Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - How to Take Hold of Your Money | Dave Ramsey

Episode Date: March 14, 2021

ABOUT THIS MESSAGEWhen life’s circumstances force you to rethink your finances, where do you turn for answers? No matter where you are on your financial journey, it’s possible to honor God with your money. Together, let’s learn what the Bible says about finances and gain some practical tools that will give us the freedom to say, “Keep the Change!” Learn more about Keep the Change: life.church/keepthechangeStart the Keep the Change Bible Plan: www.go2.lc/changeWE’RE OPENTo ensure safety at all of our Life.Church locations, our weekend services have been redesigned to create a sanitary, touchless environment that allows for physical distancing. Learn more about everything we're doing to keep you safe and how you can help by using hand sanitizer, washing your hands often, and more: https://www.life.church/updatesFind a time and attend a service with us: http://www.life.church/locationsNEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.church. Find locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/app. FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/life.churchTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/lifechurchCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIIdiIO-Y20hRW9niR0CA8AFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/craiggroeschel#lifechurch #craiggroeschel Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

38 years ago, my wife Sharon and I got married and we were stupid. We didn't know anything. If we'd have known half of what we know now, we'd have known not to get married because it was a mess. I was a beer drinking, hell-raising hillbilly, and I talked to her into marrying me, and we moved to Nashville and started off our lives. And about, of course, Nashville, you all know about Nashville, right? It's the buckle of the Bible bell. There's more Baptists there than people. And so we moved to Nashville, and about two weeks after we were brand new married, my wife,

who had never discussed God or Jesus or anything else with me prior to marriage, remembered that she was a Baptist. And she gets up on Sunday morning and said, we're going to church. And I said, we are not doing anything. It is Sunday morning. I will be here watching football and drinking beer like all good redneck. Well, that didn't go well. She got really upset.

And she cried. And she was mad. And I didn't care. And she went storming out of the house. And it didn't take her long to find her tribe because those Baptists are everywhere. And so she wanders in the back door. There's a little Baptist church. And they prayed at the end of service for her heathen husband.

And this scene repeated itself. every week for quite a while. It wasn't going so good. And so I decided I was going to get rich, and I got in one of these multi-level things, you know, those things where you make all your friends mad. And so me and my beer drinking buddy, we get in this thing together. And this is how bright Daryl and his other brother Daryl were. We would go to happy hour and then go make sales calls and couldn't figure out why we couldn't grow the business. Dumber than a rock. right so then we heard that they were having one of their big rah-rah things and if we went to this meeting we could learn how to do it and have a yacht and a big house and all the stuff we were supposed

to be having and we weren't getting any of it so we drive from Nashville down to Birmingham Alabama to the Alabama Theater and have you ever gone back to something in your past and it shrunk in my mind's eye the Alabama Theater holds 10,000 people we did an event there a while back it holds 800 But me and Darrell were in the back of the balcony up there all day long with these guys telling us how to get rich and the stuff we should be doing and all these kinds of things. And it's a great sales conference or whatever in this thing. And the big guy gets up at the end. He's the closure and he's the one we wanted to hear because he was who we wanted to be when we grow up. And whatever he said, we were going to do.

And we had written down five things on the drive down there that if we learned these five things, we could be ready to do the business. And he was a great speaker. and it was as if he had our five things as his talk outline. He had credibility before, but by the time he finished answering all our questions about life, he owned us. You know what I'm talking about? And then he says, there's one more thing, and we went, no, we had five, that's it. One more thing.

If you don't know God, you need to meet him. because if you think business is about monetary transactions, you're going to fail. And you need to learn that people are important. And God's son, Jesus will teach you that people are important. And you will not succeed in business until you understand people are important. And I looked at my buddy and I said, is he been talking to my wife? So he goes, I don't know. He says, what to do.

So we got to do that. And I said, well, I don't know what to do. You know what to do? No, I don't know what to do. We go back to the Hampton Inn or wherever it was we were staying. We get the Gideon's Bible out of the nightstand. We open it up. It's King James.

