Elevation with Steven Furtick - Stepping Into Financial Freedom (Dave Ramsey)

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Step out of worry and into financial freedom. In this message from financial coach and author, Dave Ramsey, we learn 5 proven biblical money principles and how God wants us to experience freedom in all aspects of our lives.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Come on, let's thank God for all our locations. Help me Valentine. EFAM around the world. Where's my EFAM? EFAM. I'm on Elevation Church YouTube.

If you want to give me a quick shout out to let me know your name and your state or country, I would love to know where you're joining us from. Of course, all of our local locations, elevation Riverwalk, elevation uptown, elevation gaston how many of y'all traveled to be in church today you you did a good thing even if it was 17 dollars a gallon it will be worth it I promise you all right y'all here they come they're joining us today from Guyana Jamaica South Africa Philippines India Indonesia, Virginia.

No, that's her name. Virginia from California. That was confusing. Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey. Hey, we're coming to New Jersey. You've got to come to New Jersey. Elevation nights is five weeks away. Listen, everywhere we're coming.

If you have any cousins in these cities, all right? Because this begins very soon, and I don't want you to miss out. We're going to be in Chicago, Grand Rapids. Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio, Washington, D.C., Redding, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, like I said, and Boston, Massachusetts, Elevation Nights.com. Some of y'all ought to get a ticket and be a groupie and just come with us. On the road, it gets crazy, doesn't it? It's crazy on the road, isn't it? L.J., am I lying to the people of God?

Absolutely insane. We're excited. We're excited. So many good things. You saw all the outreach updates. And I don't know, look at somebody and say, I don't know what you did right, but today you get to hear Dave Ramsey. I mean, who could help us more at a time like this than Dave Ramsey?

Dave, we're honored. You're here, man. I already told you this, but so they can know my oldest son came to me the other day. He said, I found this guy, Dad, on YouTube named Dave Ramsey. He thought he discovered Dave Ramsey No, no, but he had been watching him and he was like I'm gonna do this all this stuff on the budget Why didn't you teach me all this dad? I said, I taught you all this is what I do

And I was like I actually know Dave and he was like really? I'm like yeah, I'm kind of cool I have some cool friends and you know the other day I was praying about it and who would God bring to help us at a time like this with so much transition and I feel responsibility to put people in front of you who can not only inspire you for a few moments but can really help you in a way that you'll be talking about my barber was cutting my hair today and he was like tell Dave he changed my life for me just tell him I know you probably hear that a lot but on behalf of all the people that that you've helped and all of the people who have been set free through what God has given you we honor you and thank you for being a

pioneer he and his wife Sharon are here. I said, Sharon, do you always travel with Dave? She said, no. I just wanted to come to elevation. She said the whole team is jealous back home that we're here. So let's don't waste any time. I told him you had all day. Come on around the world. Welcome. Best-selling author, man of God. Goodness gracious. Y'all, I feel like a wiener in a steakhouse. So y'all know Pastor Craig Groschell, Pastor Stevens' friend of friend of mine. I'm speaking for him next weekend and I thought, I must be the umpalumpa on the ripped pastor tour. So Pastor Stephen, he, um, he and I started swapping texts a few years ago.

Sometimes when some of the fire is flying, we'll just encourage each other. And sometimes when his, uh, adrenaline goes down Sunday afternoon after preaching about Sunday night, the text start flying at my house. house. A few weeks ago, I get a text and he says, uh, you believe in free speech? I said, yeah. He said, good. I want you to give one on March 20th. That didn't happen, but it's a great joke. He's overly generous. You all know that. But God told me on Sundays I'm not supposed to collect. I collect Monday through Friday. And so life's pretty good for me. I'm doing all right. I got financial peace. So, um, all right.

Let's pray y'all. God, you know I can do these talks by myself. They sure are better when you do them. Holy Spirit, this is your time. In Jesus' name, amen. Y'all have a seat. So, my wife and I will be married this coming summer for 40 years. Yeah, I told her if she leaves, I'm going with her.

When we got married, I don't know about y'all, but we were stupid. We had no sense. We didn't have anything like pre-marriage counseling. We just got hitched. We just got married. And nobody told us to watch out for this or that. And they were just happy to get rid of me and whatever. And her dad was scared I was showing up and we just got married.

