Am I Treasuring God Above All Else? | Who Am I

Well, I really want to pour out my heart this morning. I do every time I stand before you here. But, you know, Kenya was a great experience for me. I was able to go there recently with my bride. The raw passion of the Jesus followers there is something to behold guys to witness young men and young women. And by the way it's there is a movement in our nation in the world of young people that are really following Jesus with their whole heart. And it's a beautiful thing. And if you're a young person here today and you wonder. Am I going to have to walk alone? I believe that there's a great growing remnant of men and women, young men and women that are really following Jesus. It's a beautiful thing for us that have been following Christ for a long time. You're an inspiration and I really mean that. But David Nelms is the guy that took us down to Kenya. He's the founder of TTI, the Timothy Initiative. And the Timothy Initiative is... A phenomenal ministry that aims to have disciples making disciples. And I asked recently of David Nelms two questions, one on the phone and the other one while we were in Kenya. I picked up the phone one day and I was just coming off of a good weekend here. And as a pastor, we always have questions and at times there's moments of frustration where we say, God, what are you doing and what do you want to do here? And I simply asked him, the abundant living disciples of Christ in Kenya and around the world who you work with, I said, what sets them apart from the average Christian stateside in America? And he said one word, and he said it this quickly. He said, obedience. It is truth that is applied to life. And you see the exponential growth of these churches. I was in two churches that had been, get this now, they were in unreached people group, they're called UPGs, and they had been given the gospel. Somebody had gone into that area with the good news of Jesus Christ. And that church was launched then in September of 2025. And we're standing there with up to 40, 50 people in that area that have just come into relationship with Christ. And that's how the churches are growing around the world. But it's about obedience, truth applied to living. A question I asked him when I was in Kenya with him, we were having breakfast together, I said, hey, What's the most important teaching or insight to catalyze disciple-making in the church? And when I asked him that question, he said, you know, that's really simple, Carl. Because all of life, and especially the life of the disciple, really hinges on the great commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength. and he says anytime we try to have a disciple making ministry that doesn't have a welling up of passion of a love for god we can find ourselves going through a lot of religious activity you know i i have a husky puppy that i went to alaska and got Some of his parents and grandparents are running in the Iditarod Trail sled dog race that starts today in Alaska. I'm going to be following that. I'm glad they got GPS trackers. I can follow my favorite mushers along the path. But I went up and got this dog. His name's Blaze, as in Blaze Pascal. And I got him, and I brought him home, and he was like a squirrely little fearful pup, and I put him under the seat in front of me, and I had a little window of time to get him. And I shared a story about how a couple of crazy dogs, we came around a corner walking here probably a month ago, and we're just... looking at the birds and just enjoying the day and it's pretty quiet out and all of a sudden this rawr rawr rawr and this Rottweiler hits this bay window and he's trying to get at my dog and my dog man he just circled around me blazed in and went just right sat right down here beside me and then walked right beside me looking around my legs like you got him right dad and I go I got him bud But the interesting thing about that is that that was the fruit of us bonding together. But I've never told this story before, but this is how we bonded together. And it's really cool. I had to sleep down in the basement because that's where his kennel is with the door on it. And he's got to learn how to self-soothe and take care of himself and all that. But he needs to get up and go pee and poop in the middle of the night. So He'd be stirring around at 2 or 3 a.m., and I'm like, oh, no. Okay, so I get up, haul him out. One morning, I didn't hear him stirring, but I got hit with a smell that was unbelievably bad. And I throw the sheets back, and I roll over, and I walk up, and I look inside, and I'm like, oh, no. So he had pooped all over his kennel, and he had laid in it. And he thought, all bets are off. I pooped, so now I might as well pee. So he had peed all over that thing. And I mean, it was a brutal concoction. And inside me, I wanted to say, what are you doing? But he's a little guy. And as I looked inside, his head went down like this, and he couldn't even look at me. And in that moment, God caused me to do something amazing. It was a little crazy. I sat on the floor outside the kennel, and I crossed my legs, and I opened the kennel door, and I said, come here, Blaze. And he looked up at me, looked down. I said, come here, Blaze. Come here. He