The Devil's Playbook | Week 4 | Bill Bush

And what we're gonna see is the same mistake he made. The same thing he did, he tries to get us to do, and that answer is actually in Deuteronomy five twenty one. If you're familiar with the Old Testament, this is the tenth commandment, and here's what it says.

You must not covet your neighbor's wife, you must not covet your neighbor's house or land, male or female servant, ox, donkey, their Chick fil A, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor. It's it's

it's says to not covet. This is the tenth commandment is thou shalt not covet. Now I was talking about how to relate to each other, but we're not supposed to covet in anything. And and here's the deal, this is exactly the sin. This is what made coveting is why Satan fell from heaven we saw in the first week.

Why? What did he do? He coveted. What he was doing is instead of looking to God, he started looking at God's throne.

And he wanted it. Because what does coveting really mean? I wanna put the definition up here. That word covet in the bible, it means to delight in or to lust. When When you think lust, always just think sexual. No.

Lust is a sexual act of I want something, I want it, I want it, and you desire it so deeply, and where does that come from? It's really you are devoured by the desire to acquire something that belongs to someone else. That's what it means to covet. That's really what the devil did.

He looked and what he was coveting was who God, he wanted God's throne. He wanted that, so what does he do? He falls and how does he trick Adam and Eve? He says, alright, instead of looking to God, look at that tree. Look at that thing. You can be just like God. You can take the throne too.

You want it. And it says she looked, she saw, she was filled, and to give it to her, they wanted it. They coveted. Coveting is what the devil did. Coveting is what he gets us to do. And I'd say 99.9%

of every time we disregard God's word, and we sin, and we go after it, and we mess our lives up, it's because we're coveting something. And you know what we end up usually coveting and trying to rob? Is something that belongs to God. And what we end up doing, just like the devil did is we try to take the glory.

And I don't mean that as bragging about it's I did it. Glory, that word when it says God's glory and it talks about glory, that word literally means heaviness. Not heaviness like a weight or a burden, but heaviness as his importance. God gets all the glory, he is the center of the universe. It's about his story, and

we were created to bring glory to him, meaning look at how important it is, because he created us to be the height of all of his creation, and then he could show us what love is, and what it really means, and create and bless us, and all this stuff, but it's because of his glory. And every time we covet and take something he said not to take, we are trying to put ourselves in the throne.

And that's the devil's play, and we fall for it and fall for it and fall for it and fall for it. And today we're gonna look at a story that talks about how serious God takes this, because here's the big idea, choose trust not lust, because that's what coveting is.

And what's interesting about that tenth commandment that makes it so unique is that of all other codes of law ever written, this is the only one that puts a command about an attitude. And why does he make it so important? Because that attitude is what leads to almost every other action that takes us down the wrong road.

That's why God gave us those commandments. So let's look at this story. We're gonna be in Joshua chapter seven,

and I'm just gonna tell you right now. There is something on my glasses and I'm gonna actually stop doing this the whole time.

Now I just made a thumbprint.

It's also my mic, so that's why. You're like, why is he taking his glasses off like he's trying to do the limbo? They'll be nimble, they'll be quick. Alright. I'm getting distracted. I gotta go back to my sermon. We're in Joshua's golly. This service does this to me, I'm just telling you. We're in Joshua seven,

and what we're gonna see is how coveting progresses, how does this work, and to set the stage, first of all, I'm just warning you right now, you might as well tilt your chin back and expose your throat. This is a very throat punchy sermon,

and it's because I got throat punched all week when I was studying this, and so I'm passing on that love to you. Okay? I get throat punched, you get throat punched. I laugh, you laugh. Well, not always.

I cry, you cry. And so but I'm just warning you, because what's happening in this story is the book of Joshua is obviously it's a follow-up, you know, we we were in that series True North, we looked at how the Israelites wandered in the desert to get to the promised land, because a whole generation chose to not trust but to lust. They didn't trust God, and so they're you know, God loved them, still scared them, but he goes, they weren't going to the promised land. Well now in Joshua, Joshua was Moses' right hand man. He takes over, he's led them in, and they've actually went in and attacked Jericho. We talked about that in the True North series.

And and how God told them to take Jericho made no sense militarily. What he did, if you knew otherwise, is like, that is not how you take a city. He goes, trust me. And then after they went and took the city, what he told them is when you take the city, he also told them something else that makes absolutely no sense.

