 And I want to take just few minutes to talk to you a little bit about money And I know that for maybe if you're visiting us for the first time today, you know You're just you have a free free trip just to listen You don't have to participate unless you want to but those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ Who make Jesus our Lord and Savior? Not only you have to listen to what I'm about to say you have to follow what I'm about to say Also because money is a very important part of your life 16 are of 30 something parables that Jesus did They dealt with money. Jesus talked more about money than he talked about prayer fasting and internal life combined And so it's a very important aspect of your life the Bible says you can serve to masters Lord and Money never says Lord and Satan because money is a competition for our heart And we all understand that we spend eight hours at work. You don't spend eight out. You don't spend eight hours at church You don't spend eight hours even maybe with your kids or with your spouse But you spend eight hours every day working and so it's where you spend the most of your time And today I want to just address One simple issue a lot of people have different ideas about money I remember he talking to one young man and he said well Bible says money is evil and I said, where did you see that in the Bible? He said well, that's what everybody says. I'm like the Bible says love of money is root of all evil The Bible never says that money is evil Then people have this idea as the Bible says that God wants you to be poor. I was like, where did you get that? Well, it says blessed are the poor. It says blessed are the poor in heart And they will inherit the kingdom of God And so people always have these ideas about money that that somehow they heard from someone But they're not necessarily in the scripture When it comes to Giving when it comes to our generosity before God and we have to understand God is the wealthiest God is the richest God is not broke. God is very very wealthy and being so wealthy. He's also the most generous God It's interesting how these two Ingrediences and characteristics are found in one being being most generous and at the same time being most wealthy Sometimes you can come to the conclusion You can't be generous if you're wealthy and you also can't be wealthy if you're generous if you're not generous These two things have to be very important if you want to be like God You have to be generous and If you're gonna be generous You're gonna be prosperous It's possible to live in the best country in the world United States and not be prosperous and Not for lack of education not for lack of intelligence But sometimes there are problems that happen in people's lives and finances and I want to discuss those problems We call them poverty There's three types of poverty that happen to people the first kind of poverty is an attack from the devil when the poverty is an attack when it's a curse an Attack when it's a curse. What does it mean? When people through stealing open the door to Satan and Satan attacks their finances by taking from them We must understand one thing is that when we steal We give Satan a permission to steal from us When we steal from other people Satan will always steal from us. It's a rule This started from the beginning when God told Adam Not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil out of all the trees He says you can eat but of this tree. I don't want you to eat. So imagine this paycheck and God says this small portion is not yours Adam Everything else is yours. You can eat it. This is for your enjoyment and you will think Adam would get the point You know, hey, you have 99% of the trees you can eat off just leave that one tree alone and Adam goes in with his wife and he eats of the tree There wasn't supposed to be eaten off and the Bible says the first thing that happens They draw a curse under life which was revealed itself in the fact that Adam would no longer Have his needs provided for by eating from the garden, but he would have to work hard in a sweat of his brow What did that curse touch? finances if you think the poverty Starts with great depression is started in the Genesis chapter 3 It started with a man who took us something that wasn't his And it opened the door for the curse it Adam stopped being intelligent No, it Adams became foolish. No, it Adams stopped making money. No, but it what happened with Adam Is that he had to work in the sweat of a brow and from now on We cannot be fooled. We must understand one thing is this is that if we want to be people Who prosper financially we have to shut the door to this one sin called stealing We can't steal Now you're like a hundred percent I shouldn't be stealing. Maybe you were stealing before You know stealing stopped in our church a long time ago, but we used to have stillings iPads would disappear iPhones would disappear cameras would disappear different things and things have changed people have grown and everything praise god But stealing is not only from other people stealing also from god And this is where it gets a little bit tricky because I in my own wisdom would never dare to say that You know that there's we can steal from god, but in bible in malachi chapter 3 it says that God says that you are cursed with the curse Because you would hold the tithes from the lord and god says you rob me by withholding tithes from me It's very strong words when I will read