Hey, this is Pastor John Ryan Cantu from PNEUMA Church in Houston, Texas.

Thank you for listening to the message today.

I hope that it blesses you and all those. that you share it with.

God bless you.

Lord to God, you can take your seat for a moment.

It's good to be again in the house of God.

I have a couple uh of announcements that I want to I want to make a couple of acknowledgments.

Uh first off um I want to just offer our condolences uh to the Santos family.

Uh some of y'all know Uh Susie, she uh she's one of our singers on the worship team.

Her uncle um who she was very close to passed away, Jerry, brother Jerry.

And some of you knew brother Jerry, he would he would come in uh pretty often and and we we would see him at our Bible studies and our services and he was just uh he was a faithful man of God and um And so he passed this past week.

And so we just want to be uh in prayer for the family.

And um And uh, you know, that God will just fill them with with peace.

So if you know Susie, uh reach out to her, reach out to the family, and just offer your condolences to her.

Um I also want to Announce that today begins our 21-day fast.

Amen.

We got a few of you ready.

Every year, this is something that we do as a way to uh to to begin the year and and sacrifice an intentional sacrifice uh to the Lord.

And um I I've said it year after year, it it doesn't matter What exactly you choose not to eat.

Okay, don't go don't get so caught up on the what you can do and what you cannot do.

Take some time to offer it to the Lord.

Say, God, this is what I'm going to choose to do.

And during your fast, give it to God.

Don't just not eat, because then that's that's called a diet, right?

But but take it to the Lord and when you're hungry, go to God and say, Lord, I'm hungry.

So fill me with your spirit.

And and pray and seek Him.

And it's a time of study and just communion with the Lord.

That begins today.

I'm gonna have a great lunch right now at sushi Haya after this to begin the fast because I need some sushi before Before this 21-day period of suffering.

So amen.

Um and then finally one one last announcement that that I I want to make, um just just some shifts. uh in and leadership.

Over the past uh year, you know, Pastor David, Brother Angel, uh they they served faithfully over our men's ministry And they did an incredible job just bringing the men together.

And God has called them to serve in different areas of ministry. um here at this church so they're not going anywhere but can we just honor them um for their commitment amen as well As well uh in our women's ministry, uh sister Andrea, I I heard I heard a woo okay there she is there she is sister Andrea is up there and she has served what how how long was it like four years five years Um, over the women's ministry, PNEUMA Women.

And uh she served faithfully and she loves the Lord, she loves the women.

She brought some of the the best women's conferences that that Houston has ever seen.

Amen.

And she is now in a period of of just transition as well.

She's She's still here, she's still gonna be serving.

But we want to acknowledge so that you know the people that are gonna be uh leading these uh departments.

And so I'm just gonna I'm gonna call y'all up, Pastor Larry, Pastor Brandon.

She Y'all already know who they are, our community pastor, our associate pastor Along with myself, we're gonna we're gonna be uh taking a more active role in the men's ministry.

Um and so anything that you need, Larry's already probably got all of y'all's number, right?

And your social security numbers and all of that Uh but but get with him.

We have discipleship, a lot of discipleship classes coming up.

Man of God, you want to be plugged into these things.

I guarantee you.

They have, I mean, we have we have seen the fruit of these intentional discipleships.

So see them.

This Saturday, we also have a men's breakfast at 9 a. m.

So if you're hungry at Saturday, which I'm sure you will be, we'll be over there.

Amen.

So Pastor Larry, Pastor B, thank y'all. um and for the women's ministry my wife along with pastor demaris uh are going to be are going to be overseeing this um ministry with the help of Sister Diane.

Diane, can you come forward?

This is Diane.

And she uh she had she had been serving alongside Andrea um and so now she's going to be uh kind of a leader in training and and uh under under our pastors so praise god for um those shifts in ministry thank y'all ladies If y'all need anything, I know they're already ready for the year.

It's going to be an awesome year.

Praise the Lord.

Let's go to the word.

Luke chapter 16 This is the first Sunday message of the year, and it's one that God gave me a few months ago for this very day.

Y'all can stay seated for a while.

I'm gonna be a little bit.

Um But thank y'all, man.

Y'all y'all are ready.

I love it.

I love it.

But this is a word that God gave me that I feel very strongly that He wanted me to give as a foundation Not just for the year, but for your life from this day forward.

