Proven Biblical Money Principles - Dave Ramsey

just take a moment and welcome the campuses joining us in Austin and then we also have a campus in Naples, Italy. How many would like to be part of our campus in Naples, Italy? We have people who travel there every day, yes I would like to be a part of that, but we are very excited about what God is doing in Austin in Naples, Italy, and then tonight, hours in advance, we have our campus in 12 locations in Mozambique, Africa, so we also welcome them. then of course we have eight locations in eight prisons what's really cool is we have ftu groups that take place in prisons here in the austin area and then the thousands that join us online from all over the world in celebration of the Austin Metroplex going to church. hands together and well we're in luck and you know it was several years ago that I had the opportunity to really connect on a personal level with the current Vande and Ramsey solutions and I know that Laurie and I have been greatly affected by this. ministry that freed us financially, in fact, we could not start this church if we had not been financially free and I pay tribute to Dave Ramsey, which means that he really is the father of our church and therefore I will give him everything.

I resigned, I just left him, so when he came out he introduced you, he's now your new pastor and, uh, I'm going to Naples, Italy, so of course, many of us have been impacted by his life and his ministry. I called him the blacksmith of finance. The Bible says in the book of 1 Samuel that Israel had no blacksmith therefore they could not make a living they were in slavery to the Philistines the Philistines had taken out the blacksmith which meant they could not sharpen their tools and I truly believe that God has raised up this man to be a financial blacksmith so that we can be free and be able to reach our financial destiny, which means that the world is going to be impacted by you and me. when we are free and that's why we started this series of courses called defying gravity last week, I will continue next week but of course we wanted to put right in the middle of this Oreo sandwich what I believe is the best financial teacher on the planet .

Of course, he has impacted millions of people through his books as a New York Times bestselling author. Millions of people heard it on the radio on hundreds and hundreds of stations. His bodka podcast is now not a podcast, but his group may have a body in Bob's cast, but millions of people download around 17 million people listened to his podcast regularly television shows and, having said all that, we have the privilege to have him here live with us today celebration Church, would you please stand up and welcome him? Dave Ramsey, so we met Pastor Joe and Lori for the first time.

I thought these people are too pretty and then I met them and we became friends over the years and now I know that they are beautiful, they are absolutely amazing, incredible. People, you are incredibly blessed, give them a round of applause. An honor, an honor, an honor to be with all of you today, let us pray, God, you know I can do these talks alone, surely it will be better if you don't, Holy Spirit, we give this time to you. this is yours in the name of Jesus Amen, so 38 years ago my wife and I got married, we were stupid, we didn't do any premarital counseling.

I was hell at raising beer, drinking peasants, good salesmen, the ones who sold it and their little girl got us hooked. Baptist preacher in her small town in East Tennessee and we moved to Nashville and started our lives in a small broke one bedroom apartment and about two weeks after we got married my wife remembered that she was Baptist, something she forgot to mention . The whole time we were dating she knew what my religion was, that it had something to do with beer, but she didn't know what I was talking about, we didn't talk about any of this stuff and she gets up on Sunday morning and says we're . going to church i said we're not going to do anything it's sunday i'm drinking beer and watching football this is what people like me do she said now let's go to church and we start a really good fight early in our marriage and she gets mad and She's crying, of course, we're in Nashville, I mean, it's the Bible belt buckle, right, I mean, there's a little Baptist there that people, so she gets mad and leaves and it didn't take her long. find your tribe and found. a little Baptist church and she walked in there and you know, she did Baptist things and she came to the front and the Baptists prayed for her pagan husband and this scene was repeated several weeks in a row, actually several months in a row, she gets up and we're. going to church, I'm not going to do anything, she wouldn't get mad and leave the church and go to the Baptist Church, so I got into one of these multi-level things where I was going to get rich, you know, those things where you make all your friends angry and I was going to get a yacht and a house and you know, on a plane I was going to be that guy, you know, I'm going to be rich, so we didn't have two cents to rub together, but one from My fellow beer drinkers convinced me that there is a lot of beer in this story, but he convinced me that I needed to be in this, so we jumped in and let us tell you how dumb this is like Daryl, this other brother, Darryl.