So I was a beer drinking, hell-raising hillbilly. and we've been married about two weeks. We moved to Nashville and got our first little apartment. And my wife wakes up on Sunday morning and remembers that she's a Baptist. This is something she hadn't mentioned before. We've been dating for a while. We hadn't talked about this Jesus stuff. We certainly hadn't talked about her being a Baptist.

And she said, it's Sunday morning, we're going to church. And I said, no, we're not. You don't go to church on Sunday. You drink beer and watch football. What is wrong with you? Well, she's real serious about this. And, of course, we're in Nashville, y'all. It's the buckle of the Bible Belt, right?

I mean, there's more Baptist there than people. And so we have a big fight, and she's crying, and she storms out the door. Well, it didn't take her long to find her tribe. and she starts attending this little Baptist church and these little Baptist people praying for her heathen husband. Well, this goes on every Sunday for about six months, y'all, be honest with you, it wasn't going well. Every Sunday we have big fights.

She storms out crying, and I'm going, what did I sign up for? Nobody told me about this. And I got in one of these, I was 22 years old, and I got in one of these multi-level things, you know, the thing where you make all your friends mad. and one of my beer drinking buddies and me, and there's a lot of beer in this story,

but we got in this thing, and we were so dumb, y'all, we would go to happy hour and then go make sales calls and couldn't figure out why we couldn't make a sale. This is how dumb we were. And, oh, God, Harold is his other brother, Daryl. And so we're going to get a yacht,

and we're going to be rich, and we're going to do all this stuff, and, you know, we're living, they're 22 years old, and all this. And we were doing pretty good, but we decided to go to one of their rallies, one of their sessions down in Birmingham, Alabama, which is about two hours south of Nashville.

So we got in the car and drove to the Alabama Theater in downtown Birmingham, which in my mind held 10,000 people. I did an event there a while back. It holds 800. But, you know how when you grow up, things shrink. But, oh, and so you ever go back to your grade school, how it gets smaller. Y'all know what I'm talking about, right? And so, oh my gosh. So the, anyway, we're up in the top row with the very back balcony, me and him, and we're taking notes all

day long. These speakers are up there charging us up of how we're going to get rich and all this stuff and get you a yacht. And there was one guy at the end of the day who was the dog. He was the one making like $400,000 a minute or whatever, you know, and we wanted to be like him. And so we're kind of waiting for the, you know, the apex of the day, the crescendo of the, the the day, right? And so finally this guy gets up there, and we had written down five or six questions that thought, if we could get the answer to these questions, we'd have a breakthrough. Our little business would go, boom, we'd go, you know? And so he gets up there, and it's as if this guy had our questions as his outline. And we already wanted to be him. But by the time he

finished reading our mail for an hour, and we got all of our questions answered, if he had told to eat a bag of dirt we would have. He owned us. You all know what I'm saying. And he was a good speaker too. And he gets to the end. He goes, and there's one more thing. And we're like, no, there isn't.

We got our five. He goes, if you don't know this man named Jesus, you're going to struggle in business. Because business people who are takers struggle. Business people who add value in our givers always win. And he said, Jesus, He said, Jesus will teach you how to do relationships. And if you're going to be in business, you have to learn how to do relationships.

And I'm looking at my buddy and we're going, I have no idea what he's talking about. And I asked my buddy, I said, you think he's been talking to my wife? And so we go back to the little holiday inn or whatever it was. And in the nightstand, we find a Bible. And it's a Gideon's Bible, right? Old King James. Yeah, Shakespeare and Jesus. The chances of these two rednecks figuring this out is zero.

We closed it, blind leading the blind, but we went home. I told my wife, I said, we're going to church, and she said, who are you, and what have you done with my husband? And so we went to some of the churches around, and some of these folk, they're not having fun. Place looks like it was weaned on a pickle. Y'all know what I'm talking about. It's just awful. But we went in the back of this little church, about 3, 400 people.

