Slide 1
According to a study in Accident Analysis & Prevention, a substantial majority of drivers (up to 80%) rated themselves as above average or significantly better than other drivers

Slide 2
“Most people think they’re more skillful and less risky than the average driver.”

Slide 3
Illusory superiority is the common bias where we overestimate how good we are (or how likely we are to be right) compared to the average person, even when the evidence doesn’t support it.

Slide 4
I’ve never met someone who thought they were greedy.

Slide 5
U.S. credit card debt is currently above $1.2 trillion, and the share of people making only minimum payments is near an all-time high. 
- Federal Register

Slide 6
“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.” 
- Will Rogers

Slide 7
And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness (greed), for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
Luke 12:15

Slide 8
πλεονεξία (pleonexia)
πλέον (pleon) = “more”
ἔχω (echō) = “to have”
pleonexia is the drive to have more. Not merely “having a lot,” but the insatiable impulse that says: more, more, more.

Slide 9
“All kinds” - greed has varieties. It can live in the rich and the middle class and the broke.
“Be on your guard” - greed is not defeated by good intentions; it’s defeated by vigilance and practice.
“Life does not consist…” - Jesus directly confronts the story our culture tells: your life = your stuff.

Slide 10
And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Luke 12:16-21

Slide 11
The man says I, I, my, I, I, my, I, my, my, I, my
- My crops, my barns, my grain, my goods, my soul
- There’s no God, no gratitude, no neighbor, no generosity, and no mission

Slide 12
Matthew 6:24 - You cannot serve God and money.
Hebrews 13:5 - Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have...
1 Timothy 6:10 - For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.
Ecclesiastes 5:10 - He who loves money will not be satisfied with money...

Slide 13
Materialism is the one appetite that grows by feeding it.
You don’t satisfy it; you train it.

Slide 14
Spiritual disciplines are practices that create space for God to transform us into the likeness of Jesus.

Slide 15
How do we build practices that protect us from greed and train us into Christlikeness?

Slide 16
Stewardship answers “Whose is it, and what is faithful management?”
Simplicity answers “What kind of heart and life is free from grasping?”
Frugality answers “What spending do I intentionally abstain from to retrain desire?”
Generosity answers “What do I intentionally release for the good of others and the kingdom?”

Slide 17
"In frugality we abstain from using money or goods at our disposal in ways that merely gratify our desires or our hunger for status, glamour, or luxury.  Practicing frugality means we stay within the bounds of what general good judgment would designate as necessary for the kind of life to which God has led us.” 
- Dallas Willard

Slide 18
It’s choosing an “enough” lifestyle on purpose. The purpose is so money stays a tool instead of becoming our security, our status, or our savior. It’s not poverty. It’s intentional limits. We decide ahead of time: “I will live below my means so my heart stays free.”

Slide 19
What the discipline looks like in real life:
- Margin on purpose: We spend less than we make, consistently.
- Limits we’ve pre-decided: We tell our money where it can and can’t go.
- Gratitude replaces upgrading: We practice contentment rather than chasing the next thing.
- Open-handedness replaces stockpiling: We keep space for generosity.
- Simplicity in lifestyle: Our life doesn’t require constant earning to sustain it.

Slide 20
The Easterlin Paradox, formulated by economist Richard Easterlin in 1974, states that while wealthier individuals are happier than poorer ones within a country, a nation's average happiness does not increase significantly as its GDP per capita rises over the long term. It suggests that relative income (social comparison) matters more for happiness than absolute income. 

