The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 5

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 5

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, we are going to get started. I'm going to switch places with you here because I can steal your notes. This is our last week on this series and we have been in the Lost Art of Generosity series. Okay, I'll get my own notes. I guess he's taking my notes. Oh, I thought that was us. All right, I'll grab my own. We have spent several weeks talking about the idea of being generous and we've really talked a lot about the why. Why should we be generous or even why do we struggle with the idea of being generous? Why is that hard for some of us? But then why we as Christ followers should be generous. We really dive deep into that. First, we talked about that there's more joy in giving than in receiving. And then we went into the idea of being on the lookout, the importance of being on the lookout for greed because it sneaks up, especially when you're trying to be generous. When you're making that effort, it just kind of sneaks that greed in and he wants to derail that, those efforts. And then we dug into how everything we have belongs to God. And for some of us that may be a hard concept to get, but for others that could be really freeing. It's like, well, it's all God's anyway, so why not be generous, right? And then last week we talked about being generous to the poor. What that looks like, why should that be a value for us and the importance of that. So today, we're going to be diving more into the how. How should we put this into action? We've learned a lot, we've talked about a lot, but now how do we actually put feet on this and go do something with what we've learned? So today we each have some practical steps for you that we want to share with you as you journey on this generosity practice, as you make it a practice, a regular thing in your life. Now, we want to acknowledge too that practicing generosity does require a measure of faith. It can be hard, especially if you're really just trying to get started, that can be really difficult, and it does require faith. Faith that God's going to provide for you when you're being generous to others. Faith that God is going to use whatever you are giving, however he sees fit.

But we actually, in our preparation for this series, we heard this one quote from John Timber, he said, "Faith is spelled R-I-S-K." And sometimes, taking those risks and stepping out in faith does reap huge rewards. And we believe that as you practice generosity, as you implement these things, you're going to witness miracles. God loves to show his hand when it comes to generosity and moving mountains and providing for his people. So when we give, we become these vessels, these conduits for God to show his love to other people. We get to be a part of that. And so, we just want to encourage you that as you endeavor to do this, it will be risky, it will take a measure of faith, but he is good to show up, to be generous to us as we show generosity to others. The reality is though, living a generous life, it requires a plan. It'll happen spontaneously occasionally here and there, but it's not going to be a consistent practice for you if you don't plan. So the reality is that the foundation you need is your budget. What does that look like for you? Creating some sort of plan to give. We will have some practical things for you, but none of those are going to happen really well or consistently if you haven't created margin in your life and in your budget for giving, for generosity. So that's kind of the foundation that we want you to start with. If you have never practiced generosity, or at least on a consistent basis, start there. Start by creating a line item for giving. Create space, margin in your life, in your budget to give. We want to help you build a life of generosity, just like an architect has blueprints for a house. Creating a budget with generosity in mind will be a blueprint to practice generosity consistently.

Yeah, so to integrate some of these biblical practices that we've been talking about, I want to ask a couple questions on behalf of us that are important for us to think about. And the answers to these will help us again lay that foundation. So the first one is maybe one that you've already been asking yourself, which is when should I start to give? And the answer is pretty simple. It's now. You may be saying, "But I don't have enough," or "I'm not there yet. My budget..." Again, take what Lauren was saying. But the answer is now. It's easier to give a little now than when you think you'll have more in the future. Proverbs 23, 4 through 5 says, "Don't wear yourself out to get rich, because you know better. Stop. As soon as your eyes fly to it, it disappears. It makes wings for itself and flies like an eagle to the sky." Wealth is uncertain. There is no guarantee that you will be able to give later on. If you don't let your heart be formed in generosity now through practicing it, you may not have the heart later to be able to practice generosity. Even though you're going to tell yourself that. You're going to be like, "Hey, when I have more, that's when I'll be generous." If you don't start now, it's like a muscle that we work out. You won't be able to do that when you have more on your plate. You need to start now. We might have thoughts that say, "I don't have the wealth to give away." Honesty is for those who have more than I do. But did you know that the most generous demographic of people in America are working-class Christians? Because there is a deep value and belief in what Jesus teaches that speaks to us and our need to give like Jesus gave. So, again, some of the lies are that the more people get, then the easier it is to give. So really, the more people get, the less they are to-- they tend to be less generous. So don't be a statistic or a person who makes more just to spend more. Start now, even if it's very small, but go on this journey of a lifetime of being generous. So that's the first question. When? Well, the answer is now.

Secondly, where should I give? We answered this throughout the couple weeks, but we're going to come-- this is where we're going to spend most of our time today, but just really quickly, the answer is where you want to give to the poor, to the church, and to the advancement of the gospel. We'll talk more about those in just a second.

Lastly, again, this is maybe a question that you've asked throughout this series, is how much should I give? Pastor Andre, Pastor Chris, Pastor Andrei, I need a number. Give me that number. We don't have a number for you. Jesus and the New Testament do not have an equation that tells us, "Input this and this, and at the end you will get the exact number that you are to give." That would be very easy. That would make it, again, just a lot easier, but it would kind of take out the faith. It would take out the belief and why we're doing it. Paul talks about the need to listen to the Spirit in what you are to give. Don't just base it off of what you think. Your heart is sinful. Your heart is selfish. Listen to God. Pray to God. Go before Him and ask for help in discerning how much to give. And this is going to look different. It's not the same for everyone in this room. A high school senior who just got a job and they're giving is going to look different than someone who's retired in a different stage of life. A person who makes so much and another person who makes maybe a lot more, the giving is going to look different. And that is okay. And we're not here to judge other people's giving. But we are here to be obedient to God. We want to be coming before Him in prayer and saying, "God, how much do you want me to give?" And another way of saying this, too, is that question that we asked a couple weeks ago, "God, how much do you want me to keep?" So those are some questions that maybe you've been wondering about, and those are the answers that will help us. We look at this art of generosity and begin to really dive into specifically where there are things we are to give to.

I love what it says in the Word of God when He talks about in Deuteronomy, there's this concept in this ancient biblical theology practice called first fruits. And the basic idea here is that whenever we receive income, we immediately give a portion back to God. And traditionally, a lot of this has been seen as in Deuteronomy, as the Old Testament or in the life of the Israelites, that that house of God to God was seen specifically in the temple of God. And so when Jesus, when God was setting up the Israelites and He brought them out of slavery in Egypt, He's establishing them as a people group, He begins to give them some rules of life of how to live and the rhythms and practices that He wants to see in their lives. And the first of which of that He talks through is the first fruits. And so the question in this is, we give to God our first fruits with special attention to the poor, the gospel, and specifically the church. And this happens right away. This doesn't happen after we've paid all of our bills or when we finally bought everything on our wish list or we have an empty Amazon card. It happens and it's giving the first portion. It's not the leftover, it's the good stuff. It says in Deuteronomy specifically where the currency of the time was grain, it was oil, it was the things that they grew, it was even down to the shearing of their sheep. The first wool of the sheep would be given to God for the use in the temple for the Israelite people. And maybe in this, this first portion is something new for you. Maybe you've never heard of something like this before. My wife, Lauren, and I, we practice this by the first thing that we spend money when a paycheck comes in is a check to the church. It's the very first thing that we spend our money on. When it comes in, it's the first thing that goes out. And it's hard. This is really hard because you think about it, you go, "Okay, God, am I going to have enough this month?" And I'll tell you, the times where I've thought that and I've held back wasn't enough. But those times that we were faithful in our first fruits to give the first the best, there was always enough every single month. And maybe for you this is a percentage that you give, maybe it's in the tithe, maybe it's a little less, maybe a little more. But what matters, the amount that changes in situation to situation, praying about it in God, but it is the first. It is the very first. And so then the question becomes, as Andre asked this morning, it's like, "How much? How much are we supposed to give? Is there a perfect mathematical equation in Scripture?" There isn't, but we have some different Scriptures that talk about some key elements in that, and that would be, "How much do we give?" The first answer would be, "At least some." At least some. That is the starting line.

And when we look in the Scripture in Malachi 3.10, it says, "Bring the whole tithe," maybe you've heard that word before, "into the storehouse or the temple, that there may be enough food in my house." These are the words of God himself. And this word here, tithe, means masar in Hebrew, and it actually means a tenth, one tenth. And this is the ancient practice in the Israelite people of giving 10% of our income away to God. And I've heard so many conversations with this in the church. The question of, "Is it gross? Is it net? Does it have to be exactly 10%? Is this still a mandate or a prerequisite or a requirement for followers of Jesus today? Does it get divided up? Does it only go to the church? Does 10% get split how I want to see it split?" And many followers of Jesus for a very long time have found this practice of tithing as a baseline for a lifestyle of generosity. And frankly, I know some of you, you're doing some numbers in your head right now, right? You know what your paycheck is and you think about the 10% and you think, "Pastor Chris, there is no chance." You seen the cost of eggs and bananas lately? We had a sign out here that said, "How can this be the cost of living when Jesus paid it all?" We were making fun of like, "The reality of life is expensive right now, right?" And all the looming tariffs and oil refineries shutting down and everything like that, gas could be $15 in California. Like, we don't know what tomorrow is going to bring, but you know who does? And so for some of us to start our tithing journey in generosity, it may start with 1%. It may start with having to take a real hard look at what we spend our money on every single month. And we had talked about this before, it beginning to create margins. And for some of you, cutting 10% is easy. Pastor, I can give it to you right now, no problem. And I think for some of us, if you're in that boat, 10% isn't enough. And we see this baseline in scripture that this isn't the end all be all. You go, "God, I gave you my 10%, I'm good to go, I don't have to do anything else, I'm done." But for some of you, it needs to be like you're talking about faith being a risk. You got to step out in faith. There's months where I cut that child check for 10% and it's like, "That's good, it's easy." And there's other times I'm signing my name at the bottom of that check going, "God, I'm going to need you to show up. I need you to be there." Because this 90% in my math right now in my mind ain't going to happen. I've heard incredible stories of people who start working towards a 10% and maybe every year they add a percent. And so every year they get there and then they find themselves at the 10 mark and they go, "I'm not going to stop." And they continue to go on in 11 and 12 and 13 and 14. I've heard stories of people giving 80% away because all they need is 20% to live on. And like Andre said, this is going to look different for every single one of us. But what we need to do is step out in faith and trust God and what He is calling us to. There's a principle here in the New Testament when they had the early church that as their income increased, they gave more and increased their percentage of giving. The more you make, the more you're able to be generous with God.

An example of this might be something called a generosity fund, where you begin to in your budget put away 50 bucks maybe. And you have that ready to go and Lauren and Pastor Andre are going to talk about some other ways to be kind of like spontaneous generous with people. But the idea here maybe is to take 1% above your tithe and to set aside as a blessing fund just to bless people. Wouldn't that be amazing? That each and every one of us had 1% of our budget in our income just sitting around to just bless people. Man, that would be absolutely incredible.

But this takes practice. This isn't something we learn overnight. It isn't immediate. It takes time. It takes faith. It takes daily decisions. It takes risk. You have to completely change the way that we spend our money every single day, week, month, and year. That's just how it happens. And as you step further into your walk with Christ, not just in trusting Him and saying, "I trust you God in word," but trusting God through our actions and managing what He has blessed us with the way that He wants us to. For some it might be you have to start packing lunch to work. You might have to change the subscriptions you have every single month. You might have to cook more food at home. You might have to drive your paid off car rather than trading in for a new one that comes with a payment. You might have to stay where you live right now and not upsize your house or apartment. You might have to wear the same clothes that you've worn for a couple years instead of buying brand new ones, or you might need to simplify your wardrobe. You might just have to be in a season of just saying no to things because you're saying yes to generosity in God and going, "No, not yet." I'm telling myself that right now. There's a couple things I've been saving up for. I've been saving for a truck since 2018. I'm still saving. Price of trucks are going up faster than my savings. And I see them on the freeway all the time and go, "Oh, that would be sweet in one of those babies." But I know God's like, "Not yet. I need you to trust me." And so I continue to trust God. Because when we live under our income or under our means, there is capacity and margin for us to give more away. I want to be known as a person who is generous with everything that they have. Christ was ultimately generous with His life, right, on the cross for us. So we too, in turn, can be generous as well. Some of the most generous people I know are the most joyful, carefree, happy, cheerful people in the church. And I don't think it's a coincidence that it's tied to how they handle their finances. The life that Jesus calls us to is one that He promises hope, joy, peace, and freedom. And the world promises the gathering of more things, right? Just empty promises and failed promises. I want to be people who are known by their generosity and by people who change the world with what God has blessed.

All right, well, Pastor Chris covered about giving locally to the church and bringing our tithes to the storehouse. But I'm going to dive into giving to the poor. And I know we touched a lot on this last week. We talked about why we give to the poor and that we do it because one, it's an expectation of Christ's followers. It's just an expectation that we have. Two, it supports the body of Christ. When one of us is in need, someone else can meet that and that supports the body. And then three, because Christ gave to us first. And that's ultimately why we give is because we received. We were the poor that were received from Christ. And so out of that, we are generous to others. And as I said earlier, making a plan is going to be pivotal to this. I think a lot of us genuinely want to give. We want to be generous with what we've been given. But it may not just come naturally. And so I asked this last week, what is stopping you from being generous to the poor? Specifically, what is stopping you from being generous to the poor? And I hope that you took that to heart. But I really do think that I would offer that one of those reasons is that we don't have a plan for it. And so as we take this to God, as we seek Him and what He wants for us and how we choose to be generous, I would encourage you to seek Him in how you can plan for it. What does this look like? How can you divide up your generosity fund in order to include the poor in this?

First John three, 16 through 18 says, "This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need, but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth." We can express love through words, but someone is going to fully experience our love and God's love through actions. When we can actively show love through our generosity, He is going...when we meet their needs. All right. Oh, it's still going. It's a little dance break. Okay. When we meet the needs of people, the poor specifically, we are going to show God's love. Like I said, we are those conduits for Him.

So real quick, just some practical ways that you can give to the poor. And this is something you can start right away. So real quick, number one, keeping cash on hand, or maybe if that is hard for you, maybe go purchase some gift cards that you can keep gift cards on hand. Gas, groceries, fast food places, whatever you feel the need to. You get to pick the denomination, but keeping some of those in your car or your purse or your wallet that you can meet a need as you encounter it. Number two, giving to an organization consistently. Maybe you set up auto pay so you know what's coming out every month, but you can give to an organization. One that we love is World Vision, and they help people who are in poverty. They are meeting their needs. And so that is something that you can participate in by giving to an organization. Similarly, but slightly different, is sponsoring a child. There are some great organizations that connect you to a kid, usually in another part of the world, who needs help. And World Hope is one that we would recommend, and they are actually really focused on providing education and getting rid of barriers to education for children. And so when you are connected to a child, you sponsor them, you help them get what they need in order, uniforms, books, ways to get to school, all of that, you help them. Number four is donate to a local food pantry. Feeding the foothills, it was formerly Plaster Food Pantry, but feeding the foothills is a local thing that you can give to. You can even be generous with your time and serve there as well. But donating to those who are right here in Plaster County who need some extra help. And lastly, this is kind of a more fun one that I think is fun, you can do it as a family, is making everyday essentials bags. And this is just maybe a gallon-sized bag, so big if you want, but start with a gallon-sized bag, fill it with everyday essentials that someone perhaps on the street or really struggling could need. Toothpaste, toothbrush, bar of soap, washcloth, granola bars, water, a poncho, whatever the season might call for, and keep it in your car. And as you encounter someone, you don't have to give them money in that case, but you are still giving generously because you purchased those things. So do that, assemble them with your family, maybe get together with some other families and pool your resources and create these bags so that you have something really tangible that you can help meet the needs of the poor right in our area.

Again, the reality is we live in a consumeristic culture with marketing that tells us to get more when we have real needs right around us that we can meet, we can participate in that. So I want to just wrap up my time here with a verse that you are all probably pretty familiar with. Matthew 6:19-21 says, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

So far you've heard a couple places where to give your money to the church, to the poor. I'm going to end with talking about giving to the advancement of the gospel. Traditionally in the church, money has been given for the sake of spreading the gospel. Paul in the early New Testament would deny money for himself, but would accept money for helping him plant churches and spreading the gospel around the known world at the time. Today we do so in a similar way by giving to missionaries, those who are going out into the world, into the unreached places to spread the gospel. I want to spend this morning specifically highlighting an organization called Wycliffe Bible Translators. Maybe you've heard of them. They do just that in the name. They work to translate the Bible into all the languages that are needed around the world. And so a couple facts for you. As of late last year, October 2024, around the world there are 7,300 known spoken and signed languages in the world. As of last year, 980 languages begun translation for the very first time. Last year, Wycliffe was involved in 2,146 language translations. And 1.8 billion people in 103 countries are being served through active projects. Currently there is Bible translation being done in more than 4,000 languages worldwide. This is an extensive project, one that is, it takes a really long time. I don't know if any of you are bilingual, have worked on translating, but an unknown language on top of that is just work. You have to go there. You have to begin to understand. Then you have to, once you understand, the Bible as a book is a whole other thing. You have to capture the nuances, the words that are used at that time that aren't used anymore. You have to figure out how to best say that in their language. And so it is just a slow, tedious process. And on top of that, we want to make sure that the Bible is accurate, right? Accuracy is very, very important when it comes to scripture. And so again, I'll have to say that it is slow, difficult work. And really, the translation world has come a long way in the last 20 years.

A New Testament translation in 1999, it was on pace to take decades to complete a New Testament translation. And for all the languages that were known at the time, Wycliffe projected that it was going to take another 150 years for Bible translation to just start on the languages that were left that had not begun to have a Bible in their language. But from May 2019 to May 2021, a new language was being engaged every 120 hours. That's pretty quick. That's a lot faster pace than it was decades ago. And then from 2021 to 2023, a new language was engaged every 30 hours. And today, on average, a new language is engaged every 14 hours. Now engaged, you might be wondering, what does that mean? That is as simple as going to a place with a new language and just beginning to understand, engaging in their language. And oftentimes, Bible translators don't just say there, "Hey, I need words. Give me words. Help me understand." They're already introducing the gospel in different ways, maybe a VBS or teaching biblical principles once they can speak and communicate in that language. And so engaging these other cultures with these other languages, engaging scripture, a New Testament is still far, far away, but they're starting to understand the teachings of Jesus. So about Wycliffe specifically, they made a bold decision in 1999 to have a translation program in progress and that every language still needing one would have one by the year 2025. And I'll share this really quickly. That 131 countries have achieved that vision that every language in that country has a Bible, a New Testament begun, not finished, but it has begun. Forty-three countries have one remaining language. Twenty-four countries have two to five remaining languages. And 16 countries around the world still have six or more languages that need to be engaged with the Bible.

So it's a lot, but we can also praise God for the work that he's doing, that that many people are going to be hearing about God. And this stems from, I'll just read a couple of verses. Psalm 86: 9-10 says, "All the nations you have made will come and worship before God. They will bring glory to your name for you are great." Revelation 7:9 says, "And there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne of God." We are working as a church and specifically the Wycliffe organization and other translation organizations are working to see that heavenly picture come to fruition. That every person from every tribe, nation, and tongue would be there in heaven praising God. So we share all this with you today. I want to let you know that you heard a lot of different places. You can get an email at the sometime today with links to all the organizations that we mentioned. We encourage you to go click on that link. If there's one that's specifically stirring you, we know that not everyone can give to all of these things. So we encourage you to give to the church. And then if you have that margin to give elsewhere, consider maybe God's stirring you that you want to be a part of what he's doing around the world in taking care of the poor. Or maybe Bible translation really speaks to you. You want to be a part and partner with the work that is being done. You'll have an opportunity to click those links later.