We were dumb, he and I would go to happy hour and then make sales calls and we couldn't understand why we couldn't make sales. That's how dumb we were, I mean, dumber than a couple of stones, you know, and then we. We decided we're going to go to one of their schools, it's quick start school stuff, this thing where you go and learn how to do the business because obviously we didn't have a jet yet so something wasn't right and then we got into the car and drove from Nashville two hours south to Birmingham, Alabama, to the Alabama Theater.

Now in my mind I remember that there were 10,000 people in the Alabama theater, only I went back a couple of years ago and we actually used the Alabama theater for an event. It has capacity for 800 people apparently it was reduced over the years. I like going back to your elementary school. You don't have that, so everything gets smaller. What happened, anyway, Daryl and I are sitting in the back row and the guy. we came to see the guy was iconic in the space everyone knew him everyone wanted to be like him we wanted to be like him he was making all the

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he had the big check on stage it's like making four hundred thousand dollars a minute or whatever it was that you knew all those things and he already had credibility with us and we had written four or five questions that we needed the answers to in order to move forward and as if he had our four or five questions as his outline, then he already had credibility for opening his mouth but then when finished reading our email possessed us you don't know what I'm saying say yes and then he says and there's one more thing if you don't know God and you're not introduced to a son named Jesus, you're going to have difficulties in business because the people in business who They treat their clients and their team members as transactions.

They lose in business, but Jesus teaches you that people are a relationship and when you treat your clients as a relationship, you will be successful in business. You need to know God. I looked at my friend and said, has he been talking to my wife? So Derald and I go back to the Holiday Inn and when you're fumbling around there and on the nightstand it's a Gideon Bible so he always opens the Bible blindly leading the blind so we open it up and by Of course, it's King James Shakespeare in Jesus. There's no way these two rednecks understand this.

I just said okay, so I closed it. We went home, I told Sharon we were going to church and she said who are you and what have you done with my husband and we started visiting churches and I don't know if you all know this or not but some people are supposed to be Christians. They don't know that God is a reason to be happy. We went to some of these places, they weren't having fun. I love being here where we can celebrate how amazing that praise and worship is. Yes, they put you in some of those places that look like.

They were weaned on a pickle, you know, it's horrible, so we want it on the back door of this little church, little church of 400 people, and it was something like that back in the day, when people wore ties to church, He didn't wear shorts to church. all that kind of stuff, you know, I mean, you have a bull on Sunday, you go to meet and you dress up, you know, and even I knew, so he wore a suit and tie and we, you know, you sit in the back part. queue when you're visiting that church so you can use the escape pod if you have to, if it gets weird you can escape, you know, but this man woman was praising and worshiping and singing songs that I didn't know, but they had a little projector, so I had the words there, thank God, and then some people started raising their hands like they knew the answer to some questions and then a woman in the choir raised her hands and started. doing this and I told Sharon if they take out snakes I'll get out of here, it was an old school pastor, like I said, about 400 people at that time and the pastor was one of those manly men who believed in the Bible and if If you didn't do it, you should do it and he said things like this is what the Bible says and if you don't agree with that you're what's known as wrong, he took a stand.

I thought he thought Christians were worse, you know, I thought. They were sissies or something and this guy was a very, very attractive man for a guy like me, that a manly man would stand there and preach the Word of God and stand back to shake your hand when you were leaving and his my wife She was a big, soft woman, she would give you a big grandma hug, you know, and she was just gorgeous, it's like the Spirit of God that had just dripped out of her, you know, and that woman, hugging us and that man. whom they guided. us to the Lord in a very, very real way and I met God there on the street and I started when I started buying and selling real estate, I left that other thing and grew up in the real estate business, mom died, they were in the real estate business real estate I thought I was going to flip this house and that was before cable TV existed to tell you how so I'm going to start buying houses and flipping them and I got rich starting from nothing when I was 26 years old. old, had about four million dollars in real estate, just over a million dollars in net worth, and was earning about $250,000 in cash in taxable income a year, or $20,000 a month.

