Leaving Home

Introduction

That’s at least three people today. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Genesis, the chapters 27. Genesis chapter 27. We’re going to begin reading at verse 41. And then we’re going to read all the way down to uh chapter 28, verse 5. If I could have a volunteer to read that for us, Genesis chapter 27, beginning with verse 41, and we’re going to read down to Genesis 28, verse 5, because again we’re talking about the life of Jacob. Who would like to volunteer? Yes, ma’am. And your name? Katie. Katie? Could you read that for us, Katie, please? Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said to him, The days of mourning for my father are approaching, and I will kill my brother Jacob.

But the words of Esau, her older son, had told to Rebecca. So she sent and called Jacob her younger son and said to him, Behold, your brother Esau comfort himself about you by playing to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice. Arise, please from David, my brother in Haram, and stay with him a while, until your brother’s fear turns away. Until your brother’s anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send and bring you from there. Why should I be oppressed of the boat in one day? Then Rebecca said to Isaac, I loathe my life because of the Hittite woman. If Jacob married one of the Hittite women like me, one of the women of the land, what good will be my life be to me?

And Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him.

Arise, go to Koran, Aram, to the house of Bethel, your mother’s father. And they hit your way from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. God Almighty blessed you and make you first both multiply you. That you may become a home of his people. May you he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with me. That you may take possession of your journey that God gave Ada I think that gave it away and he went to around the later son of the Iranian the brother of Rebecca Jacob and he’s gone from Aaron Great thank you very much what we’re gonna talk about today is leaving home yes every young person in here there’s going to come a point in your life in which you’re going to leave home Jacob in this particular text was forced to leave home he had a brother that wanted to kill him because of some stuff that he had done to his brother so now he is forced to leave the house and now Jacob who was once under the care of his parents who once had their parental guidance is now being put into a situation in which he is now on his own nobody to take care of him he now has to take care of himself you are aware of the fact that for as long as you’re in your parents’ home your parents have the responsibility of providing for you for taking care of for taking care of you for showing you how to live life and to prepare you for that moment that when you leave home you will not have the same struggles that they’ve had.

The things that we’re going to talk about today are going to be sort of unconventional because I don’t know what you expected to hear in regards to leaving home but some things we’re going to talk about today that if my parents had shared this information with me I would not have made the mistakes in my adulthood that I’ve made you know as a as a youth uh I left home at 18, went straight to college. Wanted to leave home so badly that I went to the furthest school that offered me a scholarship. So I drove eight hours away to go to college. I lived in Richmond, Virginia, decided to go to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Morehouse College is very famous because of their alumni, men like Martin Luther King, Spike Lee, Samuel Jackson, Andrew Young.

They all graduated from Morehouse. Morehouse is the only school in this country that is all men and all black at the same time. So I decided to go there. And I made some mistakes because again, on my 18th birthday, Discover Card Company sent me a discover card. I didn’t have no job. I had no way of making any income. But they just handed me a thousand dollars in credit and say, Yeah, just pay us back, you know, on a monthly basis. And I said, Well, you know, okay, not a problem. And if I miss a payment here, I miss a payment there, everything’s going to be alright. But that’s not true. So then I decided to get a job so that I could pay for school.

And when I started this job, I started working for Bank of America. And when I started working for Bank of America, they contacted me and said, because you’re an employee, you know that we can give you a credit limit, 10% of what your income is. Wow, two credit cards. By the time I was 20 years old, I was in debt up to my eyeballs. It was ridiculous. It took me 15 years to go from being in debt to being debt-free. I wasn’t raised in a Christian household. Now people think I have it all together. Oh man, you’re so blessed. You don’t have any bills. You can buy whatever you want. Man, look at your life. Oh, listen, it was a struggle. And it didn’t have to be a struggle if I had received the guidance that you’re about to receive on today.

1. Money Is a Bad Master but a Good Servant

See, one of the things that we’re going to talk about today is that when you leave home, you’re going to learn something different about this word, and this word is called money. Yes, we read in the Bible about money, and it says that the love of money is the root of all evil. Absolutely. But understand something about money. When we read Matthew chapter 6, verse 24, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that we can’t serve both God and money. So there’s something that we can infer from this text. We can infer the fact that, listen, money is a bad master. But in order to live in this world, it’s a good servant. You don’t work for money. You got to learn to let money work for you.

So we’re going to talk about some money and just eliminate these misunderstandings right here, right now, so that as you go forward and understand what the Bible teaches in regards to this subject of money, that when you leave home, you don’t make the same mistakes that many people have made before you.

2. The Borrower Is a Slave to the Lender

Who would like to read that? Proverbs chapter 22, verse 7. Yes, Elijah. You can go ahead and read that for us. Proverbs chapter 22 and the verses 7.

Over the power of the world.