You're not gonna take the food and all the plunder, all the gold, the silver, all the money, that goes to the trade. That goes to me. Basically, says that's mine.

And and what that's instituting is all through scripture, God talked about this idea of first fruits. That when God leads you, he wants the first fruits, because it's not about when you get around to giving something to God, it's the order in which you do it. Because first fruits is actually showing that I trust God, not the world's way of how things works to get this done. And that's why they did. They took the city in a very nonmilitary way, and then they didn't take any of the plunder, any of the stuff, which would make no sense in the way the world operates.

Because the way you would go invade a country and take cities, you'd pick a strategic city like Jericho, but what made it strategic? It had a lot of food, it had a lot of money. So you basically go, I gotta take that city so then we can take that food and that money to help support the next victory. So basically, I don't go on to another victory if I don't get those resources.

So God's saying, you know what you're gonna do? You're gonna take the city and take none of the resources.

And in our mind, in our world, that makes it sound like, well then how am I supposed to live? How am I supposed to go what's next?

You realize that is a common theme all through scripture when it comes to giving to God what he wants, and he will ask for our time first, the money first, he wants the first fruit of our resources to show that we trust him, because that brings glory to him, and here's where God loves us, here's where we're stupid. We think, why would he be so mean that way, is that selfish? Guess what he already knew. Once we did that,

that put terror into the hearts of every other city. Because they're like, how on earth did they take that city in the weirdest way? And then how did they not touch any of the resources and they're still coming for us? See God was loving and leading, but he also takes coveting and his glory very, very serious.

Because he knows, just like a parent, you sometimes just go really aggressive with your kids when they're about to do something that you know is gonna kill When they go to run into the street, you're not nice about it. You will scream, stop. Because you know that if they go that way, they're gonna get bit.

And that's what's going on. I'm just telling you, the story gets crazy here. So what happens is he tells them to do that. A guy named Aiken leads his family to not do that. He takes some of the resource, keeps some gold and some silver, dope robe, he thought he'd make them look lit.

Know, and so

should I just go back and start over again? I'm good. Good. Okay. So he he does this, he ignores that, he takes it because he you know, and so what happens is they go to the next city, which should have been an easy city to take. The spies even said we only need 3,000 men. It's not even walled. This will be easy.

They get annihilated. They lose. And so when Moses you know, Joshua, long story short, he comes out, he's all stressed about trying to figure this out and God reveals to him it's because you guys didn't listen to me. Whole another sermon, but it shows that if you're the people of God,

your individual ignoring God is affecting the rest of the people of God, by the way. And and and because we're in this together.

But he so what God has them do is they bring them all out, buy families, it's this big show, like you're thinking what's going on, and it's because God is trying to make everyone be aware something big happened, this is a serious issue, so you're gonna see what's gonna happen next.

And that's where we pick up the story. He narrows down to this guy named Achan, which ironically when you understand words there's a lot more going on. The name Achan means trouble. So a guy named Trouble is causing trouble, and he's about to get into trouble. Okay? So so here we go. So chapter

seven verse 19 says, then Joshua said to Achan, my son, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, by telling the truth.

Make your confession and tell me what you have done. Don't hide it from me. Achan replied, it's true. I've sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. Among the plunder I saw a beautiful road from Babylon, 200 silver coins, and a bar of gold weighing more than a pound.

I wanted them so much that I took them. They're hidden in the ground beneath my tent, but the silver buried deeper than the rest.

So Joshua sent some men to make a search. They ran to the tent and found the stolen goods hidden there, just as Achan had said, with the silver buried beneath the rest. They took the things from the tent, brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites, and they laid them on the ground in the presence of the Lord.

Then Joshua and all the Israelites took Achan, the silver, the robe, the bar of gold, his sons, his daughters, his cattle, his donkeys, his sheep, his goats, tent, and everything he had. And they brought them to the Valley Of Acre. Now Acre in English, it sounds like this true name. Acre means trouble also.

So this is now they took trouble who caused trouble and now is in trouble to the Valley Of Trouble. You get the theme what God's trying to say is what you're doing is nothing but trouble. And they took him there and Joshua said to Achan, why have you brought trouble upon us? The Lord will now bring trouble on you.