I don't know what neighborhood you grew up in, but what neighborhood I grew up in. When we called him rich, it was funny: all of you and that car you always wanted, if you ever got some

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, I want that car, mine, to be a Jaguar. I wanted to buy a Jaguar because no money in my neighborhood could even spell it. exotic, you know, so I got myself a Jaguar man in 90 days, maybe it was a Jaguar. I was having fun, Sherry and I, we had never traveled much. A little bit of me. We went to Florida on our honeymoon.

That was it. We started getting some money and said what rich people do and they found out they have a reason so we went to Hawaii, rednecks in Hawaii. Wow, the waters are so blue it was amazing. We loved it too. It was wonderful. I liked it so much that we came home and planned another trip two months later. We came back. It was fun and we shared some of these shiny things and they weren't big enough so we got him more. It was fun. Sometimes you hear these people say that all those rich people are miserable mm-hmm now I'm NOT here to tell you that money will make you happy because money won't make you happy money will make you more than what you already are if you're unhappy and you get money you will be incredibly unhappy if you are depressed and you get money your depression will darken if you are an idiot and you get money you will become a beggar if you are sweet and generous and you love to give and you get money you become what we call a philanthropist and you change entire communities entire sectors of people with what God has entrusted to you you become more than what you already are when you get money it does not fix your marriage if you have a bad marriage It will make it worse and the madness that is in your family and there is madness in your family, you know that There are crazy things in every family, everyone knows it, if you think there is no crazy thing in your family, it's you, so let's move on. everything is pretty good and just that I had done some stupid things, nothing legal, I didn't cheat anyone, I didn't lie, I didn't commit fraud, I didn't do any of that when I was just stupid, how many ever did anything? fools with money, how many of you didn't raise your hand?

They have problems lying. I had borrowed too much money and we were doing a lot of 90 day notes because we were flipping these houses and our bank, our biggest bank, got sold to another bank out of state and the guy looks down and says there's a kid from 26 years old who owes us a million; in notes to 90 days, let's limit this relationship that your banker talked about to ruin your life and we didn't miss a single note but they called all our notes because under the paper I signed they had the right to do so ifThey just swirled and squirmed.

I was the idiot signing the paper that allowed that to happen without dreaming that someone would be like this our second. The largest lender found out we were in trouble and called another 800 thousand, so we were owed two million dollars almost immediately and everything is tied up in real estate. We spent the next two and a half years of our lives losing everything we had. One year I made $250,000. The next year my taxable income was six thousand dollars. I spent the whole year selling things trying to pay my bills because they told me you're supposed to pay your bills if you say you're going to, turns out you're too stupid.

You can't do it even if you want because you paint yourself in the corner and you're going to get paint on your feet two and a half years later we were at rock bottom our marriage is hanging by a thread because number one cause a divorce in North America the fights and problems of money today we didn't get divorced Sharon said I would have left but I didn't have a car we hugged but sometimes it's just to have better control of you all I know what I'm talking about, she's from the hills of East Tennessee, throwing pans, there's an Olympic event, so with a new baby and a toddler and our marriage barely surviving and my hopes and dreams crushed, we were broke.

I remember standing. in the shower with so much heat that I could barely stand there and I would stay there with the shower on my face and cry because I was so afraid. I met God on the way up. I met him on the way down. and I surrender every time I'm talking about a Baptist altar call, you have to decide in situations like that, if this Jesus thing is real, if it's real, baby, am I immersed or am I going to walk, but you have to decide. You, in a situation like that, can't be in, so I decided that we are all in.

I'm diving and that means I'm going to receive the love letter sent to me by my heavenly father, who is crazy about me. and he says son, this is how you live because I didn't know anything the preacher would say and you know when they threw Joseph in the hole and I say no, I don't know, Joseph, I don't know the hole but at dusk tomorrow night I don't know everything so I'm going to learn I don't like to be embarrassed by the lack of knowledge someone is going to live turns out this is the way to get married, submit to each other Oh shit it means I have to dry dishes and change diapers already I haven't changed diapers I have grandchildren now I return them but the grandchildren are amazing I don't know how wonderful the grandchildren will be I would have been nicer to their parents.