that I'm like I would never dare to come up with those words Because they're really really really strong when god says people Draw curse on their life by this sin of stealing Not only that they steal from other people, but they also dare to steal from god Now most of you in here i'm assuming all of us in here Stealing is not our problem You don't come to church and your temptation is not like stealing pastor's phone Like you don't sit there during worship. Oh god, please help me god. Please help me because my hand is going into this neighbor's purse That's not your problem And when we pray for addiction, you know, you're not like saying oh god Please because I saw the car over there had the keys inside. I was really thinking to jack that car That's none of our problem, right? We don't we don't struggle with stealing from other people But many times we don't think of when we don't give our tithe As us stealing from god and let me tell you why we wouldn't think like that Because we have a self entitlement mentality It's mine It's my money What do you mean? I'm stealing from god I earned it Not god You forgot the fact you had to use his oxygen his body enjoy his son and use all of the things he gave you You're not god You didn't make you you didn't put the sun in it in its orbit. You didn't create the oxygen You didn't give yourself health nothing all of that came as a gift with no payment And we have the self entitlement it is mine So when god says that when we as believers we don't give our tithes we are robbing him We have this self defense mechanism kicking in says no no no that is mine. It's none of his stuff But in actuality god is right and we are wrong god is the creator He gave us everything to enjoy and we as a sign of thanksgiving and as a sign of trust should always return 10% saying god Everything I am came from you God I know people who are 29 Who are smarter than me and they are buried in a cemetery right there in pasco God I know people who have degrees And they found them dead in the toilet at their work So I don't claim to brag that everything I have is mine. It's a gift from you I know people who are smart and intelligent and driving to get their Certificate and on a road. There was an accident that happened. So god, I know that everything I have is not Just from me. It is your gift and I want to be grateful and thankful to say god. I thank you Amen When we steal we draw a curse upon our life and this curse manifests itself in this That god lifts a protection And satan steals from us as we've stole either from other people or from god If you're sitting here and you want to be financially prosperous and you're working extra hours You're working really really hard Guard yourself against this sin of stealing Stealing from people and secondly stealing from god I remember when two years ago I had this sin that I struggled with I would download movies through torrents I know none of you have ever done that before so Most of you don't know what that is but those of you who ever had a computer And in your hispanic or russian You probably have used that software one time or another now some are waving heads now I don't steal I just go to the store and take it from the store But I didn't do this all the time but My excuse was always well hollywood has enough money plus they're already sinning So if I just take a thing or two who cares Somehow two wrongs make one right, you know twisted. It was just it was just really bad And I remember it was vivid as yesterday. It was friday. We were driving from a date and And my wife wanted we wanted to watch something some kind of a cartoon or some some cheesy family movie And I'm like, oh and in my mind. I'm like, oh I'll download it. No big deal And I'm driving and I have this no peace in the heart where I feel like I'm stealing and I'm debating in my own heart. We're driving and my wife is there. She doesn't even hear this But I'm debating. I'm like, well, it's not stealing It's uh, it's completely fine. Plus, you know, like it's not actually stealing plus I don't sell this movie I just delete it afterwards and I don't give it to my homies and cronies in ukraine and stuff I just delete it and I feel the whole spirit is lad You're a thief And at that time I started to kind of be more generous and and I feel like here I am asking God to bless me and opening a back door to the devil to come and steal from me And that's the picture that I got in the car. And so and I'm like, man, this but I'm like, it's only four bucks. But this for those four bucks, you know, I could get a cup of coffee for those four bucks And I remember we came home and then that night Instead of downloading the movie legally, I actually rented it I was like, man, after this, I won't be watching movies at all If that's the way to go and I felt a holy spirit like, well, that's not gonna be bad for you either We can kill two birds with one stone Getting rid of stealing and movies at the same time And ever since then not to be all self-righteous and everything but I closed the door to that in my life of stealing And and I said, Lord, not only I want to be very generous with my finances and give to the church 10% But I also not want to be an idiot of opening my back door to stealing And for some of you, maybe you don't feel like this is stealing I'm not your God here to tell you that this is but if the Holy Spirit nugs on your heart And go to your police officer and he will tell you whether it's stealing or