It ended up growing to 8,000 people later. and you know how you do when you're visiting in a church you sit on the back row in case it gets weird you can hit eject right you all know what I'm talking about and so we were on the back row and this is a long time ago y'all mean it's almost 35 years ago and back then people didn't raise their hands except in weird churches you know and we're in there and this woman in the choir pops her hand up like she knows the answer to some question and then another one and then they start doing this. I told Sharon, I said, if they get snakes out, I'm out of here. And that pastor was a man's man. I thought Christians were wusses, and he was a man. And he stood up, he would say stuff

like, and this is what the Bible says. And if you don't agree with that, you're what's known as wrong. I like this guy. And this was old school church. As I said, there was only about 300 folk in that church when we started there. And they'd stand at the back door. And you'd go out in the line, and the pastor would shake everybody's hand. And his, his, his, wife was a big squishy woman. She'd give you a big grandma hug, you know, and that woman's grace flowed off of her when she hugged you and looked at you and she said, I love you, made you believe she really did love you because she did. And his strength and grace and mercy led me the Lord, and I got baptized. I met God there. It changed my whole life. I do everything

backwards. I left that little multi-level thing real quick. in the middle of that, was just in there for about 20 minutes it feel like. And I started buying and selling real estate, and I got rich, at least by a kid from Antioch standards. I started with nothing. And by the time I was 26, I had a little over $4 million worth of real estate, a little over a million dollar net worth. And I was making $250,000 a year $20,000 a month in 1982.

I don't know where you come from, but we called that rich where I grew up. And I got to tell y'all, it was fun. It was really fun. I mean, Sharon, she likes those little sparkly things, so we got her some, and they weren't big enough, and so we got her some more. And y'all, we went to Hawaii. Rednecks in Hawaii. Oh, my. It was so nice. You know, we went back, and I had that car I always wanted. You had that car you always wanted, like, someday, right? So I got me a Jaguar, man, because nobody in my old neighbor who could spell Jaguar, much less. had one, right? So I got me a jaguar, man. About 90 days, I was a jaguar, right? You know, it's like, right? I mean, it's like, oh, man. We were having fun, y'all. Now, I am not shallow enough or theologically deprived enough to think that money is going to make you happy. As a matter of fact,

I'm positive it won't. After teaching God's ways of of handling money for 30 plus years now, I do know that money will make you more of what you already are. If you are depressed and you get money, it's not going to go well if you don't deal with the depression. If you got a drug problem and you get money, you got a drug problem. I mean, if you got a temper and you get money, whew! tyrant on parade.

You got a big, gentle, compassionate heart, and you get money, you can change the world. Whatever you are and you get money, it's going to magnify it. So beware of that. It's not going to solve your problems. There's all kinds of data points all throughout our culture that prove that. You can see people who didn't have it and they got money and it messed up their lives. money makes you more of what you already are. And by the way, if it makes your people around you more of what they are too, like people

in your family, like the crazy ones, they get crazy. And everybody's got crazy in their family. And if you don't think you got crazy in your family, that means it's you. So we're cruising along doing really good, things, life is good. We're in our 20s. We meet Jesus on the way up. I do everything backwards in. And man, life, we've got babies and, oh, my goodness, things are good.

And I had done some stupid things. How many y'all ever done something stupid with money? How many of you didn't raise your hand to have a problem with lying? We all have, darling. If you've made mistakes with money, that makes you over 12. Only I did it was zeros on the end, as I told you. I borrowed a ton of money. We had a million dollar net worth, but we had three million dollars in debt.

We were doing Flip This House before Chip and Joanna were born, okay? So before cable TV was there to tell you how to do it, right? And so we were doing Flip This House. I had a lot of short-term notes, and the bank got sold to another bank, and a guy in another city looked down and said there's a kid, 26 years old. Those that's a million dollars, million two, to be exact. Let's limit this relationship, which is banker talk for ruin his life. and they called our notes.

And the short version of the story is, another lender heard we were in trouble because we were in trouble after that. And they called our notes, and we had $2 million due in 120 days all tied up in real estate. That started a crash that took two and a half years to unfold

that no matter what I did, I couldn't stop it. I was always taught, if you have a problem, just work harder. It doesn't matter if you dug that, big a hole and you got that level of stupid, working harder won't fix it. It was coming down around my head. The jangle blocks were crashing. It was a mess. I had built a house of cards because I was stupid. I didn't know I was stupid. I thought I was smart, but I was stupid. Change my life. I remember standing in the shower with it, so hot. I could just barely stand there and I would

just stand there and cry. I was so scared. I couldn't breathe. I have a toddler and a brand new baby. My marriage is hanging on by a thread. Sharon's from the hills of East Tennessee, y'all. Frying pan throwing there is an Olympic event. And finally, we hit bottom by bankruptcy. So I met God on the way up. But church, I'm here to tell you, I got to know him on the way down.

