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SA Ep101 - For RIcher or Poorer · Seeking Approval Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Smelser from Iliad Baptist Church.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know life moves fast, and faith is not meant to be rushed.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: So join me here today on Seeking Approval.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I make more money than I used to, but yet I'm more broke than I ever have been.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel yourself saying that here lately?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: In our contemporary issues series, I want to deal with the financial uh climate in which we are living in right now.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And again, trying to look at it from a biblical point of view.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: This may be one of the strangest feelings that people can have right now.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you can make more money than you did 10 years ago and yet still feel like it just it's all kind of gone.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh there are many, many families uh around the country that are living in the red, paycheck to paycheck.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with that.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that that's the that's the life of a middle class worker.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times I say that our family's not even the you know the blue-collar worker.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, our family's not the blue-collar worker, we're the white t-shirt worker.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're the people that have always been working for the blue-collar guy.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so we're more of the white t-shirt.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So living paycheck to paycheck is is uh nothing to be ashamed of, but it can also cause stress in your life.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh groceries are costing more, insurance costs more.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: We got our uh insurance uh for our church this past year.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: We have to pay uh each year we have to pay our insurance, and it had skyrocketed.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when I called to to find out about it, uh it was the the excuse was it's just what it is now.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um the our interest that we have costs more uh eating out.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can't hardly go.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh the you know, value menus are no longer values anymore.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they are, but they're values compared to the you know rising cost of everything else.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Utilities are way up, uh, gas is up right now, it'll go back down, but it's up right now.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, what do we do in in these times uh when dealing with things like this?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh eventually the financial pressure becomes more than just numbers.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes an emotional thing and it becomes a spiritual thing.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: People are are now saying, well, I'd I would come to church, but it's too far to drive, and gas is too expensive.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you start thinking about money from the moment you wake up to the time you go to bed, you worry about it at night, you can't sleep, you argue with your spouse, you avoid opening the mail, you wonder if you're ever going to get ahead.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the question isn't just why is everything so expensive?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: The question, the bigger question that we need to be looking at, or that I want to look at, is how should a Christian live when the paycheck doesn't seem to go far enough?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Where does our where does faith come in in all this?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes the pressure is real.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where we need to begin is the the pressure that we're dealing with, because not every financial uh hardship in life is caused by irresponsibility.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Some things just cost more.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Things have gone up.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: All those things that that we've mentioned, I mean, right now, if you uh if you go to the doctor, I mean, those prices are uh astronomical right now.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh people's copays have gone up, premiums have gone up.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everything has gone up right now.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, groceries have stretched budgets, I mean, to, I mean, they are razor thin on just trying to buy groceries.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I remember, not that anybody else doesn't, but I remember whenever we were young, or when I was young, and our family of four, my mom and dad, me and my brother, you know, three men in a house, and you know, we all ate.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, our family like to eat.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, three men in a house, but my mom, when she would go to the grocery store, I remember when I was old enough to start pushing the buggy around, and I can remember vividly going through the checkout and helping and you know, stuff like that.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the little lady, you know, she would let me scan some of the groceries, you know, very hometown, you know, grocery store, you knew everybody.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but I remember that, you know, mom used to uh feed us for a couple weeks on a you know about 125 bucks.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think they would spend anywhere from two to three hundred dollars a month in groceries.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, you couldn't go, I mean, if you went right now, you know, UT's playing a game this weekend.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if you wanted to go get game day food, you know, just some stuff you can heat up, you know, some little pizza things and this stuff and french fries and all this, you get a few things like that, you're you're already well over$100.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's for you know one meal for a small family.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, then people start looking and say, well, we've got to be more careful of what we're doing.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, those people must be really bad with their money because they can't get ahead.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes people are just going through a hard season.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible just tells there are seasons in life, and there's some hard seasons.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 6, 31, 32 says, Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or uh whether withal shall we be clothed?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: For your heavenly father knoweth that you have need of all these things.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: So notice Jesus didn't say that those things aren't real.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Those are real needs of what you're eating, what you're what are you what are you gonna put in for nourishment, how you're gonna pay your bills.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just getting your basic necessities is basically what that verse is talking about, verse 31.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically talking about our basic necessities.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't say that those things aren't real, but he says that God knows about them, the father knows about them.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: So our faith, it's not like our faith all of a sudden requires us to pretend that the bills aren't real.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens is faith reminds us that the bill is not bigger than God.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was talking the other day, which we're gonna do an episode on this here soon about all this alien stuff that people are talking about right now.