So I am biased, and there's certain areas that I know that I am biased in. For example last week, stims Pass was a Ford Pass that got deflected backwards. I know that some other people don't know that, and I realized that I am biased towards the Broncos because I was cheering for the Broncos. And so anything that was close, I I was going to be biased there direction. And that's just true in life. We, we tend to be biased certain ways, but I think the scarier thing is when we're biased in directions that we are unaware of the fact that we have a bias. Like I know I am biased towards the Broncos. I don't know sometimes that I'm being biased in directions that, that I'm just completely ignorant of. And all of us have certain biases that we are unaware of. For example, according to a study in accident analysis and prevention, a substantial majority of drivers up to 80% rated themselves as above average or significantly better than other drivers. Now, if you're not sure how averages work, 80% of people can't be better than the average person. Like that's, that's not how the math works. But, but we tend to just think of ourselves as well. Everybody else is bad, but, but I'm not bad in that same study, it said, most people think they're more skillful and less risky than the average driver. And, and so what we tend to do is we have certain things we think about ourselves that are better than reality, but then there are other things that we think about ourselves that, that really, we have an issue, we have a problem, we have a challenge, and we're just completely ignorant of that. The reason for this is something called the illusory superiority. It's the common bias where we overestimate how good we are or how likely we are to be right compared to the average person, even when the evidence doesn't support it. And so what I wanna do is I wanna lean in and recognize, hey, there are some areas of our life that, that we're just unaware of. And yet there are challenges. Like sometimes we say, well, I'm, I'm a better than average friend, or I'm a better than average husband, or I'm a better than average wife, or I'm a better than average parent. And, and it's because it's really hard for us sometimes to see our flaws. And so we're, we're gonna step into an area today that that's a, it's not a controversial area. Bible talks about it a whole lot, but it is an area that we don't really like to talk about it. That's the area of greed. Hey, here's what I would just say. I've never met someone who thought that they were greedy. Like, like not one time. And I've been a pastor a long time. I've sat down with a lot of people that have told me that they were struggling with a lot of things. I've never in my whole life sat down with someone and they said, Hey, pastor, I, I'm just a greedy person. Like, that's, that's my challenge. If, if we did a show of hands right now who thinks they're greedy, probably none of us raise our hands because we think that's an other people problem. We don't tend to think that that is a me problem. And yet, if we look at our culture, I, I think it is an US problem, according to the Federal register that's run by our government, US credit card debt is currently above $1.2 trillion. And the share of people making only minimum payments is near an all time high to translate that for us. We are spending money that we don't have in order to buy more and more and more stuff. Why do we do that? And I love this quote from Will Rogers. He, he was an old cowboy and comedian long time ago. He said this, too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want to impress people they don't like. And in a nutshell, I think that's pretty accurate of our culture. Now. Now here's what I want to pause and point out. This is not a give money to the church sermon. I think that's biblical too. We could talk about tithing, we talk about giving those are great messages. That is not this message at all. I'm not gonna ask you to give any more. We're not gonna pass more buckets. This is purely a conversation about our hearts. It's about if I'm going to become all that God has created me to be, if I'm gonna have the relationship with God that God wants me to have with him, one of the greatest stumbling blocks and barriers that scripture warns us against is greed. And most of us don't realize it's a problem. If you've got a Bible telling me to Luke chapter 12, Luke chapter 12, we're gonna look in verse 15. It says, in he talking about, Jesus said to them, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness. Greed is what some translations say for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And now that's one of those passages that you've probably heard before. And yet there is so much truth in one very simple sentence. There's so much truth that we tend to think, well, hey, that's really important for other people. But that's not my problem. I don't struggle with that. The the Greek word there that that often gets translated as greed is the Greek word ionia. Ionia is interesting 'cause it, it's not a very common Greek word, but it's two Greek words combined together to, to say something. It's the Greek word for more, and the Greek word for to have. So the Greek word he, he kind of combines to, to use there is to have more. This idea of greed as my heart's posture or my heart's condition of always wanting more than I have, or to put it a different way, Palexia is the drive to have more, not merely having a lot, but the insatiable impulse that says more, more, more. I'm not happy with what I've got, but I will be happy if I just have a little bit more and then a little bit more, and then a little bit more. There's three key phrases