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We are in the giving series. We are in week three. We always do three weeks in this Week one, We usually always talk about tithing. Week two, Kingdom Builders. Week three, personal finance. And we talk about this with three weeks every year because it's very important that we get this right in our life. We don't realize this, but we handle money every day. Every one of us handles money. I say, I don't touch it. No, but it's going somewhere. The average person is in America spends $220 a day. And you're like, how do they do that? No, think about mortgage, car payments, utilities. If you average it all out, you're handling about $220 a day. The average American has $67 in their pocket right now. And some of you are like, I'm above average. And some of you are like, I've never been average. All right, so $67. Here's why we gotta get this right with financial stuff, because we're being bombarded with ads every day. I found this out in 1970, the average person received 500 to 1500 ads coming at them. Now the average person in America has 4,000 to 10,000 ads coming at them all day long saying, buy this. You need this. This'll make you feel better. You gotta have this. Your neighbors have it. And then let's not even forget, like, Instagram, which isn't even counted as an ad. Then you see these people have that, and they had this, and. And they went there and look at how. Okay, so we better get this right. Because also, they say that about 20 to 40% of all divorces, money is a huge contributor. There's a lot of stress that's coming in. And when money is in order and we get this right, there's freedom, there's joy and generosity. There's stress that is removed from your life. And so let me review quickly. Week one, we talked about tithing. And this is very important to understand. Tithing predates the law, goes back to Abraham. Genesis 14 predates the law. There's a lot of skepticism. But I'm going back to Father Abraham and that we are part of that inheritance. And if he tithe, I'm going to tithe. If Jacob tithe, I'm tithing, I'm starting there. And that's what our church does. And we say, a heart touched by God wants to do this. Now, I want to say this, too. If we made it sound transactional, I want to just back up from that for just a moment. This is not transactional. This is relational. It's relational. Okay, so I'm not doing, like, okay, God, chick, you know, I pay Dakota Electric and I pay you. No, this is relational, not transactional. And the other thing, I want you to understand, this is supernatural. There is something supernatural that happens. Malachi 3 10. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. There's a supernatural component to this. And so when you do this, not transactional, relational from the heart and supernatural, then last week we talked about over and above, what do we do with the 90%? And I just wanna clarify this. What's fun is after I get done preaching, I'll go over and see Becca. And she's usually the first person that talks to me after the sermon. And she kind of does, like the Roman emperor, you know? No, she's usually like, great job. But she said, I didn't quite understand the first fruits thing. That was just a little confusing. I don't think it gave it. So I agree with her. I agree. And I love the way she helps me get better. What I was trying to say about first fruits in the Old Testament, that was similar to tithe. The tithe was at the end of the harvest. Okay, it was at the end. And so they're in an agricultural society. They're not getting a paycheck like we do every two weeks or twice a month. They got one big day coming at the end. They then they measure up the increase and tithe. But because they didn't wanna wait till then, because they wanted to honor God and they wanted to show God, you are first in our life and everything revolves around you. They did the first fruits offering, which is one and a half, two and a half percent. And it was not even the tithe. It was just like, we love you, we honor you. Everything is coming from you. So it wasn't like, well, we'll wait and see how good God is. It was, we know God is good, and we'll give this first because God is good. That was the first fruits. Okay, So I want to clarify that. Then we talked about kingdom builders, and I threw seed all over the place. And some of you OCD people, you're like, ah, there's seeds. And it was funny. I was doing the announcements and I noticed, like, after I had thrown the seed around at one of the Services. There was corn seed all over in the crack. There was corn seed underneath people's seats. And I was getting distracted, like. But it was a fun thing. And the principle was to be open handed, open handed with our generosity. So. So get it out of our hand. What we keep in our hands, we keep for a moment. But what we scatter, we keep forever. And so that was just the principle there. And then I love that I talked about us being partners and our Kingdom builders book. If you didn't get one, be sure to get one. And we want you to have this because we're partners. Like Paul said, we're of part. We're koinonia, and I won't preach it again, but we're partners. Paul never thanked people, the Apostle Paul, for being donors. He thanked them for being partners. And can I just say this? As this church, we do not see you. Your pastors do not see you as donors. We see you as partners. Now nonprofits and other charities, they may call you donors, we call you partners. And this is