The Financial Statement Of Jesus Christ Pt 2

So before I even get into Jesus.

Can I tell you the story of the Good Samaritan? That'd be cool. Who was the Good Samaritan? This was the brother who was on his way to Jerusalem and noted a man who had been robbed, stripped, beaten, and left for half dead. A man that needed his help.

The Good Samaritan went down to the man.

Laid hands on him and said, be well, my brother. Be whole. God loves you. See you next time. No, he didn't do that. He went down, picked up the man, put the man on his own transportation, took him to an inn and paid the innkeeper for all of his medical expenses and said, if this is not enough, when I come back, I will settle the bill.

Do you notice that the story assumes that good people are in a position financially to help the most vulnerable people in society?

There's an assumption that actually, if you are a good person, you are going to be in a position to not only say comforting words, but to offer practical assistance.

And that assumption runs current through every passage that says how God will bless those that remember the poor and how he will. You know, that he's for those people who. Who consider the poor. Well, you can't consider the poor unless you are in a financial position to offer practical assistance. So there's a success assumption running current through the Bible. I'm gonna give you another one before I get to Jesus, because context is everything, right? Introduction is context, and context is everything.

Proverbs 13:22, I believe, says, a good man, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. Now, hold on a second. A good man, let's all say a good man, right? That means upright, honorable, noble, virtuous, pious man.

Will leave an inheritance.

For his grandchildren.

Which means that just enough is not enough for a good man.

Just enough is enough for a selfish man.

But just enough is not enough for a good man. Because a good man has generational goals. A good man has generational vision. And a good man is concerned with creating platforms upon which his children's children can stand tall.

And this, in the Bible is called good. What's it called? Good.

So that actually being wealthy biblically is good.

So I was conflicted once. I was conflicted. I didn't know I was conflicted. I did not know I was conflicted until I had a conversation with a Jewish rabbi who became a friend of mine and has written several books on the subject. I'm going to talk about in just a moment.

And I know Myron's read some of his Books, and they are absolutely transformational. In his book, he attempted to demystify Jewish wealth.

And he says when it comes to Jewish wealth, he said, you need to understand that the Jewish people are less than 1/10 of 1% of the world's population and yet occupy elite positions in the major global industries of the world.

There was a time, I'm not sure if it's still the case now, that Israel had zero unemployment and was actually paying people to come into the country to work.

The land was once a desert and is now one of the largest exporters of citrus fruit in the world. There is a mystery to this. And he said that some people on the one side say, well, I know why they are so they are wealthy because.

You know, they come up with a lot of negative things as to why they are wealthy. He said to me, on the other hand, Wayne, you guys think we are wealthy because we are related to Abraham and it is just the blessing of Abraham and we are just blessed.

And he said, none of those two positions is the truth.

He said, the reason we are wealthy is because of the way we teach our children to view money.

Now, that started to make sense to me because I had also read Rich Dad, Poor dad, and realized from Mr. Robert Kiyosaki that actually the way children are taught to view money has a huge bearing on their financial outcomes in life because the rich view money a particular way and the poor view money another way. And here I'm speaking to a rabbi who's telling me that the secret to our wealth is the way that our children are taught to view money. He said to me, wayne, in our religion, money is a good thing.

Y' all hearing this?

He said, gold is the universal symbol of wealth.

And the first time gold is mentioned in the Bible, it is called good.

He says there is no Jewish feast that does not involve the exchange of money.

And he said we grew up to believe that creating wealth through serving our fellow man was a religious and moral duty.

He said, I feel morally obligated to serve my fellow man in exchange for money and create wealth for my generations. He says a part of my religious duty. And he said, because I grew up thinking that way, I have an advantage over you. He said, because truth be told, Wayne, you grew up thinking that money was bad.

Or you were at least suspicious of it.

You didn't quite know where to put it. And he said.

That in a war, the defending army has a five time advantage over the offending army. Why? Because the defending army is convinced of the morality and righteousness of their war. And when you are convinced that you are in the moral right position, you find a strength that the offending army cannot find because they have doubt.