Shakespeare and Jesus. The chances of these two hillbillies getting through this is zero. Close that puppy up, put it in the nightstand. But I did go 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 we started visiting churches, and we went to some of those churches where people aren't happy. Y'all have been to one of those churches?

where people looked like they were weaned on a pickle, not having fun. Then we went back door of this little church. This is 30, 40 years ago, right? So we go in the back door of this little church, and it was kind of stuff happening in there. About 400 people. It had something in the air, you know, and the people on the choir, they were like moving and stuff. And we're like, whoa, this is dangerous. And then one woman in the choir raised her hand like she knew the answer to some question.

And so, and then they all started raising their hands. And I told Sharon, you know how you do when you're visiting churches. we're on the back row sneak out, right? And so we're on the back row. I said, they get snakes out. I'm out of here. I'm just saying. We kept being drawn back to that little church.

And that old pastor, about as good as you can get. He would say wonderful things from the pulpit. Like, this is what the Bible says. And if you don't agree with that, you're what's known as wrong. I love that. Like somebody, because I thought Christians were kind of wimpy, and he was like a man, you know? And his wife, you know,

It's an old school church. They stand at the back when everybody left and shake everybody's hand and give everybody a hug on the way out. It's a little church anyway. You could do that, right? And she's a big squishy woman, so she'd give you a big old grandma hug, you know. And you get that big grandma hug and his manliness. And that woman and his talks led me to Jesus.

Change my life. And I do everything backwards. Most people meet God at the bottom of a crisis of some kind. and I met him on the way up. And I started buying, I left that little multi-level thing, I started buying and selling real estate, and I got rich, at least by a kid from Antioch, Tennessee standards.

By the time I was 26, I had $4 million worth of real estate, a little over a million dollar net worth, and I was making $250,000 a year in the early 80s. That's $20,000 a month. Now I don't know what neighborhood you grew up in, but where I grew up, we called that rich. And it was fun.

too. Sometimes I hear these people say, all those rich people are miserable. We were having fun. F-U-N fun. I mean, I had that car. I always wanted, you know that car? If you ever got some money, I'd get that car. You know that car? The car I always wanted was I wanted a jaguar. Because no one in the neighborhood I grew up and could spell jaguar, much less knew what it was or how much it cost. So it was exotic. I got me a jaguar and maybe within 90 days, I was a jaguar. You know, it's like, right? know I was having fun man we went to Hawaii and we loved it that water is so blue we went back and then went back again we loved it we were having fun now I'm not here to tell you money will make you happy and I'm certainly not a quote unquote prosperity gospel guy but money's not

evil either. It's not in scripture. The Bible doesn't say that money is the root of all evil. It says the love of money is the root of all evil. What I have discovered now 30 years later is that money makes you more of what you already are. It magnifies the good and exposes the bad brightly. If you have a temper and you get money, Lord help the people around you. You will be a rageaholic tyrant. I mean, you will be out of control. If you are generous and give and you get money, you'll become what the world calls a philanthropist and you will impact entire communities with the wealth that God allows you to manage. You become more of what you are. And some of the people around you when you get money become more of what they are. Like the crazy in your family

gets crazier. And listen, let me just tell y'all, Every family has crazy. And if you think there's not crazy in your family, that means it's you. This is how it works, you guys. And so we were blowing and going. Everything was so good. We were cooking. And I had done some stupid stuff.

How many of y'all ever do something stupid with money? How many of you that didn't raise your hand have a problem with lying? All of us have done some stupid stuff with money. And I had borrowed too much money. I had $4 million with real estate, but I had $3 million with a debt on it. It was on short-term notes because I was flipping this house, flipping these houses before there was cable TV to tell you how. And so we're just chugging along.

Trugging along. The bank gets sold to another bank, and a guy in another city looked down and said there's a kid 26 years old owes us millions of dollars. Let's limit this relationship, which is banker talk for ruin his life. And they called our notes. The short version of the story is we spent the next two and a half years of our life losing everything we owned. We were sued.

