He said, you know,

Andrew, I'm really not sure if I could continue in sales. It's all

I know. I don't know anything else. I know sales. But I don't know that I can continue doing this because I'm always tempted to lie to make the sale.

Because if I don't make the sale, I don't make money. And I'm tempted because it's my job to lie and deceit like I'm used to doing.

So he actually had to give up his job because of temptation.

And I respect that. And that's an encouragement to many of you maybe that have to make that same choice.

You may have to give up your job so that you don't get tempted with improper procurement of finances.

Alright. Number two. And that is going to be in Proverbs 13.

Thank you. Proverbs 13. I think what it is, we skipped it.

I didn't do Proverbs 21 .6. Is that why? Okay. Alright. So Proverbs 13. Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little will be whoever gathers little by little will increase it.

The idea here is we should not obtain money through dishonesty.

That's what the vanity means. Actually, put that back up. This one says that's the wrong one.

Can we get 13? Yeah. There we go. Wealth gained hastily or the idea there is some translations say in vanity.

Alright. The idea there hastily is dishonestly. Okay. That's the kind of get rich quick schemes.

So it's money obtained through dishonesty. This is not proper. Okay. And it's better to just make a little bit over time and it adds up and increases.

I like what one person posted on Facebook. You want to save some money? Put $1 in one day in a jar.

The next day put $2 in or one week. Put $1 in. Next week, put $2 in.

Next week, put I think $3 in. Next week, was it $4? No, I think it was doubling.

So the third week I think was $4. Something like that. But it worked out to be like $1 ,300 at the end of the year.

Just storing up a little bit at a time. Stop wasting money and you'll find that it builds up.

Alright. Number three there is we should not steal to obtain money.

We should not steal to obtain money. We'll see this in Ephesians 4 28.

But let the thief no longer steal but rather let him labor.

I'll stop there just for the sake of time. Let's come back. So we should not steal, that's your blank, to obtain money.

Now let's quickly look at the proper procurement of money with the time that we have left. In what is their profit?

That's a good question to ask. Well Proverbs 14 has the answer. Isn't that so good that scripture has the answers?

In all the toil there is profit but mere talk tends only toward poverty.

So just talking about the plans is nothing. That's idle chatter.

It's not profitable. Laboring is profitable. Work. Hard work. That's the idea there.

What produces profit is hard work. Better to hard work to you than just sitting by talking about what you can do and the things you should do.

I should build a company to do this. I've met those people that have all the ideas in the world of how they could make money but they're not doing any of them.

And when they're not doing them it's always someone else's fault usually. But they're not making money because they're talking about all the things they could do to make money.

Well get a shovel and get to work. It's better to put some labor to it.

What are some things that hinder us from work? What are some things here that could hinder us from hard work?

And we already looked at the one which is idle chatter. When we just looked at Proverbs 14 .23

idle chatter would be one. It could be gossip would be the same in some of your translations.

Proverbs 20 verse 13 says let not sleep love not sleep lest you come to poverty.

Open your eyes and you will have plenty of bread. In other words don't be lazy. Laziness causes and that's what the idea is of sleep.

The word sometimes translates to sleep it sometimes translates to lazy. Don't be lazy. A lazy person is going to be a poor person.

Proverbs 6 6 -10 Go to the aunt oh sluggard consider her ways and be wise without having any chief officer or ruler she prepares her bread in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest.

How long will you lie there oh sluggard when you will when will you arise from your sleep a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to rest.

I love the picture there. The blank there is sleep. Same idea as laziness. The idea of just folding your hands putting your head back oh and you go to sleep.

I just need to rest a little. That's the idea there. So we see there that our procurement should not be using deceitful dishonest means or stealing but it should be hard work and avoiding the things that cause us to or that could cause a hindrance to our laboring which is things like idle chatter and laziness and sleep.

Alright. So next class what we're going to look at in our book is we're going to look at the use of our money and the giving of our money.

The use of our money and the giving of our money are the next two that we'll look at next lesson.

Now if you have any questions feel free to email us at academy at strivingforeternity .org

If you want to get a copy of this book that we're going through, The Growing in Grace or any of our other materials you can feel free to get them at our store at store.

Just go to Striving for Eternity and the store is there. You could pick up this book there and so that would be something you could do.

Now as we always do, we like to end each week with an encouragement to someone else.

We want to encourage you to encourage others and some of these people, you know what you don't know who they are when we say that.

That's okay. I want to encourage you guys to contact the people that we put as a person of encouragement so you get to know them because they may maybe there's times where they do need encouragement maybe there's times where you know they just we don't know if they need encouragement.

Some people we just put up because we just need to have an email to be honest with you.

This is someone that was actually nominated. That someone asked would this person be nominated and they were nominated by their spouse and I'm going to read to you before I put the name up,

I'm going to read what the nomination says and then I'm going to give my own two tidbits and then we're going to do something a little special as well.

So Andrew I would like to nominate Beep How was that?

Okay. I'm not going to give the name. It's going to be a surprise. So I'm going to beep out some names here. Andrew, can

I nominate Beep for the sister of encouragement for next week? Since Beep has been really sick and she's barely slept a full night she has almost zero alone time with the

Lord. I try to encourage her and read to her daily but Beep, and the second two beeps are a daughter, flips out and starts attacking herself because she's got like a rash.

She cannot even leave Beep, the daughter to sleep alone.

She has cried at the end of class wishing someone besides me would encourage her.

Well, no more crying sister because Christina Lebron is our sister of encouragement and we want to encourage you because you are doing something that so many people overlook.

That is that you are staying home and taking care of your children even though many people don't see that and you don't have opportunities to be out with people and for those who don't know

Christina, she is a godly mother who's trying to raise her two daughters and one daughter has a food allergy that causes her face to break out when her husband was saying she's attacking herself.

It's because when a child that's a one year old picks at the rashes and the more she does that the worse it gets and so she doesn't know what to do with this allergy as an infant as a toddler and so Christina is constantly having to be taking care of these two girls and one that is requiring poor little

Abby who because of her allergies is constantly having to have like socks on her hands to keep her from scratching her face and her skin and it's a constant work for Christine.

Christine would love to be out and witnessing with her husband and traveling with him and doing all the things and coming out when we go out but the reality is she has a more important job to do for the next 18 years or so and that is to be the mother of these two adorable children,

Hannah and Abby and to raise them as godly women and so she is doing that and many people don't go to encourage her so what

I'm going to do is this as a means of encouragement to you

Christine I'm going to end the class by playing for you something that though it's written fictitiously about somebody who is a name that is not but there is a special song that really could have been written for you and every other woman like you

I actually happened to ask the artist of this song if we could get permission to play this so this is with permission in fact she even put the lyrics together so this is completely from her but this goes out to Christine, Christina, LeBron and every other housewife who stays at home take care of their children because I think this song really pictures

Christina so as you listen to this think of Christina and then I'm going to close out with this song so remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God Hey, you've probably never heard of her before Submitting to her head and keeping children fed and scrubbing dirty kitchen floors

These aren't deemed the world rewards but Julie doesn't care

As a wife a lover and a helpmate as a teacher a brother and playmate

In her heart Julie sings her favorite song

You are the Lord I am your servant

And I know my place is on my face before your throne

No matter what your calling causes me

By your strength and grace I will run the race looking unto you

Even if you are the only one who'll ever know my name

Still I will proclaim My name