That makes sense. So he says, until you believe that making money, building a business by serving your fellow man, until you believe in the inherent morality and righteousness of your cause, you are at a disadvantage for someone who is not conflicted at all and believes in the inherent morality and righteousness of what they are doing.

Okay, this is making sense. Yeah. Now, I used to be conflicted. I'm not conflicted anymore. Oh, no, I'm not convicted. I'm not conflicted. I absolutely believe in the inherent morality and righteousness of the entrepreneurial cause. And I heard some of it this morning. I hate the phrase giving back. I didn't ever even discuss that with Myron. But I hate the phrase because giving back suggests that I took something from.

By virtue of simply building a business, I am a blessing to the world.

I am creating jobs. I am stimulating the economy. Come on now. I am rendering hope. I found out, because we do a lot with emerging countries at a philanthropic level. And I found out that no, no size of aid package has ever delivered a country from extreme poverty. So no matter how much aid you pour in, it never delivers the country from poverty. There is only one thing that delivers a country from poverty. It is trade, not aid. So when you move in with the aid, you have to move in with the educational programs, the micro financing, the entrepreneurial tool set. Because unless they move from aid to trade, they will never come out of poverty. And so I am convinced in the inherent righteousness and morality and nobility and virtuousness, the entrepreneurial spirit and cause and ethic. So I'm not conflicted. And when I say, God, show me how, everything in me is saying, God, show me how. There's not a part of me saying, God, show me how. And another part saying, but I'm not sure if I should.

All of me is saying, God, for your glory, show me how to make a big billion.

Because we know what the world looks like when the worst kinds of people have all the money, we are yet to see what a society looks like. Come on now. When the good people are billionaires. Come on now. When the good people have the resources to be a good Samaritan and see, that's God's agenda. And in fact, if I were to finish reading my passage in Proverbs that says, a good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children, the second part says, and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.

And the wealth of the sinner has nothing to do with heaven. I need you to know that there is no wealth of the sinner in heaven, right? No, this really has to do with. With God's original intent.

That people who look like him should be in charge of the earth's resources and should be the most resourceful people in the world. That's what makes a great society, is people that are the image, likeness, reflection of God having the resources to do the right things.

Oh, if we was in another setting, I'd say there's a good place to clap because that's just good stuff, right? That's good stuff.

So you don't want to go into business with the psychological disadvantage of doubting the inherent morality and righteousness of the entrepreneurial cause.

You want to get an advantage by realizing that this is the original intention of God and this is kingdom in its purest form. And there is no serious discussion about kingdom that doesn't involve entrepreneurial awakening and entrepreneurial equipping. Because in the kingdom of God, we are all the royal family, and therefore King Christ is king of other kings. And these kings have to be kings of, of domains. They have to have domains, realms, spheres over which they rule. And nothing is more akin to kingdom than building your own business.

That's right.

Is that okay for introduction?

It's all in the book, by the way. It's all in the course, but we'll talk about that in a minute. Now.

My concept of Jesus.

Is going to shape the character of my Christianity.

So if I think he was poor, I'm going to struggle to become rich.

But if I think he was rich, no scratch. If I believe he was rich, then I'm going to struggle to stay poor.

Because ultimately I want to be like him.

That makes sense. So I heard all my life, Jesus is poor. Jesus poor. He was raised in poverty. The foxes have holes that the birds have nests. But the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

He's so hungry, the disciples are picking corn on the Sabbath day.

That's what I heard.

So I decided to revisit the story with economic spectacles on. Because you get out of the Bible what you're looking for. And if you read it with religious spectacles, you come out of it with a whole bunch of religion. But if you read it with economic spectacles and begin to calculate the economic implications of the interventions and promises and purposes of God, then the book comes alive in a very sociological and economic way. So let's look at the life of Christ. Can we do that? Okay.

So let's start with the family into which he was born. Correct. You got Mary, you got Joseph.

