Recognize God Owns It All - A Financial Discipleship Lesson with Aswand Cruickshank and Aaron Guyett

 Recognize God Owns It All – We Are Stewards by Faith in Our Triune God

Everything belongs to God; we are simply stewards of His resources. Faith in the Lord of lords, Jesus Christ frees us from the illusion of ownership and calls us to handle money in a way that glorifies the One who gave us life and salvation.  Because God has created us, sustains us in being, and has chosen to redeem us by His grace, we must faithfully pursue His commands in our wise stewardship of His financial blessings.

Key verses:

Psalm 24:1 - The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, The world, and those who live in it.

1 Chronicles 29:11-12 - Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and on the earth; Yours is the dominion, Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone.

Matthew 25:14-30 (Parable of the Talents) - 14 “For it is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey. 16 The one who had received the five talents immediately went and did business with them, and earned five more talents. 17 In the same way the one who had received the two talents earned two more. 18 But he who received the one talent went away and dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master’s money.

19 “Now after a long time the master of those slaves *came and *settled accounts with them. 20 The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have earned five more talents.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter the joy of your master.’

22 “Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, ‘Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have earned two more talents.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter the joy of your master.’

24 “Now the one who had received the one talent also came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed. 25 And I was afraid, so I went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you still have what is yours.’

26 “But his master answered and said to him, ‘You worthless, lazy slave! Did you know that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter seed? 27 Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest. 28 Therefore: take the talent away from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.’

29 “For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. 30 And throw the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Application:

Count the blessings of the Lord in your life:

Pray that the Lord of heaven and eart

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Transcript

 Hey, what's up everybody?

Aswan Cruikshank and Aaron Guyett here with Financial Discipleship.

It's a seven lesson course.

And essentially, you know, we're lay people.

We're not ordained ministers.

We're not pastors, but we're lay people with a story just like you have a story.

And our stories, if you're in the United States,

 or in the world and you're able to see this, then chances are you've got some pretty great blessings in front of you.

And so we ought to take a moment to pause and just think about, okay, from the biblical insights,

 How do we manage those blessings?

How do we manage that money?

And so this is for the Christians centered on faith in Jesus Christ alone to glorify God with the money that he provides us.

And so as followers of Jesus Christ, we do not manage money in our own strength or for our own glory.

We live by faith in him alone, our risen savior who supplies all our needs according to his riches in glory, Philippians 419.

 Every dollar that we get is a gift from God to be stewarded faithfully so that Christ is exalted.

The gospel advances and we store up eternal treasure in heaven.

Matthew 6, 19 through 21.

And so the first lesson is recognizing God first.

 owns it all.

And so kind of the way that this will work is Aswan and I will go back and forth.

We'll talk about some stuff.

We're going to drop a couple of key verses.

We're going to talk about that.

And then you'll have an opportunity to print out the PDF that is attached and you can fill that out.

 as you go along, or you could just listen to it in your car and absorb what it is that Aswan and I are saying.

But before we begin any of that, I just want to commit this time to the Lord in prayer.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for this opportunity that Aswan and I get to talk about the thing that...

 weaves in and throughout your story from the beginning and your blessings that you gave to Adam and Eve in the garden, as well as the do not that we trespassed.

And now there is corruption.

And so now we deal with a twisted or kinked version of

 of what is true and good and beautiful.

So Father in heaven, I just pray that you give Aswan and I the strength that your Holy Spirit guides us, directs, guides our words, guides this conversation so that each one of us can glean something from you, Lord, so that we can know how to spot the deception, right?

To spot the kinks and the corruption, repent of that, confess of that, repent of that,

 and more importantly, to glorify you with the way that we manage our money, the way that we manage our skills and abilities, and the way that we manage our time.

I commit this time to you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

 All right, Aswan, so recognizing God owns it all.

You were actually just saying before I pressed record that we are stewards by faith in our triune God of the things that he blesses us with.

So yeah, I just wanted to give you, I've been yapping a bunch, give you an opportunity to chat a little bit because you're sharing some gold.

 Yeah, well, I wouldn't call it yapping because it was good stuff.

And it's important that, you know, you recognize this.

But as I'm looking at the outline and the PDF that is available for you guys as well.

And the very first key verse is Psalm 24, 1.

The earth is the Lord's and all it contains.

Not some of it, all of it.

All right, we're going to pause right there.

 All of it.

All right.

And when you hear the word all of it, what starts to happen is the relief starts to get off of you.