I pray that this would be the start of God's blessings pouring into your homes and into your families It's not your typical first Sunday of the year type of sermon.

We're not talking about vision.

We're not talking about new beginnings or commitment.

We're talking about money.

Yeah, money.

Weird, right?

I know it can be distasteful for a pastor to preach about money, but I assure you I don't have an agenda.

I'm not trying to compel you to bring a special offering.

We already gave the offering.

I would have saved it for the end if I had an agenda.

But this is something that we need to talk about.

And it's something that for a long time has been Pressed on my heart to speak to the church as your pastor.

And I feel like I have been kind of dodging it for a while.

I speak about it every now and then, but God really wants me to give you this message today.

Um and he also wants me to let you know that all all money is God's money.

The prophet Haggai declared that all the silver and all the gold belong to the Lord.

That means that every single dollar that we allocate to anywhere as a dollar that belongs to God.

You can allocate it by spending it.

You can give it to Target, to Amazon, uh to Sushi Haya, which I'm going to do later.

You can You can invest it, you can give it, you can offer it, you can choose not to allocate it anywhere and save it.

But when we're talking about money, I think it's very helpful for us to know who it belongs to in the first place.

You can cash your check with your name on it.

You use a debit card with your name on it, but ultimately God is the provider, and this is God's money And so that's the title of my sermon today, God's Money.

How many of us believe that we are meant to be a blessing?

We're meant to be a blessing.

I believe that God wants me to be a blessing.

I'm not here to be a burden to anybody.

That's for sure.

I'm here to be a blessing.

Now we can be a blessing.

In so many ways, with our time, with our gifts, with our wisdom, with our counsel, with our prayers.

There's so many different ways that we can be a blessing, but there's something that we all share in common, and that's that we all come across money at some point in our lives.

Some of us have a lot of it, some of us have a little bit of it, but money is a means by which we can and should be a blessing.

And this is not me saying it.

Scripture is filled with verses that tell us to be a financial blessing to others.

Giving to the poor is giving to the Lord.

It says Proverbs 1917.

Paul says whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

There are tons of texts that speak on the blessings of giving and pouring into the kingdom of God with his money If you were here last week, I preached a message called Move with Mercy.

I would encourage you to go back and listen to it.

If you were not here, I think it was a good end-of-year type of message that really ministered to myself as I received it.

Last week I said that many times the only thing that prohibits us from moving forward is our insistence on staying where we've been.

And we can't get to a new place of glory, even though that's where God is calling us to.

We can't get out of the places that we've been stuck in because of our own bad habits.

Because we refuse to take seriously the things that God wants us to take seriously.

Because we don't move with haste when God says to move, because we waste the moments that we're in and we don't advance.

And this is why we stay stuck in the same problems.

And in the same cycles, year after year, we're making the same goals because even though we want to move to glory, we haven't repented from what's keeping us from that glory.

And money ties into that.

I'm gonna say the word money a lot today, okay?

So just get comfortable, okay?

I know you you you ask for money all the time.

I I asked, I still ask I the other day I asked my dad for 10 bucks, man.

I didn't have cash, I needed some money.

But this is a word that affects the church, but it's a word for you.

See, I I believe that if God wants us to move into the promises that He has spoken over PNEUMA, can I can I tell you, I'm kind of tired of declaring the promises You know, year after year I'm just declaring the counting, declaring.

I'm ready to step into it.

I'm ready to see it.

I'm tired of declaring stuff, man.

You know the Christians were always just declaring stuff?

And like, you're 99 years old, brother.

When are you gonna start seeing it?

I want to start seeing it I want to start moving into these promises that I know for a fact that the Lord has given over this house.

And so if God wants us to move into these promises, His people have to break the bad habits that begin at home.

His people have to take seriously the things that we need to take seriously.

We have to move with haste and we have to stop wasting the resources that he has given to us as individuals.

Who make up the body of Christ.

Let me say this real quick, and this is going to sound very awful, but I want you to hear my heart, okay?

Don't get up and leave because you're offended.

We have too many broke Christians.

And I'm I'm not when I say broke, I'm not talking about the amount of money that you make.

You can make a million dollars a year and still be broke What I mean by broke is that we are broken in the handling of God's money.

We are poor stewards of God's money.