We know from at least two gospels that they are direct descendants of King David. So they are actually members of a royal family.

I mean you can actually track.

Name by name. You got it in Matthew, you got it in Luke that both Mary and Joseph are descendants of King David. They are members of a royal family.

But Joseph was a carpenter. Correct. Okay, so when we think of a carpenter, you know what we think of? We think of tables, chairs and shelves.

We think of the handyman that's going to fix something that's broken in your house.

But in the ancient world and in the New Testament times.

The entire infrastructure of society relied on the skill of a carpenter.

There were no houses without carpenters, there were no farming tools without carpenters and there were no fishing tools, including boats without carpenters, nothing. The entire infrastructure relied on the profession of a carpenter. So far from this beast, a blue collar, you know, middle income trade, this is one of the highest paying professions in the ancient world because everything relies on it. So Joseph is in the, the, he's in one of the highest paying professions and, and growth industries of the ancient world. But he's not just a carpenter.

The Bible says of Jesus is not this the carpenter's son. Which means. Now come on. That's different to being a carpenter and being the carpenter because when people say you are the carpenter, it means that you are the one above all the others that are calling themselves carpenters. You are the carpenter. Difference between being a singer and being the singer.

Joseph is the carpenter and the only reason he is going to Bethlehem.

Is to be taxed.

And you don't get taxed unless you have some money.

Wish I had some help in here.

He said. Oh, but Jesus is born in a stable.

Well let me tell you why.

The Bible doesn't say he was born in a stable. Because Joseph couldn't afford an inn. It says because there was no room in the inn. Well how do you know there's no room in the inn, Joseph? Because I have been trying all the inns in Bethlehem and they are fully booked, which means you had the money to move Mary and yourself into paid, rented, temporary accommodation.

And in the end you moved into the stable.

Not because you couldn't afford to end, but because there was no room in there.

Do I need to go much further? I think I do. I think I do. By the time the wise men get To Jesus in Matthew, they are in a house.

When the wise men came to the house where Jesus was.

The suggestion is we didn't stay in the rented accommodation for long. Okay, yeah, we used it for the moment, but we're not staying here for long. We've now moved into a house.

This is the carpenter, direct descendant of King David.

But who are these wise men? These wise men have come from the East.

And I know we think that there were three wise men. The Bible doesn't say there were three wise men. It talks about three categories of gift. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. It simply says there are wise men who came from the East. This is called a diplomatic delegation.

And we know they were a diplomatic delegation representing real kings in the east because they were given an audience with King Herod en route to Jesus. Now, regular guys can't get audiences with kings, but a diplomatic delegation representing actual kings would get an audience with the king of a particular region. So they come to Herod and they say, where is he? That is born king of the Jews? We have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. Which means we have come to honor him, which. Which, if you understand the ancient world, the size of your gift is the honor that you have for the king. So when they said they come to honor, it wasn't simply a matter of, we've come to say, oh, Jesus, we believe in you, you're the one. No, we're going to give you the honor from our kings to your king. And so, according to the historians, they were not carrying a little bag of gold, a bag of frankincense and a bag of myrrh. They were not three old men hobbling through the town, you know, with little bags. Where is he?

Where is he? That is.

Because.

King Herod would have said, he's that way. Just keep going, guys. Just keep it going. He's that way.

But according to the historians, when kings sought to honor another king, what they were sending was caravans of wealth. So that historically, this diplomatic delegation were moving with caravans of gold, caravans of frankincense and caravans of myrrh. This is why King Herod could not sleep after meeting them and plotted to commit murder of all of the children below 2 years old in Bethlehem. Not because Herod was simply a psycho, but because. But because the might of the delegation was evidence to Herod that the other kings recognized another king inside of his kingdom. So what these wise men had brought was wagons of gold, wagons of frankincense. Wagons of myrrh. And the Bible doesn't say they gave them to Mary and Joseph. It says they presented to Jesus, who's a little baby, their gifts, which made Mary and Joseph trustees or custodians of a fortune that was deposited into the life of Christ as a baby.

