Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Making Change, Part 2: Stress Is Bad

Episode Date: September 18, 2016

Do your finances bring you fear or freedom? Whether you’re digging out of debt or planning for your future, now’s the time to build a foundation that endures. Investing in a brighter tomorrow starts by Making Change today. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We are Life Church, one church meeting in multiple locations and reaching around the world with the help of Church online. If you have any questions or you'd like to learn more about us as a church, you can always check us out online simply by going to life. Church. Another great way to stay connected throughout your weekend everywhere you go is through the all-new and updated Life Church app. It's available today for any of your favorite mobile devices. Right now we're in the middle of a message series teaching us how to honor God with our finances. and today our senior pastor Craig Rochelle will help us find relief from the stress that debt can leave us feeling buried in in part two, message making change. Well, I'm incredibly thankful to have all of you with us today at all of our life churches,

our open network churches, our family all over the world at church online. We're in part two of a four-part message series called Making Change. And we're talking about how do we manage our resources in a way that can honor God and actually change our lives. Now, if you missed last week, we've got four big themes, and they're illustrated, even right behind me. And what I want to do is go over them again one time just to review, and then I'm going to ask you to help say them aloud. We're looking at four themes. Last week we talked about less is more. Today, we're going to talk about stress is bad. Week three, we're going to talk about giving is really, really good. Giving is good. And then

we're going to talk about tomorrow matters. All of our churches, can I get you to help me out? What are the four big themes? We're talking about less is more, stress is bad, giving as good, and tomorrow matters. Again, what are we talking about? Less is more, stress is bad, giving as good, tomorrow matters. I'm going to be annoying because I really want you months and months from now to be able to say these things. Even so, we're giving you a little magnet so you can look at them on your eyes.

icebox to refrigerator. One more time, all of our churches, forgive me for being annoying, but you will remember. What do we know? Less is more, stress is bad, giving is good, and tomorrow matters. Today, I want to talk about financial stress is actually a bad thing because I have never, ever heard anybody in my entire life say, ever since I got into debt, my marriage has been so much better. Back before we had payments, we never, ever, you know, we fought all the time.

that we have payments, you know, we never ever fight because we're in debt. I've never heard anyone say the massively high interest rate on my credit card improved my love life. You know what everyone always says. High rates equal hot love. I've never heard. Work with me. Work with me.

Work with me. When we come to church, we have fun. I've never heard anybody say that before. I've never heard anybody say every night when I go to bed, I thank God for my debt. I praise him. Years ago, I used to not have any, but I thank him. but I have payments everywhere I go. I have high interest rate payments.

I've never heard anybody say that. But you know people, and I know people, and many of us have said things like this. I wish we could give more to help people who are in need. We're just not able to do that right now. I wish that one of us could stay home with the kids, but that's not even close to being an option. I wish that we didn't have this stress.

We're fighting all the time. we could travel, but, you know, that's not even something we can consider. Why? Because we have financial stress, and financial stress is bad. The challenging thing is a lot of people just really don't have any type of understanding about how money works, because let's think about it. I mean, most high schools, colleges, you go all the way through, get a degree, and people don't even really know how this works. For example, there are three guys at the gym that are kind of younger. or they were like, I watched them grow up through college and they get their first jobs.

And I'll be real honest, their parents are broke, okay? And they know it. Their parents have always struggled. And so they said, Craig, you know, you've had a little bit of, you know, knowledge in this. Would you just kind of help mentor us financially? And so for every now and then we kind of talk about things and I try to give them a little bit of advice.

Well, one day, one of the guys came in and you could tell he had made a mistake. Okay? He came in and he said, oh, oh, I said, would you buy? He said a truck, okay? I said, a new one? He goes, yeah, new one. I said, oh, I said, how much you pay for it? He just got his first job.