And all the Israelites stoned Achan and his family and burned their bodies.

They got put to death for what they just did. That's how serious God takes coveting, especially when what you coveted is you took the first fruits, you took his glory, you refused to trust him.

It says they piled a great heap of stones over Achan, which remains to this day. This is why the place has been called the Valley Of Trouble. Remember that? It's gonna come back at the very end of this sermon. So the Lord was no longer angry.

See guys, I think in our culture sometimes we know that God loves us, and we desperately need to embrace how much he loves us, and he means well, and he wants the best for us, and all of those things. But I think sometimes we try to embrace that so much we've actually misdefined who God is.

And we almost make the God of love is instead of God is love, we say love is God. And the problem is when you say love is God, what you've then done is you've taken what you define as love and made God into that. Instead of God is not defined by love, he's not. He is the one that defines what love is.

So when you make love is God, then you say, oh my gosh, he let the people that he put them to death for this sin and they did this? That seems kinda harsh. Matter of fact, why did he let the family die too? That seems extra harsh. Then you understand, loving sometimes is God is like, I gotta show everyone that this is a serious matter. He God is not only a God of love, he is a God of righteousness

and holiness and set apartness, and he is the judge of the universe, and he is all that is and was and ever will be, and he loves us and he created us, but you have got to respect who he is. And if you don't, and I don't understand the seriousness of sin, that's why you can never truly embrace the depth of his love.

Because to know that he takes it this serious, but still went to the cross and died for us, makes us not make grace cheap.

A lot of us think of God's sacrifice for us as, you know what, I was a sinner, but God was so nice and now he's basically saying, oh, don't worry about it. Yeah, God doesn't want us we're not gonna go out at the end of the sermon, the throw punch I said does not involve, alright, let's reveal, to the glory of God, be honest, who's been coveting, and we're not gonna take you out back

and and stone you and bury you, because I think all of us would be who's left. So there is hope at the end of this. There really is.

Just stay with me because it gets pretty throat punchy here. This is like that middle of those movies that's like, this is really depressing right now, is there any hope? Yes. This is like the end of Infinity War, it's seeming kinda bummer, you thought Thor's gonna win but he didn't go for the head, and you're like, what's going on? And the movie just ended. We're gonna get to Endgame.

We'll get there. But you sometimes have to sit in the depth of our sin and how serious God takes it. That and and you know what? He wasn't afraid. The family,

they already had a law. God already said you can't put you can't hold someone else responsible for something their family did. So the fact that the whole family did means they ended up following Aiken, the leader of their family, and agreed with him. They were in on it. They were not innocent bystanders.

But he is the leader, he led the family, and when you wanna talk, hey guys, little throat punch for free. When it says that we're supposed to be the leaders in our home, doesn't mean bosses. It means you protect and you go first.

And I think there's a lot of men in this room that what we're talking about here about coveting and taking what is God and not listening to him, you are the coward that is leading your family down that road. And you better believe God is disgusted by that.

And just because he's not gonna kill you right now for it doesn't change how upset it makes him. It's a serious matter. We need to take them serious. Because here's what happens, when you read that story I think there's this progress that we see by what Aiken said that shows us what I call this, how it progresses.

I think there's three things here that I want to put up here. It starts with the comparison, the conflict, and then you get consumed. This is how it works. Comparison, I saw.

It says I saw it, and that saw wasn't like you look. He obviously everyone saw the plunder. That's that second c. That's that I didn't just look at it. I started to look at it and look at what I thought it would mean. I looked at what it could be. It's not even like you you see a really beautiful woman. You go, that's a beautiful you know, but then you look again, and you start thinking your brain is starting to go down a road that's not just saw. It's like, I'm seeing possibilities.

And that's what we do with lots of things in our life, we see possibilities. And why I call this the comparison stages, this is what I think we tend to do. This is what I think gets us down that road. We get there because we like to compare.

We we we look around instead of looking up. We start looking and I see somebody has something. I see something out there. I see how the world operates.

I see what the world does when it takes a city. It keeps all the plunder. It doesn't give to God first, it takes care of itself. And that's what we're supposed to do. So then you see people out there. You look around. You start comparing.