I'd already been saved, I'd already been baptized, but I had an I surrender-all moment. And I'm not talking about a Baptist altar call. I'm talking about ever been completely on your face and you say, I quit, I give, I surrender. You are now the Lord. You are now in charge. I apparently got nothing. I hope you never have to get beat up that hard to get to that point because that's a heart decision and you could just make that decision.

But I started deciding, okay, if it's in here, it's right? real and the rest of the stuff I'm not listening to because I listened to my finance professor in college who taught me to borrow money and he was broke. What's wrong with that picture? I mean, that's like a shop teacher with missing fingers, right? Broke finance professor. So I'm going to learn how to live because I didn't know how to be a husband. I didn't know how to be a daddy. I didn't know how to be a man. And so I'm, you know, marriage, so submit yourselves one to another. Oh, crud. That means I got to dry dishes. That means I'm going to serve my wife. Who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband

safely trusts her, and he will have no lack of gain. My kids are like, Dad, what's this rod stuff? And I'm like, come here, baby, I'll show you. 2,500 scriptures dealing with money and possessions. Proverbs alone will give you a master's degree in finance. It'll show you everything you need to know. And it's not just a Bible thumper. You can study that with your intellect as well as with your spirit, and you'll see it. It's there.

So we hit bottom, and we had the opportunity to start again in God's ways. And we decided, okay, we're going to start handling money. marriage, leadership, business, kids. If I can find it in here, this is the way we're doing it. I can't always find it. Insurance isn't in here. I can't find it. But I still buy insurance.

So it's not everything's in there. But I'm going to do it if I can. And you know what? That's 35 years ago, y'all. And 30 years ago, we went broke and it's worked out. Oh. my goodness, has it worked out. Oh, my goodness. It turns out that God's ways of doing things, work! Hello! They work! So I got a bunch of, I got, we got, yesterday I looked at our thing,

we've got 11602, I'm sorry, 1,062 people working on our team right now as a Friday, or as a Monday morning, we got 13 more starting Monday morning. And Ramsey Solutions has turned into this thing, and it's a process over these years teaching people how to handle money now, thousand churches have taught almost 10 million people financial peace university alone i mean it blows my mind what god has chosen to do he says in the bible he'll speak through a donkey apparently so we're in i'm in this is good so i got a bunch of youngsters on the team and i i love our youngsters they're they're brilliant the average age in our team's about 27 people hate on this millennial generation i got to tell you millennials are amazing i love the millennial generation

because there's only two kinds, awesome and sucks. I mean, it's just, they either will, missional, driven, bright, will charge the gates of hell with a water pistol, or they're living in their mother's basement and they ain't leaving. You know, it's one of the two. So we got them on our team that are missional, driven, smarter than me, say words and meetings, I have to stop them and go, I'm sorry, but I'm pretty comfortable with my own skin on the place. What did you just say? And so, I mean, they're smart.

But sometimes, Papa Dave, I have to lead. And I was coming by one of them, and he was doing the stuff he was supposed to be doing wrong. And I was like, hey, that's not, don't do it. Do it this way. That's not how we do it here at Ramsey. This is the thing. It's an excellence thing. You got to do it right.

And he's like, okay. And I come back about a week later, and he's doing it wrong again. I'm like, hey, hey. It's not how we do it here. We do it this way. We've talked about this. Yeah, I know, I know, I know. I come back a week later. He's doing it wrong again. And I'm like, hey, we're going to set you free in Jesus' name, okay? I mean, there's one, I'm telling you how to do this. And he looks at me and he says, I'm not like you. And I said, okay, change. You don't have to be like me, but you got to do it like I. Do it. This is the right way. Do it this way. Change. And, you know, God does that with us. There's a thing in Christianity. If we're going the wrong way on something, God says stop. This is called sin going this way or stupid. You're going this way. And sometimes they're the same thing. And we're going this way. And God says, stop. And we turn change. And we go the other.

the way, it's called repentance in Christianity, isn't it? I was going the wrong way. I repent. I stop. I change direction. This isn't working. Continuing to do the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Stop and change. And you know what? He gives us the dignity and the power of choice that we can just decide. change. You ever met someone that just quit smoking? I have. They didn't have anything. They didn't do any kind of program. And it's okay if you did a program or whatever. That's fine. But they just said, I'm not doing anymore. I just quit. I've met people like that. A lot of people do other stuff.