from that verse. The the first part is he, he talks about all kinds of greed. So greed has different varieties that it can live in the rich and in the middle class and in the broke. Here's what I wanna point out about greed. I think sometimes we think, well, rich people are greedy and biblically that that's not true. Rich people can be greedy. But having wealth does not naturally make someone greedy. It doesn't automatically make someone greedy that someone biblically could be a billionaire with lots of different houses and fly a private jet and in the condition of their heart, not be greedy, but someone could have almost nothing be completely broke. And they, because the condition in our heart be greedy. So when it's giving this warning, it has nothing to do with what we have. It has everything to do with the posture of what's inside. Then it says to be on guard. It doesn't just say that, that, hey, this is something that, that just pray about one time that it's done. No, it's saying that it's not defeated by good intentions. That instead that we have to create vigilance and practice. We have to create guardrails in our life that Jesus is saying is, you are going to drift this direction. Your your heart is going to drive you this direction. And so you have to be on guard. You have to do things in order to prevent that from happening. And then he says this, he says, for life does not consist, Jesus is directly confronting what our culture would tell us. That, that our culture tends to say this, that your life is equivalent to your stuff that you and I, our value, our identity, who we are is based off how much stuff that we have. We live in a consumeristic culture that is just, just mind blowing about materialism and a really challenging time when everything that we get as advertisements, advertisements, advertisements, and what are advertisements trying to do that at their very core advertisements are trying to convince you, trying to convince me that what we have is not enough. But if we get this product, this new thing, then it will be enough. When I was growing up, I, I used to get this magazine called East Bay, which anyone in the room probably under the age of like 30 doesn't understand what I'm talking about because there's the internet now, and we didn't have that back in the day. So, so when new shoes came out, it came in this magazine called East Bay. And I would get that thing from the mailbox and I would flip it open. And I love the smell of the new magazine when I would just share, stare at, at all the new basketball shoes. And of course, growing up in the nineties, I always wanted a pair of Jordan's in, in my house. The problem with that is that my parents' philosophy of shoes was for $30 at pay less, you can get a shoe that's just as good as any other shoe. But junior high me did not believe that. So, so my budget that my parents gave was $30. So anything above that that I wanted to spend, I had to earn myself. Now, now Jordans, they cost more than $30. And so I mowed so many lawns in order to get a pair of Jordan elevens, the Concords that were all white with, with a North Carolina blue Jumpman. I mean, they were like good looking, let me tell you. And I remember saving up my money to buy myself a pair of Jordan elevens. And I remember walking into school with the, I remember the smell of those Jordans, and I remember it made my life so full for about two weeks. I, I, I thought that it made me jump higher and run faster, by the way, it did not I did not look like Jordan on the court, but I I I, for months, I longed for these things. And then they, they were fulfilled for maybe two weeks, and then it was on to the next thing, which at that time it was Doc Martins. Like I had to gimme a pair of those. 'cause Then, then I'm gonna be popular and everybody's gonna like me. And what happens in junior high, this idea that my value, my worth is connected to these materialistic things that really never goes away. The price tag just changes. So you get a little bit older and all of a sudden it's, the status is connected to your car and you, you get a little bit older than that. And, and it's connected to car and clothes and the house that I have and my income and my vacations. And we just continue to move the goalpost and move the goalpost and move the goalpost. And so Jesus is warning us that our life does not consist of our stuff. And man, if we could, if nothing else you pay attention to, if we could actually in our hearts wrestle with that and make it true in our lives, it would change so much of our identity and our value and our happiness. But we tend to fall into the lie that our culture tells us. He goes on in verse 16, Luke chapter 12, verse 16. Jesus continues, and he says, and he, Jesus told them a parable saying the land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do for I have nowhere to store my crops? And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night, your soul is required of you and the things you've prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Now, I I think one of the, the challenges of that parable is that sometimes we read that parable and we just completely misunderstand it. Because if, if you didn't know the context and you didn't know the, the totality of Jesus teaching on money, you would hear that and you'd say, okay, so don't save money. Like I should just get rid of my 401k and I should get rid of my Roth, IRA and I should, I just need, I should spend it all today right now. And can I just, let's pause. That is not what Jesus is saying. So before anybody starts liquidating things that, that's not the point of the parable. And the point of the parable is connected to