The Prosperity Gospel

Well, beloved, we're closing out our study of 1 Timothy today talking about the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth gospel. If there's going to be a parody of Christianity in Hollywood, it's probably going to center around this health, wealth, prosperity thing. That's what the world seems to have latched onto because that's what the world sees when they turn on Christian TV.

I was reading yesterday a reporter from CNN who grew up in an impoverished community in Atlanta, Georgia. He said, you know, when I grew up in this impoverished community, he said, my grandma's pastor, my grandma's bishop would drive around in a Rolls Royce with a water fountain. I asked my grandma one time, I said, grandma, how is it that this is a church in an impoverished community and yet your pastor drives around in a $300,000 Rolls Royce with a water fountain and she said, honey, you need to understand, we take pride as a community in being able to bless our pastor and let him drive around that.

Y'all know how twisted that is. That's not biblical. That's not biblical and that's not new.

This prosperity message has been around for a long, long time. In fact, Paul closes out 1 Timothy by addressing this issue. So I want you to turn, if you would, to 1 Timothy chapter 6. I'm going to read most of the entire chapter.

That's more than I usually read, but it's important that we read the whole chapter. One pastor said one time, giving advice to younger pastors, he said, when you preach your sermon, put as much scripture in there as possible. That way, at least that part of your sermon is right. So 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 3, let's roll up our sleeves and dig into this.

1 Timothy 6, 3, if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with a doctrine conforming to godliness, he has conceded, understanding nothing but having a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and depraved of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. And if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmless desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evils, and some by aspiring to it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, Timothy, you man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith.

Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the proper time. He who is blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal might.

Amen. Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty or to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Command them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, and to be ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasures of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed. Oh, Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, turning aside from godless and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge, which some, while professing, have gone astray from the faith.

And he says to Timothy, grace be with you. Now, church, let me give you just two foundational principles concerning wealth and money and prosperity. First foundational principle is this, it is not a sin to be wealthy. Verse 17, this is written to the church, Paul says to Timothy, command those, command those in your church who are rich in this present age not to be haughty or to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches. Implication, there were rich members of this church.

It's not a sin to be rich. Some of Jesus's earliest followers were wealthy. Men like Nicodemus, you ever heard of him? You ever heard of him? Joseph of Arimathea. Y'all heard of Luke who wrote the gospel of Luke in your Bible?

He's a doctor. One of the early followers of Jesus was the Ethiopian eunuch. He was the head of the queen of Ethiopia's treasury.

He was a very wealthy man. Lydia in the book of Acts, she's a businesswoman. I can take you to Romans 16 where Paul is addressing specific members at the church at Rome and he addresses slaves and he addresses members who were part of the aristocracy. That was the beauty of early Christianity. Wealthy, poor, rich, poor, people from all different racial backgrounds, they all came together and so listen to me, it is not a sin to be wealthy, right?

And sometimes we can kind of go to the other extreme. If you're poor, you must be virtuous. If you're rich, you're going to hell. That's not biblical, okay? So number one, it's not a sin to be rich or wealthy. Number two, look, biblical money management, it does bring blessing. Look at verse six, Paul says, but godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. Look at verse 17, God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. I'm not going to shy away from this. You handle your money God's way, you will be blessed financially.

There's a fellow named Randy Alcorn. Randy Alcorn is a Christian author, a pastor, a Christian leader and he did a study of families who said they've had breakthroughs in their families, God moved in a great way, there's a mighty move of God in their own particular families and here's what he said, seven out of ten of these families said our family breakthrough came when we started tithing our income. Ten percent of our income went to the Lord and that makes sense because Jesus said, where your treasure is, what?

There your heart's going to be also and so we don't need to shy away from this. God does bless us when we handle our finances his way and incidentally, I preached on this a couple weeks ago, y'all remember this? When I preached on tithing and y'all responded, I can't tell you how many ministries we were able to move forward with because y'all stepped up to the plate and started tithing, God blesses when we tithe, I'm not against that.