So we have a really quick question that we want to ask that you guys is the last chance around tables. And so Pastor Chris. Yeah, we got two more questions. We're going to spit fire through these, but we want you to talk at your table. What is your biggest takeaway from these past few weeks on generosity? And then what next steps do you feel God is leading you towards being generous financially? So we're going to take one or two minutes around the table. Let's go real quick and share and then we'll be back to close out.

All right, I hope those conversations have been good and you we pray that God is stirring and will continue to stir in you next steps for generosity. You want to end by saying a prayer, a guided prayer for the practice of generosity. So if you've done guided prayer, you know this is if you haven't, I'm just going to lead us and you can just reflect on the words that I'm going to be praying for us. If you guys want to bow your heads right now, encourage you to listen and submit your heart. Lord, when our hearts have shrunk and are giving with them, Holy Spirit come. To the fears that restrain us and our anxiety for material things, Holy Spirit come. To our other blindness and the busyness that causes it, Holy Spirit come. That we may overflow in abundant generosity, Holy Spirit come. That our giving may transform the world, the poor, the church and us, Holy Spirit come. That we may know you greatly through the expansion of our offering, Holy Spirit come. Father, you are the embodiment of giving is better than receiving. We want to be like you. We praise and love you, honor and desire you with all our being now and forever. Amen.

Well, I'd love to send you guys out with a benediction this morning. This comes from the word of God. It says, "May God bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times you may have all that you need. May you freely scatter your gifts to the poor. May God who supplies seed for the sower and bread for food also supply and increase your store of seed and enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. May you be enriched in every single way so that you may be generous on every occasion. And may your generosity result in thanksgiving to God." Thanks for listening. And if you would, please take a moment to subscribe and leave an encouraging review to help others find our podcasts on whatever platform you are listening on. We hope you have a wonderful day. We'll catch you next week.

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 4

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 4

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

If you haven't been around or maybe you've missed a week, just a reminder we are in our Generosity series. We called it The Lost Art of Generosity and I kind of love this title. I didn't come up with that so I can say it. I really like this title because I think that generosity in our culture has gotten a little lost and it really is like an art form. It's how we give, where we give, how much we ... All of it, it plays into it and it's a very nuanced conversation. I love that we are talking about this and trying to regain this lost art. I know so many generous people. Even in our time here at Spring Valley, I've just been blown away by ... It is just a church filled with generous people. Our family just alone has been the recipients of your guys' generosity. I think that while maybe many of us are naturally generous, there are parts of this conversation that perhaps we struggle with and we could use a refresher because the reality is we live in a world that is a consumer culture. We have multi-million dollar marketing campaigns and we have influencers and we have social media and it is all about getting more. We are told that we need more, that we don't have enough. I think this whole conversation, this whole series is such a good refresher for us. As a reminder, we have gone over. The first week we talked about how there is more joy in giving than in receiving. If you have generously given, you've experienced that, that there is more joy in giving than receiving. Next week we talked about being on the lookout for greed and how in our world of telling us we need more, greed can just be so sneaky that we don't feel like we have enough and we need more. We've got to be on guard against greed. Then last week we talked about how everything we have belongs to God. It is all from Him and so therefore we can be generous because it's His anyways and He can do with it and have us in obedience do with it whatever He pleases.

If you've been here, we've had some discussion questions. We're going to circle up at our tables here and have one more discussion question. Our question for today is how has our Western culture and even the American dream impacted how we practice the art of generosity? Circle up, chat about it a little bit, share your thoughts.

I'm going to call us back together. I hope your discussions were good and fruitful. I'm actually, I mean, I'm very interested to hear what you guys came up with so come tell me after service. But one answer that I felt like I came up with for me in answer to this question was that our culture, our Western culture and even the American dream can really limit us in our generosity to the poor specifically. So that is our topic today is how and why are we generous, should we be generous to the poor? If you're like me, maybe you hear the topic of this and you're like, I mean, I know we're supposed to be generous to the poor but how are we going to have a whole sermon on this? Well, let me tell you, the Bible has a lot to say about it. Just a quick Google search on scriptures about generosity and about specifically caring for the poor were seemingly endless. I could just stand up here and just read scripture to you the whole time. I won't but I could because there's so much that the Bible and that Jesus has to say about it. Jesus encouraged generous living but he also encouraged his followers to care for the poor. But the idea of this didn't start with Jesus in the New Testament, it started in the Old Testament. If we look back on the Old Testament and when God was creating the nation of Israel, he instructed Moses to teach the people how to live generously. In Deuteronomy 15:10 it says, "Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart," it's important, "then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to." So right off the bat, he's creating the nation of Israel and he's like, "You're going to live generously." But then if you continue on in the Old Testament, there are Proverbs and Psalms and in the prophets they talk more and more about caring for the poor. I'm just going to do a little rapid fire here. Proverbs 21:13, "Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered." Proverbs 21:25, "The craving of a sluggard will be the death of him because his hands refuse to work. All day long he craves for more, but the righteous give without sparing." Proverbs 11, "Whoever brings blessing will be enriched and the one who waters will himself be watered." When we are blessing, we will be blessed. Proverbs 14, "Whoever is kind to the needy honors God." I could go on and on, we'll just stop there for now. But there's so much packed into the Word of God because God is generous. It is part of who he is. It is his heart for the widow and the orphan and the one who is in need. I think most, if not all of us, desire to be generous.

We want to have a heart of generosity, but putting it into practice, I think, can be a struggle for some of us. And if that's not a struggle for you, praise God. I love that for you. I want all of us to be like that, but I think that it can be really hard for some of us. There can be some resistance. Maybe it's because of how we grew up, maybe how we were taught about money. Maybe we have this idea of the American dream, like you pull yourself up out of your bootstraps and you earn your way and that's yours. Or maybe it's just you don't know where this money is going to go. If you give to someone on the street, you don't know how they're going to spend it. And that can be really hard for us to relinquish that control. And we have to be wise in how we give. We have to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit to be sure. But we can't let these limitations or these hindrances stop us from being obedient and giving to the poor. So whether this is a tough topic for you or not, I pray that this time together will be encouraging and it'll be a good refresher for all of us. So really our overarching question today is why should we give to the poor? I think we all kind of know this intellectually, but I want to dive deep in why specifically we as Christ followers should be giving to the poor. But before we really get into the nitty-gritty of that, we have to answer the question, who are the poor? It's the first question. Who's the poor? Who are we talking about? Who are we talking about? So let's answer that question first. Well, thankfully for us, the author of Luke, it also authored the book of Acts. And so we're going to look at Acts 4. I'm going to actually jump to verse 34. And it says, "For from time to time, those who own land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet. And it was distributed to anyone who had need." So the poor, Luke tells us, is anyone who had need. Earlier, it says that there were no needy persons among them. So it was the poor were needy persons or someone who had need. This could be just about anybody in different circumstances. But if there is anyone who has need around you, then there is work to do. As a Christ follower, we have work to do. This person who is in need could be kind of the natural person that comes to mind, maybe someone who is in a third-world country, who doesn't have access to maybe clean water or food regularly. It could be someone you've encountered maybe on a missions trip. It could be homeless or someone who is in need through seeking rehabilitation for addiction or maybe they're seeking help for an unplanned pregnancy. These can be kind of some of those people who are in need that we naturally think of. And those are. Those are the poor and the ones in need that Jesus is talking about and that the scriptures talk about. In the US, I did a little research for us, in the US, nearly 16% of children live in poverty. And food insecurity affects around 33.8 million people, including over 9 million children. That's just in the US. And we're a wealthy nation. So that's crazy to me. Globally, over 828 million people go to bed hungry every night and nearly 2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water. 2 billion people. That is a wild statistic to me.

So maybe it is those people that we think of when we think of the poor or those in need. And maybe it's someone that you are close to. Maybe it's a friend or a family member that is struggling. Maybe they're in between jobs or just got laid off and they need help paying the bills or getting some groceries and putting some food on the table. Maybe they're going through a really tough season and they could just really use a good cup of coffee and a listening ear. Maybe you have a neighbor who is elderly and physically can't care for their lawn or you could cook them a nice meal and take it to them. Because they are in need of that. They are in need all around us. And please hear me, this doesn't mean you individually have to meet every single need. But we are all called to do something. We are all called to give to the poor.

So back to our first question. We know who the poor are now, but why should we as Christ followers give to those in need? We give to those in need because one, it's an expectation of those who follow Jesus. At first I didn't really like this word expectation. I was like, oh, it feels like cringey to me. But the reality is it is. It is an expectation of those who follow Jesus. Second Corinthians 9:6-11 says, "Remember this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." There it is again. "And God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written, they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor. Their righteousness endures forever. Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, God, will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. And through us, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God." There's a lot packed in here, but what I want to focus on is that it's an expectation. It's an understanding. Paul here is writing assuming that the church, the people he's writing to, are already giving, that this is already a thing that they're doing. He says, "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart." They've already decided what they're going to give. It wasn't a matter of if, it was a matter of how much. It was already an expectation that the people of Jesus were going to live generously. They were going to give. Even though we know and we see that generosity and caring for the poor is a command in scripture, it is an expectation of God's people, it's not out of this compulsion or erode obedience. It is out of an overflow of a surrendered heart. Paul expects that the people are giving and that they're doing it with joy, that they're a cheerful giver, that they're doing it freely, not out of compulsion, and that they're doing it because of who they are in Christ. Because God is generous and we were made in His image, that was also put into us. We are made to be generous. Paul is not questioning whether we will give, just how much. He also assures us in this passage that God will provide for our needs. He will enrich us to continue the kingdom work He's already called us to do. Giving to the poor is expected and it will bring glory to God. He will take care of our needs as we live generously. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. He's not going to call us to be generous to the poor and then leave us hanging. But it's an expectation of all of us who call Jesus our Lord.

We give to those in need because it supports the body of Christ. We're going to go back to our Acts 4 passage and read a little bit longer because this is the early church. This is talking about the first church and how they lived. So I'm going to read this for us again. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet. And it was distributed to anyone who had need. The government at this time, the Roman government at this time, didn't have any sort of system in place or programs to care for the poor. And as far as I understand it, it wasn't like even on their radar. Like this was not something they were worried about or looking to solve the problem of. So it wasn't, to them, it wasn't a government responsibility or political responsibility. And so if the poor were going to be taken care of, it was going to be done by the church, by the people of God, those who follow Jesus. But the beautiful thing is that they lived in such a way that they were able to meet those needs. They didn't claim their possessions as their own. They lived in community. They served one another. They made sure everyone had what they needed. And it was by God's grace. It says God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. So it was God's grace, His all-sufficient, all-powerful grace paired with their obedient communal living where they distributed as anyone had need. And there was no needy among them. That is so wild to me that they were able to do that, that everyone had what they needed. I love this verse, though, too, because, or this section of scripture, because a lot of our reasons for not giving to the poor are addressed here. I think the main two reasons are that we have a desire for more. We want to keep for ourselves. Maybe we just want to store up for ourselves or make sure our family is provided.

Or two, it is out of fear of lack or scarcity. And so this verse, or these verses fly right in the face of that because we're not meant to just consume. We're not meant to only gain for ourselves. We are meant to share. We are meant to be generous. And we have no reason to fear because the scripture says that by God's grace, we will have all that we need. So those two arguments are null and void if we live by what the word of the God says. When we give generously to those in need, it builds up and it supports the body. It allows kingdom work to continue. Because the reality is when a part of the body is hurting or in need, the whole body is less effective. I think of like our physical bodies. When we have something that is wrong, an injury or maybe a chronic issue, I get occasionally, thankfully it's not very often, but occasionally I will get these headaches that take me out. And I need to like lay down. I need a hot pack. I need some medicine. I need some water. I need to close my eyes. And I basically become useless at parenting, at taking care of the house, at cooking. I just need a minute to lay down. And I become virtually useless because I am so focused on my current need. So when there is someone in the spiritual body of Christ who has a need, we all are crippled in a way. We become less effective. And so then when we as a church meet that need, not only are we being the church and being obedient to what God has called us to, but then we allow that person to also become effective because they no longer have that need. It has been met. And they can be effective once again for the kingdom. One statistic I read said that if all Christians, all of those that follow, claim to follow Jesus, gave 10% of their income, there would be over $1 trillion available annually to tackle global issues. That's a trill- trillion. Annually, just year over year, it would be another trillion the next year. If every Christ-following believer just gave 10%, whether that's to the local church or to an organization or a cause, to maybe sponsoring a child, whatever that looks like, gave 10%, there would be over a trillion dollars available to tackle some of these issues we talked about earlier. I'm no math whiz, but I feel like a trillion dollars would do some damage, right? Taking care of some of these people who need some water. That would be amazing. And that's not even counting the non-religious groups that are contributing to the solution of the problem. God wants us to be generous to those in need.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, we give to those in need because Christ gave to us first. One of my favorite passages in scriptures, Philippians 2, starting in verse 3, it says, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God, something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." Jesus gave up the wealth of heaven to be generous to us. He had everything at his fingertips. As the creator of the universe, he lacked nothing. And yet he came to earth, he took on human form, he humbled himself, and he gave so abundantly and so generously to us. When we operate from that truth, when we start there and operate from the fact that Jesus gave to us first, it not only compels us, but then it propels us to be generous to the poor because we were the poor. We were the ones in need. We were the ones who need saving. So we give out of love because we were loved first. I want to be clear, we don't give to the poor out of pity or some savior complex that we think we can save them or save the world that they even need saving. That's Jesus's job. We give out of love, out of compassion, out of a heart for generosity because we have a savior that loved us and came to us, that gave up the wealth of heaven for us. So maybe our question today isn't so much why should we give to the poor. Maybe the question we need to wrestle with is what's stopping me from giving to the poor generously, or giving more if that's something you already do. What is stopping me from giving to the poor more generously? I encourage you to reflect on this question this week. Talk about it with a friend or your spouse. Bring it to the Lord. Ask Him to bring up anything in your heart that is resisting this idea. Ask Him to give you a heart of generosity because we know it's clearly commanded in scripture. It's obviously an expectation of Christ's followers. We understand how it can meet practical needs and we can see how Jesus so generously gave to us first. So what is holding us back? What is stopping us? Ask the Lord to reveal that to you and to give you opportunity to serve and to give generously to those who are in need.

Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for who you are. We thank you that you were generous and loved us first and that out of that love we in turn can go be loving and generous to others. God help remind us of the gift that we have received to be so consumed with gratefulness for it that we turn around and in turn out of a surrendered heart to you we go and we give to anyone who has need. Help us to trust you. Help us to be courageous in this and be trusting you in this and guide us in where and how and how much you want us to give, Lord. We praise you for who you are in your name. Amen.

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 3

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 3

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are continuing in our generosity series. And again, our prayer is that through this series and the work of the Spirit, in your lives you begin to discover the joy of generosity. Not just the good feeling of giving something away, but truly the joy that comes from partaking in the inner life of God, as the God that we serve is the most generous God. In previous weeks, just a reminder that in this series and all that we're covering of generosity, each week is kind of like a spoke in the wheel. And it's important, it helps support this whole practice of generosity. And so, so far what we've covered is that there's more joy in giving than in receiving. Last week Pastor Chris talked about the need to watch out for greed. And he emphasized contentment and what we already have.

And today we're going to ask the next natural question, which is, how will we use what we have? And in answering that question, we want to look at the Bible to see what it says about what we have, because how we view all that belongs to us has a direct correlation with how we use that, how we use what is ours. So there's this truth that's woven throughout Scripture from the very beginning in Genesis that says that everything in the world belongs to God, and we are stewards of all that he puts into it. It's from the very beginning, all throughout Scripture, everything in the world belongs to him, and we are stewards of all that he has put into it. Now if you have been in the church, you've probably heard something like this before, it's not necessarily new. But sometimes we go amiss at that second part. The first part we recognize, it's easy, God is the maker, creator, yes, give him all the credit for that. But our role as stewards can easily be forgotten. We can view ourselves in a way that God never intended us to view ourselves. God reminds us often in the Old Testament that he is the creator, and that he made the whole world, and that it is his. And then Jesus comes along in the New Testament and still has a lot to say about this. And so this is reflected in what we know of Jesus' teaching, that 25% of Jesus' teachings are on money and generosity, and that just a little bit less than 50% of his parables specifically are on stewardship. So we're going to take a look at one of those parables today.

We’re going to be in Luke 12, verses 35 through 48, and in this chapter, in the middle of this chapter, which is one of the longest sections of Jesus' teachings in the Gospels, there's a verse that you might be familiar with. It says in verse 33, "Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." And these truths, these teachings are bookended by two parables. The parable of the rich young fool about a man who builds bigger storehouses to hoard all of his stuff, and a second parable, the parable of the faithful servant. And these two are parables of a compare-contrast teaching method of Jesus, helping us to understand his point of generosity. The first is a negative story, a rich young man who is evil and hoards everything that he has. The second is a positive story of a servant who serves a good master. We're going to look at that second teaching this morning. So if you're in your Bibles, you can follow along on the screen. Verse 35 says this, "Be dressed, ready for service, and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks, they can immediately open the door for him." The disciples of Jesus, Jesus saying that the disciples of Jesus are to be like servants of a wealthy aristocrat, but with a twist. Verse 37 says this, "It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly, I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will help them recline at the table, and will come and wait on them." Do we notice this part about Jesus, who is, or God, who is the master serving the servants? This is that upside down part of Jesus's kingdom. The master takes the role of the servant, and this is Jesus's vision of God. God is like a rich, generous master who takes the place of a servant to his servants and lets them recline at the table and serves them. Verse 38 says, "It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even when he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. But understand this, if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You must also be ready, because the Son of Man will come in an hour when you do not expect him." These verses express the importance of living a life of obedience to God, living righteously, not just when being watched, not just when we know we will be judged, but all the time. In the midst of our larger conversation with generosity, it's about practicing generosity with integrity. You don't know when Jesus is returning, and so the point is we must be ready at all times. And we shouldn't hear that in a way that we just get tired of like, "Man, that's so much effort. We have to be ready all the time." We should hear that and say, "All right, that's my reason. I don't know when, so I am just going to be ready all the time. That's just the life that I have to live." Let me come to verse 42. Peter asks, basically, "God, what are you talking about? Jesus, I don't understand." So Jesus says in verse 42, "If the servant does a good job stewarding his master's house, God the master..." Oh, sorry, I've been reading my own notes. Verse 42, let me read God's words first. "The Lord answered, 'Who then is the faithful and wise manager whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. Truly, I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. So if the servant does a good job stewarding his master's house, God the master will give him even more.’"

Now an important piece to understand is that of the crowd listening to Jesus at this time, the majority of them would have been people who are servants, considered servants, hired work. They do not have estates of their own. They are on the other end of this parable, working for people. And that's sometimes different than how we read this. We read this in our cultural Western mindset as principal owners of a lot of things. And so we read this often and say, "I got to take care of my stuff." We put ourself in the shoe of the master sometimes. But Jesus would have been speaking to those who clearly understood they were the servants in this parable. We'll get to that more in a second. Verse 45 says, "But suppose the servant says to himself, 'My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of the servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, and in the hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him in a place with the unbelievers." That sounds very harsh. But the point is, to be wasting this time, to be acting selfishly, to assume the role of the master leads to a terrible ending.

Two things. First, the servant and the role of the master is not what the servant should be doing. The servant makes for a bad master. I think this speaks perfectly to situations where in life we try to be like God. Because of our sin nature, we will end up hurting people, causing pain and division, showing favor to some but judging and hating others. We were not meant to be in the role of God, the role of the master. And secondly, again, our motivation shouldn't be to try to earn something, but to live righteously when we think—or it shouldn't be to try to earn something or to only live righteously when we think it matters. Because, again, knowing the end date, we will never know that end date. We don't know when Jesus is coming back. And so we need to be serving God all the time, partnering with his kingdom, and participating in this inner life of God 24/7. Verse 47 says this, "The servant who knows the master's will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded. And from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." I think that last verse is so important. From everyone who has been given much, much more will be demanded. And from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. This radical idea that Jesus is talking about in this passage is this idea of stewardship. I want to give us a definition this morning that we can take with us. This idea of stewardship is this. The active and responsible management of God's creation for God's purposes. This call to stewardship was just as radical in Jesus's day as it is for us today. And if you picked up on it, this parable that we read is similar to other parables in scripture about stewardship.