I am convinced that every expense he would ever need throughout his entire ministry was met in. In one move. And I am equally convinced that God can finance the rest of your life in one business deal. I'm convinced of it.

One deal and your whole life is set up.

Joseph and Mary now have the resources to raise the Christ. They can quickly move him from Bethlehem to Egypt, live there for 12 years undercover.

Bring Jesus back to Nazareth and pick up the business where it left off, the carpenter.

But they are custodians of huge, vast sums of wealth.

All right, so far.

Do you want any more?

I'm going to give you some more. You got to promise not to rush the stage. It's going to hurt in a minute.

So we don't hear much about Jesus between 12 and 30.

Round 30. He's baptized by John, goes into the wilderness and starts his ministry. But according to John's Gospel, the first miracle Jesus ever did was to turn water into wine. Fair. What was it his?

What was it His? Which means that before that, we've never seen him work a miracle. We have no idea that he even works miracles.

So when they had run out of wine at the wedding.

And came to Mary and said, mary, we've run out of wine. They've never seen Mary work a miracle. They're not asking a supernatural question.

Because he's never worked a miracle before. They're saying, mary, why Tell Mary? Because Mary's the rich family that's there if you run out of something at a party. Who you telling? You're telling the people who have the means to solve the problem.

Mary says, why? Don't tell me, Tell Jesus. Why is Mary saying, go to Jesus? Oh, because Jesus works miracles. No, we've never seen him work. We don't know he works miracles. Go to Jesus because he can afford it.

He's the one with the money. You run out of wine, tell Jesus.

It's Friday, isn't it? If you think about it, no one was looking for a miracle. No one was looking for miracle wine. He's never done it before. Why are you bringing this problem, this economic problem, to Christ? Because clearly he is the one that has the means.

To deal with the economic crisis.

I know we still got doubts. So let's Start to, I told you we're going to operate. I'm going to take the doubts out.

Jesus recruits a team of 12 full grown men with families who are themselves entrepreneurs and convinces them to leave the business and follow him while they still have responsibility for their families. Now poor people can't do that. A poor man cannot walk up to you running your business, say brother, leave the business and come and follow me.

There's a reason why these guys are like, you know what? Yeah, let's leave the business and follow Jesus. Because you see, it became very clear to them that following Jesus would not produce any lack or would not in any way.

Abdicate their responsibility to look after their families because Jesus didn't look poor. I'm going to prove that in just a minute. Anyone that can recruit 12 full grown entrepreneurs to leave their business and follow them definitely doesn't look poor.

You ever notice certain places, he told them, he said, when you go in there, don't take script, don't take purse, don't take anything. Why are we telling people that don't have stuff not to take stuff.

Because you've got it. Just don't take it into that place.

Oh, they had it. Someone say they had it. We know they had it because Jesus appointed a treasurer to look after the bag.

Of course they had it. Jesus had a treasurer by the name of Judas Iscariot whose job was to look after the money bag. Now my question is how much money was in the bag?

Are you ready? I'm going to tell you how much money was in the bag.

This is fun, isn't it?

Here's how I know how much money was in the bag. Jesus was teaching one time, teaching 5,000 men. Back then they didn't count the women, they didn't count the children, they just counted the men. So if there were 5,000 men, there were potentially 15 to 20,000 people actually in the audience. And Jesus didn't do like me and Myron and teach for four hour days. He just taught till he'd finished. And Jesus went on teaching for hours and days. And the people got hungry and the disciples came to Jesus and they said, the people are hungry, they're tired, shall we send them into the village to go and buy food?

And Jesus said, they don't need to depart, give ye them to eat. Now here's what the disciples said. He said, shall we go into the village and buy the food for them?

Now that was either sarcasm.

Which you really wouldn't look into the face of the Son of God.

And be Sarcastic.

What they are saying is, oh, I see. They say we go and buy it.

Because we have enough money to buy a meal for 20,000 people.

Shall we go and buy it? It's okay.

