Marijuana, Money & Contentment • Beyond The Sermon

Well, hello and welcome to beyond the Sermon, a Bethany podcast, where we have the privilege of digging deeper into our Sunday messages. I am Tammy Delau, and today I am joined with Pastor David Baxley and Pastor Steve Musto. And, Steve, I have so much respect for you, but when you knew lyrics to country songs, I kind of freaked out a little bit. I was just like, wait a minute. Did my act.

Did you think he took away from the message? Well, it wasn't my take. She missed the whole thing. I just was like, oh, he listens to country music. I mean, that I did have to reach back into.

I think these are very old country songs that I may have mentioned that hit a lot harder. I told Kathy this week, boy, the country music thing hit a lot harder than I thought it was gonna hit. When I said, we don't write, you know, they don't write songs about milk, I didn't know it was gonna get as big a reaction as it did, but I'm grateful for that. So I don't judge anybody's music taste. Okay, well, I'll try not to judge yours.

Yeah. Thank you.

All right, well, let's jump in. I think we have a lot to talk about, guys. Okay.

Okay. So we are in a series under construction. And I loved what you said last week. Something about, like, building our lives on what is wise rather than what's foolish. I thought that was a really, really good definition.

And so we. We looked at. At alcohol, and we live in Wisconsin, and we do have a six pack in our town that people bring their friends to see. You go up to Granddad's and you. You see the.

See the giant six pack. You see the six pack. So good message. I know. I felt really challenged just to think about.

I think because I had alcohol in my home growing up, it was easy to be an abstainer and judge anyone who had a drink went to their lips. And so it was a huge challenge if we partake. What does that look like? It was super good, and I've heard wonderful comments. A question that I know people are asking, is it okay to have a bar in our house?

In light of all that was talked about, I mean, that is that people are asking that question. So, yeah, I told everybody when we were house shopping, when we first moved here, literally every single house we looked at, literally everyone had a bar in it, at a bar in the basement, and they weren't all full of alcohol. But there was a bar there. Yes, it was definitely a know it would be strange, for instance, if you looked At a house. And every single house you looked at, and you looked at like 12 of them, every single one had a hot tub or every single one had a pool.

At some point you would go, well, that's interesting. Why did all these houses have sort of the same thing? And this was, this was ours. We're like, oh, wow, there's another bar. So this is a thing.

This is. And. And it's probably a thing in many parts of the country, but it certainly is a thing here in Wisconsin. I think some of it is cultural. Some of it has to do.

You know, we drive by in our neighborhoods. When you drive by, it's a nice summer night and the garage doors are open. On some of our neighbors houses, they have bars in their garage, you know, and others have bars in their basement or whatever. So it is. We are a bar culture.

So is it okay. You know, there's nothing in the bar in the Bible that forbids you from having a bar in your house, but all of the warnings we talked about apply of when we talked about building a shrine to alcohol in your house. The idea is just be careful when you start taking pieces of real estate up. To commit an amount of real estate, like literal real estate to anything in your house, that thing is valuable. You're giving that a level of value.

You're saying something about how much you value that thing or whatever it provides and it says something about yourself. Because if we see friends with coffee machines and all the gadgets and gizmos, we know that person loves really important coffee. Coffee is important to them. Yeah. Yeah.

Because I look around as you say that, Stevie, I just thought about my own home. Everything in my home represents something I value. Like if there's something my home, probably the way it's. With the things in my house and my bedroom, my living room represent something that's. That has a place in my heart.

Yeah. And so I, as you say that analogy, I hear myself at looking around my house and saying, what have I put the most money and energy into my home? And has that been given more place in my heart than it needs to be? It's not that that thing in itself is wrong, but it was a. It's a filter.

Yeah. That I hadn't thought about till even just right now. It's. What are the things that we have chosen to give such great value and focus to that could be taking a place of an idol or just robbing us of something God wants our heart and attention going toward? I mean, it could be an exercise room or A theater like our house.

Yeah. The theater room or entertainment system or. Yeah, that's. That's my point. Is any of those things?

Yes. Yeah. Literally, in our house that we ended up buying, there was a bar in the basement when we moved in, and we had it taken out and we put in an exercise area. Okay. There.

As we, like, exchanged.

Well, we're not going to sit down here and drink, but we are going out. That's funny. So it does. Because it. That's a value.