And so from these parables and from the one this morning, we can surmise a few things about stewardship. Number one, three components. Number one is that God is the Lord of the world. Three components, number one is that God owns it all. In Jesus's day, there were primarily two different views of wealth. Non-ownership, it is no one's. This was evident in Plato's Republic, this mythical utopian society where the rulers owned nothing. Also in a more common day example would be the indigenous peoples of America also held this view. It is no one's. The other view is ownership, absolute authority. This was the Roman view at the time and the dominant view of our culture today. If you own something, you have 100% authority to do whatever you want with it. It is yours. The view of scripture is neither of these, but instead a third way. Stewardship, caretakers, that active and responsible management of God's creation for God's purposes. God is the owner. We are the caretakers. We see this all the way at the beginning in Genesis 1 where God creates everything. He makes a garden. And in Genesis 2, 15 says, "The Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work and take care of it." So from the very beginning, God is setting this tone that it's mine. You're helping me take care of what is mine. The theme of caretaking again is all throughout scripture. I'm going to hit you with a couple of verses really quick. Leviticus 25, 23 says, "The land must not be sold permanently because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers." Deuteronomy 10, 14, "To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it." Psalm 50 verses 10 through 12, "For every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains and the insects in the fields are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you for the world is mine and all that is in it." These are just a few after the tens and tens and tens of verses in the Bible that God is saying, "It's mine. I created it. I am the creator." This idea in the library of scripture right up until Jesus' teachings in Luke 12 is that God owns it all. And again, as I was preparing this sermon, I was thinking it's very easy for us to acknowledge that God is the creator of everything. We have a harder time remembering and acknowledging that everything in creation still belongs to Him. I think we often just get this idea that God created it and kind of took a step back and let humanity take over. That's what happened, but that's not what God intended. We tend to view things as given to us, that we have 100% authority over what has been given to us. And again, that's not the view of scripture. We are caretakers, not owners, as is our second point.

Number two, we are entrusted by God with His resources to do good. God has entrusted you and me with what He has, and we are to take care of it. John Mark Comer, who's the pastor and author, whose content much of our sermon series is based off of, he says this, "We live often with the assumption that whatever money we receive from our jobs or an inheritance, we are free to spend in whatever way we want to consume that money in whatever way we choose, but scripture says otherwise." When I was a kid, maybe late elementary, early junior high, my parents, along with some other family friends, there's a bunch of us families that took this financial class for kids taught by a very well-known Christian financial guru. And it was extremely helpful. It helped instill the idea of like, "stay, spend, give." But one of those takeaways that I, from that and for many years, what I understood was that 10% was God's and the rest was mine. I do my tithe, God wants me to do that, and the rest of it, I get to choose what I want to do with my money. I think that it took a long time, by the way, for that to not be true of, to unpack that. All of it belongs to God. Evidence of the fact that we think like this is that many of us live above our income. Our expenses are higher than the money that we take in. We should be living with some breathing room in our budget to practice generosity and to live at peace without the stress of trying to make things and to try to thread this needle of our finances. This idea of living with breathing room is kind of a radical idea, and that may mean for those living with just a little by the world standards, that you may need to live with even less so you too can have breathing room to be generous, to practice giving. We don't often realize that not all of our money is for us. Some of it is for us to live, to put food on the table, to pay bills, to enjoy life. I don't want to preach this and you think that there is no joy in life. I cannot afford a happy life anymore. No. 1 Timothy 6, 17 says, "Those who put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." God wants us to have joy in life. He is not a stingy investor, but a generous father. However, not all of the money that we receive is for us to spend on ourselves. Some of it is to live, some of it is to give to the church, to the gospel, to the poor, and some of it is to build a business or a family. But we are entrusted by God to put every dollar to the right place. We are stewards.

The third point about stewardship is this. God blesses us not just to have more, but to give more. Those who steward well are given more, to keep doing what they are doing. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 9, verses 8, he says, "And God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written, they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor. Their righteousness endures forever. Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. And through us, your generosity will result in the thanksgiving to God." I love that Paul hits the nail on the head over and over again. I love that last part. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. You need to hear that to understand why God is blessing us. This is such an important factor of God's heart of generosity. It's not for us to have more, but for us to continue to give more. I want to take a moment to address something known as the prosperity gospel, a uniquely cultural Western belief, by the way, and it's a fallacy because we hear Paul's words, and some of us may think, "Oh, if I give, then I get more in return." And all of a sudden, the mind starts turning and you're like, "Oh, well, this is great. I know how to make more money." And this is the prosperity gospel. Again, a false gospel. At its most radical, it is the belief that you give to get. If you give to God, he will give more back to you. And if you do this, and that is our goal to increase our profit in a way from God, it means that ultimately our motivation is greed and selfishness. Now, what makes the prosperity gospel so difficult is that it's not based on a complete lie. It's based on a half truth. When we are good stewards, God often does give us more. But the purpose is, again, is not to make us rich, but to make us more generous. Randy Elkhorn, who's an author and kind of an expert on biblical generosity, in his book, The Giving is the Good Life, he writes this, "God blesses us to raise our standard of giving, not our standard of living." That's hard to hear. That's not very American. That's not very Western, where we are always striving to do more, to get more for ourselves, for us, for our future. This is pretty radical to think that God's giving me more to give more. I want to take this one step farther. The question is less, how much do I give? And it's more, how much should I keep for myself? Do we see the change there? The heart posture that's changed? The mindset is still focused on stewarding, not about hoarding and about greed, but about contentment and joyful living. This is the way of scripture.

Usually, when it comes to money, there are two camps. There are savers and spenders. And maybe in your marriage or your couple, you kind of know, like, "Well, I know this person is this, and I'm the one that's trying to keep us on track." Or maybe you're the other person who's like, "Man, I always want to just feel they won't let me give what I want to give and buy what I want to buy." But savers and spenders, savers are often motivated by fear, spenders motivated by greed. And in the middle is what God has called us to, is a steward, one who is acting to channel God's resources for good, motivated by God's love and generosity. And being a steward leads us to ask a bunch of questions about what it means to be a good steward. How much do I tithe? How much do I keep? How much should I give away? What's an appropriate standard of living? What's that line between enjoying life and wasting money on luxuries? What kind of car should I drive? How many clothes should I have? You get the point. The list goes on and on. And these are the right questions to be asking, to be wrestling with. The New Testament doesn't spell it out for us, but leads us to practice discernment. And we should be constantly asking God, "God, what do you want me to do with what you have given me?" And depending on the Holy Spirit to guide us and provide these answers. A great example of this is John Wesley, the very John Wesley who our doctrine and church are based off of. He practiced what is now called a lifestyle cap. Early on in his ministry, he prayed and discerned that God wanted him, led him to a number, and he said, "I'm going to live off of only 28 pounds a year." Now, this was in the 17th century. Yeah, not today. And apparently in his lifetime, there was no, hardly any inflation. So by the end of his life, it was only up to 30 pounds. That was the new number that he had come to. And so anything over that that he made, he made a promise to God, "I'm going to give that away." In his first year, he made 30, so he gave two pounds away. In his second year, he made 60 pounds, so he gave 32 pounds away. Then it was 90 and then 120. At the peak of his ministry, he was making 1400 pounds a year. And living off of 28, he gave the rest of it away. He said, "This is all I need to live. The rest God has given me so that I can give to others." Now, that's an incredible model and a testimony of giving. And it's radical. I really cannot comprehend. I don't know anyone who does that. And I think that is just, that'd be hard. I'll be honest. I don't know if I could do that. But he came up with this saying, "Gain all you can, save all you can, and give all you can." He lived the radical life of generosity. All right. Now, I want to shift gears a bit. I know that you're thinking, "Hey, we got away with not answering a question today around tables." Well, it's happening now. I want you guys, there's a prompt on the screen. After we've heard our message and heard God's word, here's our question that you guys can have five minutes to discuss around tables. It says, "What emotions surface in you as you consider Jesus' parable of the faithful and wise manager? And how does it encourage you? And how does it challenge you?" Why don't you guys go ahead, five minutes, I'll gather us back up, and you're done.

I hope that your conversations were encouraging and thought-provoking. And if there is a lot stirring, that's a good thing. That means that God is working your heart and maybe convicting in some areas that need to be just thought over. And so, continue to pray for each other. I want to end with six giving encouragement. These are really quick. I know you hear six and you're like, "This should be over really quickly." These are from Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. These are six things about giving and maybe tithing specifically, all right?

Number one is that tithing should be regular. First Corinthians 16 verse two says, "On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income." So Paul speaks to the regularity. It shouldn't be sporadic. It should be regular.

Number two, it should be proportional. In that same verse, "Each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income." Meaning, the more money you make, the greater percentage you should give. The general principle is the more you make, the more you give.

Number three, it should be sacrificial. Second Corinthians eight verse two, it says, "In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty weld up in rich generosity." Guys it should hurt to give. Pastor Lauren and I were talking about this at the beginning of Youth Group this past week. Just talking about how more often we are prone to give only when we have extra because it doesn't hurt us that much. We're like, "Well, I already have this. I already have what I need, so now I can give." And it's just like, "Oh, it doesn't hurt." But we, again, in the cultural West are adverse to pain and things that hurt us, so this is uncomfortable. It goes against the values that we have inherited, like take care of yourself and then take care of others. No, Jesus says to give even when it hurts. There should regularly be things that we may not buy in order to have enough to give to someone else, in order to give and be generous.

Number four, it should be voluntary. Second Corinthians nine verse seven says, "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion." There shouldn't be a guilt trip about giving, but we have to pray about what is in our heart. And hopefully there's a desire because there's, again, this desire to be generous like God is generous.

Number five from second Corinthians nine verse seven says, "For God loves a cheerful giver." We're to give joyfully. It should be a joy to give and the joy that we have should outweigh the pain. It's going to hurt a little bit, but the joy of giving should be greater than the pain. It should be joy in participating in the inner life of God and being generous like he is and knowing that we are honoring him and worshiping him in how we give.

And then lastly, number six, it should be motivated by apprenticeship to Jesus. Second Corinthians eight verse nine, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." It's being like Jesus. He modeled it for us in the most ultimate sacrificial way and we should be willing to do so on much lesser grounds and lesser means. Giving is not a religious duty. It's a part of following Jesus and being an apprentice to his way of life. I'll let you know that our elders, our staff, we are praying for more givers in our church. Not givers out of obligation and not because we just want the money, but because it's evidence of people who are being transformed by God, who God is working in them and pulling them to be more like him. That's what we are praying for. So while these are guidelines, these six things are guidelines to follow because there isn't a spreadsheet. How nice would it be to open up your Bible and just to see your number of income and be like, "All right, God wants me to do exactly this. Here's how much I'm supposed to give exactly, and here's how much to give to this, this, and this." No, we don't have that. The Bible doesn't give that, but he gives guidelines. And again, we are meant to be praying, constantly praying, coming before God and asking, "Father, thank you for these resources. What do you want me to do with them?”

I want to ask, do you do this? Do you listen to God about your money? We took a survey right now. You don't have to answer out loud. Don't raise your hands, but which one would you be? First, I do not listen to God. I listen to God, but not about money and generosity, or I listen to God about my money and generosity. Keep that up there for just a second. I think if we're honest, many of us are that second option. I listen to God, but not about money or generosity. We're scared of what he may say, because we're still believing the myth that more money equals more happiness. And if God is asking us to give away our money, he's asking us to give away that source of happiness in our lives, and we don't like that. And so we're just like, "God, I'd rather not ask. I'm just going to do my thing. I hope I'm going to be in obedience to you. I'm going to do my 10 percent." But we don't necessarily have this active conversation with God. We don't yet believe that God is an abundantly generous Father, which is why Jesus says in Luke 12, verse 32, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom." Just as Pastor Chris preached last week, it's worth repeating, because we need to hear this so badly. He has given us everything that we need. Everything. Not what the world says we need, but everything that we truly need, God has given us. And it can be found in him. Let me close with just a few more words from John Mark Conroy. It says, "God is not a stingy investor out to maximize his profit margins, but he is a loving Father who wants to bless you and form you into a daughter or son who is like he is, full of generosity and joy." So this week, I want to challenge you. Take time to radically rethink your relationship with your resources and your money, not as an owner, not as a non-owner, but as a caretaker, as a steward of what God has given you. And begin this lifelong journey of listening to the call of our generous Heavenly Father and where he might be wanting you to give and partake with him in a generous life.

Let's pray. God, thank you again for your word. And thank you for this call to be radically different because the world needs it. And we know that we have been called to be partners with you, participating in your ministry, God, in your kingdom. And we pray that you would help us to reevaluate our relationship with what you have given us. Help us in our hearts and minds to have this shift of seeing ourselves as stewards, that you have given us something and we are to care for it in the best way. Maybe spending some of it for ourselves, maybe keeping some of it to build our family, our businesses, and then also to give. You have given us things to give away. God, I pray that through your spirit, you would help us to see clearly opportunities this week to be generous with our time, with our money, with our relationships, with our influence, with whatever you have given us. I pray that you would put in front of us opportunities to give it away and that we would feel joy in that, God. True joy. Yes, it will hurt. Yes, we're going to say, "Oh, you know what? I was saving that for this," or, "I could really use that." But God, I pray that you would help us to feel the joy of when we participate in being generous like you and giving it to those who need it. We trust you, God. We love you. We pray this in your name. Amen.

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 2

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 2

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are in week two of our Lost Art of Generosity series and I hope you guys enjoyed last week and some discussion around the table. We're going to have a little bit more today as part of the service today. But last week, Pastor Andre opened up our series talking about some words directly from Jesus himself. Specifically talking about how there's more joy in giving than in receiving. And that the foundation of a life of generosity is this idea that the more that we have that we give away, the greater our life becomes. And this is totally counterintuitive to life, right? While generosity is more than just giving our money, it is actually not less. And that we ourselves, as it says in scripture, we are created in the image of God and God is a happy, a joyful, a generous God. And when we practice generosity, we are actually living life according to the design and we tap into the joy of God himself. It says in Acts 20 35 that there is more happiness in giving than in receiving. And there's an author, Randy Alcorn, that we'll talk about through this series. He says that giving is the good life. And Jesus has an invitation for us in our hearts to kind of watch out, to be careful how we have our natural desires. Because when we truly begin to slow down and simplify the parts of our lives, it's all in a manner of creating margin to live a life of generosity. And Pastor Andre last week, he challenged us to think about a very simple, maybe small act of generosity that we could take before today. Maybe it was to pay for someone else's coffee, to maybe put $5 in our pocket and to pray every single day, "God, where do you want this $5 to go?" Or maybe it was the gift of someone of our time to maybe sit down and have a conversation, to have an act of service towards them or serve somebody in a practical way. Around our tables this morning, I got two questions for us that I want you to talk about. The first of which is, what challenges do people face when thinking about generosity? What are some of those challenges that maybe personally we feel or you see in other people? And then what new ideas of generosity have been growing in you this past week as we begin our series? So we're gonna play some just quiet music in the background, take about three minutes or so, begin to discuss around the tables those two questions.

I love, I was kind of overhearing some of the conversation in the room, but just give a shout out from your table. What were some of the things you guys talked about that are some of the challenges or things that really kind of things that people face when thinking about generosity? Not having enough. Not having enough. Yeah. Selfishness. Ooh yeah. Oh co-dependency, yeah okay yeah yeah. What else? What other challenges? Fear. Yeah absolutely 100%. What else? What other what other challenges? Anything else from your table? Control. Giving up control? Okay yeah yeah. You give up control? Okay yeah yeah. You give it away and then you just don't know what's gonna happen with it after that. Yeah that's fair that's fair. What other things that your table kind of popped up? Oh there you go. Getting people to accept the help. Okay. Yeah so you don't know whether it's it's where your money is going if or whatever it is is really going towards the the cause that they say it's going to. Yeah that's good. Yeah those are definitely some really real challenges when thinking about generosity. Anybody have any ideas of of new ways you're thinking of generosity maybe this week as we started the series? Is anybody able to do like the five dollar thing or pay for somebody's coffee and do anything give anything away this week? Time? Okay awesome. Yeah we had this week we actually had someone come come by the church and ask for some gas money and and for us here in Rocklin that happens maybe six months or so. And got to have a good conversation with a gentleman and you know it's it's interesting with those things where it's like begin to have kind of put in our mind and then God brings an opportunity by our way and we're like okay and honestly we what we tend to do here is we tend to have gift cards to Safeway down the street so they can get groceries or diapers or and what's nice is they have a gas station there too. But we were actually out all out of those. And so we ended up just handing over some cash and some of those real fears of like, is the guy really going to go buy gas? Does he need something like what is he going to go spend it on? But it was one of those things it's like God was like no, you need to be generous. You need to trust him and trust that he's listening to God in that. And so a very real practical way. We as a church are actually because of you guys are actually able to bless somebody this week.

And so have you ever been talking with someone about something specific? Maybe it's some new shoes or clothes or a kitchen gadget and new video game. Maybe it's something to do with your favorite hobby. Maybe something about Mother's Day coming up. Guys, one week warning, heads up. All right. Can't say I didn't tell you. But maybe it was a trip you want to take or something else that you want to buy. You remember having those conversations? I had one of these this couple weeks ago. I was meeting with my spiritual director, my shepherd, and we were talking about what we were doing this summer. And Lauren and I are a 17 year anniversary is coming up the end of this month. And yeah, we're excited about it. We're excited. And so we were talking about where we wanted to go. Maybe we wanted to take a flight somewhere or travel out of town. Maybe go to Tahoe. We weren't sure. And I'm having this conversation with my friend and all of a sudden literally a pop up notification on my phone. Southwest is having a early summer sale. And I was like, God, are you listening? Siri, are you listening? Like what's going on here? But it's just like this creepy moment just like what is happening? We didn't book any flights with Southwest. It was a little too creepy for us.

But experts say on average, we look at and we are exposed to and put in front of us three to five thousand ads every single day. That's just daily. That's not a week. That's not a month. That is daily we see that. And all of these are designed not for our rational brain because consumerism isn't rational at all. But all of these ads, they're amplified. They have all these algorithms. They spend billions of dollars every single year on advertising. And let me tell you, the executives of these businesses, they're no dummies. They don't spend this money if it's not working. But the reality is that all of these are designed to data mine our deepest fears, our insecurities, our questions, our hopes, our dreams. All by watching what we do and listening to us right from our pocket. A Harvard professor calls this the surveillance capitalism. But even before the era of digital manipulation, the human heart has long been prone to believe the myth of more. See that lie that just if we had a teeny bit more, then we would be happy. But the truth is, and it cuts across the spectrum of the entire human experience, no matter how much we get, it's never enough. No matter how much we possess, it's never enough.

And the writers of Ecclesiastes were very wise when they said this, "Whoever loves money never has enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income." See, the fact is that the more we get, the more that we want. Not just the reality. John D. Rockefeller, the oil tycoon, the first billionaire in the entire world, was famously asked, "How much money is enough?" And he responded with, "Just a little bit more." Psychologists actually call this the hadronic treadmill. The fact that desire only begets more desire and more desire and more desire, and it's like you are literally on a treadmill of life running and walking and chasing after something, but never arriving. Chasing the carrot at the end of the stick. But even worse, the more that we get, honestly, the more neurotic we actually become. And this is the encounter intuitive side of Jesus that really begins to stretch us and challenge our thinking because we think that money will make us happy. But often, not only does it not make us happy, it makes us even less happy than we were before. We become more anxious. We become more distracted. We become more discontent. We become more lonely. And as a result of us living here in the West in a very affluent generation of human history, many of us are wracked daily by fear, worry, greed, and unsatisfied desire.