And as you start to compare, you start to evaluate. You know what? I think I need that. I think I want. And that goes into the second thing. Conflict starts to happen inside. You start to want. When it says I want it, that's the word for covet. I started to covet. I wanted it, and that led to me taking it.

I I I I I basically took God's glory. I took what he said is his. I did not trust him. I did it my own way, and that's what we do. And this conflict is usually want and take is usually masked in fairness and need. That's where the devil gets us. The comparison

starts to lead to you being upset because you see people that you think are more knuckleheaded than you do better than you. You watch how the world is all getting ahead. You try to keep up with the Joneses. You get frustrated, and then you see this opportunity to get what you think you need. And and you want it, and you take it, but it's really masked in this is only fair because I really needed that.

In other words, a lot of us, you know, we don't listen to what God says to do with our time and our money and the resources he gave us. We don't trust him with our first fruits.

We look at how the world operates and we take for ourselves first, and then what we do is we mask that unfairness. Because hey, God's being unfair.

Because if he was fair, then why did he make it so much harder for me than them? And you start looking around and go, must be nice, must be nice, must be nice. And then you say, and not only is that unfair, God knows I need this. It's not a want anymore, it's a need. Because you're defining what you need. Because you're defining what it means, you're putting the back on God and saying God's unfair because he's not giving me what I need. When really God knows what you need, God will take care of you. You just don't wanna trust him, you wanna go around him and you wanna take what you want, and now you've masked it in fairness and need, and then you think God's not fair. And here's where I know, if you are struggling with this right now, I have already made you mad.

Some of you men, the way you look at your hand, you are can't say that word in church. You are so angry at me just saying this right out back in your face. You're like, I'm not a coward. Keep taking what God what's God's? Yeah you are. You keep leading your family? Yeah you are. Bible clearly says it.

But you know why you're mad? Because you're like, you don't know the story. Know, that's unfair. I needed that.

This story plays out what Jesus later said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and all his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.

Because you know what happened in the very next passage after they go back and they did this? Then God goes, okay, you need to go back and take AI now.

And he says in verse two, but this time you may keep the plunder and the livestock yourselves. God always planned to do that. He wants the first fruits. You give him the first fruits then everything, it's all his. He lets us keep most of what he has, but he goes, you trust me first.

If you bring God leftovers, you could give God 80% of your income. But if it's because you've made enough money, you're looking like, you know what, everything I wanted I can get on 20%. Alright, now that I've done that, alright God, can have all this, you are still not trusting God.

Important part is him first. Not look at your bills after, not look at your calendar after, because you know what happens? It consumes you. That's the third thing, I hid. In the industry, he really wanted it for all the stuff, but he can never use it.

It never really gave him what he thought it would give him. It ends up buried. He ends up taking what's God's and burying it in his own house, his own tent, and it never really gets him where he wants. It destroys him.

And and and that's really what happens to us too. We take what God's given us, we bury because we covet, we take stuff, we get too busy, we bury it. But here's the thing, we don't bury it in our house, we let our house bury us because we go after the house. I want the bigger tent. I want the garage for the new chariots. I want this. My kids need all these things. They need this thing. And we live in this comparison world. We look around out here in Gilbert, Queen Creek. This is a pretty affluent area. Our kids, we wanna be successful. We look at how the world is successful and says, my kid better be in this sport, better be in this, better be in that. We become a taxi driver that's spending all of our time and all of our money. I'm giving them everything that maybe they don't need, but you think you need it.

And then you end up spending all that time and all that money on all that sports stuff because you think they're gonna get a scholarship. Point I think it's point o 2% of anyone that started off in junior sports ever actually plays even into high school or beyond. But you need it.

And guess where you got the money and the time to do all these things and to get the house and get more successful? By ignoring God on the first fruits that he asked from you. And so yeah, if you're mad at me right now, it's because you're coveting,

you turned it into fairness and need, and now I'm just pointing it out to you and you're crying about it.