the context of verse 13. In verse 13, you, you have this brother comes up to Jesus and says, Jesus, tell my older brother that he needs to split the inheritance with me. Now, in the first century, the way that inheritance worked at very different culturally than it does today. So if a man died, his spouse, his wife got nothing in the first century, a woman could not own things. And so all of his possessions would not get split amongst all of his kids. They would all go to the first born son, second born son, nothing unless the first born son decided to give some of his inheritance to that son. Like that's how it worked. And so what we have here is we have a firstborn son that gets all this stuff, chooses not to give anything to his sibling. His sibling now comes to Jesus and says, Jesus, rabbi, you're an important influential person. I need you to tell my brother that he needs to take his inheritance and give some of it to me. And then Jesus first says, well, hey, I'm not your arbitrator. I I won't do that. And then he gives us this parable, this parable in the context of him saying, watch your heart and don't be greedy. Now is the point of the parable to the man that received all the inheritance, or is it to the brother asking for the money from the inherit inheritance? It's both point of the parable is to everybody. And Jesus is intentionally in the language, in the parable pointing out that the struggle with the man was his heart. If, if you just read the parable again and underline our circle, every time he says I or my, it's a whole lot. I mean, it's only a few sentences, and yet he says it a whole lot. The man says, I, I, my I, I, my I, my, my, i, my. So, so the point is that he is saying, it's my crops, it's my barns, it's my grain, it's my goods, it's my soul. He, he never mentions God. He never has gratitude. He never mentions his neighbor. There's no mention of generosity and there's no mission that he has. Jesus is teaching over and over again, is trying to get people to understand, Hey, your your view, your worldview of life around us should be the kingdom of heaven. That this world is temporary, but there is an eternity waiting. And so I need to make my decisions in this life based off of a perspective of the kingdom of heaven, an eternal perspective. And so the point of the parable, it's not anti wealth. That is not what the parable is trying to say. What it is trying to say is it's anti self salvation. The man decided that he could save himself. So he gets more and more and he's ignoring everybody else. And his heart is so focused on more and more and more then Jesus' whole point is, and for what? That you and I could die at any moment. And so if my identity, if everything in my life is wrapped up in my stuff and what I have, it is temporary. We do not take it with us. It's gone in an instant. And so Jesus is giving a warning to say, if, if my salvation, if my identity, if my world is wrapped up and my money and my stuff, that's a dangerous place to be. So often though, we think if I could just have a little bit more, that's what I need. There's a fascinating case study of, of Pepsi in 1992. They had this advertising campaign that they did that, that started out really, really well. It was in the Philippines, and they had the old school. If you look underneath the, the bottle cap of your soda, we're gonna give you a prize. And so most of the Pepsis that they, you'd open up and they, if they had a prize, they'd have something like one free Pepsi. So you could go turn in the bottle cap and you'd get a new one. And it worked 40%. That's how much their sales went up in a very short amount of time. And so everybody was starting to buy more Pepsi. But the big reason why is because they advertised that there would be a couple lucky winners that if they got the right number underneath their bottle cap, they would give away a million pesos. So this was in 1992, you adjusted you, you change it over US currency roughly today be worth about $90,000. So across the country, what would happen is people would tune into the TV every night. And just like the lottery works is they would announce these are the lucky winners. So you had all these people that are paying attention. It, it comes time for them to announce these are the winners of the million pesos. And, and these bottle caps are exactly what, what got put up. It was the number 3, 4, 9. Now the computer system was only supposed to have two winners that had that bottle cap for 3, 4, 9. There's a little bit of a glitch. 800,000 people had a bottle cap that said 3, 4, 9. So all of a sudden, 800,000 people across the Philippines all thought that they won a million pesos all at the same time. Roughly 1% of the entire country's population thought that they won. And then the next day, Pepsi immediately comes out and says, Hey, hey, no, no, no, just side note, you didn't win a million. Actually, there's a security code underneath. And if it doesn't match the security code, you're not a winner. There's only two winners. The rest of you, you get nothing. As you can imagine, those 800,000 people not very happy about it, they were little irate that they started to literally riot in the streets. There's some photos of them rioting in the streets. They started to flip Pepsi vehicles over and burn them. They, they get outside of Pepsi headquarters. They, they, they bust all the glass. Somebody takes a grenade and chunks it into the Pepsi headquarters, which causes all kinds of questions like, where do you get a grenade in the first place? But like people were angry. O over the course of the week, riots in the streets, five people ended up dying as a result of this Pepsi marketing scheme