Anybody know what that means? The rich rules over the poor.

Does anybody even know what these terms mean? It’s in the book, we gotta know what they mean. Do you know what they mean? Yes, ma’am. Um for loans. Mm-hmm.

That’s right. In order for you to borrow money, that means that somebody has money and they gave you something that belongs to them to give to you in such a way that you have to pay it back to them. And until such a time that you don’t pay, until such a time that you pay it back, then they’re pretty much in control of your situation. Always remember that. If you borrow something from somebody, they can come to you every day. Are you done with it yet? When you gonna pay me back? What’s going on? They’re looking at the decisions that you make. Oh, that’s a nice dress that you bought. How did you pay for that? Oh, so you can buy a dress, but you can’t pay me back my money.

I mean, you you know, it’s just ongoing harassment. You become a slave to the to the lender. If you are a borrower, you become a slave to the lender. Think about that in regards to credit cards. If somebody gives you a credit card, as soon as you use that credit card, that credit card company is going to look for you to pay that money back. And they can even give you a deadline until they want it when they want it back. If you don’t meet that deadline, they call you. They’re called debt collectors. You know, because you owe this, you have not paid it back yet, so now they are looking for you. They control your life. Don’t you know that if you don’t pay your bills in a certain amount of time, that they can take your paycheck?

Did you know that? You go to work, you don’t worked all week expecting to get the 200 to 300 to 400 to 500 that is owed to you for the work that you’ve done, but because you owe somebody else, your check now drops to $100. Why? Because the people that you owe took the 400 because they don’t trust you to pay them back. So they took it straight from your check. That’s what happens in life when you are not the key word this week, this weekend. Responsible. The borrower is a slave to the lender. Anybody that we yield ourselves to is who we become slaves to. When we read Romans chapter 6, verses 13 through 18, it talks about that if we yield ourselves to sin, we become servants of sin.

But if we yield ourselves to righteousness, we become servants of righteousness. We become indebted to that who we yield ourselves to. Now the only person that we have a responsibility to yield ourselves to is Jesus Christ. Whatever he desires of us, that is what we do. We’re not supposed to yield ourselves to sin. We’re not supposed to put ourselves in situations that our Christianity is compromised. This is why the love of money is the root of all evil. Because when you yield yourself to money, then money rules you. You know the acronym Cream? There used to be a rap group back in my day called the Wu Tang Clan. Josh knows who I’m talking about. And they had a song, Cash rules Everything around me. Crane, get the money, dollar, dollar bill, y’all, because everybody had to get the Benjamins, you know.

Everybody wanted that money, you know. Cream. Cash rules everything around me. When you have that love of money, then guess what? Cash does rule everything around you. Every decision that you make is always based upon, you know, money this, money that. Why do you think a lot of people miss worship services on Sunday? Why? Because they make bad financial decisions, so therefore they have to sacrifice God just so they can pay their mortgage. They have to sacrifice God so that they can pay for their BMW and their Mercedes when guess what? Their four pickups can get them to the same places in the same locations that these expensive cars can. They miss services on Sunday for what? So that they can pay for that five-bedroom house when they only need three.

3. Vocabulary Words: Income, Asset, Liability, Net Worth

So that they can pay for this home in this gated community when the house down the street from where they worship is just as safe. We have to learn to make wise-hearted decisions right here, right now. Be determined to make those decisions and be responsible with the things and the resources that God has blessed us with. I want us to understand some things about finances. We’re going to introduce some vocabulary words on this morning. So it’s probably best that you write them down. Vocabulary word number one is called income. Income. Anybody knows what income is? Yes, sir. The money that you make legally or illegally, but as Christians, we’re supposed to make money legally. That means get a job, own a business, have a career, do a trade, provide a service, and you receive a wage for it.

That’s called income. Sometimes you receive an income daily. Sometimes you receive an income weekly, biweekly, every first and fifteenth, sometimes monthly. Sometimes you may receive an income from the interest that draws off some of your accounts. And you re yield that on a yearly basis. The bottom line is that you worked hard and you received a wage, and that wage is called income. Second vocabulary word is asset. Anyone knows what an asset is? A S S E T, asset. Asset. An asset is that which you own. Something that you own. If you own a car, that car is an asset. If you own a house, that house is an asset. If you have a checking account, whatever money you have in that checking account is an asset.

If you have a savings account, whatever money you have in that savings account is an asset. If you have money in stocks and bonds, if you have money in an RA, whatever investments that you have money in, if you can get that money back, that is called an asset. But not only are we talking about assets, here’s your third vocabulary word. Liability. Liability. Anyone knows what a liability is? Liability.

Yeah, does anybody in here have a job? Raise your hand if you have a job. If you have a J-O-B. Okay, we have one, two, three. Okay, three, four people. Liability. Anybody knows what a liability is? Yes.