But somebody told me one time, I like this, heresy consists of taking the part and making it the whole. So part of the Christian life is you handle your money God's way, you'll be blessed, that's part of it but when you move that to the center and you make that the whole of your gospel, that's where we have a problem. So Chad, when you talk about the prosperity gospel, what do you mean? I mean you're obviously against it, the video you just showed proves you against it, what do you mean by the prosperity gospel? You know, I read this week different sociologists, different theologians have their different definition of the prosperity gospel.

Let me kind of limit my focus here today and when I mean the talk about the prosperity gospel, here's what I mean. The prosperity gospel teaches that you give in order to get. You give and you will get your car, your helicopter, your yacht, your health. You give in order to get and the operative words there are in order to.

I am going to give money expecting God to give me something in return, that's why I give. I remember it's been a few years ago and it's still don't go to the church anymore but he told me, pastor, you know what I've claimed? I said, oh boy, what have you claimed? He said, I've claimed the brand new Corvette XR 5000 with the bells and the whistles.

I knew what the guy made, I didn't even want to afford this. I said, really, you've claimed that? He said, yeah. He said, here's what I've done, I've printed out a picture of that Corvette that I want and I put it on my refrigerator and every time I walk by that refrigerator, I put my hand on that and I claim it in the name of Jesus and pastor, I know I'm going to get that. You know why?

I said, why? Because I've doubled my tithes to this church and I know that if I've doubled my tithes, God's going to give me that Corvette. In a very nice way, I said to him, keep your money. If the only reason you're giving to this church is so you can get your Corvette, keep your money. That's the prosperity message. That's what we have taken in the American church, we plastered all over TV and it's bad enough that we have that mess here in America.

Now we're shipping that around the world. The prosperity gospel is heresy, it is not the gospel. Why is the prosperity gospel a false gospel? Let me give you five reasons. I must have some prosperity people here today because it's gotten really quiet. I live for that quietness when people are glaring at me because I want to shake things up a little bit and make you rethink some things. The prosperity gospel is a false gospel for a lot of reasons.

Let me give you five. Number one, the prosperity gospel ignores the New Testament teaching on suffering. That same apostle Paul that just wrote this passage that I just read to you, he also says in 2 Timothy 3-12, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. 2 Timothy 2-3, endure suffering along with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Endure what? Prosperity?

Suffering with me. I get people tell me this, pastor, we have prosperity people come to cross assembly periodically. They stay here for a couple of months until I preach something like this and then they leave. They always say the same thing, pastor, you have a spirit of poverty. Maybe, but have you actually sat down and read the New Testament lately? Because the New Testament promises a lot of things, but the New Testament promises us suffering more than anything else. Let me give you some passages here. Acts 14-22, we must suffer many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

We must suffer. Guarantee you, that went on your precious moments daily Bible reading calendar this morning. Romans 8-16-17, the spirit himself bears witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs.

Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, look at this, provided we suffer with him. Several weeks ago, ISIS in Congo slaughtered 80 of your brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ in remote villages just because they were Christians. Did they just not have enough faith?

Did they just not name it and claim it? I don't receive this suffering. You cannot receive it all you want. I'm just telling you, in those remote villages, they followed Jesus Christ and 80 of them died a couple of weeks ago. Open Doors USA reported that in 2022, more than 5,000 churches or Christian facilities were destroyed, 5,600 Christians murdered, 6,000 Christians imprisoned, 4,000 plus Christians were kidnapped, all because they were Christians.

What's wrong? Did they just not have enough faith? And we're here trying to figure out how we're going to have our newest best car when our brothers and sisters in Christ all around the world are dying because they belong to Jesus Christ. And the prosperity gospel downplays the reality of suffering in the Christian life. Second reason why the prosperity gospel is not the true gospel is the prosperity gospel removes Jesus as the center, the focus of our lives.