He said, well, $48,000, okay? And I said, how long are you financing it? He said, 72 months, and I said, what's the interest rate? And he said, 19%. Kind of like he was asking me, is that good or bad, okay? And I'm trying, you know, not to, like, vomit on him and, you know, like, please, you know. And so, you know, I'm staying pastoral, and said, let's, you do want to talk? about this and he's like well you know I just I can afford the payment and I said well let's just

for learning purposes look at what this does and so I got on my phone found a calculator online and did the numbers and I said so basically $48,000 at 19% over 17 months it comes to just under $81,000 that's how much you'll pay for that if you just pay it off month by month I said let's fast forward you know six or seven years when your car be paid for seven years later when you driven it quite a bit, how much do you think it'll be worth then? He's, ah, seven, you know, $12,000, $15,000. So let's think about it. We're paying $81,000 for something that's going to be worth maybe $12,000. Maybe you didn't pass algebra one, but those are not good numbers, right? And the challenge is that so many people just don't understand, that was not something he learned

at home, it wasn't something he learned in school, and quite honestly, he learned the way many of us learned it, and that's the hard way. And let's be honest, this is a really difficult subject to talk about because we've all made mistakes. The truth is, so many of us, we're embarrassed because we don't understand. We feel overwhelmed. We'd rather put our head in the sand to pretend like this isn't going on. We feel helpless and we feel hopeless. Because we understand the principle, and this is in your notes from Proverbs 22, 7,

that eventually will understand the rich rule over the poor, and what is the borrower? The borrower is a slave to the lender. The borrower is in bondage when we owe. We're actually in bondage to the one that we owe. That's why we don't just say that less is more. We say financial stress is what? It's bad because we don't want to be in bondage to someone. And that's why, as your pastor,

I'm just going to beg you to plug in, stay engaged, have an open heart, do something about this. Because I believe with all by heart, God wants something better for his kids than for us to always be in financial bondage. I want you just to imagine, if you will, what it would be like to be free of financial stress. Think about it.

Imagine if something breaks and all you do is pay for it to be fixed. That's it. You don't freak out. We go, oh, okay. You just pay for it. Imagine if you want to be fixed. buy something. And what do you do? You pay cash for it, not payments over time with interest.

You just pay cash for it. Imagine if someone you know is in need. And guess what? You go, I can help. We can help. We're able to do this. Imagine if you've got a week off on vacation. And guess what your biggest problem is. You can't decide where you want to go. You've got options. The mountains or the beach. The beach or the mountains. We can't decide. Why? Because you've got options. If, if the practical side of this doesn't motivate you, for those of you who are Jesus followers, I pray the spiritual side will. Because Jesus is the one who said that if you're faithful with a little, he will trust you with much. That living with integrity in what God trust us with is actually a way we can worship, serve, honor, and please God.

So if the practical side of being free doesn't motivate you, if you're a Jesus follower, man, let the spiritual side that what we do with what God trust us with, it truly matters to God. Faith with a little, he'll trust you with so much more. So I really hope, and I pray that every single one of you, you want something different and you want something better. Why? Because less is more, stress is bad, giving us good, giving us good. good and tomorrow matters. So instead of just talking practical or financial, I want to talk

spiritual because when our heart is aligned to God spiritually, it's so much easier to do things right in the natural world. And so I want to bring some prayers to our pursuit of the debt-free life. Let me give you three prayers today that I hope will become a part of just your relationship with God and honoring him with managing what he trusts to us. The first prayer is this. God, give me self-control. All of our churches, let's say it loud. God, give me self-control. Now, say it with a smile, believe me, he'll do it. God, give us self-control. Why is this so important? Proverbs 25, 28 tells us this. Like a city whose walls are broken down is a person who lacks what? Who lacks self-control. If you are a city without protective walls,

guess what you are? You are massively and completely vulnerable. You're a vulnerable to the lives, vulnerable to the attacks, vulnerable to worldliness. You're vulnerable if the walls are broken down without self-control. Now, the problem is that all of us, living inside of us, we have a two-year-old little kid. And you know the kid I'm talking about. Some of you is your kid right now, okay? We've all seen that kid in the grocery store that wants a toy or a candy bar. And what does a two-year-old kid do?