your partnership book. So be sure to get one of those. All right? So we're going after 15 million, and I'm believing for something supernatural, up to date. Personal finances. We want to help you get this right. We've even brought in Dave Ramsey, George Camel, and I want to do something different with getting personal finances right. I want to talk to both ends of the spectrum. Those of you that are underwater or barely treading water, and those of you that are above the water, you're like hydroplaning. You are. You're going to the next level, and you just feel like, I have resources. I'm hydroplaning on top of the water, and there's other people that are sinking. Okay? And I've never talked about this group really here, but I want to cover both. So underwater. This is a startling statistic. Only 47% of Americans have a $1,000 emergency fund. Only 47%. 47%. Okay, 39% can't even cover $400 if they had a bill for $400. 39% of Americans could not do it without a credit card or borrowing money. One in three Americans has zero savings. Zero in savings. Shocking. The average U.S. household has 100. Or the average U.S. american has $105,000 debt. As a nation, we owe $1.28 trillion to credit cards. All right? And so we better get this right. And there's a bunch of people that are underwater. And so this is the first thing I'm gonna tell you. Put God first. Put God first, Start tithing. Now. You're like, you talked about that in week one, But I'm just telling you, people that are underwater, it's like, what do you. Grab the life wrap? Grab the supernatural, say that God's your source and start to tithe. Matthew 6. 33. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. We're seeking him first. Matthew 6 is talking about all these worries and all these cares of life. And Jesus says, seek first his kingdom, and then he's gonna take care of all the rest. Now, I know there's people who say, I can't afford to tithe. I can't afford to tithe. Do you see how bad I'm underwater? I do understand that, and I'm gonna tell you, you need to rearrange your life to be able to tithe. One of the best stories I heard was a family in our church, they said, we heard about this. We sold the Corvette. We sold the luxury sedan. We downsized the house. We got in right shape so we could tithe. We just. You're like, they sold the Corvette? Yep. They rearranged their life so they could say, God, you're first. I'm gonna do that. All right? And then with us putting God first, you're gonna have to repent. I'm gonna tell you, greed, materialism, bad stewardship. You're disobeying. You're doing the wrong. It's sinful. Greed is sinful. Like, you're gonna have to say, I repent. You're like, but wait, I'm underwater. Look at the guy hydroplaning. He should repent. He owns a hydroplane. No, you gotta understand, if you're down here and you're underwater and you're not doing this right, and you are overspending. You are being a bad steward. It's. You're. You're falling into all these sins, even though your pie is smaller. You gotta repent. And then you just realign your life. You realign your life. It's like, I will downsize. I'll do whatever I have to do to get there. Now, people may try to talk you out of this, all right? They might try to talk you out of tithing first. And I wanna say this. Don't let people that are not Living Kingdom principles talk you out of Living Kingdom principles. Okay? You're like, well, I was talking to my financial advisor, and they said not to do that first. Okay. Okay. No. So I'm gonna Go right to point two because it, it ties with point one. Don't listen to the voice of Mammon. Don't listen. You wanna get out from being underwater? Stop listening to the voice of mammon. Matthew 6:24. Jesus is speaking about this. He says, no one can serve two masters, for either hate the one and love the other, or else he'll be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Mammon was just an Aramaic word for money or property. And Jesus is telling a story here, and he's trying to drive a point home. And in the rarest of cases, first of all, slavery in Jesus time wasn't very, like, prominent, but it did happen. So it was around there, okay? But he said, sometimes somebody dies and leaves their two kids, one slave. And so the slave says, I'm gonna serve both kids. And the people in the community would have understood Jesus story like, oh, yeah, we've seen that happen before. And he says, we've all seen it happen. The slave loves one more than the other and pays attention to the one voice more than tries to serve both. But there's a prominent voice that they know they need to listen to. And everybody be going like, yeah, we've all seen that. You know, we've seen it. And he's saying, you can't do this. You always will prefer one or the other. And Jesus personifies Mammon in an ancient way of saying, wealth, this money, this mammon, this spirit of money and God, they're competing, they're competing and you can't serve. But you can't say, like, well, I'll just have a balanced approach to this. You're like, I gotta go God's way. I gotta. And if you don't, Mammon becomes your leader and Mammon becomes your boss. And it says, buy this, spend that, do the credit card, go for that, who cares? Keep up with the Joneses. That will start to boss your life. And the more it bosses you, the deeper you go, the deeper you go into trouble. And so you can't listen to the voice of Mammon and the voice of Mammon. This is why I wanted to tie one and two together, that you start with tithing and