Yeah. And it's important. And what does that value? It's worth allowing that visual to be a heart check. And I think that's what you were trying to get.

It's a. It's a. It's not a wrong or right. Allow this to be a heart check. Why does that exist?

What does that say about where you may be putting value to in the sense of alcohol or something else? Yeah. I think sometimes, though, you know, we put things into our house that's less about the thing itself and more about it's. We're trying to make it say something about us. And so I have known friends over the years who have the theater room thing.

They. I'm like, do you watch movies down here? No, not really. I think we did, like, the first week we moved in, and then we didn't. We haven't watched it since.

And it's. Tens of thousands of dollars have gone into this. Well, what's it about? It's really about having a theater room so that when people walk through, it's like, well, there's our theater room. They wouldn't think of it that way, but it says something more about what they're trying to project to the world than it says about who they themselves are.

And even. And bars can do that, too. Yeah, that's really. Yeah, yeah, that's good. And I think we so want an answer to be.

Bars are good. We want to be black and white. We want to have rules. And so always we're coming down to what's your heart, why is it there? And that's between that person and the Lord.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Okay, so I know within the sermon you said that we're talking about alcohol, and that is written. We see beer, we see wine, we see those words, but we don't see marijuana. And marijuana is a part of our culture.

Do the same rules apply to marijuana? Is marijuana like marijuana? Questions are what I've heard this week. Yeah, I have two. I've gotten a couple of those, so.

And realize that we are in the land in between with marijuana. So we went from our generation that marijuana bad to very quickly the generation behind us and two generations behind us now is like, oh, marijuana is totally fine. And so there's. And then we're living in this land between where. And you don't know what to do with it.

And I have a hard time because I'm an 80s girl. So I see this is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. And marijuana was the drug of the time. But I have a son who has been in the military who has said to me, mom, we give our veterans who are in pain opioids knowing that they're going to be addicted to them for the rest of their life.

And if we would say it's okay to have marijuana. And so he challenges me. I mean, my son is not that he's not doing that, but he challenges me. And so I feel confused. Used a lot about this situation.

Well, that's part of the middle ground we're in. We make phrases like marijuana, medical marijuana. Right. Like even that is this middle ground. We're not sure what to do with those two statements because there's a word there, marijuana, we're not sure what to do with.

And we tack this word medical on it. And that's part of the tension generationally that has been shifting as well. Yeah, but if we apply your. Are you using it? Yeah, I. I had a lot of.

I wanted to raise my hand and say, so I get to do it here. I'm raising my hand. I think we need to set aside the medical piece for just a moment because I know that there are people who are in chemotherapy and they. The only way they can keep food down. It's the only drug that works to keep food down.

People with cataracts or with glaucoma or something that it works for, you know, if something is painful in the eye. So let's set the medical under a doctor's care aside for just a moment and let's talk about self medication. Okay. So there are people who use it for anxiety or for to sleep at night or something like that. But let's state the obvious.

We do live in Wisconsin and it is illegal in Wisconsin above a certain threshold, I guess there are small thresholds of THC that are legal. And I just learned that this week because of this discussion. I didn't even know that. I also know that in terms of the states that have still not legalized potential, Wisconsin is one of the more stringent in the country. And we're Very loosey goosey about alcohol.

It actually has. Wisconsin has one of the loosest drinking and driving laws in the country, but we're very stringent on alcohol. And I kind of think it has to do with our beer industry. I kind of think it has to do with trying to keep marijuana out of our state. Because the beer industry here is.

Where else are you gonna go if you can't do that? You're going to beer. Yeah, yeah. And we don't want that to happen. So.

So you're. So we're stringent on marijuana. On marijuana. Okay. Yeah.

Way more stringent on marijuana. And you think, you know Madison, you go to Madison, you think, here's this progressive place where marijuana would be very acceptable and Madison can't get anything passed in regard to it either. So it is illegal in. In Wisconsin. We just have to acknowledge that.

So if we're going to use this, if we're going to take part in any aspect of marijuana and do that here, we're using it illegally. Essentially, being in possession of marijuana is illegal. And we can roll our eyes and say, well, it's like speeding or something. Everybody does it. You got to deal with the Holy Spirit on that.