We were sued so much. We're on a first-name basis with the guy with the sheriff's department bringing in the lawsuit papers. A little pink slip thing, and Sharon's like making him cookies. Hey, Harold, how's it doing today? Just good, Ms. Sharon. Here's you another one. And so, I mean, we were just, it was just like coming at us like crazy. We had a brand new baby and a toddler.

Our marriage was hanging on by a thread because you can have some money fights now. You can have fights, but in a marriage, you can have some money fights. number one cause of divorce, number one cause of disagreement in America today. Money fights. Now, we didn't get a divorce, we held on to each other, but sometimes it was just to get a better grip. You all know what I'm talking about, right? She's from East Tennessee, the hills of East Tennessee, and frying pan throwing there is an Olympic event. Finally, after standing in the shower was so hot in my face, I could hardly stand.

I was just standing there and cry because I was so scared I couldn't breathe. year after year, month after month, finally we were bankrupt. So I met God on the way up, but I got to know him on the way down. And it changed everything. I had an I surrender all moment, and I'm not talking about a Baptist altar call.

I'm talking about I surrendered. We're doing it your way, and I don't care what anybody else thinks. You're it. You are the Lord. You are in charge. And this is your instruction, man? we're doing it this way and I don't care what the other books say and I don't care if somebody's mad and I don't care if somebody's sad we're doing it this way period and there's a lot of stuff in here

I mean I'm going to raise my kids this way my kids are like dad what's this rod stuff and I'm like come here baby I'll show you I'm going to run my marriage this way submit yourselves one to another oh no it means I got to dry dishes hmm 2,500 scriptures on how to handle money and possessions. God's concerned about teaching us how to manage his stuff, his way for his glory. He's really concerned about that. And I said, okay, God, apparently I'm an ignoramus when it comes to money.

I've got a degree in finance and all these letters and licenses after my name, but here I said, broke. So there's a problem with the knowledge base I was operating from. Something's got to change. What does it say about money? And it's all in here. It's crazy, y'all. I'm still learning stuff 30 years after I first started studying this subject.

And it's crazy how in-depth and detailed and nuanced the instruction is. It's all there. But you can you just carry it. You've got to open it and read it. I mean, it's the osmosis thing running up your arm doesn't work. You've got to really get a – you got to – and man, it's hard. It's hard. So I got a bunch of young people working on my team.

there's about 964 folks on our team right now, and give or take one. And you bunch of youngans on my team, and I came in the day, and one of these young guys was doing the stuff wrong that he's supposed to be doing, and I was like, hey, don't do it that way. Do it this way.

Huh? I said, no, that's wrong. There's a right way to do it, and wrong way, you're doing it wrong. This is the right way, do it this way. And he's like, okay, okay. I come back two days later, he's doing it wrong again.

the same way? I'm like, hey, again, one more time. This is the way. Don't do it that way. Do it this way. I come back two weeks later, he's doing it wrong again. I'm like, boy, we're going to set you free in Jesus' name. Okay? This is ridiculous. And he looks at me and he says, I'm not like you. And I said, you don't have to be like me. You just got to do it the right way. And the extent you're not like me in the way you do it, you need to change. When you're doing it wrong, you need to change. When you're walking the wrong way in Christianity, God says, stop. You're doing it wrong. When we change, that's called repentance in our world. I got a lot of stuff I get to repent for every day because I do so much stuff wrong. But this money stuff, I studied it and studied it and studied it.

and I've been doing it right for decades now, and it works. And I'm, believe, I'm a lot better husband than the guy that that woman married 38 years ago. And I'm a lot better daddy than I was when I started. And matter of fact, I got grandbabies now. And if I don't know how great grandkids are going to be, I'd have been nicer to their parents. And so, I mean, it's, my kids are like, who are you? You want this from back? Okay.

