Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Trusting God Even When It’s Hard | The Good Life | Part 2

Episode Date: October 13, 2024

Life is uncertain, and when things don’t go as planned, it might feel like God has broken His promises. How do you keep trusting God will provide? Let’s talk about it more in this message.ABOUT THIS MESSAGEYou want your life to count—to have real purpose and meaning. But getting there can often feel out of reach. The secret to The Good Life might already be in your hands. Let’s find out how in our new series.PRAYERIf you're facing something difficult, you don’t have to carry it alone. If it’s on your mind, it’s on God’s heart. We want to pray with you and support you through whatever you’re facing. Share your prayer request: https://www.life.church/getprayerABOUT 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.churchFind locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/appNEXT STEPSHave you made the decision to follow Jesus? You might be wondering what’s next for you. We want to help! Check out these resources to ​​discover what saying yes to Jesus means: https://www.life.church/yesFIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/life.churchTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifechurchYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@life.churchCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/craiggroeschelFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@craiggroeschel#lifechurch #ashleywooldridge #thegoodlife Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I want to share with you my life story. And what I mean by that is this is God's greatest work in my life. And I want to shape the message by looking at one word from Jesus that I think we may have just missed what he really meant. And words can lose their meaning over time, right? Is this fair? Anybody else have a teenage son or daughter? And they say a word and you're like, what is that even? that is not what that meant, right?

When I was growing up, we used the word dope. Remember that? And old people would be like, where's the drugs? We're like, no, it's just, it's like, it's just cool, okay? My teenage daughters this last week, I said, what are some words you guys using? They said, well, when it comes to people's outfits, we say drip or drippy. And I was like, does that mean they're falling off their bodies? They're like, dad, you're so old.

It means, drip or drippy means it's just a really nice outfit, right? And if you're old, don't try to use that word. Don't use that word. But this has been happening since the beginning of time. For example, the word terrific. Did you know, originally, this came from a Latin word, which meant to terrify. So if I said, you look terrific, I might mean you scare me to death, all right? How about if I said, you look awful?

You might be offended. Did you know up until the 17th century the word awful was synonymous with awesome? it just meant to bring awe. I'd like you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6. One word that Jesus uses in this passage we're going to look at today. And the word is mammon. Everybody on all of our campuses, and if you're online, you can type this in the chat. Say the word manman.

Mammon. Not manna. Okay. Mammon. And to miss the true meaning of this word, I believe is to miss one of the greatest teachings of Jesus if you want to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus. Matthew chapter 6 starting to verse 24.

No one, no one, not one single person on earth can serve two masters. Anybody else ever worked in a company where you had two bosses at the same time? Anybody else been in a company where you had co-CEOs? this is sometimes tried sometimes. Before I went into the ministry,

I actually worked at the Intel Corporation for many years. And Intel actually led the way on trying this. They called this two in a box. In other words, if you looked at an organizational chart with all the names on the chart, the top box is the top leader. And Intel thought, maybe we should put two people

in that box instead of one, because two's better than one, right? And so they tried this. And I actually served in an organization where they tried this. And let me tell you what happened every single time you tried to put two leaders at the top, two people call them the shots. It was an utter disaster.

Right? It was a disaster. And why? Because over time, maybe not the beginning, but over time, people choose. They choose to be devoted to one leader and they end up despising the other one, or they really love one leader and they don't like the other. So one of the leading leadership consulting companies called Bang Consulting came into Intel and they said, this is stupid. Get rid of it. And yet people still try it. Now, we didn't need a consulting organization because Jesus said this. You can't serve two masters. And then he said this, watch this. He said, either you'll hate the one and love the other, or you'll be devoted to one. Watch this. And you'll despise the other. And then what Jesus says next. Okay, because he's not talking about our organization. He's talking about our life.

