What are True Riches and How do we Get Them? | The Book Of Luke Week 4 | Anywhere Service

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- Today on Crossroads our Senior Pastor Brian

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takes one of the most fascinating

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and confusing stories in the entire Bible

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and explains why Jesus wants us

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to be shrewd and resourceful.

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads. My name is Hannah.

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- And I'm Kyle.

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- Today, our Senior Pastor, Brian Tome,

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is going to teach us about one of

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the more confusing parables in the book of Luke.

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- Which is good because I'm kind of confused right now

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how I got so much taller than you.

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I can't say I hate it, I'm just -- I don't know.

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I don't know why it happened.

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-You know, what also might be confusing

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to some of our people watching right now

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is a spiritual discipline we call giving.

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Did you like how weaved that in?

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- That was nice. - Yeah, it was nice.

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If you're interested about giving

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or you just want to learn more,

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you can go to Crossroads.net/give

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for more information.

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- With that, let's see what Brian has to say.

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- There's such a thing as the spirituality of finance.

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Hey, my name is Brian. Welcome to Crossroads.

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We're looking at a passage today in the Book of Luke 16:8.

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I'm going to share with you the nugget,

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the controversial part of the passage

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we're going to look at today.

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Here's what it says:

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Jesus commends somebody who is dishonest or shrewd?

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We think of shrewd like a greasy salesman.

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Like a, "Pst.

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I got some goods for you, just keep it to yourself.

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I give you kind of a deal deal."

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We think of greasy salesmen when we think of,

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many of us, when we think about money and finance.

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It just sounds so dirty to some of us

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because we don't actually know how money works.

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Jesus teaches today how money actually works.

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I went through the Book of Luke

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getting ready for our talk today,

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and I just highlighted all of the places

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in the Book of Luke where Jesus talks about money

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or possessions or assets or resources.

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And when He talks about something like a,

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you know, a cattle or something like that, a cow.

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That's a resource,

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that's how they viewed it way back when.

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22 times just in the Book of Luke

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Jesus talks about money and resources or uses them

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as the foundation for the teaching

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that He's going to give.

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Now, as we talk about this story,

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a parable is something that Jesus made up

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to give us a spiritual truth.

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Many of us are very confused by this,

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and scholars can't even agree on what

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the name of the passage should be.

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In the Bible, based on what Bible you have,

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they have little title markers overtop

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of certain sections.

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Some Bibles, these are editors later on,

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just put up there something like the unjust steward,

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some say the dishonest manager,

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some say the shrewd manager.

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All depends on what translation you use.

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But Jesus starts this message with a firing.

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There's a rich man who's unhappy with his manager.

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Rich man and manager.

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Let's go ahead and read it

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and see what Jesus has to say to us

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about the spirituality of finance.

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Verse one:

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He is wasting the rich man's finances.

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See, he's got a job of managing,

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managing this money, taking care of this money,

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keeping accounts of this money.

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But whose money is it?

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It's not his money.

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It's the rich man's money.

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And apparently he's not doing a very good job at it.

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It's kind of being wasted or frittered away.

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The manager is labeled dishonest,

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not because of what he's going to do later,

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but because what he's already done here.

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He hasn't been managing these things right.

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He hasn't been making a proper account

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of all of these things.

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He believes, the rich man does,

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that this guy has been wasting his possessions.

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The rich man, not the guy's possessions who's managing,

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but the rich man's possessions.

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Or he had resources that he was managing

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and there wasn't an increase in the ledger

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because it wasn't growing the way

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the rich man expected his manager to grow it.

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If you have any investments

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or you've got any retirement accounts

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and somebody is managing your money,

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you may not be the rich man, but it is your money.

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You expect those things to grow,

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and if they're not growing,

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even over a long period of time,

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you're eventually going to say,

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"I need to find somebody who's going to make this grow."

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That's what's happening in this situation.

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This guy who's managing this finds out

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that he's about to be let go.

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And let's see what his response is in verse three.

