Get Free! | FreedUp Week 1

How do you feel about money? If you’re like most of us, the answer isn’t flattering. We feel weighed down, trapped, confused, or outright overwhelmed. The fact is that money has a powerful effect on us—and God wants something better for us than the fear and doubt most of us live with. Join us today as Brian talks about how God’s money goal for us is freedom.

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    Hi, I'm Kyle,
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    your community pastor for Crossroads Church online,
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    and this is hundreds of pounds of safe
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    spinning on a very small wire above my head. Why?
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    Because this is what money feels like to a lot of us,
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    a constant threat that at any moment
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    can come down and crush us,
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    whether you have a little bit of money or a lot.
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    But today we're going to talk about
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    a different approach to work and money,
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    an approach that will produce freedom in your life.
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    To get us started, we're going to play
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    a little bit of a game
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    with my fellow Crossroads teaching pastors,
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    a game they don't know about yet, but in which
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    they and me will be answering the kinds of questions
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    you're not really supposed to ask each other about money.
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    Let's get started.
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    – Hey, everybody, thanks for being here.
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    – Happy to be here.
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    – Do you want to know what we're doing?
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    – Yes.
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    – I made a board game for us to play.
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    And here's the thing, not just normal questions,
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    these are the questions that
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    you're not supposed to ask people about money
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    and you all get to answer them for all of us.
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    (crosstalk) – More awkward questions.
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    – Yes, yes. Yes. Also...
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    – More awkward questions.
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    – The game does have rules that I will make up as we go.
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    So I think you're in safe hands.
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    Brian, you can go first, so go ahead and draw a card.
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    And then read us what it says and we'll go from there.
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    Is this fun or what?
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    – We're having so much fun, Kyle?
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    – It's super fun.
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    – Most or least amount of money you spent in a single day,
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    not including buying a house or car.
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    It probably was when I went on a hunting spending spree
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    at Bud's gun shop in Lexington, Kentucky.
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    It was ridiculous how much stuff I needed for hunting.
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    I had never rifle hunted before.
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    Rifle, bipod, scope, binoculars, ammo,
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    camo stuff, gun cases, orange for yourself,
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    on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.
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    And I thought -- I thought I was ready for it
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    until I got in there.
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    I was like, "Oh, I need that too. Oh, yeah.
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    Oh, I need that. Oh course. Of course I need that."
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    – I'm going to be in the middle of nowhere.
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    I've got to have that.
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    – Oh, and that thing that could kill something?
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    Oh, I definitely need that one.
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    So it was, it was, it was a pretty big deal.
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    That was a lot of money.
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    – How did your wife feel
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    about you spending all this money?
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    Did you talk it through ahead of time
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    or did you just like walk home from the store and go,
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    "Yeah, I sort of spent a lot of money."
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    How did that go?
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    – Yeah, boy, Lib and I've been through quite a --
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    quite a transformation in our money.
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    We went from early on in our marriage where
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    we couldn't afford to buy
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    two rolls of toilet paper at a time,
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    it was just like one roll.
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    And sometimes it was when you're in a restaurant,
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    you take some of their toilet paper.
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    We went from that and we went from having our kids.
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    Our first kid was charity care.
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    Charity care, that's what the hospital has, charity care.
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    So we went through years and years of actual poverty
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    for us as a family.
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    So we went from that significant thing to then
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    counting all the stuff and having constant stress,
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    tension points over what she's spending,
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    over what I'm spending.
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    And now we're in a place where we're empty nesters,
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    I or her and go do something like that
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    that wasn't thought out and planned out
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    and it's and it's not a stress point.
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    But that was --
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    that's been literally decades in the waiting.