That's the truth, and the reason I'm being blunt is because I feel like I look at the world out there and everyone says, is this the end of the world, is this the end of the It's if you study history, it's always been weird, okay? But I know we're one day closer than we were before,

and I know Jesus is coming back, and I know he's gonna hold us accountable, I know he's gonna look at us, and I know he loves us, and I know that as the church we are given the opportunity to be a part of this mission of pointing people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus, and he's given us a mission and a call, and we have a chance to do that and live life and not hide and be buried under this, and have the fatigue of trying to spin all the plates ourselves, have the depression, have have the have the dissatisfaction,

because every time you just take what isn't yours to get something you think you need, what happens is it doesn't last very long, and now you're not happy with it anymore. We are all a bunch of kids the day after Christmas.

Every time we get what I want, the day after Christmas you're already telling your parents about what you want for your birthday. Unless you were born on Christmas, then you're like God is cruel.

And so I'm saying this because I'm not trying to be a jerk here. I'm not even trying to say, we're not sitting here going we need money, we need it's like I'm just telling you, I feel like God has said I need to get us ready. We gotta be ready. The church in America, there's too many to just show up.

And you think because you're here all the time you're being faithful. And we're not. We're hiding stuff that isn't ours. And then we get frustrated when someone calls us out. I'm the coach that at halftime is saying, guys, we could be winning this game easily, But we all need to step up and do what we need to do.

Because I want us to win. I want you to win. Want all of us to stand before Jesus someday and hear, well done good and faithful servant. But if we hide,

the thing that I'm saying that's making you mad will be the end of you. It will be. We need to choose to trust, not just lust. Because you know why? When we run after the world's way of doing things and then mask that unfairness and need, it's like this. I've been so serious, back off a little bit an illustration.

When I was, my kids were little, we would travel to and from California, and there was a spot we'd like to stop at, an ice cream store and a pet store, so we just had to get them out of the car. Let them run around a little bit, I don't know why we gave them sugar then before we put them out in the car.

Wasn't a perfect parent, okay. But

we would go into this pet store, and one day I walked back to the fish section. It's like I always let them play with the puppies and all that, was usually the fun part, but I was like somehow I caught myself in the most boring part of the pet store, the fish section. And and as I'm standing, I'm watching these fish, and there's a wall of tanks, and they're all these small same sized tanks. And I saw one fish in the middle of this one going up and down the side of a tank. Any fish people know what that means? It means it's not happy. The guy came in and says, that fish is discontent. It wants out of here. It wants out of here because and it usually means the tank is too small, it's too hostile of an environment to them, or they actually don't like the other fish. Believe it or not, fish have bully fish, and they're like, I don't wanna be with these people.

But this was even worse. They usually just go up and down on one side that shows they're in stress, but this one started ramming into the side.

I'm like, why is it doing that? He goes, well, that's a new thing. That only happens because we have this wall. And I go, what do you mean? He goes, he sees the tank next to him. He's trying to swim into it.

So his answer is, this tiny little tank with a bunch of weird fish is I I I don't want this tank. You know what I really want? I wanna get into that tank. The exact same thing right next to it. Somehow that's gonna save my life. And so it's trying to get to the other tank. The same exact thing. What a stupid fish.

That's how I describe why we keep arguing politics all the time. You know what? We can't have this tank, we need that tank. They all smell fishy.

We'll never be happy in any of those tanks because just like fish were built, we were meant to be in a vastly bigger ocean that involves so much more. So quit trying to tank hop. It's not gonna take you anywhere. And so what are we supposed to do then? What are we supposed to do? Alright.

Four I things I gotta get through here quickly that I think will help us what I call breaking the aching. You know, in other words, instead of covet, look above it. Told you you'd get better. Right? You're like, that's not better. That's grown.

I'm just bad. Brent, Pat, they all say things that you guys wanna tweet and Instagram about and little sayings, and I'm looking for one because I just I'm like a bull in a china shop. I'm just gonna this is what we need to do. So anyways, breaking the aching, that's my attempt to be clever.

And all my points start with r too, so that helps. First, resist comparing myself to others. Resist comparing myself to others. It's hard. The only thing that gives me hope that I know that this is something I have to constantly battle is Peter,

who denied Jesus after saying I'll die for you and then instantly chickened out. In John 21, Jesus is reinstating him in this beautiful moment. And he keeps telling him, just you can come back into the room, feed my sheep, leave my lambs. He's reinstating him back to the call that Jesus always had for him.

And then right at the end of this he says this, he goes, and you know what, basically the paraphrase is, you know how you said that you get it and you're willing to die for your faith? You will do that. You're gonna get there. That's gonna happen.