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The manager knows he's about to be unemployed

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and he understandably starts freaking out.

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He's a weak little weenie boy

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with small muscles and a weak back.

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He realizes, "I can't do manual labor.

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I'm perfectly suited to sit behind a desk

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and write numbers down,

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but I can't actually do anything with my body."

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But he has one thing going for him,

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he's got a strong mind.

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No strong body. A strong mind.

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This manager may not have been able to figure out

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how to grow the accounts of his rich owner,

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but he is no dummy.

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Was there just a bad market condition?

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Was that he had a bad run for a couple of years?

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We don't know.

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This is a story, again, Jesus makes up.

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So the money isn't growing,

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but he actually does understand money.

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So here's what he decides to do in verse four.

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The manager sends out word

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to all the people that he's gotten his ledgers,

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all the people he says, "Come in.

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How much? How much do we owe?" "A hundred."

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He goes, "How about we mark down 50,

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50 cash on the barrelhead today? Good for you?"

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"Yeah." "Good."

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"How much for you?" "A hundred measures of wheat."

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"How about -- How about we say 80?

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Can you pay 80 today? How's that sound?"

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"That'd be amazing." "Good. 80."

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And he does that with everybody.

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This is why some people look at this as dishonest.

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Some people look at this as shrewd.

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There's different ways to translate this

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and to look at this.

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Basically, though, this guy is understanding how finance works.

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This is legal. This is legal.

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Roman and Jewish law is very clear on this.

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You can do research on this if you want.

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Let me just tell you, it's very, very legal.

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While you actually have control of someone's finances,

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you can choose where to shift it and what to do with it,

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assuming you're trying to help everybody.

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The crazy thing is, everybody actually gets helped here.

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The people who are in deep, deep debt,

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they get help because they have less to pay,

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less money to owe.

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Actually, and this is why this was legal,

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the rich man could actually be helped as well,

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because in writing down some debt,

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he now gets money that comes back to him immediately

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when it's just been sort of in arrears.

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So now he gets money and this guy,

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he's taken care of financially as well

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because now he has all these people that he has helped.

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And they know that he's the one who's helped them.

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And so in their oil empire or their wheat empire,

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they may just hire this guy to help them out.

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This guy gets in the good graces of the debtors,

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in the good graces of the tenants,

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and good graces of his master. Everybody wins.

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This is why Jesus tells a story, verse 8, goes like this.

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Sons of this world, the basic people of this world

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who understand how money works, or the sons of light,

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the basic people of this world

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who understand how heaven works.

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Let me tell you something.

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There tends to be two kinds of people,

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those who understand the world of finance

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and those who understand the world of spirituality.

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They do mix, they do come together.

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And every once in a while you'll find somebody

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who understands how both of those work out.

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But most of the time they're separate.

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Jesus trying to help us understand the world of finance

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and help those of us

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who are into the world of spirituality see

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that the world of finance can inform us

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about how God works.

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It is possible to buy friends with money.

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That's what this guy does.

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He buys friends by writing down their debts.

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Several years ago, I was out at a big motorcycle event.

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It was down in Tennessee

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and there was a bunch of guys riding,

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a bunch of guys from the area where where I lived.

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And I didn't know everybody, but it was pretty cool

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and everybody then after this trail ride,

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we went to go have lunch.

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And like I said, there's probably 20 of us at lunch

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and I got down to the end to pay my bill

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and they said, "Oh, it's already been paid."

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I said, "What?" "It's been paid?

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Yeah, that gentleman over there paid for it."

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"Who are you? What is your name?"

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He says, "My name's Tom.

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And I had the best, most fun today riding a bike

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I have for a long, long time."

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He was a guy who's a little older than me.

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I said, "Tom. Awesome."

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Now, I've often said,

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if God could give me one miraculous gift,

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and I'd mean this completely,

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if God could give me one miraculous gift,

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it would be to remember the name of everybody I meet

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the first time, because there's something powerful

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when someone remembers your name and says your name.