That's okay. But you can just, with some things, certainly behaviors that were doing, I can just, I'm not saying that to my wife ever again. I'm just going to change. It didn't work well when I said it last time. I'm not doing that again. So thank God the poor woman is not married to the same guy. She married 40 years ago because I get the opportunity to change. Now, I haven't arrived, but I'm considerably bad because I've had the opportunity to change. And it's a decision. You get to decide. No one decides that for you. Pastor doesn't decide it. Dave Ramsey doesn't decide it. No one in Washington, D.C., for sure, decides it for you. You get to decide when you're going to change.

God won't even make you do it. He'll make you wish you did it, but he will not make you do it. So there's five things that are baseline in all the data that we have and the millions and millions of families we've interacted with that have changed and moved from high-stress, broke, horrible situation with money to becoming well. healthy over time. And this is not some kind of magical thing. This is pretty much like if you want corn, you should plant some corn. If you're a farmer, you don't go out and pray over the mud.

You put corn in the ground, you weed, fertilize, and then you reap what you have sown. So, you know, sometimes I meet my brothers and sisters in Christ who have been oversaved, and they're just standing over the mud praying. St. Ambrose said, work like it all depends on you, pray like it all depends on God. Where our faith meets our faithfulness is where all things are unleashed. You've got to be faithful in the little things and then you'll be given more to man. Did you ever read that scripture? And so, you know, the first thing we got to do out of these five things, you start doing these five things, they will not fix your life by Friday. It won't happen. But I'll tell you what will happen. walk a little straighter. It's like all of a sudden, you'll think a little clearer about the future

instead of thank God it's Friday, oh God, it's Monday. And instead of saying, thank God it's Friday, oh God it's Monday, you start thinking about 10 years out because where there is no vision, the people perish. You want corn. You've got to have a vision, put corn to ground. And it'll be spring for you see it down that far. And it'll be fall for you get corn. So if you want microwave, you probably should talk to God because he's more in the crock pot business. Occasionally he just microwaves it, but that's seldom, and we call those miracles because they're seldom. Most of the time he's dealing with us to get us right, and then the corn comes in and we got the muscles to carry it. Most of the time, that's what's going on.

There's a process, in other words, that's vitally important. The first thing you've got to do if you want to win with money is you have to get on a budget. A written game plan. Jesus said, don't build a tower without first counting the cost lest you get halfway up and all who see you began to mock you and say this man began to build and was unable to finish. My friend Ziglar used to say if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time. My friend John Maxwell says a budget is people telling their money what to do instead of wondering where it went. If you manage money for a company called You Incorporated and you manage money for you incorporated the way you manage money for you now,

Would you fire you? Don't answer that. If you're not a faithful steward, we have a clear example in the parable of the talents that God is going to take the money from you and give it to the one who did manage it well, the one who planted corn and tended to the field instead of stood back and watched it rain on the mud. Please don't be disorganized living chaotically and impulsively with the maturity of a four-year-old on the cereal aisle having a fit on purchases, and then expect God to bless it when you say, Lord, send me money. He will not send you money.

It's in Scripture. Faithful with the little things, then I will give you more. My son's a grown man now. He's an executive on our team and is an absolutely fabulous world-class leader. When he was a kid, he was 14 years old, he comes in one day. He says, Daddy, I want a new Corvette when I turned 16. And I said, no. because I'm a loving father.

I've seen you drive. You're incompetent. If I put you in a 400 horsepower fiberglass body, zero to 60 in 2.7 seconds, you'll kill yourself and someone else. No. I answered his prayer as a loving father. No. I said, you will be getting an old chevet with a tired gerbil under the hood. And my son, when you are faithful with the little things,

Like you polish that thing. You change its oil. It doesn't come home full of McDonald's boxes because you keep it clean. You pull it up to the curb properly. You don't leave our house on two wheels. When you take care of the little things, we'll talk about moving you up. That's what God says all the time. When you're faithful in the little things, you'll be given more to imagine.