Like, what is you? How are that? Okay, it's a two-year-old little kid. You need to lock that kid up. Discipline that little kid inside of you and don't let that little kid. God, give my two-year-old little kid self-control. Give me self-control. Ladies, if I can pick on you for a moment, every time you walk by a clearance rack,

I'm meddling with it, I'm meddling. Give me self-control, God, give me self-control. Because ladies, you know you're vulnerable to whatever's on sale. And then you come home and try to convince somebody how much money you saved. You know you do it. because you bought the stupid little trinket on sale, and he got the bracelet on sale, and you needed the outfit to match.

Ladies, nickel and dime, nickel and dime, nickel and dime. You sink the ship, God, give you self-control. Men, you're not like that at all. You just blow the ship up all at once. That's the way you do it, man. I bought a boat, I bought a boat. I bought a boat with twin sea dues

and a truck to pull it with. Now all we need is a lake house. guys you do it all at once all right god give me self-control god give me self-control god give me self-control god give me self-control god give me self-control my life does not consist of the abundance of stuff give me self-control in fact years ago i'll kind of tell you a little bit of our story um when amy and i were pursuing uh the debt-free life of paying off our house we were in our early 20s and married young and we lived on under what we call the spending freeze. And Amy is here, and she'll tell you all day long,

this is what we did. But we paid the gas bill. We ate ramen noodles. You know, we paid, you know, insurance, you know, and we didn't pay for anything else. It was a spending freeze, and like we were crazy. If you want really extreme results, you have to have a really extreme lifestyle,

and everybody made fun of us. The one vulnerability we had is that Amy's got a tender heart. Okay. And at the time, I was an associate pastor, at First United Methodist Church, and our big weak spot was financially all these kids selling fundraiser stuff. You've seen them. They're selling wrapping paper. They're selling gift cards. They're selling, you know, cookie dough, all this kind of stuff. And Amy had like, nickel and like $18 here and $25 here and, you know, $28. You cannot do this. And so I told her,

you have to, we're on a spinning freeze. You cannot say yes to that kind of stuff. And it was really difficult for her. But finally she said, all right. Well, one evening we're sitting in the living room and someone knocks on the door, she goes to get the door, and there's the most obnoxiously cute, adorable little kid you've ever seen. And he's selling something. He's selling $2.50 candy bars. And she looks over at me and she says, he's so cute. I don't care how cute he is. No, you can't buy. And so she looks at this cute little kid and said, I'm sorry, my tight white husband won't let me buy one of your candy bars for $2.50. So here's $5. I'm giving it to you. Now run. So I chased the kid down and got my two candy bars for that $5.

Everybody say, God, give me self-control. Give me self-control. You've got to get that little kid under control. What we're going to do is this. We're going to learn to say no. Everybody say no. We're going to learn to say no. Everybody say no.

We're going to learn to say no for a little while. Why? So we can say yes for the rest of our lives. Let me say it again. This is it. This is all you need. You came for it and this is what you need. We're going to learn the discipline.

And we're going to say no for a little while so we can say yes for the rest of our lives. And I don't know how this will play out for you, but it will somewhere. You might like to get your nails done, you know, every week or whatever. So we're going to say no to getting our nails done. I know I'm meddling and all this kind of stuff.

But ladies, you get your nails done for other ladies. Anyway, guys don't care. I just need to tell you that, right? You know it? I've never heard a guy go, dude, do you see the set of nails on that, babe? Woo! I want some of those nails. You never heard that?

You think they're real, but they fake. Never heard that. Never heard that, right? So we may say no for a little while so we can say yes for the rest of our lives. You may love to play golf twice a week at the night's country club. And what are we going to do? We may say no for a little while and play for once a month at the less expensive place so we can play later anywhere we want to play.

We may say no to $5 coffee for a little while. say yes to grocery store brand for a little while, then one day you can drink whatever kind of coffee you want. Your 12-year-old is demanding an iPhone. I know where many of you live is considered child abuse not to give an iPhone to your 12-year-old, okay? But we may say no for a little while, so we can say yes for the rest of our lives.

You may want a brand new car with brand new smell. We may say no for a little while and drive the older one so we can say yes for the rest of our lives. God give me self-control. I'll tell you a little bit of our personal story. And it's always, you know, it's emotional for me to tell you this. But we were blessed enough early on to discover the teaching of a guy we hadn't met, who's now a close friend, his name is Dave Ramsey.