See, here's the thing that started on this journey.

I I'll be 100 percent honest with you.

I hate talking about money.

I got into it because I wanted to teach people, hey, how to not worry about money, how to have the mindset to make it so you realize money isn't real money.

It comes, it goes.

It's all about the mindset behind it.

 And the very first thing you realize when it comes to Psalm 24, one is the Lord owns all of it.

So that means the things that you can get with money, not going to be yours anyway, the money, everything in the world, it's not going to be yours anyway.

And you can start having a relationship with money that isn't so greedy, isn't so selfish, isn't so, oh, I got to get it.

I got to get it.

I got to get it because it's that mentality that's already taken you from what you could get.

You already have a predetermined number.

Let me tell you.

 One of the things, and I didn't even expect to go here, but I used to work at a gym.

I used to work at a gym that was overnight.

It was a young college kid that I used to work with.

I must have been around 26 at the time, so I just graduated college.

And I was working with another younger college kid overnight, and he was going back to school.

And he tells me, a college kid, hear this, guys.

He says, I'll be happy making $80,000 a year.

 You putting limits on what you can make a year during a time when you should be saying to yourself, I'm going to be making whatever I want.

I'm in college.

College is supposed to make it so you have whatever you want, right?

That's what they sell you on.

But when you don't have the mentality...

 of God's going to control all of it, you start putting a number on what you can make.

Okay.

So let's finish the verse.

I'm going to get there.

So this is the earth is the Lord is the Lord's and all it contains, stay there on all the world and those who live in it.

So you are in this world.

If you are of this world, the Lord owns all of it.

And what it does vary from jump again, and you signed up to the course, you want to be a part of it from jump.

You got to understand money isn't

 yours.

It's not real.

The things you own aren't yours.

It's not real.

And when you do that, when you start with that mentality, I'm telling you right now, the pressure comes off and then you start to receive all of the blessings that are going to come your way with that mentality.

I'm going to give it to you.

I'm going to give the mic to you for a second because I'm going to start preaching.

As you can tell, I'm on fire from a conference.

I ducked out to

 to make sure I had the opportunity to teach this course and all that.

So I'm on fire right now as we speak.

So, you know, I'm going to give it to Aaron for a second as we move forward.

 Yeah, no, that's good.

And I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that what you're saying by it's not real is like the idea that you think that you own it is not a real idea.

Like it is like, sure, this material, this body is real, right?

The fact that Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords, King of Kings, he has authority over all of

 the earth, all of heaven and all of earth, right?

As he says at the end of Matthew 28, like obviously that's real.

Those things are real.

But the idea that we think, and man,

 You can be a solid, God-fearing, Bible-reading, daily prayer-having, worshiping Christian every day.

And I'll tell you what, I mean, because it happens to me, I'll slip into this idea that somehow, like, oh, this is mine.

 I need to X, Y, Z, P, D, you know.

And it's, man, that is what's not real, right?

It's like, no.

But the thing is, Aaron, that's why me or you are not God.

It's right there.

No, that's right.

God is God.

We are not.

That's a fact.

 i don't say that as a again i've been there i know exactly what you're saying i don't say that as a as a way of sliding you you're human and the reason that i made that point is because it is it unrealistic to think that you won't slip into this way like this phone i'm recording this on the laptop i have the materials i have look i'm gonna say it's mine because

 Hey, it's just part of our subconscious, our subconscious being and the way we're going to get through a day.

But the thing is, when you have that, when you have those moments to yourself and you realize when the pressure gets too thick, when it gets to the point where you're like, I don't have enough, I just don't have it.

When you get to that point, you can get through the next moment when you realize, you know what, none of it's mine anyway.

That's right.

 And it's in those moments, in those slight subtle moments that makes it so you develop trust with your significant other.

Marriages are stronger with this.

Families get built.

You're not going to have the money for diapers at some point, but you're going to say, you know what?

It's not mine.

I'm going to find it.

 I mean, I'm going to talk to the Lord and we're going to figure it out.

We're going to humble ourselves.

I'm going to go call my own.

I'm going to go call a friend and say, hey, I'm in a gym.

I remember actually in high school I went to.

And this is why I get so fired up on this point, because I went to a Catholic high school and they pushed religion.

I loved the football program outside of that.

 I had to deal with all of the other things that come with religion.

And one of those things were you got to wear a uniform to school.

And, you know, if you don't have your belt, you get a demerit, the whole thing.

