Stepping Into Financial Freedom (Dave Ramsey)

0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.760 Come on, let's thank God for all our locations. Help 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:11.879 me Valentine Epham around the world. Where's my Etham. I'm 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:14.520 on elevation Hirch YouTube. If you want to give me 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:16.439 a quick shout out to let me know your name 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.239 and your state or country. I would love to know 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:22.520 where you're joining us from. Of course, all of our 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:28.560 local locations Elevation, Riverwalk Elevation, Uptown Elevation, Gaston. How many 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:35.360 of y'all traveled to be in church today? So you 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.800 you did a good thing. Even if it was seventeen 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:43.680 dollars a gallon, it will be worth it, I promise you. 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:48.600 All right, y'all, here they come. They're joining us today 0:00:48.680 --> 0:01:01.600 from Guyana, Jamaica, South Africa, Philippines, India, Georgia, Indonesia, Virginia, No, 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:09.399 that's her name, Virginia from California. That was confusing, Louisiana, Michigan, 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:12.880 New Jersey. Hey, we're coming to New Jersey. You gotta 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:18.360 come to New Jersey. Elevation Nights is five weeks away. 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:21.480 Listen everywhere we're coming. If you have any cousins in 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.440 these cities, all right, because this begins very soon and 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:26.479 I don't want you I don't want you to miss out. 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:38.360 We're gonna be in Chicago, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio, Washington, DC, Redding, Pennsylvania, Newark, 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:44.040 New Jersey, like I said, and Boston, Massachusetts. Elevation Nights 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:48.160 dot Com. Some of y'all want to get a ticket 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.160 and be a groupie and just come with us on 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.520 the road. It gets crazy, doesn't it. It's crazy on 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.080 the road, isn't it. Lj am I lying to the 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:02.320 people of God absolutely saying we're excited. We're excited so 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:06.080 many good things. You saw the outreach updates, and I 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:07.720 don't know, look at somebody and say, I don't know 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:14.399 what you did right, But today you get to hear 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:26.720 Dave Ramsey. Well, I mean, who could help us more 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.320 at a time like this than Dave Ramsey. Dave, We're 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.960 honored you're here. Man. I already told you this, but 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:35.400 so they can know. My oldest son came to me 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:37.680 the other day he said, I found this guy dad 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:44.720 on YouTube named Dave Ramsey. He thought he discovered Dave Ramsey. No, no, 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:46.639 but he had been watching him and he was like, 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:48.600 I'm gonna do this all this stuff on the budget. 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:50.320 Why didn't you teach me all this? Da And I said, 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.280 I taught you all this. This is what I do. 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:55.760 And I was like, I actually know Dave and he 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.560 was like really, I'm like, yeah, I'm kind of cool. 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:02.359 I have some cool friends. And you know, the other day, 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.880 I was praying about it and who would God bring 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:07.680 to help us at a time like this, with so 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.160 much transition, And I feel responsibility to put people in 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:14.080 front of you who cannot only inspire you for a 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.959 few moments, but can really help you in a way 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:20.120 that you'll be talking about. My barber was cutting up 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:24.679 my hair today and he was like, tell Dave, you 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:26.880 change my life for me. Just tell him. Man. I 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:28.120 know you pray to hear that a lot, but on 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.760 behalf of all the people that you've helped and all 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:33.360 of the people who have been set free through what 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:35.400 God has given you. We honor you and thank you 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:40.240 for being a pioneer. He and his wife Sharon are here. 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:44.800 I said, Sharon, do you always travel with Dave? She 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:50.200 said no, I just wanted to come to elevation. She said. 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.560 The whole team is jealous back home that we're here, 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.880 so let's don't waste any time. I told him, you 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.920 had all day, come on around the world, come best 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:21.720 selling author Man of God, Dave recing goodness gracious, y'all. 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:29.840 I feel like a weaner in a steakhouse. So y'all 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:34.920 know Pastor Craig Rochelle, Pastor Stephen's friend of friend of mine. 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:38.440 I'm speaking for him next weekend, and I thought I 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.679 must be the oopa lumpa on the ripped pastor tour. 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:51.600 So Pastor Stephen he he and I started swapping texts 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.520 a few years ago. Sometimes when some of the fire 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.839 is flying, we'll just encourage each other. And sometimes when 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.039 his adrenaline goes down Sunday after noon after preaching bout 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:03.240 Sunday night, the texts start flying at my house. And 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:06.320 a few weeks ago I get a text and he says, uh, 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.760 you believe in free speech? I said yeah. He said, good, 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:21.200 I want you to give one on March twentieth. That 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:26.360 didn't happen, but it's a great job. So he's overly generous, 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.800 y'all know that. But God told me on Sundays I'm 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.760 not supposed to collect. I collect Monday through Friday, and 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.120 so life's pretty good for me. I'm doing all right, 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:54.360 I got financial peace, So all right, let's pray all God. 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:59.000 You know I can do these talks by myself and 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:04.080 sure are better when you Holy Spirit, this is your 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:15.120 time in Jesus' name. Amen, y'all have a seat. So 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:18.760 my wife and I will be married this coming summer 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:26.840 for forty years. Yeah. I told her if she leaves, 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:33.200 I'm going with her. When we got married, I don't 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:38.040 know about y'all, but we were stupid. We had no sense. 