It’s like you’re liable, like your responsible kind of thing. Okay, alright. That’s in the realm of insurance, but in the realm of finances, what’s liability? Here’s the answer. Yes, sir. Depreciate asset. Okay, something to that effect. Simple definition, what you owe. Liability is what you owe. That means you don’t own it, you owe it. So it can be subtracted from you. It’s a liability. For example, the principal balance on your mortgage. The value of your car loan. These things are considered liabilities. Your student loans. If you borrow money to go to college, that loan becomes a liability because it’s what you owe. Investment loans. If you have made investments and then you decide to borrow against that money, in other words, I put $100 into this account, but now I’m gonna need to take that $100 back.

Well, wait a minute, that’s a liability. Think about credit card debt for a moment. Credit card debt. You receive a credit card that tells you that you have a $1,000 credit limit. If you spend $500 of that money, that $500 becomes a liability because you spent money that did not belong to you. So now you owe it. It becomes a liability. Here’s the fourth vocabulary word. Net worth. You ever watch TV and lifestyles of the rich and famous, or you watch the news, or you read a magazine and they tell you that this actor has a net worth of three million dollars, or this guy who runs this company has a net worth of 1.2 billion dollars. That’s their worth. Net worth. Anyone knows what that means?

Yes, sir. Total amount of how much money, including the IMD owned and how much of how to do it. Yeah. Basically, your net worth is when you die, what your assets can be sold for. After your liabilities have been taken away. So your net worth is your assets minus your liability. Alright. So that means that you take what you own, and when you subtract what you owe, that becomes your net worth. That becomes what you are worth as far as the world is concerned financially. Two more vocabulary words. And they’re colors. Black and red. Black and red. Yes, sir. You want to define those for us?

I have a definite red. Ah, very good. Black is the color that represents your profits. That means that if your assets are more valuable than your liabilities, then you are operating in the black. Your goal in life is to always operate in the black. Because if you’re operating in the black, you do not become a burden to your family. You do not become a burden to other people. Think about this for a moment. When you see these commercials about these life insurance policies, such as Colonial Pen, and you got people like Alex Trebek and a lot of these older actors that you haven’t seen do anything, so you don’t even know that they’re actors because they acted long before you were born. And then they start saying, you know what, we’ll give you a life insurance policy because funeral expenses are this and funeral expenses are that.

Do you know why these policies make so much money? Because the people that buy them are usually individuals who are not operating in the black. They’re operating in what is called the red. That means that your liabilities are more than your assets. Anybody play the game Monopoly? Everything that we’re talking about, you can learn in the game of Monopoly. Did you know that? The only difference is that this is real. If you go bankrupt and you lose a monopoly, you can always say, hey, let’s play again. You may not get that second chance in life. Always remember that. How do you lose a game of monopoly? You land on boardwalk, the person has a hotel on boardwalk, so now you owe $2,000, and then when you add up all your properties, and when you add up all your cash, and when you mortgage all your properties, it doesn’t come up to $2,000.

You’ve lost. Because you’re operating in the red. You owe a debt that your assets cannot get you out of. So you lose. There are many people in life that fall into that situation. That’s why you hear words such as bankruptcy. Oh, this person filed bankruptcy. Why? Because their liabilities are more than their assets. They made a commitment to pay money, and now they can’t pay the money, so they’re looking for a legal way to get out of paying that which they owe. And that breaks all of the biblical principles, especially what we read in Ecclesiastes chapter 5, verse 5. If you make a vow, defer not to pay it. You must pay that which you vow. If I borrow money from you, I have to pay you back.

4. Good Debt Versus Bad Debt

I can’t come back to you and say, hey, listen, I know I borrowed this money from you. I can’t pay you back. Can we start all over? It doesn’t quite work that way. And even if the person on the other end is gracious enough to even forgive the debt, we still, at the end of the day, we have a responsibility to pay it. Income. Assets, liability, net worth, operating in the black versus operating in the red. Let us talk about now good debt versus bad debt. You do understand that there is a difference between good debt and bad debt. Who can give me an idea of what you think may be a good debt? That means that when it’s time for you to you want to buy something, you don’t have the money to buy it right away, so you have to borrow money to purchase it.

What is an example of a good debt? Yes, ma’am? Student loans. That’s a good debt. Why is that a good debt? Now this doesn’t mean that you don’t have to pay it back. You gotta pay it back. But why is it a good debt? It’s an investment in who? Yourself. It’s an investment in yourself to further your education. Don’t you know? Don’t you know that with a college degree, you are more likely to earn more over your lifetime, two million dollars more than if you only had a high school diploma. In your lifetime. Now think about that. After you graduate high school, many of us are going to live for the next 60 to 70 years. And because you went to college and your friend didn’t, you’re going to make approximately $2 million more in your lifetime than your friend did who didn’t go to college.

