The Love of Money

Automatically transcribed — lightly cleaned for readability. Wording is the preacher’s own.

Good morning, friends. How are you? It's good to see you all this morning. My name is Cameron. I'm one of the pastors here at Conduit and we welcome you home. I've been praying for you this week and we pray God's blessing on your life. Today, as you hear his word and this week as you respond to it in obedience. Okay, so many of you are, I think some of you may know, may not know that part of my ministry over the last five or six years or so is to serve as a chaplain for the Chalk County Sheriff's Office and also Jamestown Police Department and Dunkirk Police Department. As I've grown in that role and as that's become a pretty significant part of my ministry as a pastor, I've gotten to make connections and network with other people who are in similar roles who have a heart for Christ, but also have a heart for the law enforcement community. And one of those guys that I have met along the way and kind of served alongside and sat under some of his teaching and leadership is our guest preacher for this morning.

His name is Jim Bontrager. Jim has served most recently as the president of the International Conference of Police Chaplains. Although he prefers to be known not for the work that he's done, but for his family. He has a wife of 39 years. Am I correct, Susie? His wife of 39 years. Listen, you guys all like roll your eyes when I say that I got five kids. Bro's got nine kids, nine kids, two quivers full, nine kids and 23 grandchildren, right? What a blessing and has served as a missionary to the law enforcement community for how many years? Different capacity, 31 years. 31 years. So he's from the Indiana area and I asked him because he's in town for some training, if he would preach for me this morning. And he said, well, what do you want me to preach on? And I said, well, geez, I mean, could have you preach on something that you're familiar with or you could just jump right into where we are in our sermon series in First Timothy. So this guy jumped right in where First Timothy talks about money.

So. So yeah, so I'm I'm blessed to have him here. I hope you're blessed by the word that he brings as well. Let's bring Jim, once you come on up, we'll pray for him and then we'll turn it over to him. Heavenly Father, we thank you for our brother Jim here. Lord, I pray, Lord, that you would increase our capacity this morning to love you and to love one another through the preaching of your word. Lord, I pray that you would give him clarity of thought and clarity of word. Lord, I pray that either through him or in spite of him, we may be challenged towards greater obedience and love for you this morning. Father, we thank you for his presence here. Would you make him, Lord, feel welcome in his spirit, affirmed in his spirit, or that he is among brothers and sisters in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Good morning.

Guys, it's a joy to be here. You know, when I when first we started talking here about this, I asked him how long to prepare because typically I was in Pennsylvania last week and I shared and I had prepared for 45 minutes and they told me I had 35 and they knocked 10 minutes off. So that threw it off. But he told me an hour.

He did. I'm like, man, this is this serious, folks, that's a big, big deal. I mean, you know what? We're getting a point where our attention spans purposely being reduced to nothing so we don't go deep with the things of God, you know? And I just I just want to commend you guys in that. I think it's exciting. You know, one of the things for me, it's really serious is I looked up the word conduit this morning, you know, and when I look at conduit, it says something that is really important to me. And in the encyclopedia that says someone or something that's used as a way of sending something such as information or money, that's interesting. So money, I don't have any money. So I'm going to give you information from one place to a person to another. And the people up front are just conduits. That's all they are. I mean, it's the only day if anything good happens today because he loves you guys. And the guy up front can mess it up by clogging the drain. And it's a serious thing.

And there's two things that really I take into this is, number one, James chapter three, verse one says, not many you should presume to be teachers because you incur a stricter judgment. So I'm going to be held accountable for why I say today. And a controversial subject. And the second thing gets to be is at Acts 1711, Paul said, now the Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonians for they received the message of a great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if Paul said was true. You know, there's a one, two punch here that's required. And the person up front sharing is responsible, but the individual is receiving and responsible to honor God by saying, that sounds great. It's exciting. Let me get in the word and make sure it's legit. So would you please do that? And he prayed for me. Bob prayed for myself again. Lord, I thank you for your faithfulness and you're a good God.

You love these people and Lord, I'm asking now some kind of special way for you to show up and open their eyes to the depth of your love and a greater measure to help them understand that they're precious in your eyes and help them to see that you put them here for such a time as this. And God, we just invite your presence Lord to come and do what you do best, Lord. And that's to shake us awake and take us to a place and show us a vantage point that we never saw before and rejoice in it. And God help our lives to be something that reflects who you are, Lord. And we bless you for your faithfulness in Jesus' name. Amen. You know, I was sitting there kind of in prayer and I thought, you know, Lord, what does he want me to share? I think the first thing I want to share is I felt led to, you know, I'm a high school dropout who took off hitchhiking around the country. And I picked drawings with Michael workers come from a broken home, lived under bridges.

One place to place when the United States drink or any jarheads here. All right, Semper Fi, brother. I can tell by that beard.

You know, and one of the things about it is I was a broken kid trying to find my way home. So I went to Buffalo, New York, because I was in a station in the Philippines, met a guy, became good friends with him, went to Buffalo to go get kind of crazy in Buffalo and got stuck in a blizzard of all things in Buffalo. And met my wife and God ambushed me in New York and radically transformed my heart and life. And through a whole series of events, I ended up just doing a whole bunch of crazy things. I was on national board of directors for the Fellowship of Courage and Peace Officers USA. I got all kinds of crazy stuff that God's done. I ended up president of the world's largest chaplaincy organization. And you know why? Because God takes the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. You know, 1 Corinthians 1, 26 and 27 says, "Brothers, think of what you are when you are called." Not many wise, not many influential, not many of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And so I just believe there's individuals in here that you underestimate who God is, not who you are. You know, this isn't about, it's about who he is in your life.