When it comes to the organizational chart of your life, you can only have one master. One. And anything you put above God will mean that you're actually going to start not being devoted and not love God the way he wants. And so what Jesus says next is a bombshell statement because I want you to feel, I want you to feel the weight of this today. This is the only place in all of Scripture that Jesus says, you can't serve me, God, and this. And you're like, what is this? He says it. You cannot serve both God and say it out loud again, Mammon. Now, your Bible likely says the word money. But the actual word that Jesus would have used

in the first century, because he spoke Aramaic, was this Aramaic word, Mammon. It was Mammon. And the first question I think we have to ask today is, what is manmin? Well, it is an Aramaic term, and what's happened over time is,

you know, when you translate an original word to Greek and English, normally there's a very easy equivalent. But what happened with this word in Aramaic, there's not a Greek or English equivalent. So most Bible translators have simply used the word money, and that's not a bad translation. I just want you to see today it may be incomplete for what Jesus wanted to say. And let me put it this way. Is money, and I brought a crisp $10 bill today is money good or evil what is it it's actually neither money is 100% neutral you can use money for the greatest of good in god's kingdom or you can use it for something very evil right it can be destructive in your life and some of you are pushing back going no no no no the bible says that money's the root of all evil

no no you you know that that is not what that verse says let me just read it for you first christ christ Timothy chapter 6 verse 10 for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil right it's not all evil and it's the love of money. So you're thinking, well, is that what Jesus meant when he said Mammon? Well, he could have used this word that was very common in the Greco-Roman world of Jesus. He could have used the word love of money.

He didn't. He could have used a generic word called money that he didn't use. He used the word mammon. So what does it mean? Here's what I want you to sink into your heart today. Mammon is a spirit. it's a demonic spirit and false God that is vying for devotion in your life.

All right? And if the word like demon or, you know, spirit kind of weirds you out a little bit, let me just remind you that Ephesians chapter 6 tells us, our battle in this world is not against flesh and blood. What's it against? It's against a spiritual world and evil spirit. So there is a spirit of mammon that exists. exists in our world today. And if you don't believe it, I would challenge you very cautiously,

all right? You can Google the word mammon and just look at the images that pop up. You'll see hundreds of images that look like this. That's not money. That's a spirit. And it's vying for first place and devotion in your life. You want to know some other places? You'll see the word Mammon in modern culture? Mammon is actually the archdevil of hell in the game Dungeons and Dragons. Did you know that? Mammon is actually

the son of Lucifer in the movie Constantine. And Mammon's the main villain in the comic spawn. So many other places that Mammon's used. And this is a little bit deeper, but just understand in the occult world today and in demonic literature, there's actually literature out there on how you can call the spirit of mammon into your life. That's how deep this is. I just want you to feel and hear today, this is not just money, it's a spirit. And the definition I would give you today is mammon is a false

God that promises, here's what Mammon promises, that you can trust money to give you what only God can. Okay. Now, this Aramaic term, watch this. The root word of this Aramaic term is this, that in which one trust. This is the core issue, is Mammon wants you to trust money to give you what only God can. And the problem is, Mammon's a liar. Mammon promises you security. You ever thought to yourself, if I only had this amount of money in a bank account, I'd be secure for the rest of my life. Mamon promises you a good marriage. We wouldn't fight about money anymore. Mammon promises you that your kids and family would have what you need. Maman promises you happiness, joy, and peace in life.

And here's the problem. Listen, only God can give you security. Only God can give you the marriage that you've always dreamed of. Only God can give you the family and the kids and give them what they actually need. Only God can give you happiness, joy and peace in life. Yet Maman promises you, watch this. If you just had a little more money, you could do all those things yourself and you wouldn't need God. Do you see how he's going after you?

And nowhere is the spirit of Mammon more powerful, arguably than in America. Now, I know all of you are not from America, but listen, in America today, what is written on every single piece of currency we have in America today? What does Mammon say? Mammon is that in which you trust. We have on every single piece of currency in America, in God we trust. God provides for our needs, not this money. Do you believe that? And the reason I get crazy passionate on this topic is because for much of my life,

Mammon had power over my life. I worship Mammon, and it almost destroyed me. My life story starts when I was really young. I grew up in a very godly home, and my parents were so godly, but the one core issue in my parents' marriage is that they fought about money all the time. I still have this vivid memories. One of my most vivid memories is my parents around a kitchen table with a stack of bills in one hand and a bank statement in the other.