So if you have to take out a loan for $50,000 to pay for your education for the next four years to assure that you get a college degree, $50,000, $2 million, I think that’s worth the investment. Because you’re investing in yourself. You’re increasing in knowledge. You’re building a network of people in your life that have the same goals and the same ambitions as you. You’re meeting individuals that can help you, professors, teachers. You build a network with people as a result of the college that you go to that can help you get jobs, find employment, looking for people that have the same pedigree that you have to help you along the way. So, yes, student loans is a good debt. A lot of people don’t have the money that they can just write a check and go to Harvard.

You know, a Harvard education costs some individuals approximately $45,000 to $50,000 a year. A year. We’re talking $25,000 a semester. My parents couldn’t afford that. There’s a whole lot of parents that can’t afford that. So you have to borrow it. What is another example of a good debt? Yes. Ah, paycheck is not a debt. You’ve earned that money. That is your money. That is cash in hand. All right? That’s more of income. Okay? Your paycheck is income. Another example of good debt. Yes, sir.

Never mind. Okay. Yes, ma’am.

Yes, a home. A home loan. That is good debt. Why? Say what? Yeah, yeah, you need something to live in, but you can live in a cardboard box. Why is owning a home good debt? What again? It benefits you have.

Oh.

Okay. All right. All of those are excellent points. But why is a home loan considered good debt? Because we know debt is we we consider debt bad, but why is owning a home good debt?

What’s again?

It’s a good asset. Think about a home for a moment. It’s one of the few things that you will ever own in this life that increases in value the longer you have it. There’s a young lady that is that I worship with now. Can’t really say she’s young. She’s 87 years old, okay. She bought a house 50 years ago for $30,000. She sold that house five years ago. Do you know how much she sold it for? Now she paid off the house 30 years ago. She bought it for 30,000, paid it off 30 years ago. So she has not had to invest any more money into a loan in that house because it is her house. She owes no more money in it. She paid off the loan 30 years ago.

30 years later, which is approximately five years ago, she sells that house. Do you know how much she sold that house for? Now it’s an older house. She sold that house for 425,000. She profited almost a half a million dollars on a home because she decided that when she was in her 20s, it was a good idea to buy one. Yeah. You know, it’s a home is one of the few things that you can buy that it actually increases in value, quite different from a car. That when you buy a car, it depreciates in value. It depreciates. If you buy a new car and you drive it off the lot, that house, that car is about half the value of what it is now. So even if you decided to take the car back and say, Oh, I’ve changed my mind, I want to resell the car.

You bought the car for $20,000, the dealership said I’ll only give you $10,000 for it. Wait a minute, it’s only six years old. Ah, well, you know, it’s been driven. But a house, you can live in it and then resell it and probably get more money for the house than what you paid into it. It increases in value. So if I have to borrow money to own a home, because I don’t have the cash to write a check to buy the home today. So I borrow a few dollars to buy this home. Then that’s a that’s considered good debt. Because many of you are going to have your college education paid for. You know why? Because your parents bought a home. When it’s time for you to go to school, you’re probably going to hear words such as remortgage, in which your parents have bought the home, and then they decide to remortgage the home.

That means that they resell the home. They put their home up as collateral to receive the cash so that you all can go to school. Your home is usually one of the only gifts that just keeps on giving if you own one. But that’s only if you have been responsible enough to make the payments, to each even pay off your home to even take care of the home that you’re in. Why do you think your parents get so mad when you when you break something in the home? Because to some of you, that’s your financial future. You know, I bought a home three months ago, and already I got to invest money into repairing a back door. You know why? Because my children decided to throw rocks in the backyard one day, and they decided to shatter the glass door.

So we had to have a conversation about that. You know, I got to take your school clothes money and now repair this door. You know what I’m saying? Good luck wearing the same clothes next year that you wore this year. Now, of course, I’m a good parent, I’m gonna buy my children some new clothes, but they need to understand the fact that money doesn’t grow on trees. What about a market clothes? What again? What about a market bubble? You know what? And those come once every blue moon because of bad decisions. And think about it for a moment. We had a market bubble in which basically the homes begin to become more valuable than what they normally were. For example, when you have something that just doesn’t gradually grow, such as a house, and all of a sudden your house today is a hundred thousand dollars, but now tomorrow is two hundred thousand dollars.

That doesn’t make sense. That house is not supposed to go that far in value in that short of a time. So again, you have to be prudent. You have to be wise, you have to be responsible when you see certain things. You know how things work. You know, it makes sense for a house 50 years ago to be $30,000 to be $400,000. It would not have made sense to buy a $30,000 house today, and all of a sudden somebody says, hey, you know, uh, that house now is worth $150,000. So then you sell that house. Shame on the person that bought that house from you. You know why? Because that’s a market bubble in which they bought a $100,000 house, but now tomorrow that house is only worth $90,000 or $70,000.