And I remember one day I didn't have a belt.

And I went to the went to the principal's office, basically the disciplinarian.

And I was like, look, I don't have a belt.

What do I do?

And he tells me, he goes, look, even if you got to go call a friend or tell one of your boys, you got to say, hey, man, I'm in a jam.

I can't stay in school without a belt.

That's what I did.

 I went to the went to the office and said, hey, you got any lost and found something, put a belt on and made it through the day.

Small lesson like that.

Right.

And again, when you have the mentality that you are not necessarily the owner.

Yes, you have responsibilities for certain things.

Yeah, absolutely.

Everything.

 then you're able to humble yourself, which is so, so important to get through the moments.

And that's what finances is all about.

Get yourself to the next moment.

Get yourself to the next day.

Get yourself to the next week.

That's what it's all about.

 Yeah, it says here, everything belongs to God.

We are simply stewards of his resources.

Faith in the Lord of Lords.

And I'll just pause right there.

I think that we take for granted...

 or we've even forget like what that really means.

And like, we don't really talk about Lord of Lords.

So maybe we should say like president of presidents, you know, like to make it make more sense or governor of governors.

But it's like, no, Jesus, Jesus Christ frees us from the illusion of ownership and calls us to handle money in a way that glorifies the one.

 who gave us life and salvation.

So, um, you know, Jesus Christ is the truth and the truth shall set you free.

And there's freedom beyond the, the freedom from sin.

Like part of that is like, Hey, there's freedom in that.

Hey, we could, yes, we have, we have responsibility when we have freedom, right there.

There's a, there's that, um,

 saying that the Statue of Liberty should be balanced out by a statue of responsibility on the West Coast, right?

It's like, if you have freedom, then you do have responsibility, right?

You have a certain amount of time that God has gifted you.

You have a certain amount of money that God has gifted with you.

You have a certain amount of material goods, resources, and you have a certain amount of relationships.

And the belt story is such a beautiful example of that.

It's like you had...

 And you didn't even know you had all these things until you humbled yourself when I went to the office and was like, hey, man, I forgot my belt.

I don't want to demerit.

And it was like, boom.

Oh, all of a sudden, there's a lot more.

And you took that responsibility.

But then that opened up this whole new line of, well, now you have something that you actually didn't have, but you know you do have it.

And it's not that you own it.

And the thing is, I have a house.

I pay a mortgage on it.

 According to the law, I own it.

But according to God's cosmos and all of this that's created, it's like, this is a gift.

And man, when you start to see every even small thing like a belt as a gift, as a blessing, it's so much easier to be grateful

 And then it's so much easier to go, oh, so I can now take responsibility over this belt, over these clothes, over this time that I have, over this moment that we have, you know, talking on the other side of a continent.

Like I'm literally in the upper left corner, you're in the lower right corner, right?

And we're able to chat right after you get fired up.

 from watching, what was his name again?

I'm sorry.

Myron Golden.

Yeah, Myron Golden.

Thank you for this conference.

 Yeah, at that conference.

And then I get fired up because I'm getting my kids ready and sending them off to go play a game of soccer.

So yeah, it's pretty amazing.

So because God has created us and he sustains us in being and has chosen to redeem us by his grace, we must faithfully pursue his commands in our wise stewardship of his financial blessings.

 Well, I'm glad you brought because I want to make sure I stay on that point because you brought up the kids and you brought up what you're getting ready to do.

When it comes to why this course was started, truly, it's to give kids or give you something that you can pass along to your kids.

All right.

This is why what makes me tick, what makes me move on.

 I teach full time sport and fitness class coach.

I'm a sport and fitness coach at a school out here in West Palm Beach.

And what's made the core of the entire thing that got me going is knowing that that lesson that I told you about with the belt did not plan on telling that story today.

And it was something that just my father, my mother, father were there for me every single step of the way.

My older sister, they could not teach that lesson that had to happen.

 Because as one went and broke the rules, as one went and did something as a kid, as a teenager, knew he was supposed to have a belt.

He figured out he didn't have it.

And he had to go figure that thing out on his own or else the parents would have been called and said, look, you got to pick up your son from school.

And that would have caused a bigger problem.

OK, so I'm bringing that up because when you're talking about your finances, usually what starts happening is when you start to recreate, you procreate.

 and you bring people into this world, now the money becomes something that truly, you truly cannot just look the other way at this point.