And when he hears that, you know what he does? He looks around and he points at John and says, what about him?

Because now he's freaking out, like you said I will die. Well now what is he? He's looking around, goes, well why did he know John? He was already comparing, because everyone knows that John was Jesus' closest human friend. As matter of fact, John tried to like write and he didn't wanna share his name when he wrote the book of John. He wouldn't share his name because he didn't wanna be, I guess, prideful, but what he did call himself was the one whom Jesus loved.

So in his title to kind of avoid identifying himself, he goes, you'll know me as Jesus' favorite. And so Peter's already, in that moment of being restored, he's instantly already looking around instead of up and saying, well that's just so I am gonna die. Well, he gonna die?

And you know what Jesus said? He said tilt your chin up here, Peter. I love you, but his answer was, what is that to you?

What is that to you? We may look around and say, must be nice, but what is that to you? We need to learn to resist that, but how do we do that? Because to say resist comparing yourself to others and just say stop doing it is like to say, you know what, I'm eating terrible. So I gotta stop eating. You can't stop eating

to stop eating bad. You need to start eating good, right? So the second thing is I need to rejoice. I need to learn to rejoice for others and want what I have.

Learn to embrace and rejoice when others get some, especially when it's like, you know, that friend you know that you you just think, I'm a better human being than them. Why did they get that? You know, you wanna get bitter. You wanna say it must be nice, but we need to learn to rejoice. And we can't rejoice like you do at the little league handshake after a game. Nice game, nice game, nice game. Or even worse, even worse, men's church softball teams.

I don't know why they still do it. We walk out, good game, good game, good game. But the team that lost doesn't really mean it. I know. And you know what they're doing? You're thinking, good game except for that bad call from the ump. That wasn't fair. You guys cheated.

You got five people on your roster. I know they don't go to your church. I'm pretty sure four of them are professional baseball players. I go, what is going on? And I go, can't be that way. Has to be learn to genuinely say the way I'm gonna learn to not focus and not always be comparing is to just say, okay,

I'm happy for you.

I'm happy for you. And that helps us to start to focus on, you know what, learn to want what I have. What I mean by that is look at the blessings you do have. Because if you're always looking at what you don't have,

God is gonna give you little blessings along the way, but if you've already coveted and decided nothing short of this is gonna make me happy, all these other things in between, you're gonna miss them. You're gonna miss them. And you're gonna be a stressed out, fatigued, bitter, dissatisfied person who's in a lot of debt.

That's what's gonna happen to you. So learn to rejoice. Resist, rejoice, and then the third thing is release what I have to help others. They say the number one way to fight materialism and selfishness is to give.

If you sit there and say, I'll give up my time and give my money when I get time and I have money, you never will because you're gonna stay selfish.

Because when you do that, you see that God built us to do that. And you start to see the blessing, and see how he's building, and you start to get involved, and you start to see what God will do with your life when you let him. When you give him first fruits and you trust him,

you seek ye first his kingdom is righteous, then he adds all these things to you. You start to say, wow, God did take care of me. I didn't die. And you start to have a joy in that. But a lot of us, we get stuck in this little thing, is is is there's this thing called there's sins of commission and sins of omission.

You know, sins of commission is you do something that's obviously on the to don't list. God says don't murder, don't do this, don't do that. So you're like, okay. And the longer you've been a Christian,

hopefully, you've probably gotten better at not doing that list. You're like, well, I haven't murdered anyone in at least a week, so that's good. You know? And but the longer you the battle becomes not about the sins of commission. We get pretty good at, alright, I don't drink, smoke, or chew, or go with girls who do, you know, and and and we got that good little thing going on in our life, but the problem is we think stuff like

taking my spiritual gifts and serving in my church, taking the first fruits of what I make and and giving it to the kingdom, sharing my faith. We think that's like, well, that's the optional. That's good to do, but it's not a sin like the to don't list.

You wanna read the scare you thought the first part, the scariest verse I'm gonna share, one of the scariest verses in the bible, if that's how you think, James four seventeen. Look what it says. Remember, it's a sin to know what you ought to do and then don't do it.

If let me bottom line it. You're a Christian. This is your church. You don't take your spiritual gifts and use them to serve. You are sinning. You're sinning. You're not just missing out on it, you are literally, directly disobeying and not trusting what God has for you. Same with money, same with a whole bunch of things.