And there's so much tension between them. As a young child, I was so impacted by how often they argued about money that as a teenager in high school, I made this promise to myself. When I get married, I will never let money be an issue in my marriage. because I watched it destroy their marriage. Well, fast forward, Jamie and I met in Bible College. When I graduated Bible College, neither of us went right into the ministry. We both got jobs at the Intel Corporation. Let me tell you something.

When you both get jobs at one of the leading tech companies in the world, with that salary and stock and bonuses, Jamie and I, when we first got married in our early 20s, we're making three to four times when my parents had ever made. And here's what I thought to myself. we did it. We will never fight about money ever. How many think that's true?

How many think that's true? Not even a chance. It was amazing. Like it was amazing to me. How fast we started arguing about money the same exact way my parents did. And what we did, our cycle was we would work hard, we'd get paid, and we'd spend harder, all right?

because I thought while my parents were missing, they didn't have enough stuff because they didn't have enough money. So what Jamie and I did is we centered our life around consuming. And we consumed in gold medal fashion. All right? We got the house and the cars and the vacations and the stuff because we thought this is what my parents were missing. And we make us, we got to spend it.

And how many of you know that when you center your life around consuming, you will never have enough? It's like drinking salt water. You think it's actually fulfilling you, but it's actually only making you more thirsty. I'll never forget the morning that I woke up after Jamie and I had a huge fight about money. Something about I spent too much on golf,

which is holy, which is actually righteous, you know, and she spent too much on something else. And we got in this knock down, dragout fight, and I woke up the next morning, and I don't know, exactly how this happened, but God broke my heart. God pierced my heart because I realized that I was repeating the exact same pattern in my marriage that I had promised would not happen in my marriage. And I was so confused because we had more than I ever thought we'd have. And the only thing I could

think of, because I was trying to figure out what's wrong with us? The only thing I could think of is that I had grown up in the church, I'd gone to Bible college, I was getting my MBA, and here's what I realized, I have no idea what scripture and God really says about money. So what Jamie and I decided to do out of a broken heart is for the next year, we tried to study everything God's word says about money. And what we learned and what we began to apply to our life has changed our life forever, and it is God's greatest work in our life, and not just financially. I'm telling you, nothing has drawn us closer together as a merry couple.

Nothing has drawn us closer to God than what we learned and what we applied. And you might say, what was the one thing you did? You're taking note to say, here's the one thing we did. I took away Jamie's debit and credit cards, all right? Let's close in prayer. God, thank you for what I did, you know. No, that's not, of course, of course that's not what I did. Let me tell you the summary.

This is the summary statement that we learned all throughout scripture, that changed our life. We changed our life's focus from consuming to giving. We saw all throughout Scripture this overall theme that we were designed to be generous. Jesus said it this way in Acts 20, it's more blessed to give than to what? Than to receive.

And generosity became the number one value in our family. Now, there's so many practical things that led to that, and I'll just rattle a couple of them off. This is a whole sermon in of itself. One of the very practical things we saw that led us to that is that all throughout scripture, did you understand all throughout scripture? God says you don't own Jack.

It says you're not an owner, you're a manager or what's called a steward. And someone here today, a business leader, someone is thinking, God doesn't own everything I have, I made that money. And that's exactly what made. would want to tell you. And that's why God knew you'd think that. So he said this in Deuteronomy chapter 8. He said, you may say to yourself my power and the strength of my hands.

You notice the my phrasing have produced this wealth for who? For me. But remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. Here's what God's telling all of us. I gave you the minds you have, the strength you have, the skills you have for the job you have. And I can take it away just like that. And I had to repent because I thought it was mine and that I was the one making it happen, and I realized it all belongs to God. And God is watching what I do with his money in my hands. I'm just a steward, which means this. Every spending decision is a spiritual decision.