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness, it is it is out there.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll we'll do an episode on it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe uh coming up here soon after looking at my list.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe tomorrow, I have no idea.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but uh I was I was talking with somebody about that the other day, and they're you know, they're like, well, how do you how do you deal with that being a Christian?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll I'll give you know my full answer, but just you know, kind of in jest right now is well, uh who am I to put God in a box?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I to say that God can't can't do that?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Who I mean I I don't know.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just on surface level right now, we will get more in depth on that.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to get focused on the aliens right now, but who am I to put God in a box and say that he couldn't feed my family?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: That he couldn't clothe us, that he couldn't take care of our basic needs.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever he said, right after all those basic things of eat and drink and be clothed, right after that he said that God is going to supply all of my need according to his riches, not according to what I need, not according to a portion or my allotment of his riches, that you know, once I use it up, you know, you're done.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And once you use all the meal out of the barrel, it's over with.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Once you pour out all the oil of that cruise, it's over.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's according to his riches.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: There will always be meal in that barrel every time I go back.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: It may not be overflowing and dumping out in the floor every time I get a scoop, but when I need a scoop, there'll be a scoop.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way God works.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we we've got to remember that faith does play a huge role in this, and we can't put God in a box to start thinking that, well, if I don't make it, it ain't gonna happen.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we're all guilty of that.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a book that was just released here uh in the last uh month or so.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Enough, and it's it's a it's a it's a book, probably one of the more real books.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean the commentaries are real, it's about real stuff, but I'm talking about for me a personal book, a topical book.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably one of the most real books I've ever written because it was it was real events, it it happened over you know, about a month or so span of just all these things coming down.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then you start asking yourself, you know, you start starting to warn, like, well, I'm I I can't handle this.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not enough to do this.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's not enough in me.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have enough in a bank account, I don't have enough in my in my stamina, in my strength, my back's not strong enough, or you know, my mind is too weak, you know, whatever it is, you know, I'm not enough, I'm not enough, I'm not enough, and we forget we're putting God in a box by saying that if we can't do it, he can't do it.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the case.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we we move from that to the contentment that we have doesn't mean pretending that we don't have anything.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: That we we should be content with what we have.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that we ought to be content with what we have.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So contentment doesn't mean that, well, I just don't care what happens.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that never trying to improve your situation, never asking for a raise, never looking for a better job, or not wanting uh to own instead of rent or trying to pay things off sooner or saving money.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Philippians 4, 11 and 12 says, for I have learned in whatsoever state I'm in, therewith to be content.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: See, Paul had to learn.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I have learned therewith to be content.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever statement, to be content.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't an automatic uh response of of our of our uh our uh systems just to say, okay, well, I'm content with where I'm at, I'm happy, I'm good with uh, you know, not having much food or you know, clothes being old.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: We had to learn.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you look at the two conditions.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: He knows how to be abased, and he knows how to abound.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So contentment means that our peace is not controlled by the season that we happen to be in.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Our contentment is controlled by knowing that we serve a God who knows whether we're being abased, whether we're in that hard season or whether we're abounding when in that good season.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about anybody else, but you know, right right now it seems like, and I'm I'm uh I guess to a to a f uh a fault sometimes when I'm speaking in public or even in the pulpit, I'm I'm openly honest about things.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't want to be, I mean, I'm sure I'm accused of being a liar, but uh, you know, I I don't I don't attempt to be a liar, I don't attempt to cover things up, and a lot of times, you know, I I told, especially by uh, you know, my wife, you probably don't need to say those things while you're up there.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: You probably just shouldn't have said that today.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then it eats me up that I said something like that.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I've I've been fairly honest here here lately in the time that we're in.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: We are we're in a very hard season.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Our family and and the the way that Satan is attacking our church, and you talk about those things and everybody around you starts looking at what's going on in the church.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: They must have some, you know, people must be, you know, discontented in the church.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: There must be an uprising in the church.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not it at all.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's just we're in a season right now where Satan is attacking everywhere.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there is sickness all around.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, people are are are coming with I mean serious sicknesses like dementia and uh you know cancer and things that are really devastating people, uh people losing children uh uh you know in the womb.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some heavy, hard things that have just been hitting over and over.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh I mean, and there are some folks that uh, you know, I'm sure that are dealing with some hard feelings, you know, towards, I guess, towards one another.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a very loving church, but I think that most people have hard feelings in a church or probably towards me, which is typical in in your you know, your churches.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're the person who does the most speaking is the one who's going to garner the most attention, whether it be good or bad.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I'm sure we have you know some of that as well.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just a hard season right now that we're going through.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Our family's going through it.