you overcome. The voice of Mammon is. Sometimes the voice of Mammon sounds like wisdom. You tell somebody like, hey, I'm start tithing because I'm in financial trouble. And they say, hey, that's a bad idea. You know what you ought to do? You oughta pay off your car first. And as soon as you pay off your car, then you'll have the money to tithe. That sounds like wisdom, but that's the voice of Mammon trying to get you not to enter into the supernatural, not to enter into the kingdom principles. You see? So this. Or they say, you know, creditors are important. You gotta make sure you pay your credit. Don't even think of adding tithe in because you have creditor. See, the voice of Mammon sounds like wisdom, but it's actually fighting against what God is telling you to do. And I know I've seen some churches say, hey, if you can't tithe, start at 3, start at 5, start at wherever you can work your way up. Nope, here's my thing. Cannonball, baby, cannonball. 10%, you just jump in, Trust God, here I come. I trust you. There is no scripture that tells me to go 3%, 5%, it's like 10%, I'm going in. So Mammon lies to you, and you gotta. Later in life, Mammon will lie to you too and say, build bigger barns, get a greater return. Let this money grow and give it. After you die, more money will help you feel secure, so you need more so you can be secure. Mammon will give you the lie of just in case. So we've gotta overcome this. And Mammon is speaking to you, and you need to get out from underneath the voice of Mammon. And here's something that it does to us. It gives us limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs. And I wanna speak to these real quick because many of us that are underwater or in trouble or barely treading, all right, there's limiting beliefs. Like, there's limiting beliefs that we think poverty is good. Okay? Like, poverty's good. No, no. Poor in spirit. It didn't say poor in wallet, okay? We just, like, poverty's good. Having money's bad. No, the Bible says that having this money, it's difficult for people to come into the Kingdom, but it doesn't say it's bad, okay? You say these are limiting beliefs. Do you understand? There's a limiting belief. I had. I thought there was limited resources and I had to overcome a limiting belief because I grew up in the. My dad was part of the Auto Workers union, Teamsters union. And I grew up thinking there was a pie and that God was slicing up pieces of pie. And it was union versus management. And if I didn't get a bigger slice, I had to go on strike, like the union. And so I grew up thinking, like, there's a limiting belief of. Mammon was telling me that God didn't have enough for me. And if you got something, I had to be jealous of you. And I was always fighting and jockeying for position to get something from God. And he had to just break me down one day in prayer. And he said, I'm not slicing pieces of pie. I'm not doing that. I'm the God of the expanding universe. I have more than enough. Matter of fact, just not that long ago, in our soap reading, we were reading about Moses in the wilderness, and he's like, where are we gonna get food to feed these people? And God says, is my arm too short? Like, I can't feed these people? Like, I just. When I read that, I laughed out loud. Like. Like, God's like, I've got this. I've got. I'm not serving up pie. All right? There's just things. Money is evil. No, money is not evil. 1 Timothy 6:10 says, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from their faith and have pierced themselves with many griefs. Money can be used, good or bad. Like take, for instance, gold. Gold in the hands of Aaron after the children are delivered out of Egypt, turns into a golden calf and leads people away. Gold in the hands of David leads people to build the temple for God and becomes a place of worship. Okay, so these are limiting beliefs. And here's the thing I wanna challenge us. If wealth is so wrong, why did God give us the ability to create it? Deuteronomy 8:18. But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant with which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today. It's okay. It's okay. These are limiting beliefs that are holding you underwater, and you've gotta confront them. Cause that's the voice of Mammon trying to lie to you. Dr. Dave Martin said this in his book. He said, if God intends to bless the world through us, we're gonna need a lot more resources than we currently have at our disposal. And I agree with him. We need a lot more resources. And so, church, let's get rid of these limiting beliefs. And you've got to confront these lies of Mammon that says debt is good. Credit card debt is fine. You know Proverbs 22:7. The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender. The voice of Mammon says, greed is not so bad. Compared to these people, you're not as greedy. Luke 12:15. Jesus said to them, watch out Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. Life does not consist in abundance of possession. All right? Another line. Mammon just says, you can trust in your wealth. You can do it. Now, this might be for the people. Hydroplaning. All right, all right. But I just wanna. In Jewish usage, that's a tongue twister. All right? In Jewish usage, Mammon often meant the financial security that your family had stored up your inheritance. Okay? And it meant that it became a rival, that we've gotta watch out that the inheritance, the stored up money, doesn't become a voice that overrules the voice of God and causes us