And it comes to no surprise that the majority of Jesus' teaching on money are warnings about the danger of it. I want to look at a couple examples this morning. Jesus in Luke 12 says this. He says, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed." Greed is really similar to lust, but it's for things. It's this insatiable desire for the more that we have, the more that we need. And Jesus, He was right. There are all kinds of greed. There's more crass things of greed. A bigger house, a bigger TV, a bigger, faster, nicer car. Those bigger, better things that we're always chasing. But there's also a more bespoke type of greed. A greed for exotic travel. Maybe it's for eating out. Maybe it's for boutique fashion. Maybe it's for rare possessions. And we're all vulnerable to some level of greed. Hence why Jesus here says, "Watch out!" But why? Why is greed so bad and dangerous? Well, the next line from Jesus' word says this in Luke. It says, "Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." It's just not where the good life is found. But not only that wealth can be dangerous, let's look at this next thing that Jesus says in Mark chapter 4. He said, "Some people like seeds sown among thorns hear the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, the desire for other things, come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful." Notice Jesus' language here. He says, "The deceitfulness of wealth." He doesn't say that wealth is evil, but rather it is deceitful. But why is that? Well, it promises what it cannot give. So wealth does. It says it will give you happiness, contentment, an identity, a false sense of safety and security. We all fall for the lie. Can we be honest here? We fall for that lie again and again and again and again. And yet this desire for wealth is often what is keeping us from the good life. Jesus continues in Matthew 19. He says, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." Again, I tell you, He's got to say this twice because it's so hard for us to understand. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." So notice here that Jesus has to say it twice, right? It's so hard for us to comprehend or we so quickly forget it, right? That here wealth is actually an obstacle to the good life, not the path to the good life. But what I want you to hear here is Jesus saying it isn't impossible. It's possible to follow Jesus into the kingdom of God and carry wealth with you. But it is very hard to do. And we love to think to be, "I'm going to be the first one to do it, Jesus." "All those who have come before me did not have the faith and the relationship that I had with you, God. I can carry the heavy burden of wealth. Please bestow it upon me.”

But the reality is Jesus' warning is haunting. The financial success can equal spiritual failure. See, this is an idea that you rarely hear in society today, right? But it's profoundly biblical. Which is probably why the weight of Jesus' teachings are so focused and against and warning to greed. The thing about it is that very few of us think we're greedy, right? As a pastor, I've had, oh man, I've had people confess things to me. Whether it was abortion, whether it was adultery, pornography, all sorts of addictions, abuse. But I've never had anyone come to me and confess greed. Just never have. And we tend to unconsciously adopt the standard cultural norms of our day, right? We live in one of the most greedy materialistic cultures in history. Hence, we often, like the story of the frog in the water, we don't even realize what greed is doing to our soul. And in this series and in this thought of figuring out the lost art of generosity, our pastors, we were thinking about, could there be a way of Jesus that could set our hearts free from greed and form us into the people that Jesus so desperately and deeply wants us to be and happy and at peace. And yes, there is. It's the rhythm and the practice and the lost art of generosity. Jesus says this to the Pharisees in Luke 19. He says, "You Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness." See, wickedness is more of like a generic term, but greed is very specific. It's the one sin that Jesus calls out by name is greed right here. And then he says this, he continues on, "But now for what is inside you, that greed, that foul just ugh, ruining of your heart, but rather be generous to the poor and everything will be clean for you." If there was a silver bullet to greed, it would be generosity. And yes, it is true, the more we get, the more that we want. But the opposite or the inverse is actually also true. See, the more that we give, the more happy and at peace we actually become. The word here used by biblical scholars that would talk about this inner satisfaction would be the word contentment. Contentment. It's one of those most underrated virtues in the entire world. That if greed is this unsatisfied desire being wracked by want of more and more, contentment is the actual opposite. It is being deeply happy and grateful for what you have. It's being free from the desire for more. It is this way of living our lives with a heavenly perspective that frees us up and allows us to live without the weight on our shoulders.

Turn with me or flip or tap or whatever to 1 Timothy chapter 6 is where we're going to be for the majority of this morning. But I love what it says here talking about contentment. And it brings all of this stuff together. It says as Paul is echoing Jesus, so Paul isn't saying something different. He's echoing Jesus, but he's also giving us this idea and alternate pathway towards happiness. It says this in Timothy 6. Godliness with contentment is great gain. What does he mean by this? What he means is that true wealth is not having a lot. It is being happy in God and content with what you have. I've heard a wise person say this once. They said, "I may not have a lot of money, but I am rich all of the time." This is the idea of contentment. It continues on in 1 Timothy, "For we brought nothing into the world and we take nothing out of it." As the saying goes, you can't take it with you. A lot of people have tried. Wealth is temporary. Either you lose it all the day you die or you lose it all way before that point. It continues on in verse 8, "But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." What does it mean by that? Well, the Greek word here for that word clothing actually translates to covering. So the idea is here, if we have food, we have clothing, we have shelter, and as long as we got God and each other, that's enough. There's no need for anything more than that. But he continues on. It says, "Those who want to get rich," or maybe translate this way, "Those who set their hearts on being wealthy, those who long to be rich, those who desire with their hearts on being wealthy, fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." This line is often misquoted, but if you read here, you pay attention to the love of money is the root of all evil that everybody says. The love of money is the root of all evil. No, no, no. That's not what the Bible says. The NIV translation here actually is really, really excellent. It says, "The love of money is a root, a root of all kinds of evil," meaning it's the evil underneath so many of the evils in our soul and society. Money itself is not evil. It's just not. It can do great good, absolutely, but it can also do great evil. And when I think of power of generosity, I think of a business in which to make the world an absolutely better place.

But at the same time, money isn't neutral either. It's very powerful. I think of nuclear power or nuclear energy. It can bring life or death. And it's very hard to steward this level of power well. I think of money like Frodo's Ring in Tolkien's classic Lord of the Rings, right? You guys have seen those series. I think of it and the idea that only the purest of hearts stand a chance at not being corrupted by its power. The whole movie series, all 300 hours of it, are all about the struggle to end the Ring, right? They do flashbacks to years before when kings wielded it and destroyed half the earth, and then it was gone and lost and hidden forever and then found again. And the whole journey of the fight to be able to figure out what to do with this powerful ring. And I think that's for us with money. That even then sometimes it's not a blessing as much as a burden to our soul, and it tends to deform our inner person. That money-love is far more dangerous than any of us realize. This is what it says in the next verse. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Another way it's been translated, pierced themselves with many pains, have wounded themselves with many sorrows, caused themselves untold agonies of mind. In my life here on earth, whether you have more years than me and say I haven't been here very long or you have younger years than me saying you are super old, I've seen a lot of people gain wealth over the years. And I've seen what it does to their hearts and to their lives. And my experience is that the warning of Jesus and the scriptures are incredibly, incredibly true. Not only does money make most people happy, but it often is the root of all kinds of evil.

So what's Paul's solution to all of this and the problem of greed? Contentment. The writer Randy Alcorn defines contentment as being satisfied in who's you are, who you are, and what you have. Those who love and serve Jesus can be truly content, but those who love and serve money can never be. To be content is to realize you have enough. But even more so is be happy with what you have been blessed with. See, my problem is, you guys probably don't struggle with this, is that I think I'll be content when I get a raise or when I buy that home or when I get through just this season of life. Then I'll be content. But that's not how contentment works. It's not. The truth is, though, but we can be happy here and now through practicing the lost art of generosity. See, there's, I see this as two facets of this discipline, kind of maybe like two sides of a coin. The first of which is going to be the most obvious one. So if we have generosity, the first side would be to give. To give our resources away. Which we're going to talk about this more later, but the reality is this isn't ours in the first place. It's solely God, and so we freely share. Giving is like God's antidote to greed. It's like the prescription to fix the greed in our lives. And the more that we give away, the less control that money actually has over our hearts. The other side of that is to simplify our life. To edit down everything to the essentials of what really matters. And see, both sides are critical. J.K. Chesterton famously said this, "There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less." Paul puts it this way, that there's two ways to be rich. Earn more or want less. That's it. I think the second one, want less, is a little bit easier to attain in life.

But the discipline of pursuit of less has at times been called simplicity or simple living. Or in the Christian tradition, different words. Or maybe you've heard the secular term minimalism. But there's so much more to be said about simplicity. First, I want to get this straight. Simplicity is not the same thing as poverty. Sometimes we just throw the baby out with the bathwater and go, "I'm just going to be poor." But I don't think that's how God wants us to live our lives. Because if you're poor, you don't have anything to give away, right? But the reality is that the definition of simplicity is this. Limiting the number of our possessions, expenses, activities, and social obligations is a level where we are free to live joyfully and generously in the kingdom with Jesus. And it reframes the question of, "What else can I get?" Framing it into the question of, "What can I do without?" Thinking in our mindset. And see, this question only makes sense inside of a worldview like that of Jesus. See, the reality is, to live a generous life, we need to have margin. We need to have margin in our finances so we have budget in the room to share. We need to have margin in our schedule for rooms for interruptions from people who need us, for times for rest, for times of delight in the Lord. We need margin in our relationships. But see, the problem is most of us live at overcapacity, not under capacity. See, for Jesus, or for us who are apprentices of Jesus, disciples of Jesus, we should live our lives where the people should look at us and how we spend our money, and they should assume we actually make less money than we do. This is really hard. Imagine this, if you would with me, I'll put this on the screen, of a line of our income and our expenses and a level of indebtedness. Most of us in the world around us, this is reality, we live above that debt line. We're maxing out our capacity. Jesus calls us to actually live underneath that level, in the bottom. Because in the area above, we find ourselves with anxiety, with misery, with stress, with worry. But when we live below that line, we find contentment. We can live out generosity. We find joy and happiness. And this is the exact opposite of our culture.

We live in California, we live in a very affluent area in California, but the reality is when people drive in the luxury cars, living in the giant homes, living in their lifestyle with their clothes, everything like that, they are still living paycheck to paycheck, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. And I don't see how this is the way that Jesus calls us to live our lives, to just live the opposite. Did you get what Paul said there? He said, "We will be content." The Greek word here, content, implies a resolve of the heart, that we will not give into greed, but be happy with what we have. There will come a time in your life where you will have to draw a line in the sand and say, "Enough is enough. I don't need any more." But here's the hard part. This practice looks different for all of us. And it will look different based upon your stage in life, based upon your income level, whether or not you have children or dependents. You may be struggling to put food on the table, but Jesus' warnings about greed are not just for the rich. It is a call for all of us to be content in what we have.

I love what it says in Hebrews, we're going to close out, it said, "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have." Keep your heart free. See, our heart is like a GPS. I think we've all used GPS on our phone before, right? We can pull that up and the world tells us, "Just follow your heart's desire." But that's like opening up Google Maps and just driving. We'll just go wherever, right? There's no direction, there's no final destination, there's no place that we're trying to head towards. We're just out there freewheeling it. And I think the reality is that if we were to just let our heart's desire just lead us, we'd probably end up in some really bad places. What Jesus is trying to teach us here is we have to put in the address of heaven into our heart GPS in life, because then we're going to the right destination. And then every turn has a purpose, every direction makes sense. We're headed towards a certain place. And if we just let ourselves go, we won't get to where God wants us to be. See, that is the goal. The Jesus way is not riches or poverty, but it is freedom and generosity. This is what it says in that second part of Hebrews 13. Just keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have. And then he says, "Because God has said, 'I will never leave you, I never will forsake you.'" Because ultimately what we've been doing is we've been searching for, what we are searching for in money can only be found in God. What we have been chasing after to fill that in ourselves, money and wealth never will. It's only to be found in God. Whether it's peace, happiness, safety, security, identity, desire. We think we just get a little bit more, right? Then we'll be content. But what we're searching for in money can only be found in God. The good news, the gospel is that we already have everything that we need. We already have it all. We have access to the kingdom of heaven. God is our king provider and he will never leave you and never forsake you. Right here, right now, we have everything that we need to live a happy, joy-filled life in God.

Pray with me. Jesus, thank you for who you are. God, thank you for your son, your gift and sacrifice on the cross. Jesus, we have everything that we need. You've blessed us with everything. You've given us exactly what we need for today and for tomorrow and for the day after that. You have it all figured out. So God, I pray that we wouldn't worry about that, but that we would be focused in the moment here and now. That we would have contentment to push back against the greed that creeps into our lives every single moment of every single day. And Jesus, we would live a life that is honoring and glorifying to you with our finances. Being a witness to others to point people to you, Jesus. In everything that we do and say and schedule and work with our hands and take care of our time. God, it would all be directed to bring you glory in this world until we see you face to face in heaven. We thank you, Jesus. We love you. Amen.

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 1

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 1

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, we are, as you can see, around tables today and there is no lunch afterwards and you're probably like, what is happening right now? Was this just for Morning Blend? No, though it does help. We wanted you guys to sit around tables for Morning Blend but we are going to be around tables to encourage and provide opportunity to prime the pump, to ready your hearts and minds, to engage with this series and to do so in community. So we're gonna be around tables for the next four weeks, this week and four more weeks. I know some of you are like, oh my goodness, will I not be here for the next four weeks? Oh, I love that. Some of you are like, yes, this is the best. Yeah, we need to. We're gonna have time either before the message or after the message, maybe during the message, where we're gonna give you each week a prompt or a question that you are gonna discuss around your table. And so as much as it is an individual faith that we have, we also recognize that it's a communal practice that we live in Christ together and we wanna encourage that with this. And so in our series, we are starting the series, The Lost Art of Generosity. While generosity is present in our world today, generosity as Jesus lived it and taught it, practiced it, that's harder to come by. And so this series is gonna take a look at Jesus's words about generosity. From a distance, generosity sounds like a difficult practice to embody regularly every day, and it is at first, but it quickly becomes one of the most joy-filled of all of Jesus's practices. And so our prayer for this series in the coming weeks is that you discover the great joy that Jesus is referring to, not just the good feelings that occur when we are generous, but the deep joy that comes from participating in the inner life of God himself, who is the most generous being in all the universe. I'll continue to share more about our series in just a moment, but let's pause right now to have our first discussion moment. So here it is, it's on the screen, we'll give it to you. Whether you were the giver or the recipient, share about a time when you experienced the joy of generosity. Whether you were the giver or the recipient, share around your table. So we have like three to five minutes. We won't have time to go into your full story, so maybe keep it short and just say, "Hey, in this moment in time, this guy did this for me, "and I really loved it, and it was amazing." It can be that short. If you're around a table with just the two of you, feel free to share your whole heart if you want to. But introduce yourself if you haven't. Be really quick, three to five minutes, and then I'll gather us back up. Ready, set, go.

We're gonna start in verse 19. It says this, this is Jesus speaking. It says, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth "where moths and vermin destroy "and where thieves break in and steal, "but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven "where moths and vermin do not destroy "and where thieves do not break in and steal." Notice here that Jesus doesn't speak against storing up things. Are there any collectors in here? People who love collecting something, maybe? Yes? Okay, I see a couple hands raised. Good. I'm curious about what those are. I have some collectors in my family. My grandpa was a huge collector. He collected stamps and coins. I didn't know, I was a kid when I really found out about this and didn't come to appreciate it 'cause he passed away when I was younger, but he was kind of an expert, and people would send coins and stamps, mail 'em over to him and be like, "What do I have?" And he would go through people and give them estimates. So he was really into stamps and I think foreign coins. On my other side of the family, my cousin, this was also when I was little, I remember walking into, he had a two-bedroom house, and I kid you not, from floor to ceiling, you could not see a wall. It was covered in action figures. Like the biggest collection I've ever seen. The whole two-bedroom house was just for the collection. He was living by himself. But he had, it was amazing. And as a kid, I was like, "This is awesome. "This is better than a toy store. "Look at all these toys." But I learned that I couldn't play with them. They were all boxed up and graded and everything.

So those might be some extreme sides of collecting, but there is an innate desire in us to store things up. Jesus doesn't rebuke that. Rather, he speaks to where we should store things up. He says, "Not on earth, where moth and rust destroy, "where everything can be lost so quickly, "but store up your treasures in heaven." Now, we read that, and we think, "Eternal treasure storehouse." Of, hey, when I, the way I live my life as a Christian, one day when God, the Bible says I get my own house, he's building a house for me, I'm going to have a treasure room somewhere, and there's all these treasures that I've accumulated from being a good Christian. Maybe you don't think that, but we can kind of think that way. Of, hey, I got this place, I am getting all these things in the future. It's a future investment. And that's not necessarily wrong, but that's not the whole picture that Jesus is saying here. You see, this phrase, "in heaven," at that time as Jesus meant it, is also saying, "in God and what he is doing on earth." Store up your treasures in God and what he is doing on earth. That paints a little different picture. That helps shift our mindset from a future that we cannot see and may not feel responsible to interact with. That's a future, it's over there, I'll get to that one day when I die, get to experience all these treasures in heaven. It shifts that to, this is a future that I get to participate in. Storing up my treasures in heaven and what God is doing right now on earth. It's more present, it's more tangible for us. And it can change our heart towards stewarding what we have and giving what we have. Because for Jesus, money is all about our hearts. Verse 21 says, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." According to Jesus, our hearts follow our money. We often think of it the opposite way, that our money follows our heart. And that can be true, that we can spend money on what we love. But Jesus is saying it works both ways. We come to love, maybe even obsess over or be controlled by what we spend our money on. This one can be tricky, it doesn't start necessarily as an obsession. Maybe it can be slower developing and we can obsess over something that is a good thing but it becomes too much and it takes the place of God in our hearts. Maybe it's something like, hey, you bought a house. That's amazing. But all of a sudden, all the money that you're pouring into that house, that thing can become an idol over God. You care about that house more than you care about God. That takes up more of your time, more of your heart. You are more controlling and acting out of fear and greed over that than listening to God. When we store up on earth, two things become key motivators and get a hold of our hearts, fear and greed. Our hearts are racked by fear because we know that we could lose it all in a moment. Or our hearts are motivated by greed because we feel like we may never have enough.