And if you don't think you're here to be used, you don't think you're here to make a difference. I'm telling you right now, X chapter 17 said he determined the times in the exact places you should live, that God put you here. You're as men and women. You're the Holy Spirit, bucket brigade tasked with putting out the fires of hell. And you know what? The Lord loves you with the passion. He wants you to see it isn't about you, because if you know what you're made of and uses you, then you realize, I don't have anything to claim. And so if something good happens today, I just want to encourage you just because he loves you. And so if we could just go through this passage, I was assigned 1 Timothy 6, 3 through 10, and I know this is going to be a good sermon simply because it impacted my life. And so there's one person walking out of here blessed, you know, and I'm just grateful because God showed me something I hadn't seen before. And so we just look at this, if you read through it with me, it says, "If anyone teaches otherwise, does not agree with the sound instruction our Lord Jesus Christ into godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in

Controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction between people of corrupt mind who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. But godliness with contempt, that's a big word. You want to camp on contempt today, I'm just telling you right now. It's great gain.

For we bought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. Ain't no hearse on a U-Haul. But if you have food and clothing, we'll be content with that. And those who want to get rich fall into a temptation and a trap." There's a trap. "And into many foolish and harmful desires of pledgement and a ruin of destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wondered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." And so we start that all out in verse 3. And it's interesting, if anyone teaches false doctrines, I know you've dealt with false doctrines in other passages of 1 Timothy 4 and others, but I just want to throw a couple things here because, first of all, I'm coming in as a guest preacher, so I'm not totally privy up to everything that's happening, but I just want to share my perspective here. But it's interesting to me that word "sound instruction, " I always like going back into word studies because, once again, you know, the scriptures are written in Koine Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, and sometimes the way we try to express it in English doesn't quite do it justice. But that word "sound instruction" means to

Be well, to be good in health of Christians whose opinions are free from a mixture of error,

Uncorrupt of one who keeps the graces and is strong. Free from a mixture of error, just to be pure. See, conduits. Okay, you guys are a conduit. There's no accident that this ministry has named that because you're in a broken world right now. It's not the conditioned world, the issue. It's will we sit here and yield to God to let us make us conduits of His love, grace, and mercy to come out and make a difference in a broken and lost world? Or will we be distracted by the opportunity and miss a chance to impact eternity? And so when I look at false doctrines, there's a couple I like to really focus on, and forgive me if it's been done before, but if it's said once, then, you know, false doctrines. And so it's an important thing to just know what a false doctrine is. And I think one of the biggest false doctrines I see, and I would like to say that I think these false doctrines have been disregarded because of the way they were delivered.

The way the truth was delivered to the point where people ran from the delivery rather than the truth. And so the first one is the erasing of the terms hell and repentance.

You know, we don't use those words. We don't like them because so many people, I think, have done it out of the wrong spirit to beat people upside the head. But the thing I'm coming from here is I'm realizing now as a guy who is production-minded, okay, I would do anything God told me to do because I grew up in a performance-based acceptance world where my dad said, "Jump through these hoops and I'll love you." And it was a life of misery. But I've now come to realize that God's doing something real simple. It's like, Jim, I want you to be at the greatest expression of love and grace and mercy to as many as possible. And when you don't obey my word, you're clogging up the drain. So when we look at hell, hell's what? You know, you look at Matthew chapter 10 verse 28, you know, and we can see familiar pastures. "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both the soul and body in hell."

You know, so many times we see God as a cosmic kingdom. But you know what? At the end of the day, he's a morally pure being. And if this water is absolutely pure, there's no impurities at all, if I put a speck in here, is it pure anymore? See, it doesn't matter if it's a speck or you're a dirtbag.

It doesn't matter because he issues God in his holiness, not us in our comp... See, we like to compare ourselves with ourselves. "Ah, thank you. I'm not like that, brother." You know, when the reality gets to be is God's a morally pure being. He's 100% perfectly love and everything, and we're not. And for him to accept us as we are is a compromise, is to compromise who he is. And so the place called hell is not somewhere he wants anyone to go, but it's a reality is if you wanted to continue your life and not take the provision I made, then you sense yourself there. You look at Revelation chapter 20 verse 15, once again, another passage. Revelation 20 verse 15. I apologize to our guy in back here. I don't know how to roll here because I haven't been to conduit before. So I gave him a list. I said, "Hey, brother, if nothing else..." But Revelation 20 verse 15 talks about hell, if you don't believe it, look it up. "Okay, anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown in the lake of fire." You can look in Matthew 25 verse 41. "Then he will say to those

On his left, 'apart from me, you are cursed in the eternal fire that is prepared for the devil and his angels.'" It wasn't prepared for any of us. It was prepared for the devil and his angels. Look at verse 46 once again. "Then they will go away to eternal punishment." This isn't like a timeout or something. It isn't reincarnation. And then you look at Repentz. You know, it's interesting. I read, there's a book called Repentz, the first word of the gospel. And it's interesting how many people... Did you know that Isaiah talked about Repentz in Isaiah 30 verse 15? You know, we look at Isaiah chapter 30 verse 15 and he talked about Repentz. He said, "This is what the sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says, 'And repentance and rest is your salvation, and quietness and trust is your strength, but you'll have none of it.'" So you get to make a choice. God wants you to have rest in your salvation and quietness and strength, or you could sit there and do it yourself. We can look at the fact that Jeremiah talked about it. Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 19.