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.520 We didn't have anything like pre marriage counseling. We just 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:49.520 got hitched. We just got married, and nobody told us 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.760 to watch out for this or that, and they were 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.480 just happy to get rid of me and whatever. And 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.400 her dad is scared I was showing up and we 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:04.880 just got married. So I was a beer drinking, hell 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:11.480 raising hillbilly. And we've been married about two weeks. We 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.960 moved to Nashville and got our first little apartment. And 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:20.000 my wife wakes up on Sunday morning and remembers that 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:26.280 she's a Baptist. This is something she hadn't mentioned before. 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.360 We've been dating for a while. We hadn't talked about it, 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.320 this Jesus stuff. We certainly hadn't talked about her being 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:37.640 a Baptist, and she said, is Sunday morning? We're going 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:42.520 to church? And I said, no, we're not. You don't 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.400 go to church on Sunday. You drink beer and watch football. 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.640 What is wrong with you? Well she's real serious about this, 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.360 and of course we're in Nashville, y'all. It's the buckle 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.200 of the Bible belt, right, I mean there's more Baptists 0:07:56.200 --> 0:08:02.120 there than people. And so we have a big fight 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.920 and she's crying and she storms out the door. Well 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.080 it didn't take her long to find her tribe, and 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.440 she starts attending this little Baptist church and these little 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:20.360 Baptist people praying for her heathen husband. Well this goes 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:23.080 on every Sunday for about six months, y'all. Be honest 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.920 with you, it wasn't going well. Every Sunday. We had 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:28.400 big fights. She storms out, crying, and I'm going, what 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.280 did I sign up for? Nobody told me about this? 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.160 And I got in one of these. I was twenty 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:36.520 two years old and I got in one of these 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.000 multi level things, you know, a thing where you make 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:44.120 all your friends mad. And one of my beer drinking 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:45.640 buddies on me, and there's a lot of beer in 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.240 this story. But we got in this thing, and we 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.800 were so dumb, y'all. We would go to happy Hour 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.640 and then go make sales calls and couldn't figure out 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.400 why we couldn't make a sale. This is how dumb 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:01.440 we were. And oh God, here on his other brother, Darryl. 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.360 And so we we're gonna get a yacht and we're 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:07.360 gonna be rich, and we're gonna do all this stuff. 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:09.000 And you know, we're living there twenty two years old. 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.040 We're gonna live the dream and all this, and and uh, 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:14.680 we were doing pretty good. But we decided to go 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.240 to one of their rallies, one of their sessions down 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.320 in Birmingham, Alabama, which is about two hours south of Nashville. 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:21.560 So we got in the car and drove to the 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:26.920 Alabama Theater in downtown Birmingham, which in my mind held 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.920 ten thousand people. I did an event there a while back. 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.080 It holds eight hundred. But you know how when you 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:39.720 grow up, things shrink. But and so you ever go 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.000 back to your grade school, how it gets smaller. Y'all 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.240 know what I'm talking about, right, And so, oh my gosh, 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.880 So the uh, anyway, we're up in the top row 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:50.880 of the very back balcony, me and him, and we're 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.360 taking notes all day long. These speakers are up there 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:55.240 charging us up of how we're gonna get rich and 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.439 all this stuff and get you a yacht. And there 0:09:57.520 --> 0:09:59.200 was one guy at the end of the day who 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:00.920 was the dog. He was the one making like four 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:02.960 hundred thousand dollars a minute or whatever, you know, and 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:06.559 we wanted to be like him. And so we're kind 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.600 of waiting for the you know, the the apex of 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:11.880 the day, the crescendo of the day, right, And so 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.880 finally this guy gets up there, and we had written 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:17.280 down five or six questions that thought if we could 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.040 get the answer to these questions, we'd have a breakthrough. 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:22.760 Our little business would go boom we go, you know. 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:25.840 And so he gets up there and it says if 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:31.360 this guy had our questions as his outline, and we 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:34.480 already wanted to be him. But by the time he 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:37.880 finished reading our mail for an hour and we got 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:40.800 all of our questions answered, if he had told us 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.679 to eat a bag of dirt, we would have he 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:45.920 owned us, you all know what I'm saying. And he 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:48.760 was a good speaker too, and he gets to the end. 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:50.640 He goes, and there's one more thing, and we're like, no, 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.520 there isn't We got our five. He goes, if you 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:58.160 don't know this man named Jesus, you're going to struggle 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:04.840 in business because business people who are takers struggle. Business 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:14.680 people who add value in her givers always win. And 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.360 he said Jesus. He said, Jesus will teach you how 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:20.320 to do relationships. And if you're gonna be in business, 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:22.880 you have to learn how to do relationships. And I'm 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:24.600 looking at my buddy and we're going I have no 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:26.560 idea what he's talking about. And I asked my buddy, 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:28.960 I said, you think he's been talking to my wife. 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.040 And so we go back to the little holiday inn 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:34.800 or whatever it was, and in the night stand we 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:38.800 find a Bible and it's a Gideon's Bible, right old 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:44.880 King James, Yeah, Shakespeare and Jesus. The chances of these 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:50.440 two rednecks figuring this out is zero. We closed it 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:52.800 blind leading the blind. But we went home. I told 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:54.440 my wife, I said we're going to church, and she said, 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:55.840 who are you? And what have you done? My husband? 