took a step and two, and then he stepped into my lap, and I'm looking down going, these jeans are shot. And then he leaned onto my white T-shirt. That T-shirt shot. And I held him. And my arms were shot. And I looked down at him. And he looked up at me. And it was like he said, you love me, don't you? And I said, I love you, buddy. We're going to be OK. You see, Blaze's desire to walk with me was born out of his understanding of my love for him. That wasn't conditional. He knew on that morning that I loved him. That morning changed the trajectory of our relationship. He's my buddy. Every morning I go downstairs and he's just like, the tail's just going. And he's like, are we going out? And I'm like, we're going out, buddy. But that relationship was forged in pee, in poop, and in hugs. And it was awesome. You've got to grow from a posture of huddled in the arms of God. All that you try to do for God that isn't born in his arms of love will be for naught. This is why the spiritual disciplines of introspection and quietness and listening to the love of God and hear his voice in the Psalms or wherever you're reading is so paramount because Nothing in the Christian life makes sense until you sit in the crossed legs of God and let him hold you when you feel like I deserve nothing. So everything I'm going to say today is predicated on you got to fall in love with God. You got to fall into his arms. You need to experience his love when you stink it up because he loves you still. So the question I have this morning is, am I treasuring God above all else? A.W. Tozer said, whatever comes between us and God must go. And there's a topic that I didn't touch for years because I seemed to either be misunderstood or I'd mess it up or at least I thought I did. And my wife, my bride would always tell me, oh no, man, that was right on, Carl. But I always felt like a progressive commercial. Have you seen the progressive commercials when you're trying to do something and there's a dad trying to talk with his son about the birds and the bees and he's screwing the whole thing up and then they go, back up, come on in. And they call in a backup, someone to come square it all away, and it's meant to be humorous. But sometimes in the past, I've thought, give me a backup in here for this topic. But today I wanna tell you something. I'm as bold as a lion. And I'm unafraid. And we're gonna bust into it. My fear in talking about money has turned to a careful boldness because nothing can impede our ability to bear fruit and nothing can steal the abundant life from us like our relationship with money. Nearly one out of every six verses in the Gospels deals with money. Eleven of Jesus' 39 parables address it. The Bible contains more than 2,000 verses on that subject, far more than on faith or even prayer alone. Clearly, God knows that what we do with our treasure reveals what we treasure most. wesley huff if you don't know that name you got to start following this guy get some youtube shorts or something it's amazing he's a very young apologist he's been on joe rogan he's doing just amazing work i love wesley huff he did an extensive thesis on the whole issue of tithing and giving and what does it mean and he went back to the old testament and talked about tithing and here's what i want you to know I don't use the word tithing, and I don't think we should because it's not commonly used in the New Testament. Jesus spoke of tithing, but he was speaking to the Pharisees who were doing it all wrong. And tithing is an agrarian term. It was an agrarian culture. So the tithes that were given in the Old Testament were not off income because everybody was living hand to mouth. And so they were growing produce or they were raising some kind of livestock. And the tithe was often considered to be 10%. But I got a funny one for you here today because if you really want to tithe, maybe I'll let you because the tithe is much more than 10%. The tithe of 10% in the Old Testament was a Levitical tithe given to the Levites who did not have a way of being agrarian. They were responsible for, they were some of the, what we'd call modern day pastors. And so it was to help feed them and keep this kingdom and this organization of the children of God going. But then there would be festival tithes that would be another 10%, and then there would be tithes that were giving to the poor, and that would be every three years. So if you average it out and you want to be a tither, give 23% of your income as a starting point. So now I got your attention, and you're like, well, all right, glad we're not tithing anymore, Carl. What are we doing? We're giving. Now, we can talk about tools for giving all day long. Steven already highlighted it for you. We've got this new little platform, and it's great. Overflow's great. And I got an email from Shannon. I get told by our staff what to do all the time, and she sent me a long email. This is what you need to share. So, I mean, I got the goods right here, and it's really cool. Helps you become a steward. Stephen mentioned this, that the amount that's taken out, less processing fees, isn't that a good thing, guys? Yeah. And we're going to give you more and more tools like Donor advised funds and RMDs, required minimum