Jeremiah 31 verse 19, once again, another Old Testament prophet talked about that. And so he talked about it. And brother, they'll take my word for it and we'll just get to the next one. So you can look about in Ezekiel. Ezekiel 14 verse 6. Ezekiel 14 verse 6 says, "Therefore Satan, for the Lord says, 'Repent, turn from your idols, or renounce all your detestable ways.'" You can look at John the Baptist talking about it, Matthew chapter 3 verses 1 and 2. Here's John the Baptist, the pre-runner of Christ. And he talks about in those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and what do you say in verse 4? He said, "Repent, " and saying, "Repent." I'm sorry, we haven't been waiting for a slide pop here. So he said, "Repent." You can look and go out there and see, Jesus talked about it, verse 17. Matthew verse 17, from that time on, Jesus began to preach, "Repent." You know, you can look at Peter talked about in Acts 2.38. He gets done working and he says, "Repent and be baptized every one of

You in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And so you look at Paul talking about in Acts chapter 17 verse 30. This is a major theme that's spread throughout all the writers, but we don't talk about it as much anymore. You can look at Paul in Acts chapter 17 verse 30. He said, "In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent." The apostle John in Revelation chapter 9 verses 20 through 21 talks about "Repent." He said, "The rest of mankind who were not killed by the plagues still did not repent." They got so hard hearted that the hardships God put in their life, which were intended to help them to come to their senses and turn away from their sin, they got so hearted that they turned around and didn't listen. They worshiped demons and diamonds of gold and silver and bronze. Notice that when we start talking about finances there and what idols that cannot see or hear. And so when we talk about repentance, I love my brother, I was talking to, I hope I'm not picking on you brother, but I just love it. Any other police

Officers in here, any other police officers, they're usually in the back row. And so there's a purpose for that. Yeah. But anyway, I know you don't raise your hand. That's good. We're just testing you. I don't know how much freedom we have here. But you know what? In the police world, we got something real simple. And every cop knows this term. If I have to come back here tonight, someone's, they're going to jail. If you keep walking this way and refuse to deal with the issues, you're going to hell. But yeah, we don't talk about that anymore. We don't work people. Because see, the thing is, is when I do things that are selfish in my way, I destroy relationships like crazy. See, I used to think God was like jumped through the hoops. It was kind of like, what can I get by with without getting in trouble? That's how I started my approach to God. But over time, I got to realize that His ways are not my ways. His ways are better. He has a way to radically call things out of my life and to love on me in ways I never imagined, you know? And so we look at that as a doctrine where we just can't, we just, we just don't talk

About hell and repentance that much. I was happy to see in your website that you mentioned word repents. I'm grateful to God because most websites don't even have that. Second thing I look at is obsession with gifts and miracles without a focus on Christlike character. See, I come from a, I'm a Baptist Pentecostal. So I've been around the, I'm running around the block all over the place, okay? But a lot of the people I hang out with are so rabid about gifts that they're going to get deceived here in a second. See, because I think if God's working your heart in the proper way, my reason for wanting power, for wanting healing, for wanting to stop because I love you so much, it breaks my heart to see judge and your kid has cancer. That's sad. That breaks my heart to the point that I'll intercede for him. That breaks my heart that I say, "Living God, would you use me to take and relieve that suffering? Will you go live, give food to my neighbors?" And so when you start looking at that obsession, you know, tongues and prophecy, right? Okay, in 1 Corinthians 13, 1 and 2,

"Though I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I'm just running my yap."

You can look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verses 9 through 11. There's an interesting time coming here where it says, "The coming of a lawless one." If you're a police officer, I encourage you to look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, starting with verse 3 and on. We're living there right now. He says, "That day Christ's return will not come until the rebellion and the man of lawlessness." It goes down there to talk about a time's coming here, where the coming of a lawless one will be in accordance with Satan and all kinds of counterfeit signs, miracles. And those are deceived and perishing. And he talks about they perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. You know, and the interesting thing about this, for this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion. Do you realize we have a lot of delusional thinking nowadays? We have people who used to have a disagreement about the way to do things. That was okay. But we got the point now where you lost it, man. You lost it. So the point gets to be at the end of the day here is when we start looking at it, it's going to be dangerous if we're not careful. You know, it's interesting in Matthew chapter 7,

23, 23, Jesus said, "Fruit." It's fruit. You know, I worked with an Amish guy who had some of the best wisdom around. He said, "Jim, the goal is to bear fruit in the spirit, not to be fruity in the spirit." I thought I have some great Amish wisdom. But he said, "Buy your fruit, you'll recognize them." At the end of the day, the proof's in the pudding. That's what I love about the police world. You can run your, let me, can I take a time out here? All right. One thing I forgot to do is I have a learning test that I give to every audience I speak to. And the reason for that is to help me to learn methods of communication depend on the geographical location. If I'm down south, I got to go, "Y'all, we need to really think about some stuff." Okay. So you got to put your fingers like this. If you guys are telling me, this is going to help me right here. Make sure you got them equally right here. All right. Everybody got that? I understand. Okay. That's your cheek. Your chin's right here. So see, at the end of the day,

Man, people are watching. See, in the police world, the only way you're going to be legitimately make a difference is you show me something. I don't want to hear it. And there's a world dying to see your example. There's a world that's out there saying, "Man, if you can show me what that looks like, " right? And so he said there, I never finished reading all the verses, but that was cool. But anyway, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord, we'll enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.' Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons, and in your name perform many miracles.'" And listen to what he says next. "And I'll tell him plainly, I never knew you." I wasn't, "I knew you" at one time. I never knew you. Don't let that sink in. You can go out there, prophesy, do miracles, and use by God in a lot of ways, and you can say, "I never knew you,

Man. I never knew you because you're foundational. Your heart was not mine." So that's another one. We talk about many paths to God. You know, it's interesting to me how, you know, I see people now starting to break big tent stuff. You know, we have prominent radio figures that I love listening to that are Mormons. And Mormonism, if you know anything about Mormonism, and they're Jesus, and our Jesus is a different Jesus. You know, we've got the same thing when it comes to Jehovah Witnesses. They're Jesus, and our Jesus is a different Jesus. By the way, do you know why Jehovah Witnesses don't like, or I'm sorry, do you know why Italians don't like Jehovah Witnesses?