No, I know I'm breaking the law, God, and I'm breaking the law in your presence, and I'm going to be okay with that. You got deal with the Holy Spirit on that. So let's start there. Okay. That there's.

This is not legal here. We have had discussions. Yes. On a staff level of, okay, what if we go to a conference in Illinois where it's legal, or Arizona or someplace like that and it's legal there? What if one of our staff wanted to say, hey, I want to go down and, you know, buy something and smoke a joint or whatever it is?

What would we say to that? So we've in the car, driving on the way to these places. Real conversations. Yeah. These are real conversations we've had.

It's like, well, what would we do? What do you do? How do you counsel that person? And this is where there is freedom in Christ. But we also have to ask the question, what is wise?

What is being a good example, what is it that I want people to see in my life? And is this good for me? Is this something that I should be partaking in, given who I am? I tell particular our pastors and directors, we live in a glass house. People see our lives when we are in public.

In particular, there should not be things that we're doing that we're like, boy, I hope there's nobody from Bethany here. That's probably a. That's probably an issue. If we're doing something that we don't want anybody else to see, we should maybe a little more than a yellow flag. Yeah.

Tone on that. Yeah. So it's all of those things that come into play. But again, there's no. Absolute yes, absolute no.

Because the government has determined that this is a legal substance in certain places. And we have to use our discretion, a filter. I, I think through this, and I recognize this could be how my mind works, but I've talked with a lot of young adults about this over the years, and one of the questions I'll ask them is, you believe God's put you here with a purpose for your life first Kingdom? Yes, absolutely. So instead of asking whether I can do this or not, ask yourself, how does this support the purpose God has put on my life for his?

Oh, that's really good, David. And. And I just think that's like. Because that's a good filter. I mean, comes to alcohol, it fits that conversation.

If it's how we use money, we're going to talk about this week. It just fits so many things. And I want to ask the question the lawyer side of David wants to say, can I or can I not? And so when you say, David, you did something wrong, I can say, no, I legally or I ethically was fine. But the kingdom mission, the kingdom purpose, that's what we're here for.

Yeah. That's what that's. We should be helping each other ask that question as we're driving down, you know, and having these conversations, because I think it's. It puts a new filter on that conversation that we just don't instinctively know to put on. Yeah.

And I think that answer is going to be hard for some to hear. I think alcohol is so normative within our congregation, within this community. And so you do that with the Holy Spirit. That's okay. If we're saying the same thing for marijuana usage, I think that's going to be a hard pill for someone to swallow.

I mean, we can't do it here because we're in Wisconsin. So you're not saying do it, but if we're having the same rules apply, I think that's going to be a harder pill for some to swallow. Yeah. And I think there's a discretion to this. That comes back again to, are you using marijuana?

So there are people who take it or smoke it every day. Whoa, timeout is why. Why are you doing that? Because there are wonderful anti anxiety drugs that are prescribable by doctors and sleeping aids and other things. Have you gone that route first or have you just gone right to the.

Nope, I'm doing this. So are you really treating what you say you're treating or are you just like, nope, it makes me high. And if I'm being honest, I like getting high. And so I'm going to say that it's for this and not for that. And that's where people run into problems with alcohol too.

It's a social thing. It's not that big a deal, but they like it because it makes them buzzed or makes them drunk or whatever. And, and we know these conversations are happening within our groups and within, like, like within our church. And I just want to affirm like this is how we, I would, we would want people talking about in the church is if we just go after, no, it's wrong, it's illegal, and just go punching somebody with that. We're not having the, the gospel conversation in the way we want to.

And so to start having these, what is your heart? What does God do in your life right now? Is there something that God wants to work that you're not quite letting you know, like asking each other those questions is how we can better start to hit these really tough topics than just defaulting to the law of the land. Because what we're finding, the law of the land changes from state to state, room to room, place to place, and it's going to keep changing. Yeah, we had this conversation years ago.

We did a series with the young adults in my house, black, white and gray, and they got to put all the topics out there they wanted to talk about. And we just started to wrestle through them. And obviously this was a real big one. And it, and I remember, and this was eight, nine years ago, saying the laws around us are going to keep changing. We have to know how we get behind the kingdom of God regardless of the laws, right or wrong, the way we see those laws either way.