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    And we worked really hard to get to a financial place
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    where I could make those sort of --
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    have those sort of impulsive days.
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    – You now get to pick somebody else to answer the question,
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    – Oh, I think that would be Alli.
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    Most or least amount of money you spent in a single day,
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    not including buying a house or car.
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    – The thing that came immediately to mind
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    when that was read the first time
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    is travel with six people.
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    Like a day that I buy plane tickets and hotels
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    and food and think times six, it's a big deal.
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    – Six friends, six -- this is your family.
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    – This is me and my husband and our four kids.
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    So any time you -- anything you do that's costly
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    and you take everybody, it's times six for us.
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    It's a huge deal.
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    So travel, and we love to travel,
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    and we want to travel with our kids.
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    But when I have bought airplane tickets
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    or booked hotel rooms or we're there,
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    sometimes Bill, my husband Bill --
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    – You need two hotel rooms, don't you?
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    – Oh, yeah. – You can't – No, we could --
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    We don't usually stay in hotels, we'll rent a house
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    because it's just cheaper,
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    you can buy your own food and all that.
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    But he will sometimes bless me by paying --
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    like by being the one that actually receives the bill
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    at the end of the day, because it takes --
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    it hurts me.
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    – Just seeing the number
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    just like causes stress. This must be bad.
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    – Even though I know we budgeted for --
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    like there's decisions we've made
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    that have made this possible,
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    seeing the number is hard for me.
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    – That makes sense.
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    Chuck, what's your quick answer?
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    – Same thing. Quick answer for me is same situation.
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    I do have to say though, I have a lot of joy.
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    So it's probably been a day at Disney World,
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    quite frankly.
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    We'll spend money in a day than I have anywhere else.
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    And my family will tell you,
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    I tend to be tight when it comes to money,
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    but when I come to Disney World, man, I'm like --
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    you know that Burger King commercial
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    where they're like shooting the money out of the things?
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    Like there's just -- there's just something about --
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    – That's you, $20s. – Make it rain. I love --
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    And it's the one place I'm free when it comes to that,
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    where I just love the delight
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    that my family gets in places like that.
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    I'm sure that's the place where I spent the most money.
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    – All your answers are way better than mine.
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    Mine is my air conditioner that broke last summer,
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    which is never fun because it worked
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    and then it breaks and then two days later
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    you're out $6,000 and you have the same thing
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    you had two days ago. Awful. Anyway, good news --
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    – That is awful. There's nothing fun about that.
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    Like all of ours had some fun stuff.
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    – Not fun, it's just life though, right?
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    I mean, there's things like that that happen.
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    They pop up and you've just got to roll with it.
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    I will say I was grateful to have the air conditioning.
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    That was an honest thing because my house before this,
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    the one we lived in four years before that,
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    had no central air.
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    So I did have a moment of going like, "Hey, you know what?
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    I'm grateful that I have air conditioning."
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    Because I've lived without that for a long time, it's great.
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    Brian, you get to -- you gave a great answer.
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    You get to go two spaces in any direction,
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    you don't have to stay in your color line,
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    unless you want to.
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    – Two spaces.
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    – Well, I will --I'll stand by one color.
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    It's growing on me.
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    – Ok, OK, that's great. – It's growing on me.
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    – All right. Awesome.
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    And this space comes with a roll of the dice.
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    Now, if you roll a six, you get a teaching challenge card.
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    OK? So just gonna tell you that. So let's see.
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    Go head and give us a roll, see what we get.
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    – Papa needs a new pair of shoes.