We have a little saying here at cross assembly. It's all about Jesus. The prosperity gospel pushes him from the center and puts the stuff, the things, the benefits of Jesus Christ as the center. And I love what the apostle Paul in verse 15 and 16, he just gets carried away. He starts talking about Jesus and he can't stop. He said, he who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, who alone has immortality and he dwells in this unapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see to him be honor and eternal might. Amen. Paul says, Timothy, get your mind off this stuff and put it on Jesus. He's the center.

Prosperity gospel pushes Jesus out of the way of being the center. My wife and I, actually we knew each other in junior high, started dating in high school. Now let me ask you this.

If in high school, first time I asked her out on a date, 16 years old, if I had said, hey, I'd like to go out on a date, would you be interested? Well, yeah, I'd be interested. And I said, okay, great. Incidentally, I heard your family has a lot of money.

If this gets serious, how much money you think you can bring to the table here? And let's say out of a moment of insanity, she decides to stick with me. And later on, I propose to her. I say, I really feel like you're the person I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with.

Do you feel the same way? And she says, yes. And I'd say, I'd like you to marry me. But incidentally, when your parents die, how much money do you think they're going to leave you? And then let's say again, out of a moment of insanity, she sticks with me and we now have a wedding and we're at the front of the church. And the pastor said, Chad, do you take her to be your wife until death? Do you part and I said, well, before I say yes, like I said, spreadsheet one more time, I want to see what kind of solvency you have.

How much income are you going to be bringing to this? She would say, time out. You want me or do you want my money? And I wonder if Jesus is saying to the American church, time out. Y'all want me or you want my money?

You want my stuff? Jesus has to feel like the American church is pursuing Jesus because of what Jesus can give us, not because he's Jesus. And he ain't listening to me. Jesus will not prostitute himself to the American church. I'm going to give myself to you or Jesus, we will give ourselves to you, but we want something in return.

It doesn't work that way. We want Jesus because he's Jesus, which leads us to the next reason why the prosperity gospel is a false gospel. Number three, the prosperity gospel uses God. Verse five, in constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.

You see that? The prosperity gospel says you want money? Use God and you'll get your money. You'll get your stuff. Listen to me.

Never forget this. Money's just a tool. That's all it is. It's a tool that God gives us to carry out his work. That's what money is. God gives us money to supply us as we carry out the work. It's just a tool.

You with me on that? We've gotten obsessed with our tool. Like if you ever say to me, I'll meet you in the lobby and you're there with your shovel.

Hey, it's good to meet you. What is this? I bought this shovel at Lowe's yesterday. I love this shovel, Chad. Isn't it a beautiful shovel? Yes, it's a great shovel. No, no, Chad, you understand, I really love this shovel.

When I ride down the road, I put it in the passenger seat of my car and I put the seatbelt on. I don't want anything to happen to my shovel. You do your Christmas newsletters that all the families do at the end of the year and it's just you and your shovel here. I'm so happy. I love my shovel.

This shovel is great. Something's wrong with you. It's just a tool. I'm saying something to y'all. Something's wrong with you. That money is just your tool.

Why are you so obsessed with the tool? The challenge with the prosperity gospel, these guys who push this mess, is that instead of loving God and using money, they use God and they love money. That's the problem. Fourth reason why the prosperity gospel is not the true gospel is it encourages people to waste their lives on things that don't last. Verse 18, Paul says, Timothy, command them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasures of a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.

Do you see what he's saying? Timothy, they're so obsessed on the stuff, the 401k, the helicopters, the car, the this, the that. Timothy, they're only going to enjoy that for a few years. Timothy, tell them through giving to the kingdom of God, loving others, blessing others to prepare for the future.

They get to enjoy that for eternity. Here's how Jesus put it. In John 6 27, he says, do not work for things that will spoil. Work for things that will endure to eternal life.

That needs to be your focus. Listen to me. Second Peter says, all this mess, it's all going to burn up one day. All this stuff that you think is so important right now that you're just obsessed with, it's all going to burn up one day. People ask me, there's this big debate going on with the global warming. You believe in global warming?

I do. This whole thing is going to burn up one day. This whole plan is going to burn up. I believe in global warming.