See, when you're just, it's just you and you and you can afford whatever you can afford and you make the bills work and you make a sort of a comfortable lifestyle for yourself, okay, all of this stuff we're talking about, you can brush it off.

 But when you have a kid now, like I mentioned, you may need formula.

You may have a kid.

I know a previous kid I was in a relationship and the son, he was autistic.

And there were several things that you needed with therapy.

You have to at this point, it becomes a responsibility to make as much as you possibly can.

And that's the way God wants it for you.

If you look at it like that.

But if you keep looking at it like, oh, I'm just going to be happy with X and

 happy with this particular number, then you're just going to get what you get, what you give and get what you ask for.

All right.

So the point of me kind of bringing that to light is because this is what it's all about.

All right.

It's about getting back to young kids.

And it's not about your specificity.

The selfish mentality carries into younger people.

So the fact that and again, this is all new, guys.

I did not know he scheduled this right before he's going to take his kids to his argument.

 He's still going to be there.

Yes, he's going to be doing some content with me and doing some things.

But also, there's a responsibility factor there that, hey, I have to make sure I'm there for my kid's soccer game because I don't want to contradict the very things that I'm preaching about myself.

How contradictory would it be of me to know I'm doing this talking about financial discipline and then not show up to my kid's soccer game?

Come on.

Come on.

That's not what we're talking about.

 there is like this, there is this huge, huge motivator, huge inspiration that the Lord, um, has been pleased to give, um, any husbands and then, and then, um, you know, may you be blessed with children, right.

Uh, and may they be blessings and not curses for you.

Um, but, but then children as well.

And it's, uh, and sometimes it can feel very overwhelming, um,

 And a lot of times, you know, that overwhelm comes from what we just talked about earlier is thinking that, oh, I have to do it all, that this isn't the Lord actually blessing me with the opportunity to

 gain wisdom, gain discernment to rightly divide the time that I have with my children, the talents, the skills that I have with my children, the treasure, the materials, the money, the goods that I have with my children.

And yeah, and we are called to be

 providers.

We're called to be protectors.

And so, you know, stepping into that with the utmost of, you know, the highest level of reverence, knowing that, hey, God has given these children to me in the same way that he's given me a certain amount of money or a certain amount of time to go make a certain amount of money.

And so, you know, and I don't, and I'm not like a health and I do, I despise the health and wealth type gospel where it's like, oh, and God will just give you,

 you know all you have to do is and it's but there is something to having faith in god's promises right knowing that he has put you in a place with with a wife with children um or knowing he's put you in a place with singleness right now right whatever it might be and what are you what but what are you going to do with that and and man everything shifts when it's okay how how

 how ought I to pursue this particular vocation or pursue this particular investment or pursue this particular time or pursue this particular relationship to bring glory to God?

Man, that just elevates it.

It's like, you know, because I think everybody plays on this mindset.

You talk about mindset, on this mindset of,

 Yes, I want to be better than I was yesterday, for sure.

But to my glory?

So that I can have my 15 minutes of fame or whatever?

No, I want to be better than I was yesterday to the glory of God.

I want people to look at what it is that...

 I'm pursuing and I'm doing and be like, man, I, whatever, whatever that guy's on, whatever, whatever inspires that dude, whatever is going on there.

Like I w I want to be, I want to be in that.

I want to swim in that water.

I want, I want that vibe.

Um, and then.

 when they talk to me, that gives me an opportunity to say, Oh, I'm, you know, I'm doing this to the glory of God.

I'm doing this talk with Aswan to the glory of God.

This course is to the glory of God and to, to the glory of God alone, which, which I, I, then I want to shift gears a little bit and run us into the, to the next verse.

So thinking about that, okay, this is offerings for the temple.

This is,

 So David, the king said to the assembly, Solomon, my son, whom alone God has chosen is young and inexperienced and the work is great for the palace will not be for man, but for the Lord God, right?

So consecrating, speaking of glory to the Lord, consecrating this temple to the Lord, boom, and then it goes down

 David prays, right?

So he prays in the assembly.

And then he says to the Lord, right?

Bless the Lord for the presence of all the assembly.

And David said, blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel, our father forever and ever.

 Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours.

So just doubling down on what you said with Psalm 24, right?

Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.

Both riches and honor come from you and you rule over all."

 In your hand are power and might.

And in your hand, it is to make great and to give strength to all.

And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name, right?

And man, again, it just doubles down on that Psalm.

Who's is it?