And we don't talk about that enough. And I think this is a good example of how to do that. More so I think I heard you say, if we say it's illegal or it's wrong or it's right. So yes or no, we stop all conversations with brothers and sisters and if community is important. So if someone says I can do it, there isn't the conversation like, David, are you running to something?

What pain? Like, we want the conversations to be open to see what's going on in the Heart. Yeah. Okay, that's good. There is a. I want to acknowledge that there's a health consideration as well.

So we talked about a little bit with alcohol, that it is a mild poison. And the truth is that the marijuana that is being offered to people today has a way higher THC level than anything in the 70s or the 80s ever had. And the long term effects of it are just starting to trickle out. And all of the studies, all of the studies are saying that the long term effects of marijuana use are negative in terms of what it does to your brain, what it does to your heart, health, what it does to your lungs, all of those things, they're all negative. So we do have to steward our bodies.

And at some point we stand before the Lord and we say, I present not only the spiritual gifts you gave me, but the physical gift you gave me as well. And I did the best, I did this with it. And we stand before the Lord on that. And you know, have we medicated ourselves? Medicated in quotes.

Have we drugged ourselves out of being able to engage in the way that God would want us to engage? Well, you know, you did alcohol this week, so how about you talk about money or last week? How about you talk about money this week? Yeah, let's go to something easy. Yeah, let's do it.

So. So I'm going to go ahead and read the passage that you are going to be in. Proverbs 30, verses 7 through 9. Two things I ask of you, don't deny them to me before I die. Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me.

Give me neither poverty nor wealth. Feed me with the food I need. I. Otherwise I might have too much and deny you saying, who is Yahweh? Or I might have nothing and steal, profaning the name of my God.

I mean, if I'm looking at that, I see the Lord's Prayer in that a little bit. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And there are some scholars who think that Jesus pulled perhaps from this for the. Our daily. Give us today our daily bread line and lead us not into trespasses.

Well, that there's at least a segment of this that he pulled out and put. And put in the Lord's Prayer. Because this is a prayer. This is the first prayer. So this is Proverbs 30 at the end of the book, but it's the first prayer in the book of Proverbs that we see the first time a prayer is.

And this is the prayer, and it's by a guy named Agar who we don't know a lot about his name just means collector. So he may be a real person, but he may not be. It may just be a name assigned. It's like saying from the librarian or something like that. And this guy or this series of writers, whatever it is, kind of assembled this prayer.

And this prayer is all about contentment. So less about money, but more about contentment. I think the.

The funny part of it is just how we may read this in the Bible, and we may be able to say it in the Lord's Prayer, like, give us today our daily bread, but we don't really want just our daily bread. I want more than bread. Yes. And I don't want just bread for the day. I want to know.

I want lots of bread and meat and all the other things, and I want a full pantry, and I want all this stuff, and I want so much that my house is full. And Agar is saying what the Lord's Prayer is like. The beginning of the Lord's Prayer, Jesus says, give Sarah daily bread. But he doesn't finish Jagger's thought. Ager actually finishes the thought with, look, I want just what's enough for today?

And I don't want more than today. And the rest of us would go, that's insane. Between poor and rich. Everybody knows that being rich is better. Everybody.

If I said to you, here's the magic wand again. You get to be poor. You get to be rich. We're all choosing rich. Come on.

Nobody's choosing, I want to be poor. And Ager is not saying, I'm choosing rich poor. He's saying, I want to be in the middle. But who does that? Why would you want to be middle class when you can be wealthy?

And he makes this really compelling argument for why. So this is obviously someone who knows what it's like to be wealthy, what it's like to be poor, and has found them both wanting, which is a thought we don't think of very often. You know, one of the things you're gonna really challenge us with is the idea of contentment. Right? So being content.

And let me kind of drop a reverse a little bit. Not reverse, but another angle, what you just said, as I've thought of this, even my own life, I wonder if that middle class is actually. We're finding in our culture even harder to be content. And I'm just throwing this out there. I feel like I've experienced this a little bit.

My own life is in the seasons of life, where I did not have much. I knew I didn't have much. I knew I really couldn't do anything about that. I just needed God. Yeah.

I had to trust God with that. And yet on the other side. But you couldn't have. It was a dream. Yes.

So it wasn't a realistic yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. And so keep going. You're preaching part of my sermon. But this is so sorry.