So you always have to pay attention and make sure that you buy things for what they’re worth. Again, it’s the game of monopoly, right? Somebody decide, hey, I’ll give you boardwalk for Mediterranean and Baltic. I don’t care what home you live in, that’s a bad trade. That’s a bad trade. But some people make the deal because they say, hey, that’s two properties. It’s the two most inexpensive properties, and you’re giving up the most expensive property that would just keep giving over and over and over again. Why do that deal? We have to use our heads. We have to use our minds, and we have to allow the word of God to guide us in that decision making. Think of some bad debt for a moment. Who can give me an example of bad debt?

We’ve talked about some of these things already. Credit cards. That’s a bad debt. Another thing that could be considered a bad debt is borrowing against your investments. That’s a bad debt. If you put money in your savings account, then what are you supposed to do with that money? Save it. That means that this is money that I put in here for the purposes of not touching. Anyone in here gets an allowance? I mean, let’s say you’ve been getting an allowance every week since the beginning of the year. How much money do you still have of that allowance? Mind you, you live at home. You don’t have a mortgage. You don’t have bills. How much money do you still have left of that? If you get $10 a week, we’ve already been here 14 weeks.

5. Need Versus Want

That means that you have received $140 since the beginning of the year. How much money of that do you still have left? And think about how you lost that money with things that you bought. Was it really worth it? See, think about the difference between Jacob who left home with nothing. All he had with him was God. And he allowed God to dis to guide his decision making. And the very first thing he did was find a job versus the prodigal son in Luke 15. Who left home with an inheritance? And within a short amount of time, he’s eaten the same slop that he was feeding pigs. The difference was wisdom. The difference was responsibility. Two other vocabulary words need and want. Need, want. Need, want.

When I was growing up as a kid, we’ll go to the grocery store and we’ll be sitting in the in the cart, and I’ll see a chocolate bar, and I say, Mom, buy that chocolate bar for me. I need that chocolate bar. And she used to say, boy, after she slapped me in the back of my head, boy, you don’t need that chocolate. You want that chocolate. So act correctly. I said, Mom, can you buy the chocolate bar for me? I want that chocolate bar. She said, I’m not going to buy it for you because you don’t need it. Need, want. Need, want. A need is that which you absolutely have to have. It is essential for survival. When I asked about why home loan was a good debt, I received two answers that were the same.

Because you need a place to live. Well, that’s right. You need a place to live. You need shelter. That’s a need. A want is something that you don’t have to have. Which means that if you have it, it’s nothing more than a luxury. You know, I do a lot of foreign work. And when I do a lot of foreign work outside of the country, I was just having a great time talking to a brother Hawk Rider on yesterday afternoon because we were talking about how Americans have it so much different than everybody else in the rest of the world. How many of you have hot water in your home? That if you decide to take a shower in the bath, you get hot water. Don’t you know that there’s some Christians just in the continent below us that don’t know what hot water is?

Can’t afford it. Doesn’t exist. When you take a shower, it’s always cold. They have three temperatures cold, colder, and coldest. It never crossed their mind to take a hot shower. They don’t see the purpose of it. Because to them, heat is a luxury. To us, heat is a necessity. How many of you all live in a place and y’all have four walls? That means you go in a room, it’s completely blocked off. You have four walls. Don’t you know that you have some brothers and sisters that worship the same God that you worship in other continents, that their home just has nothing more than four sticks that hold up the roof, and that’s the home. They don’t have separate bedrooms. You know. Mom, close the door.

I need my privacy. Privacy, that’s a luxury in many places. I’ve gone places and have preached the gospel in certain countries, and they had one bedroom. One bedroom. And I slept in the same bedroom with the husband, the wife, the three kids. And then they had a special bed just for me. But it’s all in the same room. Sort of like the Waltons were. You remember that television show called The Waltons? It was a long time ago. And the show always ended because they all slept in the same room. And it was like, good night, Maul, good night, Paul. Good night, John Boy, good night, Ellie May, good night. And you know, they all say the same good night to one another, because they all shared the same room.

You know, my mother is one of 14 children. She was born and raised in a two-bedroom home. Mommy and daddy had their own room. The other 14 children shared the same room. Six people sleeping in one bed. So they didn’t get to sleep long ways. They had to sleep, you know, I’m saying, uh perpendicular to the way the bed worked. You know, she has seven brothers, six sisters. And they all sleep in the same bedroom. Girl slept in one bed, the boy slept in another bed. My uncles and aunts, they love to camp. You know why? Because that gave them space. When summertime came, they could sleep outside. So they could stretch out and not have back problems. You know, we’re talking about needs versus wants.