distributions. And some of you that are young, you don't know what an RMD is. But when you get up around 50 years old, you start realizing what they are. And there's all kinds of tools. As a matter of fact, we've got Scott Fowle and Joan and a guy named Nick. They're from the other campus. They're so passionate about this that they're going to start having some after-service meetings to help us understand how to leverage resources for God's kingdom in a way that maybe we didn't even know we could do. And all that's good, but those are only tools in the hands of a person that is motivated the right way. See, I've got this tool right here. What's really cool on my tool is it's got my wife's picture on the home page. And then I can go through all my apps and I can see, and you can see if you looked at my time allotment, what I value. But this tool is only a tool for the glory of God if my passion is to glorify God, otherwise it'll be a poor tool. So we can talk about offering bags and We can talk about dividends. We can talk about what that percentage is and all that stuff till the cows come home. But until you snuggle up in all your mess into the arms of God and know how much he loves you and you love him, those don't really matter. In fact, all they become is tools for legalism. You see, it's the overflow of our love for God and understanding how much he loves you. That's what we want for you. You'll never, ever hear me preach to your pocketbook, ever. But I will pour out my heart about your heart connected with God. Am I treasuring God above all else? Now here's one thing I want you to know this morning. We are all treasure chasers. God designed us that way. The question is not whether we will pursue treasure, but what kind of treasure we will pursue. Every human heart is wired to seek something of ultimate value. The only real question is, where will we aim the affection of our heart? It's really true. So I was watching this great documentary of what happened in World War II, and I never understood how much art was central to the demise of the Jewish people. Hitler was not only a cruel, despicable man, He was hoarding earthly treasure. I don't know if you know this, but what equates to billions and billions of dollars of art were confiscated from Jewish people. And that art was held on to by Hitler and his guys. There was one man, Luce, who was responsible. He was a bit of an art historian, and he was responsible for valuing these and getting them off to Hitler's henchmen and all who wanted this artwork. At the end of World War II, he kind of slid out from trouble. Luce told the ones that were interrogating him, he said, well, I really just got sucked in because I was an art expert. And they kind of gave him a pass. But his real heart was not known until his dying days. He came to New York City, guys, and he continued in this. And they were trying to repatriate art back to the rightful owners, but they didn't know the whole time he was making millions and millions of dollars by hiding art, some in his own personal vault in Switzerland, aiming to liquidate it bit by bit, knowing that it didn't belong to him at all. He was a wretched guy. There's an old black and white video of a guy that was interviewing him. And the man that was interviewing him popped some news on him and said, we actually know what you've been up to. By this time, Luce is in his late 80s. And you could see the blood run out of his face. He was scared. But this is a man who treasured wealth. And he died a despicable man. Treasure matters. On the flip side of that is this very church that I told you about that was in an unreached people group in Kenya. Here we are in the middle of nowhere. It's 91 degrees outside, and we walk into a group of people, and we see a humble man standing in the back, and David Nelms says, you see that man standing back there? I said, yeah. He goes, he's the pastor who came to this unreached people group, and he scraped together every penny that he had, and he built this little home right here, and he began to share the gospel with And now the church is meeting here under the tree. And you see these holes dug in the ground, Carl. I said, I do. He said, this is where they're going to put posts and they're going to construct a stick and mud church for the people. This man had nothing. But compared to Luce, the joy on this pastor's face and the love in his wife's heart, And even the joy on their two little children was undeniable. What you treasure matters. It matters for how you live and how you're going to die. It matters in a big way. So I want to give you a vision here this morning for what happens when our treasure is kingdom-oriented, really pointed at God, his love, huddled in his lap. First, our passion for that kingdom is undeniable. When our treasure is kingdom-oriented, our passion is undeniable. And I want to prove it to you. Jesus wrote this. He said, Do you get this picture? Jesus says the kingdom of heaven, in other words, life on this earth live vertically for God is like this. They so connect with this God just outside the kennel with all of our mess huddled in his arms. They so see the power of God's love that they see it as treasure hidden in a field. They cover it up. Oh, I don't want anyone