gone wrong. But, but why were people so angry? Why were people so riled up? Because there, there's this lie that we believe that if I just had money, it would fix the problems that I've got in life. That, that if you would just give me a prize that all my stress, all my anxieties, all my problems, that, that thing that I've always wanted, if I could just get that, then life would be great, then life would be good. So much so that five people died in a whole country rioted because they thought they were gonna get some money that they didn't end up getting the Bible over and over and over again, talks about money. And it does not ever say that money itself is evil, but our posture towards money has to be cautious. Look at what Jesus says in Matthew chapter six, verse 24. He says, you cannot serve God and money. He doesn't say, well, it's possible, but it's hard. It's difficult. He says, you can't do it. He says, you cannot do both of these things. In Hebrews 13, five, it says, keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have. Notice it doesn't say keep your life free of money. It says, keep your life free of the love of money. The love of money. One Timothy six 10 says, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils that gets misquoted all the time. People say, money's the root of all evil. That's not true. It's not what scripture says. Scripture says that money is a root of all kinds of evil. The love of money, not money. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It's a heart posture. Ecclesiastes chapter five, verse 10 says, he who loves money will not be satisfied with money. It reminds you of the old famous Rockefeller quote, when the richest people to ever live ask him, how much more is enough money? And he says, just a little bit more, just a little bit more, just a little bit more. Materialism is the one appetite that you and I have that grows by feeding it. You ever notice that like some of you right now are hungry for lunch? Like you're ready? You're like, okay, if you could wrap this up, my appetite is ready to go eat something. And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna go to lunch and we will eat. But you'll eat to a point that you are satisfied, and then you stop eating. You're like, okay, I've had enough. Now that appetite will come back. But you can fill that appetite momentarily. But materialism doesn't work that way. Materialism, the, the more you feed it, the more it grows. And so here's the spiritual principle with greed, that, that you don't satisfy it. Instead, you train it. We have to train that part of our heart, that part of our life, not to train that direction. Now, we've been in a sermon series about spiritual disciplines, and so why are spiritual disciplines such a big deal? It's because what they are trying to do inside of our heart. It's a gift that God gives us. The spiritual disciplines are practices that help us create space for God to transform us into the likeness of Jesus. So me spending time in the Bible, spending time in scripture, I don't just do it to read it like it's a book. When I'm intentionally setting aside space in my life to say I am pursuing a relationship with Jesus, I wanna become more like Jesus. So I spend time in God's word in order to help make that happen. In Romans chapter 12 verse two, it says, do do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind. So it's this idea that I'm creating practices to continually transform my mind, my heart, my soul, my whole being, to be more and more like Jesus. I spend time in prayer and in solitude to turn off the distractions to try and become closer to Jesus. I I fast, I create that as a rhythm and a pattern in my life. Why? In order to become more and more and more like Jesus. So, so then what does it look like to create a spiritual discipline in my life that helps protect my heart? Give me guardrails so that greed doesn't bubble to the top? Or, or to put it a different way, how do we build practices that protect us from greed and train us into Christ-likeness? That if you look over church history there's really four different categories that when they, when either early church fathers or even recent authors, when they talk about spiritual disciplines, they would take money and they would put 'em into these four different categories. The first is this idea of stewardship. And stewardship simply is this question, who's is it? And what is faithful management? So the Bible would teach that you and I own nothing if you are a Christian, that everything I am, everything I own is God's, and he puts me as the steward over it. An example of that is that my, my son has a bark cell phone. He's 13. So you don't have a full blown cell phone. He is a bark cell phone. It's, it's very, very restricted in what he can do with that. But when he got that phone, we made him sign a document. So we wrote out this whole document, and the big thing at the top of the document is that you don't own this. So, so we try and remind him all the time, Hey, you do not own a phone. This is not your phone. This is my phone that I allow you graciously, kindly to use. But because it's my phone and not your phone, that means that at any given time, I have access to my phone and I can look at everything that's on it. I can look at every text message that you've ever sent or received. I can look at every photo and I can look at every website you've ever visited. I can look at all of your apps. I can look at the music that you've been listening to and the videos that you've been watching it, like it is mine. Furthermore, I try and tell my kids, Hey, you own nothing. Like everything is mine. You just get to benefit from my