Let’s talk about some needs for a moment. Six needs that we have to have in life. Need number one and two is food and clothing. Food and clothing. You have to eat, and you cannot walk around town naked. You must put clothes on. Okay? We read about that in Matthew chapter 6, verses 25 through 32. The Bible talks about the fact that why are we worried about what we eat or what we’re going to wear? God made us. We’re more important to God than anything in this entire world. And if God can clothe birds, and don’t you know that a bird doesn’t have a job? Bird doesn’t have to punch a time clock. Bird wakes up in the morning, fears for its life, running from cats and flying from cats all day, and at the end of the day, they’re still chirping, singing praises to God.

That’s a bird. And guess what? Birds eat every day. Birds have feathers on their body every day. If God takes care of a bird, he’s going to take care of you. You know why? Because you need food. You need clothing. God’s going to make sure of that. And we have to get out of this man mentality of name brand. You know, you know what a name brand is? Nothing. I mean, that shirt you have on your back, the shoes that you have on your feet, the pants that you are wearing. Don’t you know that those pants didn’t have value until such a time that you purchased it and put it on you? What’s a pair of Jordans? Shoes in a box. But the reason why Jordans are popular is because you decided to invest $200 in a pair of tennis shoes and put them on your feet.

But guess what? You are not going to jump no higher in a pair of Jordans than you would in a pair of Adidas. Did you know that? See, I didn’t know that at five years old. There was a commercial for a pair of shoes called zips. Okay. I was always the slowest person in my class. They had a pair of shoes called zips. And what it was is that it had a zipper on the side with a big Z on the side. And when you see the commercials, they’ll show how you can run fast on a pair of zips. And what happens is that you’ll show these kids racing, and the kid will put on a pair of zips, and all you see is him running like the bionic man, just a shadow, just dust in the background, and he zips past everybody.

I said, Mom, Dad, I need a pair of zips. So my parents went out and bought me a pair of zips. And then we had physical fitness testing at school. And everybody’s like, oh, here comes Antoine. He’s gonna come in last again. I said, nope, not today. You know why? Because I got a pair of zips. And guess what? I finished next to last. Because somebody fell. The shoes didn’t make me any faster. But guess what? Zips don’t care. Because zips just made a profit because I believe the hype. I believe the commercial. So when your parents started to counsel you against things and so forth, listen, these shoes look just as nice as these shoes. Why can’t you wear that? Mom, nobody’s wearing that. Hello.

You know, listen. Your parents know something that you don’t know. That that shirt is going to keep you just as warm as this shirt. Forget the logo on it. I had to learn that the hard way. People always say, man, you got a lot of shoes. You know why? Because I don’t pay more than $20 for a pair of shoes. Ever. Ever. But you wear Stacey Adams. That’s right. You know? Stacy Adams five years ago, that shoe was $100, but now it’s depreciated. And now they’re trying to give them away for $15 and $20. I’ll wait. I’ll wait. Mom, I gotta get that movie. It’s gonna come on TV for free three years from now. Why you gotta buy it? Huh? I mean, think about that now.

I’m a collector. Okay, whatever.

Needs and want. You need shelter. You need a roof over your head. Genesis chapter 2, verse 8. God created man and God put Adam in the garden of Eden. Put him in the garden. Why? Because he understood that this man that he created needed a place to stay. Don’t you know that the God we serve does no more for us that he’s not willing to do for himself? God has a home in heaven. Why would he make us and not give us a home? Some of you all live in apartments, some of you live in condos, some of you live in homes. Guess what? God provided that for you. He knew you needed it. Because food, clothing, and shelter, those are needs. You also need life.

You need to take care of yourself. God has given you a heart, but if you don’t take care of your heart, your heart is going to let you down. God has given you lungs so that you can breathe. But if you don’t take care of your lungs, your lungs are going to let you down. God has given you a body so that you can survive and work in this life. But if you don’t take care of your body, your body is going to break down. It’s going to let you down. Jesus said in John chapter 10, verse 10, I’ve come that you may have life and that you may have that life more abundantly. He showed us how to live. Notice that Jesus at no point did we read in scripture that he was an alcoholic.

That he was some type of social drinker. Notice that Jesus wasn’t going to the local tattoo parlor, trying to get a tattoo. In God I trust. He didn’t do all that. Before he crucified on the cross of Calvary, he didn’t say, I’ll rise again, tattoo that on his chest. He didn’t do that. For these things to destroy him. But yet we got people wanting to do that every day. If you have the need to color, talk to me. I’ll buy you some crayons. I’ll buy you some paper. You don’t have to mark up your body. God made you the way he wanted you to be made. Jesus is our example. Jesus lived a good life. His life was taken from him. He was crucified. He gave it up voluntarily so that you and I can live.