Italians don't like... Okay. Italians don't like any kind of witnesses. So, when we look at this whole thing here, you know, Jesus, you know, Jesus, he was exclusively said in John 4, gene six, he said, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes into the Father but by me." You can look in Acts 4, 12, it says, "Salvation is known and no other, for there's no other name under heaven given to men. Where might we be? We must be saved." If we look at verse Timothy 2, verse 5, there's one God and one mediator between the man and God, the man Christ Jesus. And so, we're in a time where there's a deception that says many roads lead to heaven. You can look at the fact that adding to Christ finished work on the cross. You know, I remember being... I was at Billy Graham. I was a counselor for Billy Graham Crusade in Buffalo, New York. Imagine that. You know, some of you guys might have been there years ago, probably 30 years ago. And so, Billy Graham comes to Buffalo. I'm one of the counselors

There. And as I, you know, I'm just sharing with people, all this stuff's happened. It's cool to see God working. And I come across a guy from the church in Whitehall, Maryland. And he gives me a pamphlet on baptismal regeneration, which simply means that you cannot be saved unless you're baptized. Now, there's a bunch of verses that you can focus on that, but it's exclusion, some other verses. But the point gets to be at the end of the day, there's people who the finished work of Christ... Do you know why they have a firing squad in Utah? Does anybody know why you have firing squads in Utah for capital punishment? Because they believe that the shed blood of Jesus Christ is not sufficient for the atonement of man, that the individual committed murder has to shed their own blood, because scripture said, "By your blood, God shed." So they shoot people, so that they bleed. And so you can look at that and see that, you know. We see versions of the Bible. We see church attendance. We see works. We see all this stuff. And so you look at Titus 3, 4, and 5.

Titus 3 verses 4 and 5 says, "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He said He saved us not because of the righteous things we had done." Our righteousness is like filthy rags, because I got specks in my purity. Okay? But He's been through His, because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. You can look at the same thing when it comes down to Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. We know this. "For by grace are you saved through faith, and not of yourselves." Right? It's the gift of God, and not of works lest anyone should boast. We can look at the same thing as John 5, 24. John 5, 24 talks about it. He says, "Do you whoever believes in my, " or here's my word and believes the one who sent me as eternal life and will not be judged because he's crossed from death to life. And so the point gets to me is when people try to tell you have to do an excess. Now, you know what? If

I believe what it says, then I'm going to have things, works that go with it. But it's kind of like the electric socket. If I, or the heater, okay, if I come over and I want to turn the air conditioner down, okay, I believe that if I get the air conditioner, I can turn it down and the cool factor goes down, right? And so because I believe that, I'm walking toward there. Now, have I turned it down yet? No, but I will, but I believe it's going to happen. So if I believe what Jesus said, I'm going to live it out because I believe that what he said is true in my life, right? And notice what it says there. It says in verse 4 then down in 1 Timothy chapter 4, it says he's conceited and understands nothing, conceited. That's an interesting word. It means in the, in the Greek there, it says to puff up with haughtiness or pride, to render insulin, to blind with pride or conceit, excessive pride in oneself. You know, I came across my best quote of three years ago. I don't know if we got that up there. If not, I'll read it. Okay, but look at his quote. "Ego is the anesthesia that dens the being of stupidity."

Isn't that good? See, our propensity towards self-deception is the biggest problem we have as humans. I can see your sins, but I don't see mine. And Jesus said, "Make sure you take the plank out of your own eye so you can see clearly to get the specs out of your brother's eye." So when we look at this whole thing, being conceited, being conceited is an overestimation myself. It's, it's, I think that I'm, you know, I'm something there that I'm not. It's interesting that words used three times in scripture. I don't try to butcher up the pronunciations because I'm not a Greek scholar. I can read blue letter Bible like everybody else and so I just tell you the definitions. But it's interesting it's using three times and one of them is talking about an overseer. And so when you guys talked about in the past in verse Timothy chapter three, "He must not be a recent convert or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil." Think about that one. Conceit will put you under the same judgment as the devil.

If you're so full yourself that you don't realize your need of a savior and the fact that you can be deceived and not see things, if you're not willing to sit in humility underneath teaching that can expose the level of deceit, if you're not willing to let God transform you, you could fall under the same judgment as the devil. And that's a danger for all of us. It's interesting scripture talks about a number of things there, you know. You know, if we had more time we'd talk about Isaiah chapter 14 verses 12 through 15 which are attributed to Satan, the verse talking about Satan. And in that passage, Satan says, "I will do this. I will do that. I will do this. I will do that." You look in Romans chapter seven, "I circled all the eyes." There's probably 30 or 40 eyes in there, you know. And so when you start looking at that, you know, you can look it up sometime Isaiah chapter 14 verses 12 through 15. But it says in Second Timothy chapter four verses three and four, it says, "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they'll gather around themselves a great number of teachers to say what their itching

Ears want to hear. They'll turn their ears away from the truth and aside to miss." Why are they going to be turned back because they started making themselves as the judgment and their selves as the focus on interpreting what they want to hear? And so there's a danger right now. I mean, we'll talk more about that in a second when we get to it. It's interesting to me that Proverbs 14 verse 12 talks about there's a way that seems right to a man, but the end leads to death. It's interesting that Hebrew word talks about arith or whatever is close to it. It talks about if you started this journey and if you knew where the road ended to, you wouldn't have ever started. But see, the enemy's in, he's in the, he takes you along for the ride, right? You know? And so it's, you look around here in Isaiah chapter 64 verse six, it says, "All of us become like one who is unclean and our righteous acts like filthy rags. We all shrivel up like a leaf and like the wind or sin sweep us away." I don't know about you. One of my biggest, hardest things I have to deal with is feeling that I am in some way, how am I worthy of God's mercy He's shown me? I'm not.

That's the clue. But the beautiful thing about it is in spite of that, He still loves me. In spite of that, He's still working on my life. In spite of that, when I go off the road, He's big enough to discipline me, give me back on. In spite of that, He still pursues me as one who left the 99 sheep and went after the one. You know, I am blown away. I was driving down the road, weeping like a baby the other day because I just thought, "Lord, You've been good to me."