And right when his radio show came out, I mean, we must have heard some of the first ones. And we just, we listened to this crazy guy. The way he said it was this, he said, if you'll live like no one else, then one day you can live and give like no one else. And we just bought into that. We really did. And we decided that we didn't want, we knew stress is bad, and we didn't want that burden we wanted to be completely debt-free.

So we went crazy. We didn't buy gifts for each other. We still don't to this day because, and we're so in love, I don't need to spend 50 bucks to show her, because we're showing each other every single day, if you know what I'm saying, okay? And so we don't need to prove our love in that way. Back then we had a $5 gift budget for relatives and friends.

Like that was it. And so we made them most of the money. of the gifts. I mean, you know, it's interesting. I think they love those $5 homemade gifts more than even more expensive gifts. We didn't eat out unless we had to buy one, get one free, never a soft drink, never an appetizer, never dessert. It's kind of crazy. We did not buy new clothes. And I'll tell you what, you may say, you know, really, watch the videos of me in the old days. You go, oh, yeah, you're right. You didn't buy, they were all used. And at First Methodist, I had to wear a tie every day and they were expensive. So I had a tie swap, where literally

I found other guys kind of like me, and I'd bring my three ties and put them in the pool and take their three home, and that's kind of how we did it. And it was crazy like that. And we lived beneath our means. We bought a house that was about $18,000 less than my buddy's truck. It was one we could afford. And by the time I was 28, we had our house paid off in no other debt, and we were able to start Life Church at the age of 28 with no financial debt hanging over our head and had the freedom to How'd you pay off the house? It was like a car. And we were just focused on doing it, and it completely changed our life.

I want to just encourage you every single one day. Well, you know, I'm 48, I'm 52 as we're so late. Start where you are right now. Wherever you are right now and say, we're going to say no to some things for a little while so we can say yes for the rest of our lives. Then when you're out of debt, get your nails done every day if you want to. Treat every girl to get in their nails done. Put the glitter stuff on it.

little dots and the hearts, whatever you want. We're going to say no for a little while and say yes for the rest of our lives. Everybody say, God, give me self-control. God, give me self-control. Help me God, to recognize that less is more, stress is bad, giving us good, and tomorrow matters. God, give me self-control. The second prayer we're going to pray is this, God, give me understanding. Give me understanding. Because let's be honest, like we said earlier about the guy in the truck, so many people just don't understand how numbers and debt works to hurt you. In fact, Josea 4-6 is really clear. Josea says, my people are destroyed for what? For lack of knowledge. We could loosely apply that verse to say, people are hurt financially because we don't have a working understanding. What's the

challenge? In our culture today, when someone's buying something, generally people ask two questions. What do they want to know is they want to know how much down and how much a month. And what they're not asking is how much is the real cost? How much does this really cost? So I did some research. And of those people who have credit card debt, so excluding those who have no debt, the average amount of debt today for people who carry credit card debt is just under $16,000. Some of you feel a lot better.

Some of you're like, oh, help me Jesus, okay? But that's the average. What I want to do for a moment, and some of you will already understand this, but a lot of people, this will be shocking to you. I want to just simply show you how compounding interest works for you or against you. I'm going to plug some numbers in, and some are you going to say, well, that number's too big or too long or two whatever, and I really don't care. I'm not trying to say this is your life. What I'm trying to do is very simply show you an example of how this works for you or works against you. Is everybody okay?

If you're okay, say I'm okay? That's what I'm going to do. So based on kind of these numbers, if you owe $16,000 and you pay $250 a month at 19% interest, it's going to take you 40 years to pay off. How much interest do you think you will pay on that $16,000? The answer is about these numbers are rounded. They're all rounded, but they're very close. You'll pay about $105,000 in interest.

Some of you, your mouth just hit the floor. Pick it back up. This is understanding. this is how it works against you. Let's move on. If, let's say, you didn't have that debt, but instead, you didn't, you actually had $16,000. Maybe a stretch to imagine, but imagine you did. Imagine if you invested that today and didn't add anything to it, and you were able to get 12% interest on that for 40 years, do you realize that that one little investment with nothing else would equal $1.5 million? $1.5 million.