I'm going to raise my kids this way and the kids say, "Hey dad, what's this rod thing?" and come here baby I'll show you my teenage daughter comes in getting ready I'm going on a date and I'm like where have you been shopping for your clothes? There are the prostitutes. We're not going out like this, your last name is Ramsey, put on some clothes that will make him look at your height, okay, I'll bring him so he doesn't hit the colon, pick up my daughter and honk. Less horn, you're delivering a pizza, come here, let's talk.

I've been cleaning my gun when you get home, you know what that's like. 2,500 scriptures on how to manage possessions and money. Jesus spoke in parables. more about money than love and grace combined, actually the surface is when he was talking about money, he was talking about loving grace, the subtext underneath the parable is always that, but he uses money to get to the point very often and That's kind of intriguing if you think that God chose to do that as a method of communicating with us and that's why we decided that we're going to learn to manage money God's way because we don't like being broke.

I don't like sitting here. with a degree in finance and bankruptcy I don't like sitting here with all these letters and licenses after my name. That is, I'm supposed to know something about my money and I'm broke. Apparently I got bad information thinking about who taught me. borrow money that was my finance professor in college who was bankrupt problem here bankrupt finance professor is like a workshop teacher who is missing fingers so you have the opportunity God gives us the dignity to make a decision to decide What are we going to change? I have a young guy who works for me.

I have about 900 people on the team and a lot of them are Millennials. We love Millennials where we live because there are only two types. They are incredible and will charge the gates of hell. They are missionary. I will charge the gates of hell with a water gun, they are incredible. I love Millennials and there are two amazing guys and they suck, and they're very easy to interview because they'll just tell you it sucks, you know? I mean, they're honest. I did it right, so I got a bunch of them and I had a young man in his twenties working for me, he was doing the things I was doing wrong and I said, hey son, don't let them do it that way, there's a correct way to do it. things a wrong way of doing things was right there is wrong there is right and there is wrong this is wrong do it this way yes sir I'll be back a week later he's doing it wrong again I hey, do it this way I'll be back a week Then I'll do it does wrong again.

I say boy, we will set you free in the name of Jesus, okay, I mean, I'm being patient here, but I'm losing what little patience I had, so he looks at me and says, "I'm not like you. I said change. Now You don't have to be like me, but you have to do the things I want done the way I want. Sign your check. That's not difficult. God does that with us. damage to our relationships ruining everything not working we are in the land of the stupid and God says to stop the change and Christianity we call that repentance it means I have been doing something that was not profitable for Me and mine we call it sin and you you choose, are you going to be deaf or are you going to listen and change?

I changed, I have no choice, I mean, not everyone, there was nothing left, it was like me and the dirt and there was nothing, so I said I got it, I hurt you , well, I guess I'm a bit stupid, you have a and I had him take me there to get my attention, but it changed my vision. so we started managing money God's way and I would like to tell everyone that we recovered but we didn't recover, it took a while instantly things don't heal don't they? God, things turn out get rich quick is not a God thing God is in the slow cooker business, not the microwave business, it's like a good Texas teske barbecue, there is no such thing as a barbecue in the microwave, you have to cook it while the neighbor's dog is howling, now you have that brisket, right?

Don't you know I'm talking about how God works in us? It takes a little time so we don't recover instantly. I was being interviewed one time and the guy said: How did you recover? and I said: I didn't do it. When you continue so strongly it is rather a disaster and then we start managing money this way. We start doing these five things that I'm going to show you this morning. If you do these five things 100 percent of the time, they work because they are from God, I didn't make them up, I stole them all from the Bible, about your grandmother, they are called common sense, I just sold them better than anyone has ever sold them in American history, that's it, that's how it is number one. a budget Jesus said don't build a tower without first counting the cost lest you get halfway done and can't finish and everyone who sees you starts making fun of you and says this man started building and couldn't finish my friends John Maxwell says a budget is people telling their money what to do instead of wondering where it went.