0:11:57.520 --> 0:11:59.480 And so we went to some of the churches around 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:05.679 and these folk, they're not having fun. The place looks 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:07.199 like it was weaned on a pickle. Y'all know what 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:13.480 I'm talking about. It's just it's awful. And but we 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:15.199 went in the back of this little church about three 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.640 four hundred people. It ended up growing to eight thousand 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:23.319 people later. And you know how you do when you're 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:25.600 visiting a church. You sit on the back row in 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:27.360 case it gets weird. You can hit a jack right, 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:29.480 y'all know what I'm talking about. And so we were 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:31.960 on the back row. And this is a long time ago, 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.040 y'all mean, it's almost thirty five years ago. And back 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.560 then people didn't raise their hands except in weird churches, 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:40.320 you know. And we're in there and this woman in 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.280 the choir pops her hand up like she knows the 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:46.000 answer to some question, and then another one, and then 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.680 they start doing this. I told sheeron, I said, if 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:54.600 they get snakes out, I'm out of here. And that 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.000 pastor was a man's man. I thought Christians were whishes 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.760 and he was a man, and he stood up. He 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.160 would say stuff like and this is what the Bible says. 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:05.319 And if you don't agree with that, you're what's known 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:11.480 is wrong. I like this guy. And this was old 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:13.160 school church. As I said, there was only about three 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:15.400 hundred folks in that church when we started there. And 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.040 they'd stand at the back door and you'd go out 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.400 in the line, and the pastor would shake everybody's hand. 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.560 And his wife was a big, squishy woman. She'd give 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:27.800 you a big grandma hug, you know. And that woman's 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.200 grace flowed off of her when she hugged you and 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.440 looked at you and she said, I love you. Made 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:35.800 you believe she really did love you, because she did. 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.960 And his strength and grace and mercy led me the Lord, 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.000 and I got baptizem met God there. It changed my 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:58.040 whole life. I do everything backwards. I left that little 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.240 multi level thing real quickly in the middle. I was 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:01.920 just in there for about twenty minutes, it feel like. 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.160 And I started buying and selling real estate, and I 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:08.240 got rich, at least by a kid from antiox standards. 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:10.120 I started with nothing, and by the time I was 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.040 twenty six, I had a a little over four million 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:13.600 dollars worth of real estate, a little over a million 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:15.599 dollar net worth, and I was making two hundred and 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.640 fifty thousand dollars a year twenty thousand dollars a month 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.120 in nineteen eighty two. I don't know where you come from, 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:22.960 but we called that rich where I grew up. And 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:29.160 I gotta tell y'all, it was fun. It was really fun. 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.000 I mean sharing what she got. Likes those little sparkly things. 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:34.600 So we got her some and they weren't big enough, 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.880 and so we got her some more. And y'all, we 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:45.720 went to Hawaii Rednecks in Hawaii. Oh my, it was 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:51.600 so nice, y'all. We went back and I had that 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.960 car always wanted. You had that car you always wanted, 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.720 like someday, right, So I got me a Jaguar Man 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:02.200 because nobody in my ol neighborhood cold spell Jaguar much 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.280 less had one, right, So I got me a Jaguar Man. 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.480 About ninety days, I was a Jaguar, right. You know, 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:14.600 it's like right, I mean, it's like, oh man, we 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:19.920 were having fun, y'all. Now, I am not shallow enough 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:26.560 or theologically deprived enough to think that money is going 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.600 to make you happy. As a matter of fact, I'm 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:35.160 positive at won't. After teaching God's ways of handling money 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:40.040 for thirty plus years, now, I do know that money 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:44.840 will make you more of what you already are. If 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.120 you are depressed and you get money, it's not gonna 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.960 go well if you don't deal with the depression. If 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:54.480 you got a drug problem and you get money, you 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.440 got a drug problem. I mean, if you got a 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:04.960 temper and you get money, who tyrant on parade? You 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:09.800 got a big, gentle, compassionate heart and you get money, 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:19.800 you can change the world. Whatever you are, and you 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:23.440 get money, it's going to magnify it. So beware of that. 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:27.640 It's not going to solve your problems. There's all kinds 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:31.240 of data points all throughout our culture that prove that. 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:34.680 You can see people who didn't have it and they 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:39.200 got money and it messed up their lives. Money makes 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.960 you more of what you already are. And by the way, 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:46.280 if it makes your people around you more what they 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.120 are too, Like people in your family, like the crazy ones, 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:57.240 they get crazy, and everybody's got crazy in their family. 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:00.240 And if you don't think you got crazy in your family, 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:09.280 that means it's you. So we're cruising along doing really 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.240 good things. Life is good. We're in our twenties. We 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.080 meet Jesus on the way up. I do everything backwards 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.400 and man life. You know, we've got babies and oh 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:23.199 my goodness, things are good. And I had done some 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:28.200 stupid things. How many y'all ever done something stupid with money? 