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    (cheering) – A six, first try, unbelievable.
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    – Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
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    – Here's your challenge: You have to teach
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    on being a faithful steward using, wait for it,
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    this straight jacket.
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    This is not a curtain, it's a straitjacket.
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    So head off, go make that happen over there.
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    – Go teach. – Like go right now and teach, where?
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    – You'll see it, right now.
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    Just that way, you'll see some people with cameras.
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    Start talking. All right, great.
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    I think that went really well.
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    We'll see how Brian does the teaching challenge
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    and we just get to hang out now, that's the other rule.
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    We get to relax.
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    You guys want to get a drink or something.
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    – I like this game. – All right, cool.
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    While he heads off to start teaching,
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    let me tell you what we're getting into.
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    Crossroads has partnered with
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    an organization called Good Sense,
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    an amazing ministry that has been helping people
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    find financial freedom for decades.
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    And together, we've created a new program called Freed Up.
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    Freed Up is an app based program designed to help people
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    no matter where you are on the financial spectrum,
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    from barely getting by
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    to having more than you know what to do with,
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    you can find true financial freedom.
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    So why are we doing this?
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    Because almost everyone is stressed financially.
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    Financial stress is one of the biggest causes
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    of divorce and anxiety that exists,
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    and God promises to fix it for us if we get on His plan.
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    In fact, we want this for you so much
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    we're literally giving it away free.
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    Freed Up costs $100, but to everyone watching this series,
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    it's free, totally free.
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    And you can get it for your iOS or Android device.
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    Now, I'll tell you right now, you could also relax.
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    This is not a financial campaign.
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    We're not asking for more of your money.
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    We're not building toward some big ask in the future.
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    If you do give towards Crossroads,
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    I want to say thank you.
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    Your giving helps us be able to do things like this
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    that literally change people's lives.
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    This is simply us wanting to help you
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    with one of the most stressful issues in life.
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    This will bring you financial freedom.
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    Now, these teaching episodes are just a taste
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    of what you'll get in the app,
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    combined with practical guidance
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    and application and some creative surprises.
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    Now, this entire program is based on three big ideas
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    that we see in the Bible, and we've summarized them
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    like this: big idea number one,
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    we are free when we are faithful stewards.
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    A faithful steward is simply a diligent earner
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    and a prudent spender.
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    A prudent spender is a generous giver first,
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    a wise saver, and a cautious debtor.
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    These are the three big ideas that,
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    if you understand them,
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    can unlock financial freedom in your life.
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    So if you're ready to take a step towards freedom,
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    head the crossroads.net/freedup and get started today.
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    – You ever feel like this? I have numerous times.
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    When my wife and I were married, in my young 20s,
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    and we had this debt consolidation program
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    where we consolidated her debt and my debt
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    into the marriage, we had payment booklets.
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    Yeah, they used to have these thick things
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    with piece of paper that said
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    how many months in debt you were.
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    We had payment booklets and credit card debt.
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    We had car loans and we brought it all in the marriage,
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    and what do you know? We couldn't make it.
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    Do you know how humiliating it is for a 22 year old guy
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    to actually live with his in-laws
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    because he can't make the ends meet? It was awful.
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    That's the bondage I was in.
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    Every expenditure it just kept getting tighter
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    and tighter and tighter.
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    And it's not just when you're 22, if you're not careful,
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    it'll still get you even when you're 50 and doing OK,