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Satan is attacking every time we turn around.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's attacking, and sometimes he attacks through the finances.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's just it everywhere you turn, this is a hard season.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So this stuff is is real that we're facing, and the pressure of it becomes real, and we're in this season.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the things that we face, it is because of circumstances.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: The things around us.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes God leads us into areas that we need to be in uh to learn.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he uh leads us into areas to protect us from things.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes we get in the pit.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Another book we got out uh right now, when your path has a pit in it.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he sends us to the pit to protect us from the danger that's around because the the danger's not coming in there with us.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're we're protected in there, but all we see is the pit.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the people around you dig a pit that you fall in, like Joseph's brothers did.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: The people around you do it.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes there's just a pit in the road and you fall in it, sometimes God leads you into it.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's many reasons why we end up in the areas and the seasons that we're in.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we dig our own pit.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's about five ways we get in a pit, and one of those is that we dig our own pit and jump in it.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And in the financial world, we can fall into these financial pits.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I need a new vehicle.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with the one you got?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: They got that new body style out.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, right now, a truck like the one I drive, I drive a uh uh 2014 F-250 platinum.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I bought it when it was one year old, had about uh 30,000 miles on or so.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was a little high mileage for a one-year-old vehicle.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, it was everything I was looking for at that time.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think back when I got it back in uh 2015, I got it for like 40, between 40 and 45,000, which was a lot of money back then.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: That truck today, if I went and bought that truck new off the lot, I'm looking at you know 100 grand easy to buy that truck.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why would I go trade in a truck just because it's you know over 200,000 miles, but still runs just fine?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Never done one thing to it.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean, just normal maintenance.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Changed a few cool packs on it, and uh my driver's side mirror that a guy broke off when he was trying to speed around me on a two-lane road uh and a car was coming, he got too close to me, knocked my mirror off, so I had to replace the mirror once.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, why would I go trade a truck in just because the newer body style looks better or has a few more bells and whistles now that the others had?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a truck payment.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes we dig our own pit like that.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: We want the newest phone, so we'll go and we we we'll finance a phone, financing a phone.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we need the best streaming service, so we're gonna get a better streaming service, a bigger house.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we need to go on another vacation.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean all these things, and and sometimes we do it to ourselves.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that these things are sinful.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that we're you know just openly being sinful.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's just sometimes we do make bad decisions that lead us to this place.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Luke 12, 15 said, A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things in which he possesseth.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So our life is not on what we have.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was just talking with some folks the other day.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: They were looking at my shoes, my tennis shoes.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I rarely ever wear tennis shoes, I've usually on dress shoes or work boots.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's about all I ever wear.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I had on tennis shoes the other day, and they're white, and uh they've you know got the little you know air bubbles around the bottom of them.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there was some teenagers, and they're like, Man, what what brand shoes are those?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: What brand shoes are those?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't ever tell them because there's no markings on it, because everything is just it's all white.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's no no color to it at all.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so you can't hardly you know see anything on it.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they kept asking, man, what brand, what brand, man?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is that new balance?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the new, you know, whatever.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: They were naming all these other shoe things that I didn't know what they were, so I kind of let it go on.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, later on, uh they were talking about uh they got talking about something else that was revolving around money.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, You know those shoes you're talking about that I've got?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Yeah, and I said, those are$15 from Amazon.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because they were talking about their shoes, that's what they were talking about.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: They were talking about how one of them paid$130 for their shoes, another was paid, you know, paid$117 for their shoes and all this stuff.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, My shoes cost me$15 from Amazon.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, it didn't.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way those weren't$15 shoes.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they are.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I said, but you're more worried about the name that's on the side of the shoe.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, these these don't hurt my feet.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Get insoles.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: I go buy a$15 pair of shoes and a pair of$10 insoles, and I'll wear them for a year.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'll switch it out and I'll put my insoles in.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've got insoles in every pair of shoes I own.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes we we we make decisions like the$130 pair of shoes instead of the$15 pair of shoes.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and we get stuck in some things, and it does cost us.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then we we get stuck in some things because of comparison.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: We bring this pressure on ourselves because of comparison.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: We start comparing to what our neighbors have and family have and co-workers and all this other stuff.