No, no, no, no. Yeah. And yet. And yet on the other side. Then again he's looting this here.

I can do anything I want. I can make it happen. My prayers over the years as I have. As I have grown in the ability to make money. You know, really reality is.

And even it's not a lot, it's better than I ever once was. I pray about money less. I seek God about it less. I've seen that I'm comfortable but not content. Yeah.

And I wonder if that middle class world is. I know what I. I'm really happy. I can be happy with what I'm not in that spot anymore. But it even makes me more want continually what I still see I don't have. And I wonder if instead of feeling content in the middle, we feel more and more what I probably could have it if I just did this thing.

If I just did this thing. And we're trying harder to make what we want versus trusting God to provide. I don't know. That's just something I 100 I'm in agreement with you. It's.

It is in my notes right now. I may not even have to use it now. That's great. I'm so sorry. This is so good because.

And I put a of lot of thought into this too because I feel like when you, if you send a kid into a toy store and you give them a hundred dollar bill and they can spend it on anything. The indecision, the constant like I could do this, I could do this. I could do this. Well, what if I did this? And what if I. Oh man.

Then I could do this and what? I could do this and it's paralyzing. And then if you make a decision and you say I'm going to choose this and I'm not going to get this thing, you walk away feeling like why did I choose this? I should have gotten that other thing. And it consumes you.

Whereas a kid who walks into the toy store and has no money and no chance at it, they're not taking anything home. They just walk around and go wow, that's cool. I'd like one of those someday. Boy, I'd really like one of those someday. I'd like one of those someday.

It is way easier, I think, in many. The way many of us are wired. I think it's way easier to have nothing and be content than it is to have much and to be content. Because we're always looking for the next thing, the. The thing that's over the.

Over the next horizon. And I found the same thing in my life. Way harder to be content the more I have. Yeah, the comfortability, that's. It challenges my ability to be content and trusting God with what I have because the more comfortable I get, the more I like that.

And now I'm afraid of losing it. And then if fear of loss breaks trust, and now I'm trusting God less. Whereas I had no choice but to trust God before when I didn't have it, but now I have it, I don't want to lose it. Yeah, God, don't take this away. And I almost resist God, whereas before I was running to him.

You're bringing up something really good, David. And it's that there's. Because we make such a big deal about wealth, and we think wealth is so important and so wonderful. If I were only wealthy, then everything would be fine. What we don't talk about often are the hidden costs of being wealthy.

There you go. We know the costs of being poor, but let's talk for a minute about some of the hidden costs of wealth. It's underappreciated. The Bible talks about many of them. As much as wealth is sometimes a blessing in the Bible, it's also a curse on people's lives.

Unredeemed wealth is a curse, and it's a difficult thing to navigate when you have a lot. So what would you. I mean, off the cuff, I would say, if someone had wealth, do you question, do people really love me or do they love my things? Money, certainly one of the hidden costs. Friendships.

It's very hard to be friends with someone, to have real friendships, even to, you know, when you're at the same level as somebody financially and you go on a trip with them, which is just one of the great things about life. You've never done it. It's just so wonderful to get to go. But if you have radically different economic realities, then you're either the people who have more are either paying for the trip, which throws everything out of balance, or are constantly like, well, we could do this, but we better not do that, because the people we're with, it changes the dynamic in the friendship. It just does.

So that's one of the hidden costs. Here's another hidden cost. I think losing wealth. When you have money, you're afraid of losing your money. And there's also a security piece.

We went to school. My wife and I went to school, grammar school, high school, with a woman who was part of a family that was one of the wealthiest families in the country. And their life in the days before cell phones was bizarre. They carried walkie talkies wherever they went so they could constantly be in contact because security was an issue. Being kidnapped was a real deal.

They had gates at their house, they had attack dogs. I mean, they had this whole set up to protect and guard their. Their wealth from other people. So there's like even just a security piece of it that we don't think about. How do I keep this?

I've got this now. How do I keep it safe? Can you think of any other cost? Well, I. I don't know if I put this a cost as something. I think as we look toward wealth or increasing our wealth, we, especially as believers, say, now I can be more generous now, and now I can be more generous.

But I think the cost that we don't realize, as if our wealth increases, that generosity number, theoretically, is supposed to go up. And I think the cost is we become afraid of that number going up. We become actually afraid of being. Being more generous. Whoa, I'm gonna give that much away.