And it prohibits the church from where God wants to take the church.

See them.

So God has promised expansion.

God has promised property.

God has promised more buildings, more space.

Can I tell you something that the Lord ministered to me?

He made me realize this recently.

The bigger parking lot, the bigger building, that's not the blessing.

I always thought it was.

I was saying, Lord, bless us with the bigger parking lot.

God bless us with those buildings across the street.

Bless us with those properties that we need.

God said those aren't even the blessings, meho.

He said the blessing is the people.

The blessing is the people who are so hungry for a move of God and a supernatural move in the house of God.

That is the blessing.

He said, he said, the buildings and the property and the parking lots, those are just means to accommodate the blessing.

The real blessing is what you see every single Sunday when people are raising their hand to accept Jesus.

The blessing is what you see every Sunday when there is a testimony. to be heard the blessing is the restoration and the healed marriages that's the blessing that people are flocking to a church That is moved, led, and empowered by the Spirit of God because we know that the Holy Spirit is still active in the life of the church.

That's the blessing.

And people are hungry for it.

The building, the property, the stuff.

That's just a means to accommodate what God has already blessed.

So when the actual blessing, now this is the stinger right here.

When the actual blessing, which is you and me, people of God, refuse to be a blessing because they have poor stewardship.

It suppresses the full glory of what God wants to bestow upon his people.

This is a message for you, but it affects the kingdom.

Now I can't I can't give you the how today.

We don't have time to go into the how.

And in reality, I think some of you are, you probably don't even need to hear this message.

You got your finances in order and praise the Lord.

Others, your finances are all over the place.

Still, others, you don't struggle with money, maybe you have plenty of it, but you have yet to use it in a way that blesses the kingdom of God.

Being bad with money doesn't just mean that you don't know how to manage it, it can also mean that you're greedy with it.

Selfish with it or hoard it.

Ultimately, this is a message about stewardship.

And so my hope, my prayer, this is what I was praying to God, is that this message would fall on whatever soil Is available in your heart, and that you hear this message the way that God wants you to receive it.

So with that, you can stand.

I know that was a long intro.

Luke 16, 1 through 13.

You ready?

He also said to his disciples, There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions.

And he called him and said to him, What is it that I hear about you?

Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.

The manager said to himself, What shall I do since my master is taking the management away from me?

I'm not strong enough to dig and I'm ashamed to beg.

I have decided what to do.

So when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.

So summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, How much do you owe my master?

I He said, A hundred measures of oil.

He said to him, Take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty.

Then he said to another, and how much do you owe?

And he said, a hundred measures of wheat.

And he said, take your bill and write 80.

The master commended The dishonest manager for his shrewdness.

For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.

And I tell you: make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth.

So that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.

And one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust you with true riches?

And if you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you that which is your own?

No servant can serve two masters.

For he will either 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.

Lord, I just pray, Father God, that this word would speak to whatever soil is available in our hearts, my God.

I can't give anybody the how.

I don't have time to give anybody the how, Lord, and nor nor do I even know.

But Father God, I pray that today, Lord, you would just bring conviction to our hearts.

To be better managers of what you have entrusted to us, Father God.

I prayed today, Lord, we would commit, my God, to being better stewards, Father God, to be intentional, my God, about the way that we allocate your money, Father.

To bless your kingdom, to bless generations who come after us.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

You can take your seat Jesus used the example of wealth or money more than any other topic in Scripture, in the parables.

Jesus would Speaking parables as a way to kind of reveal some type of truth about the kingdom of God.

And money is a universal need that any audience in any part of the world and any time in history would understand and be able to relate to.

And so he spoke about money a lot as an example on how we should apply the principles of stewardship to our spiritual life in the kingdom of God.

So whenever Jesus was talking about money, he would expect us to be good stewards with it.

He would expect us to bless others with it.

He would expect us to be faithful with it, even if we had just a little bit of it.

If we can't be faithful, church, with the resources that God has allowed us to have on earth, what makes us think that we could be trusted with more in the kingdom of heaven?

And so this parable this parable is kind of a a tougher parable to To interpret a lot of times in parables the master would represent Jesus.

Here in this parable, the master is just the character in the story.

And he's a rich man.

And he has this manager and his manager oversees his accounts and one day he hears that his man uh his manager is wasting his master's possessions and and we don't really know exactly how he's doing it To But he's he's not being a good steward of the money that belongs to his master.