We have to have health. When your parents take you to the doctor, it’s not because they don’t like you. It’s because they want you to live. When your parents take you to the dentist, it’s not because they don’t like you. They want you to live. Think about the responsibility of a shepherd for a moment. Being a shepherd is hard. Anybody ever been raised on a farm? Anybody ever been on a farm? You know, two years ago, I went to the country of Columbia to do some preaching for a month. And I went to a place in which they didn’t have anywhere for me to stay, so I had to stay on a farm. So because I was able to stay on this farm, I had to work to stay on that farm.

So I had to milk cows, I had to do all kinds of things. But, you know, on some farms you have something called sheep. Now let me tell you something about sheep. Sheep don’t like to be put on their backs. But why would a sheep want to be put on his back? I mean, a sheep walks on four legs, you know, it walks forward. If it lays down, it lays down like this. You never see a sheep laid to the side or on his back. Doesn’t like to be on his back. But don’t you know in order for that sheep to live, it has to be put on its back. Why? Because sheep have something called hooves. That’s what their feet are. And they walk through manure and they walk through grass and they walk through bacteria every day of their lives.

Which means that if this stuff stays in them, then they will eventually get sick and die. So the shepherd has the responsibility to grab a sheep, fight with that sheep, put the sheep on its back and take a tool and clean out the hooves on the sheep. Now the sheep will kick and scream and hate that the shepherd is doing this, but the shepherd has to do it because if he doesn’t, the sheep’s gonna die. Yeah, I know when your parents take you to the doctor and you say, Oh, I gotta get that flu shot. I hate needles. Okay, you may hate needles, but your parents love you. That’s why they’re sending you to the doctor so that you don’t get this thing called the flu.

That you don’t end up with tuberculosis and die. You know, I worship with a young lady right now who has polio. You know why? Because she refused to go to the doctor to get a polio shot when she was a child. Dad, that needle’s that long. You hate me. I’ll never do it. Now she has polio. There’s nothing nobody can do about it. Go to the dentist. You know, your parents take you there because they want you to live. They don’t want you 23 years old false teeth. Walking to people, everybody was like, well, how come you don’t smile? Because you don’t have no teeth. You know, that’s embarrassing. You know, you see a girl across the street, wow, she looks nice, and then she smiles and she misses three teeth to the side.

I mean, come on, really. Why? Because you don’t want to take care of herself. Same thing with a guy, he smiles. Why is teeth black? Why are you having black teeth? Teeth start out white. When they come in as a baby, they white. Why they black? Because you don’t want to go to a dentist and take care of that problem. Your parents love you. They don’t hate you. That’s why they take you to the doctor. That’s why they teach you something called hygiene. That’s why they take the time. They don’t do these things to embarrass you. They do these things because they love you. Because it’s a need. We need to have strength. What’s the purpose of having legs if you can’t use them? Arms if you can’t use them.

Eyes if you can’t use them. You know, I’m wearing glasses now because my grandmother, she was a prophetess, so she thought. Because she’s always telling me, boy, if you keep sitting in front of the TV like you’re sitting there, you’re gonna need glasses one day. Grandma, ain’t nothing wrong with my eyes. I’ll be 12 inches from TV set just watching it. I can see it just as fine from the back and front. You know, we used to have a Nintendo, you know what I’m saying? Many of y’all probably don’t know what that is, but a Nintendo was the big thing growing up when I was when I was growing up. It was the big thing, you know, Super Mario Brothers. You know, aced it in one day, so then all of a sudden you’re playing other games.

But every time I play some Mario Brothers, I was right on TV.

6. Six Lessons: Live Below Your Means

You know. Now I’m wearing glasses. Now I’m wearing glasses. You know, maybe it was destined for me to wear glasses. I don’t know. You know, but then sometimes I forget my glasses and I can’t see. Some of y’all gonna beat me in basketball today because I’m gonna take my glasses off, my jumper is gonna be off by about five inches from the rim every shot. So I have to readjust. You know, it’s messing up my game, it’s messing up my style. You know, but God gives us things that we need. So you have to understand the difference between a need and a want. Let us close by just giving five or actually six brief lessons that we must learn as a result of what we just talked about today.

Number one, live below your means. I know you’ve heard live within your means. No, live below your means. Live below your means. Just because you make a thousand dollars a week a week doesn’t mean that you have to spend a thousand dollars a week. Did you know that? If you make a thousand dollars a week, you don’t have to spend a thousand dollars a week. You go to the store, you see something, I got some money left over. I can afford it. I’m gonna go ahead and buy that. And you just have a house or an apartment or a car full of things that you don’t need. All because that money was burning a hole in your pocket. No. Learn to live below your means. If you have all the things that you need, it’s okay to treat yourself every now and then, but if you have everything that you need, and you actually have more money at the end of the month rather than more month at the end of the money, praise God.