So we want more and more and more just in case, if I just have more, I'll be that much more safe, that much more able to provide for my family. But Jesus, he never wants us to operate out of fear or greed. And he has an alternative way of storing things up in heaven or with him and what he is doing here on earth. And in order to do that, we need a certain perspective. It says in verse 22, "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?" What is Jesus talking about here? Do we all need to have surgery to have 20/20 vision so we can all see perfectly? No, though that is helpful at times. "The eye is the lamp of the body." In the Greek here, these phrases, the people would have understood this, a healthy eye means you are generous. An unhealthy eye means you are stingy. Jesus is saying there are two ways of looking at the world. This is the crux of our message today. There are two ways of looking at the world. Again, in the old world, they would have said good eye, bad eye. Today, we would say something like the abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset. In an abundance mindset, we see God as Father, a provider. We see ourselves as His child. We see life as a gift given to us. We see that in this world, God has provided more than enough. It says elsewhere in Jesus' teachings, "Look at the lilies of the field, the birds of the air. If God has given them what they need, how much more will He give us?" The result of this is that we are grateful towards God and generous towards our neighbors. If we see the world in this way, we see God as our Father who provides for us, we are His children, He's going to take care of us, life is a gift, and this world has more than enough, then we are grateful, and we are able to be generous to other people because we know and trust that God is good and He will provide. Now, the other mindset, scarcity mindset, that God is not our Father and not our provider, that you are on your own. It's a dog-eat-dog world out here, and you better do what you need to do to take care of yourself. It does not matter what it means to other people. That life on earth is a dangerous place and that there are scarce resources. There's not enough to go around, so I've got to take care of mine. And again, it doesn't matter because there's not enough, so I better take care of... It's responsible. We can even guise this in wisdom and say, "God has told me to provide for my family. I'm sorry if that means it's not providing for your family, but I've got to take care of me." The result of this is a heart that is consumed by fear and greed. I want to keep this up here for a second. In the old world, they're using this healthy eye or unhealthy eye, right? The healthy eye, an eye of abundance. We see the world in this way. We live in this way. We are free to live in this way. With the unhealthy eye, you can see how that person is consumed by fear and greed, and there is no room for God in there. We want to have a healthy view of this world. And the scarcity mindset, this unhealthy eye, is an unhealthy view of the world. You know, the church isn't immune to this temptation or exempt from dealing with this. As a church, we must be a place that fights to have an abundance mindset, which can't be hard. We as a church have, you may not know this, but Spring Valley has bills to pay. We have to keep the lights on, the air conditioning, the heat in the winter, and we can be prone to be stingy and have a scarcity mindset. "God, there's not enough. There may not be enough this month. What does that mean? Maybe we can't do this ministry. Maybe we can't love these people like we're supposed to." Those thoughts are just because we're pastors, doesn't mean that we totally see it, we totally get it, we're good, we're locked in. It is hard. We can look to the future with this fear and greed and say, "I don't know, God. I don't know if there's going to be enough." And all of a sudden, we're operating ministry out of fear and greed. Instead of looking at our situation, trusting God that he will provide and there's abundance. And to be very real with you, in times of economic uncertainty and things like inflation, tithing is often the first thing to go. People sacrifice their tithing because, again, they view, "I got to take care of me first. God, you'll take care of the church. You'll figure that out, but I got to figure out me first." And I'm not saying that--again, I struggle with that too. So what I'm saying is to share that we have to fight against this mentality, this scarcity mindset.

We cannot view generosity in those moments when things get tough. Like tithing, we cannot view it as optional or extra because it isn't. These two mindsets, the good eye and the bad eye, they aren't necessarily determined by what a person has either. Let's take this a step further. Two people can have the same exact situation, the same job, the same income, the same family responsibilities, same bills and everything, but see the world in radically different ways. That can be true of two people who make very little by the world's standards and struggle to pay everything, to, again, by the world's standards, struggle to live. But there can be a person in that situation who has an abundance mindset, who is thankful and sees God as providing for their every need, even if it's just enough that God is providing. There can be a person who is in that place and is struggling, saying there's not enough and living in a scarcity mindset. It can be true of two people who make a lot by the world's standards, who have more than enough, who have never known what it is to need anything, and they can still struggle with having a scarcity mindset. So let me ask you, church, how do you see the world? How do you see the world? If you had an absolute assurance that God would provide enough for you, how would that change your relationship to money and generosity? If you trust God's vision of abundance and see Him as your Father provider, how would that change things? If you live like that, let's flesh out this concept a bit more. If you have a healthy eye, and you believe that there is abundance in this world, and Jesus' teachings start to make sense when He says, "Don't worry. There's no need for anxiousness. I have you. I've got you." Seek first the kingdom of God. Again, not seek first making sure your life is good and then seek the kingdom of God. No, seek first the kingdom of God. If we have an abundant mindset, that makes sense. If it says, "Give and it will be given to you," if we have an abundant mindset, that makes sense too. If we have a scarcity mindset, that verse does not--we don't understand that. But at the end of an abundant mindset, we are free to be generous. In the scarcity mindset, Jesus' teachings sound foolish in today's world. All that He talks about generosity and money, they do not add up. That is not what the world says. And at the end of a scarcity mindset is being enslaved by fear and greed.

And this leads us to how Jesus finishes this teaching, which is why He says, verse 24, "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." Jesus is even more clear by posing this question, "Who will you serve? Money or God?" The word here for money is the word "mammon," which is an ancient Syrian god of wealth. So this is Jesus' way of saying money is like a rival god. Which god are you going to serve, the god of money or the god of the universe, the king of kings, Yahweh? We want so badly to believe that money is neutral. And technically, it is, but it's kind of like nuclear energy, capable of great good, but also devastating destruction and absolute evil. For Jesus, wealth is powerful, and the sway it has in our hearts is a work in influence of the enemy. The god of mammon is behind so much in our world. Whole industries are run by the worship of mammon, the worship of money. War, racism, ecological devastation, sexual exploitation, to name a few.

As we look at the words of Jesus in verse 24, he is informing us that it is impossible to serve both God and money, because mammon will take over our hearts. So how do we resist? How do we resist this temptation that money has, the sway over our hearts? How do we have that healthy eye and live out the abundant mindset? This is what Jesus is teaching his disciples here. And Jesus, you guys know this, is a brilliant communicator and teacher. So in just these short verses, he is teaching on three different levels. He's teaching at the head level, the knowledge, the ideas that he's saying, our heart, he's addressing the feelings that we have, and he's also teaching our hands, what to do, our behavior. So the first one, what he teaches us to understand is how to see God and our lives in his world. He's telling them where good life is to be found and who God is. You see, biblical generosity doesn't start with tithing or giving to the poor. We'll get to those. Those are good practices. It starts with who God is. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the Trinity, a Trinity of self-giving. Our God is a heavenly Father. I talked about earlier the idea of a heavenly Father who provides. For those of you who have kids, or even if you were a kid, you had an age where you didn't worry about certain things. Our kids don't worry about food on the table, medical bills. They're not worrying about like, "Hey, Mom, Dad, we have a medical bill showing up for my six-month appointment," whatever. They don't worry about those type of things. Why? Because they trust that as parents, we are providing for them.

It's the same way that God takes care of us. We see the triune God, and there's generosity woven throughout Scripture. From day one of creation, God is giving, is blessing. All the way up to Jesus. God gave his only Son. Jesus gave his life. God and Jesus give the Holy Spirit to us. We serve a generous God, the most generous God. And do we trust him? Do we live free to give as he has given to us? That's the idea. That's the head knowledge. Secondly, our hearts. He's teaching the disciples about the architecture of our hearts. He's telling us, if we get our relationship to money right, it will set our hearts free. If we follow Jesus and live like him, it should change our whole view on money. That's why it's more than just tithing or radical acts of generosity. Really good things, but it's more than that. It's also about the freedom to buy coffee or a meal for a friend. About having people over and providing them dinner. About being quick to forgive, as forgiveness is an expression of giving, of generosity. It's not just about our behavior. It's about our inner nature being formed to be like Jesus. Our hearts being shaped like his. And then thirdly, it's about the practice of generosity. Listen, the generosity that Jesus lived, that he calls us to live, is just that. It's a life. It's not a one-time thing. It's not a random, "Hey, I did that last year. I was super generous to that one person. I'm good for a while." It's not just when we have extra, and so we're like, "Hey, I have some to spare. Now I'll think about being generous." It is a practice. It needs to be a regular practice, a lifelong practice. Practicing generosity will make you into a more generous person.

Here's the reality. You can't leave today and instantly remove all the fear and greed that you face. Like, "Oh, I just learned about abundant mindset and scarcity mindset. I'm no longer going to be afraid." It just doesn't work that way. That fear and greed is still in you. You have to work that out with God. But you can, after leaving today, you can sponsor a child. You can buy someone lunch this week. You can give away a regular amount of your monthly income with special attention to the poor and the church and the gospel. You can practice being generous. And as you practice being generous on a regular rhythm, that grip that greed and fear has in your heart will begin to dissipate. And through this practice, God can change our hearts and habits. John Mark Comer, he says this, "Generosity is a practice by which we index our hearts from scarcity mindset to the abundance mindset of Jesus." We turn from fear to trust. As we give, this is what happens, we turn from fear to trust. We turn from worry to peace, trusting, knowing that God has provided for us. We turn from desire to enjoyment, always wanting more and never being satisfied to enjoying what God has given us. We turn from grasping to gratitude, and we turn from misery to joy. I know that all of us in this room, we want to be on that right side of things. And that comes through a regular practice of generosity. I want you to think of the most generous person you know. I know this from the story that you shared this morning around the table. But let me ask you this, were they joyful? Are they generally a joyful person? I think, yes, it's almost safe to say that, I'm not guaranteeing that every one of your people is joyful, but it's pretty common that people who are living a generous life are also a very joyful people. It's been said that it will cost you, literally, it will cost you to put Jesus' teaching into practice, but you will get more back than what you put in, because there is more joy in giving than in receiving. I'd encourage you this week to begin exercising that muscle of generosity. Put it into practice. If you need something practical, here's something small. Set aside maybe like $5, or pray about that amount. Maybe you can give more. And ask God this week for an opportunity to bless someone. Put that money in your wallet and just be praying, "God, show me somewhere, somebody this week, that I can give this $5." And then just keep your eyes open. See what opportunity God brings your way. We're not trying to solve global poverty or be heroic in any way. We're just trying to tap into that flow of the spirit of living a generous life, being more ready to give than to be stingy. If you need some ideas, again, keep money in your pocket, or buy someone in line behind you a coffee or a lunch, pay for someone's bill anonymously, drop off groceries or gift someone that you know who is in need, send cash digitally to help a friend with medical bills or expenses that they can't currently pay, buy a gift for someone just to encourage them and bless them, or give away something that you have. But spend time this week reflecting on how you see the world and what might need to change in order to see God as your Father provider, and having a good eye and living a life with an abundant mindset.

Let’s pray. God, thank you for your words and your instruction. As difficult as they may seem to live out, God, we know that this is the life that you would call us to. And God, we want to pray this. As our provider, you hold all things in endless, fearless supply. Help us to live in that trust and rest in your extravagance. Help us to know that we can freely give in the manner that we have received, selflessly, daringly, and lovingly. We recognize that all we have is from you, and we know that you are an abundant God. Help us, free us from that grip that fear and greed has on our hearts, and help us to be an expression of your love by giving to those around us. Pray this in your name. Amen.

Pre-Decide: Part 7

Pre-Decide: Part 7 - I AM A FINISHER

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

So we've been in this series talking about pre-decide and we're going to wrap that up this week but but first I want to kind of maybe talk to those in the room who have ever felt like giving up. You've felt like you want to give up. You got you got into a place in life maybe maybe you at one point... Oh wonderful thank you sir. Maybe at one point you had a dream or you had a goal you had a vision maybe you started with great anticipation you're all excited about you kicked it off. It was going great, but then you hit a wall. You hit resistance and then all of a sudden you found yourself in a place with little to no progress. Frustration started to set in. You felt like discouraged. You wanted to give up. Anybody ever been in a situation like that? Maybe this week. Maybe yesterday. Maybe this morning. I don't know. But maybe you found yourself in a situation where you had a relationship where you really wanted to restore it. You wanted amend it and you tried everything you could you poured energy and time and effort into it and then you found yourself with an even more broken relationship on the other side maybe you're fighting to save your marriage you're doing everything you can you're pouring everything into it but you're just running out of fight you're maybe you're believing for a miracle you have something that you have been praying about every single day for God to do in your life maybe your kids live maybe in a friendship maybe a healing a financial situation like God I need you to do something here I need a miracle you need God to help you overcome maybe an addiction and you tried and you've prayed and you believe but you have seen little to no results and you're losing hope I want to talk with those today who have ever felt in that place or maybe you're in that place today and I want to if you're gonna write something down this morning I want you to write this down when you want to give up we're gonna talk about that today. If you would pray with me. Jesus we thank you for this morning God thank you for those who are here to be able to gather with us God we pray for those who aren't able to be here but are still watching us and joining us through the awesome thing called the internet Jesus we thank you for your blessings in our lives every day and Jesus I pray that the word that you have for us today that you would make it absolutely 100% clear that we would know exactly what you want us to do you know exactly how we're supposed to take that first step today we thank you Jesus, Amen

Well we are concluding a series today and called pre decide and we've been in for five, six weeks or so. And we've been talking about this idea of our decisions. And we first started off, the first week we talked about the quality of our decisions, of your decisions, my decisions, determines the quality of our life. Problem is, we're not good decision makers, right? We try really hard and there's times where we just nail it. We knock it out of the park, we kill the decision. we're like, yeah, look at what I did right here, yes. But then other times you're like, I'm just so, just, I can't. And we just make the wrong decision. Well, our series we're focusing on the statement we've been talking about and this idea of when we're faced with a certain situation, we have pre decided to take a specific action. So when you find yourself in this place, but beforehand without emotion, with the leading of God's will on our lives and His word and prayer and focus and encouragement from our community, we have pre-decided to make this specific action when faced with this certain situation. We've had this statement, we had this circle, we handed out stickers. And if you want one of these cool circle stickers, we got some in the back on the table, we'd love for you to take one home. But we have these six things that we're focusing on. And we've been talking about how I am ready. Say it with me, I am ready. Oh, you're ready, I love it. Talking about I am consistent, I am devoted, I am generous, I am faithful, and by the will of God and His faithfulness in our lives, we will be a finisher. And that's what we're talking about today. I know one thing about the desire to finish. I'm a project guy, I love projects, I love to do things, I love to get my hands dirty, but the desire to finish, it is so easy to start, right? So easy to start, but it is so not easy to finish, right? My wife, God bless her heart, has been living in a kitchen now for over a year. She's got really awesome countertops, painted cabinets, new appliances, but no backsplash. It's just cement board. Just basically plywood on the walls. Everything else looks awesome. New sink, garbage disposal, it's beautiful. No backsplash. I am famous for starting things, but never getting to the point of finishing them.

See, this idea for us is a lot more important than I think people understand, right? Because I want to ask you a certain question, and I think you'll be able to understand, is what do you think separates average people from amazing people? What's the difference from those who are really fulfilled in life and those who are often empty, maybe those who struggle or those who succeed? I will tell you, it is not their intelligence, it's not their appearance, it's not their It's not their education. It's not who or what they know It the difference is their perseverance their perseverance Their willingness to stick to it their grit to finish their drive to preserve Persevere the refusal to quit there was this big study that was done recently that that interviewed successful people And we're talking talking a fortune 500 business leaders. We're talking successful military leaders We're talking teachers, we're talking even like spelling bee champions, like the whole spectrum of people. They did this research and all this was down to one quality that separated unsuccessful people and successful people. And it's one quality and it is this. It is grit. Grit. The definition of grit, if you don't know what word I'm talking about, is the strength of character that refuses to quit. If you follow the NFL, there's a team out of Detroit right now that is all about grit. They got into the playoffs, but not very far in the playoffs, okay? I'm just kidding. It's going against my whole sermon. But the lady who did this whole research, her name is Angela Duckworth, and she has this quote with this giant study that she did. She said, "Enthusiasm is common." You can find it everywhere. Everybody's excited about something, right? So excited for this. I can't wait for this, can't wait for this. This is happening, I'm really pumped. But endurance is rare. Endurance is extremely, extremely rare. Grit is this difference that it is not what you know or who you know, but it's your willingness to stay in the fight. Easy to start, it's hard to finish. And this is why we wrap up our whole series with this one statement we just said, it said, I am a finisher. We are pre-deciding to be finishers. And by nature, we wanna take the easy way out, right? We wanna take the simple road, the easy path. The one of least resistance, that's like boom here to there. Like I am constantly when I drive on ways with my app. Why? Because I wanna know if there's traffic, or something in the road, I want the easy way, I wanna get home as quick as I possibly can. We live in that world today.

But our big decision today that we are making when we pre-decide to be a finisher is this. It says, "When I commit, I don't quit. "I am a finisher." Say this with me, he says, "When I commit, I don't quit, I am a finisher." a finisher. And why is that? Well because us as disciples of Jesus, how do we persevere? How do we strengthen? Because the devil wants to pull us back, right? The devil wants us to quit. The devil wants us to throw off our game. So how do we strengthen ourselves so when we get to the point where we want to quit that we don't? There's this moment, I want to look at the words of Apostle Paul. And he's in prison, and he's writing this letter to basically his spiritual son Timothy. And he's in jail under the Emperor Nero, and he's basically waiting to be beheaded. And he's in a dungeon, well really more of like a sewer. So he's like underground in a sewer, and he's just waiting to be killed. And this was a really common place for these people to wait to be executed. And a lot of them honestly wouldn't even survive just being in the sewer. They would just die even before their execution. But Paul is writing this letter to his spiritual son, Timothy, with all of his emotion and everything that he has. Essentially, these are his last words. And he writes it to Timothy. We see this in 2 Timothy 4:5. He says to him, Paul, “Do not be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the good news and fully carry out the ministry that God has given to you.” You think I'd be here to encourage you this morning? I am, but we gotta get through some stuff first. But here's the reality. If we're gonna finish like we say we are, we're gonna likely suffer. We're likely gonna go through some hard times. And honestly, being a Christian doesn't mean that you don't have hard times. It actually means honestly the opposite, that being a Christian, a follower of Jesus, a disciple of God Almighty means that we're probably most likely absolutely going to suffer. And in other words, Paul here is trying to tell Timothy that don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, but carry out the ministry that God has given you, even if you're going to suffer. He continues on, "As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have remained faithful." Paul here is saying, I've been in the battle. I've not given up. I fought the good fight. I have remained faithful and I have pressed forward even in the face of suffering. Here is what is really powerful about this. And I think Paul here has finished his race. There's nothing that's gonna save him. There's nothing that's gonna rescue him. History shows us that after this point, he is beheaded, he is killed, he no longer lives here on earth, but in heaven.

And what is powerful is that it's obvious that Paul has finished his race, but you and I have not finished ours. You and I have not finished our race yet. And if you find yourself in a place of discouragement or feel like giving up, maybe God might be saying to you even today, if you're not dead, you're not done. If you're not dead, you're not done. There is more for you to do. God has more for you. I see some of you checking yourself. Am I alive in this moment right here? Yes, you are. God's got more for you to do. He still has more plans, more assignments. He's got more stuff for you to do. He's got more ministry for you to do. He's got more business for you to do. He's got more content for you to take. He's got more hope for you to share, more friendship for you to make, for more addictions to break. Turn to the person next to you and say, "God's got more for you." Come on, come on. God's got more for you. If you're not dead, you're not done. There's more for you to do. And Paul here is encouraging Timothy, I might be done, but you aren't done yet. fully finish, fully finish the work that God has started in you. But you don't get it, Pastor Chris. I'm tired. I'm tired, and not just tired, but I'm turd. I am tired, I'm tired. I know, I talked to some of you guys. Hey, how was your week? I'm tired. How you guys doing? I'm busy and I'm tired and I'm tired and I'm busy. I'm tired, I'm busy. I'm tired, I'm busy. I'm tired. A lot of us feel like there is so much to get done, right? So much still to get done. Author and speaker, David Allen has this quote I think might help encourage us today. “It's as much of the stress that people feel doesn't come from having too much to do, it comes from not finishing what they've started.” Maybe some of you have this just constant stress in your life that what you have to do isn't getting done. and that you don't know how you're gonna move forward.

If you guys would with me, just kind of have, just mentally right now, just kind of shift into this posture of prayer. I wanna read some scripture of you and ask you a question, but kind of just have this moment of posture or prayer is that I want you to set yourself up for maybe what God wants to share with you this morning in this moment today that you would be listening to him and maybe something that God is prompting you of something that you haven't finished. And I'm not talking about like, oh yeah, pastor, I haven't finished season four of that on Netflix. But like, I'm talking about something really spiritual, okay, something spiritual. Jesus says this to the church in Sardis in Revelation. He says, "I know your deeds. You have a reputation of being alive, but you're dead." Maybe you feel like that this morning. Someone would say, "Oh, you're such a good Christian, but deep down inside, you're like, I'm just not feeling it." Jesus says, "Wake up, strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of God." Here's the question I want to ask you. What is your unfinished business? Maybe it's a unfinished assignment. What is it more specifically though as a follower of Jesus? Maybe you once were prompted to do something, you know you were supposed to do it, you thought you were going to do it, you really wanted to go and do it, You hoped to do it, you thought about doing it, and you knew you were supposed to maybe say something, you were prompted to give something, maybe you were looking to reach out to someone. What is it that you were prompted to do? Maybe you were supposed to reach out and mend a relationship. Maybe you were supposed to step out in faith and take a step that you didn't know all that was gonna happen after that, but God said, I need you just to take this step. Maybe you were something as simple as you were supposed to go finish your degree, but you just, you haven't yet. Maybe you were supposed to start some kind of hobby or you're supposed to start join a community group. We're kicking off on Wednesday. Maybe you're supposed to start serving in the church in a way with the gifts and talents that God has given you. Maybe you were supposed to follow through with something, but you just never got there? Maybe a physical goal, a spiritual goal, maybe even to just apologize to someone, but you just never got there.