My friend Zig Ziglar used to say that if you don't aim for anything, you'll hit it every time it turns out, winning at something is an intentional act, no. one accidentally wins. I never interviewed the football player after the Super Bowls. He's done. How did you do that? How did you just win the Super Bowl? Don't know. I just got off the bus and just winning is an intentional act if you're going to have a great marriage you're going to work on it if you don't have great kids you're going to work on it have made your kids become their mother's caretaker fear from his father who we met He had a plan All the kids in the youth group are scared, cool, awesome, keeps the idiots and idiots away, we don't want them as sons or daughters in law, it's just a used plan, it's a profit intentional.

You don't win with money accidentally, you're not going to win the lottery, no, it's not a random lightning bolt, it's a series of I planted some corn and ground corn while you plant, so you will reap. I plant nothing, nothing grows with the same rain. The same thing comes The sun shines but nothing grows you are going to work as if everything depended on you pray as if everything depended on God it is a partnership we have with him he says you plant and I will bring the rain you plant and I will bring the Sun, if it manages money for a company called you incorporated, manages money for yourself, incorporates the way you manage money for yourself now, would you fire him?

He doesn't answer that, and yet we have the absolute nerve to ask the creator of heaven and earth. cool, I'm the Alpha and the Omega to get on our knees and say Lord, would you please? while I'm here being irresponsible while I'm here being impulsive well I'm here completely out of control and my entire base of my worth The system is Instagram Lord could you send me some money so he can answer your prayer? It's all in the Scriptures. He answers you and says no, why, because he is evil, no, because a loving Heavenly Father would never give you something you can't control. a blessing you can't control is called a curse my son is 16 years old he wanted to buy a new Corvette years ago I said I've seen you drive you're incompetent I don't love you too much to give you a fiberglass body with 465 horsepower from zero to 60 in 3.6 seconds you will kill yourself and someone else that blessing would be fighting that incompetence I would make that blessing a curse instead my son you will receive a razor with a tired gerbil under the hood and then I showed him the parable of the talents where three men were given things to manage and two of them managed them well and one didn't, God took the money from him and gave it to the other two to manage because he didn't manage it well and you know what he says the Scripture when you're faithful in the little things then when you're faithful in the little things then when you're faithful in the little things then I'll give you more to manage let's see how you drive Bubba and we'll talk about an improvement, but now you know we can go back to the skateboard if you don't learn the lessons because I'm a loving father.

I love my children more than life itself. the second thing is to get out of debt the borrower is a slave slave to the lender now the bible does not say that debt is a sin the bible certainly does not say that it is a salvation problem it is not if you have american anguish you can still get to heaven the blood of Jesus is powerful and enough to cover that level of stupidity, but 100% of the mentions of debt in scripture are negative, there is no good debt in scripture when you read about 100% of the messages, it is a curse. a fool you are a slave one hundred percent of the messages in scripture

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ly speaking debt is stupid and then what happens is we go to school and we get a little student loan we have to have old Sallie Mae in our life and then we get a Master Card borrower enslaves the lender so we shouldn't get a master and then we go buy a car we can't afford we know we can't afford it because we have payments and then we go buy a house we can.

No, and we look at seven years into our new marriage trying to live the same standard of living that our parents, we lived in, it only took them 35 years to get there and we're moving quickly with debt into something we can't afford, yes we can. We are not breathing and we are stressed, all the money comes in, only the money goes out and now all we do is think about how we are going to get to Friday. We make $85,000 a year, we don't have money for food and this. It's normal in America nowadays people come to our office, they look like that all the time, they say, dude, can you get me out?

If I understand you. It was going to hurt. What do you mean we're going to have to amputate the Tahoe? You will have to do things where you stop worrying about what other people think. You will have to stop spending money. You won't have to buy things you can't afford when you don't have money. To impress people you don't have. I even really like that we have to reset your value system. Instagram breathes by watching other people's highlights and thinking that should be your life comparison. I'll kill you, so we made the decision that we won't borrow money anymore, you're weird, you're right. normal is ruined, you know what you have if you don't have payments, money, weird things, everything changes, you even make different decisions about your job, some people stay in toxic work situations because they have to pay their bills, suddenly you are free to go away, ah, I think.