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    because you can look around you and see
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    all kind of people who are doing, you think,
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    better than you are and you can feel like a failure.
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    You can feel like a loser.
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    Book of 2 Corinthians 3:17 says:
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    Now the Lord is the Spirit,
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    and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is...
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    religion, no, no, no, it doesn't say that.
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    Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is rules.
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    No, it doesn't say that.
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    Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's regulations.
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    No, it doesn't say that.
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    It says where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
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    We're going to give you some principles
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    that can bring you true freedom.
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    We're not going to give you rules.
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    We're not going to give you regulations.
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    We're not going to give you religion.
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    We want you to get free.
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    And where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.
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    And the Spirit of the Lord has some time tested principles
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    that simply work, that have been freeing people like me
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    and people like you for a long, long time.
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    This is what we're about.
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    We're about your freedom and we're going to get you free.
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    How you handle your money matters to God,
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    because God knows that your money is one of the things
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    that's going to define whether or not you're free.
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    You control your money or your money controls you.
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    One of the things that none of us like
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    is being controlled and being constricted,
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    whether it's a worldwide pandemic.
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    Who would have seen one of those coming?
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    Or whether it's a diagnosis from a health professional
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    that comes your way.
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    These are things that the constrict you,
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    that put you in bondage.
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    But with those things, at least, it happened to you.
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    You're sort of an innocent victim.
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    But what really gets me is when I'm put in bondage
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    by my own choices, by my own decisions.
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    And God doesn't want to see it happen with His children.
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    He knows that money does this to us.
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    This is why there's over 2000 times in the Bible
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    where God references money,
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    more than just about anything else.
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    Jesus talks more about money
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    than He does heaven and hell combined.
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    He gives 39 parables, which are stories about life
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    that are supposed to impact our life.
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    Eleven of those 39 are about money.
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    He says things in Matthew 6:24 like:
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    you cannot serve both God and money.
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    You either control it or it controls you.
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    In first Timothy 6:10, it says:
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    For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
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    The love of money, not money itself, the love of money.
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    Where we're totally drawn into a love affair with money
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    and we can't control it and it causes us
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    to have all kinds of evil and, yes,
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    it is evil to be perpetually stressed out
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    and freaked out about money,
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    to give more of our emotional space to money
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    than it is to God.
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    Why is it that many of us feel like
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    I'm just not getting where I need to financially?
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    Why is our finances a stress point for us?
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    It's not by accident.
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    It's because there is an enemy who is
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    intentionally trying to hurt you and I,
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    an enemy who's intentionally trying to draw us away
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    from sensing the love of God
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    and to put us actually in bondage.
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    And that enemy rules the microphone in our culture.
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    Culture has so many myths about money
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    and things that we're following after,
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    that's putting us into bondage that it's no wonder
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    we're as stressed out as we are.
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    Just think about the cultural myths that exist today
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    that fuel destructive behavior.
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    Like things can buy me happiness.
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    No, they won't. Things will rust.
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    They won't buy me happiness.
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    Or just a little more money will solve my problems.
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    No, it won't solve your problems, because
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    all of us over the years have had just a little more money
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    and it hasn't solved our problem.