Because you're walking away from trusting God, you're choosing lust not trust.

That's the truth. And if we don't get this guys, we're just playing a game. You're playing a game. And the game is usually what's what what is called legalism.

I come, I do the certain things, but you're thinking really transactional with God. What are the things do I need to stop doing and what's the minimum you need to do so you'll give me what I really want? That's not a fun game to play. Release what we have to help others,

because God takes care of you. Like I already said, in chapter he says you can keep all the plunder in the next one. What would happen in your life? And the reason I bring up time and money is because that's exactly how we evaluate life. What I have and what I get to do with what I have.

What would happen if you literally just trusted God and gave him the first fruits of that?

What would happen if you stopped buying into the devil's lie that you can't do that because it's not fair and you need.

You can get to the victory at AI. You can get to the hope. Because ultimately the last thing is how you continue to do all of that is refocus on what's gonna last. I think what opens the door to all of this is we start looking at the temporary and we don't keep our eyes on the eternal. That's where we lose it.

And I wanna read some words out of, from the Apostle Paul out of Philippians, he's writing they had supported him and he was just talking to him and you know he'd been in prison and all these things. And in here he talks about

how he learned to want what he has and deal with the ups and downs of whatever's happened in his life and just trust the real mission and what God really had for him. And I'm gonna read it out of what's called the message, translates a paraphrase.

It's really modern. I wouldn't suggest you study out of it or try to make any theological things. I just, when you look at the actual original language and what's written, I think these four verses are written really well

in a very clear way in this way. So I'm just gonna read it from there. So here we go. I'm glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess. Why does he say far happier than you would ever guess? See, Paul came from wealth. He grew up with some cheddar.

And when he became a Christian and started to find God, he lost most of that and ended up having a lot of bad things happen. So he said he knew that they would probably guess, well, wow, you went from wealthy to not. And they used to think wealth means automatic blessing from God, so you're not blessed from God. He goes, you would guess I'm not happy, but I am far happier than you would ever guess. Happy that you're again showing such strong concern for me? Not that you ever quit praying and thinking about me, you just had no chance to show it.

Actually, I don't have a sense of needing anything personally. I've learned by now to be quite content, whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little.

I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Alright, what's his recipe? Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the one, here's the answer, in the one who makes me who I am.

He didn't say, I will get to all those things I wanted through the one who makes me am. He didn't say if I hold on and name it and claim it long enough, I'll get those things. He says the key is stop wanting the wrong thing. Stop coveting. Stop taking what's not yours. It's Jesus.

He's the one that makes you be able to have contentment and get through everything. And he goes on, I don't mean to say that your help didn't mean a lot to me, it did. It was a beautiful thing that you came alongside me in my troubles. What he's saying is the key is Christ. The key on not getting buried out in the

valley of trouble is to embrace Christ's love and how much he really does love us, and then choose to trust that, and walk in that trust.

Because you know what? It even talks about this in the old testament. You think, well, God was mean in the old testament and nice in the new testament. No. He's been pretty nice and serious the entire time.

Because I wanna read two verses out of the book of Hosea before we wrap this up. In the book of Hosea, it's a prophetic book. You don't think God's gonna read the book of Hosea, go home and read it. It's a beautiful story. It's a symbolic story of how God says my people keep running after they keep coveting, keep running after the wrong things, but I'm gonna pursue them anyways.

And he has a prophet named Hosea

actually live out what God is doing with us, with his people. Is he married a woman named Gomer that keeps running away and cheating on him, keeps running away and cheating, he keeps going out and getting her and getting her. Finally, she is so destitute and erect that they're just selling her to the highest bidder and no one cares, and he buys her back.

That's us. We covet, we run away, we're beaten, we're broken, we have no hope. We're all dead in the valley of trouble.

But he does this and it's symbolic and he says, but here's what's eventually gonna happen. It's prophetic of Christ is gonna come, Christ is gonna die on the cross, and then it's actually talking about when Christ comes back and literally establishes a true kingdom, a physical kingdom.

And I just wanna read these two verses out of Hosea chapter two and what it says, but then I will win her back, talking about his people. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. I will return her vineyards to her and transform, what does it say?