I don't know why I'm here. I have friends that are dead because they were doing what I did. I see marriages that are blown up and I'm on year 39. I've seen kids that had horrible things happen to them and I still have them. "God, You've been good to me. I live in America. I've been blessed like no other person on earth. My worst day is somebody's dream in another country."

So you just think about that, you know? And then we go on to verse 4 through 5. It's interesting here in 1 Timothy 4 through 5, it talks about their conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels. It's interesting how controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of crowd mind who have been robbed of the truth and think that godliness is a mean to financial gain. You know, some people like to—and it depends on your giftings too, to be fair. There's people who have giftings. Like for me, I like to be. You know, I'm an apologist in a lot of ways. I like engaging the world that doesn't believe to try to help them to think, you know? But at the end of the day, when I'm arguing for the sake of arguing, not be arguing out of love, not trying to hear people out and meet where they're at to love on them, then I start to be in big error. And so we start looking at that word unhealthy interest as a unique one too. Unhealthy interest, it knows what it says in this word. It says,

"An ailment of the mind to be taken with such interest in a thing that amounts to a disease."

That's what that word unhealthy interest means. In the Greek, it means that you're so obsessed by something, it's almost a disease. So how many times do we want to insist on being right? You know, are we really—are we really believe that God's on the throne and that my job is to try to engage people the best I can in controversies and fights and quarrels, you know? It says, "I must gently instruct those with the hope that I'll come to repentance and escape from the trap of the devil who's taken him captive to do his will." And so we just look at that, you know? We start looking at envy. A lot of times these words, you know, "Yeah, it's a familiar word, but what does it mean?" Discontentment or resentment, longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck. How many times—my big test gets to be is when other people are successful in a field that I want to be successful in my happy form. Can I rejoice that they're being successful in making a difference or do I get envious because I would like that position?

I want that. You know, so when we look at that whole thing, it's, you know, are you looking at other people and you're envious of the way their family is or this happens? You know, we do that in social media, don't we? Social media, we put forth our best fake, all the good things that happen to me stuff, and then we turn around and compare ourselves with ourselves, and then we all get discouraged because we're not like that guy or that woman. And guess what? We have social media influencers who tell us the beautiful way to live, right? Until we find out that isn't the way they live. We look at strife, bitter disagreement over fundamental issues. You know, Scripture talks about in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 that even in lawsuits, believers shouldn't have lawsuits with each other, it's better to be wronged. You know, it's interesting. I tell cops all the time, I said, you know, in nomenclature, how many gun guys have got anybody? You don't have to be a cop. Don't—I know how your boat—I know how your guns fell in. Lynx should talk about last year in the boating accident, but the rest of us, you know. And so the nomenclature for a 45 God's caliber is 1911,

Right? Okay, 1911 are proverbs. I tell cops all the time, Proverbs 1911 says this demands glory to overlook an offense. If you want to pull out something overlooking offense, because you have plenty of it in the police world, well, it's the same thing for us as well, you know. Are we overlooking an offense? And so I look at that and it talks about malicious talk. That's interesting. That which is injurious to another's good's name, another's good name.

It's used 16 of the 19 times for blasphemy. So when we defame other people's names that I'll have in effect, and God have mercy on me as sinner, because I've probably done that numerous times, not intended, but do we believe good, love always trusts, do we trust and expect the good rather than the bad until we have all the evidence? And so he talks about that. Evil suspicions, surmising, causing pain and trouble, full of peril to the Christian faith, you know. It's when you turn around and you're surmising things, you're causing pain. You know, that's why scripture tells you what, it tells you to turn around and let no crop communication proceed out of your mouth except that which is good to the use of edifying that may minister grace to the hearers. Ideally in a perfect world is I don't say anything unless I'm doing something good to build people up.

And then when it talks about constant friction, contention, incessant disputing, it's like people would just like to argue. And so when you look at it, you know them by their fruit.

One of the cool things I love about the law enforcement world is I believe that they're special agents to help the church through a time of deceit. The Bible says, "The very elect shall be deceived if ever possible." And cops are really good at winnowing out deceit. They deal with it all day long. And so that's crazy. And it says, we look in here once again in Matthew chapter seven, verse 15 through 18. Matthew chapter seven, verse 15, it says, "Watch out for false prophets they come to you in sheep's clothing." Notice how they're going to have the look, but inwardly they're ferocious wolves. You know, when someone outside doesn't back up who they are in the inside, that's a red flag. And that's a challenge for all of us. Do we back up who we say we are on the outside by what's going on in the inside? And if not, the beautiful thing about it is I spend every day repent and asking God to help me because I've become more and more aware of my shortcomings on a daily basis, but he's rich in mercy. And I want to encourage you that, you know. When you're robbed of the truth, you end up worshiping something else because the truth is what you

Have the vacuum in your heart to fill. And so we're going to dive into the money part of this, and it's interesting to me. You know, money, sex, and power. And it says verse five through eight here, we're just going to go into first Timothy six, five through eight, it says, "And constant friction between people of corrupt mind who have been robbed of the truth, who think the godliness of mean to financial gain." See, it's interesting that notice the sequence there, that godliness

Is a pathway to financial gain. It isn't that I'm seeking God in financial gains. It's that I'm going after the, I'm making a god out of that, right? But does God have a problem with money? You know, you look at Abraham in Genesis 13.2, Abraham became very wealthy in livestock and silver and gold. You can look at Job in Job 42, after Job had prayed his friends, the Lord made him prosper skin and give him twice as much as he had before. He was the richest man in the least. You look at Jacob as a result, Jacob became very wealthy with large flocks of sheep and goats and male and female dog or observance and many camels and donkeys. You know, we can look at that at Proverbs chapter 10 verse 22 says, "The blessing of the Lord brings wealth and it adds no trouble to it." You know, lazy hands in Proverbs 10 verse four say, "Make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth." See, I always find it interesting to me that you would have somebody whose life falls apart so bad that they cry out to God, he comes in and he delivers them. And then they little by

Little accumulate more and more and blessed to the point where they forget who he is and end up in judgment again. And you see his cycle over and over again. And so the problem isn't wealth, the problem is the people handling it. So when I look at Solomon, for instance, you know how much money Solomon was making? Solomon received 600 in 1 Kings chapter 10, 666 talents of gold, which is 50, 000 pounds. And the spot on gold last week amounted to $3 billion, $200 million a year in gold from tribute.