This one smells. You can have it. And so, oh, man, it's, you get better if you change. The technical theological term would be called sanctification over time. We get better if we change. So let's talk about the five things that the Bible says we should do with money. Now, there's a whole bunch of them, but if you do these five over a couple decades, a hundred percent of the time you will get results that will.

blow your ever-eleven mind. A hundred percent of the time. Because let me just tell you, if you plant corn, don't be shocked if corn grows. As you sow, so share you reap. If you plant nothing and wait on the government, don't be surprised if you have mud. This is how it works.

You are in charge of planting. He is in charge of sunshine and rain. And there's this dance that we do with God between our works and his blessings and provision and protection that causes this thing where his children, the heirs to the throne. A royal priesthood are blessed. And this is how we do it. The first thing is you get on a written plan. We call it a budget in the financial world.

Jesus said, don't build a tower without first counting the cost. lest you get halfway up and you're unable to finish, and all who see you began to mock you and say, this man began to build and was unable to finish. Don't build a tower without first kind of cost. My friend Zig Zigler used to say, if you aim at nothing, you will 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. Winning is an intentional act. When the Super Bowl is over and the little reporter runs over and says, how did you win? The guy never goes, Well, I just got off the bus and this thing happened. Getting to the Super Bowl is an intentional act over decades of developing your skill.

No one accidentally grows a bumper crop unless it's weeds. No one. So plant something, control the process, control the controllables, write it down. This is my plan. Thank you, Lord. I'm going to do this. I'm going to manage your stuff. I'm going to take care of my own household first. It's in there, remember? And we're going to live this plan out, and we're going to do this thing. It changes everything. The second thing is, you need to get out of debt. Now, we knew Dave Ramsey was going to say this.

That's a fairly predictable thing coming out of my mouth. But here's the deal. The borrower really is slave to the lender. The ritual is over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender. I've experienced. I've experienced. experienced that. I lost everything because I let other people have control over my life. You know what that's called? A master. Well, Dave, I don't know if I agree with all your theories about debt. It's America. You have the right to be wrong. My old pastor used to say a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion. I've led more people out of debt and into wealth than anybody breathing on the planet today. And I'm not bragging. I just showed them how to do it God's ways. I didn't make up any of this.

I stole it all from God and your grandmother. And so we're going to get out of that because it's no fun trying to be married like this, right? Knock your glasses off, doing that. This is crazy, you guys. We're walking through our lives where all the money comes in, all the money goes out, and only the names are changed to protect the innocent.

We make tons of money, and we have none, and we can't figure out why. I know why. You gave it all to a financial system that's designed to take it from you. You surrendered it. and we've got to stop. So I quit borrowing money, period, for anything, for any reason.

And this weird thing happened when I didn't have any payments and I made an income. I had money. It was so strange. And then when I got money and I bought an asset that created income that I paid cash for, I got to keep all that. There was no payment, except for what the government takes, but I mean, there was no payment. And it was an amazing experience. And the first few years were tough because, you know, other stuff I wanted to do, and I didn't have the money.

And I had to learn this magic ancient word called no. Most people don't know this word. You press your tongue towards the roof of your mouth, you release air. No. It's tough. You're not allowed to say it in our world anymore. It's politically incorrect. So, you know, what I did was.

we got the scissors out and we said, no more. I'm not going to play you guys game anymore. It's time for a pliectomy. It's time for plastic surgery. Citibank. What's in your wallet? Money. American distress.

Thank you. Discover bondage. Bank of America. Oh, my gosh. You don't have any credit cards? No, not for 38 years. Well, 30 years. That's one of my bankrupt.

They wouldn't give me one at first. And then later, after they would give me. I didn't want it because I had learned this stuff from the Bible. And this is my wallet. Green President's faces, four pieces of plastic, my debit card on my business, my debit card for my home, my driver's license, and my handgun carry permit. Oh, rednecks in Oklahoma, I see. Okay. Hi, a guy called me on the radio and he's like, you're going to kill me. My truck payment, I said, how much is your truck payment?