stuff. And, and mom's stuff like, it's ours, not yours. That's the idea of stewardship. Stewardship is that you and I own nothing. Everything is owned by God, and he allows us to use it for his glory and for his benefit. There's also this concept of simplicity. It answers the question of what kind of heart and life is free from grasping. If Jesus is warn is that my heart is naturally gonna be grasping for more and more and more. How do I create simplicity in my life to where that's not the posture of my heart? Frugality answers the question of what spending do I intentionally abstain from to re to retrain desire? Now, frugal, sometimes we, we see that as a bad word, but frugality is this, this intentional mindset of I'm not just gonna buy everything I want all the time. And that's hard. Why is that hard? Because the way that your cell phone works and my cell phone works is one, here's everything that we say. And so if it hears you say that you want something, it's gonna start advertising that thing to you nine nonstop all the time. Or if in social media they say that it only takes somewhere around 10 clicks, you click 10 different times, and then the algorithm knows you better than your spouse. That's what the data says. And if it knows you that well, what's it gonna show you? The things you should buy, and it's gonna try and convince you that your life is not happy. But if you buy this thing, then your life is gonna be great. So frugality is saying, I'm going to intentionally abstain from things that I want because I'm trying to teach my heart that happiness is not just getting everything I want all the time. And then there's this idea of generosity. It answers what do I intentionally release for the good of others in the kingdom? That, that if I'm intentionally holding things back, it's not just for my benefit, but instead it's in order to use that to be generous in these other ways. I, I, I wholeheartedly believe that Christians should be the most generous people on the planet in a world right now that is very anti tipping culture. And I'm sure everybody's got opinions on tipping. What would it look like if Christians just said, Hey, I'm, I like to tip and, and that server or that waiter or that waitress or that high school kid sitting across the counter instead of smirking at the fact that the iPad makes me tip, I, I'm going to say, well, no, I've intentionally not spent money on things that I wanted so that I can generously give money in all these other areas of my life. I, I love how Dallas Willard author, who talks a lot about spiritual disciplines, he puts it like this in frugality, we abstain from using money or goods at our disposal in ways that merely gratify our desires or our hunger for status, glamor or luxury. Practicing frugality means we stay within the bounds of what general good judgment would designate as necessary for the kind of life to which God has led us. Or, or to put it a different way, here's the concept or the idea. It's choosing in enough lifestyle on purpose. The purpose is so money stays a tool instead of becoming our security, our status or our savior, it's not poverty. It's intentional limits. We decide ahead of time. I, I will live below my means, so my heart stays free. Now here's why this is a challenge, because this is very individual. You can't come up with one rule of life that applies to everybody in this room because everybody in this room has different levels of income. Instead, it's saying, me, examining myself, and it's not how much stuff I Have or How wealthy I am, it's the condition of my heart and intentionally creating things to make sure that I don't fall into Greed. So what does that look like practically? What would spiritual Disciplines to guard my heart from greed look like? And number one is just margin on purpose. We spend less than we make consistently. Now. Now, that's not a brilliant idea, and yet it is so Hard. Here's how I know that because Dave Ramsey is worth over $200 million. And basically what he sold for $200 million is that spend less money than you make. That's it. Like It's, it's Dave Ramsey wrapped up in a single sentence, and yet, why is he worth $200 million? Because People struggle to do that. We have A hard time not spending every Dollar That we bring in. And then a little bit more than that. So intentionally creating margin on purpose. The second is limits That we pre Decide some, some limits. So instead, we tell our money where it can go and where it can't go. We say, I'm only gonna spend this much money. Now, that's really Hard. I mean, you, you always say, okay, I'm gonna spend this much money on a car. And then you go start looking at cars. You're like, well, if I spend a little bit more, I get these nicer Features. I I'm gonna spend this much money on a house. And then you go house hunting and say, well, if we spend a little bit more, look how much bigger and how much nicer. Like in every area Of our life, we create A limit. And then what, what are we gonna always be tempted to do to Just go a little bit more? So it's intentionally creating limits that we Pre decide. Also, gratitude replaces upgrade, Practice contentment rather than chasing the next thing. Why Does everything have a new model? Every single year, Cars Have a new model every year, phones have a new model every year, skis have a new model every year, like everything has a new model every single year because they know psychologically It's A dopamine hit when we get something new. Basketball Shoes are new every single year. 