$3 billion. Can you imagine? Yeah, I don't even want to imagine. I get tired thinking about it, right? So we just think about that. But what does Solomon do? Because of his choices, little by little, his heart got a little away, you know? So let's go to Mark chapter 10 verses 17-23. And I think this is a fascinating illustration about the whole thing. It talks about as Jesus started on his way, a man came up to him and fell on his knees before him. What do you think the man was falling on his knees for? Because he fell the reverence for Jesus, right? And he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Why do you think he asked that question? Because he knew what he was made out of or because maybe he thought he was doing a good job. He thought everything was squared away from the Lord. He was bold enough to run up to him, fall on his knees and put a posture there, right? And why do you call me good, Jesus answer? No one is good except God alone. Now that's interesting for those of you who are

Looking for evidence for Jesus being God because he's making a claim there that made the Jews go crazy. He said, you know the commandments, you shall not murder, you should not commit adultery, you should not steal, you should not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and your mother. Teacher, he declared, all these I've kept since I was a boy. You know what, I am a good religious Jew. I've come here to bow down before you to say, can you give me the polishing pointers here to help me to be someone who is growing and learning? And notice what happens. Jesus looked at him and loved him. Notice he loved him. In spite of his condition, we're going to see in a second he loved him. He isn't here to beat him up, but he's here just to say, son, you got some deception here you're not dealing with. He said, go sell everything you have and give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. See, if you want to see someone who thought the means to financial blessing, you know, what was the problem? And what he said, this man's face fell, he went away sad because he had great wealth. So what was the

Man's greatest love? Money. See, he lived a good moral life, but money was his God.

And so when you look at that, the danger gets to be, it's like, listen, how are you, do you hold your hands open with the things of God? Because you didn't have any money when you started and you ain't going to have any money when you check out. All money is, is a tool. It's a tool to help you. It's interesting that contentment, I just think that word contentment, you know, what really blows me well, but godliness with contentment. I had never really thought about contentment in the way I had in preparation for this message. Contemmit is a perfect condition of life in which no aid or support is needed. Think about that. Perfect content, condition of life in which no aid or support is needed, but godliness with contentment is great game. And you look at verses like Matthew six 32 and 33, do not worry saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what should we wear for the pagans run after these things. The pagans are the ones who are running off to the mall worrying about all this stuff. I'm not saying going to

The mall is going to make you a pagan. I'm just saying, you know, and so for the pagans run after these things and your heavenly father knows that you need them, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things to be given to you as well. Notice the sequence there. The sequence of verse Timothy is, is I'm thinking the godliness is going to lead to a financial gain. The problem is financial gains the God and God's a process. When I put godliness first, financial gain often accompanies it. Now what I do with this is a whole nother story. Look at Philippians chapter four verse 12 and 13. For I know what you were, I know what is also to be in need and I know what is to have plenty. I've learned the secret of being content in every and any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or one. I can do all things who gives me straight. Now, the thing I want to challenge you is just take your Bibles and open up here. I'd love to challenge you to open up to second Corinthians chapter 11 verses 16 through 23.

Second Corinthians chapter 11 or 16 through 30 rather. And I just find this fascinating to me because how did Paul learn content? And I'm like, whoo, we want to talk about an ugly lesson here. If we look in second Corinthians chapter 11 verse 16 through 23, I'll get my seeing eye glasses on here and notice what he says right here.

I'm sorry, pick it up at verse 23. He goes out 23. He said, it's not 16, 16 through 23. All the servants, are there not servants to Christ? I am more. I've worked much harder. I've been in prison more frequently. I've been flogged more severely and exposed to death several times again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and day in the open sea. I've been constantly on the move. I've been in danger from rivers and danger from bandits and danger from my own countrymen and danger from my Gentiles and danger on the city and danger in the country and danger at sea and in danger from false brothers. I've labored and toiled and often gone without sleep and I've known hunger and thirst and I've gone through without food. I've been cold and naked and besides everything else I face the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin and I do not inwardly burn? If I must boast, I must boast

Of the things that show my weakness. We wonder why we go through hardship trials and tribulations.

But standing before you is a guy whose little brother died in his arms. Standing before you is a guy that had to go with his wife and unplug a child at Riley's Children's Hospital. Standing before you is someone whose parent went through an ugly divorce and bad things happen in a whole bunch of different ways. Standing before you is a bunch of junk where I raised a family of 11 on 43, 000 dollars a year and struggled like you've never seen. You know, standing before you, what did I learn through it all? That God is sufficient. Mission trip in 1999 over to Russia and Ukraine. I had a friend that was a missionary over there and they're going through one of the biggest financial struggles of their time and we went over there with the group to love on them. And I was over there and it's just funny how I saw everybody. I wore glasses at the time before I had laser surgery and they said, "Why do you guys wear glasses?" And I said, "Because I can't see." And I said, "We can't see either but we can't