The valley of trouble, what we just read about. I will transform the valley of trouble into a gateway of hope. That's Jesus, And that's what's cool about Jesus, that's actually literally gonna happen too. This place, the valley of trouble will actually be Israel's. God's gonna rule and it's gonna somehow

physically be a gateway of hope. So he will take the valley of trouble, make it the gateway, but you have to trust him. You can't constantly lust and covet and run away from him. There's hope in that.

So why do we run after the cheap things? Why do we run after the things that won't last? Why do we run after these things and not trust them even as Christians?

If we keep doing that, we're just gonna miss out. I got a good illustration for that.

This is a Star Trek toy. I got this Star Trek toy in 1977. How I got it was I loved Star Trek. I had the utility belt the tricorder, the phaser, and this thing came with a dude, Captain Kirk original cell phone. And I loved playing that make believe world of that, and the problem is my

communicator toy got chewed up by my dog, which made me mad because I take really good care of stuff. As can be seen, this is older than most of the people in this room. And I

was sad that I didn't have it. You know why? Because in my world I had the phaser, I had this, but without the communicator, I'm gonna die on the planet with the other red shirts. I needed to be able to go, Scottie, beam me up right now. I had to be able to do that, but I but but I didn't have it.

So how did I get this one if my other one got chewed up? Well, I walked out one day and my friend across the street, we had our baseball cards, some we would trade those back in the day, and and you'd always look for the all stars, the most the guys that are good, the ones you like, and try to go, what do I need to give you to get that? And

we were gonna do that, but I said, hey, want that. And he said, alright, I'll trade you for a card. I thought it meant cards, said cards. He started looking and he says, all I want is this one card. I'm like, all you want is one card and I'll be back in business. Come back.

So I traded him. Now I have it. I wanna show you a picture of the card I traded him for.

This is a 1954 Topps rookie card for Hank Aaron. If you know anything about cards, which I thought I did, but back then I looked at the bet when I gave him that card I go deal, I didn't know the name, Henry Aaron, I knew who Hank Aaron was, but I didn't know Henry Aaron. I didn't really know his name.

And and then I looked at his accomplishments on the back and it just showed one year, because that's a rookie card. So I said, deal. I was evaluating the cards. I was evaluating everything wrong.

And and the truth is the reason this is so valuable is they don't make as many rookie cards. And most people like me as kids throw those we don't care about them. We don't take care of them because we don't know who this person is. So most of these never survive very long. So there's very few of them. And so I traded

that for this. And here's the point. I've used this story three times. It's the third time now I've used it in the history of this church. First time over ten years ago, I traded and what this had just sold for ten years ago was $40,000 About five years ago when I used it again, it sold for $80,000 Now,

one just sold in 2020 for just under $200,000 but it gets worse.

Saturday, he didn't hear this. Saturday night, second service, a guy in our church, a friend of mine walks up, goes, know I have a trading card business. Right? He goes, you're not gonna wanna hear what I have to tell you. And I go, what? He goes, since Hank Aaron died, it's now a half 1,000,000.

A half $1,000,000. But I got this.

Spawn.

I've made a terrible mistake.

I got this in mint condition because I take good care of my stuff and so did my mom. Matter of fact, she threw away all my expensive bowling equipment but kept this for me.

Keep this as a reminder.

Why did I value this so much? It doesn't actually do what I pretended it did. It doesn't really talk to anybody. It only had value because what I pretended that it could do.

God takes his glory serious, he takes coveting serious because he does love us, and He knows every time we do that and fall for the devil's playbook, you are playing a silly game, playing with a plastic little toy,

pretending those things you want and need are actually doing what you think they're gonna do and you're only playing. It's not real.

So trust, don't lust. Amen? Amen. Let me pray.

Let's pray, Father God, thank you Lord. I pray for myself and anyone in this room, and I know there's some pretty tough statements that you've said in your word. But Lord we have to trust that those, that seriousness is because you have a bigger perspective, you are God and we are not, and you absolutely do love us.

So Lord I pray that anyone watching online, anyone in this room, myself included, that we would just let you speak into our hearts and say where have we been lusting instead of trusting? And help us to turn from that and turn to you, the one who made us the gateway of hope in our valleys of trouble.

I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on rockpoint.io for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.