Do you think your life would be different if you didn't charge your credit coffee on your credit card and all that kind of stuff? Okay? One more thing. If you took that $16,000. And now, since you don't have a credit card payment of $250, you actually added to it every single month. And you added and invested $250 a month at 12% interest over 40 years, just $250 a month and $16,000 at that amount of time. you'll amass over $4 million to your name. And that is how compounding interest works for you or works against you.

Now, I'm a pastor. I'm not a financial expert. And that's why every week for the last several weeks, I've been telling you, hey, let's get in a class, financial peace university, where we learned from an expert. And then what do we do? We actually learn together because so many of us don't know this and don't know that. We bring our knowledge.

we laugh at each other's mistakes, we cheer each other on, and we make progress together. God, give me self-control. God, give me understanding because there's so much that I don't know yet, and I want to learn so I can honor you with what you trust me with. And then number three, our prayer is this, God, give me a plan. Give me a plan. Everybody say, God, give me self-control. God give me self-control.

Give me understanding. Say, give me understanding. and God give me a plan. Give me a plan. Proverbs 215 says the what? Everybody say it. The plans of the diligent, what does it lead to? The plans of the diligent leads to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. The plans of the faithful, the diligent, it leads to profit. You do better. You get ahead. As surely as haste leads to poverty. Somebody asked me, well, what does haste mean? Well, the Hebrew word translated as haste means, I felt sad and went shopping. I'm just joking.

But anyway, it's retail therapy, right? It's not having a plan what will lead to poverty. Here's what we need to recognize, and don't miss this. You can wander into debt, but you never wander out of debt. You can stumble into debt,

but you never stumble out of debt. You can mistake your way into debt, but you never mistake your way out of debt. And that's why we need a plan. And this is spiritual. It is scriptural. The plans are, of the diligent lead to profit.

And so in Financial Peace University, and we're still starting classes, what are you going to do? You're going to learn, first of all, to have an emergency fund. We're going to sell something, sell everything, sell the kids if they're acting up. We're going to take another job or whatever,

and we're going to put away $1,000 into an emergency fund. Then Dave's going to teach you very practically how to start paying off debts, and then once we pay off some debts, then we're going to learn to put aside some an emergency fund for three to six months living expenses we're going to learn about investing and guess what we're actually going to honor god with a plan because if we're faithful with a little guess what god will trust us with so much more god give us a plan i talked this week to um

one of the longest term kind of members of life church keith and karen uh they're a couple of most amazing people. And years and years ago, they started on a journey and went through financial peace. And then they actually started teaching it. Keith was a school teacher and loved teaching school. And they wanted to have kids and they tried to have kids, but they were unable to conceive. And the doctor said, well, you're not going to have kids. And so they prayed about it and they were blessed to adopt a son. And then they were blessed with an international adoption of a daughter. And then, surprise, surprise, what, guess what happened? They conceived, and boom, they had three children, okay?

And international adoption is expensive, all adoption are expensive, and they're trying to get out of debt. So they're in this massive, crazy time. Well, Keith started a side business, and he would do taxes for people, and then he started in kind of an eBay business where he'd buy certain, like, kind of rare things in garage sales, and then sell them into real specific markets. And so he made some extra income.

These crazy people recognize less is more, financial stress is bad, they were tithing the whole time, and they were recognizing tomorrow matters doing the right thing today. Listen to me, in less than five years, on a single income as a teacher, they paid off all their debt, including their mortgage. You can clap if you want to because that's pretty impressive, okay? Including their mortgage. Now, they were not living in a mansion, but their house was paid off. Better is one handful with tranquility than a big old house with financial stress.