Avoid glasses. So we got to pray and ask God to heal our eyes." I'm like, "Jack slapped me." But the point simply gets to be as wide as when you have nothing else. See, one of our struggles as Americans is we're so blessed that we don't even, we don't even look to God for stuff. And I'm not saying if you wear glasses, okay, I got laser surgery. I cheated. But my point simply gets to me is I was convicted. I was convicted in my heart how many times they look at God when things aren't going my way instead of starting with God. And so you look at this, you look at Hebrews chapter 13, verses five and six. It says, "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have because God said, 'Never will I leave you nor I will forsake you.' So we say in confidence, 'The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid what command do to me.'" You know, if you're really convinced that God is with you and he's going to make a way that he cares about you, that if, you know what, it says in James chapter one, verse 17, "That every good

And perfect gift is from above, coming from the Father of heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows." God knows who you are. He says in first Peter chapter one, verse six and seven, it says, "Home yourselves therefore under God's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." See, the thing the devil wants to try to get out of your system there is a belief that God cares for you and he's intimately involved in your life. And he knows the number of hairs on your head and he knows every sparrow that's out there and he makes provision. And I'm here to tell you God's supernaturally made provision in a lot of different ways. You know, I've been a full-time missionary here for last, since 2011.

And I'm not saying this, you know, if you're here in some other context, I'm not saying that. I'm just giving, I'm giving tribute to what God's done. And I started out, I said, "God, if I'm going to do this, then you're going to have to make a way because I just, I'm not, my constitution is so good to go around saying I ask for money all the time." And I've seen him supernaturally make provision for us in ways that I don't even think about money anymore. But what was the lesson? The lesson was hardship, trials, tribulations, the lesson was doing without, the lesson was coming up against bills that were due. How are we going to pull this off? And it's the crowd to God and when he shows up, I have a deeper confidence for the next trial. And so I'm here to tell you, no matter what you're going through, there's a God up in heaven who Jesus was made perfect through suffering, it says in Hebrews chapter two. And you know what? The trials and tribulations you're going through doesn't mean God's left you up to your own. He's teaching you things. Romans chapter five, verse three through five says, "Not only so, we rejoice in our suffering because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope. Your character

Gets divine as suffering." Second Corinthians chapter one, verse three and four, "Praise be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. The reason I'm an effective chaplain is because the hardship, trials, and tribulations I've been through, I can relate to people going through those. And I want that on my worst enemies and I love them and I want to intervene. And so I'm trying to encourage you that God cares about you and contentment is going to be that very position that allows you to let go of stuff. We'll talk about this in a second, but if I'm content, do I worry? No. If I'm content, do I covet other people's stuff? No. If I'm content, am I jealous towards others? No. Do I accept pervert or do I accept bribes to pervert justice or gain influence? No. Am I discontent? Okay. Do I have envy? Am I full of gratitude? Am I full of humility, peace, and joy? See, contentment is a

Big deal. God wants us to get to the point where we're content. I realize I'm blessed beyond comprehension. Thank you, Lord. And it robs the devil of everything because he's out there trying to, he's trying to get you into things. Okay. So we look at here nine and ten just to finish this off and start pulling in towards a home plate here. Verses nine and ten. It says, "Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap." See, there's a trap. Did you know the devil's in the marketing? I want you to think about this. Somebody challenged me. I'll tell you a story in a second. "Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap in the many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." See, money is a byproduct, you know? It's a byproduct. You know, and we live in a country with a never-ending game of comparisons. And I listened to a guy one time telling me the devil's in marketing of evil. He's a marketing specialist. If you look at Ezekiel 28,

He talks about he trades this big deal. He made trade agreements with all kinds of people. And so I met a guy one time who was a Christian who wrote a book on that, and I talked to him, and he said, "You know what?" He said, "I talked to a McDonald's executive a while back, and they told me, they said, they told me that their job was to find out

A product that they can convince every man, woman, and child they'd be incomplete without it."

And tell me that isn't what's going on right now. You think about everything. I mean, an obsession to be with all the cool kids. The thing that gets me is somebody started the trend. That's my deal, okay? And when they say something, you've heard that term, no doubt, that they say this, they say that, I figured out something. I'm a part of they, and I didn't say that. I could buck the trends. And so some of you are wondering about my beard. You know, you're saying like, you look like Santa Claus. And so the reason I grew this is last Christmas, they were singing a dumb song. I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus, and I didn't want my kids to think she was cheating on me.

And so now I'm working undercover with law enforcement looking for evil elves. So when we look at this thing, we haven't many. I love it. Throw up this next quote here. I love this Tim Jackson quote. This guy from the University of Surrey said this. He said, "We spend money we don't have on things we don't need to create impressions that won't last on people we don't care about."

Is that profound? See, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, God wants you to be content and to realize money is a tool. And I get the, you know, we talk about the devil marking evil. Isn't that what he did in the Garden of Eden? Did he market discontent? He markets discontent to say God's holding that on you. You know, there's some things he's holding that on you. And so you want to, you want to bite on this. And so it talks about money as the trap. If you don't realize that money is a tool like everything else in your life. And so I just find it fascinating to me. I'm going to share, I'm going to share just a little story here.

My son Curtis is not here and he would be embarrassed if I ever shared this, but we live just directly south of a tree farm, which was, you know, big and, you know, they had a big operation and we homeschooled. And so my kid, you know, my son worked there pretty full time almost, which is, you know, it's past seven years. So I'm past the,

But anyway, my son worked there because I still have permission to do this. I'm like, I don't need permission for my kid to work. You know, anyway, he worked at this tree farm. He come to me at age 13. He said, dad, he said, I'm going to tell you about Tony Biles. He said, I'm going to trust God. He said, I'm giving away a hundred percent of what I make this year. Kid worked 30 hour weeks and he gave away a hundred percent of what he made to God that year. And, and age 25, he bought the place for $2.2 million. And right now he's a successful businessman who has five tree farms. He's making tons of money and he's financing the kingdom all over the place. Now my prayer is he can contain it because that's the last thing I told him. I said, Kurt, that's great that God bless you. Now can you contain it without compromising? But my point simply gets to be as I've seen it happen before. Money is a tool to help me make the world a better place. And I think, I think we really find that when we turn around and

Let's go to James chapter four, verse one through three, and we'll start wrapping this thing up. James chapter four, verses one through three says, what causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires, the battle with you. So once again, your desires, your self-centeredness, you desire, but you do not have, so you kill, covet, and you cannot have what you want. So you quarrel and fight. So notice where it all comes out of selfish desires like scripture just told us. And so you quarrel and fight and you do not have because you do not ask God.