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:29.879 How many of you didn't raise your hand to have 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:34.600 a problem with lying? We all have, darling. If you've 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:39.600 made mistakes with money, that makes you over twelve. Only 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:41.439 I did it was zeros on the end. As I 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.520 told you, I borrowed a ton of money. We had 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:46.000 a million dollar net worth, but we had three million 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:47.920 dollars in debt, and we were doing flip this house 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:52.040 before Chip and Joanna were born. Okay, so for cable 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:53.800 TV was there to tell you how to do it right. 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:55.959 And so we were doing flip this house. I had 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:57.640 a lot of short term notes and the bank got 0:17:57.680 --> 0:17:59.840 sold to another bank, and a guy in another city 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.159 down said, there's a kid twenty six years old. I was, 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.680 that's a million dollars million two to be exact, let's 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:11.359 limit this relationship, which is banker talk for ruin his life. 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.280 And then they called our notes. And the short version 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:16.320 of the story is another lender heard we were in trouble, 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.480 because we were in trouble after that, and they called 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:21.399 our notes and we had two million dollars due in 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:23.919 one hundred and twenty days, all tied up in real estate. 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.080 That started a crash that took two and a half 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.359 years to unfold. That no matter what I did, I 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.919 couldn't stop it. I was always taught, if you have 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.440 a problem, just work harder. Doesn't matter if you dug 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:40.560 that dig a hole. When you got that level of stupid, 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.520 working harder won't fix it. It was coming down around 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.199 my head. The jangle blocks were crashing. It was a mess. 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.920 I had built a house of cards because I was stupid. 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:52.760 I didn't know I was stupid. I thought I was smart, 0:18:52.800 --> 0:19:01.520 but I was stupid. Changed my life. I remember standing 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.480 in the shower with it sahat. I could just barely 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.359 stand there, and I would just stand there and cry. 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:16.840 I was so scared I couldn't breathe. I have a 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:20.480 toddler and a brand new baby. My marriage is hanging 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:25.000 on by a thread. Sharing's from the hills Ofpes, Tennessee. 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:42.679 Y'all frying pan throwing there is an Olympic event. And 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:49.119 finally we hit bottom file bankruptcy. So I met God 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.960 on the way up. But Church, I'm here to tell 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:55.400 you I got to know him on the way down. 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.439 I had already been saved, i'd already been baptized, but 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:09.919 I had an eye surrender all moment. And I'm not 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.960 talking about a Baptist alter call. I'm talking about ever 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:15.440 been completely on your face and you say I quit, 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:21.879 I give I surrender. You are now the Lord, you 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:32.120 are now in charge. I apparently got nothing. I hope 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.399 you never have to get beat up that hard to 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.119 get to that point, because that's a heart decision, and 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:41.720 you could just make that decision. But I started deciding, Okay, 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:43.919 if it's in here, it's real, and the rest of 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:47.639 the stuff I'm not listening to because I listened to 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:50.760 my finance professor in college who taught me to borrow money, 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:56.040 and he was broke. What's wrong with that picture? I mean, 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.640 that's like a shop teacher with missing fingers, right, broke 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:09.680 finance professor. So I'm gonna learn how to live because 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:11.359 I didn't know how to be a husband. I didn't 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:12.600 know how to be a daddy. I didn't know how 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:16.840 to be a man. And so I'm you know, marriage, 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:24.280 so submit yourselves one to another. Oh crud. That means 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:31.520 I gotta dry dishes. That means I'm gonna serve my 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:35.520 wife who can find a virtuous wife, for her worth 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.720 is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:45.520 trusts her, and he will have no lack of game. 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:53.399 My kids are like, Dad, what's this rod stuff? And 0:21:53.440 --> 0:22:01.040 I'm like, come, everybody, I'll show you only five hundred 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:06.000 scriptures dealing with money and possessions. Proverbs alone will give 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:11.240 you a master's degree in finance. It'll show you everything 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:13.359 you need to know. And it's not just a Bible thumper. 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:16.080 You can study that with your intellect as well as 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:20.959 with your spirit, and you'll see it. It's there. So 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.000 we hit bottom and we have the opportunity to start 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:29.360 again God's ways and we decided, Okay, we're gonna start 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:38.720 handling money, marriage, leadership, business kids. If I can find 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:40.400 it in here, this is the way we're doing it. 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:43.520 I can't always find it. Insurance isn't in here. I 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:47.640 can't find it, but I still buy insurance. So it's 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:49.960 not everything's in there, But I'm gonna do it if 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:52.520 I can. And you know what, that's thirty five years ago, y'all, 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:56.400 And thirty years ago we went broke and it's worked out. 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:05.440 Oh my goodness. As it worked out, Oh my goodness. 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:10.280 It turns out that God's ways of doing things work. Hello, 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:16.560 they work. So I got a bunch of I got 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:18.639 we got yesterday. I looked at our thing. We've got 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:21.240 eleven hundred and sixty two I'm sorry, one thousand and 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:24.120 sixty two people working on our team right now as 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:26.359 a Friday, or as of Monday morning. We got thirteen 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:29.840 more starting Monday morning. And Ramsey Solutions have turned into 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:32.160 this thing. And it's a process over these years teaching 0:23:32.160 --> 0:23:35.080 people how to handle money. Now, fifty thousand churches have 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:38.719 taught almost ten million people financial Peace University alone. I mean, 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:43.639 it blows my mind what God has chosen to do, 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:45.280 he says. I says in the Bible will speak to 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:52.959 a donkey apparently, so we're in. I'm in. This is good. So, 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:54.680 so I got a bunch of youngsters on the team. 