And so his master says, hey, I'm gonna fire you because you have been squandering my wealth.

But he gives them one final task.

He says, I want you to go around and I want you to gather, give me a report of the final amounts that my debtors owe me.

That's your final task.

And so the manager is freaking out.

Well, what am I gonna do?

I don't know how to do anything else.

This is the only work that I've ever done I I'm not really employable.

My master's not going to give me a good letter of recommendation.

I'm cooked, as Layla says.

And so he has to come up with this plan.

What am I gonna do so that I can continue to live my life comfortably after my master my master fires me?

And he says, Okay, I know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna cut a deal with my master's debtors.

Because if if I can cut a deal with them, well then they're gonna owe me one and I'm always gonna be okay.

And now technically it it's kind of it's pretty shady, but the master gave him authority still one last time.

What is he gonna do?

Fire him again?

And so he still has authority, and so he is using this moment to his own advantage.

And he cuts a deal with these debtors.

Now, this is what's kind of crazy.

Verse 8 says, the master commended the dishonest master manager for his shrewdness.

The master This guy just got taken advantage of.

He should be furious.

I would be furious.

Why is he praising this dishonest person?

He commends him because he acted shrewdly.

To be shrewd is to be prudent.

It's to be wise or clever.

And so the master is probably like, man, I gotta hand it to him.

That was pretty smart.

Because in order to ensure that he wasn't being put out on the street, in order to ensure that he could still live a comfortable life after he was fired, as my dad would say, um, this guy did what a man has to do, right?

Now Jesus is not recommending this is this is where we often get confused Jesus is not recommending that we become dishonest slimy business people He's not saying that we should be dishonest with our money.

That's where the confusion is.

The point that Jesus is trying to make is that the sons of this world, aka sinners, know how to use money to their advantage.

While the sons of the light, aka Christians, do not have the same level of shrewdness to use money to the advantage of the kingdom.

That makes sense?

Are you following me?

See, both Christians and non-Christians have the same resource.

We all have access to money.

Why is it that the wicked know how to use money?

To their own advantage, while the righteous squander it and manage it poorly, to the detriment of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

I I think it's kind of funny how many Christians point the finger like at mega rich people, like on Elon Musk, like why don't he why why doesn't he just give away all his money to the poor?

And those same Christians.

Can't even tithe because they can't keep a budget.

God doesn't demand the wicked to take care of kingdom business.

He expects members of the kingdom to do the kingdom work.

Stop pointing fingers at the world expecting them to do what you should be doing.

For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.

That's that's like a that's like a slap in the face And verse 9 says, And I tell you, make friends for yourself by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings.

I like how one commentator put it.

He says, While some may understand wealth as inherently corrupt.

And therefore, as irrelevant to spiritual concerns or the things of God, Jesus, in fact, is advocating the wise to use money in order to advance divine purposes.

You know that phrase put your money where your mouth is.

I don't think Christians put their money where their faith is.

And and this is where God really began to stir in my heart this message for the church.

Like he started to convict me On not talking about this enough, especially because every single Sunday we're talking about the promises of God.

We've been talking about growth.

We've been talking about expansion We've been talking about buying new property.

We've been talking about a third service and finishing projects and doing more for the community that we serve.

But faith without action isn't really faith And we can sit here all day and shout amen when we mention God's promises.

But I'm tired of doing that.

If we're not ready to do our part, then why should God be obligated to trust us with more?

And I mean, I mean, take this personally as well.

Have we not been the best stewards in our personal finances?

But yet we're asking God to bless us with more.

Why?

Because the same character that we exhibit as poor stewards with a little, we're gonna exhibit as poor stewards with a lot.

Would you give somebody who you know is terrible with money all your money?

No Would you give someone who is great with money, who says, I could probably grow it for you?

Would you give them some money?

Maybe And so why do we expect God to hand us more when we haven't been faithful with the little?

Ouch.

A lot of ouches this morning.

Again, this is not a message to try to compel you to give.

I'm not I'm not gonna ask you for an offering.

And I don't even think that those work because I I can compel you with one message and you feel great after one message, but this is something that is supposed to be foundational for our lives.

I want this to change The trajectory of our life for generations to come.