It's all going to burn up, and we're spending all of our time for stuff that's one day going to disappear. And then number five, the prosperity gospel ignores the dangers of wealth. Now again, is it wrong to be wealthy? No. Is it wrong to have money?

No. But it's very dangerous. You got to handle wealth and finances and prosperity with care. Paul says in verse nine, those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. Verse 10, for the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. Look at this.

And some by aspiring to have it wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many griefs. I've told you this before. Jesus talked about money and possessions more than any other single subject.

Did you know that? And most of what he had to say about money was not good. It was warning people about money. He says things like Mark 4 19, the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches can come in and choke the word of God in your life and make you unfruitful.

Be very careful, he says. Billy Graham, you all remember Billy Graham in his autobiography, Just As I Am, said that many years ago, Ruth, his wife and I, Ruth and I had a vivid illustration of this on an island in the Caribbean. He said one of the wealthiest men in the world had asked us to come to his lavish home for lunch.

He said he was 75 years old and throughout the entire meal he seemed close to tears. He said I'm the most miserable man in the world. Out there's my yacht. I can go anywhere I want to. I have my private plane. I have my helicopters.

I have everything I want to make my life happy yet I am as miserable as hell. We talked to him and prayed with him trying to point him to Christ who alone gives lasting meaning to life. Then we went down the hill after having lunch with this very wealthy man to a cottage where we were staying. That afternoon the pastor of a local Baptist church came to call on us. He was an Englishman and he too was a widower who had spent most of his time taking care of his two invalid sisters.

He was full of enthusiasm and love for Christ and love for others. He said this, I don't have two dollars to my name, he said with a smile, but I'm the happiest man on this Caribbean island. Billy Graham relates that after he and his wife left he asked his wife, who do you think is the richer of the two men?

She didn't have to reply because they both already had the answer. Listen to this, the pastor who had no money had found a deep and abiding joy not in what he possessed but in who possessed him. I'm just telling you there have been incredible damage done by this prosperity gospel.

I have seen it, I'm not going to go into details, I've seen it in my own eyes. When it works, it works. But when it doesn't work, it's catastrophic. In fact, Kate Bowler is a Duke Divinity School professor and she's authored the book Blessed, a history of the American prosperity gospel, she said something very interesting. She recently learned she had stage four cancer and when people in the prosperity community heard of her diagnosis she said they didn't know how to respond because they've been taught that if they follow certain rules and speak aloud positive thoughts then they would be healed. She said something very interesting, this is interesting. She said if you follow the prosperity gospel and get sick, you have two problems. The shame compounds the grief. That's interesting. If you're a proponent and an advocate and you push the prosperity gospel, when you get a catastrophic sickness like this, you're dealing with the grief but you also have to deal with shame because you must not have said something right.

You must not have named it or claimed it or given enough money. It's your fault. Does that make sense?

The shame compounds the grief. I've just seen people get angry. I've seen it.

I'm thinking about a situation now, again, won't tell it to you, where a man got so angry I watched him walk away from the faith one night because of this thing right here. Look, let me give you a little analogy. I don't drive a $300,000 Rolls Royce. I drive an 11-year-old pickup truck that I wash maybe twice a year. Last year, I said, I'm going to get this thing washed.

I went to one of these car things where you go in and you wash and it's washed and then you have to go vacuum it yourself. You know what I'm talking about? I said, man, I'm going to splurge and I'm going to get these Armor All wipes. I think these things may have cost, I'm just throwing this, I think they were $2. I go to the vending machine and it says $2. I got eight quarters.

I'm not good at math, that's $2. I put the eight quarters in there, I push the button, nothing came out. Life is full of a little irritants like that, but for some reason, something snapped at me. I don't know why that made me so angry. I should have just walked away, but I did something stupid. I said, this machine ain't going to win. I'm going to go back to my car. I went back to my truck, I got eight more quarters. Went back to the vending machine, put the eight quarters in, push the button, nothing came out.