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the better house, the better truck, and you know, the better shoes, and all this stuff.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we want to have our we want our kids to have more Christmas gifts and the neighbor's kids down the road because the neighbor kids they can't be better than our kids.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we make some decisions like this.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, there is times when we will be making more money, but we're not, we're more broke than we are before.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's because of circumstantial things that happen around us that are out of our control.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: We can't control gas prices.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: We can control how much we drive, and we can control which vehicle we drive.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: My truck that I was just talking about, it stays parked a lot of the times.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I drive our little 2014 or 2012 Ford Fusion Hybrid.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Bought that thing, brand is uh sorry, it was one-year-old, had about 15,000 miles on it.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't buy brand new vehicles, I buy them one-year-old, had about 15,000 miles on it.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I bought it.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: We were going to trade it in some years later for an SUV whenever our daughter was getting bigger, and and we went in, they were gonna give us like$8,000 for it, which was not even gonna pay it off at the time.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, we're not doing that.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'll keep the thing.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I've kept it now, and I've had it for 16 years.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: That car, it looks brand new.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mean, little scratches and stuff here and there, but it looks brand new, smells brand new, and all I drive it back and forth to work, you know, 200,000 miles on it.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: That car gets most of the driving right now while the gas prices is high.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it's circumstantial, sometimes we can make a little bit of wiser decision than what we're driving.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sure, I'd love to drive my big truck everywhere, man.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Things like sitting in a recliner when I'm driving, but you know, a little better decision.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 10, 12 says, but they measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul wrote.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: We do that in a church.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we know he was writing this letter to the church, but this is how we get in trouble in the church too.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: We start comparing what other people are doing.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: When raising our daughter, I mean, and we don't have a perfect child, we don't have a perfect life or anything like that.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't, I wouldn't ever dare to say that.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we try we tried to teach her right, you know, when she was growing up.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, I missed the mark growing up, and I don't want her to make the same mistakes that daddy made, and and mama don't either, but uh, you know, she's gonna make her own mistakes and she has.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: But we did tell her when she was growing up, whenever she, you know, she'd do something, and she'd say, Yeah, but you know, at least I'm not doing what so-and-so's doing.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care what so-and-so is doing.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care that so-and-so, you know, made an 85 on their grade card.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't give you the right to make a 90.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's you, you're, you know, you need to be better than that in this situation, or you know, if or if 90 was the best you could do, that's fine.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: But we we don't compare ourselves to other people.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't compare ourselves to ourselves.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: We compare ourselves to the word of God.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is the pillar on the ground of truth.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're going to compare ourselves to anything, we compare it to the word of God.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 13, 5.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as ye have.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Comparison is the thief of joy.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: You probably heard that before.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a new saying.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I couldn't take credit for saying that.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Too many people have said it way before me.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: But if you never heard it before, then I'll tell you, I was the first one who ever said that.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: But uh no.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the comparison is comparison is the thief of joy.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can have something that you love so much, and it's not as nice as somebody else's, and the next thing you know, what you have is no longer good enough.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it robs you of the joy of what you have.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of thieves of joy out there, but comparison is definitely one of them.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of things that can cause us.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's other things that can cause us.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Fear can can can cause these things.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do we do this?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as a Christian, we ought to have stewardship.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible uh speaks to Christian stewardship with our finances, but it's more than just don't spend money.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're not we don't we shouldn't live like misers.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we shouldn't be uh you know, living like you know, we all hear the stories about the little old lady who, you know, froze to death in her house because she, you know, we didn't want to burn the oil uh in in the fireplace, and so she, you know, she died a millionaire, but you know, she died uh you know, froze to death in her house.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some of those stories are great, but I can't tell you this one.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: We had a little lady at our church years ago, uh, she was a widowed lady, and uh this is why we have some of the policies that we have at our church now about how we deal with our widows and widowers.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you about that in a second.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: But uh this little widow lady, uh Miss Mary, uh Mary Banton was her name.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was Mary Banton was her last name.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: If I I've got that wrong, I apologize.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: But anyways, Miss Mary, a little red-headed Miss Mary.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um it'd been, you know, months, and finally somebody had either visited church, I can't remember how we found out the information, but they said, You know that she is living on dry oatmeal.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, how do you know this?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't a pastor at the time, I was uh I was serving as a assistant pastor, but you know, how how do you know this?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they somehow they they knew she was coming to find out she didn't have the money for the last few months to to pay her uh utility bill and her water bill.