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:58.200 And I love our youngsters. They're brilliant. The average agent 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:01.000 our team's about twenty seven. People hate this millennial generation. 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:04.760 I gotta tell you, millennials are amazing. I love the 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:09.440 millennial generation because there's only two kinds. Awesome and sucks. 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:15.560 I mean, it's just they either will missional driven bright, 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:17.960 will charge the gates of Hell with a water pistol, 0:24:18.280 --> 0:24:20.480 or they're living in their mother's basement. They ain't leaving. 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:24.200 You know. It's one of the two. So we we 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:26.840 got them on our team that are missional driven, smarter 0:24:26.960 --> 0:24:29.680 than me, say words and meetings, I have to stop 0:24:29.720 --> 0:24:31.920 them and go, I'm sorry, but I'm pretty comfortable with 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:33.640 my own skin on the place, would you just say? 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:39.560 And so, I mean, they're smart, but sometimes Papa Dave, 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:41.399 I have to I have to lead. And I was 0:24:41.440 --> 0:24:43.480 coming by one of them and he was doing the 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:46.560 stuff he was supposed to be doing wrong, and I 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:49.200 was like, hey, that's not don't do it. Do it 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:51.280 this way. That's that's not how we do it here 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:53.600 at Ramsey. This is this is the thing. It's an 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:56.720 excellence thing. You gotta do it right. And he's like okay. 0:24:56.920 --> 0:24:58.600 And I come back about a week later and he's 0:24:58.720 --> 0:25:04.359 doing it wrong again. I'm like, hey, hey, nah, we 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:05.840 do it here, we do it this way. We have 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:07.479 talked about this. Yeah, I know, I know, I know. 0:25:07.920 --> 0:25:11.359 I come back a week later, he's doing it wrong again, 0:25:12.680 --> 0:25:14.879 and I'm like, hey, we're gonna set you free in 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:18.520 Jesus name. Okay, I mean there's one I'm telling you 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:21.679 how to do this. And he looks at me and 0:25:21.680 --> 0:25:32.000 he says, I'm not like you. And I said, okay, change. 0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:35.480 You don't have to be like me, but you gotta 0:25:35.520 --> 0:25:40.000 do it like I do it. This is the right way, 0:25:40.280 --> 0:25:44.640 do it, this way. Change. And you know God does 0:25:44.680 --> 0:25:47.000 that with us. There's the thing in Christianity. If we're 0:25:47.000 --> 0:25:52.679 going the wrong way on something, God says stop. This 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:56.600 is called sin going this way or stupid going this way. 0:25:57.280 --> 0:26:00.240 And sometimes they're the same thing. And we're going this way, 0:26:00.280 --> 0:26:06.320 and then God says stop, and we turn change and 0:26:06.400 --> 0:26:08.920 we go the other way. It's called repentance in Christianity, 0:26:09.000 --> 0:26:11.800 isn't it I was going the wrong way, I repent, 0:26:11.880 --> 0:26:16.040 I stop, I change direction. This isn't working. Continuing to 0:26:16.080 --> 0:26:18.560 do the same thing over and over again and expecting 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:25.719 a different result is the definition of insanity. Stop and change. 0:26:26.640 --> 0:26:31.360 And you know what, He gives us the dignity and 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:37.360 the power of choice that we can just decide change. 0:26:37.600 --> 0:26:41.680 You ever met someone that just quit smoking. I have. 0:26:42.560 --> 0:26:44.680 They didn't have anything, they didn't do any kind of 0:26:44.680 --> 0:26:46.320 program and It's okay if you did a program and whatever, 0:26:46.359 --> 0:26:48.359 that's fine. But they just they just said, I'm not 0:26:48.440 --> 0:26:52.840 in anyone. I just quit. I've met people like that now. 0:26:52.840 --> 0:26:54.480 A lot of people do other stuff that's okay, But 0:26:54.560 --> 0:26:58.479 you can just with some things. It's certainly behaviors that 0:26:58.520 --> 0:27:01.720 we're doing. I can just I'm not saying that's my 0:27:01.760 --> 0:27:05.440 wife ever again. I'm just gonna change. It didn't work 0:27:05.480 --> 0:27:08.680 well when I said it last night. I'm not doing 0:27:08.720 --> 0:27:12.040 that again. So thank god the poor woman is not 0:27:12.119 --> 0:27:15.040 married to the same guy she married forty years ago. 0:27:15.359 --> 0:27:19.280 Because I get the opportunity to change, and I haven't arrived, 0:27:19.720 --> 0:27:26.360 but I'm considerably bad because I've had the opportunity to change. 0:27:27.480 --> 0:27:29.760 And it's a decision. You get to decide. No one 0:27:29.800 --> 0:27:32.800 decides that for you. Pastor doesn't decide it. Dave Ramsey 0:27:32.800 --> 0:27:35.480 doesn't decide it. You know, no one in Washington, d c. 0:27:35.720 --> 0:27:39.360 For sure decides it for you. You get to decide 0:27:40.560 --> 0:27:43.960 when you're gonna change. God won't even make you do it. 0:27:43.960 --> 0:27:45.679 He'll make you wish you did, but he will not 0:27:45.840 --> 0:27:54.120 make you do it. So there's five things that are 0:27:54.200 --> 0:27:57.159 baseline in all the data that we have, and the 0:27:57.240 --> 0:27:59.920 millions and millions of families we've interacted with that have 0:28:00.560 --> 0:28:06.040 changed and moved from high stress, broke horrible situation with 0:28:06.119 --> 0:28:10.919 money to becoming wealthy over time. And this is not 0:28:11.480 --> 0:28:14.359 this is not some kind of magical thing. This is 0:28:14.359 --> 0:28:17.200 pretty much like if you want corn, you should plant 0:28:17.359 --> 0:28:23.840 some corn. If you're a farmer, you don't go out 0:28:23.880 --> 0:28:27.880 and pray over the mud. You put corn in the ground, 0:28:28.359 --> 0:28:33.280 you weed fertilized, and then you reap what you have sung. 0:28:35.720 --> 0:28:38.040 So you know, sometimes I meet my brothers sisters in 0:28:38.080 --> 0:28:45.080 Christ who have been oversaved and they're just standing over 0:28:45.120 --> 0:28:50.240 the mud praying. Saint Ambrose said, work like it all 0:28:50.320 --> 0:28:52.760 depends on you. Pray like it all depends on God. 0:28:53.320 --> 0:28:57.120 Where our faith meets our faithfulness is where all things 0:28:57.120 --> 0:29:03.640 are unleashed. You gotta be faithful in the little things, 0:29:03.680 --> 0:29:05.000 and then you'll be giving more to manager. You ever 0:29:05.040 --> 0:29:08.440 read that scripture? And so you know the first thing 0:29:08.480 --> 0:29:10.320 we gotta do all these five things. You start doing 0:29:10.320 --> 0:29:14.480 these five things, they will not fix your life. By Friday. 0:29:15.080 --> 0:29:17.640 It won't happen. We I'll tell you what will happen. 0:29:17.760 --> 0:29:22.120 You'll walk a little straighter. It's like all of a sudden, 0:29:23.440 --> 0:29:26.880 you'll think a little clearer about the future. Instead of 0:29:26.960 --> 0:29:31.040 thank God, it's Friday, Oh God, it's Monday. And instead 0:29:31.040 --> 0:29:32.640 of saying, thank god it's Friday, Oh guy's Monday, you 0:29:32.680 --> 0:29:34.840 start thinking about ten years out. Because where there is 0:29:34.880 --> 0:29:42.400 no vision, the people perish. You want corn, you gotta 0:29:42.400 --> 0:29:45.000 have a vision. Put corn the ground and it'll be 0:29:45.080 --> 0:29:48.560 spring before you see it, dron that far and befall 0:29:48.640 --> 0:29:52.160 before you get corn. So if you want microwave, you 0:29:52.200 --> 0:29:54.040 probably shouldn't talk to God because he's more in the 0:29:54.120 --> 0:30:00.520 crock pot business. Occasionally he just microwaves it, but that's seldom, 0:30:00.560 --> 0:30:04.280 and we call those miracles because they're seldom. Most of 0:30:04.320 --> 0:30:07.640 the time he's dealing with us to get us right, 0:30:08.120 --> 0:30:09.720 and then the corn comes in and we got the 0:30:09.800 --> 0:30:13.680 muscles to carry it. Most of the time, that's what's 0:30:13.720 --> 0:30:18.720 going on. There's a process, in other words, that's vitally important. 