What's the unfinished business that you have in your life that God has asked you to do? What just, let that kind of sink in for a moment. What would God be saying to you? Paul has some really incredible advice And this in 2nd Corinthians, he says, “Here’s my advice It would be good for you To finish what you started a year ago church.” and Corinth got off to this great start They were doing all these amazing things and it kind of just Like all of us it just fizzles out, right? “Last year you were the first who wanted to give and you were the first to begin doing it Now you should finish what you started.” What's your Maybe you're thinking about it right now. Maybe you're like, "I don't even know what you would want me to do right now." But I think we have to answer the question of, "What if we don't do it?" What if we don't follow through? I mean, honestly, there's some things in life that we should quit. So I'm not talking about those things and we can't do everything, but each of us has something that we are called to do. Some of us have divine assignments on our lives, but we have yet to finish them. So what does it matter if we quit? Today, you are going to face an opportunity to determine who you are. You're gonna show that, let's put it this way. You are going to cast a vote for your future self in this moment, that you are going to either decide to do what you're supposed to do and cast a vote to be a finisher, or you're gonna decide not to do that, and you will then in turn cast a vote for being a non finisher.

So the question for us is, who are we? This is why it's important. You're gonna come, you're gonna face a moment in life, whether maybe some of you have faced this before, you're probably gonna face something in the near future where you're gonna have to make a tough decision. And you're gonna have to decide the kind of person you are. you are going to cast a vote into which camp of the person that you want to be. And you're gonna face something and some moment where it's gonna seem like impossible odds. It's gonna seem like everything is stacked against you. It's gonna seem like you're gonna have people and friends in your life that are gonna turn to you and say, there's no chance that this is ever gonna come through. But God is standing there saying, I want you to take this step of faith. And you're gonna have to decide, will I face this adversity? Will I overcome the greatest pillars of faith in the halls of history have faced this and chosen correctly? Was it easy? Absolutely not. Was it all fun and celebration did a confetti cannon go off when they made the right decision? No, most likely not, maybe. But they at some point had to make the tough decision. It didn't mean they didn't struggle through it, but you didn't see them quit. Just because I'm up here with the carpet, the table, and the podium doesn't mean that I have it figured out. Can I be honest with you? I wanted to quit yesterday. I did. I 1,000% wanted to quit, but then I knew that I was going to have to be here at 10 a.m. to give a sermon to myself and you guys. This sermon is so much, just as much for me as it is for you guys here today. Saturdays for some reason in our house have just been chaos. And I think it's because the devil knows that Sunday's coming, right? The devil knows Sunday's coming and he's like, I gotta knock that pastor off of his path. 'Cause if I can, then I can start messing with Spring Valley. So if you guys are thinking of Pastor Andre and myself on Saturdays, people will be praying for us. We covet your prayers, you guys are amazing. I know there's so many of you that pray for us every single day and we feel it, we feel it. But I wanted to quit yesterday. But I knew I couldn't. And I struggled through it. So you may see me struggle, but I'll tell you 100% here today, right now and forevermore, I will never quit. I will never quit.

And the apostle Paul is this incredible like superhero of the faith. He's just this stellar pillar of the early church. And he even himself struggled, but he never quit. He fought through day after day after day. And he shares what I would consider his life motto in Acts chapter 20 at the end of his life. He says, "However, I consider my life worth nothing to me. "My only aim is to finish the race "and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, "the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace." "My only goal in life," Paul says, "is to finish the race." But there's this little phrase in there of this power-packed verse that I think some of us just kinda gloss over real quick. And it answers the question of, how could Paul finish the race? He says this right at the beginning, because he wasn't running for himself. He says, I consider my life worth nothing to me. Paul says, it's not about me. It's not about my dreams. It's not about my desires. It's not about his popularity. Paul says, "I consider my life worth nothing." And I had this thought yesterday in the midst of wanting to quit. Me wanting to quit what God has called me to do was maybe because I cared something about more than running God's race. And I think for some of us, we might find ourselves in that place. That there might be something that we care about more, whether we want to admit it or not, than God's race that he's called each and every one of us to run. And we have to really wrestle with this. And this concept of, I consider my blank worth nothing to me. What would that be? Maybe your comfort. Maybe your net worth, your opinions of others, social media follows, your personal hopes and dreams that you can only finish the race that God has called us to run when we commit to him and we don't quit. So how do we run our race? How will you and I finish? We can't run it for ourselves. We can only run it for God. And when you run it for God, the only way that you can is to take it one step at a time. So I want to encourage you this morning, take the next step. Take the next step. And here's what's even greater. You don't have to finish your race today. This is a life long journey day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out, year in, year out, decade in, decade out. centurion in, I don't think we'll get there but just take the next step. This is how Paul lived his life moment by moment. If you've read his story it is crazy.

When we look at the greatest example of Jesus, he lived this life. He took it one step at a time. And Jesus is on the cross right before he looks up to his heaven and basically cries out, "Into your hands, God, I commit my spirit," and he breathes his wrath. Just before that, he says, "Telestai, it is finished." finished He's saying I did everything you sent me here to do dad I'm coming home. I finished my race Jesus wasn't running for himself He was running for his father Day by day week by week month by month year by year painful moment after painful moment, he just took the next step. When they hated him, he just took the next step and loved them back. When they struck him on the cheek, he just took the next step and turned the other cheek. When he was carrying the cross up the hill, he fell down. He stood back up and took the next step. When he was hanging there on the cross and they cursed him and they mocked him and they shamed him He took another step and says father forgive them. They just don't know what they're doing From that very moment Jesus decided that he is going to always be ready He's always gonna be consistent He's always gonna be devoted. He's always gonna be generous He's always gonna be faithful, and he's always gonna be a finisher. So what are you and I gonna do? The trajectory of our life is always towards what is easy, what's convenient. And the devil's gonna want you to quit, I'll just be honest here. He's gonna want you to give up on what God has called you to start and to do. So you and I are going to have to pre-decide that no, we're not gonna do that, but that when we commit, we will not quit. When you run for God, you run one step at a time.

There's the story of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. And there's this runner sprinter by the name of Derek Redmond. And he was basically the shoe in for the 400 meter. He was gonna win it hands down. There was no other competition. There was nobody that was gonna even come close to him. It was all his, it was basically you might as well and put the gold medal on him before the gun went off. And the gun goes off and they start the race and about halfway through, he collapses to the track and he ruptures his hamstring. All the training, all the early mornings, all the late nights, all the perfect meals, all the perfect schedule, all the travel, all the meeting with coaches and doctors and trainers, everything that he had put into this moment in an instant is completely shattered. Everything is gone. The Olympic hope and dream doesn't exist anymore. And as he lays there on the track in pain and agony, his dad is there to watch him. And his dad gets up out of his seat, gets down on the track, walks up to his son, picks him up, and the two of them hobble to finish the race. Here's what I want you to get. You and I running this race don't run alone. We don't run alone. The Father is there with us every single step of the way. So when we slip up, when we fall down, when we mess up, when we don't make the right choice, God is there with us, carrying us along. It says in Philippians, "Be confident of this, "that he, being God, who began a good work in you, "will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

You never run alone. So, you may see me struggle. You may see me want to quit, but I won't quit. Because when I commit, I don't quit. I'm a finisher. And you, because you're a disciple of Jesus, and he is the ultimate finisher, he is the author and perfecter of our faith, that when he says he started it, he will finish it. 'Cause Jesus says, "When I commit, I don't quit. "I am the finisher." Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for today. God, we are so incredibly grateful for your grace, your mercy, your hope. And so Jesus, today I pray that you would speak truth into our lives. God, that you would reveal where maybe we have unfinished business. That God, you would reveal this to us right here, right now, today, in this moment, or maybe this week, God, that you would reveal of where we need to finish. And God, I pray that you would give us the strength for us to be faithful. That every day that we would find ourselves running for you, not for ourselves, not for our own glory or our own recognition, but running for you, God. Taking that next step, even when we don't understand, even when it might not make sense, even when we don't fully understand how the race is going to finish, God, but that we would just take the next step in you and that we may at the end of our life here on earth when we see you in heaven that we ourselves may be faithful as Paul and as Jesus and as so many others before us have been so faithful to finish that race God made we to finish the race that we may be faithful to you that we may be be a finisher. Jesus, thank you for being the ultimate example of a finisher.

Pre-Decide: Part 6

Pre-Decide: Part 6 - I AM FAITHFUL

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I wanna ask you a question real quick. as we jump in, if you had one word, it would be a goal or something to achieve in life, what would that one word, what would you choose to be that one word for you? Just one word, one word that you would do everything you can that you would want and desire for it to represent your character, maybe your nature, everything that would summarize for what you stand for in life. What would that one word be? There was a recent survey, a study done of people both in and outside of the church. And they were asked this very same question and the top three common answers that came out from this survey, the first of which, and these are all really good things. The first of which are the word that people says they wanna be successful. And I like this, I like this. I think God wants us to be successful. God makes successful people. God creates successful people and gives them opportunities. And I hope and pray that you find success in life. The second word would be influential. And this is a good word. This is another good word. And for us as Christians, this is a good word because as Jesus calls us, we're to be salt and light in the world, to push back darkness, to change things, that we are called as ambassadors to make a difference in this life for the kingdom of God. The third word was happy. I think each and every one of us deep down inside, we can really resonate with this word, right? Another term might be used here would be a blessed or a fulfilled life. But even as good as these three words are, there is what I believe one word that in God's eyes should stand above all of the rest. So that when we get to heaven, and if we live a life that pleases God, he won't say to us when we meet him face to face, "Well done, my good and successful servant." He won't say that. He won't say, "Well done, my good and influential servant." He's not gonna say, "Well done, my good and happy servant." What he will say to us, Jesus will say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." And that there was one word that would stand above every other word I believe that we should strive to be faithful, that we should be the faithful of Christ. Turn the person next to you and say, you're looking faithful today. Looking faith, yeah, there we go. That's right, I like it, I like it. If you were to write something down this morning, I want you to write down this morning of one word that will change your life. And that's what we're gonna be talking about this morning.

Pray with me. Jesus, thank you so much for this morning. God, we pray for those who aren't able to be with us, those who are joining us online. Jesus, I pray that you would touch their hearts right now, wherever they are. God, whatever they're walking through in life right now, Jesus, you are right there beside them. They are not alone in what they are going through. And Jesus, I pray for us who are here, present, in person, Jesus, that your word would speak over our lives today, that we would, you have something specific for us, Jesus. And so I pray that you would reveal that to us and that we would not leave here the same as when we walked in those doors this morning, Jesus. Transform our hearts, transform our lives, make us into who you want us to be today, Jesus. We thank you for your love. Amen.

Today, we're gonna be talking about this idea of being faithful. And if you've been with us, we've been in this series, Predeciding, And we've been talking about our decisions and how the quality of our decisions determines our quality of life. But the reality is we're not all really good decision makers. Sometimes we get it right and that's awesome. And we're like, thank you, Jesus, I made it. And sometimes we royally mess up and we say, thank you, Jesus, you're here with us. Thank you for your grace, right? And we've had kind of this saying that we've been talking about that when faced with a particular situation, that we are by the health of God with the direction of Scripture, pre-deciding what we are going to do in that situation. We're not gonna let emotions drive us, we're not gonna get caught off guard, we're not gonna play catch up, we're not gonna be trying to figure things out on the fly, but we are pre-deciding that we are gonna take a particular action when faced in a certain situation. There's six specific things we've been talking about. And a couple of weeks ago, we handed out these stickers for you guys to take, to place different. We got a bunch of them in the back still. If you want a second one, please, second, third, please take those. You are welcome to those. Put them everywhere. Put it on a water bottle, put it in your mirror, put it in your car. I don't know, put it on your computer or wherever you see this to remember. We've been talking about these six topics. and the first of which was ready. Say, "I am ready." There we go. We talked about this, that the enemy is out there scheming, trying to get us off our game, but we have to pre-decide to be ready. We had to pre-decide to be consistent. Say, "I am." Let's go. Now you're waking up. All right, now you're getting the flow. Say it with me. "I am devoted. I am generous. I am faithful." And next week, Pastor Lauren's gonna wrap us up with I am a finisher.

Now, today, we're specifically talking about being faithful and that the reason that we are pre-deciding to be faithful is that you never accidentally, by happenstance, just fall into being a person who is consistently faithful. I'm talking about a day in, a day out, a week in, a week out, a month in, a month out, a year in, a year out, a decade in, a decade out type of faithfulness. That we will constantly be faithful, but that doesn't come without intentionality. See, the reason I think that we find this really difficult, let's call it what it is. Can we be honest this morning? Is that the trajectory of our life, we like to follow the easy path, right? We'd like to follow that path of least resistance, whatever's convenient and being faithful, like especially faithful to God is rarely easy. It's often hard, it comes with a cost, but I wanna tell you today that it is always, always, always worth it. I love these words from the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk. In Habakkuk 4:2, he says, "Look at the proud. They trust in themselves." Anybody know someone proud in your life? Don't point at them, don't make eye contact, don't elbow them, keep focus for them. We're gonna leave friends today, okay? But everybody knows somebody who's proud, right? They trust in their own wisdom. They have all the knowledge, right? They got it all figured out. They have the righteousness. They have the goodness. They got the bank account. They have the abilities. They have themselves. But what does scripture tell us? They trust in themselves and their lives are crooked. But the righteous, righteous will live in their own wisdom. by their faithfulness to God. Say that together, the faithfulness to God. Unfortunately, I'm usually in the earlier crowd and I find myself proud at times. I often think that I can do it on my own. I think that I have it figured out. I think that I'm sufficient enough, that I'm good enough, that I can do it all by myself. But if the scripture is true, we believe it to be true that being proud is not good, but that we have to be intentional to press into the righteousness of God and to live in His faithfulness.

Now this raises a question for us. What does it mean to be faithful? What does it truly mean to be faithful? How do we practically live that out? If you would have asked me probably before this week or the week before working on the sermon, I probably would have said that I would not cheat on my spouse, wouldn't cheat on my taxes, that I would be honest, I try to be a good person. And I think all of that is true. Yes, that is faithfulness. But when we look at who Jesus is, he's really intentional on how he shows faithfulness. And if you were to do a study on the life of Jesus, the moments of where he shows faithfulness, there's really three big categories that come out of looking at his life. The first of which we would see how Jesus treats people. You would see how Jesus talks about stewarding resources, and you would look to see how that you respond to God. And we look at Jesus's faithfulness, it boils down to three categories, relationships, taking care of what has been given, and how we respond to God. See, when you look at these ways that Jesus says, This is how you are faithful. We as Christ followers, following in the footsteps of Jesus in his example, we have to pre-decide three things. That we are going to pre-decide in faithfulness that every interaction is an opportunity to add value. We're gonna pre-decide that we're gonna be faithful in relationships. We're gonna talk about every resource is an opportunity to multiply. That because Jesus designed faithfulness is how we steward what He trusts to us. And that every prompting is an opportunity to obey God. Because every time Jesus talks about faithfulness, He talked about how you treat people, how you steward resources and how you respond to God. Let's dive into this first one. Every interaction is an opportunity to add value. If we are going to be faithful, we're going to have to pre-decide that every interaction with every person that we have is an opportunity to add value. So what does this mean? How do we see this played out? I think for you, whoever you come in contact with, every person you meet, Everyone that you see is an opportunity to bless, to encourage, to be generous with, to add value to their life. And we are going to pre-decide that every person is an opportunity for us to show love of God in a way that brings value and blessing to their life. And see, the reason is it isn't because we're focused on ourselves, because we are, right? We all are focused on ourselves, you and I both. And I can prove it, right? If there's a picture of eight people, you're in a group photo, you see that group photo, who are you looking at first? Yourself, right? You're looking at that photo, you're looking at yourself and you're going, okay, how do I look? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it not good? Because the reality is that you are looking at yourself. If you're blinking in it, you're thinking, oh my gosh, how embarrassing. That is completely un-postable. And anybody who does post that does not love you. Like that really, right? Like you're thinking there's no way that this can be shared. We have to immediately delete. I don't want anybody to see this. You look at you first, we all do it. And so how does that translate into adding value to people? When you interact with them, when you talk with them, what are you usually thinking? Do they like me? Is what I'm saying interesting? Did what I say just make sense? Oh no, what did I just say? I can't believe I just said that. How do I end this conversation and walk away immediately? I am so embarrassed, right? That's what's going through our mind. Each and every one of us, we're thinking, how can this be happening? And you walk away and you think about the conversation and go, okay, I shouldn't have said that. Shouldn't have said that differently. Oh man, I wish I could go back and take that back. And oh, just all this stuff.

But what if instead of saying, will they like me? Am I saying the right things? What if, because the reality is that Jesus lives in you and you have pre-decided ahead of time that every moment you have interacted with others is not focused on yourself, but that you are in this moment going to add value to others' life, that I am going to bless others with everything that I do, and I am going to focus on them. This is faithfulness. Ephesians 4:29 says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your nouns, but only for what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." I love this. This is so good. To be faithful to God means that you are going to add value to others. that when you walk into a room, you are a climate change. Because when you walk into the room, if we believe what scripture says, that the Holy Spirit is on us, that we are ambassadors of Christ, we are different than the world, right? That when we walk into a room, we bring Jesus with us. And because we bring Jesus with us, the room is different. Right? So that wherever you go, whether you're in the grocery store, you're at school, you're at work, you're picking your kids up, you're at a soccer game, you're out running errands, wherever you're at the gym, I don't know where, wherever you are at, you are bringing Jesus with you. This isn't a, you come into church, you sit down, hey Jesus, what's up? How's it going? I'll see you in six days. Peace out. But that we take Jesus with us, that you are an encourager, you are a blessing. You tell the truth, even though it may hurt, but with love, cover in love, okay? But you are that, when you walk away, because of you living intentional, they are different. That they are not the same, why? Because they just had a spiritual encounter with the living God. They may have no clue what's happening. But you and I do, right? That they are not the same because in being faithful, You bring and you add value to people's lives.