Yeah, go.

 Because this line where it says, both of riches and honor come from you, O Lord.

Right there, we've been programmed to think that the riches and honors are coming from a human being.

We have been programmed to think that the riches and honors are coming from school.

We've been programmed to think that the riches and honors are coming from that A or B that you got in the portfolio.

 We've been programmed to think that the riches and honors are coming from a job that's paying you six figures.

We've been programmed to think that your riches and honors are coming from in being with your spouse and all that stuff.

We've been programmed to think that the riches and honors are coming from people that tell you how great you are.

Remove it because what starts to happen is you're going to get that money.

It's going to feel great.

You're going to get that significant other.

You're going to get that degree.

You're going to get all the things that the world told you to do.

 And the disappointment that you're going to have when you run into the problem, which you realize I have been seeking validation from the wrong person, the wrong thing.

The problem that you're going to have is going to cut so deep that you may not be able to get out of it.

We're not going to say you can't.

But understanding that unlearning this idea that somebody has control over your happiness doesn't.

 That right there is where you're going to start a very, really can be an unsolvable problem depending on how deep you go in it.

So both riches and honors come from you, ruler of all, and your hand is power.

 and might and it lies in your hand to make great and to strengthen there it is now everyone so everything i just said this makes it so you can connect with people i'm not telling you not to go to school i'm not telling you not to get a great job and have a beautiful spouse and all that kind of stuff but make sure that it's that you understand god's strengthening everyone it's not just you

 All right.

But who you look for, for that validation, for all the things I said, don't look for human beings because human beings will let you down.

I don't care how great the person is.

I'm telling you what's going to happen if you go with the mindset of, hey, you're going to get validation for my honors and my riches.

 Yeah, they say never meet your heroes, right?

So for all intents and purposes, I mean, Myron Golden, he's crushing it, right?

He's motivating everybody, inspiring everybody.

But if you made him your God and it's like, oh, I'm going to do this to serve you.

It's like, there it is.

Boom.

 And it's like, but that doesn't mean you can't glean from him, learn from him and be lifted up by what he's saying and be activated by what he's saying.

It's like all those things are good because God has chosen to give him a certain amount of honor, a certain amount of glory, a certain amount of authority, right?

Over his fear, right?

That he's talking about.

And we've been, oh, go ahead.

Oh, you're on mute.

I can go, am I?

Okay.

No, you're good, you're good.

 i could have easily said texted here and said hey man let's reschedule because i'm listening i said absolutely not but i'll be contradicting the very thing that he's on the stage telling us what to do yeah yeah yeah i left the talk early so i can actually do the things he's telling all of us to do like i mean you have the opportunity right there go teach somebody the same things we're doing don't look at me as the as the

 God, no, go look at God as what he is and go create the opportunity that you went and made and had for yourself.

That's what it's all.

You got to take away this mindset.

And I'm so happy you mentioned that because I wasn't sure if I was going to mention it on this show, but I could have easily said, hey, let's reschedule because this is a great speech.

No.

 Isn't that the reason that you're doing it in the first place?

So why would you, why would you do that?

Somebody that you've been planning this for the past couple of weeks with and not make sure you stay true to your word and get it done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, that's, that's a hundred percent.

Yeah.

 Yeah, and same thing.

It's like, okay, I'm going to miss the first half of my middle daughter's game.

But I'll tell you what, as soon as this is done, boom, turn it off.

I'm jumping in my car.

I'm shooting over to the field.

I'm going to watch the rest of her game.

I'm going to watch my son's game.

I'm going to watch my oldest daughter's game.

I'm going to tell them, man, you played awesome.

I mean, as long as they actually tried their best.

But that's the thing.

They just love that sport.

So I know they're going to try their best anyway.

So it's going to be easy for me to say.

 I think that leads us into the kind of the final.

So the final aspect of, or the final verses, right.

That we're going to glean from and, and, and chat about a little bit is this parable of the talents.

And so again, I've, I've read it.

So if you've heard,

 um as one and i talk about this before right in some of the um videos leading up to this i'm just gonna but for those that haven't i'm just gonna read it all the way through again it's it's fairly long stick with me for a couple of minutes as i read through the parable of the talents i think this is a beautiful way to finish and then we're gonna talk about okay what can you do how can you apply

 What's going on here?

And then kind of give you that little bit of a charge, give you that little bit of application.

And then we'll look forward to the next lesson.

And so I'll give you a little heads up on what that is.