And that led us to number two. We started living on a budget because how can you manage someone else's money if you don't have a plan for it, right? Would you give someone your money to manage? If they didn't have a plan, they winged it? That would be no. number three we started to learn to be content because jesus said life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions and number four we got radical about trying to get out of debt because we learned that scripture says debt's slavery but all those things we learned in scripture led to the number one

thing we did which is we learned to be generous and here's how that applies to mammon i'd say it this way. Generosity is kryptonite to the power of Mammon in your life. It's kryptonite because when you learn to be generous, you learn that you can trust God over Mammon. That started small with us. Let me tell you how it started. It started the day I pulled out our budget because we started budgeting in this little self-spread sheet. I'll never forget it. And I just wanted to get honest about what we were giving, where our money was going. And when I looked at what we were giving, I'll never forget. it, it's etched in my mind, we were giving 7.6% of our income to our local church. And we were trying, you know, to be generous. But I realized in scripture that the minimum baseline God wants from us,

what he says is his, is the tithe. That's a 10th. That's 10%. And we were below that. And so I'll never forget taking that Excel spreadsheet for the very first time. And I plugged in giving 10% of our income to our local church. And I had all of our, all of our, you know, what we got in income, all of our expenses, and the bottom number calculated if it was positive or negative. And when I changed that number to a tithe, 10%, the number at the bottom went from a positive to a negative number. I looked at God and I said, see, it doesn't work.

And this is why I told God. God, we'll do it when we get a little bit more. When we just get a little bit more, who's that talking? That's ma'am and you can't trust God. And then we realize in scripture that tithing is the only place we're invited to test God. Did you know that? It says it right there. Remember, the root word for Mammon is what?

That in which one trusts? Mammon says, you can't trust God with the tithe. And God says this, I double dog dare you. That's what he says. I mean, just watch. He says in Matthew 3, 3 verse 10, bring the whole tithe. Ashley, not 7.6%, bring the whole tithe. That just means a tenth, 10% in the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.

and test me in this. Like, just test me. And see if I won't throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing, there won't even be room enough to store it. So I had to ask myself a question. Am I trusting God or my trusting Mammon? And I knew the answer.

And so almost shaking. Jamie and I were, you remember this? We were so scared to tithe for the very first time. And I'll never forget we did it for the very first time. And, oh, God's so faithful. He can be trusted in this. area and he was so faithful that we began to sit down and actually write some goals out for our life financially we took our budget out we still have those goals to this day number one is we wrote

this goal down under no circumstances ever will we not bring 10% of our income back to our local church and trust god we'll never do that never we will not ever give up on that number two we said we will get radically out of debt including some student loan debt and we wanted to get out of debt with our house as well and number three this is the big goal we we sat, is we sat down and we said, if generosity is the number one value of our life, we're going to start at 10%, but every year we want to challenge ourselves to go a little bit more. And so we got excited, Jamie and I, remember this? We were talking, we said, man, what if, what if we could give 11% one day? What if we could give 12%? What if we give 13%? And I don't

know who blurted it out, but one of us said, what if one day you could give away half your income 50%. And we laughed. We're like, that's stupid, but let's write it down as a goal. And we thought maybe on our deathbed, we do that one day. And what I tell you next, remember, this is just our story. We wrote those goals down. Right after that, Jamie and I were both sitting down at Intel for our reviews, and both of us got some of the largest raises we've got ever.

And listen, that's just, we went back to our budget and we said, God, we want to increase our giving. So we went from 10 to 12.3%. I'll never forget it. The next year, we went a little bit higher. the next year we went a little bit higher. But as we got a few raises and promotions at Intel, what happened is Intel started giving us more stock and more bonuses.