And so what did they do when they were debt-free? Well, they continued to tithe, and then they started giving generous offerings to help other people adopt because they had such a heart for adoption. And guess what? Because they weren't financially stressed, you know what they could do? they adopted a fourth child and his Keith's wife Karen continues to stay at home because she loves to raise the kids and guess what Keith does he continues to teach why not the highest paying job but it's what he was created to do he loves it with all his heart and he's able to make a difference in the lives

of student why because they're not stressed out financially the borrower is a slave to the lender and guess what they're no longer a slave to anybody they're completely 100% debt free. So what are we going to do? What are we going to do? We're going to say no for a little while so we can say yes for the rest of our lives. This is spiritual. God, give us the wisdom to have self-control. Give us understanding. And God, give us a plan. And I just want to say that as I talk about this. I know, my gosh, when we look at our lives, it's so easy to feel that, oh, I wish I hadn't, and oh, this is so tough, and oh, man, maybe she looks down on me because of this, and oh, we're fighting about it. And I hate that pain, and I know that pain is so real. But I also know we serve a

very good God. We serve a very good God. And it's amazing. Whenever we start to do what's right, to pursue him, to put him first, to seek him and to work his plan? It's amazing how he honors our faith. It's amazing how he blesses our faithfulness. It's amazing how fast our God can begin to bless our wisdom and our right steps, and we can see significant change take place. What do we know? What do we know? What do we know? What do we know? All of our churches, help me out. We know that less is more. What do we know? Stress is bad.

What do we know? Giving is good. What do we know? Tomorrow matters. One more time, all of our churches, so it's in our soul. What do we understand? Less is more. Stress is bad.

Giving is good. And tomorrow matters. We will be faithful to our God because he's been faithful to us. He gave us his son, Jesus, that we could live eternally. Therefore, our only reasonable response is to give our whole lives back to him.

So what do we know? God, you blessed us with gifts, you blessed us with income, you blessed us with resources. They do not belong to us. They are from you. Therefore, God, we will honor you, being faithful with what you've given to us,

even if we messed up a lot in the past. We thank you that you're a forgiving and a redeeming God. So therefore, God, give us self-control. Give us understanding. give us a plan in which we can honor you. And God, one day, we believe with all of our hearts. We won't be in bondage to anything in this world.

Just as Jesus sets us free from spiritual bondage, you will set us free from material bondage. And we will live radically generous all along the way because you're a good God who gave Jesus so we could know you and live forever. May we live in a way today, God, that truly honors you. We pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit would speak to all of us.

And even though it's painful, God, help us to understand less is more, stress is bad and we don't want it. Giving is always good, and tomorrow matters. And all of our churches as you're praying today, I hope that many of you feel a very positive and faith-filled motivation to make some changes. To recognize, you know what? We may be able to make these payments, but I don't really want them forever. I want the freedom to be beyond that. I don't want that bondage anymore. And God, I'm going to ask you to give me self-control.

I'm going to ask you to give me understanding. God, I believe you're going to give me a plan. And all of our churches, if any of that is hitting you, and you recognize, it's time to do something different. It's time to desire something better. It's time to honor God with what he trusts us with. We recognize this stress is not good. We want to honor God, being faithful with us.

what he gives to us, believing he'll trust us with even more to use for his glory. If God is speaking to you today and you recognize somewhere in your life, you need to make a change. Would you lift up your hands now? Just lift them up. All of our churches, just lift them up. God, I thank you that even now you're putting that little kid in the bedroom and lock them in there. God, give us self-control. God, give us the ability to say no for a little while so we can say yes for the rest of our lives. God, give us understanding, the humility to recognize we don't always know it all, and we're going to learn with others and study and get better and better and better. And God, give us a plan, something that doesn't discourage us but gives us hope. We're

working a plan, we're making progress. We're moving forward, God, we're honoring you. We ask God that you would move us not just materially or financially or practically, but move us spiritually, God. Help us to feel the weight of this, that what we do reflects what we really believe and God, we want to believe your first. Everything belongs to you, and you're calling us to honor you, God, with every part of our lives. God, help us, help us be faithful with a little,

believing you'll trust us with more that we could use it to make a difference in this world and bring honor to you. As you keep praying at all of our churches, we're talking about stress being bad, stress is bad, debt is painful. There's one type of debt that's worse than any other type of debt in this world, and we would call it a spiritual debt, our sin debt.