Let me get real quick and get to a quieter spot.

They just let the people out.

Perfect.

Yeah, so I'll just read while you go to that other spot.

So in Matthew 25...

 14 through 30, it's the parable of the talents.

And Jesus is telling this story and he says, "'For it is just like a man about to go on a journey who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them.

To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his own ability.'"

 And he went on his journey.

The one who had received the five talents immediately went and did business with them and earned five more talents.

In the same way, the one who had received the two talents earned two more.

But he who received the one talent went away and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

 Now, after a long time, the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.

The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents saying, master, you entrusted five talents to me.

See, I have earned five more talents.

His master said to him,

 Well done, good and faithful slave or good and faithful servant.

You are faithful with a few things.

I will put you in charge of many things.

Enter the joy of your master.

Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, master, you entrusted two talents to me.

See, I have earned two more talents.

His master said to him, well done, good and faithful slave.

You are faithful with a few things.

I will put you in charge of many things.

Enter the joy of your master.

 I love that.

Now the one who had received the one talent also came up and said, master, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter seed.

And I was afraid.

So I went away and I hid your talent in the ground.

See, you still have what is yours.

 But his master answered and said to him, you worthless, lazy slave.

Did you know that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter seed?

Then you ought to have put my money in the bank.

And on my arrival, I would have received my money back with interest.

Therefore, take the talent away from him and give it to the one who has the 10 talents."

 For to everyone who has, more shall be given and he will have an abundance.

But from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away and throw the worthless slave into the outer darkness in that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So that is a gnarly story.

But so Jesus is telling this parable

 And, you know, maybe this, maybe Jesus, right?

He is God.

So he knows of all things that have happened in all of time, both past, present, future, right?

He is all knowing.

So maybe this story is an actual true story where he's like, I knew that this had happened.

Boom.

And he's telling the story.

But regardless, he's telling it to make a point.

And the point is, right?

We are all given something.

And some of us are given more than others.

And some of us are given less than others.

 But woe to the person, whether you're given a lot or a little, that takes what they have and doesn't do a thing with it.

Right?

That's it.

And to that point, I'm going to assume we're closing out pretty soon.

But I want to leave you guys with a story that happened literally just this past week.

Because I teach at a brand new startup school.

And the thing about it is there's a lot of...

 quote unquote, educated folks that have master's degrees and have a lot of different things.

And we have just maybe one or two guys that deal with the plumbing issue, do all the maintenance work.

We literally, honestly, just one guy that we call whenever there's a plumbing issue.

And what happened was he did some plumbing in one toilet and then it started to create a flood.

And it was literally a flood that might have been

 Just a little, just not fairly big enough.

It was maybe a couple inches.

And all of the teachers that were in the administration services, they got all spooked because they started getting smothered.

Then they closed the school down.

Then they closed the school down the next day because only one person could deal with all the plumbing issues.

And the reason I'm bringing that up is because when they say the abundance of talents, they are making sure, or God is making sure you understand that you have to be very appreciative of all people

 skills.

So whether you're the person that's vacuuming the floors and making sure a building is maintained or the person that's just coming in and touting out a bunch of information and saying this, you have to be very understanding that everybody has a talent somewhere and the money's going to go to the people that have more talents as it pertains to how you appreciate and how you work with people.

So I'm not going to put any names out here because I don't have their permission, but the particular person who

 runs the operations and runs the plumbing and things like that.

There's a reason he has his own cubicle.

There's a reason he's the one that gets called whenever certain things get happened.

That is a maintenance issue.

And he's in a league of his own.

I don't even know what the number is he gets paid.

But what I do know is that the CEO of the school saw that particular thing happen.

 And whatever he was getting paid before, he's going to be getting paid a whole lot more now because the CEO realized, oh, my God, I have all these people in the building, educated folks in the building.

But the one guy that's the maintenance guy was the only one that could solve this problem.

So I got to make sure I'm putting more in regard, more resources in regards to how I take care of the actual building.

So you never know when your talents and your gifts are going to make room for you.

 You just got to make sure you're appreciative of all the talents that are there and say, hey, when my numbers call, I take it all back to the football field.

When quarterback goes down, that second string got to come in and do numbers.

You got to be ready.

So you have got to make sure you're appreciative of all the talents out there.

 Yeah, that's good.

That's a good kind of like separate angle take that I didn't think about, but it's absolutely true.