And Jamie and I were like, what are we going to do with this? So we decided we're going to take all that. And if we worked really hard at making some extra payments and we're disciplined with our mortgage, let's take all that money and we're going to set it aside in an account and we're going to save it way back here. And we had calculated if we put all that aside, side that in five to seven years we might be able to become completely debt-free including in our

house and we are so excited and then literally within the next year our church stood up and said we're going to open a brand new campus and so Jamie and I started praying God we're so excited about this new building that's going to open up and we know new buildings equal people following Jesus and we wanted to give so I just started praying to God God what do you what do you want us to give towards that and I was in my prayer time one morning and I just, I felt like God whispered to me, hey, you know, you know all that money you set aside way over here? And I looked at God and I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. He's like, yeah, you do. It's way, way back there. And then I started arguing with God. I was like, don't you dare. I put that aside for debt and your word says to get out of debt.

Get out of, why do we argue with God? So Jamie and I sat down and said, Jamie, I think God's telling us. I don't know why. He's telling us to give that. And in faith, in trust, we did it. Here's what we figured. It just means that we won't pay off our debts and our mortgage in five to seven years. It's probably going to be 10 to 15 years. And by the way, it was back on the day.

It's a little different day with mortgages now, as some of you know. But we just figured that's what we'll do. Not 10 years later. Not five years later. Three years later, Jamie and I moved out of our house and we downsized to a slightly smaller house and we moved in 100% mortgage free. Okay. Only God can do that.

Listen to me. When you pay off your mortgage, that is one of the largest raises you will ever get. And we just begin to ask God, God, this belongs to you. What do you want us to do with that? And so we started increasing our giving. even more. And I want you to hear what I say next in the spirit in which I mean it.

This isn't our story. This is God's story of faithfulness that you can trust him over Mammon. Jamie and I have been on this generosity journey of trying to increase our giving every year for the past 22 years. And a few years back, we crossed over that 50% threshold.

Okay? Good. I listen. What we have learned is you cannot out-give God. You just can't. And you can trust him over Mammon. Listen, this isn't a message of give to get, right? This is not, that's the prosperity gospel makes me sick.

When you get generous, oftentimes God blesses, but you understand his blessings are so that you can be a bigger conduit to his kingdom, not your own kingdom. You understand the difference. Prosperity gospel says when God blesses, it's for you. No, we're to be a river, not a reservoir. And when God blesses you financially, which you often does when you get generous,

it's only so we can do more. And understand that God's blessings are not always financial. I would tell you the greatest blessing that God has given us on this journey is not financial. It's this. that I am more in love with my wife today than I've ever been in my life, okay? And that's, hey, that's something money can't buy.

Now, this is the part in the message where you think, pastor's probably going to pour it on pretty thick for us to give, right? And I'm not. But I love you too much to not challenge you to do something with the words of Jesus. He said you cannot serve both God and Mammon. And so I want to just ask you today, who are you serving? Who are you trusting? And you might say, well, how would I know?

Just take out your budget. And if you don't have a budget, just look at your bank account. And just get honest with yourself and say, when I look at how I'm managing the resources God's given me, does it say I trust God or does it say I trust Mammon? And I'm just telling you now that Mammon will be so destructive. So you have to choose to trust God more and more. And that might mean for some of you that you've never trusted God with a tithe.

And bringing back the very first to God in the local church, it might mean for some of you that, man, God's really blessed you. And you know what? It started to take hold of your heart. And you just need to push your generosity to a different level to trust. God. I don't know what it means for you. I just, I just want to, I just want to challenge you to be faithful to God and his work that he's doing because we know our time on earth is short. And the only thing we can take with us to heaven is people we impact for Jesus. All right. And I don't

know another church in the world that's impacting people for Jesus like this church. So it's a worthy place to want to be generous. You know, I want to invite my wife up to stage to stage because this isn't this isn't just my story it's our story would you would you help and uh just welcome my wife up to the stage real quick i just want to tell you like thank you for being on this journey because it really is god's greatest work in our life anything you'd you'd say or correct in this message you know i think it's really emotional for us only because this is this is god's story yeah this is where we felt incredibly hopeless God made a way.