to not be generous. We've gotta be also careful that storing up money, like the Jewish culture, they'd have this money, this inheritance. And. And he was saying, be careful, because if this gets too big and you start trusting in it, you're not gonna need a miracle anymore. You're not gonna need a miracle. I remember when we bought the Apple Valley campus. I remember we bought this. And the landlord had to have more faith in the loan than we did. We only put $250,000 down, and he financed the whole thing at 6% interest. And we left that meeting, and I thought. I looked at our board and I said, guys, I said, I feel weird. The landlord had to have more faith than us today. I said, we should have more faith than the landlord from this day forward. And so just be careful. Jesus. Saying, be careful if you have more than enough that you don't start thinking, I don't even need God anymore. We all need God. We all need Him. Now, a practical way for everyone in our church to overcome the getting out from underneath the water is Ramsey Plus. And we should have that. It'll be on the screen. You could text the word Ramsey to 94,000. It's paid for. All right? This is paid for. What paid for it? The tithe of our church paid for this. Okay? We paid for a subscription for everyone in our church to do this. It was cheaper to do that. We're the number one church in America doing Ramsey Plus Financial Peace University for all of our. No other church in America is even close. All right? We've had over 6,000 families or individuals do this. Okay? So this is a way for you to say, I'm gonna get out from underneath, stop treading water, and I'm gonna get on top of this, and you're gonna learn all sorts of biblical principles that are there. And story after story after story of people like, getting out of debt, paying off this, doing this but there's Dave's seven baby steps. And I had a chance to hang out with Dave Ramsey. We actually golfed together and got around to golf together. And then afterwards, I know this sounds fun, but it's just fun to share. He's like, you wanna go dune buggy driving? And we literally went dune buggy driving down the beach. And like, he's a maniac. I was like praying in tongues the whole time, like, jesus, save us, you know? But so I said, dave, I said, I love your baby steps. I love everything I said. I feel like step one should be put God first. Put God first, like tithe. Like, you don't put that in there, right? He said, well, I have a secular audience and I'm trying to do it to the whole world and get them into the kingdom principles. And I was like, well, I'm gonna add step before the seven. You know, step before the seven tithe. So we put God first and then we have the. Does that make sense? All right. And he knows it. He's like, I get it. I got a big audience and I get it. It's good if you adapt it. So first one is tithing. All right, so that's done. And then we're going to do the 7B. The first thing is save $1,000 for an emergency fund. You got to do it. You got to do whatever you have. Sell something, go poshmark, go to Ebit, do whatever you have to do. Sell it, sell and get to $1,000 emergency fund. Number two, pay off all debt using the snowball method. And it's amazing. Let's say you have a credit card bill of 100, 200, 300. You do as much as you can on the $100 one. Let's say you can add another $50 a month. $150 a month. You keep doing it, you pay that. When that's paid off, you roll the 150 over to the 200. You start paying 350 on that one. When that one's done, you roll that over to the 300 and you get out of debt. And then you stay out of debt. That snowball method works. And you're like, why don't I start with the biggest one or the highest interest? No, because you want to have a party after each time you pay something off. You want to celebrate, like, woo, we did it. There's something in us that feels all right. Then the next one is build an emergency fund of three to six months, expenses. Number four, invest 15% of your income then in retirement. Number five, save for your children's college, if you have children and that's applicable. Then number six, pay off your home early. And some people are like, well, that sounds stupid. Well, there's a lot of peace and sleeping in a home that's paid for, you know, you're not worried about ever leaving. All right, and then number seven, build wealth and give generously. So those are the things that you need to do. And if you've not done this, I cannot say it's strong enough. It's already been paid for. It's already been paid for. Please do Ramsey and as a church, let's get out from being underwater treading water, and let's get over to hydroplaning. Hydrofo. Let's go and let's see what God has for us. Now. My wife was nervous that I couldn't get all this done, but I. I'm speaking fast. Remember, speak, Lord, we're listening. How many words per minute can I do? All right, so if you are like, I got it. Cause I'll hear from people after I do this sermon usually. And usually I focus all the time on underwater. I'll hear from people like, I'm over the. I'm top of the water. Didn't get anything out of that. You know, nothing. All right, so I'm talking to you because you say, I do all those things. I got all those things going on. And then you say, I also have this one. 1 Timothy 5:8. Anyone who doesn't provide for their relatives and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. You're like, check, I'm providing for my household. I got em covered. And then you're like, Proverbs 