I'm going to open a competitor to them because they wantreally good people and I don't want to work there anymore, so it's okay, it's a completely different thing, it's a completely different mentality, so a guy called me from an average car payment. United States, by the way, United States right now $529 in 84 months according to the National Automobile Dealers Association, if you take $529 that you put into a good Chevy truck and you know its value drops like a rock, that's where Chevy he got that like a rock and if you take $529 from age 30 to 65 and put it in a decent growth stock mutual fund in a Roth IRA, you'll have about $5.6 million there instead of owning a car.

I hope you like your car, that's what it's costing you. I'm not saying you don't have a nice car underneath saying maybe your nice car shouldn't have you maybe we need to think differently about this guy call me from west Texas and look maybe you're going to kill me, I'll kill you, I'm in Tennessee, you're in Texas, what are you doing, he's going to the truck payment, what's your truck, how much is your truck payment? $769, buddy, it's really not fun, are you guys killing me, how bad did I say, how much is it? Your house payment said we live in a double wide five hundred and fifty dollars - if your truck payments they're bigger than your house payments you could be a redneck Wow, awesome so we took out all the plastic and lit some candles and told the kids to get together and got plastic surgery Citibank what's in your wallet money are you weird Dave you don't have credit cards no, this is my wallet the green presidents face four pieces of plastic my debit card in my business which one you must have money there to use them, okay, my debit card in my personal account, my driver's license and my weapons permit.

Oh, red Nexus celebration. I see, okay, I said that in California, though the day I got arrested, but it's good to be back in America, but um. and if you're from California, Jesus loves you and we have to be so kitty with you, everything's fine, everything's fine, the next one is interesting, it fosters high quality relationships, you know you've become the person you hang out with? Don't be fooled by bad company. corrupts good habits if you hang out with people to be a middleman he can't get ahead we're alone, I hope we can choose someone to fix my life his spirit animals you if you're hanging out with that guy guess what You're going to be that guy when they say "take it with calm down", they mean "take it easy", I mean, hunting dog in the sun on the porch, you can't motivate these people, well, you hang around people, they're making it, baby, let's get up, leave the cave kill something drag it home game man we have things to do we have people to see you are going to read the same books that your closest friends read you are going to watch the same movies you are going to watch the same Netflix series you are going to talk like they talk, you are going to pray like them They pray, you are going to be generous like they are generous, you are going to read the Bible because everyone reads the Bible, but if you hang out with people who don't.

You will not do it. I'm not talking about being slovenly around other people. I'm friendly to anyone, no matter what religion you are, even if you're from New York. I mean, I'll be nice to you. Okay I love you. We are sweet, we are going to be friends. I have all these friends who are very different from either of us. They don't vote well, but I still love them and I'm nice to everyone, but I'm talking about who my closest team is, the six guys. carrying my coffin who are these men because those men are training me and I have to be very careful because eagles don't gather, you have to gather them intentionally, turkeys, the intentionality about who you are dating because your income exceeds 10 -The period of In a year's time you will be within ten percent of the average income of your ten closest friends.

A bit of luck. I'll need some new friends. Yeah, well, you don't have to be mean to old people, but you know. You're going to stop drinking, you publish it and you hang out with a bunch of drunks. You know, you know, if you want to get in shape, maybe you should hang out with people who eat things that keep you in shape. I'm not going to go around with that. team, but you know, yeah, but you know what I'm talking about, right, we know the formula: we don't let our kids run around with juvenile delinquents because we know you know little Johnny's a weed addict and your kid runs Over there. little Johnny, your son will be a grass head, you know this, the next money saved, the Bible says in the house of the wise or stores of choice foods and oil, and the rest of that it says, but a foolish man devours everything What do you have if you spend everything you make you're a fool when you save money grandma said save it for you know what Graham I said that because it's going to rain life is coming and when you have a lot of money it helps you you have thirty thousand dollars in the bank and out of debt and they let you go, you'll be fine, you're thirty thousand dollars in debt and out of money, they let you out, you're like wise people, save money, this is the interesting thing, if you do this it works, so if you follow through a plan that no one plans to lose on purpose, no one goes, let's have a plan where we spend everything and retire with no money, no one says that, so when you actually make a plan, you will get out of it because you will realize when you don't. have payments that are easier to save and easier to give rights, then I live like no one else, so then you can live like no one else, when you have a plan, you will start to get out of debt and when you have a debt, because you are hanging out with people who think differently, right, we're going to foster high-quality relationships, so you'll save money and all of these things work together and the natural byproduct is the last one that you'll automatically do.