It's all in scripture. Parable of the talents indicates that. The mind of man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps. All of this is in there. A loving father is not going to give you something you can't handle because it'll crush you. Be on a budget. The second thing we have to do is we need to get out of debt. Now, you knew Dave Ramsey was going to say that.

The rich rules over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender. We're carrying around so much student loan debt that we think Sally Mae is a family member. We have Master Card. Who named that? The borrower's slave, and he's my master. Look at that. And it's tough to serve two masters because you'll love one and hate the other. I worship at the altar of the gray Fico score, but my tithe is not up to date. Sharon and I saw this and we said, no more. We're done. And we got the scissors out and we said, okay, we're going to light a little candle here and we're going to have a plasectomy.

We're going to have plastic surgery because what's in your wallet money? Airline Miles. Oh, good. did the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America two years ago, over 10,000 millionaires that we studied. 89% of them became millionaires without using an inheritance to become a millionaire. Nine out of ten of them became millionaires on their own. You know how many of them made their money off of airline miles? Zero, precisely. Discover freedom.

You're weird, Ramsey. I know, but normal's broke. I don't want to be normal. You mean you don't have any credit cards? No, I hadn't any credit cards. Start with it. They went bankrupt. They wouldn't give me any.

And then later on, they started handing them out like candy again, you know, and we didn't take any because we were through. We figured out the borrower, slave to the lender. We figured out if we don't have any payments, you know what we got? Money. That's weird. You don't have any credit cards? No, that's my wallet.

Green President's faces. Four pieces of plastic. My debit card on my business, my debit card on my personal, my driver's license and my handgun carry permit. And that's it. Rednecks in North Carolina, too. Okay. Yeah, I said that over in California, I about got arrested.

But, good to be back in America. But, oh, I love you, California people. We love you. We love you. It's all good. And your state's crazy, but we love you. And so, oh, my gosh. So a guy called me on the radio the other day, and he's like, Dave, I got a problem.

People call me on my, do it his talk radio show thing. And I said, what's the problem? He goes, you're going to kill me. I'm not going to kill you. You're in Texas. I'm in Tennessee. I can't get to you. What did you do?

He goes, well, I got my truck payment. I'm like, how much is your truck payment? $769. $760 on a truck? I said, man. He goes, I know, I know, I know. I said, yeah. How much is your house payment?

Well, we live in a double-out is $500. I said, dude, if your truck payment's bigger than your house payment, you might be a redneck. The average car payment in America right now is $546 over 84 months. If you didn't have that because you drove a paid-for vehicle that you weren't trying to impress someone you don't know at a stoplight, and you didn't have a $546 payment, and you put that in good growth stock mutual funds from age 30 to age 65, You'd have $5.6 million in that one account. Hope you like the car. When I quit borrowing money, I suddenly had money.

You don't have to make a lot to have money when you don't have any payments. Because most Americans, we work, we bring it home, we change its names, and we send it off. And we send it to Ford Motor Credit, and we send it to Chevrolet. And they go down, other than the last four or five months, when cars are going backwards, like everything is going backwards right now, used cars are actually going up in value. for the first time in the history of man, and it'll catch up, and it won't be that way long. But, I mean, other than that time, I mean, Chevy is like, you know, they're all this way. It's like, you know, these things go down in value like a rock.

That's where Chevy got that, like a rock, right? And we're financing this thing. I don't mind you having a nice car. I just don't want your nice car to have you. I want you to have choices and margin and room to be generous and room to think about your future instead of the present. Because if we live for Friday, you're not going to have much of a life.

The third one's weird. You have to foster quality relationships. The Bible says, be not deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. Did you know you become who you hang around with? I mean, if you want to be generous,

you need to hang out with generous people. If you want to hang out with people that are world changers, you need to hang out world changers. If you want to hang out with people that know, if you want to know the Bible, we probably ought to hang out with some people to know the Bible. If you want to hang out with people, if you want to have a great marriage, you probably ought to hang out with people other than your four friends who just got six divorces.

I'll minister to them. I love them. I'm not snubbing them, but I don't need to learn marriage from them. And I catch myself, I talk like the people I hang around with. The verbal cues, the cadence of your sentence. I was in New York City the other day. John, no, all those people have an accent up there? They all talk just a lie.