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I honestly pray for that

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and I'll continue to pray for that.

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I want to have supernatural ability to remember names.

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When somebody does something for you financially,

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it's amazing how you remember their name. Amazing.

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It's like Tom. His name was Tom.

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I didn't know him before.

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Tom was part of Crossroads. I don't know if --

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I don't know what campus Tom goes to, what site.

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I don't know if he's streaming it.

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I don't even know if he's part of Crossroads. I don't.

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I know this though: if I saw Tom again,

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I would know his name because what Tom did is

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he bought a friend by paying for my lunch.

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That's what Jesus talked about.

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This guy understands that money can be buying favor

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and earning us friendship.

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And so remember that.

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Bono, the great singer for U2 years and years ago,

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he was in a personal friendship with George W. Bush.

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And George W Bush had gotten behind legislation

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to give Africa billions and billions of dollars

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in AIDS relief.

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Bono, with all of his progressive left leaning friends

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and his kind of artist community,

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they were cracking on him.

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Like, "Who do you think --

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you can't be friends with George W. Bush.

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You're out seen smiling with him

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and laughing with him, going places.

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You can't do that."

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And Bono said this, he said this.

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He said, "I can be bought, but I'm not cheap."

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He said, "I was bought.

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I might not agree with everything

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that President Bush believed,

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but when he put billions of dollars

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into helping suffering people who had AIDS,

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he bought my friendship."

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This is what Jesus is talking about.

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You can buy friendship.

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You can, in fact, you can buy a lot of things.

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And people who are here in the world

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and understand the world of business and finance,

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everyone's going like, "Of course, of course you can.

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I know that.

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That's why I have expense accounts. Of course.

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That's why I take people out to lunches.

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Of course, that's why we have golf outings

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for certain clients we're trying to woo.

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Of course, of course."

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People don't understand that,

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they really get freaked out about this

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because you don't understand money.

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Jesus understands how money works,

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and it's worked the same way since Jesus's time to now.

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You can use your money to positively influence things,

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and this shrewd manager used his authority

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over all of these things to positively influence

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things that included blessing himself.

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Here's what Jesus says in Luke 16:9:

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When Jesus calls this unrighteous wealth,

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He's not saying you're unrighteous if you have wealth.

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He's saying wealth in and of itself isn't a sign of God.

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Money in and of itself, like,

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Jesus doesn't die for money.

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Jesus dies for people.

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Jesus doesn't love money. Jesus loves people.

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Money is like -- it's like oxygen.

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Jesus didn't die for oxygen either,

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but you got to have it.

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Money is like oxygen.

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Money is like the environment that we live in.

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It's not righteous in that

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it's not at the center of God's will,

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but it's a necessary thing.

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And Jesus says,

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people in this world understand unrighteous wealth.

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But you and I have got to be able to understand it

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and translate it to the spiritual realm.

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This is where the twist comes.

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Jesus is talking,

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not about increasing our physical holdings.

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He's talking about increasing our eternal dwellings.

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He's talking about buying the friendship of God.

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He's talking about buying the attention of God.

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That is crazy.

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See, we all [indiscernible grumbling]

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Yeah, of course, of course.

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The business people are like, oh, of course,

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yeah, you've got to have the right assets.

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You've got to leverage them. Yeah, yeah.

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You've got to have expense accounts, of course.

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But the spiritual people

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get really, really uncomfortable over here

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with the whole business aspect of money.

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Like they think this is dirty.

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It's not, Jesus uses it.

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Then you get the spiritual people over here

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who understand spirituality, they understand prayer.

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They're all having --

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And the business people are over here like,

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"You people, what are you doing?

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What are you talking about,

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just talking about these ethereal things?"

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But they're perhaps right

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in what they're saying and what they're doing.

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Jesus is encouraging us

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to bring these two worlds together.

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The shrewdness of business

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and the idealism of the heavens

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and to bring them together.