Next one. And when you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your own pleasures. How much you think about that? It says that there's nothing wrong with asking God for blessing, but are you spending it as a tool to help make the world a better place? Are you giving your resources so you can take care of the poor? Are you using the finances and blessing that God gave you to try to outgive God? Do you want to try to outgive God? Because I'm here to tell you right now, if your heart's in the right place, you can't do it. You can't outgive him. And he's going to use you to make a big, big difference. And so I just think it's what would happen, what would happen if we turned around and really look at this? Because how many of our sins are financial sins? Robbery, burglary, prostitution, extortion, drug trade, gambling, espionage, online scams, murders for insurance money. If you look at that, when you have a love of money, that's a source of all kinds of evil.

But when you turn around, and I just heard a thing about inner city, they did a big survey of inner city stuff, and they were talking about what is the greatest hope for the inner cities? And the church was listed clear up towards the top. And why is that? Because they realized that they're a Holy Spirit bucket brigade tasked with putting out the fires of hell, that God dispatched them to places where there's no hope, that he came to make beauty out of ashes, give a garment of praise instead of a spear to spear, to make oaks of righteousness, a display of a splendor. And so I'd like to just close out here with just a couple of thoughts here. The first one being is, I want you to think of stuff in your life that if it was taken away from you right away right now, that you would be totally brokenhearted. Maybe a spouse, maybe your kids, maybe something. What is it that you have that if it was taken away right now, it would break your heart?

And do you thank God for that on a regular basis? Does that break your heart to realize His goodness to you? You know, I got a wife that I love with all my heart. She put up with me all these years. I got kids that they're not perfect, but gosh, I'm so grateful to God. We got 23 grandkids and four of them are still not having a kid yet, so I ended up with 50.

You know what? God's been rich. I live in America. Do you realize your best day is your worst day somebody's dreaming of the country? If you've ever been to Africa or somewhere else, you'll see people in total joy and the abject poverty because they don't have anything. And you know what? I just want to close by this to saying, you know,

Contentment is a big deal and using money to advance the kingdom because it's a tool. And if you seek God and do the right thing, He'll bring a blessing eventually in different ways. And if you're faithful with little things, you'll be faithful much. And my experience is this, is I've seen God take and I've struggled like you've never imagined. And I would have misinterpreted for knowing God doesn't care about me, but that's not true at all. He loved me with a big passion. And I'd like to close with one final thing here. It's found in Romans chapter one, verse 21, it says, "For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor give thanks and their foolish hearts are darkened." And I like reverse engineering that stuff because if the foolish hearts are darkened because they didn't glorify God and they weren't grateful, then what would cause me, what would cause me to get His blessing? Glorifying God. And what that means simply is I came to a restaurant in Buffalo and having seven or eight kids at the time, we went in the restaurant and no one had, there's not that many big families there. And they all stopped talking and started

Counting. You know, I was glad we didn't have over 10 because they'd have to take their shoes off. And so we sit in there. Our kids sit down. They say, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, all that stuff, because they had to run a tight ship. And suddenly people come up like we're circus trainers and ask us, how do your kids, why did they behave so well? How do we get them to do that? And who is getting glory? Us. Were we looking for it? No. It was a byproduct of relationship. And so your job and my job is to be conduit, to be a conduit of God's blessing, to be a conduit of God's love, to come in here and say, living God, we want our time and earth to count. Would you help us to use the material blessings that we have to make the world a better place? Would you help us to dare to trust you by sowing deeper and harder and stronger? Would you help us to put it all on the line and say, living God, raise you? And he said, see, if I won't pour out my blessings on you,

You won't contain it. And so when you look at that old thing about giving gratitude, the interesting thing about gratitude is I can show you brain science, the gratitude, literally, wired. So if you want to live this day and age and you want to survive to the end, I want to encourage you to turn around and realize that God put you here for such a time as this. And every trial and every tribulation that you're going through is a gift in his hands to help you discover who he is. And the lessons you learn and the blessings you receive all become more and more tools. And if you're faithful to little things, he's faithful and much. And you know what? He loves you with everlasting love. And I'm honored to be here. And I just pray the living God would just bless you. And I'd like to close with a prayer if I could. Lord, we just thank you for your faithfulness and I thank you, Lord, for the gift of eternal life. God, I thank you, Lord, that you saw fit to come after us and keep coming after us. And God, this place has a heart for the lost and the downtrodden.

And God, I'm asking you would just take and stir every one of our hearts to realize the gift we have and that our passion obsession would be you living authentic lives to reflect to a bunch of people have no hope and that the God of hope would fill us all joy and peace as we trust them so that we can overflow with hope in that by the power of the Holy Spirit, which you said in Romans 1135, or I'm sorry, 1513. And Lord, we just thank you for your faithfulness and pray to be glorified in Jesus' name. Amen.

Lord, it is indeed you and you alone. Lord, that is the reason for our soul to sing. Lord, your goodness in our lives, your presence, Lord, in our lives, just your love in our lives, Lord. Lord, may we be moved to a place of contentment that leads to godliness, Lord, that we will be moved to a place of seeing all that we have as the leverage for your kingdom, Lord, in this place. We thank you, Lord, for your word this morning. We ask, Lord, that you would press it into our hearts through your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name. Amen.