Beloved, I lost it. If somebody is part of cross-assembling, you watched me that day, I want to apologize because I was going crazy. I was literally putting my hands up in the thing, trying to grab the stuff. It made me so mad because I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I put the right quarters in, I punched the thing, and I didn't get what was owed to me. Some of you all do the same thing with the prosperity gospel message. I named it, I claimed it, I tied, I put the money in, I told God what I want, I claimed it, and I didn't get it, and I'm angry at God. Why did God not do what I told him to do?

Because he's God. You don't tell God what to do, he tells you what to do. But listen, you have this kind of relationship with God that's transactional.

I'll follow you, provided you give me this. I'm telling you, when it works, it's fine. But when your business falls apart, and God didn't give you what you were owed, I'm just telling you, something's going to happen here. And so Paul says, Timothy, let me just wind this up. Timothy, your church is wrestling with this whole thing of prosperity and money. Timothy, let me just give you two principles on handling money. Number one, Timothy, just tell your people to be generous. Verse 18, command them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, to be ready to share.

Those aren't four things, that's actually one thing Paul's saying in four different ways. Timothy, teach your church to be generous. Listen to me, I talked about tithing a few weeks ago. Tithing is just the beginning here, because what's going to happen is, you give 10% of your income to the Lord, and you tithe, he is going to bless you. You're going to have more, and you're going to, listen to me, you're going to be tempted to hoard that up. As God blesses you, you keep getting more and more generous. Tithing is just the beginning. We used to sing this song in the church.

Remember this? 10% of Jesus, I surrender. 10% I freely give.

I will have a love and trust him in his presence daily. I surrender 10%. I surrender 10%. 10% to thee, my blessed savior.

I surrender all. Heard a pastor a couple years ago, said I went to one of these little touchy feely pastor's conferences. I know this, I don't know why he was there, but he said, I went to this thing, we had a little breakout session, when the facilitator gave us all paper cups, and said, now I want you to take this paper cup, and this paper cup symbolizes you, and make a little statuette, or make something, a little design in this cup that symbolizes who you really are. He said, I'm sitting there like, what am I even doing here? He said, these guys really got into it.

It's time to explain. He said, the first guy's like, well, this, he had all this stuff on the back. He said, this paper cup symbolizes the hidden child that's within me, that just wants daddy to give him a hug, and all this kind of stuff.

And he said, went from person, to person, to person. He said, I'm just there with a paper cup. I'm the last guy, the facilitator said, John, you've not done anything with your paper cup. Do something to make this paper cup symbolize you.

He said, I stared at that paper cup for a second. I popped the bottom out, and said, I am just a funnel through which the power and the resources of God flows. Well, that's you. You're a funnel. God pours in the top, you pour out the bottom. You just bless others.

And one thing I know about the funnel is you plug up the bottom, somebody's going to stop pouring in on the top. Timothy, tell your people, just be generous. And then number two, Timothy, tell your church to keep your focus.

Look at this. Storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future. Again, I want to say it, we're looking toward the future. I give to the body of Christ, I give to missions, because I'm looking toward the future. I want to see as many people saved as possible. So when I enter heaven, could you imagine this? You enter heaven, and all of a sudden you're bombarded by all these people you've never met before.

You're like, who are these people? I'm born again, because you gave to this missionary, and this missionary led me to Jesus. My tribe is in heaven, because your church sent people over to my tribe and shared the good news of Jesus Christ. I want to keep my focus on the future. Not on the 401k, not on this stuff, none of that. Okay, that's not bad, I get it. But your focus has got to be the future. And Paul says something very interesting in verse 21. He says, which some, while professing, have gone astray from the faith.

You see that? When you get your focus off of Jesus, and glorifying Jesus by winning others to Jesus. When Jesus is no longer the focus, when his work is no longer the focus, when you're not seeking first the kingdom of God and Jesus' righteousness, when that doesn't happen, Paul says, Timothy, you're starting to veer off course.

I don't want the stuff. I want to keep my focus on Jesus. Remember the little song, I'd rather have Jesus than have silver and gold. I'd rather have him than have riches untold. I'd rather have Jesus than houses or lands. I'd rather be led by his nail pierced hand than to be the king of a vast domain or be held in sin's dread sway.