It's crazy. And then they come down south, and you know what? We teach them how to talk eventually. Because you become who you hang around with. Did you know the studies have shown that your income will be the average, will be within 10% of the average of your 10 closest friends' income? Some of you're going, I need some new friends. Maybe.

Now, I'm never saying be snobbish to somebody. I'll minister to, I'll spend time with, I will love anyone. I love people. I'm talking about your crew. Who's in your center? Who's walking with you? Who's lifting your arms? Who's smacking them down?

Who's calling you out? Who you're going to talk like them. You're going to read like them. You're going to binge watch the same thing on Netflix, Tiger King. You're going to become who you hang around with. Be very careful. You know this. That's why you don't let your kids run around with juvenile delinquents.

Because you know little Johnny down the street smoking weed. Your kid hangs out with little Johnny. Your kid's going to be a weed head too. You know this. No, you ain't. hanging out with Johnny. Johnny is not smart. We will pray for little Johnny. He can come over at our house and play, but we're not no. No. You're not going to be like him. Moms and dads do that. Be not deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. Be very careful. The third one. The fourth one

is save and invest. Save money. Save money. The Bible says in the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil. But a foolish man devours all he has. You spend everything you make? You're a fool. I didn't say it. God said it. Get mad at him. There's a time or two in my life. God's had a red arrow pointing me. Fool, fool, fool, fool, fool. And you don't want to be a biblical fool. This is not a greeting like, hey, fool. No, this is like a fool. In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil. in biblical times when Solomon, the smartest man to ever lived, wrote that, one of the wealthiest men to ever live, by the way, too, wrote that. In the House of the Wise, there were two classes of people in Israel in those days. There were not a middle class.

There was no middle class. There was peasants, poverty, which was most everyone. And there was the aristocracy. The aristocracy, the wealthy, are the only ones that had what you and I eat every day called choice food. The best food the world has to offer. Clean, safe, good for you. That's what the aristocracy ate. Maybe not good for you, but they ate the good stuff.

Okay? I mean, we're talking Israel. So what are the poverty eat? It's hummus. You know, pita bread, right? This is what you got. This is the whole puppy. In the house of the wise are stores of choice food.

Choice food was an indication of wealth. Oil was used all throughout the Old Testament to anoint to show God's spirit. The prophet anointed the shepherd boy David. And later it says that the anointing drops from the beard onto the body. The spirit of God drops from leadership into the body of that leadership. God's spirit is always represented by oil. Consequently, oil was highly valued. You could take a carafe of oil.

trade it in the marketplace for anything because it was also used to keep the lamps lit and the holy of holies. It was highly prized, highly esteemed, highly valued. Now let's do it again. In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil. Well, the Bible says the rich people are going to hell. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. If you believe that rich people are going to hell from scriptures, then you don't believe Jesus's blood on the cross was real, which would, by definition, make you a heretic. There's a lot of warnings about wealth. It's powerful. Be careful with it. I'd warn you about that earlier, but rich people aren't. And the Bible does not say money's the root of all evil. It says the love of money is a root of all of all of you. So the first thing

we save money for is we save money for an emergency. Because grandma said save for a rainy day, visual aid, it's going to rain. It's going to rain. Dave, you should be positive. I'm positive. It's going to rain. When pandemic's hit and you have no debt and a pile of money in your emergency fund, it's a whole different level of stress that your body takes in,

peace that passes all understanding. Because you're the third pig, not the one with sticks and straw, but the one that built the brick house. I planted the corn. The corn came. It's awful out there, and I felt bad for a lot of people, and a lot of businesses were really, really struggling, but we're sitting on a campus that's 100% debt-free. We're sitting on a pile of retained earnings. None of our people lost their job, not one. None of them missed a paycheck, not one. Is that because Dave Ramsey is noble? No, it's because

God says if you plant corn, corn will grow. If you follow his guidelines, his principles, they work every time. And so, if you're not. If you're on a plan and you get out of debt and you're saving money because you can save more money when you don't have payments, and you're hanging out with people that are generous and future thinking instead of short-term thinkers, impulsive thinkers, children. One definition of maturity is the ability to delay pleasure. If you're hanging out with people like that, it will naturally bring the Christian to the fifth one. be outrageously generous. You can give money away if you have some.

Did you know that people who feed poor people, people who feed starving kids are people who have money? That's where it came from. It came from people who did the stuff I was talking about. They're not evil. They're not horrible. They're not corrupt.