0:30:18.760 --> 0:30:19.840 The first thing you gotta do if you want to 0:30:19.840 --> 0:30:21.320 win with money is you have to get on a budget, 0:30:22.080 --> 0:30:25.520 a written game plan. Jesus said, don't build a tower 0:30:25.560 --> 0:30:27.920 without first counting the cost, lest you get halfway up, 0:30:28.040 --> 0:30:30.080 And all who see you began to mock you and 0:30:30.120 --> 0:30:36.440 say this man began to build and was unable to finish. 0:30:36.800 --> 0:30:38.760 My friend's exiglar used to say, if you aim at nothing, 0:30:38.760 --> 0:30:42.120 you'll hit it every time. My friend John Maxwell says, 0:30:42.160 --> 0:30:44.080 a budget is people telling their money what to do 0:30:44.360 --> 0:30:49.120 instead of wondering where it went. If you manage money 0:30:49.160 --> 0:30:51.240 for a company called You Incorporated, and you manage money 0:30:51.240 --> 0:30:53.040 for you Incorporated the way you manage money for you, 0:30:53.080 --> 0:30:57.960 now would you fire You don't answer that if you're 0:30:58.000 --> 0:31:01.960 not a faithful steward. We have a clear example in 0:31:02.000 --> 0:31:04.120 the parable the Talents that God is going to take 0:31:04.160 --> 0:31:06.120 the money from you and give it to the one 0:31:06.160 --> 0:31:09.320 who did manage it well, the one who planted corn 0:31:09.600 --> 0:31:12.400 and tended to the field instead of stood back and 0:31:12.440 --> 0:31:19.480 watched it rain on the mud. Please don't be disorganized, 0:31:19.920 --> 0:31:23.840 living chaotically and impulsively with the maturity of a four 0:31:23.920 --> 0:31:26.720 year old on the cereal isle, having a fit on purchases, 0:31:28.120 --> 0:31:30.320 and then expect God to bless it. When you say, Lord, 0:31:30.360 --> 0:31:33.440 send me money, he will not send you money. It's 0:31:33.440 --> 0:31:37.880 in scripture. Faithful with the little things, then I will 0:31:37.920 --> 0:31:40.520 give you more. My son's a grown man now. He's 0:31:40.560 --> 0:31:43.720 an executive on our team and is an absolutely fabulous, 0:31:43.720 --> 0:31:45.680 world class leader. When he was a kid, he was 0:31:45.720 --> 0:31:47.880 fourteen years old. He comes in one day he says, Daddy, 0:31:47.920 --> 0:31:50.720 I want a new Corvette when I turned sixteen, and 0:31:50.760 --> 0:31:56.920 I said no, because I'm a loving father. I've seen 0:31:56.960 --> 0:32:01.560 you drive. You're incompetent. If I put you in a 0:32:01.600 --> 0:32:05.320 four hundred horse power fiberglass body zero to sixty and 0:32:05.360 --> 0:32:10.000 two point seven seconds, you'll kill yourself and someone else. No, 0:32:11.040 --> 0:32:15.800 I answered his prayer as a loving father. No, I said, 0:32:15.840 --> 0:32:17.920 you will be getting an old chavette with a tired 0:32:18.000 --> 0:32:23.120 gerbil under the hood. And my son, when you are 0:32:23.120 --> 0:32:28.200 faithful with the little things, like you polish that thing, 0:32:28.600 --> 0:32:31.600 you change its oil. It doesn't come home full of 0:32:31.680 --> 0:32:35.400 McDonald's boxes because you keep it clean. You pull it 0:32:35.960 --> 0:32:39.640 up to the curb properly. You don't leave our house 0:32:39.720 --> 0:32:43.760 on two wheels. When you take care of the little things, 0:32:43.760 --> 0:32:46.760 we'll talk about moving you up. That's what God says 0:32:46.880 --> 0:32:48.680 all the time. When you're faithful in the little things, 0:32:48.680 --> 0:32:50.440 you'll be given more to manage it all. In scripture, 0:32:50.520 --> 0:32:52.920 Prayable the Talents indicates that the mind of man plans 0:32:52.960 --> 0:32:55.320 his ways, but the Lord directs his steps. All of 0:32:55.320 --> 0:32:57.320 this is in there. A loving father is not going 0:32:57.360 --> 0:33:00.000 to give you something you can't handle, because it'll crush you. 0:33:01.720 --> 0:33:05.680 Be on a budget. The second thing we have to 0:33:05.720 --> 0:33:08.880 do is we need to get out of debt. Now 0:33:08.880 --> 0:33:12.840 you knew Dave Ramsey was gonna say that the rituals 0:33:12.880 --> 0:33:20.320 over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender. 0:33:22.880 --> 0:33:24.760 We're carring around so much student loan debt that we 0:33:24.760 --> 0:33:32.120 think Sally May is a family member. We have Master 0:33:32.960 --> 0:33:38.440 Card who named that the borrower's slave and he's my master. 0:33:38.560 --> 0:33:41.280 Look at that, and it's tough to serve two masters 0:33:41.280 --> 0:33:43.680 because you'll love one and hate the other. I worship 0:33:43.760 --> 0:33:45.600 at the altar of the Gray Fico score, but my 0:33:45.680 --> 0:33:53.080 tithe is not up to date. Sharon and I saw 0:33:53.120 --> 0:33:55.880 this and we said no more, We're done. And we 0:33:55.960 --> 0:33:58.600 got the scissors out and we said, okay, we're gonna 0:33:58.640 --> 0:34:01.320 light a little candle here and we're going to have 0:34:01.560 --> 0:34:07.920 a plassectomy. We're going to have plastic surgery because what's 0:34:07.960 --> 0:34:13.520 in your wallet money Airline miles. Oh good. We did 0:34:13.560 --> 0:34:15.920 the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America 0:34:15.960 --> 0:34:18.280 two years ago, over ten thousand millionaires that we studied 0:34:18.480 --> 0:34:21.880 eighty nine percent of them became millionaires without and without 0:34:22.239 --> 0:34:25.279 using an inheritance to become a millionaire. Nine out of 0:34:25.280 --> 0:34:27.480 ten of them became millionaires on their own. You know 0:34:27.480 --> 0:34:29.440 how many of them made their money off of airline 0:34:29.480 --> 0:34:40.360 miles zero precisely discover Freedom. You're weird, Ramsey, I know, 0:34:40.480 --> 0:34:52.120 but normals broke. I don't want to be normal. You 0:34:52.160 --> 0:34:54.319 mean you don't have any credit cards? Not having any 0:34:54.320 --> 0:34:56.479 credit cards? Start where they went bankrupty wouldn't give me any, 0:34:57.360 --> 0:34:59.080 and then later on they start handing them out like 0:34:59.160 --> 0:35:02.040 candy again, and we didn't take any because we were through. 0:35:02.080 --> 0:35:04.239 We figured out the borrower slave to the lender. We don't. 0:35:04.360 --> 0:35:05.880 We figured out if we don't have any payments, you 0:35:05.920 --> 0:35:10.040 know what, we got money. That's weird. You don't have 0:35:10.040 --> 0:35:15.640 any credit cards? Now, that's my wallet, green presidents faces, 0:35:15.640 --> 0:35:20.120 four pieces of plastic, my debit card on my business, 0:35:20.160 --> 0:35:23.400 my debit card on my personal, my driver's slices, and 0:35:23.440 --> 0:35:32.560 my handgun carry permit. And that's it. Rednecks in North 0:35:32.600 --> 0:35:36.480 Carolina too, Okay, yeah, I said I said that over 0:35:36.480 --> 0:35:42.200 in California, but I got arrested. But good to be 0:35:42.239 --> 0:35:47.560 back in America. But uh, oh, I love you California people, 0:35:47.640 --> 0:35:51.560 we love you. We love you. It's all good and uh, 0:35:51.640 --> 0:35:55.439 your state's crazy, but we love you. And so, oh 0:35:55.480 --> 0:35:58.600 my gosh. So a guy called me on the radio 0:35:58.600 --> 0:36:00.560 the other day and he's like, if I got a 0:36:00.560 --> 0:36:03.680 problem and people call me on I this talk radio 0:36:03.719 --> 0:36:05.680 show thing. And I said, what's the problem. He goes, 0:36:05.719 --> 0:36:07.279 You're gonna kill me. I'm not gonna kill you. You're 0:36:07.320 --> 0:36:08.799 in Texas, I'm in Tennessee. I can't get to you. 0:36:08.840 --> 0:36:12.400 What'd you do? He goes, Well, I got my truck payment. 0:36:12.600 --> 0:36:15.080 I'm like, how much is your truck payment? Seven undred 0:36:15.080 --> 0:36:20.480 and sixty nine dollars seven hundred and sixty on a truck? 0:36:22.040 --> 0:36:25.200 I said, ma'am. He goes, I know, I know, I know. 0:36:25.400 --> 0:36:30.280 I said, yeah, how much is your house payment? Well, 0:36:30.080 --> 0:36:32.520 we we live in a double whit it's five hundred bucks. 0:36:33.600 --> 0:36:36.040 I said, dude, if your truck payment's bigger than your 0:36:36.040 --> 0:36:44.000 house payment, you might be a redneck. There was car 0:36:44.040 --> 0:36:46.280 payment in America right now. It's five hundred and forty 0:36:46.320 --> 0:36:49.080 six dollars over eighty four months. If you didn't have 0:36:49.120 --> 0:36:51.880 that because you drove a paid for vehicle that you 0:36:51.920 --> 0:36:54.759 weren't trying to impress someone you don't know at a stoplight, 0:36:55.120 --> 0:36:56.960 and you didn't have a five hundred and forty six 0:36:57.000 --> 0:36:58.839 dollars payment, and you put that in good growth stock 0:36:58.920 --> 0:37:01.799 mutual funds. From make's thirty to age sixty five, you'd 0:37:01.800 --> 0:37:04.560 have five point six million dollars in that one account. 