I'm gonna. What's happening? Do you know what I could do with that? Sure. Back in the day, if I was giving $200 to the church every week, yeah, I could do something with that.

Wait, that's a thousand dollars to the church every day now or every week or month or whatever, you know, whatever it might be. Whoa, that freaks me out. Do you know what I could do with that? And I actually think there's a. The.

The cost is a wall gets higher between me and God. Whereas. Whereas before I was like, hey, what little I have. Thank you, Lord, and I want to give some of this back to you, but, oh, now I have this. I'm not sure I want to give all that back to you.

Don't you know what I could do with that? So do you think there's a cost to the children whose parents have wealth? Yes. Yes. So what does that cost?

Oh, well, there's an adjustment issue. Are you living in the real world? Is this a real life?

We see this with our own kids.

Have we protected you too much from the harsh realities of this or that because you've been projected our Kids, we didn't have money, but our kids have experienced people who do have money. And we have lots of friends who have given us vacation homes to go visit and whatever. Our kids have seen some cool stuff and gotten to do some cool stuff because we have friends who let them do that, which is wonderful and they're generous. But you can get used to that life. And suddenly living in a one bedroom apartment in a crummy part of town, driving a yucky car.

Yeah. Is not up to my standard. And now you've lost some resilience. I don't think that's good. I think one of the biggest costs.

Tammy, you and I have talked about this before, so I think, you know what I'm going to say is that we become God to our children and they don't need God. My God won't supply all of my needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus, because Mom and dad will supply all of our needs according to their glorious riches. And so mom and dad might even say, God blessed us. God blessed us. But the next generation says, mom and dad blessed us.

Mom and dad blessed us. And they don't have to cry out to God because they can cry out to mom and dad. And we want to bless our kids. Right. There's a, there's a natural desire, you know, there's, that's a heart of God to bless.

Right. So there's a parental desire to bless. But, and I've seen this, and this is why I speak to this is our kids don't need God if we become the one that provides all of their needs and meets all their desires for them under the guise of blessing. And I think we actually rob them from knowing who God really is. I think there's a loss of something in our own personal lives too.

The people who have money, suddenly folks don't want to speak truth to them. And you lose out on. So not just the friendships we talked about that you lose out on accountability. And there's accountability to being a follower of Jesus where you invite people to speak into your life and say, hey, that hurt my feelings, or hey, there's something in your life that is not supposed to be there. It doesn't look like Jesus.

And the more you have, the fewer of those folks you have who are willing to say that to you. So why do you think folks are afraid to speak into their lives? Is it because if I'm challenging you on maybe a purchase that doesn't make sense, then I look like the jealous friend who can't make the Purchase. Is that why there's not, like, what is the reason? Yeah, there's.

I could lose access to you. Here's what I found over the years. I have some friends who are very, very wealthy and met them many years ago, and we've stayed friends. And one of the things I found is that a lot of them are super, super smart. They're really good at what they do.

There's a reason why they're successful, very good at what they do. And that comes with its own level of intimidation. So I've found in my life. Because there's a confidence there then, too. Yeah.

And I found in my life that because of my position, people will pull their punches sometimes. Not just people who owe me, like I sign their paychecks, but people who, like, well, he must know more than we do about something or look where he is and look what his title is. So people have a tendency to pull their punches. And I think when you reach a level of financial success or success in your industry, the same thing tends to happen. It's like, this person is really smart or this person is really gifted.

And I don't know if I want to tangle with that. I'm just a. Whatever. I just do this for a living. And so I. I don't know if I want to say that to this person who seemed.

Because we've elevated in our own minds that this is more important. And so you lose out on the accountability of that, which is a shame. So if that is a natural consequence for those who have money, a natural consequence for someone in your position with the title, what do you do? What do those people do to invite that accountability? I mean, there's got to be something.

It can't just be, this is the way it is, and it's yucky and nothing can change. Yeah, you have to invite it. You have to speak. You have to talk about your own weakness. A lot, I think you have to say, you have to admit when you mess up.

Okay. Or else you're just isolating yourself from other people. You have to say, hey, gang, sorry, I messed that one up. That was me. You have to be willing to do that.