$763. You have a $700 truck payment? Yeah, I said, how much is your house payment? I live in a double what? 550. I said, oh, man. I said, dude, if your truck payment is bigger than your house payment, you might be a redneck. The borrower is slave to the lender.

You got to sell that truck, dude. It owns you. You don't own it. It sounded good at the time. And you and I both know. The reason you called me is you just wanted to say, somebody else to say it out loud with you, who's also done stupid because I know what stupid looks like, son, that's stupid. That truck's got to go. You're saying I got to sell my truck?

What did you say? Of course I said you sell your truck. I didn't stutter. The thing owns you, man. This is crazy. Get you a truck that you can own instead of it owns you. This is just crazy. The third one surprises people, and that's foster high quality relationships. The Bible says, be not deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. Did you know you become who you hang around with. I was up north other day, and do you know all those people talk alike? They got accents. They thought I had one, but they had a group accent thing going. I saw it. And when they moved down south, they stay there long enough. We'll teach them how to talk, right? And they're fun. I love Yankees. They're awesome. But it's fun. There's a couple in here right now. But we can have all

the fun we want. You know you become who you hang around with. Studies say that your 10 closest friends over the next decade, your income will be within 10 to 15% of the average of your 10 closest friends. And some of you're going, I need some new friends. Well, maybe. I mean, you don't let your little son, your little Johnny run around with the weedhead down the street because you know if you do, he's going to turn into a weedhead, right? He comes home talking language. We don't talk in our house.

You go, where'd you pick that up? Because you didn't pick it up in here. So where'd you, you know, oh, yeah, okay. You become who you hang around with. Be not deceived. evil company corrupts good habits. So hang out with generous people, and you will be generous people. Hang out with people who read the Bible.

You'll end up reading the Bible. You can't keep yourself from doing it. Hang out with people who treat their wives with respect, men, and you will find men who treat their wives with respect, and you'll start treating yours that way. It's an amazing thing that happens. It's a weird thing that happens. So choose carefully.

Now, I'm not talking about being nice to someone or snubbing other people. I'm nice to anybody. I love people. I love people. or wrong even. I love people, okay? But I'm talking about my crew. The men in my life that shape my language, the men in my life that impact my spiritual wealth, my generosity, my thinking in business and my acumen. Who are the men in my life that are doing that? Ladies, the same thing for you. You're going to become who you hung around with. Now, the next one is save and invest. See,

if you don't have any payments and you've got a plan, the first thing you're going to want to do, is save and invest. Because in the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil. And the rest of that proverb says, and a foolish man devours all he has. If you spend everything you make, biblically speaking, you're a fool. I didn't say it. God, dead, don't get mad at me. But I have been a fool. Big Red Arrow. Fool, fool, fool, fool, fool, fool. I know. I know what being a fool feels like. It feels like being broke. Because I spent everything I made. Because I've always been able to make money. I just wasn't able to keep it. I always thought I could out-earn my stupidity.

And I tried it for a long time. It doesn't work. Save and invest. You're saving for an emergency fund first. Save three to six months to get ready for maybe something like a... A what? A rainy day. Visual aid.

2020. Right? Man. I mean, what if you had no payments in a big $20,000 emergency fund in 2020? happened? Or what if you had $20,000 in payments and no money for emergencies in 2020 happen? Do you have two different results? The answer is yes. In the House of the Wise are stores of choice food and oil. And then that leads you to the position to be incredibly outrageously generous. It's hard to be generous when you're broke. You can be generous and smile and open the door for

somebody, but I'm talking about writing a check to feed hungry babies. I'm talking about buying a single mama car. I'm talking about you can reach over and pay somebody who's struggling his light bill through the end of the year. I'm talking about outrageous, even sometimes spontaneous generosity. And you can do that if you're not broke. And if you've got your stuff taking care of at home, if my light bill is paid, I can help somebody. If I'm still fretting over here, I don't even see them. God loves a cheerful gift. giver. He loves a cheerful giver. So I want you to try this next time there's a holiday, maybe Easter or Thanksgiving or something like that, and you're driving to Grandma's house with the