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    Or I'm not a very financially motivated person.
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    Money doesn't motivate me at all.
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    I wish it did.
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    If money motivated you a little bit more,
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    maybe we'd have less stress.
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    We just parrot all these phrases that other people say
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    and they're just not true and they're just not real.
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    The truth is, God cares about us
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    and our relationship with Him.
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    He cares about money and He cares about His money
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    that He's put inside of our pockets.
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    The truth is that He will reward us
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    and hold us accountable for how we manage the money
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    and the possessions that He's entrusted to us
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    and that He's blessed us with.
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    In order to beat the enemy
  • 00:15:38
    that's trying to put us in bondage,
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    we have to have a plan.
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    Everything big, everything important has a plan,
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    everything.
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    I've built a few houses in my life
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    and it's crazy that someone actually expected me
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    to come up with a plan and to follow it.
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    Of course they did. You're building a house.
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    Could you imagine a plumber coming in saying,
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    "Well, you know what? I don't really need a plan.
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    I'm just going to stick the water line into your house
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    and we're just going to trust that the water
  • 00:16:07
    gets to the right room at the right time."
  • 00:16:10
    You would never, ever do that.
  • 00:16:12
    You would have detailed plans for
  • 00:16:14
    I'm going to want this size line going to this room.
  • 00:16:17
    I went this many lines going to this bathroom.
  • 00:16:19
    I want this."
  • 00:16:20
    You'd have it all mapped out because you need
  • 00:16:22
    the right amount of water in the right room
  • 00:16:26
    at the right time.
  • 00:16:28
    How we operate our finances is so antithetical to that.
  • 00:16:33
    We have the plumber put his line in
  • 00:16:35
    and then we just open up. Where's my money going?
  • 00:16:38
    And it comes out and it's going and it's going
  • 00:16:42
    and it's going and it's going.
  • 00:16:44
    No rhyme, no reason, just everywhere.
  • 00:16:48
    This is why we have stress, because
  • 00:16:50
    money's come into our lives and it hasn't been ordered.
  • 00:16:53
    It hasn't been directed to the right place.
  • 00:16:56
    Nothing wrong with going out to eat. I go out to eat.
  • 00:16:59
    Nothing wrong with buying new clothes.
  • 00:17:00
    Nothing wrong with having nice things.
  • 00:17:02
    Nothing wrong with it at all,
  • 00:17:04
    so long as you planned for it,
  • 00:17:08
    so long as it's in your plan,
  • 00:17:09
    so long as you're telling your money where it's going
  • 00:17:13
    instead of it telling you where you're going.
  • 00:17:16
    If you know how much you're going to spend
  • 00:17:17
    on entertainment and it fits in the plan, awesome.
  • 00:17:21
    If you know how much you're going to put in savings
  • 00:17:23
    and it fits with the plan, great.
  • 00:17:24
    If you know that you're going to take expensive vacations
  • 00:17:26
    and it fits inside of a plan, great.
  • 00:17:29
    But you have to be in control,
  • 00:17:31
    not money and culture being in control. You.
  • 00:17:36
    God is both an artist and an engineer.
  • 00:17:41
    We look at all of creation and there's just beautiful,
  • 00:17:43
    beautiful landscapes, all different kinds of textures.
  • 00:17:47
    It's just gorgeous. He's an artist and he's an engineer.
  • 00:17:51
    He's ordered things in culture.
  • 00:17:52
    He's made it so that life exists.
  • 00:17:54
    He has the planet just the right amount of distance
  • 00:17:57
    away from the sun and just the right oxygen level
  • 00:18:00
    to maintain life and all works together in harmony
  • 00:18:03
    because He is a god of order.
  • 00:18:05
    Now, if you want God to bless our lives,
  • 00:18:08
    and specifically bless our finances,
  • 00:18:11
    why do we think that we can do that without order?
  • 00:18:15
    I need order.
  • 00:18:17
    I need to -- I need to --
  • 00:18:18
    I need to say here's my money that's coming out
  • 00:18:20
    and I'm going to create a system,
  • 00:18:23
    I'm going to create a plan to capture all of my money
  • 00:18:28
    and have it go where I want it to go.
  • 00:18:31
    I'm capturing it. It's going where I want to go.
  • 00:18:35
    The amount of savings, the amount of spending.
  • 00:18:37
    I am ordering my money around,
  • 00:18:41
    instead of my money ordering me around.
  • 00:18:45
    How can we expect a God of order to bless our finances
  • 00:18:51
    if they are in disorder?
  • 00:18:52
    We're going to put them in order
  • 00:18:54
    and we're going to find freedom.
  • 00:18:59
    – When I was in my 20s, for me, success looked like
  • 00:19:02
    trying to portray an image so that people would look at me
  • 00:19:05
    and say, "That guy's attractive or that guy is cool.
  • 00:19:08
    I want to be around that person."
  • 00:19:10
    And that influenced me in a lot of ways
  • 00:19:12
    that started influencing things like
  • 00:19:16
    the clothes that I wore and feeling like every week
  • 00:19:18
    I had to have something new so that I could look fresh
  • 00:19:20
    and feel and look attractive to people.
  • 00:19:23
    It meant that I had to have the right car
  • 00:19:25
    because if you just didn't have the right ride,
  • 00:19:27
    then people would look at you a different way.
  • 00:19:29
    I didn't realize the hole that it was creating for me,
  • 00:19:32
    but over time, you know, I was spending
  • 00:19:34
    a little more money that I didn't have
  • 00:19:36
    and a little more money that I didn't have.
  • 00:19:38
    And it just snowballed into this thing
  • 00:19:41
    where after a very short period of time, I looked up
  • 00:19:44
    and I had over $30,000 of credit card debt.
  • 00:19:48
    It's scary because you get so far in, you just feel like
  • 00:19:51
    there's never going to be a way out of this.
  • 00:19:53
    My life just wasn't working and there were many nights
  • 00:19:57
    where I stayed up the entire night. I couldn't sleep.
  • 00:20:00
    It would just crush me.
  • 00:20:01
    It was one of the most stressful times in my life.
  • 00:20:04
    In some ways I think I looked at it and said,
  • 00:20:07
    "Well, I'm so far gone, I'm so far out that,
  • 00:20:11
    well, what's a little more?
  • 00:20:13
    What's another credit card that was maxed out?
  • 00:20:15
    You know, I'm already in this
  • 00:20:17
    and I don't know how I'm going to get out of it."
  • 00:20:19
    I think there was a point where
  • 00:20:22
    trying to look at it rationally just went away.
  • 00:20:25
    The big turning point for me started when my church
  • 00:20:30
    had a challenge to think differently about money.
  • 00:20:33
    And it was a campaign that was going on.
  • 00:20:36
    And we talked about if our church could give
  • 00:20:38