I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today. Paul says, Timothy, keep your focus on Jesus. Keep your focus on the mission. We're here to win people to Jesus Christ, Timothy.

That's your focus. A few years ago, a man in our church, he was an airplane pilot and he was an instructor. He took me up in an airplane and, now this might have been illegal or against FAA regulations, but he's dead.

He's gone on to be with the Lord Jesus Christ, so you can't prosecute him now. But we were up there and he said, Chad, how'd you like to fly this airplane? I said, I'd love to fly this thing. He said, all right, I'm going to turn the controls over to you. He said, now here's our course. We're on this course. Don't get off course. So I'm flying this thing and 10 seconds later, he said, you're off course.

I looked down. I was like, well, you're right. 10 seconds later, you're off course. I mean, you're right. Like every 10 or 15 seconds, he did.

You're off course. And he finally said, Chad, that's a rookie mistake. He said, because if you're looking at the clouds, you're looking at them, he said, you're going to get off course. He said, here's what I do as a pilot. He said, I find something in the horizon, like a mountain or a hill or something that's not going to move. And I keep my eyes on that. And I realize if I can keep my eyes on something that doesn't move, I won't get off course. And I did that. I found some mountain or hill off in the distance, kept my eyes on that. And I didn't get off course.

I stayed on that course. And Paul says to Timothy, Timothy, keep your eyes on Jesus. He's the King of Kings. He is the Lord of Lords.

He is the one immovable force in this world. Timothy, keep your eye on the goal. We've got to lead people to Jesus Christ.

We got to get the nations at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Timothy, don't get distracted by the stuff. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Keep your eyes on the mission. Timothy, keep your focus. Cross assembly, I say the same thing to you. I wish I could give you cars, money, helicopters, and yachts.

I can't do that, but I can give you something better. And his name is Jesus Christ. He is better than anything else this world has to offer.

So would you stand with me right now? And can you lift up holy hands and get your eyes off of all this mess in the world? And as Hebrews 12 says, put your eyes on Jesus, the one who started this, the one who's going to end this. Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for this, Father, for this congregation and the blessings you've poured out on these people, my brothers and sisters, but Father, may we not hoard this stuff up for ourselves. May we pour out our riches for the kingdom of God in anticipation for that day when the kingdoms of this world are going to become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, and your son Jesus will reign forever and ever and ever. We don't share the kingdom of this world. We don't share the kingdom of this world.

We don't share ever and ever and ever. We don't shout prosperity to the nations. We don't shout money to the nations. We shout Jesus to the nations.

This messed up, dying world needs Jesus. And right now we proclaim the name of Jesus to the forces of darkness and the forces of light, to the lost and to the saved. Right now we proclaim the name of Jesus. Let's bless his name right now. Team lead us in this.

Yeah. Your name is power, Your name is healing, Your name is love. Break every stronghold, shine through the shadows, Burn thy divine. Your name is power, Your name is power, Your name is healing, Your name is love.

Break every stronghold, shine through the shadows, Burn thy divine. And you know, keeping your eyes on Jesus doesn't just help you with your finances. It helps you day by day with worry and stress and anxiety. Because when I realize this world is passing away, I'm going to a better place. I just don't get as stressed as I do when I'm not thinking about heaven. Does that make sense?

Look at this. Jesus says in John 14, I'm going to prepare a place for you. And when I'm done, I'm coming back for you. Now watch this, Jesus has been gone for 2,000 years preparing a place for us. He created everything there is in six literal days and this is a magnificent universe.

It was created in six days. He's been working on your home for the last 2,000 years. What must that place be like? And so don't keep your eyes on the mess of this world. Keep your eyes on Jesus, your heavenly home.

He's coming back again. Raise your hands and receive this blessing from the Lord. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. According to his power that should work within us. To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen and amen. God bless you beloved. Let's go change this world for Jesus Christ. God bless you.