God says. be outrageously generous, he loves a cheerful giver, you can't give when you're broke. I never noticed the poor feeding hungry children or your poor shame, no, you know, any money, it's not a question of your poverty, I've been, I've been broke. I know what it looks like, I know it feels like I'm not mad at you if you're there, but you know, change time to do different things, man, stop listening to those same people that trapped you there, they got a different way of looking . Look at the stuff, look at the bottle, what's the Bible, tell me about how to handle money and change it, it puts you in a position to be outrageously generous and of course the first level of that is automatically for those of us who We are evangelical Christians and attend a local church. we tithe to our local church for those of you who are going through Financial Peace University, which should be all of you, you know you need to do these things, we will teach you how to do these things and you will realize that it will not be like that. boring, okay, so you're going to stop by and tithe, but that's not it, I'm talking about being generous is not an act, being generous is a character quality, it's who you become, generous people smile more .

They can even have a conversation where they listen to some people they have been with, people who simply receive, generous people, they are the ones who give, they open the door for you and they can't help but notice the needs because they no longer have their eyes on themselves because they controlled themselves. , first they took care of their own home and then they were put in a position to be outrageously generous, so try this because they told me to finish in 40 minutes, that's when the Holy Spirit leaves and then comes Thanksgiving , This is what is happening.

I want you to leave early when you go to Grandma's house for the banquet, but the kids in the car were leaving 30 minutes early and I want you to drive and park right in front of Waffle House on the way to Grandma's house. I want you to leave the kids in the car, leave your spouse in the car, leave the car running, it might be cold. I don't know, just let you kids sit there, put your screens down, watch. I want you to go there and once you sit at the counter and once you get a cup of coffee, she will come over and pour you a cup of coffee when she does.

I want you to look into her eyes, they will tell you a story that the Bible tells: her eyes. They are the windows to the soul and she serves that coffee. Happy Thanksgiving, pull out three of these hundred dollar bills. I want you to leave them under the saucer. Take them out. Sit with the children. Hey kids, watch God show off. Let me tell you what she. I'll do it, she'll pick them up 'cause you know who's working at Waffle House, someone needs a job, you know who's working at Waffle House some Thanksgiving, some, I need a job, this right here changed my life, baby, she will pick this up and do it.

Bless your heart, it's been so long since something good happened that you think it's a trick and then you'll step back and then even if you're not a Christian or a person of faith, even if you prayed this morning or haven't shown it In 20 years, one hundred percent of the time she will go because we all have in our DNA the ability to smell an encounter with God. I want you to accept $300, no, once you take your spouse to an incredibly nice dinner and I want you to enjoy something. money, but I challenge you to have more fun with 300 dollars than that, that's about as much fun as it gets, ladies and gentlemen, you have the opportunity to impact things when you're no longer broke because you decided to follow the spiritual. transformation of not conforming to this world but being transformed by the renewal of your mind how we thank you for these people god, I know you are proud of them, I know people like them all over this country, I am proud of them.

I believe in them and I know, Heavenly Father, that you have a plan and it is a plan to give them hope and not harm, and God simply pours out your love, pours out your conviction, but not your condemnation, as you wrap your arms around them, hold them so tight that just smell the Holy Spirit, don't let them go, God, don't let them go, help them immerse themselves in the name of Jesus and I received some notes. I know. I didn't know that Dave invented clapping, but I also learned a few things about, obviously, the importance of fostering high-quality relationships, in fact, that's why we're going into it.