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Jesus is telling us this story,

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not just to help us get ahead financially,

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but to get ahead spiritually.

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And this tells us who God is and who we are.

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God is the rich man. He's the rich man,

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and all the possessions are His

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and we are the managers of

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whatever God has entrusted us to manage.

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This parable that Jesus tells backs right up

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into another teaching that's critically close.

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In fact, they're right -- it's part of the same teaching.

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Oftentimes we divide them.

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I'm going to give you that teaching just a little bit.

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But we can't divide them because

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what Jesus is trying to do here is

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He's trying to get our attention

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and He's trying to tell us we get God's attention

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based on how we use our money.

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If we use it in godly ways, we get God's attention

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and we end up being ourselves

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an actual shrewd money manager.

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This is not about figuring out a way

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to get the thing that I want to get.

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We're not talking about being a penny pincher

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because you like being cheap.

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We're not talking about getting your kids

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to private Christian schools because that's what you want.

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We're talking about God's resources that I'm managing,

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what can I do with them that makes my rich God

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thankful and happy and is a wise move?

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Are we using and consuming everything

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for here right now, or are we storing things away

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for a big move much, much later on?

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Whether this guy is moral or not really isn't the point of story.

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Whether he should have done what he did or not

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isn't really the point of story.

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The point of the story is Jesus saying

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this is the kind of attitude

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that my followers need to have,

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a shrewd attitude of understanding how money

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and how spirituality works together.

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Again, Jesus is not impressed

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when someone understands the ways of money

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and they have a lot of money.

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He's not impressed when someone has

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the ways of spirituality and they're a spiritual guru.

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He's impressed and he's trying to get us

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to mix those two and be incredibly wise people.

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Three ideas here, number one:

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Shrewd people are always looking for opportunity.

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They're scanning their eyes

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and trying to find out where there's opportunity.

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That's a shrewd manager.

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This manager knows he's going to be fired

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and he's trying to figure out how to rectify it.

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He could have sulked about it.

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He could have been depressed.

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Instead, he goes into action.

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I've been looking for opportunity for decades now,

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actually decades.

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I had in college a 1978 CJ-7

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with a V8 in full time four wheel drive.

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I had it for about a year, year and a half, two years,

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something like that and then I had to sell it

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because I couldn't afford it

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on a college student stipend.

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I couldn't afford it.

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I kept running out of gas.

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It got like eight miles to the gallon.

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Literally every week I'd have to walk to class

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at least one day a week

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because it would run out on the way to class.

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Sold it and got a -- went the opposite direction

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and got a Volkswagen diesel Rabbit.

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Crazy, crazy, crazy.

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When I sold that Jeep

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and I saw the guy drive off with it,

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I said to myself, "Someday

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I'm going to own that Jeep again

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and I'm not going to be stressed out about the gas."

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I've been looking for opportunity

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to have a 1978 Jeep for a long, long, long time.

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Just to just a few weeks ago, a friend of mine

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who's on the west side of Cincinnati,

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if you're in Cincinnati, which is where I live,

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you know there's this thing on the west side

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and the east side.

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The ones the more working class it seems.

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The other is the more kind of white collar.

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But people in the financial industry

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would say East Side,

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which is supposed to be the professional side,

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the white collar side of town.

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The east side has the big houses,

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the west side has the big accounts.

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The West Side knows how to manage his money better

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and build more wealth, while the east side

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spend their money on all these stuff.

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But my buddy on the west side

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goes into a customer of his, his house,

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and squirreled away in the basement

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is the actual 1978 Jeep CJ-7 with a V8,

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virtually the same vehicle that I had.

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And I got to purchase the thing.

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It had been in disrepair for 5 to 10 years.

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The guy's son had started working on it

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and he kind of gave up and it was sitting there.

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So I came in and got this.

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And I happen to think that God blessed me

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with this opportunity because he's seen

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how I want to be shrewd with His money

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and His resources.

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As I've been pouring money into this Jeep,

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I'm restoring it from the frame up.