They didn't steal. They didn't cheat. They serve the community in scale and consequently have the ability to serve the community in scale. generosity comes from having planted corn so now I got some to share with my brothers and sisters and it's the most fun you'll ever have with money outrageous crazy generosity you got to do it you got to do it y'all it's it's unbelievable what will happen it'll turn everything loose in your

life your creativity will go up your passion will go up your health will change when you're you start letting money flow through you instead of to you, it changes everything in your life. But it is a mathematical requirement that for money to flow through you, you have to get it to you. You got to pay the light bill first. Feed your kids, because if you don't take care of your own household first, you're worse than an unbeliever. Are we following scripture here? You're not selfish. You're just broke. We've got to work on not being broke. I've been there, and it's scary as crud. I don't want to live like that. So we tithe as evangelical Christians. We always tithe. It means give a tenth of our income or our local church. That's your baseline. But I want you to do some other stuff beyond that

that just is mind-blowing, just for fun. I want you to just carry some money around. Here's one for you. Let's do this. And he told me to be done in about 45 minutes because that's when the Holy Spirit leaves. So, um, um, and I don't want to be up here by myself. So, um, Thanksgiving, Easter's quicker when you get in the family together and you're picking up the kids and maybe you're going down the road or two states over to go see grandma. I don't know if you're going to cross town or whatever, but going to Grandma's house and Grandma's going to make a feast. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Maybe not, but maybe you can see the type of picture. This is what happens to us. And so what I want you to do is I want you to load the kids up. I want you to leave 20 minutes early.

and I want you on the way to get off in an exit and find yourself like a waffle house. Y'all know what Waffle House is. And pull up right in front of the glass and leave the car running and tell the kids, put down your screens, watch God behave. And I want you to go in, have a cup of coffee at the front counter, at the lunch counter. Y'all know what I'm talking about? You've ever been at Woff on the lunch counter? And this is Thanksgiving weekend.

This is Easter weekend. You know who's working at the counter at a waffle house. Somebody needs a job. You know who's working at the counter at a waffle house on Easter weekend? Somebody needs a job bad. So I want you to have a cup of coffee. Order a cup of coffee. You probably not even going to drink it.

And before you leave, I want you to chat about three or four of these Uncle Benjamin's hundreds. slip them under the coffee cup and slip out to the car. Hey, kids, watch God. Watch him. Here's what she'll do. She'll walk along and pick it up and her eyes will get back. She's looking around like it's a trick. It's been so long since anything good.

It's happened to her. And God just showed up. you just changed her net worth 100% of time and even if she's not been in church in her life or even if she was there last week a hundred percent of the time he knows to say thank you she can smell the aroma of the holy spirit that you left dripping there you didn't leave a track you lost you left three four hundred bucks I want you go out and spend three four hundred bucks on a date night on yourself. I want you to do that too. I want you to have fun with money, but I dare you to have more fun than that. So here's the thing. You can decide I'm going to budget.

I'm going to get out of debt. I'm going to change. I'm going to start handling my life the way God instructs in his love letter to me, and he's crazy about me, and he's got a plan for me, and it's not to bring me harm, but to bring me hope. I'm going to get better. I'm going to be a diligent farmer because the diligent prosper and the lazy man doesn't I'm going to change now am I perfect no good gracious I'm not perfect I mess up about every day I don't mess this stuff up I took care of all that in my 20s I mess up lots of things we all do we're all working on this we're all you know but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me I can decide I'm gonna change God's crazy about you And if you wandered in here because you saw a Facebook post that said, Dave Ramsey's going to be here and you don't know him, let me just tell you, this Jesus man, you'll change your life.

God, we thank you for these folks. We turn this service over to Pastor Stephen, but Father, as I'm doing that, I just want to pray a blessing and ask that you show up for folks here that if they felt condemned that they're not, but instead convicted. And Father God, give them the power, the strength, the love, the ability to run the distance and finish the race. The ability to walk with what you've got for them and what you've got for them. Bring them protection, bring them provision, and help them to be a shining light on a hill that is unbelievably generous in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, if you enjoyed today's podcast, there are a couple things I'd love for you to do.

Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. You can also help us reach others by investing today at elevationchurch.org slash give. And thanks again for joining us on the Elevation Podcast. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.