else to find it. It's not saying that. It's saying that it's so valuable to me I'm going to go home. I'm liquidating all earthly assets to go get that field that has the treasure in it. Wow. Our passion is undeniable. Undeniable. I want you to know with all my heart that your misplaced passion will never fulfill you. I need you to hear me. Your misplaced passion will never fulfill. My earliest recollection of this coming up empty was the Iditarod. It's the first time in my life that I was hit face to face. I was 18 years old. I'd completed the Iditarod, 21 days, eight hours, 12 minutes, 32 seconds. And I know I'm a hometown hero. Carl Klassen made it to Nome with a dog team. But even the acclaim of people in my heart before I heard more than anyone because I wasn't back home, I was on the front street of Nome, Alaska, just a few hours after the race was over, middle of the night, sleep deprived, walking alone down front street in Nome. I had on Fox Mittens, Beaver hat. I had on Muck Luxe. I had on all my Arctic gear, I looked like a Michelin man walking down the road. I was too young to go get a beer, didn't drink anyway. And I had the most awful sense of, you gotta be kidding me. I trained my butt off for two years to complete this race, and this is all the satisfaction I get out of it? It's already evaporated? What in the heck? Anyone else feel that with me? Have you ever had and been graced by God to have a pursuit, to pursue something, even retirement, only to find out that ain't all that? You know what Elon Musk tweeted February 5th? Elon Musk tweeted February 5th of this year. Here it is. Whoever said money can't buy happiness really knew what they were talking about. Elon Musk tweeted that. security, control, identity, approval, comfort, power, When your passion for the kingdom of God and to be in the clutches and the arms of God with all your stinky mess exceeds any substitute passion in this world. Now, friend, you will live. Now you will live. When our treasure is kingdom oriented, Number two, our possessions become deployable. Jesus teaches this in the Sermon on the Mount, his first recorded message. Standing there on the shores of Galilee and he spoke up and I've been to this very place where he spoke and he said, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. Where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. And then he says these words, listen to them. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So the question I have is simply this. What does your heart treasure? Is it status? Is it stuff? Is it a desire to be loved that's not met with your mess in the arms of God? But for some of you ladies, it's been found in the arms of a man who can never supply. For some of you men, Your desire for control or conquer or body count or whatever God is convicting you of. There was no life there. It's amazing when you strip it all down and get quiet for a moment, you go, yeah, Elon's right. When our treasure is kingdom oriented, our possessions become deployable. I do this thing twice a year on Moody Radio. I host a morning show. I know a lot of you that visit down here don't know anything about me hosting a morning show because you don't commute. Some of you never listen to it, but twice a year we raise a bunch of money. This next week I gotta go raise four million dollars for Moody Radio. which, by the way, keeps me in the arms of God. Pastor Erwin Lutzer, former pastor of the Moody Church, was on radio with me about 10 years ago, and he sat down and he said, Carl, could I share with everyone, when we come back on air, the law of transmutation? He said, okay. Sure. I faked it. I thought I knew what the law of transmutation was. It's not the law of transportation. It's the law of transmutation. And he went on when the mics got hot to explain that we can't take our stuff with us when we go, but we can send it on ahead. Because there's two things that are going to last, the word of God and the souls of men and women. And so when our heart is kingdom-oriented, it changes everything about how we look at the stuff that we have. And I hadn't planned on telling you this, but I'm so grateful. And when my bride's sick, have you ever been... Around someone that you love and when they get sick you you love them more So even though my bride's not with me right now I love her more and I wish I could give her a hug and all that stuff But I want to brag on my bride because one of the greatest gifts that she's ever given me is that she's been a woman That doesn't want to have anything on this earth sticking to her hands if she had her way We'd give it all away And her generosity is so sweet to me. And I can brag about her because she's not here. And it's so awesome to be married to a woman. When I come to her and go, hey, somebody's asking for this. And you know, the church, this is what we're currently given. What do you think we ought to do, babe, for 180? She goes, hey, we ought to go here. And I go, really? And I was raised in a home of generosity, and God gave that to me from my parents. But to be locked at the hip with someone whose kingdom oriented is awesome. Deployable, man. Deployable. I want to give you three promises. by way of giving you just a little blue sky vision for those