Still struggling.

Because if you struggled until now, you're really. We're going to need a defibrillator and oxygen and everything else for what I'm going to say next.

Hear me carefully. Jesus wore designer cloth.

Oh, yes, he did. You see, when he was crucified.

There were two garments that he had in a garment. The outer garment.

They took his clothes. Roman soldiers, by the way, employees of the Roman Empire took his one of his garments and cut it into four pieces so they could each take a cloth. Does that sound like a rag?

Does that sound like a poor man's rag? That I just want a piece of his cloth?

Sounds like expensive cloth, right? Then his coat. They said, we cannot cut it because it is a special garment woven from the top, without seamless. If you look at the history of that, those garments took about five years to make. Those garments were royal garments. Those garments were reserved for kings. So they said, we cannot cut that. We are going to gamble over it. So Roman soldiers are gambling over a garment, and they are also taking pieces of cloth. So your vision of Jesus now somewhat changes when you realize that this guy moved with an entourage of 12 successful entrepreneurs into a town dressed like a king and walked in and arrested the attention of thousands of people. And if they got hungry, he fed them by a miracle. That's the Jesus of the New Testament.

Second Corinthians 8, 9. It says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that although he was rich.

Yet for our sakes, he became poor so that we, through his poverty, might become rich.

And I know that at a theological level, this is some reference to the incarnation of the riches he gave up in heaven. But when you look at his life.

The fact that he was born into a royal family and a massive deposit of wealth was made into his mission at an early stage with custodians and trustees, Mary and Joseph, looking after it for his ministry, to where he could afford to ask 12 entrepreneurs to retire and serve him and carry enough money in a bag to feed thousands if necessary, and wear clothes that you wouldn't even cut, you'd have to gamble over it to see who could get it. He was rich, my friends.

And for our sakes, he became poor.

And we, through his poverty, can become rich.

Now, you see.

I really am a follower of Jesus.

And really want to be more like him.

Because, see, the Bible assumes all the way through that good people.

Good people are in a position to help.

The poorest and most vulnerable people. At a practical level.

Even in the parables.

Jesus said, come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Because when I was hungry, you fed me.

What's the assumption there? The assumption is that a good person is in a position to offer practical assistance to someone that needs it.

And I shared with you in the beginning of these two days, God's going to get what he wanted. He always wanted the earth's resources to be stewarded by people that look like him.

People that have his image and likeness. And here we are in the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the world. And God's raising up people who will educate, inform, equip and inspire good people to take their rightful seat as kings and priests in the earth.

And we're all privileged to be part of that revolution. You locate it, you listen to it, until you identify with it. That's when you can leverage it. In other words, to identify with it is actually I am that I am, you know, and you begin to realize that this more than a conqueror thing and this head and not the tail, and this above only and not beneath. And this king and priest, I am that. Because once you start to identify with the better and the best part of you, you unlock a reservoir of energy, creativity, courage, clarity, conviction. And this means that whatever tool we put in your hands, you're going to make the most of it, because you are the technician that's on fire, that makes sense so that you, you'll take substandard tools and build something monumental. I mean, it's always confused me, you know, I used to do some work with music producers in the uk.

And I noted that there were guys who were always obsessing with the latest equipment. Latest equipment. This is the new version. This is the new. This is the new. This is the new. This is the new. And then there were other guys who were using the old.

They were making better music than the people who were obsessing about the new tools. Because the reality is that tools are only as good as the technician that uses them. And what you've got to locate within yourself is that best version of you to where you identify with it. And you wake up in the morning saying, I am that. You see the abundance, you see the prosperity, you see the Jesus side of you, that designer clothes, that guy that can recruit entrepreneurs, the guy that they're going to go to when they run out. And you say, I am that.

The guy who's not even concerned about the tax bill is like, he's not even going to go in the bag to pay the taxes.

He's going to tell you where the money is because he knows where the money is.

I am that.

The part of you that God created, which is so much higher than the parts of you that were biologically or sociologically formed.