And yeah, just because, you know, so if I have a master's degree and you got your GED.

Exactly.

 I'm not somehow like more valuable to the Lord.

I just have a certain skill, a certain thing, right, that the Lord can use to his glory.

And then this person with the GED has a certain position, a certain thing that the Lord can use for his glory.

And man, again, to just...

 What's up?

That's what gets lost.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm better than you.

I'm higher up on the org chart of God's cosmos, which is kind of hilarious considering God is literally the one that created you.

He's sustaining you in being, and he's doing the same to this person over here too.

It's not like you all of a sudden get this extra effervescence of glory or something.

Yeah, and so...

 So just thinking about that, instead of going down another rabbit hole, and there's a bunch of stories that I could share as well.

I want you, if you're listening to this, I just want you to take a couple of minutes, shoot, take 30 minutes if you have to, and just start writing out, whether it's on this paper or on your own journal, just write out

 start to see all of the blessings that the Lord has given you.

Like he has given you 24 hours in a day.

The same as one has the same amount of time as I have, as, uh, Bill Gates has, as president Trump has, as, uh, the governor of Florida has, as the governor of Idaho has, like no matter, no matter your position, uh,

 Around the world, we all have the same amount of time.

And so we can consider that as a blessing or we could be like, oh, I don't have enough time.

And it's like, well, if we didn't have enough time, right, and we needed a 25th hour, God would have made a 25th hour.

That's not what he made.

We have 24, right?

So here we are.

Let's see that as a blessing.

Hey, I've got this opportunity to speak with Aswan.

I've got this opportunity to do this conference.

I got this opportunity to go cheer my kids on.

 And then that sort of, I think, helps us cherish the time, right?

And if we cherish the time, then we will typically...

 more rightly divide that time.

Like that, that is the truth.

Like we are to rightly divide our time.

We are to rightly divide our talents and skills that the Lord has given us.

And so it's just start to write all of that stuff down, you know, whether as, as menial as a, you have this belt and this belt and this belt, right.

From Aswan's story to as significant, you know, significant as,

 I have today.

God has given me life today.

What am I going to do with that life today?

And just start writing all that out.

And then my ask is the same thing that I pray every day, but that the Lord of heaven and earth would give you

 would give me, would give Aswan a wise and discerning stewardship of all the blessings he has chosen to give me as opposed to comparing, right?

I'm not gonna compare, oh,

 you know, Myron Golden has all this stuff.

He's got a thousand people in the room.

It's like, I can be happy for him and be like, man, that is awesome.

God has given you that and you're doing great things with it.

And then I can go, okay, what has the Lord given me?

Right.

And then be like, man, that is awesome.

You know, it's not the same, but comparison's a thief.

And I posted about that the other day, but it truly is.

 As I was leaving, he was at the part where he was teaching people how to sell.

And he goes, guys, listen, I've been doing this for 40 years.

So for you to try to compare yourself to me, it's just ridiculous.

So that's a big point that you just made, that comparison component.

Because it'll rob you before you even get started.

It'll say, oh, I'll never buy even try.

And that has happened quite a bit, too.

 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And so, yeah, I just wanted to finish with that.

You can ask our triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, how can I use these blessings that you've given me, whatever they may be, small in comparison, large in comparison, but who cares about the comparison?

This, it is pleased God to give you

 your looks, your height, your physical stature, your skills, your abilities, your material goods, small or large as they may be, your money as small, as large as it may be, even at this point, maybe debt.

And we'll talk about that

 in the next couple of lessons.

But yeah, give that to the Lord.

How can I glorify him with it?

And when we start to think about, okay, we don't own it.

We're just stewards of it.

It really does change the shape of what we're doing, right?

Now we're freed up and we have the responsibility as opposed to, oh, I'm slave to this job.

I'm slave to this money.

I'm slave to this, you know, whatever it might be.

 Yeah, so the next one is give first and generously.

So that's the next lesson.

And then after that, we are gonna talk about living within our means.

And then we're gonna talk about removing debt.

And then we're gonna talk about investing.

And then lastly, we're gonna talk about seeking wise counsel.

Any last words, Aswan, before we hop off?

You covered it.

Well, I can't go, but I know you got a soccer game to get to.

So I'm gonna start preaching again.

 I'm looking forward to next week and we'll keep going from there, man.

Beautiful.

We'll have a great Lord's day tomorrow.

Have a great week this next week.

And I look forward to seeing you on the next one.

All right, man.