who are or become kingdom-oriented with earthly treasure. I want to be bold here. It's found in 2 Corinthians 9. The Apostle Paul's writing to the Church of Corinth, he says, hey, the point is this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. God is able to make all grace abound to you. Let me speak of this here for a moment. God is able to make, by his unmerited favor and unlimited power, that's what this means, God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all time, you may abound in every good work. In other words, even the desire of your heart, whenever aimed at kingdom things will be supplied. Now, health, wealth, and prosperity guys have twisted this, saying, give me, you know, a hundred bucks and God's going to give you a thousand. No, God is saying through the Apostle Paul that God will give you an abounding grace to follow through, to not let your treasure stick to your hands. And then he goes on, as it is written... He is distributed freely. He is given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be I love this phrase, enriched in every way. And here's what this means, because he's already made the promise that when you sow richly, God will bless you. And can I just tell you, I have never met one person who's ever told me who's given a gift, even deeply sacrificial gifts, month by month, year by year. No one has ever said to me, hey, can I get like 50% of that back, Pastor Carl? Because it is more blessed to give than to receive. You will be enriched in every way, to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. I'm going to leave this slide here for just a moment. I've told you some of you this before, but when I was a new follower of Jesus, I went to my godly dad and I said, dad, I've never given. He said, I know you were never given, man. Why would you want to give? Your heart was far from God, but now that your heart's close to God, it's changed your whole perspective on the money that you get, hasn't it, Carl? I said, it has, dad. I said, dad, You know, I hear a lot about the tithe and dad debunked that myth by saying, you know, the teaching in scriptures is just to give. And I said, well, then how do you know what to do? And he said, you know, the Old Testament gives us guidance that there is a good principle of first fruits. So giving firstly to God and my bride and I do that every month of our life. We give every month right off the top. To God's work right here at 180. But I said, how much is first fruits? And he said, well, there's no tithing in the New Testament. And I'm thinking, you know, I'm young in my faith. So I'm kind of thinking, you know, what does he really want from me? And my dad said, you know, there's no such thing as tithing. And he popped the 23% on me. And I'm like, oh, Nelly, 23%. You got to be kidding me. He said, but your mom and I, when we were young and moved to Alaska before it was a state, Carl, we made a commitment before the Lord that we would start as a young couple, just starting at a tithe of 10% and then growing as God gave us the grace. And I want you to know something. The inheritance that I got from my dad had nothing to do with money, but it had to do with the richest legacy a young man could ever receive. Because although my dad wasn't rich, he was loaded, man. He was loaded. Few men that I've ever met in my life shine so brightly for the grace of God like my dad. Few men. There's three principles that come out of this passage in 2 Corinthians 9. First, God supplies the treasure giver. He supplies. It's him who does it. See, one of the great dangers is when you've got misplaced treasures and you find value in things that you've put above and it's taken the high places of your heart above the one true and living God, is that you start thinking, I did that. Shoot, flip a coin, guys. I mean, you flip a coin, you had a 50-50 shot of being born into a country where you couldn't possibly make it go. But God, being rich in mercy, allowed you to be where you are today. The great danger is that we've layered over God's kingdom vision for our life, the American dream, and what we've done is we've inadvertently thought, I'm pretty good. But on an early morning when you get up and you know your sin because the mess is all over you, I challenge you to climb up into the lap of God, find mercy, and you will realize anything you've built in this world, you've done by God's grace and his grace alone. The voice you have, the looks you have, the car you drive. It's all by God's grace. And the richest among us know it. Second principle. God multiplies the treasure given impact. Isn't that amazing? God multiplies it. He's the one that expands the influence. And this is why I tell people all the time, don't wait. I had one man tell me, he goes, I'm just pouring all my money right back into my company because one day I'm going to just dump the mother load on the church. You know what I've found? Those guys never hit the mother load. And if they do, they never follow through. Because they were lying to themselves and God the whole time. So be honest to God. And as you give, you watch him multiply. And you watch him provide. My bride and I have had seasons where it was beans and rice, rice and beans. But we've never begged bread. Third, God