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so they had to shut both of them off.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And she'd been living months with no groceries, no electricity, and no running water.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the only thing she had to eat was dry oatmeal.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean so now as far as our our deacon board they they visit monthly all of our widows and widowers in person.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: They go to the home.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we've told all of our widows and widowers when they come over, they're gonna they're gonna just go open the refrigerator, they're gonna make sure your water turns on, they're gonna make sure you got lights in the house, the heat and air, and all that good stuff.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: We just wanna we just want to make sure because sometimes people are so embarrassed or so prideful, whichever one you want to call it, that they won't say anything, and then you know, there you know, we have a Miss Mary Banton situation.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: But stewardship does not mean you have to live like that.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: She wasn't doing that on purpose, she didn't have money, but it doesn't mean you have to live like those those people are.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: We are we are to live in a way that we are providing life for us and our families.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Paul actually wrote that to Timothy in the in his first letter to Timothy.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: He said, But if but if any provide not for his own and for and specifically for uh those in his own house.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's saying you need to provide.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't do that, you're you're worthless as a man.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I believe that a man ought to be the hardest working person in the house.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh probably.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs talks about the ant that prepares ahead.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean saving and storing up.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: But we also need to do what we need to do right now.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: We need to take care of our own now, but we also need to save for what's ahead.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: John Wesley, uh I don't like quoting other people all the time, but he had a pretty good quote that went along with this when he he was trying to summarize Christian stewardship and he gave him three simple ideas.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: He says, gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: So make all you can.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Save all of it that you make, and then give all of it that you can give.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: How much is that?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, whatever it is you can give.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: The famous story about JC Penney, uh, he started off giving 10% of his uh earnings to the church.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And uh eventually that 10 became 15, the 15 became 20, 20 became 25, and 30, and by the time he died, 90% of what he made was going to the church.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: He gained all he could.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Saved all he could, and gave all he could.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very that's a that's a really good way of thinking about that.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I use that quote, uh, because I think I think Wesley really really did the justice to that as far as Christian stewardship.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: So then what we have to do is the hard seasons that we're in right now, we can't let the hard season turn us into uh somebody who doesn't enjoy the things of life.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I shouldn't buy that.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: We can't go anywhere, and oh we're not gonna go, you know, on this uh, you know, you know, short trip over there, no kids, you can't go to your friend's house because we can't afford the gas, you know, things like that.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and especially, and let me go ahead and say this if you're especially if you're a parent out there and you're listening to this, your children should never have to worry about the finances in your house.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you do it different, but I never knew growing up that we didn't have money.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so many people to say that because you didn't know the social media world has changed all that.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't know that that other people didn't have homes like we had, didn't eat the you know, hamburger helper every night like that's what we had.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then some people had less than that, but there was a lot of people that had a little lot more than we had.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that everybody didn't have the the brown, brown and served split top rolls and hamburger helper every night.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that people were actually going out to eat a lot.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, going to McDonald's for us was a treat to get to go to McDonald's.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we got those little 28 cent hamburgers.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: How many people remember that?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: 38 cents if you wanted cheese on it.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we didn't get cheese on it because it's too expensive.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we shouldn't, we shouldn't live that way.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't let that pressure turn us into that, and we shouldn't let the pressure cause us to put the pressure on our kids.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, you can't go to your friend.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I'm not gonna drive you over there.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can't go have fun or now you know how bad we are financially.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, you ain't getting that.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a right way to do it, there's a wrong way to do it, and there's sometimes when you do it to try to help your family or help your children live an enjoyable life.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and it it's it's a it's a sad and a shameful thing to see whenever kids are the ones who are worried financially because the parents are putting all the pressure on them.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: So in these situations that we're living in right now, where somebody may out there saying, you know, I'm I'm working more, I'm working more hours, I'm making more money, but I am more broke than I've ever been in my life.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's a couple things to stop and look at.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Some of those things you can't you can't do anything about.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna be able to change the inflation, you're not gonna be able to change the gas prices right now.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to pray for those who are in positions to change those things.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: But on top of that, there's some things that we need to look at in our own self, in our own uh foolishness that we have sometimes.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: But we can't forget in all of it that we've got to have faith in God.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: We can't put him in a box and say, if I can't make it, you know, if if boss man can't pay me, then I'm I'm gonna starve.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to have some faith in God that he will supply all of our need according to his riches and glory.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And join me, Dr.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Spelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, grace and peace to you from seeking approval and gile to the Baptist Church.