This is about the mentality that many of us need to change In regard to how we think about and how we handle God's money, if we want to see the many blessings that He has promised us, whether those blessings be for your household or your business or your future or your church.

My conviction is as a pastor.

So God started telling me, Look, you're their pastor.

You know, God, when God is getting after me, He calls me Ryancito.

Ryancito, you're the pastor.

You tell them to believe, you you tell them what's coming, you cast vision, you get them excited, you get them to say amen.

But you're not challenging challenging them or even teaching them how to do their part.

That's my bad.

Listen, I don't believe that God's promises are dependent on people.

I don't believe that.

But I do believe if Scripture shows us anything, is that God will skip over a generation that fails to do their part.

I don't want to be part of a Moses generation.

I want to be part of a Joshua generation.

I don't want to be part of the generation that every every Sunday we get up here and we just talk about what's coming.

I want to be a part of the generation that steps into it because they go and conquer it.

I want to be of the generation that knows that there is a promise and does something about it.

I want to be of the generation that puts their money where their faith is and doesn't say, oh, God will just take care of it.

How many of us have that mindset?

God, I don't have enough.

Take care of it.

It's easier for you to do it than me to clean up my mess.

Just just like just like Ellie.

I'm getting after her because it's a mess and she's so overwhelmed by the message she created.

She's like, can you can you just do it?

I'm like, no, you did this.

And yet we go to God with the same mindset.

God fix the mess that I created.

I'm so overworked And I'm so overwhelmed, and everything is a mess, and I can't even bear to look at the amount of bills and the amount of debt that I've got.

Fix it for me That's not how God operates.

Because that teaches us nothing.

The amount of times that I told God, Lord Just gift us these properties.

I've been I and I'm and I and I tell him like it would be so cool for him, right?

Like Lord, wouldn't it be so cool if we testified that there that you stirred somebody's heart and they gave us the property?

Wouldn't what don't wouldn't you love to see that for your sake?

And the Holy Spirit's like, that's kind of lazy of you, isn't it?

That's kind of lazy of you to expect me to do the promise when you haven't even tilled the soil.

It's like you you you you want the promised land, but you don't want to do the work that comes with obtaining the promised land.

You don't want to have to fight, you want God to smite all of the enemies for you.

And this is a mindset that has crippled so many people in the area of personal finances.

Where our prayer is: Lord, just give me a better paying job.

Lord, just let me hit that powerball.

Just one time is all I need.

One time.

And Lord, what I would do with it, Lord.

Think of all the good we could do with it, Lord.

And Lord, let the government take away all my student loans.

That one I'm serious about.

I really pray that.

And we rarely look at ourselves to change what needs to be changed in order for us to get out of the cycle of mishandling God's money.

Why?

Because it's easier for God to do it than for us to break some generational curses and bad habits.

There are many Christians.

Listen, there's so many Christians who love the Lord, but they don't understand the importance of investing in God's kingdom.

It just and so God had to tell me you need to talk about it a little bit more.

If they don't know, you gotta let them know.

Giving pleases the Lord There are Christians who do know the importance.

There are Christians who want to invest in God's kingdom.

They want to tie.

They want to give.

They want to be a financial blessing.

But they don't know how to properly manage their own money in every aspect of their personal life.

And so they can't afford to give.

Because if they give, then they don't have gas money for the week.

And again, God said they need to be taught how to manage it.

And so this year, and I I shared this with you, um I I made a commitment to provide resources That we could benefit from as individuals to learn how to be better stewards of God's money.

Money doesn't get talked a lot about in church because it's like, what's what's spiritual about?

And we antagonize money so much that we we we kind of stay away from the topic, but in doing so, it cripples us from being the blessing that God would have us be.

And so we need to fix these things.

And and so while we're here, if anybody in here is gifted in that area And you, maybe you're a financial advisor, you know a financial advisor, and and and and you know how to how to properly budget and all of that stuff, make yourself available for us, for the church, and God will use you.

But I believe that many of us are sitting on promises that might skip a generation simply because we mishandled our master's money.

I do not want to be the Moses generation.

I love Moses.

Moses, my boy.

He's great.

But his generation was afraid, cowardly, and the thing that could have been theirs was skipped over them because they failed to do what they needed to do.

And maybe every single day in the wilderness, they were like, These promises are coming, these promises are coming.