Say hallelujah, put that money in the bank and live to tell the story. Lesson number two. Give as God prosper you. Give as God prosper you. Understand that everything that you have, everything that you are, every need that has been provided for you has been provided for you by God. This is why he teaches us in Luke chapter 6, verse 38 give and it shall be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down, shaking together, and running over shall men give into your bosoms, for with the same measures that you met with it, it shall be measured to you again. We’re supposed to be a given people because as Christians, we’re called upon to be conduits, not call-de sacks. We’re called upon to be rivers, not reservoirs.

If God blesses us, he blesses us so that we can be a blessing to other people. But first, we show our gratitude and appreciation to God by giving back to him. Every raise that you get, every dollar that you earn, it’s because God made it happen. You give him the glory. Put him first. Lesson number three. Do what you can for others. Do what you can for others. The Bible teaches us in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 28, let him that stole steal no more, but rather work with his hands that he may have it to give to those who are in need. Acts chapter 20, verse 35. Jesus is recorded as saying it is more blessed to give than to receive. Help those that you can.

A lot of people are going to see what you have. And they’re going to say, Well, you know what? I need $100. You may not have $100 to just give them. But if you can give them $25, you’ve brought them a step closer to solving their problem. So you do what you can and don’t feel bad about it. Jesus tells us in John chapter 12 that the poor is going to be with you always. I can’t help every poor person in DC. I just can’t do it. But I can volunteer at a homeless shelter once a month to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem. Do what you can. Number four. Financial success is not based upon how much you own.

But we need to start looking at it based upon how much we save. Think about that for a moment. When I was in high school, I was voted most likely to succeed. Okay. And for my picture in the yearbook, they put me next to, I graduated in high school in 1996. They put me next to a red 1997 Camaro.

Now, what is a Camaro doing parked in the school parking lot? Because a classmate of mine had a parent who bought him that car. Now, I was driving to school in a 1984 Renault Alliance. Y’all don’t even know what that is. You know why? Because Renault is such bad of a car, it was so bad of a car, they don’t even make them in America no more. But that’s what I was driving around in. I mean, man, I would go out on a date, and then I used to have to have my foot on the brake and the gas at the same time because if I ever took my foot off the gas at any time in the car, the car would shut off on me, no matter where I was at or what I was doing.

Yeah, that bad. But this guy owned a 1997 Camaro. Man, I wanted that Camaro. Oh my man, Frank is doing well. His parents own restaurants, they got all this money. Man, I wish I was Frank. Today, I’m glad of me. But I should have been satisfied with who I was 20 years ago rather than trying to be like Frank. Can’t everybody be Frank? Can’t everybody be Mike? Can’t everybody be the Joneses? Can’t everybody be that? Be yourself. Just because your friend got a nice purse, you don’t know how they got that purse. Why do you want to try to be like them? Wow, that person’s nice. I’m gonna buy one just like it. Okay, they may have the money to buy it. You don’t have the money to buy it.

So why go into debt getting something because saying, well, listen, I own this, I own that. What good is that going to do you when you have to stand before God? Lesson number five. Create a budget. The budget tells your money where to go. No budget, then money does what it wants. Understand what that means. If you don’t have a budget, if you have money in your pocket and you don’t know how you’re going to spend that money, then that money is going to be spent. And you’re not going to know how it got spent. You start the day with $10, and then you end the day, and you have zero dollars. And you have no accountability as to what happened to that money. You know you bought gum here, you know you bought a soda there, you know you bought a mill at McDonald’s here and this, that, and the other thing.

Next thing you know, that money’s gone. And it may be another week before you get another $10. So now you have to invest, you have to go six days with no cash in your pocket. Why? Because you didn’t have a budget. You didn’t have a budget. If you have a budget, your budget tells the money where it’s going to go. Many of y’all have parents and they have budgets. You know why? Because they know in the absence of the budget, they will never have the money for the things that they need. That’s why sometimes when you go to your parents, Mom, Dad, can I get this? Can I get that? They look at the budget. If it ain’t in the budget, they say no. It’s not because they don’t love you.

Conclusion

It’s not because they hate you. It’s because they want to have money for the things that you really need. That’s why we have a budget. And finally, as we stated from the very beginning, money is a poor servant. Now, have y’all been paying attention? Did I say that at the beginning? No, I didn’t. Money is a poor master. But it’s a great servant. Don’t work for money. Allow money to work for you. Don’t let money dictate your schedule. You take you dictate money. You create your schedule. You serve God. You fear Him. You keep His commandments. And God will always see to it that you have what you need. Thank you for your time and attention. We’re going to take a break and then we’ll go into our second part of this study on this morning.

Thank you.