kids. Now, you're going to go have a big feast that day, but on the way, I want you to do something crazy. I want you to stop at the Waffle House. Leave the kids in the car and motor running. Pull up in front of the window so you can see inside, and the people in your car can see inside. I want you to go inside by yourself, leave them out there. They'll be running their mouth anyway. kids put the screens down watch this going there have a cup of coffee at the counter she'll come to the counter she'll pour your coffee this is thanksgiving morning you know he's working on thanksgiving morning at waffle house pay for your coffee and i want you to take three or four of these uncle benjamin franklin pictures a hundred dollar bills and i want you to slide them on the cup and

slip out go out in a car tell the kids hey watch god God work. Watch what God does when he shows off. She'll come over, she'll pick that stuff up, and she'll look at it. She wonders if it's a trick, because in her life it's been so long since anything good has happened to her. And then when she realizes it's real, and then even if she was in church that Sunday or hadn't been in church in 20 years of Sundays, 100% of the time the human spirit can smell God's spirit. She knows what's going on.

And 100% of the time after she does this, she'll go, and then she looks one more time when she realizes no one's looking and she has no idea, there's a family with a six-year-old sitting in a van, watching her inside whose dad or mom just pulled this idea off. And a six-year-old's life is being permanently changed. Boy, watches this.

Then she goes into and does a snoopy dance, because that's the whole difference in her month. Now, I want you to go spend $300 with your spouse on a really nice night out and enjoy yourself. If we being evil know how to give good gifts, how much more so are our father in heaven. I want you to learn to enjoy money, but I dare you to have more fun with $300 than that. So to the extent you're not outrageously generous because you're in debt and haven't saved money, you're not on a plan, and you hang out with selfish people who are worried about their Instagram photo, any one of those five things that's not there or any five of those five things that's not there,

it's time for all of us to get a little better and change. It makes God smile when you do. He loves you. He's crazy about you. God, we thank you for this day. Thank you for this incredible church. We thank you for Pastor Craig. Thank you for his friendship over all these decades. incredible work you've allowed him to do and the work you've done through him and this unbelievable Holy Spirit team. God, thank you. Thank you, thank you for work that matters. We ask you bless people, help them have the power to change their lives. Holy Spirit, speak to them, speak through them, help them change. In Jesus' name, amen. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, those of you who say, oh, I feel

the same thing that waitress would feel, there's something in my spirit that bears witness with this. But you may say, I'm not really a committed follower of Jesus. When Dave talked about debt, there's another type of debt in the Bible. It's called a sin debt.

And you know it. When we look at money, we all know we've done stupid things with money. We feel guilty sometimes. But when you look at life, we recognize that we've all done stupid things in life and we feel guilty. We've sinned.

There's really, really, really good news that God loves you, so much that he became like you. He became one of us in the person of Jesus who never sinned. Jesus, the innocent one, gave his life, died, and God raised him from the dead. He shed his blood to pay for our sin debt. Because of the grace of God, because of the risen Christ,

anyone who calls on that name that is above every name, the name of Jesus. Your sins would be forgiven, your debt, your sin debt would be erased. And you would change. You would become brand new today wherever you're watching. Those of you who say, I need his grace. I need his forgiveness.

Today, I turn around. I turn from my sin. I repent. I turn to Jesus. I give him my life. That's your prayer. Would you lift your hands right now? Just lift them up.

All of our churches say, yes, I give my life to Jesus. As we have hands going up at all of our churches, if you're watching online, just type in the chat. I'm giving my life to Jesus. And now, because of the goodness of God, His presence, would you pray with those? around you, pray out loud, pray Heavenly Father, forgive my sins, erase my death. Jesus saved me, change me, make me new, fill me with your spirit so I could follow you.

Thank you for new life. I give you mine. In Jesus' name I pray. Can somebody celebrate big, worship God.