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I'm tearing everything down, grinding down the frame,

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replacing stuff, new wiring harness, all that stuff.

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As I'm doing that stuff and spending money,

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the Thank our Educators Initiative comes along

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and I have the opportunity to be a part of that.

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I want to be shrewd with God's money,

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not my money, with God's money.

00:21:01

And so as we went through the process

00:21:03

of not buying any meals out that week

00:21:06

and saving that money to give to educators

00:21:09

and bless educators.

00:21:10

When we came to write that check

00:21:12

or actually tap in that amount,

00:21:14

realized God has blessed us way, way more

00:21:17

than the amount of meals we would actually spend

00:21:20

eating out that week.

00:21:21

And we gave more than that

00:21:24

because we wanted to be shrewd towards God.

00:21:27

See, shrewd people look at the long game.

00:21:31

We look at the way, way out, long arc.

00:21:35

When I manage my money, which it's actually God's money,

00:21:40

I manage it looking at the long arc of saying,

00:21:42

"How will God reward this, recognize this

00:21:46

in the long, long haul of the rest of eternity?"

00:21:50

That is being shrewd.

00:21:54

The manager in Jesus parable

00:21:57

was risking his master's wrath,

00:21:59

but he was risking it because he was looking at

00:22:02

the long haul of what the rest of his life looks like.

00:22:05

What's the best thing that can happen?

00:22:06

How can I set myself up for the rest of life?

00:22:08

Jesus would tell us we need to not just

00:22:10

set ourselves up for the rest of our life,

00:22:12

we need to set ourselves up for the rest of eternity,

00:22:14

if we actually believe it.

00:22:16

Most of us don't believe it. We just don't.

00:22:19

We say we believe in heaven, we say we believe, you don't.

00:22:21

Your life doesn't show that,

00:22:23

the way you manage your money doesn't show that,

00:22:25

the the things you pray about,

00:22:26

the primary affections of your heart.

00:22:29

Most people who say they believe in heaven

00:22:30

and have received Jesus, think about the next decade,

00:22:33

2 decades, 5 decades, 7decades of their life and that's it.

00:22:36

And their money management and everything else

00:22:39

isn't affecting the next run, it's only that.

00:22:42

The old song Everyone wants to go to heaven

00:22:44

but no one wants to actually go there.

00:22:45

Everyone wants to believe in heaven,

00:22:47

No one actually wants to go there.

00:22:48

Very few people, and Jesus saying this,

00:22:50

very few people are actually shrewd

00:22:53

to think about the long game.

00:22:56

They're thinking about the game

00:22:57

of getting through the end of this month.

00:22:59

See, shrewd people serve one master

00:23:03

and that master is God Himself,

00:23:05

the most shrewd serve God himself.

00:23:07

The Book of Luke 16:10,

00:23:10

here's that whole section that the whole story

00:23:13

about the shrewd manager and the rich man

00:23:15

was a setup for this.

00:23:16

It's all mashed in one section of scripture.

00:23:18

Here's what it says:

00:23:56

Jesus is trying to get us to be investing

00:23:59

in such a way that we get true riches,

00:24:01

not a 12% return on our brokerage account

00:24:05

or or an increase in our home's value

00:24:09

if you happen to be blessed enough to have a home

00:24:11

and an increase in value.

00:24:13

Jesus wants us to have true riches.

00:24:16

That's what He says, true riches.

00:24:18

If we can't figure out how money works

00:24:21

in the physical realm, how do we figure out

00:24:23

how money works in the spiritual realm?

00:24:25

That's what He's talking about here.

00:24:26

This guy has the riches

00:24:28

of a more secure financial future because

00:24:31

he's bought the favor of other people.

00:24:33

But Jesus wants us to understand true riches.

00:24:35

What's true riches?

00:24:37

True riches are things that are rewards in heaven

00:24:39

that God is going to bless us for in heaven.

00:24:41

Yes, there are unique rewards in heaven.