Milk and honey, milk and honey.

And everybody was like, Amen.

Everybody's getting hyped up.

Tears at the altar, yes, Lord.

And then when it's time to put your faith to the test, you're not willing to do it.

That will not be the PNEUMA of this generation.

Cannot be Now before I close, y'all still with me?

I'm not I'm not very Pentecostal today.

This is a very different message Before I close, there are three lies that we often tell ourselves about money that I think we need to clear up.

If you're the note-taking type, this is the perfect time to take notes.

Like I said earlier, this is about foundation.

We we won't fix our bad habits today.

We're not gonna fix our bad spending habits.

We're not gonna, you know, your bills are still waiting for you at home.

But having the right mindset is a very good starting point on to getting the right path.

So quickly, three lies that we tell ourselves about money are: number one, I don't need money That's a lie.

If you need food, if you need shelter, if you need clothes, you need money, you cannot lit please listen, somebody You cannot live a healthy life without the most basic human needs being met.

That requires money.

Now, there are some exceptions.

Okay, if God has called you to be a John the Baptist and go live in the wilderness and eat bugs as your diet, and you don't have a family that that that depends on you, then by all means God bless you.

Do what you gotta do.

Take a shower if you can before you come to church.

Most people though need money to meet their most basic needs.

And I will tell you from experience, I have been in a place where my expenses have greatly exceeded my income.

And it is not a fun place to be, especially with my family.

And as a man, I should worry about that.

I should, I should worry about how I'm going to provide for my family.

But what I have seen a lot of people do is they go the other direction.

They harden their heart and they say, you know what, I don't need money, I just need faith.

And they use their faith as an excuse to not go out and get a job that they desperately need.

Stop weaponizing faith.

We do it so many times.

We use faith as an excuse to not be a good steward of what God has given to us.

Now, you don't need a fancy car, you don't need a fancy house, you don't need a fancy vacation.

Although I would argue that I need several vacations a year But don't allow the lie of I don't need money be the cause of your financial troubles.

That goes back to what we said last week: we don't advance because of our insistence on staying where we have been.

Some people need to repent of this mindset that money is not important because it's causing so much trouble in your life.

I don't know who God is speaking to today.

I hope he's speaking to somebody.

But it's like that that man who was given one talent.

He did nothing with it.

He buried it.

He put it in the ground.

Why?

He didn't see it as important So he squandered the opportunity of making it mean something.

Remember, this is not your money.

This is God's money And whether you've been given much of it or a little, it still means something.

Don't bury it in the ground.

That's lie number one.

Lie number two.

Money is the enemy.

It's the second lie that we often tell ourselves sometimes, money is an enemy.

It is evil.

Growing up, I remember hearing a lot of teachings about the evils of money And even to this day, I still get asked by people if being rich is a sin.

And why should we care so much about investing and saving?

And why should we even talk about it in church?

That's no money's nothing to talk about in church.

Money is not the enemy.

It can be used as an enemy just like anything else.

But money can also be used to advance God's purpose on earth.

And we can use it to give to people in need.

We can use it to feed the hungry, to clothe the poor, to pour into ministries, to support missionaries.

You can also use it to invest in your future so that later on in life when you're not working anymore, you can continue to be a blessing to somebody.

You can use it to provide generational wealth to your family because if you intend on raising godly children like I do, I would love for them to have some resources to pour into the kingdom of God when they're of age.

Money's not an enemy.

The tool is rarely the problem.

It's the steward.

It's the person.

Who is using that tool?

The manager had to be fired because he was mishandling his master's money.

And in the same way, when we mishandle our master's money, it's not money that's the issue.

It's us.

When you neglect the bills, I know I'm getting personal here.

When you let them pile up, when you have no idea what's about to hit the bank account because it's chaos in there When giving an offering is the last thing that you can ever do because you never have it, money is not the enemy, but in the hands of an evil or even a foolish person, it can feel that way.

Line number three.

And before I say this one, let me read the final words of Jesus to close out this parable.

Verse 13 says, No servant can serve two masters, for he will either 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.

Line number three.

I don't serve money.

I still have your attention?

Thinking that you don't serve money when you actually do is one of the biggest lies that keeps us from being good stewards.

And often our money habits they get passed on to our children.