enriches the generous treasure giver. This is what he does. When you are going to be enriched in every way, I've found this to be true. People who give first fruits and give generously and their treasure is God's kingdom, not the stuff they can save and store on earth, they are radiant because they're enriched. See, we live in an outside-in culture. The problem is the kingdom of God is inside-out. The more we realize he owns it all, the more free you are. That's freedom, man. Randy Alcorn. He's a great author, a great man of God. He wrote a book called The Treasure Principle and in it he has six principles. So I want to give credit where credit is due. This is some of the most amazing little content that I'm going to give you just quickly. First treasure principle is God owns everything. I'm his money manager. So we look at what we have and we go... What are we going to do, God? Coach me up. If you listen in your mess, huddled up, and look up, he'll tell you. He will. Secondly, my heart always goes where I put God's money. You ever notice that? I remember the first time I got a Chevy Silverado, maroon, short bed, Santa Fe Tan Center, BFGoodrich radials, baby moon wheels, Alpine stereo system, crushed velour interior, a little tacky today, but back then it was cool. You see how I can cite what that thing looked like? I had dual exhaust, man, when I pulled off the stoplight. It was just metal, man. What's taken the high place of your heart? Third, heaven, not earth, is my home. Do you believe that? You believe that? You see, it's only in the lap of God that we can begin to understand, whoa, he loves me this much here, and Jesus said he's gone to prepare a place for us. I'm going to live for eternity. And that leads to this next one. I should live not for the dot, but for the line. Living for the dot means I'm living today, okay? And I know you might say, well, doesn't Scripture say today has enough troubles of its own? Yes, but you're living today in this moment knowing that we live on this line for eternity. And boy, that'll change how you perceive today. Live not for this dot. Live for the line. Another one. Giving is the only anecdote to materialism, said Randy Alcorn. Sometimes it's taste and see that God is good. Sometimes it's, all right, God, I'm gonna get this out of my hands and into yours. God will never disappoint you. The last point is the game changer. God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving. Oh man, now it's quiet in here. Can I tell you something that you young people and 95% of you are younger than me need to hear from this old timer? Listen to me. The older I get, the more I realize, more and more, that a lot of the gods that took the high place of my heart were either to prop up some insecurities that could only be secured in Christ Jesus to begin with, to impress people that didn't like me and I didn't like them, or to otherwise live in such a way at an earthly level to get something satisfied in my heart that only God can satisfy. My bride and I have been talking a lot about what's it look like for us as we get older. First, I want you to know that I am Fired up about being here, God willing, for another 20, 30 years. I'm a young 65. I feel picking good. I'm doing HIIT training. I'm staying in shape. I love that. But here's what my bride and I have looked at. We've looked at our home and we've looked at our stuff. And we're like, I don't need, I love my 2014 RX 350. Yeah. It's awesome rig, man. It runs good. And when I drive around in it, I'm like, I don't have a car payment. I don't have a car payment. And it's not in a mocking way. It's in a satisfying way. And can I tell you something? The richest times of my life have nothing to do with stuff I have. It's usually a cup of coffee before the sun comes up, alone with God, sipping that dark, no sugar, no cream, the way God made it coffee. just sipping that coffee early in the morning and I'm sitting with God who feels cross-legged under me and he's holding me and I'm the richest man on the planet at 4 a.m. I hope you haven't heard me in any way. Trying to share and preach to your wallet. I'm not. I'm preaching to your heart. And I want you to taste and see that God is good. That the richest people in this world are genuine believers. passionate, first fruits, sacrificially givers to a kingdom that this world cannot constrain. So I got a why in the road for you. It's real simple. The only real question is where We will aim the affection of our heart. That's it. It's the only real question. The question is not how much you're gonna give. Nope. Has nothing to do with that. Man, I'm so glad for that. I don't have to get up here and give you a pyramid scheme. Whew. Praise God for that. Right, Torrey? I just get to get up here and just tell you, have you ever or recently crawled up into the arms of God with all your spiritual pee and poop and let him hug you? Because when you do, there's going to be a passion for his kingdom that will be reflected in what you really treasure. Oh, Father, captivate our hearts that we might live In this world, but out of this world. Lord, I praise you. That your word does not return void. That what you've shared with us today will allow us to live. I praise you in Jesus' name.