It's when we chose to break the spirit of Mammon and trust in the spirit of God. Yeah. And I just want to acknowledge that there's someone here today your marriage is hurting because of this topic. And there's a way to break free. Or you're not married and you're just struggling. And I just want to challenge you to trust God. Trust God more and more and just be faithful. He can be trusted. And I'm telling you, ma'am, cannot. Would you, would you pray for us and just pray for anybody that today? I love to. Father, thank you for your word and thank you that your word brings life. Thank you that we get to choose it. And today, this week, we choose you. We choose your word,

so we choose life. Help us to take steps of obedience this week and steps of faith against the spirit of man and towards the spirit of God. We love you and we thank you for who you are. So in our name we pray, amen. Amen. So powerful. Thank you both. Come on church. Can we tell them thank you?

I love you guys very, very much. What a personal and pastoral message, and I know it spoke to you as it did me. Today at all of our churches, would you join me and those around you in prayer? God, thank you that you are worthy of our praise. And God, through and through you are, trust worthy. Build our faith, God, to believe the words of Jesus that it is more blessed to give

than it is to receive. Today at all of our churches, as you're reflecting on what God is saying to you, I wonder how many of you would like to grow your trust in God in this area. Before you answer, let me just kind of tell you what it means. It means when you trust God more, you probably will be more generous. So don't raise your hand if you don't want to be more generous. But you say, yes, I really do. I don't want to serve man, and I want to serve God. I want to grow in my trust and my faith in God in this area. Would you lift up your hands right now? Just all of our churches say, yes, that's me online. Say, I want to grow to trust God more with my money. And Father, we do with open hands. We worship you, acknowledging that everything that we have is yours. God, I thank you

for those who will trust you for the very first time with the tithe, returning back to you in an act of worship and praise 10% of what you bless us with. And God, I thank you for those who will see blessings and grow to become maybe out of debt and maybe grow their generosity even more and more and more. God, I pray for your blessings upon your people as they are blessings to other. God, use them, bless them to be a blessing to your church, to people, to ministries around the world. We thank you that you're working today. Help us to grow in trust in you. We honor you with the tithe, God,

and we want to be available to give even more. And we will listen to you and honor you. As you keep praying today at all of our churches, I'm sure there's some of you right now that you recognize and God is really not first in your life. This was my story growing up. I would go to church some and believed in God, but he was not first.

And the thing about God is he's God and he really wants to be first. the jealous God, and he doesn't want anything to be more important in our lives than him. And let me tell you why he should be first, because he is a good God who loves you so much. If you feel distant from him, it's because we, in our sinfulness, we've all sinned against God and that separates us from God. But he loves us so much that while we were still sinners, he became one of us in the person of his son, Jesus. And Jesus was without sin, perfect in every way, and gave his life on a cross. God, raised him from the dead.

So anyone, and this includes you, who calls on the name of Jesus, your sins would be forgiven and you would be completely new. Today, some of you recognize, he's not first, he's not the Lord of your life. And guess what? Today can be the day of your salvation. What will we do? We're going to step away from our selfishness. We're going to step away from our sin.

And we're going to declare His Lordship call on Jesus, make him first. As you do, God will hear your prayer. He'll forgive your sins today at all of our churches. those who say, that's me. I don't really know him. He's not first. But by faith today, I step away from my sins and I make him my Lord.

I call on Jesus. Jesus, take my life. I give it to you. That's your prayer today. Would you lift your hands high right now at all of our churches? Say yes, praise God for you. Today is saying, yes, all of our churches.

I call on you, Jesus. I need you. Would you be first in my life? Online, you can type in the comment section. I am surrendering my life to the Lordship of Christ. I'm trusting Jesus today. At all of our churches, would you just join your faith with those around you

and pray, pray Heavenly Father, I surrender to you. Be first in my life. Jesus, my Savior, and Jesus, my Lord. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you and trust you and serve you in every area of my life,

especially in general. use me to bless others. I surrender my life completely to you. Thank you for new life. In Jesus name I pray. Could you celebrate today? Praise God for those being born into the kingdom of God.