not If you don't want to believe the preacher But you have to close the door to stealing if you want to have a blessing of God If you steal You will have a curse on your finances You can make six digit incomes. You will be cursed In your finances Other areas could be doing all right, but the area of finances will not be doing good I know a brother in seattle who would do business and as a contractor and he would do people Means he would have them paint his house but not pay them He would come up with all these excuses He said, well, you didn't do right there and there and he would not pay them on purpose He would build a roof and he wouldn't pay them because he said, well, you guys showed up late He was supposed to come on Monday, but you came on Tuesday And so he found all these loopholes and justifications not to pay his people and he made bank Until things started to go bad for him where all the money he would make he would spend on his health problems All the money he would make he would spend on other problems And at the end he found himself making more money Keeping less money until one time a preacher got up and preached this exactly same message If you steal from people or you do people rip people off You will have a curse on your finances. That doesn't mean you won't make money It's just they will never stay in your life. You will always spend them paying for things You wouldn't have to pay for for those things before in your life Holy spirit convicted him and all the images all the pictures of the people he stole start flashing in his mind He started quickly writing it down and he spent about six months paying them back Going to them some of them were out of business because he didn't pay them and they couldn't pay their Their tools and their license and their insurance and they had to go out of business. Some of their lives were destroyed And when he found out how much pain he caused people by not paying them Then he realized no wonder God couldn't bless me when I was hurting other people by withholding what was owed to them When he did that in about a year his business bounced back He made more money than before except this time money stayed You're not gonna rip God if you rip other people off financially you can give thousands to God, but if you don't Be honest with your finances with other people. God won't bless you And if you don't steal from other people but you steal from God by not giving your tithes and somehow having this religious idea as well Jesus in the bible never said we needed to tie. That's right because Jesus says we need to give everything So relax homiji. Everything is fine and stuff. You really want to go Jesus style You're gonna have to go on the cross and and die and stuff because for most people Jesus never said to Tied he says give everything you have and come and follow me So i'm not sure you really want Jesus for right now in this area Jesus also said that we ought to not leave this meant he meant tied But to also tide and not to forget justice mercy and all of these great qualities. Amen When we close the door to stealing we close the door to Poverty poverty that comes as a result of stealing it brings curse There is also poverty that comes as a result of affliction Not an attack but affliction And this poverty is not a curse. It's a test Where the Lord will allow a poverty to come into your life not because the devil is attacking you and because you are a thief But because you are a righteous person and the enemy is attacking you and you are experiencing an affliction But the most beautiful part about this kind of poverty is the bible says that many are the afflictions of the righteous But the Lord delivers him out of them all Which means if a christian righteous person goes through a hard time financially and they check their life And they are righteous righteous not necessarily mean they're perfect Righteous does not necessarily mean they're better or holier than thou Righteous simply means that they're right before god and in their financial dealings their conscience is clean They don't steal from people and they don't steal from god Then every hard thing they go through is affliction means it's temporary it won't last And god will deliver them out of all of their afflictions And we see jope in the bible was one of those people who went through an affliction Even though the bible says satan attacked him, but jope was a righteous man And so the reason why he experienced that and that was all of a test and when all of that ended which ended The bible says jope received double for all of his trouble Many people use the scripture with the bible says the lord delivers the righteous out of all of his afflictions For themselves, but you can't use that scripture if you are not a person who is right in your financial dealings If you are not right in your financial dealings that scripture is not for you. It's taken out of the context So you have to be a person who is right in your financial dealings and then your poverty is going to be just something temporary It's not going to last it's something you will get through you will get stronger in god You will get a deeper grip on the eternity and deeper love for god and god will bless you can somebody say amen The third kind of poverty which is different. So the first poverty is an attack by satan. It's a curse because we steal The second poverty It's an affliction. It's a test But we are righteous the third kind of poverty It's an