    above and beyond what we regularly give,
  • 00:20:40
    here are all these things that we could go after.
  • 00:20:42
    Here's some amazing things
  • 00:20:43
    that we could see change in the world.
  • 00:20:46
    And those were all things that I wanted to have happen.
  • 00:20:48
    And it forced me to stop and think
  • 00:20:51
    what if I participated in this?
  • 00:20:54
    And it was really then easy to see
  • 00:20:59
    how much power money had over me.
  • 00:21:01
    It was exactly in that moment that I felt
  • 00:21:03
    like God was giving me an opportunity
  • 00:21:05
    to get to a new place in trusting God.
  • 00:21:07
    And in fact, one of the things I realized
  • 00:21:09
    is that not trusting God was a lot of
  • 00:21:12
    why I was in this mess in the first place,
  • 00:21:14
    that God really wasn't a part
  • 00:21:16
    of any of my decision making process.
  • 00:21:19
    And I wanted something different.
  • 00:21:22
    It was the first time that I could actually say,
  • 00:21:25
    "God, I want to trust you even more
  • 00:21:28
    than I want to look successful,
  • 00:21:30
    even more than I want to feel successful,
  • 00:21:32
    even more than the money coming in.
  • 00:21:34
    I just want to do something to take a step and trust You."
  • 00:21:37
    When I was taking that first step,
  • 00:21:39
    it made absolutely no sense.
  • 00:21:41
    You know, the idea that I'm in tens of thousands
  • 00:21:44
    of dollars of credit card debt,
  • 00:21:47
    I'm barely making minimum payments
  • 00:21:49
    on multiple credit cards,
  • 00:21:51
    and then I'm supposed to trust God
  • 00:21:52
    and give some of the money that's coming in away,
  • 00:21:55
    that felt like it didn't make any rational sense,
  • 00:21:58
    but rarely does following God make rational sense.
  • 00:22:03
    And that was also the time that I met the person
  • 00:22:06
    that I would later get married to.
  • 00:22:07
    You know, everybody brings in their baggage
  • 00:22:10
    and garbage when you get married.
  • 00:22:12
    It's really tough, though, to say, "I'm the party
  • 00:22:14
    that's bringing in tens of thousands of dollars of debt."
  • 00:22:18
    That's a bummer and you want to talk about
  • 00:22:19
    feeling unworthy to a spouse.
  • 00:22:22
    And there was a lot of shame.
  • 00:22:25
    I'm really grateful
  • 00:22:26
    that she just chose to walk with me in it.
  • 00:22:29
    That's a beautiful thing when you're not alone,
  • 00:22:31
    when you feel like you have help.
  • 00:22:32
    I just knew that I had support in that process
  • 00:22:35
    and that was a really big deal.
  • 00:22:36
    I wish my story was one where suddenly
  • 00:22:39
    all my debt just disappeared
  • 00:22:41
    and everything got really easy from the beginning.
  • 00:22:44
    But it was really more of this slow build
  • 00:22:48
    of just trusting God with a little bit more
  • 00:22:50
    and a little bit more.
  • 00:22:52
    The more that I slowly trusted God,
  • 00:22:56
    the more freedom I felt, the more hope that I felt.
  • 00:23:00
    And I got to see money start to not have a power over me.
  • 00:23:06
    One of the things I'm really grateful for is that
  • 00:23:09
    I get to invest in so many things that actually last now.
  • 00:23:13
    Previously I was buying clothes that I would wear one time
  • 00:23:17
    and then I'd get rid of them
  • 00:23:18
    and I'd invest in a car or a phone
  • 00:23:21
    that would have this short, useful lifetime.
  • 00:23:23
    And then the new thing would come out and I would want it.
  • 00:23:25
    And I just knew that was a losing game.
  • 00:23:27
    But now I get to invest in things like
  • 00:23:31
    friends that are doing amazing work around the world,
  • 00:23:34
    or I get to invest in local ministries
  • 00:23:37
    that have an impact.
  • 00:23:38
    And what I'm really proud of is those are all things
  • 00:23:41
    that I can point to and say,
  • 00:23:44
    "Those things are probably going to last beyond me."
  • 00:23:46
    And they're things that,
  • 00:23:47
    not only can I be really proud of, but I love
  • 00:23:49
    that I get to show my family and my kids
  • 00:23:51
    and other people around
  • 00:23:52
    that I got to be a part of that.
  • 00:23:54
    I got to be a part of God
  • 00:23:55
    doing something really special there.
  • 00:23:57
    Now I'm regularly thinking about
  • 00:24:00
    how can I use this to honor God?
  • 00:24:03
    How can I use this to have an impact?
  • 00:24:06
    How can I have fun with money?
  • 00:24:08
    How can I use that to actually create enjoyment?
  • 00:24:11
    Because I have margin for the first time in my life.
  • 00:24:15
    And that was a total changing point,
  • 00:24:17
    was to start to think about money in a different way.
  • 00:24:21
    That scripture that says, "Test Me,"
  • 00:24:24
    God says, "Test Me and see."
  • 00:24:25
    I'd tell myself at 20years, "Test God."
  • 00:24:29
    I think that I would have avoided a lot of pain
  • 00:24:33
    and I would have experienced
  • 00:24:34
    a lot more financial freedom sooner
  • 00:24:37
    if I just would have tested God early on.
  • 00:24:40
    The great thing is God didn't give up on me
  • 00:24:44
    and God gave me grace and I'm experiencing
  • 00:24:48
    that financial freedom a lot later than I hoped I would,
  • 00:24:52
    but I'm still doing it now and I'm grateful for that.
  • 00:25:00
    – We've covered a lot of ground today.
  • 00:25:02
    And you might be asking yourself, "What do I do next?"
  • 00:25:06
    One of the best things you can do when wrestling
  • 00:25:08
    with a new idea or a new challenge
  • 00:25:11
    is to take it before God.
  • 00:25:13
    We're going to do that right now.
  • 00:25:16
    My friends, Robbie and Amy
  • 00:25:17
    are going to help us process what we've just heard.
  • 00:27:19
    – Let's silence the noise, the to do list,
  • 00:27:22
    the wave of work, expectations, pressures,
  • 00:27:25
    all the things that are waiting for us
  • 00:27:27
    on the other side of this video.
  • 00:27:30
    I want you to do something right now.
  • 00:27:32
    Empty your pockets of all of their contents:
  • 00:27:36
    your keys, your wallet, your money.
  • 00:27:39
    Everything that feels like a burden or a debt
  • 00:27:42
    or responsibility and for a few moments
  • 00:27:46
    I want you to imagine giving all of that,
  • 00:27:49
    all of your responsibility to Jesus
  • 00:27:52
    and join me in this prayer.
  • 00:27:54
    God, look at all the stuff we're carrying.
  • 00:27:57
    Will You take this burden from us?
  • 00:28:00
    Will You clear our racing minds?
  • 00:29:51
    – We believe this to be true,
  • 00:29:53
    that when Jesus shows up, He makes things right.
  • 00:29:57
    We see again and again in the Bible
  • 00:30:00
    that He never shows up empty handed.
  • 00:30:03
    What is it that you would ask Him for?
  • 00:30:06
    What is it that you hope He's bringing your way?
  • 00:30:09
    Tell that to Him right now.
  • 00:30:12
    You can simply say: Jesus, I invite you to show up
  • 00:30:16
    in this area of my life.
  • 00:30:19
    We'll give you some time to do that right now.
  • 00:32:21
    – In the book, 1 Samuel, it says:
  • 00:32:23
    God wants our obedience
  • 00:32:25
    more than the gifts or sacrifice we can make.
  • 00:32:28
    Is there a way He's asking you to move now?
  • 00:32:32
    Is He asking for control or obedience from you.
  • 00:32:36
    Take some time to sit and listen
  • 00:32:38
    for what God might be asking from you,
  • 00:32:41
    then simply say yes to Jesus.
  • 00:35:01
    – Interested by what you heard today?
  • 00:35:03
    Well, a great next step for you
  • 00:35:04
    is to download the Freed Up app.
  • 00:35:06
    It's a personalized experience designed to guide you
  • 00:35:09
    to a new place of financial freedom.
  • 00:35:10
    Now normally it cost $100.
  • 00:35:13
    But from now until the end of May, the Freed Up app
  • 00:35:16
    is available to the Crossroads community,
  • 00:35:18
    that's you, for free.
  • 00:35:21
    Just head to Crossroads.net/freedup
  • 00:35:23
    to download it. We'll see you next week.