00:24:44

True riches, true riches,

00:24:47

things like spiritual gifts you can have right now.

00:24:50

That's a true rich.

00:24:52

Maybe something like the gift of tongues,

00:24:54

the gift of prophecy.

00:24:56

That's true rich.

00:24:58

Or the gift of servanthood.

00:25:00

These are all gifts and they are riches.

00:25:02

Or the riches of having a platform to share Christ

00:25:07

and increase capacities of what we have right now.

00:25:10

Jesus is saying that how we manage God's money,

00:25:16

how we give the things that are God's money,

00:25:20

how we purchase the things that are God's

00:25:22

with God's money, that will dictate

00:25:26

some of what we get from God.

00:25:29

Wow. Wow.

00:25:32

Dudes, you realize you can buy a friend in Jesus.

00:25:38

You can't -- You can't buy forgiveness

00:25:39

because He forgives you.

00:25:40

He goes to cross to forgive you.

00:25:42

You can't do that. You can't buy His love.

00:25:45

But Jesus says, "Make friends in heaven,

00:25:48

make friends in heavenly places."

00:25:50

How many people are there going to be in heaven

00:25:54

who are thankful for how you manage your money right now?

00:25:58

How many people are there going to be in heaven

00:26:00

who will be thankful for how you alleviated

00:26:03

some of their suffering here right now,

00:26:05

which is why we do Compassion International,

00:26:07

blessing and building into kids who have food

00:26:10

and education because of us doing that for $38 a month.

00:26:13

You got any money up there?

00:26:14

I got a few up there.

00:26:15

They're going, "Oh, yeah, that guy.

00:26:16

I like him. I like him. I know him."

00:26:19

How many people are there who are going to be in heaven

00:26:21

because you funded some outreach or some church

00:26:25

that brought them to faith

00:26:27

and you're going to be reaping that dividend forever.

00:26:29

Or do you just not believe it?

00:26:33

You may believe the nebulous idea of heaven,

00:26:35

but do you believe that it really matters?

00:26:40

We have got -- we have got to stop

00:26:44

just having financial gurus and spiritual gurus,

00:26:50

people who know how to make a buck

00:26:52

and people who know how to give a prayer.

00:26:55

We've got to be people, and this is what Jesus saying,

00:26:57

we've got to be people who can do both,

00:26:59

who can bring wise finance

00:27:02

and deep spirituality together.

00:27:05

When you can figure out how money works

00:27:09

and you can use money in a way that sets you up,

00:27:13

that buys a better future for you in heaven,

00:27:16

you are going to be in the top 1%.

00:27:20

Be shrewd. Don't be like everybody else.

00:27:23

Be a shrewd, deeply abiding, spiritual person

00:27:27

who has bought friends in heaven

00:27:29

and is approved of by Jesus.

00:30:49

- Hey, we hope you enjoyed the message today

00:30:50

and that is a little less confusing.

00:30:52

- Definitely less confusing. I thought Brian did a great job.

00:30:55

I'm so confused how I'm taller than you.

00:30:57

I'm still okay with it. - I have no idea.

00:30:58

Anyway, we're doing this message

00:31:00

as a part of something called the Bible Challenge,

00:31:03

where we are looking to get into our Bibles

00:31:05

every single day and you can join us in that

00:31:07

by going to Crossroads.net/BibleChallenge

00:31:10

for more information.

00:31:11

- Awesome. That's it.

00:31:12

We'll see you next time on Crossroads.

00:31:14

- There are blessings God has in store for you

00:31:17

that you will not get until you pray.

00:31:20

Yeah, I know, I know.

00:31:21

The pastor guy is going to talk about prayer.

00:31:25

Let me tell you why.

00:31:26

Because I want more stuff for you. I really do.

00:31:40

- There are bad ways to wake up

00:31:43

and there are great ways to wake up.

00:31:46

Start your day connecting with God and your community.

00:31:49

Explore the app and grow deeper daily

00:31:51

with the Bible Challenge: A great way to wake up.

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