act of love that we choose To become poor as our way of serving god and loving people The bible says in Corinthians Jesus being rich became poor so that we can be enriched through his poverty Jesus was also poor not all his life, but on the cross He experienced poverty not because he was afflicted not because he was attacked But because he made a decision on his own Nobody took anything from him. He made a decision to give everything he had so that I could get things that I don't have And this kind of poverty is a good poverty The reason why is because you can't do this kind of poverty if you're broke You can't give anything away if you don't have anything to give So the only people who can actually do this poverty is people who have wealth and blessings and who have something to give And if people don't have anything to give well, it's very difficult to be in this kind of poverty Some of you know about mother Teresa Who you know walked away from her amazing life and went to serve in india to the less privileged people And this that's the kind of poverty that i'm talking about Some of you know the author of rick warren who wrote a famous book called purpose driven life that sold over 40 million copies And this book made him extremely extremely wealthy in one of the interviews. He said he made so much money from the book He could he could buy an island and fill the whole island with Bentley's You know what he did with that money? He went and paid his church back all the money the church paid him as a pastor for the past some 20 years all of that money back and after that What he did is he switched his tithing instead of tithing 10 percent he tithes 90 and lives on 10 And he testified he said till this day. I live in the same house Where the same clothes Drive the same car eating the same restaurants and live exactly the same as I lived before I made that money For one simple reason not because I can't live better But because I choose to live poor in the eyes of people with the amount of money I have so that this money could go to serve a greater cause Of reaching more people to god touching nations and touching causes in the world Which require finances for them to go and make a difference And this is a good poverty Now nobody likes to be poor, but if you ever end up in this poverty It's a good poverty You know, you will never be more poor than you were when you were born When you were born, you were very poor And you will never be more poor than when you will die When you will die, you will be very poor. I know you will have an expensive suit But you will be very poor The only thing is that when you were born and you were poor that doesn't count When you will die and you'll be poor that won't count either The only thing that counts is the things you give to the kingdom of god and the things you give to other people Can somebody say amen? I know a few months ago when one gentleman who gave his life to Jesus Recommitted his life to Jesus and and I was talking about offering about once a month I kind of take a little bit longer to talk about money and giving And I did that exactly at that time and the Lord placed placed on his heart to begin to give A certain amount every week as he would come to church But the problem with that to give it would cause them very deep emotional pain And some of you even listening right now and maybe you have thoughts. Maybe I should give this one Voice says give the other voices. You're crazy. Don't listen to the preacher. He's stealing your money. That's all they do And so the one is voices of the devil. The other voice is the holy spirit. It's very simple And so and as this voice start coming to his head you have to give this amount But the other voice says well if i'm going to give this I could get a brand new car and have Enough money to make the payments every single month if I don't give those money But against the other voice he decided to go ahead and start giving And this young man is already very generous He pays for his mother's house And he pays for his mother's car So he could already say well, you know what I already give a lot But he decided to also give to god And then after a few few weeks after some time god gave him an idea And an idea was to come to to his employer and to present him a certain plan And after this plan was presented, you know that his employer rewarded him with a very very very Very very expensive. I won't mention the the digits. So it won't offend your faith But very very lucrative thing that he received as a gift from his employer It tops everything that he was planning to give or will give in the next five or six years And when he came back he was so full of joy. He says it worked I said the goal what worked is not the fact you got money back what worked is the fact that you were obedient That's what worked And then a few weeks later He received also some royalty that from something that he had that he would always receive a year very small amount But this time this was maybe like six or seven times more He sent a quickly a check and he's like this is so incredible. This is so awesome He's like I have chills in my body right now that this is amazing And it brought so much joy. I've experienced these miracles countless times in my life Through giving and through generosity, but to see somebody walking in and not only experience peace But to experience god who provides and supernaturally But it's blessing in your finances. It's amazing testimony. Amen