When you look at Jesus and how he treated people, the words in which Jesus said were incredible. When the disciples got worried, what did Jesus say? Oh, you guys are the worst. I can't believe it. How are you worrying? You know, this world, oh, have you seen society today? It's going to hell in a hand basket. You see who's in politics, left side, right side of the aisle. I don't care. It's just all going into the, down the drain. It's just all into the pooper. It just, oh, that's it. Might as well give up. No. What does Jesus say? Jesus says, don't worry. God's got you. He loves you. Don't worry about what you're gonna eat or what you're gonna drink or what you're gonna wear or what tomorrow brings. God loves the birdies and they're taken care of. How much more does He love you? Seek first His kingdom, His righteousness. And when you do that, everything else is gonna be taken care of, right? What did Jesus say to the woman who was caught in adultery? This pretty intense moment in scripture, these righteous people are ready to just stone her 'cause she has sinned very publicly. And Jesus walks in and He puts something in, He draws something or writes something saying, "We don't fully know what it is." But then he says, "Who's without any sin? Go for it." Crowd disperses. Jesus turns to the woman and says, "Where are your accusers?" She goes, "They're gone." So Jesus says to her, "Go, send no more. Live in God's grace and His mercy. Live the life that you know you should be living." He forgives. When Peter decided to deny Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times, what did Jesus say? "Peter, you're canceled. Get out of here. Can't trust you anymore. No, what do you say? Says, "Peter, do you still love me, dude?" He goes, "Yeah." Jesus says, "Okay, go take care of my people. Love them, serve them." Jesus himself specifically tells us, he said, "I came to show the love of my father and I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. And that when Jesus left, He sent the Holy Spirit, He sent somebody even greater. And even a covering, a leader, a perfect comforter to be with us as we take these steps every single day in life, what a blessing. What a blessing. Every interaction with anybody is an opportunity to show the love of God, to build them up, to show them grace, to pour blessing upon them. You have no idea how God might use a single word of encouragement to change someone's life. This is faithfulness to God.

I want to tell you a story that's really important to my life, kind of the reason I'm even in this place here today. Out of college, Laura and I, my wife and I, got married in college and graduated, and I had an opportunity to take a job, one of the few jobs in about the '08 downturn that churches were even hiring. Most of my friends who graduated from school with a pastoral degree just went off into the world to try to start paying for student debt. They didn't get an opportunity. I was fortunate enough to get hired on staff at a church, And we moved there and got settled in. And a couple of weeks into me being a part of the team on staff there, I was leading worship and I was assistant pastor. We started having some conflict. Started having some issues where I wasn't necessarily performing at the level that the pastor wanted. There was a lot of confusion and missed communication with each other. And after eight weeks of being in my first pastoral job, after spending four years studying and writing papers and reading books and doing everything I had, God had called me this place in this moment, the pastor meets me and says, "Hey, it's just not gonna work out, we're gonna move on." And here I am with my wife, thousands of miles away from family, I have a year long lease on a house, and I have to go home and tell my wife I'm no longer employed by this church. And through a crazy, crazy series of events from a pastor who knew a pastor who knew a pastor who knew a pastor, I get a random phone call one day. This is like just a couple days after this had happened. And for whatever reason I answer it. And I had said, "Hello?" And I hear a voice on the other end. He goes, "Hey, this is Pastor John. You don't know who I am, "But I heard about your story. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" I'm like, "I'm freshly unemployed. Nothing else to do. I'd like a free cup of coffee because I can't afford one right now." So I go and I sit down with this guy and he begins to tell me the story of his dad, who had been in a church for a really, really, really long time, and the church one day decided they didn't want him as their pastor anymore. And they kicked him out of the church. He goes, "I know your story isn't the same." He goes, "But I saw what happened to my dad, and I saw another local pastor come alongside my dad and said, 'Hey, just come sit in church.'" And I remember the coffee shop, I remember the conversation, I remember the pastor sitting there or across the table from me. And he told me, he goes, "You are called to be a pastor. God has placed that on you. And you are too important to be put on the bench right now. You need to stay faithful to God's calling." I was ready to walk away. I was so angry with God. I was like, "How could you take me to this place?" I had all the conversations with God. And he says, "I'm starting a church. I'm not asking you to do anything." He goes, "You and Lauren just come and sit." So we went and we sat. Couple weeks later, he needed some help with stacking chairs. I was like, "I can stack chairs. I got a four-year ministry degree. You betcha I can stack chairs." (audience laughing) I had A+ in that class. So it started with stacking chairs. And it started going to a small group. It started helping with a small group. And then it started helping with some of the teams. Started doing this thing and that thing. And pretty soon I found myself basically on staff working with this pastor pro bono, just being back, falling in love again with the church. you will never know what a opportunity to add value to someone's life may turn into. And one of the great ways to be faithful to God is to be a blessing to others. And that pastor that day and that season of life, even to this day, is an incredible blessing to me and my wife. You may even have a divine appointment on your calendar right now that you don't even know about, but God does. And the question for us will be, will we pre decide that every opportunity and every interaction is an opportunity, a moment to share love to other people and to be a blessing.

The second thing we see from Jesus is that every resource is an opportunity to multiply. Jesus in Matthew 25 tells this parable of a man, a rich man, who went on a journey and he trusted his wealth to his servants. He handed out bags of gold to the first guy, he got five bags of gold. To the second guy, he got two bags of gold. And then to the third guy, he was given one bag of gold. And the first two the five and the three bag bros went out and they risked their gold. They risked their investment and they multiplied it. They multiplied it. They were able to add more to it. And it says in Matthew 25, 21, he says, "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with the few things. I will put you in charge of many things.'" They're saying, "You multiplied what I gave you, and in the kingdom of God, that is faithfulness." The Greek word here for faithfulness is actually pistos, and the definition here I want us to see is a person who shows themselves faithful in the transaction of business, the execution of commands or the discharge of official duties. One of the ways that you can be faithful to God is caring for what God gives to you. God gives you an ugly yard, you make that grass green, right? You make that yard better, that is faithfulness. God blesses you with a clunker of a car, you betcha you have the cleanest clunker on the road today. If God gives you a body, you take care of that body and you steward it.

If you are in business, and I have this conversation all the time, I feel like sometimes in business, maybe you own your business or you're high up in a business or you just work for a business, sometimes those people, because they're in the world of making money, making profit, sometimes they get viewed or they think of themselves as second-class Christians. That well, you know, I'm not a pastor, I'm not really like working for a nonprofit, like I'm not in the in the world to just like give things away that I am less than. Let me tell you this, you being faithful in your business, your job, your work, whatever you put your hands to, you being faithful in that is an incredible, incredible witness to God. Because the world's what? Trying to cut corners. World's trying to get ahead. World's clamoring, climbing over people, pushing them down just to elevate themselves. But for you to say, "I'm gonna have 100% ethical behavior in my job, that is a witness to Jesus. That you're gonna treat your co-workers with kindness. That you're gonna maybe treat those that you're a supervisor over, you're gonna care for them and how you lead them. That is an example that the life that you live, the way that you conduct your business is a massive, massive opportunity to show Christ to those around you. And that just because you're not one of the pastors, it doesn't mean you're less than. We're all called to be witnesses, we're all called to be ambassadors. Your workplace may just look a little different. And that's okay because God has called you there for a purpose and for a reason and a lot of that is to be faithful. And then there was the guy with the one bag. He had the five, the three, the one. He was afraid. I've been that guy. I feel him. I've been anxious. I've been worried. I've tried to be careful not to make a mistake, but what does the master say to to him. He says, "So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. So here is what belongs to you." I was scared. I was nervous. I didn't want to lose any of it. I didn't want somebody to steal it. I wanted to make sure it was still good. You trusted a lot with me, boss. So here you go. His master replied, "You wicked, lazy servant." Here's what I want you to see and to feel in this. The one who multiplied, the master said, "You are faithful." But the one who buried it, he wasn't just lazy. He wasn't just, hey, boss it was a busy week, had all this other paperwork I had to do, like stuff happened with the family. Like, he says he's wicked. If we're going to choose to be faithful, every interaction is an opportunity to add value. Every resource is an opportunity to multiply. And every prompting is an opportunity to obey God.

I love this part in Acts where Paul is really happy with where he's at in Ephesus. He's like locked in with the church, he's doing great. He's like, this is all set, we're golden. But he has this emotional farewell. He says, "Now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there." This word compelled means that it's kind of like wrapped up or like bound by a rope and kind of pulled in this direction that you can't resist that the spirit says, "I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there." It's one of those opportunities where you can't explain it, you don't understand it, you don't know the details, but you know is God, you are being drawn in that place. And when you follow Jesus, He will prompt you, He will compel you, and faithfulness is responding when you don't know what will happen. Sometimes we know, sometimes we don't. That job with that church or that pastor, I had to, God actually eight months later asked me to just completely resign from the job without having the next job lined up. And I didn't understand, Lauren, I didn't get it, but we felt like we had to just kind of let go before God would add the next thing. And after we did through a series of crazy events, I get an opportunity for another job and another church, and God takes care of that next step. So good. Other times where God's asked me to step out and to do something, even this last week, I stepped out and did something. I felt like God was saying, and then it just kind of went. Nothing happened. I was like, okay, really thought I was, okay. But the reality is that obedience is our responsibility, but the outcome is God's. Our job is to be responsible. And when he leaves, we say yes and take a step forward, even if it doesn't make sense.

Habakkuk 4:2, we started with this. "But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God." I haven't always gotten it right. 'Cause I'm up here doesn't mean I've always gotten it right. (chuckles) But I've tried everything I can to be faithful in the small things. 'Cause when you're faithful in the small things, there's this incredible spiritual compounding interest, return on investment that God builds up. And I've seen it in faithful people in the church for generations. I said, "How did you get there?" He was just like, "Every moment of faithfulness." It's just like grains of sand. It's just being thrown onto the beach. And all of a sudden you look down and it's just a shoreline of just sand upon sand upon sand. And I think we will vastly overestimate what we can get done in a season. Well, thank God I'm gonna fix this. I'm gonna fix my marriage. I'm gonna fix my finances. God, 2024, like this is the year it's gonna be done. But I think we will also underestimate the faithfulness of God in a lifetime. That we will underestimate what God can do when we are faithful in little things time after time after time again. Every interaction is an opportunity to add value with relationships and people. Every resource is an opportunity to multiply. How do we steward with what God has blessed us with? and every prompting is an opportunity to obey God. Just do it. Obedience is our responsibility, the outcome is God's. We just have to be faithful. That's your life, to be faithful to God.

Pray with me. we thank you for this morning. God, we are so grateful for your faithfulness. Where you, since the beginning of time and the broken relationship in the Garden, God, you started the world on a path towards redemption and that even in the midst of that, when all hope seems lost, you, God, were still working a plan to make the world right once again. And when you sent Jesus, You fixed the biggest problem that we had in our life and you took care of us and you reached down and you said, "I love you." It's going to be okay. Jesus, we're so grateful that you are so faithful to us. God, may we in return be faithful in the little things so that we may then have opportunities to be faithful in the big things when the time comes, when you prompt us to step out. God, as we look forward to this next week for the divine appointments you have on our calendar already, God, may we be obedient even if we don't know the outcome. We thank you, Jesus. We praise you. We love you. We worship you today. Everybody said, "Amen."

Pre-Decide: Part 5

Pre-Decide: Part 5 - I AM GENEROUS

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are continuing in our series that we kicked off about five or six weeks ago called Pre-Decide. And the premise and the big idea of this series is that we would, before we're placed in any situation, pre-decide a particular action that we're gonna take. And we've been going through a couple different of these. We've talked about being ready, consistent, devoted, generous, faithful, and a finisher. And today I'm excited to kinda jump into something that not everybody is necessarily excited to talk about in the church, but it's something that we need to talk about and it's something that Jesus really commanded us. I read an article back in 2007, I know the good old days, right? '07, anybody remember '07? Yeah, okay, just me, okay. This was before Instagram, this was before like Netflix originals, this was before like Venmo and Cash App. I mean, how did we survive? Like honestly, like I don't even know how we lived. But in 2007, there was a study that was done that you on average every day were exposed to about 5,000 ads, 5,000 advertisements, whether that was in '07, do they have cell phones? Yeah, okay, cell phone, maybe the interwebs, your dial-up, your AOL chat messenger. Maybe it was a billboard, old school, right? The ones that aren't digital, but like the ones, maybe the ones that like rotated and like they were like three billboards in one, no? Okay, I'm a nerd. But you were exposed to over 5,000 ads every single day. Fast forward to now, 2024. I know everybody's like, huh. You are on average exposed to double that. Over 10,000 ads every single day. You look at, you scroll past, you try to block on your web browser. Everything that you do has an ad, right? Whether you're in an app, you're on social media, you're trying to read a blog to get that perfect recipe. Maybe you're watching an influencer on Google, you read a news article, YouTube videos. Anybody else just really YouTube? You're like, just get me to the video. Like I don't need like some, and they start stacking up. You get like skip one, skip two, skip. I'm like, how long is it? These ads are gonna be longer than the 30 second video that I was trying to watch on YouTube. But this is really bad news. This is really bad news because that study in 2007 actually told us that the more ads that we see, the more miserable that we are. I'm just here to bring hope and excitement to you in your life today, right? But the reality is that the more ads we see, the more miserable we are, why? because this ad wants to convince you and tell you that you don't have the perfect life, that you're missing out. You don't have what you need. And let me tell you today, ladies and gentlemen, what you need. I feel like I'm in my own infomercial right now in front of you guys. But the more ads that we see ad-plaked us to this place where we're just miserable. And the only way that these ads tell us and the world tells us to get happy is to get, get, get, accumulate, acquire, hoard in, hold onto it, have spares, have extras, why? Because then at that point, then you'll be happy that you have to have the new iPhone. You gotta have your favorite brand of shoes. You gotta have that purse. Ladies, you gotta have the Lulu leggings, right? I don't know, I just been told that that's where it's at, but we're told that it is more blessed to get. It is more blessed to acquire, it's more blessed to accumulate, and the world is yelling at us every single day, 10,000 times, that it is more blessed to get.

But Jesus has something different to say about that. I love what he says in Acts 20 verse 35. Jesus says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." This word, the original word here actually means more blessed, doubly blessed, or some might translate it or look at it in the realm of you're happier, you're more generous, you're more joyful when you give, you're more fulfilled when you give, You're more blessed when you give than when you receive. And I think for the most part, we know this, right? We know this kind of deep down inside and we wanna give more. We wanna be able to help people. We wanna be able to take care of our friends and our family and to love them in a way of meeting a practical need. But the reality is that a lot of us are in a place where we just feel that we can't do it right now. Inflation is through the roof. It is bonkers out there, it seems like, what it costs to just... I was talking to my wife about just going and getting a cheeseburger the other night, and we were just like, "$15? Excuse me? When did that happen?" We're like, "No, we'll have a sandwich at home. Thank you very much." But it's like this crazy space that we live in where we want to give, we want to be generous with everything we have but we feel that we just we can't I want to share today and not an infomercial style but to share some principles where you and I can become irrationally generous if you were writing anything down this morning you want to write something out if you want to write today's title for the talk would be when you stop holding back. Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for this morning. God, we are grateful to be here in your presence. God, we continue to invite you into this space. God, lead me with your words from your scripture, not what Pastor Chris has to say or what Pastor Chris thinks, but God, what you think and how you view generosity even in our world today in this moment in 2024. We thank you, Jesus. Amen. If you've been with us, we've been talking about this pre-decided thing, and specifically we've had this saying that we have, we can put this on the screen, that says when we're faced with this situation, we have pre-decided to take a specific action. We are pre-deciding even before we're in the moment, even before when we're looking at this face to face, we have pre-decided a specific action that we are going to take. We're not gonna let our emotions drive us, we're seeking God, we're going to Him, we've thought about it, we've prayed about it, we're trying to pre-decide in a very specific situation area. And we talked about six of these. And we had these stickers we gave away a couple of weeks ago if you didn't get one or you want a second one to put somewhere, they're on the table on the way out, next to hand sanitizer. And we would love for you to have one of these to have with you where your water bottle, you can put in your car, put it on your mirror, kind of wherever you want to be reminded of these statements of who we are. And I wanna say these together with us. We can bring this on the screen. Talking about being, I am ready. Say it with me, I am. - Ready. - Oh yeah, let's go. It's talking about being, I am consistent. I am. - Consistent. - Let's go. Talking about I am devoted. Pastor Andre shared with us last week, I am devoted.

Today we're gonna talk about being I am generous. I am faithful and I am a finisher. This is what we are talking about. This is who Jesus has called us to live as Christians, not only for the world around us, but for one another, and for what we would call our Spring Valley family, our church family, for each other, for our family family, for our neighbors, for our community, for our world. This is who Jesus called us to. And if we say we are a follower of Jesus, this is who he says that we are. So we are pre deciding, choosing ahead of time by God's grace that today talking about we will be more blessed by being generous and we are pre deciding to do so. Why? Why does any of this matter? Why does any of this matter? That no one ever accidentally becomes irrationally generous. Nobody just by chance stumbles into tithing or giving offerings or paying rent for someone who's need or buying groceries for someone who can't afford it or funding ministries or missions trips or having so much fun with tithing that they start with 10% and then go to 12, and then to 15 and 20, 25%, and then accidentally give away almost everything to God, more and more and more, and allowing him to be blessed, and to leave our kids an inheritance to our children, to our children, our children. No one ever stumbles into irrational generosity. It doesn't happen. And we tend to think that we will be generous when the time comes. that we will be generous, but I just can't right now. And we get in this circle of thought that when I have more, I'll give more, right? When, you know, God, when I just get that next pay raise, when I get that next bump at work, God, I'm all in on generosity. I am all yours, God. When I finally get that mortgage payment taken care of and I get the utility bills paid, I go, then God, you know what? I am generous. I am all of yours. You can have everything that I have when I get here. But I want you to understand that this isn't how generous people think. This isn't their thought process. Generosity isn't about what we have or don't have. It's about our heart. Generosity is about our heart. How do we know this? Well, we've seen some poor people who are crazy stingy, right? We've seen rich people who have it set for life, who you can't get a 20 spot out of them. And then on the other side, we've seen poor people who have literally nothing that just give it away. That just absolutely go, it's all yours, God. It's not much, it's all yours. And then we also see really, really rich people, philanthropists, who are incredible and change the world with what they have been blessed with. Generosity isn't something we just stumble into.

There's a story in Luke chapter 12, Jesus tells that illustrates this really, really well. And there's this rich guy who is getting richer, and then he has this incredible harvest. Okay, so farming terms, probably us city people don't get that. But this dude just basically just hit the jackpot, okay? We'll say that. He is loaded. And he probably, at one point, said, "Oh, what am I gonna do with all of this? Man, I have so much more than what I can store. the harvest, it's a grain, they gotta store it or it goes bad, they gotta keep it safe. Gotta keep it dry, gotta keep animals out of it, anything from eating, they gotta protect it. And so this rich guy, he's like, man, what am I gonna do? And I would venture to say, because I think each of us would be similar, that this rich dude at one point or another said, when I have more, I will give more. But what happens? We read this in Luke chapter 12, he said, "Then he said, I know, "I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. "Then I'll have enough room to store all my wheat "and other goods. "And I'll sit back and say to myself, my friend, "you have enough stored away for years to come. "Now take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry." Similar story, right? Written over 2000 years ago, but still rings so true to today. That this story of, when I get more, I'm gonna, God, when I have that harvest, when it comes in, baby, oh man, I'm bringing it to the church, we're gonna celebrate. I'm sending it to my buddy who's a missionary overseas. I'm gonna fund this, I'm gonna take care of this. I'm gonna take care of my neighbor's mortgage. I'm gonna take care of this rent over there. I'm getting groceries for the lady down the street who's a single mom. Like I am all in God when this harvest comes in. But what happened? His heart was revealed. And the reality is, I'm sorry, this one's gonna hurt. More money just makes more of what you already are. That one hurt. Money doesn't change who we are, it just reveals maybe our true self deep down inside. And that is why if you want to be generous, which I think we all do, when we have more, we have to learn to be generous when we have less. We have to learn now and we have to pre-decide to be generous even if we have less than what we think to be generous.