So serving money becomes a generational thing, a generational curse that has to be cut off at some point It's not just the rich who serve money, church.

I know that's what we've been made to believe.

And yes, if you have plenty of money and you never use it for the kingdom of God, you might serve money.

If you're greedy, yes.

If you're selfish, yes, you might serve money.

If you're certain If you're storing up wealth and riches on this earth but storing nothing in the kingdom of God, yes, you serve money, but also listen, also if A poor-minded person is also a slave to money because the resource that God gave you to be a blessing is now a burden that cripples you and prohibits you from being that blessing.

And there are so many Christians who would never call money their master, but their man, but their money is managing them rather than them managing their money.

I used to be one of them.

Without realizing it, I I I served money because first I desired to have more of it than I needed.

And for some reason it then caused me to Enter a needless amount of debt and and then I had to serve money because I needed to make enough money to cover my debt and I was always consumed with the thought of not having enough of it and I was worried and I had a stress and sleepless nights and Without even realizing it, I was serving money as a master that I had never intended to serve while God was getting the scraps because I was a poor manager of what he gave me.

I'm sorry, God, I had to repent, Lord, I'm sorry.

And there's too many Christians who make too much to be broke.

Is this a hard message to hear or what?

I believe that some of us need to break the cycles of poverty that have plagued our families and have kept generations from God's promises It's time for us to rid ourselves from that Moses generation that was led by fear and paralysis It's time to step up into a Joshua generation that was led with courage and action and intention and a plan I don't love talking about money from the pulpit, man, because I think many of us, again, there's nothing spiritual about money.

When you come to the altar, I don't know about you But when you come to the altar, man, I want to go deep.

I want to get to the heart issue.

I want to break addictions and I want to cast out spirits and and like I want to get you saved and restored in the presence of God.

Money sermons don't produce that type of altar call.

But it's precisely because the church has failed to speak about this topic that Jesus spoke about more than any other topic That we who are called to be the blessings in the kingdom of God cannot live up to the full potential of what He has called us to be.

I refuse.

I refuse to stand up here every week and declare promises That God intends for me to see, but I will never see.

Because I failed to be a poor, I failed to be a good steward of the resources that He has allowed me.

I refuse to set my children a whole generation back because I didn't do what I needed to do as a servant of God.

We need to determine that money is not going to be our master.

We need to determine that we're not going to allow money to be a stumbling block.

To good stewardship.

We need to determine that we're not going to be wasteful of the things that God has given us.

We need to determine that we will serve the Lord with the money that He's allowed us to have.

And so I want you to stand this morning and I'm gonna I have a specific altar call kind of like last week Alright, this is gonna be a very specific altar call.

And I want you to think about it.

Maybe maybe this didn't strike a nerve.

Maybe this didn't convict anybody maybe i i i don't know but for those of you who are saying today man i i i i need to create a good foundation for the rest of my life for my children So that I can be a blessing in the kingdom of God.

That's who this is for.

So just like just like last week, if you have a family member here, if you have a spouse, if you're engaged to be married, which I'm pretty sure is going to happen.

So But I want you to get with somebody because you are one flesh, and that is this is the decision that needs to be made together.

If your spouse is here, get with your spouse.

If you're an individual and you're not married This is a this is a decision that you have to determine for yourself.

But if you're ready for this, I want you to come forward and I want you to choose to lay down every ounce of greed.

Listen.

Mismanagement, squandering, overspending, disorganization in your finances.

I want you to lay it down right here And determine to be a good steward of the money that God has allowed you to have and to serve him with his money.

So that your promises will not get delayed any further.

So that your promises don't have to go to the next generation or possibly the next because you didn't do what you needed to do.

So if that's you this morning, I want you to come forward and I want you to make that decision and give it to the Lord.

God, I am choosing to serve you with the money that you have allowed me. to have.

And some of you might need to make some uh declarations, some confessions to your to your spouse.

You might have to say, hey, I am committing to spending a little bit less.

I'm committing So one Amazon purchase a month.

I mean you you might have to make it clear and personal because that's how accountability happens.

And declare today that generations who come after you will be blessed because You chose to serve God wholeheartedly with everything that He's allowed you to have.

Come on, have that moment with God.

Thanks for listening.

If you'd like some more information on PNEUMA Church, visit us on our website at mypneumachurch. org.

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Thanks again and God bless.