In fact, this weekend starts for nine weeks, it's just nine weeks, literally, nine weeks can change the legacy of your life because some of you heard Dave talk about a plan. Honestly, most of the people who come to our church now are going underwater and drowning. In fact, some of you when Dave was cutting those cards said, "Well, this is what's so beautiful about FPU Financial Peace University." For nine weeks you will have the opportunity to be around some people who are like you and want a plan and Dave has written with his team the most amazing study plan that lasts nine weeks and that is if we join a small group of people who are going through this and coming out of this, in fact, we have hundreds of FPU groups, hundreds of just FPUs, we have another couple of hundred groups that are going to do what we call an FPU hybrid, so one hundred percent of our hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of small groups are going to do FPU, they're going to happen seven days a week, they're going to actually happen, a fire station is doing what we have businesses that do it, we have neighborhood clubs that do it , we are going to have many who are gathering here, in fact, more than 70 are gathering here on the celebration campus to do FPU together and with that your children will also go through FPU, everything in the children's ministry during the nine weeks will pass by fvu because we want our children to be prepared to win.

How many would agree with me and that's why we would love it? In fact, my goal has been for one hundred percent of our church to not be an FPU group. You can find out how or where to meet, maybe the group. that best fits your schedule, you can check out our directory online or even in our lobby, we have an FPU information booth for you to connect with, but Dave said it if we don't plan if we don't plan if we're not making a decision to have success financially we are going to fail financially and I just tell you that I am very grateful for his ministry and I am very grateful because he is that blacksmith Ramsey solutions garbage days like that blacksmith who can help us Solve this in a very simple but profound way.

I'm looking forward to the next nine weeks. It will be amazing. Don't miss this season. Don't miss this moment. It truly is a window of opportunity that will change you forever. then secondly, before we left, I think this is very vital, he said that he had to dive into some point in his life. I can relate to Dave, my parents were from Mississippi, mom and dad are both Deepwood Mississippi and very redneck and very similar. David wasn't part of a church, he didn't know God, in fact my family's life revolved around whether my father was an NFL football coach or whatever his career was after he was able to retire from coaching, the alcohol and beer, and that was just part of our life and like he said, there came a day when we made the decision to immerse ourselves and at some point you have to immerse yourself, in fact, the Bible says, choose today who you will serve, really It doesn't depend on God alone, it depends on you because He did whathad to do to save you, you have to go in or out, you make that decision and he said it, he went in, it's real or not, it's true or not, it's right or not, and for me. that was the decision I had to make on January 10, 1987 and I will tell you it is the greatest day of my life, it was the greatest day of Dave's life and I think we should take a moment to pray and encourage those that you are here today maybe watching online you have never made that bet and today you can have it in fact that heart that is beating very fast right now I think that is the Holy Spirit I really believe that I really believe that this is how God prepares for you and for me important changes you came here to hear about money but you leave here with God in fact that gentleman that many of you would know if I told you who he was he is a very influential man in the state of Texas, he said would you do it?

Tell Dave I was listening to his radio broadcast about money because I wanted to have more money and it led me to Christ, so with every head bowed and every eye closed just for a moment, no one will be ashamed, but how many would honestly and sincerely say ? Joe Dave I haven't I haven't dived in I haven't made the decision to say Jesus, be my Lord, be my Savior and today I'm going to do my best. I'm not just going to do it with my lips, I'm not just going to do it. I enter with my head I enter with my heart I enter with my life I enter with my body Now is the time If you are here today you say Joe, would you help me pray?

Would you help me pray? That prayer so that I can know that I have eternal life so that I can know that my sins are forgiven that I know that Jesus is my Lord and my Savior I want a relationship like Dave's If that's you Could you slide your hand right now? real for a minute it's all over this place just raise your hand just for a second you're diving but you're raising your hand you're saying God, I'm diving through all of this I'm just looking at many dozens and dozens of that you You came here to hear an incredible message about money.

You came here to hear from an incredible man who is probably the best on the planet when it comes to finances, possessions, things and budgeting, but he brought you more than that, in fact, God used him. today to say can you can't you say through Jesus someone else here today says Joe I need to make that decision or maybe I need to make that decision again how many of you would say maybe today I know the Lord but I've been away? far from God a child today God God appeared let me see your hand throughout this beautiful beautiful place say this with me out loud all together Lord Jesus I call on your name - forgive me my sins I admit that I need a Lord I need a Savior I cannot save myself myself I'm not good enough but only you God are good enough you sent your son to die on the cross for my sin you raised him from the dead now he can live in my heart as I confess him Jesus come into my life and from This moment I am your son and all of God's people said let's give thanks to God.