13:22. A good person leaves an inheritance for their children's children, but a sinner's wealth is stored up for the righteous. And you're like, check, I got inheritance lined up for my children and my children's children. And then you're like, okay, I've got 2 Corinthians 9, 8. And God is able to give you more than you need so that you will always have all you need for yourselves and more than enough for every good cause. You're like, check, check, check. And you're like, I'm living kingdom principles. And I have increase, I have favor, I have abundance. I have all this going on. And so now what do I do? Because as you start to live these principles in a society like we live in, in America, okay, Christianity is allowed to flourish financially in this type of culture, which is why I'm for this type of culture all around the world, because it allows Christianity to flourish in that culture. You'll start to see Luke 6:38 given. It will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be poured into your lap for the measure you use. It will be measured to you. It just starts overflowing. It starts overflowing and it starts happening. And there's flourishing. Is there? And flourishing is godly. It's not ungodly. Remember last week I talked about, God's not angry about what's in your hand, he's just concerned about your grip. Are you gonna let it go? Are you gonna use it for his glory? Or is it just for your use? Okay. And the overarching theme that I see in the Bible all the time when it comes to this growth is sharing, blessing, multiplying, giving. These are things that are good things. And again, going back to my friend Dave Martin, he said this. He said, I shouldn't give to get, I should get to give. Does that make sense? I wanna say it again. I shouldn't give to get. I should get to give. It's like the prosperity gospel made us think, like, you give to get. And you're like, I'm gonna give this and I'm gonna get. And he's like, no, that's not. It should be. I wanna get so that I can give, and I wanna give so I can get more so I can give. And it should be about fulfilling the Great Commission. There's a purpose to our prosperity. Now, don't get mad because I said that word because people say, is River Valley prosperity gospel? No, we're not. But we are blessed to be a blessing gospel. Okay? We are like. And by the way, don't get mad that I said the word prosperity. It's in the Bible. Prosperous is in the Bible. And we've let people paint it in a negative way and we pushed it out of the church. Let me just. Prosperous means marked by success and economic well being. I want that. Okay? Somebody in fortunate circumstances, financially, I want that. Somebody moderately rich. Check again. Like, I mean, so far, not bad. Very lively and profitable again. All these things are right there. I like that. I like to be prosperous. That would be good. Okay. I had a famous Bible college professor, he was a missionary in Africa. And he says, I've been rich and I've been poor. And he's like, rich is better. All right. You know Joshua 1:8, this is a verse in the Bible that actually has the word prosperous and successful the only place they're in the same verse. God says, keep this book of the law always on your lips. Meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. It's a limiting belief that we have. Like, God doesn't want this to happen. No, he does. He does. There's so much to be done. If God's gonna bless the rest of the world, he's gonna use us. Let's look at this. So if you're above water, can I just speak to you right now? Use your ability to create wealth so that you can get to give. I love what John Bevere said in one of his books. He was challenged by a multimillionaire. The guy said, I've got all I need. I'm gonna retire early, and I'm just gonna move to the beach and just enjoy life. And he goes, why? And he goes, why not? I got all I need, and I'm gonna just retire and go to the beach and enjoy life. And he goes, but you're young. He goes, you could take all these years and you could make more for the kingdom. You have the ability to create wealth. God has given you the ability to create wealth. And by the way, did you know that the Bible doesn't say that God just pours wealth on us? It says he gives us the ability to create it and to make. He said, you have that ability. And he goes, why don't you try to triple what you make so you can triple what you give, Maybe quadruple what you give? And the guy took it as a challenge. And he didn't just double his income, he tripled it and started giving even more. And he said, I'm living for the ability to give. God's given me the ability to create wealth. It's not about, can I get to the beach and retire? It's can I give and create this wealth for his glory and for his honor? It's a beautiful thing, I think, about Hobby Lobby. I actually checked with Grok and chatgpt this stat. Like, how many hobby lobbies are there in America? Like, hobby lobbies? Like, So I asked. 1,077. 1,000. I didn't even know there were that many. 1,077. Now, if you don't know this about the Green family, the Green family is probably one of the most generous families in the United States of America, giving hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the things Of God. Hundreds of millions every year. They actually, like, set their salary like a normal employee and said, we will not live a CEO extravagant life. We will live a normal employee life, and we're gonna give the rest away. Incredible. Okay. I figured out they could have just done two or three hobby lobbies in Oklahoma, called it a day, you know, watch the tumbleweeds go by in Oklahoma or whatever they do. Watch the sunsets in Oklahoma, whatever. And they're, you know, maybe I'm bitter cause they beat us in basketball. But anyways, they could have just two or three, maybe four, six hobby lobbies. Nope. 1077. 