'cause Some part about us thinks, well, if it's new, it's better than the old one. This piece of junk that I've got, if only I had that new shiny thing, then I Will Be happy. Instead, it's saying, Instead Of chasing that next thing, I I'm gonna be grateful For what I have. Hey, here's something I learned a long time ago in life. And yet it is so challenging to live out that if you and I cannot be happy Today with what we have right where we are, We will never be happy tomorrow. And we don't believe that we, We fall into this trap Of, okay, I will be happy As soon as I Get this, as soon As I have the new job, As soon as I have the pay raise, As soon as I have the new car or the new house or the new this or the new that as soon as my health gets To this place, regardless of what Situation you find yourself in today, right now, scripture would point us to contentment, giving praise To the Lord. And Every circumstance, it's This idea Of if I'm gonna be happy, I gotta start now, not tomorrow, not once I have that thing, but instead I've got to start now. A Additionally, it's this spiritual discipline of open handedness replacing stockpiling. What does it look Like to spend less than I bring in So that, Not that I Stockpile It away, but instead so that I can spend it generously on kingdom work. Things that Glorify God, That love my neighbor, care for my neighbor. And then lastly, it's simplicity and lifestyle. But our life doesn't require Constant earning to sustain it. Simplicity and Lifestyle really has a lot to do with Our income level. Simplicity and lifestyle is gonna look different for some people than other people. And it's not about anybody else, It's just about Me. It's about my heart. And There's a fascinating study that that was done back in 1974. It's called The Easterlin Paradox. It was formulated by economist Richard Easterlin. It states that while Wealthier individuals are happier than poor ones within a country, a nation's average happiness does not increase significantly as Its GDP per capita rises Over the long term. It Suggests that Relative income or social comparison matters more for happiness than absolute income. Here's What he's saying. In 1974, He does This study and he says, Okay, if I look at the Wealthiest countries in the world, and then I look at the Overall Happiness index, The Wealthiest countries in the world are not the happiest countries in the world. That's True today, by The way. True in 1974, also True today. And he tried to figure out, Well, why Is that? And then what he found is that The healthiest, the Happiest individuals Were basically the Richest in any country. Meaning that even in a very poor country, if someone was richer than everybody Else, That person was really Wealthy or, or that wealthy person was really happy. But if you took That same individual and moved them to a country where they're no longer the richest, now they're somewhere in the middle, that person becomes less happy to, to put it a different way, here's what he found. You and I, our happiness has nothing to do with What we have. It has Everything to do With what other people have That we don't have social comparison. That instead of being happy with what I've got, I'm constantly looking at what other people have and thinking, well, the reason that I'm not happy is because I don't have that yet. But As soon as I do, then I Will be happy. Now, that was in 1974. I, I would argue That in 2026, social comparison is way more dangerous, way more prevalent today with social media than it ever was in 1974. And so what does it mean? It means that if we're not cautious, he's saying that you and I, we're gonna be unhappy. We're gonna be miserable because we're constantly looking at everybody else and thinking that our self-worth and our status and our happiness is tied to the things that they have, that we don't. And so Jesus gives us this other pathway. Jesus is, is trying to lean in. And he's trying to say, there's this danger that your heart has, that my heart has that, that if we aren't careful, we're gonna fall into the same temptation as the world around us. And Jesus trying to say, I had this other path available with Jesus at the center where instead of money being the God of our life, money is subservient to God in our life. And man, that's hard. And it's challenging and it's difficult, but if we do it, I mean, what would it look like if, if it wasn't just one or two of us, but if it was every single person? I mean, do you think that the world would take note if all of a sudden a few thousand people at Cherry Hill started living life where, where money was not the focal point, where we were just radically generous to the world around us? Like, what if that is what Christians were known for everywhere? Wouldn't it cause the world around us to say, man, I don't know what you have because you got less stuff than me, and yet you're way happier than me, and you're constantly giving money away. Like, I don't know what that is, but I want that thing. It removes the stranglehold that culture has on us. It's a path that Jesus wants for us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father and I, I just pray that as we struggle with a, a challenging topic, especially in our culture, in our world, Lord, help us not to walk away today thinking that money is evil or bad. 'cause That's not what scripture teaches. Help us not to walk away thinking that that wealthy people are bad, because that's not what scripture teaches. And it's the love of money. It's greed. It's wanting more and more. It's a condition of our heart. And every single one of us, every single one of us, is blind to the natural greed that our culture places in our heart. So help us to fight it. Help us to make our first love you and put you first in every area of our life. We prayed this in the mighty image, Jesus. Amen.