Process, journal or discuss the themes of this article - here's a few questions to get the ball rolling...

Welcome to the Weekend Follow-Up. The questions below are for the weekend of April 17 & 18, 2021.

  1. Not including your house or car, what single item have you spent the most money on?

  2. Jesus mentions money over 2,000 times in the bible, which means God cares about our finances. God calls us to be faithful stewards of our finances, or diligent earners and prudent spenders. Discuss the significance of the role money plays in our lives.

  3. Read 2 Corinthians 3:17. We can find freedom in our finances, no matter where we are right now. Three big opportunities you have to be a faithful steward are; 1) As a giver 2) Being a wise saver 3) Being a cautious debtor. Share with the group where you think you land in one of these categories.

  4. Over the next five weeks we’re going to take steps towards using our money the way that Jesus would. What’s one step you can practically take in that direction? Maybe it’s creating a plan to move in the category you chose above. To make the most of the FreedUp experience, download the FreedUp app today.

  5. Close your time in prayer. Say your own or use this one: “Jesus we are carrying a lot of stuff. We ask that you take these burdens and clear our racing minds. We invite you to show up in our lives and specifically with our finances. Amen.

More from the Weekend

Download the FreedUp app. This is a personalized experience designed to guide you to a new place of financial freedom.

From now until May 2021 the FreedUp app will be free beyond that it will be $100.

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Apr 17, 2021 35 mins 38 sec

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