And if I can be really, really honest with you, this is what scripture teaches us, that all of us have sinned, all of us have sinned, and fallen short of God's standard. We have a sin debt that, guess what? We do not have the ability to repay. And this is why the story of Jesus matters so much. In our Christian world, we call it the good news or the gospel.

And the good news is this, that God recognized our sin debt, and he sent his son Jesus, his son, Jesus, giving as good, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. He sent his son to pay the price for our debt. Jesus was without sin, therefore he was the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Jesus died on a cross in our place so that our sin debt could be forgiven. And all of our churches, there are those of you, you recognize, yeah, I've done some bad things, really bad things. You feel the weight of your sin. You wonder, how would I stand before God? And the reality is if you stood before God on your own, you would not qualify for eternal life.

And that's why the good news is, Jesus took your place. When you call on him, he will hear your prayer, forgive every sin that you've ever committed, and made you completely brand new. And honestly, that's why many of you are here today. That's why many of you are online. You know it. Why? Because you've got a sin debt you cannot repay. And today by faith, you're going to call on Jesus. He will hear your prayer. He will make you brand new. And you will never be the same again to all of our churches. Those who say, yes, that's me. I'm ready. I need his grace. I need his forgiveness. Today I turn to him and give my life to him. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now. All of our churches and say, yes, Jesus, I surrender to you. Church online, you click right below me. And all of our churches, as we have people, people crying out to him, turning to him. I want to be the first to pray with you as you experience his new life. All of our churches, would you pray aloud? Pray Heavenly Father, today I come to you and give you my life. Jesus save me. Forgive me. Make me new. I surrender my whole life completely to you. Fill me with your spirit so I could follow.

you every day of my life. My life is not mine. It's now yours. Thank you for new life. I give you mine. In Jesus name, I pray. And to all of our churches, would you worship big, worship loud? Welcome those born into God's family today. As a church, it's our honor to play a small part in all that God is doing in and through your life. And we would love to continue with you on that journey to find out what your next steps could be, in your relationship with Christ, all you have to do is go to life.church slash next. You know, your next step could be enrolling in Financial Peace University. We have groups and classes meeting at all of our life church locations and at Church Online. To find a group, to find out more information or anything else, all you have to do is talk to your campus staff

or go to financial peace.on online. You know, one of my favorite things I get to do is talk a little bit more with Pastor Craig about what goes into a message, what goes into a series, and how God is working through him. to develop those things. I had a chance to do that this past week as we went behind the message. Hey, Life Church here behind the message for week two of making change. We talked last week about how less is more. Today stress is bad. Tell us about it. Four big soft costs. Less is more. Stress is bad. Giving is good and tomorrow matters. We're talking about financial stress. I don't know anybody, Jonathan, that's ever said, man, debt has made my marriage better.

ever since I got into debt, I feel so much peace and so much joy in my life. And so we're letting the negative side of debt really motivate us to the good side to recognize that if we do take steps in the right direction, we could actually be debt-free. Imagine what it would be like to not have financial stress, to be able to live freely and to give extravagantly. That's what we're talking about. Yeah, we're hoping we're going to see that a lot of people at our church because we have many people going through Financial Peace University.

That's a huge part of it. That's right. And Financial Peace University really gives you the tools. And so in this message, what we're doing is we're looking not just at the practical side, but at the spiritual side and being prayerful as we get out of debt. And so I know firsthand what it's like just to hurt financially as almost everybody does. And the good news is we don't have to live that way. We have a choice.

And today is the best day ever to take the first step forward. Less is more. Stress is bad. Giving is good. And tomorrow matters. It's a pretty exciting time for all of us here at Life Church as our 20, 25th campus location in Overland Park, Kansas that opened earlier this year, we'll be moving into their all-new permanent facility on September 25th.

If you know anyone, friends, family that live in the Kansas City area, now is the perfect time to invite them to be a part of all that's going on at Life Church, Overland Park. Again, opening September 25th. You know, it's our mission and our passion to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. It's that statement that drives everything we do here is the church, because we believe whoever finds God finds life.