0:37:04.719 --> 0:37:10.520 Hope you like the car. When I quit borrowing money, 0:37:10.560 --> 0:37:14.880 I suddenly had money. You don't have to make a 0:37:14.880 --> 0:37:17.040 lot to have money when you have any payments. Because 0:37:17.120 --> 0:37:20.120 most Americans, we work, we bring it home, we change 0:37:20.160 --> 0:37:23.920 its names, and we send it off, and we send 0:37:23.960 --> 0:37:28.040 it to Ford Motor Credit, and we send it to Chevrolet, 0:37:31.239 --> 0:37:33.120 and they go down. Other than the last four or 0:37:33.120 --> 0:37:35.520 five months, when cars are going backwards, like everything's going 0:37:35.520 --> 0:37:37.520 backwards right now, used cars are actually going up in 0:37:37.600 --> 0:37:39.920 value for the first time in the history of man 0:37:40.680 --> 0:37:42.440 and U and it'll catch up and it won't be 0:37:42.440 --> 0:37:44.399 that way long. But I mean other than that time, 0:37:44.440 --> 0:37:46.719 I mean, Chevy is like, you know, they're all this way. 0:37:46.760 --> 0:37:48.960 It's like, you know, these things go down in value 0:37:49.000 --> 0:37:52.520 like a rock. That's where Chevy got that, like a rock. Right, So, 0:37:55.280 --> 0:37:58.839 and we're financing this thing. I don't mind you having 0:37:58.840 --> 0:38:00.200 a nice car. I justn't want your nice car to 0:38:00.200 --> 0:38:05.840 have you. I want you to have choices and margin 0:38:06.440 --> 0:38:08.919 and room to be generous, and room to think about 0:38:08.960 --> 0:38:12.839 your future instead of the present, because if we live 0:38:12.880 --> 0:38:18.080 for Friday, you don't that much of a life. The 0:38:18.120 --> 0:38:30.120 third one's weird. You have to foster quality relationships. Bible says, 0:38:30.160 --> 0:38:33.000 be not deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. Did you 0:38:33.040 --> 0:38:37.359 know you become who you hang around with. I mean, 0:38:37.360 --> 0:38:38.839 if you want to be generous, you need to hang 0:38:38.840 --> 0:38:41.480 out with generous people. If you want to hang out 0:38:41.480 --> 0:38:43.040 with people that are world changers, you need to hang 0:38:43.040 --> 0:38:44.920 out world changers. If you want to hang out with 0:38:44.960 --> 0:38:46.359 people that know. If you want to know the Bible, 0:38:46.400 --> 0:38:47.680 we probably ought to hang out with some people that 0:38:47.719 --> 0:38:49.719 know the Bible. If you want to hang out with people, 0:38:49.719 --> 0:38:51.160 if you want to have a great marriage, you probably 0:38:51.200 --> 0:38:53.279 ought to hang out with people other than your four 0:38:53.400 --> 0:38:57.239 friends who just got six divorces. I'm minister to them, 0:38:57.320 --> 0:38:59.960 I love them, I'm not snubbing them, but I don't 0:39:00.080 --> 0:39:05.560 need to learn marriage from them. And I catch myself 0:39:05.719 --> 0:39:08.600 I talk like the people I hang around with. The 0:39:08.960 --> 0:39:12.080 verbal cues, the cadence of your sentence I was in 0:39:12.080 --> 0:39:13.839 New York City the other day. Y'all know all those 0:39:13.840 --> 0:39:16.880 people have an accent up there. They all talk just 0:39:16.960 --> 0:39:21.040 at it's crazy, and then they come down South, and 0:39:21.080 --> 0:39:22.760 you know what, we teach them how to talk Eventually, 0:39:23.680 --> 0:39:26.520 you know, because you become who you hang around with. 0:39:26.600 --> 0:39:29.360 Did you know the studies have shown that your income 0:39:29.760 --> 0:39:32.239 will be the average will be within ten percent of 0:39:32.239 --> 0:39:35.520 the average of your ten closest friends income. Some of 0:39:35.520 --> 0:39:40.759 your going I needed some new friends. Maybe now I'm 0:39:40.800 --> 0:39:43.640 never saying be snobbish to somebody I'm minister to. I'll 0:39:43.640 --> 0:39:47.160 spend time with, I will love anyone. I love people. 0:39:47.360 --> 0:39:50.240 I'm talking about your crew. Who's in your center, who's 0:39:50.280 --> 0:39:53.920 walking with you, who's lifting your arms, who's smacking them down, 0:39:54.239 --> 0:39:57.480 who's calling you out? Who You're gonna talk like them, 0:39:57.520 --> 0:39:59.560 You're gonna read like them, You're gonna binge watch the 0:39:59.640 --> 0:40:07.799 same thing on Netflix, stagger King. You're gonna become who 0:40:07.800 --> 0:40:11.080 you hang around with. Be very careful, you know this. 0:40:11.480 --> 0:40:12.960 That's why you don't let your kids run around a 0:40:13.000 --> 0:40:16.440 juvenil delinquents, because you know little Johnny down the streets 0:40:16.440 --> 0:40:18.280 smoking weed. You hang it, kid hangs out with litt Johnny. 0:40:18.280 --> 0:40:21.520 Yourki's gonna be a weed head too. You know this. No, 0:40:21.560 --> 0:40:23.960 you ain't hanging out with Johnny. Johnny is not smart. 0:40:25.600 --> 0:40:27.719 We will pray for little Johnny. He can come over 0:40:27.719 --> 0:40:31.000 at our house and play, but we're not. No, no, 0:40:32.160 --> 0:40:35.759 You're not gonna be like him. Moms and dads, do that. 0:40:35.960 --> 0:40:40.920 Be not deceived, evil company, corrupts good habits. Be very careful. 0:40:41.160 --> 0:40:43.880 The third, fourth one is save and invests. Save money, 0:40:44.719 --> 0:40:47.000 save money. The Bible says, in the house of the 0:40:47.080 --> 0:40:52.320 Wiser stores of choice, food and oil. But a foolish 0:40:52.360 --> 0:40:56.759 man devours all he has. You spend everything you make. 0:40:56.800 --> 0:40:58.440 You're a fool. I didn't say it, God said it. 0:40:58.480 --> 0:41:02.279 Get mad at him. There's a time or two in 0:41:02.280 --> 0:41:05.720 my life. God's had a red arrow point in a fool. Fool, fool, 0:41:05.920 --> 0:41:08.560 and you don't want to be a biblical fool. This 0:41:08.640 --> 0:41:10.600 is not a greeting like hey foo, No, this is 0:41:10.680 --> 0:41:20.440 like a fool in the house of the wise or 0:41:20.520 --> 0:41:25.680 stores of choice, food and oil. In Biblical times, when Solomon, 0:41:25.719 --> 0:41:27.480 the smartest man ever lived, wrote that one of the 0:41:27.520 --> 0:41:29.480 wealthiest men they ever lived. By the Way too, wrote 0:41:29.480 --> 0:41:31.439 that in the House of the Wise there were two 0:41:31.480 --> 0:41:35.440 classes of people in Israel in those days, there were 0:41:35.480 --> 0:41:38.200 not a middle class. There was no middle class. There 0:41:38.280 --> 0:41:42.840 was peasants, poverty, which was most everyone, and there was 0:41:42.880 --> 0:41:48.080 the aristocracy. The aristocracy the wealthy are the only ones 0:41:48.120 --> 0:41:51.359 that had what you and I eat every day called 0:41:51.440 --> 0:41:57.160 choice food. The best food the world has to offer, clean, safe, 0:41:57.640 --> 0:42:02.080 good for you. That's what they aristocracy ate. Maybe not 0:42:02.120 --> 0:42:04.600 good for you, but they ate the good stuff. Okay, 0:42:05.680 --> 0:42:09.920 I mean we're talking Israel. So what the poverty is. 0:42:09.960 --> 0:42:14.920 It's hummus, you know, pet of bread, right, this is 0:42:14.960 --> 0:42:17.640 what you got. This is the whole puppy. In the 0:42:17.719 --> 0:42:21.319 house of the Wise are stores of choice food. Choice 0:42:21.320 --> 0:42:26.359 food was an indication of wealth. Oil was used all 0:42:26.360 --> 0:42:30.040 throughout the Old Testament to anoint to show God's spirit. 0:42:30.719 --> 0:42:34.600 The Prophet anointed the shepherd boy David, and later it 0:42:34.600 --> 0:42:38.800 says that the anointing drops from the beard onto the body. 0:42:38.920 --> 0:42:41.880 The spirit of God drops from leadership into the body 0:42:41.920 --> 0:42:47.080 of that leadership. God's spirit is always represented by oil. Consequently, 0:42:47.120 --> 0:42:50.000 oil was highly valued. You could take a caraffe of 0:42:50.040 --> 0:42:53.520 oil and trade it in the marketplace for anything. Because 0:42:53.520 --> 0:42:55.600 it was also used to keep the whole the lamps 0:42:55.640 --> 0:42:59.040 lit in the Holy of Holies. It was highly prized, 0:42:59.239 --> 0:43:01.480 highly esteemed. I leave valued. Now let's do it again. 0:43:01.640 --> 0:43:07.120 In the House of the Wise are stores of choice, 0:43:07.160 --> 0:43:11.120 food and oil. Well, the Bible says the rich people 0:43:11.160 --> 0:43:14.600 are going to hell. No it doesn't, No, it doesn't. 0:43:16.480 --> 0:43:19.359 If you believe that rich people are going to hell 0:43:19.400 --> 0:43:23.200 from scriptures, then you don't believe Jesus's blood on the 0:43:23.239 --> 0:43:25.760 cross was real, which would by definition make you a heretic. 0:43:29.160 --> 0:43:32.040 There's a lot of warnings about wealth. It's powerful, be 0:43:32.120 --> 0:43:35.240 careful with it. I had warned you about that earlier. 0:43:35.680 --> 0:43:37.640 But rich people aren't. And the Bible does not save 0:43:37.640 --> 0:43:39.840 money is the root of all evil. It says the 0:43:39.880 --> 0:43:41.640 love of money is the root of all evil. So 0:43:41.680 --> 0:43:43.160 the first thing we save money for is we save 0:43:43.239 --> 0:43:47.799 money for in a emergency because Grandma said, save for 0:43:47.880 --> 0:43:57.319 a rainy day. Visual aid. It's going to rain. It's 0:43:57.360 --> 0:43:59.800 going to rain, Dave, you should be positive. I'm positive 0:43:59.880 --> 0:44:05.960 it's going to rain. When pandemics hit and you have 0:44:06.040 --> 0:44:09.440 no debt and a pile of money in your emergency fund, 0:44:10.200 --> 0:44:12.520 it's a whole different level of stress that your body 0:44:12.560 --> 0:44:17.680 takes in peace that passes all understanding because you're the 0:44:17.680 --> 0:44:20.600 third pig, not the one with sticks and straw, but 0:44:20.640 --> 0:44:24.120 the one that built the brick house. I planted the corn, 0:44:24.719 --> 0:44:27.319 the corn came. It's awful out there, and I felt 0:44:27.320 --> 0:44:28.960 bad for a lot of people, and a lot of 0:44:29.000 --> 0:44:31.640 businesses were really, really struggling. But we're sitting on a 0:44:31.640 --> 0:44:34.400 campus that's one hundred percent debt free. We're sitting on 0:44:34.440 --> 0:44:37.080 a pile of retained earnings. None of our people lost 0:44:37.120 --> 0:44:40.480 their job, not wine. None of them missed a paycheck, 0:44:40.640 --> 0:44:45.799 not wine. Is that because Dave Ramsey is noble? No, 0:44:45.840 --> 0:44:48.919 it's because God says if you plant corn, corn will 0:44:48.960 --> 0:44:53.000 grow if you follow his guidelines, his principles, they work 0:44:53.640 --> 0:44:57.160 every time. And so if you're on a plan and 0:44:57.200 --> 0:45:00.200 you get out of debt and you're saving money, you 0:45:00.239 --> 0:45:05.200 can save more money when you don't have payments and 0:45:05.239 --> 0:45:08.880 you're hanging out with people that are generous and future 0:45:09.040 --> 0:45:15.239 thinking instead of short term thinkers, impulsive thinkers, children. One 0:45:15.280 --> 0:45:19.160 definition of maturity is the ability to delay pleasure. If 0:45:19.200 --> 0:45:22.600 you're hanging out with people like that, it will naturally 0:45:22.760 --> 0:45:30.240 believe bring the Christian to the fifth one, be outrageously generous. 