Giving is not just something that we do, it's an identity of who we are. In my, for some of you who would look at me, say my short time here on earth, other yous would look at me and say that old dude up front who's been around since dirt, In my life, I will say that I've seen two really big qualities of generous people. Whether in the church, I know a lot of generous people who have nothing to do with God in the church and they're incredibly generous. They make some Christians look really bad. Wherever they are on the spectrum, they are a generous person. Two things I constantly see from them. and the first of which is generous people plan to be generous. Generous people plan to be generous. You might think, I'll say this, and I felt like this for a long, long time, that being generous was spontaneous. You saw somebody on the side of the road and you're like, "Hey, here's a five," or, "Hey, here's my lunch," or you went and got food for them and brought them food. Maybe it's buying the meal or the coffee or whatever for the person behind us in drive-through, right? Or maybe it was, you would see these poor, poor puppies in cages, and you would start to hear Sarah McLachlan singing. That they have to free the puppies. We have to, they're so sad. And so then maybe you get to, You go down and you give some money to the local animal shelter, or you go do an adoption day, or you bring home a new family member, four-legged friend. But we think that that's generosity, but I wanna tell you today, that's not, that's giving. And that's fantastic, it's wonderful. And I wanna tell you, don't stop doing that. That is great, great stuff. We should be giving people. But what is the difference between giving and generosity is that generous people don't have to be guilted into giving. Generous people don't need to be inspired to give. Generous people are not reactive. Does that make sense? Generous people, they don't give whenever there's just a need. They don't give when they have something extra. They don't give when they're prompted to, but generous people actually have a plan. And scripture tells us this very clearly in Isaiah 32, chapter eight, it says, "But generous people plan "to do what is generous." Generous people plan. Generous people pre-decide. Generous people plan to do what is generous, and they stand firm in their generosity. They stand firm, I think stand firm as in maybe a stance where you're not gonna get knocked over, but they plan to be generous and they stand firm in that. Giving is not what I do. Generosity is who I am. And we have to plan to be generous. Pre-decide to be generous. See, what's funny about this is that all people have a plan for finances. All people have a plan for finances. Some, you might say, "Hey, pastor, no." No, I really don't. I really don't have a plan. You have a plan. Is there ever something that you really, really wanted? Like really wanted? You get strategic real fast, right? You start doing research, who's got the best price? Is it free shipping or not? Are they charging tax or not? Can I get a coupon? Can I get a discount? Do I buy it used, but still has maybe a couple of year warranty, so it may last a little bit, or do I buy it locally, so that I'm not paying for shipping, I'm not paying for taxes, a cash transaction. Where do I have the cash? Do I have the cash? I can get the cash. Wait a minute, okay, now I gotta meet this person. You're messaging in Facebook marketplace, offer up. Oh, then all of a sudden Amazon, boom, it's on sale. Oh my gosh, add $5 clip coupon. It's the word of the Lord. He has spoken to me. We have had it, here it is. Just me? Okay. Generous people don't plan to consume. Generous people plan to give. And when we become generous by nature, you are strategically and prayerfully designing your life around generosity. It's not something you do as a reaction. It is a strategy, it's a mindset. When we think differently, you sit down and you think, man, how can I bless somebody? How can I take what God has given me and make an even greater difference? How can I maximize what I have? How can I be a blessing to people around me?

Here's the key, it's not just spontaneous. Maybe it is, but not, certainly not all the time. That's not how it works. It's not emotional, strategic. It's not random, it's intentional. And along with our series, we are pre deciding before in the moment that we will be generous. So you might say, I'm just not a planner. It may not be a good plan that you have, may not be written down, but there's a plan. I'll show you kind of what I'm talking about today. I have the circle illustration I wanna show us. That for the most of us, the reality is where we are is we spend more than we make. God supplies us, God increases us, whether that's an income or an allowance or something special we get in our lives every single month or maybe quarterly, I don't know, it comes in and we probably most likely spend more than we make. But then that puts us in a really bad place because then we start lacking margin. And we don't have any wiggle room with where we're at financially. And then what does that cause us to do? It starts bringing worry into our life. And then to combat the worry, we go and have retail therapy and we spend more than we make and then we're lacking margin, and then we worry more, and then we spend more than we make, and then we lack margin. You guys kind of get the picture of this. This is not a money problem. It's a spiritual problem. Everybody like super excited they came to church today. Like, yeah! It's a spiritual problem. I'm preaching to myself up here by the way, this is hard. We are trusting in things rather than putting our faith in God. And what happens is that generous people, they break the cycle. Not accidentally, not by happenstance, not by just falling into it, but intentionally, strategically, pre-deciding with a plan. We break the cycle by choosing God first. Jesus said this, what did he say? He said, "Seek first the kingdom of God "and his righteousness, "and then all things, everything else, "will be added to you." We don't seek the shoes, we don't seek the countertops, we don't seek the new car, we don't seek the new watch, but we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We put Him first, then everything else will be added. We seek God first.

There's actually a principle in scripture that talks about this very, very powerful, important, life-changing thing, and it's called a tithe. Maybe you guys have heard of it, maybe you haven't, but we find this in Malachi. And it says in Malachi 3.10, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, "that there may be food in my house." What is a tithe? It's not a word that's typically used in society. It actually comes from the Hebrew meaning masser, which means 10%. And we see this in scripture as to bring 10% of what God has blessed you and me with back to him as an act of worship that there may be food in God's house. Confession, first time I heard about some of this, I was becoming a kid and I'd started mowing lawns and I started earning some money from family members and doing some yard work. And I first heard about this idea and I was like, Wait, what? A tithe? 10%? That is way too much. That's ridiculous. I can't afford to do that. God, you don't understand, I got things I need to buy. I got basketball shoes I need. I got the Backstreet Boys CD I need. I got the Pokemon cards. They just dropped. Like, God, you just don't understand. In order to do that, God, okay, I would have to completely rearrange my entire life, all of my priorities, everything that I have chosen to do, and put you, God, first. It's almost like he knew. It's almost like he knew that this would be a place where I would have to change my priorities, I would have to put him first, I'd have to fully trust him, I'd have to worship him with everything that I had, I'd have to step into a place that is completely uncomfortable, a place that I didn't like, a place that meant I probably had less, a place that rearranged all of my priorities, every single thing that I had focused on my mind, on my wishlist, I was working towards, it was almost like he could see the future. God can, by the way, just letting you know that.

God put us in this place You know what he said? Test me. This is the only place in the entire Bible where God says, I dare you. I double dog dare you. Put me to the test, bro. Test me in this. Says the Lord Almighty. and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be enough room to store it. If you put him first, God says, "See if I'll take care of you." See what happens. Now you might say, hey, hey, hey, Chris, let's, eh, careful here. It kind of sounds like a little tell the evangelist prosperity gospel here. If you give money to the church, then you will be rich. What I'm talking about today is not prosperity gospel. What I'm talking about today is the generosity gospel. And Jesus, God himself first did that, right? John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave." God was the first one that was generous. God was the first one that poured out. God was the first one who blessed us, even when we did not deserve it whatsoever. God was the one who first gave, and this is the difference. And when you and I start to recognize giving, we begin to see that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive. And it breaks the cycle, right? It puts you into this new cycle. And it says this, when God supplies, we give, we trust him. We go, God, don't make no sense. My calculator on my phone, it doesn't add up, God, you don't get it. But then what happens? God blesses. And we go, wait, wait, wait a minute. I did this math. I'm not like the most brilliant person, I'm a math guy, I like numbers, and my math was not math in God. But then you took care of it, somehow. You took care of it. And then that builds our faith. And then it builds our faith and we go, okay God, you did this last time. Maybe we can do it again. And we give. And God blesses. And it builds our faith. And we give and God blesses and it builds our faith and it builds the faith of those around us. And then they see us giving and they go, Wait, how are you doing that? And you're like, I don't know, it's God, but I'm still giving. And God continues to bless and it builds faith and we keep giving. This faith that builds replaces the worry in our life. It pushes back those feelings of going, God, I'm living paycheck to paycheck. I don't get this. I got this stuff coming in. I don't understand what's going on. God, I need you. I'm stressed, I'm anxious, I'm worried. I don't know what the interest rate from the feds, what they're gonna say next month. I don't know what's gonna happen this summer with the housing market. God, I don't understand if they're laying people off at work, God, you don't understand. I just, you, ah, ah, ah, ah. And this faith that starts to build just pushes all of this stuff out. and we start living in this generous place. And it doesn't have to be a lot. If there's anything that you wanna take away with this morning, it's being generous doesn't mean it has to be a lot. Being generous doesn't mean we have to have our name on a hospital or on a plaque in a hallway somewhere or for people to see it and to be recognized. My grandparents were an incredible example of this. They would constantly just bring money to the church and drop it off, and they told the pastor, "You know who needs it this month." And every time they would show up, the pastor would look at him and go, "You have no idea. "We just had somebody call. "They need this much money, "and you just handed it to me in an envelope." That's God. That is generosity.

It's a mindset that changes who we are when we put God first, but we have to pre-decide. It's not just giving when it's convenient. It's not just giving when you might have some leftover, But we do it and we give God our first and our best, and we trust him to do what he's gonna do with the rest of it. We pre-decide to put him first. And I would say that it starts with a tie, that it starts with a decision to say, God, this is yours, but it doesn't stop there. There's a lot of people I know in the church, not in this church, my other old churches that nobody just, you just don't talk about it. That's a joke, it's okay. They were good churches. But I've met people in the church, they're like, "Hey, pastor, 10%, I'm in, buddy. Just wanna let you know, check the box. God's happy with me." And I would challenge them. I was like, "Dude, you're not being generous. Like, I appreciate it. You're helping keep lights on and ministry going and coffee and food on Sundays. Like, hey, awesome, thank you. Still got some hard work, man. This isn't an end all be all, boop, there we go, I'm done. That's where we start, that's like step one in our plan of being generous, but we don't stop there and we're not accidental about it. I heard this story one time of a guy who literally has in his monthly budget 50 bucks. And he gets paid, sets the 50 aside, and he says, "God, you know this month where this is going. "I don't know yet, but you know." And he goes throughout his day. "Hey God, you got anybody in mind yet?" "Hey God, what?" Every single month, God has a place for that $50. But he pre-decides. This isn't like, "Hey God, January 31st down here on earth. "Got 27 bucks in the checking account, where do you want this to go, God?" Pre-decide, put it in the budget. There's no accident, it's not planned spontaneity. You have pre-decided that this dude is gonna bless somebody with 50 bucks every single month. I've heard stories of people who have decided to increase 1% every year. So what does that look like? Well, it looks like they start one year at 10% and then it's 11, it's 12, it's 13, it's 14, 15. But they pre decided that this is what they're going to do with what God has blessed them with. And they've done some incredible, incredible generous things in their life. I know somebody who was a small business owner. And he talked to me and he was like, "Hey, can I give from my business to the church?" And I was like, "Totally, bro, absolutely." He goes, "I didn't know that. "I didn't know if like the whole tithe thing "was just like my income." Or I was like, "Dude, if you're feeling led "by the Holy Spirit to give through your business, "then do that." Well, say this, the caveat, business blew up overnight. I've also heard stories of people with business plans to get to a point where they are giving away 50% of their profit every single year to world missions. To fighting hunger around the globe, to ending diseases that we don't even have to think about in America, to changing the trajectory of cultures around the globe, people that have way less than anything we do.

That doesn't happen by accident. Now we probably don't do that tomorrow, but it takes strategy, it takes planning, it takes thinking, it takes pre-deciding what you're going to do to be generous. The other thing that I see when we close from generous people is that generous people always round up. Generous people always round up. What do I mean by this? I heard a story one time of some believers. And they had gone to a restaurant to have a meal. And the server knew who they were. The server hated God, the server hated the church, the server hated everything to do about Christian, server just utterly despised everything. And she goes, here's my chance. Gives them the most horrible service that they have ever received in their life. She goes, I'm gonna stick it to them. It comes time for the bill. And they feel led by the Holy Spirit for some reason. I mean, they were talking, "There's no way we're going to tip this gal. We're not paying her anything. We're just doing a fat goose egg under tip." I'm getting food comped. But the Holy Spirit's tugging their hearts saying, "You got to pay. You got to tip. You need to round up." round up. And they're like, oh, okay, God, that's what I gotta do. And they tithe, or not tithe, tip, round up, minimal to go, hey, God, yeah, I got you, I got you. Here we go. And she was floored. Fast forward a couple years later, she hits a point of just rock bottom in her life. And she goes, "You know who I need to go see? "Those Christian people who blessed me "when I had done absolutely nothing to be blessed by them, "and they rounded up." They rounded up. She knew what she had done. She knew how she had treated them. She knew that she was undeserving of anything, and fully expecting no tip or anything, whatever, just to be like, see, told you, feel that fire. God flipped that upside down, she went to church, she found the saving message of Jesus Christ and she's living for God. Generous people always round up.

Proverbs 21:26 says, "All day long, the lazy, he, the selfish craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back." Generous people round up. We see this all over scripture. I love this, real quick. See this all over scripture. First thing I will say, the Good Samaritan. You guys heard that story maybe? If you've been in church, you're Good Samaritan. This dude coming along the road, see this guy who just got beat up, he got jumped, he got everything stolen from him. He got just the living daylights beat out of him. It's basically moments from dying. Good Samaritan, bandages him up, says, "Hey, we're taking you to town. "We're gonna get you well." Takes him to basically a hospital in the inn and basically says, you gotta take care of this guy, you gotta take care of, and he says this in Luke 10:35. He says, "The next day, he being the good Samaritan "handed the innkeeper two silver coins, "telling him, take care of this man. "If his bill runs higher than this, "I'll pay you the next time I'm here." Good Samaritan bro could have just been like, hey, bandaged you up on the road, good luck, peace. He bandaged him up, picked him up, took him to town, Hey, he could have just dropped him at the doorstep of the inn and said, "Hey, innkeeper, "somebody out here, see ya," and rolled. But he takes in there, he pays the bill and then gives his word, "Hey, if anything else comes up, "it's on this dude." No, he says, "If anything else comes up, I'm good for it. "Next time I'm in town, tell me the bill, "I will take care of it." Generous people round up. Anybody remember Zacchaeus? Zacchaeus was a wee little man A wee little man was he Okay, some of you are like, who is that? It's okay. It's like early 2000s, late 90s church. It's okay. But Zacchaeus, this short little dude, he climbs up in a tree so he can see this guy, Jesus, walking on the road, and he's like, I wanna see who this dude is. And Jesus comes along and says, hey, Zacchaeus, I'm coming to your house for dinner. What you making? And the dude basically falls out of the tree in shock. And it's like, are you okay? Okay, cool, let's go to your house. He's like, ah, he fell on the tree, bro. No, but seriously, he goes to his house and he's having dinner with him. And this guy was the worst of the worst. He was a crook, he was a swindler, he was a manipulator, he stole money from people, he was taking taxes, but then he was taking his taxes, and then his friends' taxes, And then his friend's tax is on top, really he was taking it all, but he was taking all this extra tax stuff, and Jesus shows up in his life and radically changes him. And he says what? In verse, Luke 19, verse eight, he says, "If I've cheated anybody out of everything," newsflash, he cheated everybody out of everything, "I will pay back four times the amount." That's pretty generous. That is pretty generous.

Jesus himself, he tells us, he says, "Anybody demands your shirt, "give them your really cool jacket too." If somebody says, "Hey, go a mile with me, round up, go too." Jesus says, "Generous people round up." It's not what you're not doing, We're just not randomly giving. We're not just waiting until we have more. We are generous people who make a plan and round up. My wife, amazing, she's incredible. You haven't met her, she's really, really cool. She came up with this idea somewhere of creating these pre-made packs of stuff for people who are unhoused. And it has like deodorant and socks. And I think there was like a beanie in there and there was like a Starbucks gift card and all this stuff. And because we were driving around and our girls kept saying, "Hey, can we help this person?" It was just like, "Sorry, we have a water bottle." We hand them a water bottle and the girls were like, "That was cool! We gotta do this more. And so then we started having water bottles and it was just like, we didn't have enough water bottles. And then we came, my wife found this idea. She came probably with herself, she's brilliant, to make these packs that have all this stuff in it ready to go. And we would call them our bless packs. I think that's the term. But we would have them in the car ready to go. So when we pulled up next to them, one of the girls was like, "Hey, let's do a bless pack from the back of the van." And one was like, "Okay, Lauren, okay." And we would hand it to them. This incredible, incredible, and they, seven bucks maybe? A pack? 'Cause the Starbucks gift card? But it was just something so simple and so easy, but we had to pre-plan. Does it take some time? Yeah, does it take some effort? Yeah, you gotta go to the store, you gotta buy some stuff, you gotta put some, but that generosity in a practical way for someone.

There was another time I was working at Starbucks in college. Lauren and I were just early married, and we were living paycheck to paycheck. And we were trying to do the tithing thing, and every month or so we'd try to get there. Sometimes we didn't make it. But I had a coworker of mine who was a single mom. She had gone through a really ugly divorce, and she was living at home with like six kids. And a couple of them were in high school, and we were talking one time, she was my shift manager, and we were talking and she's like, I just, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I was like, what do you mean? She goes, it's a couple days before payday and we are literally out of food. She goes, I got nothing. She goes, I think the kids might be able to get something at school. She goes, but I really don't know what I'm gonna do. And we were like, okay, what can like, they're like, no, it's nasty, but here's a bunch of old muffins and some breakfast sandwiches, and here's a gallon of milk. We'll just turn a blind eye. And she had never asked for anything ever. And so I go home and I can't stop thinking about it. Can't stop thinking about it. And God's like, you gotta do something, bro. You gotta do something. I'm like, I don't wanna do it. So I talked to my wife, Laura, and I'm like, this is what's going on. And she goes, "We're going to the store." I was like, "What do you mean?" She's like, "We don't have the money." She's like, "Yeah, we do." She's like, "We're going to the store." And I was like, "Okay." And it was a couple of days before our payday, and we were looking at our fridge, and we were going, "Okay, God." And one time she turned to me, she goes, "We have to do something." And I was like, "Okay." So we went to the store, and we filled the cart, and we checked out. And we went to their house and we doorbell ditched them with a load of groceries. The math didn't math. God took care of the bill. It wasn't Lorna me. God took care of the bill. There was enough. We made it to payday. And then I had that next shift with her at work. And she was like, I gotta tell you a story. And she was in tears. She was like, I don't know who it was, or how it happened. She goes, there was just enough food. Young married couple buying for a family of six. We had no idea who could buy it. And I was like, man, that's incredible. And she was like, "I don't understand." I was like, "Probably not meant to understand, "but just say thanks God." And she goes, "Oh yeah, I've been talking to God "like I've never been talking to God these last 48 hours.”

Being generous is a heart, attitude, mindset change. It's not what you give. Being generous is who you are, and this is who God has called us to. If you want to be more generous when you have more, learn to be generous when you have less. This isn't, it wasn't like that day after Lauren and I did that, like we never struggled with generosity in our life. No. It is a constant battle and struggle. But when we seek God first, and we trust Him with everything that we have, He will take the portion that is left over, and it will go further than you could ever have best plans for the whole. It's the only thing I could tell you that. And I know generous people in this church that say the exact same thing. It's like we started just being generous. We didn't understand, it didn't make sense, and it just happened. But you have to pre-decide. We're not waiting till later. not making excuses of why we can't. We stand firm in our plan of generosity, pre-deciding, rounding up, because we serve a God who went above and beyond and was the most generous, who pre-decided to send his son to take care of everything for us as the ultimate gift. our choice is to then share from that generosity.

Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for today. God, we thank you for your generosity of the rain outside, even this moment. God, you are so caring and loving. We are so incredibly grateful. And so God, I pray for us as we go from this place today that we would start maybe having some hard conversations, God, of where do you want us to give? Where do you want us to be generous? How do you want us to handle the increase, God, that you have given to us? Jesus, may we be people as Christ's followers who are identified as generous people, not because of the amount that we give, but because of how we care and we love for those around us, God. May we pre-decide, may we pre-choose to trust that you're gonna be the one who's gonna take care of it. Give us eyes to see, give us the strength to plan strategically to be generous. God, be with us as we go from this place. We love you, we praise you, we thank you for who you are. We love you, Jesus. Amen.