You have to respond well when you are confronted all those things. And you have to say, And I've had friends say this to me, hey, you always have the right to speak into my life. You always have the right to say something. If you see something that has a right, you have the right to say that that is valuable as well. So all those things I think you need to do so Is there a difference between wanting money and loving money?

Great.

Yeah, I think to some degree we all want money. Yeah. When we fall in love with money, when we fall in love with the idea of making it and having it and what it can buy and everything else, that changes our hearts. And that's where Jesus says, that's the root of all evil. Look, guys, I love hot fudge sundaes.

I really do. I want a hot fudge sundae. Like, I could probably eat one every day. Do you need it? Do you serve it?

Yes. Do I need a hot fudge sundae? Nobody needs a hot fudge sundae. Nobody deserves a hot fudge sundae. But I really want one.

And there's a reason I don't eat them. So it's a health thing for me. And I think we've got to look at money as a. Hey, I understand wanting this and I understand wanting more of this in my life. But I also understand that God is the one who ultimately decides what I have and what I don't.

And if I'm sacrificing the rest of my life to get money, if I'm sacrificing my own health to eat Sunday every day, that's too high a price to pay. Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, my brain was spinning as you asked that. I was thinking of my own life, my own heart. And I want to go on a trip with my family.

I want to go on vacation. I want to, you know, I just think of things that are really good that I want to do. Those wants aren't, none of them are inherently bad in those things.

But the why is. We talked kind of the why already. But I would actually go with another thing, and this may where people speak to our lives. How do I feel when I don't get it? Like, so I don't, you know, my vacation is an overnight in the Dells.

That's the best I can do. My friend's vacation, who does better than me, is a, is a, a week long Caribbean cruise. Right. And so I, I, you guys know me, I love being on the water. I dream to be on a cruise one day.

That is a real want dream. And I've got friends that have done it. I haven't been able to do it. And so then I have to ask myself when that, when that, if that hasn't happened or even doesn't happen, God, am I okay with that? Yeah.

Am I okay with you? And I think the response to the want not being met is the bigger litmus test spiritually that we can do within community with each other, that we can do with us and God instead of just like, should I even want that more like, but what if God says no? And that's a hard conversation to have sometimes, but I think that can become the way to check our hearts with money and what money gives us that's good. So contentment really is the thermostat that we need to. Or thermometer that we need to look at.

I think it's twofold of trust. I was reading through your notes, Steve, a little bit, and the word trust just kept coming to mind over and over again, at least in my life. And it's not just trusting God to provide for our means. That's one level of trust, but it's trusting God is if he doesn't get me what I want, both finances, both when it comes to money, I think are levels of trust that we really need, both of those together. I have to not only trust that God will provide my needs, I have to trust that when he doesn't give me something that I desire, that he's good in that that is a good gift from God to not give me that.

Well, then that segues into my next question because there truly is a theology of a thought that believes God loves us and he wants us rich and comfortable and. Yeah, what do we do with that? I mean, it's out there. Guys, that's so tempting. So tempting to believe.

Who wouldn't want to serve that God? Well, do you notice that? You know who invented that theology and who holds it? Wealthy people.

These are the TV preachers that hold this theology. They're the ones who. They have millions of dollars, they have huge mansions, they're collector cars and all kinds of stuff. They're using it as a way to justify their consumption of these resources. That's where the theology was invented and it's just not biblical.

God calls many, many people to poverty, including the prophets. Many of the prophets in the Bible, including Jesus, who said, I have no place to lay my head and own anything. And Jesus told his followers, when you go and you do mission, don't make it about money. It's not about having. Don't take multiple cloaks with all your clothes with you and all the.

That's not what this is about. And so it's a different perspective than we've been led to believe. If that statement is true, God owes the apostles and the disciples and the early church a huge apology for not fulfilling what he now theoretically is doing for everyone else. And that I just. I.

That to me is. It's just so irrational to the story of scripture that it's sometimes hard for me to understand how we can even look at the lives of the people that followed and walked with Jesus and think somehow that that still is true. Yeah. This is a hard conversation to have, but it's good. And so I am excited to see what Sunday holds.

Curious if you'll throw some more song lyrics in there.

Maybe heavy metal this time. A little better, Tammy. It's 80s love songs. Those are the ones I want. Barry Manilow.

You do? All right. Well, thank you guys so much, and thank you for joining us. Bye. Bye.