1077. And they're saying, we wanna do this to leverage, to get more, to give more. If you're above water, you're above water to get more, to give more. It's not about just you and it's not about getting to the beach. It's about saying, I wanna use this for your. Gloria and Miranda Stone table. I've talked about this before. The group in Indiana, now five with me. I've talked about Kingdom Builders having a plan, vision, dream. I had a vision, and Becca and I prayed for $10,000 more one year. And I got a call from this group, Stone table, in Indiana. They said, we want you to be on our board. I said, I'm too busy. They said, we give $10,000 for you to give to your favorite charity. Did you know that? I was like, I didn't. Would our Kingdom Builders count? They said, yes. I said, I'm on your board now. All right, I wanna let you know, it was just a couple of guys sitting around dreaming. God gives us the ability to create wealth, and we wanna do it. We could start another company to give wealth. When I joined their board several years ago, they were giving away $900,000. Half the profits went to Missions and half went back into the business. This last year, it's been about seven years now. This last year, I went to the board meeting. They said, it's now $4 million that we're giving away every year. And every board member gets $50,000 to bring back to their favorite charity. I brought back a check to River Valley Kingdom Builders for $50,000 from a prayer that I prayed of. Plan, vision, Dream. From a prayer that was prayed at a breakfast table by a few guys saying, could we use our ability to create wealth to give more to missions? I want us to live that way. I want us to live that way. I want us to live that way. Man, I have so many. I knew I'd go long. Just bear with me just one more second. I wanna read this from the Amplified 2nd Corinthians 9, 8. And God is able to make all grace, every favor and earthly blessing come in abundance to you so that you may always, under all circumstances, regardless of the need, have complete sufficiency in everything, being completely self sufficient, sufficient in him and have an abundance for every good work and act of charity. I love that. May our church be filled with people that want to fund that. And you say, well, how will I not fall in love with money? Well, if you make impact your goal, you won't fall in love with money. If you make income your goal, you will. I love what David and Jason Benham said. They're the ones that came. If you focus on impact, you'll never fall in love with income. I love that. Secondly, if you give somebody the ability to hold you accountable, you should have somebody that talks to you about finances. If you are way above the water, like, hey, let's talk about our giving goals, let's challenge each other, let's do that. And do you have somebody that can hold you accountable that you're gonna follow through with your dream goals and be able to do this? Thirdly, I would say stay active in your church. Okay? Don't let your first world options caused you to become an inactive member but generous giver in the church. Does that make sense? You need to come together to worship, you need to serve, you need to go on a global team. And by the way, we're believing for 400 first time people to go on global teams this year. And the last thing I'll say is this. Heed the warning in Ecclesiastes 5:13. I've seen a grievous evil under the sun, wealth hoarded to the harm of its owners. Release it for the kingdom church. I believe there are people underwater that are gonna come out from underwater and there are people that are riding on top of the water that are gonna just create wealth, create resources for the kingdom to move forward and our church is gonna go to a whole nother level. So Lord, I just pray right now for those underwater. They would be lifted up, they would stop believing the lies of mammon and they would put you first. And God, for anyone riding above water, God, may they realize they get to do this. What a joy that they are able to create wealth. That's a gift that was given from you. May they create more wealth so that more can be done for the kingdom of God and for the Great Commission that we believe in. May our giving reflect that we truly believe there's a great commission. In Jesus name we pray. Amen and amen.
Episode: Message | Impact Over Income
Speaker: Pastor Rob Ketterling
Date: February 22, 2026
Theme:
Pastor Rob Ketterling delivers the final message in River Valley’s annual three-week giving series, focusing on transforming the way individuals approach personal finance, tithing, generosity, and wealth creation. He urges listeners to prioritize "Impact Over Income" by aligning their financial practices with biblical principles, confronting limiting beliefs, and pursuing purpose-driven prosperity.
Pastor Rob Ketterling emphasizes that financial freedom and prosperity are not ends in themselves, but tools to maximize Kingdom impact and fulfill God's mission. Whether listeners are "underwater" or "hydroplaning," they are challenged to confront limiting beliefs, prioritize giving, and pursue a life where impact outweighs income.