0:45:32.840 --> 0:45:35.480 Did you know you can give money away if you 0:45:35.600 --> 0:45:40.760 have some. Did you know that people who feed poor, 0:45:40.840 --> 0:45:44.880 people who feed starving kids are people who had money. 0:45:45.920 --> 0:45:48.839 That's where it came from. It came from people who 0:45:48.840 --> 0:45:51.920 did the stuff I was talking about. They're not evil, 0:45:52.080 --> 0:45:54.520 they're not horrible, they're not corrupt, they didn't steal that 0:45:54.680 --> 0:45:58.799 in cheat. They serve the community in scale and consequently 0:45:58.880 --> 0:46:04.360 have the ability to serve the community in scale. Generosity 0:46:04.719 --> 0:46:08.160 comes from having planted corn. So now I got some 0:46:08.600 --> 0:46:11.600 to share with my brothers and sisters, and it's the 0:46:11.640 --> 0:46:16.000 most fun you'll ever have with money. Outrage is crazy. 0:46:16.120 --> 0:46:20.000 Generosity you gotta do it. You gotta do it, y'all. 0:46:20.480 --> 0:46:25.200 It's unbelievable. What will happen. It'll turn everything loose in 0:46:25.200 --> 0:46:29.120 your life. Your creativity will go up, your passion will 0:46:29.160 --> 0:46:32.399 go up, your health will change. When you start letting 0:46:32.440 --> 0:46:36.360 money flow through you instead of to you, it changes 0:46:36.719 --> 0:46:45.080 everything in your life. But it is a mathematical requirement 0:46:45.280 --> 0:46:47.560 that for money to flow through you, you you have to 0:46:47.560 --> 0:46:51.960 get it to you. You got to pay the like 0:46:52.040 --> 0:46:55.239 bill first, feed your kids, because if you don't take 0:46:55.239 --> 0:46:58.000 care of your own household first, you're worse than an unbeliever. 0:46:58.160 --> 0:47:02.760 Are we following scripture here, you're not selfish. You just broke. 0:47:05.560 --> 0:47:07.480 We got to work on not being broke. I've been there, 0:47:07.560 --> 0:47:09.520 and it's scary as crud. I don't want to live 0:47:09.560 --> 0:47:13.560 like that. So we tithe. As Evangelical Christians, we always 0:47:13.560 --> 0:47:15.040 tie that means give a tenth of our income to 0:47:15.040 --> 0:47:16.960 our local church. That's your baseline. But I want you 0:47:17.000 --> 0:47:19.000 to do some other stuff beyond that that just is 0:47:19.080 --> 0:47:20.799 mind blowing, just for fun. I want you to just 0:47:20.880 --> 0:47:25.080 carry some money around. Here's one for you. Let's do this. 0:47:25.880 --> 0:47:27.319 And they told me to be done in about forty 0:47:27.320 --> 0:47:31.560 five minutes because that's when the Holy Spirit leaves. So 0:47:33.280 --> 0:47:34.880 and I don't want to be up here by myself. 0:47:34.960 --> 0:47:45.800 So Thanksgiving Easter's quicker when you're getting the family together 0:47:47.239 --> 0:47:50.719 and you're picking up the kids and maybe you're going 0:47:51.239 --> 0:47:54.480 down the road or two states over to go see grandma. 0:47:55.640 --> 0:47:57.800 I don't know if you're going to cross town or whatever. 0:47:57.840 --> 0:47:59.759 We're going to grandma's house and Grandma's gonna make a feast. 0:47:59.960 --> 0:48:01.719 LL know what I'm talking about. Maybe not, but maybe 0:48:01.880 --> 0:48:03.600 you could see the type of picture this is. This 0:48:03.680 --> 0:48:05.719 is what happens to us, and so what I want 0:48:05.760 --> 0:48:06.560 you to do is. I want you to load the 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:09.320 kids up. I want you to leave twenty minutes early, 0:48:10.320 --> 0:48:11.879 and I want you on the way to get off 0:48:11.880 --> 0:48:15.279 in an exit and find yourself like a waffle house. 0:48:15.320 --> 0:48:18.200 Y'all know what waffle house is, and pull up right 0:48:18.280 --> 0:48:22.880 in front of the glass and leave the car running 0:48:24.360 --> 0:48:28.600 until the kids put down your screens. Watch God, behave, 0:48:30.200 --> 0:48:31.520 and I want you to go in have a cup 0:48:31.520 --> 0:48:33.479 of coffee at the front counter, at the lunch counter. 0:48:33.520 --> 0:48:34.680 Y'all know what I'm talking about. You have been a 0:48:35.120 --> 0:48:40.040 lunch count. And this is Thanksgiving weekend, this is Easter weekend. 0:48:40.400 --> 0:48:45.320 You know who's working at the counter at a waffle house. 0:48:45.360 --> 0:48:47.040 Somebody needs a job. You know who's working at the 0:48:47.040 --> 0:48:50.080 counter in a waffle house on Easter weekend. Somebody needs 0:48:50.080 --> 0:48:54.400 a job. Bag So I want you to have a 0:48:54.400 --> 0:48:57.880 cup of coffee. Order a cup of coffee. You probably 0:48:57.880 --> 0:49:01.520 not even gonna drink it, And before you leave, I 0:49:01.520 --> 0:49:04.000 want you to to get chat about three or four of 0:49:04.000 --> 0:49:12.480 these Uncle Benjamin's hundreds, slip them under the coffee cup, 0:49:12.520 --> 0:49:18.040 and slip out to the car. Hey, kids, watch God, 0:49:19.680 --> 0:49:24.600 watch him. Here's what she'll do. She'll walk along and 0:49:24.719 --> 0:49:31.160 pick it up in her eyes will get back. She's 0:49:31.160 --> 0:49:35.600 looking around like it's a trick. It's been so long 0:49:36.960 --> 0:49:43.080 since anything good it's happened to her, and God just 0:49:43.120 --> 0:49:57.480 showed up. You just changed him net worth one hundred 0:49:57.520 --> 0:50:03.279 percent of time. And even if she's not been in 0:50:03.360 --> 0:50:07.000 church in her life, or even if she was there 0:50:07.080 --> 0:50:23.239 last week one hundred percent of the time, who knows 0:50:23.920 --> 0:50:28.600 to say thank you? Can she can smell the aroma 0:50:29.400 --> 0:50:33.200 of the Holy Spirit that you left dripping there. You 0:50:33.239 --> 0:50:38.120 didn't leave a track you lost. You left three four 0:50:38.360 --> 0:50:40.920 hundred bucks. I want you to go out and spend 0:50:40.960 --> 0:50:43.240 three four hundred bucks on a date night on yourself. 0:50:43.400 --> 0:50:44.680 I want you to do that too. I want you 0:50:44.719 --> 0:50:46.920 to have fun with money, but I dare you to 0:50:46.960 --> 0:50:59.279 have more fun than that. So here's the thing you 0:50:59.320 --> 0:51:06.440 can decide. I'm gonna budget, I'm gonna get out of that. 0:51:09.320 --> 0:51:13.200 I'm gonna change. I'm gonna start handling my life the 0:51:13.239 --> 0:51:16.120 way God instructs in his love letter to me. And 0:51:16.160 --> 0:51:18.600 he's crazy about me, and he's got a plan for me. 0:51:18.640 --> 0:51:20.120 And it's not to bring me hard, but to bring 0:51:20.120 --> 0:51:24.360 me hope. I'm gonna get better. I'm gonna be a 0:51:24.440 --> 0:51:30.080 diligent farmer, because the diligent prosper and the lazy man doesn't. 0:51:33.120 --> 0:51:35.800 I'm gonna change now. Am I perfect? No? Good, Gracious, 0:51:35.840 --> 0:51:38.600 I'm not perfect. I mess up about every day. I 0:51:38.600 --> 0:51:41.000 don't mess this stuff up. I took care of him 0:51:41.000 --> 0:51:44.520 all that in my twenties. I mess up lots of things. 0:51:44.760 --> 0:51:46.640 We all do. We're all working on this, we're all, 0:51:47.200 --> 0:51:49.319 you know. But I can do all things through Christ, 0:51:49.360 --> 0:51:59.240 who strengthens me. I can decide I'm gonna change. God's 0:51:59.239 --> 0:52:03.680 crazy about you. And if you wandered in here because 0:52:03.680 --> 0:52:05.680 you saw a Facebook post said Dave Ramsey is gonna 0:52:05.680 --> 0:52:07.680 be here and you don't know him, let me just 0:52:07.719 --> 0:52:20.919 tell you this, Jesus Man, you change your life. God, 0:52:20.960 --> 0:52:23.600 we thank you for these folks. We turn this service 0:52:23.640 --> 0:52:25.680 over to Pastor Stephen. But Father, as I'm doing that, 0:52:25.760 --> 0:52:27.440 I just want to pray a blessing and ask that 0:52:27.520 --> 0:52:30.520 you show up for folks here, that if they felt condemned, 0:52:30.560 --> 0:52:33.640 that they're not but instead convicted. And Father, God, give 0:52:33.680 --> 0:52:37.480 them the power of the strength, the love, the ability 0:52:37.520 --> 0:52:41.560 to run the distance and finish the race well, the 0:52:41.600 --> 0:52:44.160 ability to walk with what You've got for them. In 0:52:44.719 --> 0:52:48.400 what you've got for them, bring them protection, bring them provision, 0:52:49.320 --> 0:52:51.040 and help them to be a shining light on a 0:52:51.120 --> 0:53:01.560 hill that is unbelievably generous in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, 0:53:01.600 --> 0:53:03.680 if you enjoyed today's podcast, there are a couple of 0:53:03.719 --> 0:53:07.399 things I'd love for you to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate, 0:53:07.680 --> 0:53:10.680 and review this podcast. You can also help us reach 0:53:10.719 --> 0:53:14.600 others by investing today at Elevationchurch dot org. Slash GiB 0:53:14.960 --> 0:53:17.799 and thanks again for joining us on the Elevation Podcast.