We Are The Church: Part 3

We Are The Church: Part 3

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, we are on our last week of our series for We Are The Church, and I'm really excited for what we're gonna talk about today but before we dive into that, I just wanna give you guys a reminder that at the beginning of this series, we talked about the Church Pulse Assessment that has been sent out to you through our email list and I believe there's even a text going out this afternoon as another reminder, but we would just really appreciate if all of you would take probably 10, 15 minutes to just go through that assessment. It'll help us as a leadership team to know where we can grow, what areas of weakness and strengths that we have, what you are looking for in your church body, but this is just something that we are going to have you go through, have everyone go through so that it will help us as we focus in on this next year. So if you would take some time to do that, we would really appreciate our goal is to get everyone to do that, so we would love for you to help us out with that.

We as a leadership team have a desire to see Spring Valley Church, really the global church, but specifically for us here at Spring Valley, for it to be your third place. Now, what is the third place? Well, in our culture, we often have three places. We have our home, we have our work, and then we have a third place, wherever you spend a lot of time. So for some people, maybe it's a coffee shop. I actually think Starbucks is the one who coined this term, who started this idea of a third place 'cause they wanted you to come be at their stores. But maybe it's a coffee shop or a bookstore. Maybe it is the library. Perhaps it's a really close friend's house or the home that you grew up in that your parents still live in. Wherever it is that if you're not at home or work or school, you are at this third place. And we just, we kind of have this dream or this vision that we would be your third place. Now, even if it's not the church building itself, although we have a lot of events and things here, obviously we hold our church services here, even if it's not here specifically, that the body, the people, our SVC family, wherever you may be gathering would be your third place. We hope that it's a place that when service is over, you stay and you talk, you linger. That's why we got the picnic tables outside. That's why we try to have an all-church meal regularly so we can stay after and fellowship and be with each other. Maybe it's this idea of when the check has been paid, maybe you've gone out to lunch after service or you meet up with some church friends on a Friday night, that after the check has been paid, you don't rush off, but you stay. And you continue to be together. We want it to be a place where we are in each other's business, we're in each other's lives regularly. That is our hope. And honestly, that's what a big part of what we're celebrating today, is the fact that people have chosen to make Spring Valley their church family or their third place. And we are so excited about what God is doing here. So we're gonna look more into that, about what that means for us individually and corporately as a church body.

There was a Harvard study done that said that one in three people believe the following. It says that, they said, "You have needs in your life "and no one to meet them. "You have hurts to share and no one to listen to them. "You have love to give and no one to receive it." So one of the 36 of Americans are enduring ongoing feelings of loneliness, isolation and longing to be loved and to love. 36%. Honestly, I would imagine that's actually kind of low, to some degree. 'Cause it's not God's design or His intention for His kids. That's not how He made us, to be enduring feelings of loneliness, isolation and wanting to love and be loved. We're actually on a pause from our Genesis series for this We Are the Church series, but I'm actually gonna take us to Genesis again. 'Cause I think it's a really good reminder of why we are built for community. So in Genesis one, God, we see creation. God made order out of chaos and He created the world. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and He said, "It is good." Let there be light, light was good. Stars, planets, fish, plants, birds, animals. All of it, He said, was good. But then God said something wasn't good. After He made man, made Adam, and He saw that Adam had no one to do life with, had no one to laugh with or cry with or spend time with or share experiences with, He said, "This isn't good." Genesis 2:18 says, "The Lord God said, 'It is not good "'for the man to be alone. "'I will make a helper suitable for him.’"

And then moving on to 22, "Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib "He had taken out of the man "and He brought her to the man. "The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones "'and flesh of my flesh. "'She shall be called woman "'for she was taken out of the man.'" It wasn't good for him to be alone. God designed them to be together, to be in community. We know this because of what we've also talked about in our Genesis series of what came before man was made. What did God say before He made humans? Genesis 1:26, "Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness. "Let us make them in our image." That's plural language. So we see that the Trinity exists in community. We have Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. There's this perfect community that exists, distinct persons, but united as one. Now, God didn't create us because He was lonely. We see that because He was in community. He wasn't lonely and God doesn't need anything. So He didn't create us because He was lonely. He created us because He is love. Love isn't what God did, it's who He is. And He wanted to make us, to be in relationship with us. That's where we get the greatest commandment. Matthew 22, Jesus says, "The greatest commandment "is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, "and love your neighbor as yourself." So out of His love, He created us and then He gave us each other so that we can love Him and love each other. We were made for community.

The early church that we see in the book of Acts is really embraced this idea. They understood it. They knew that they needed each other. If you'll turn with me to Acts 2 in your Bibles or your phones, we'll also have it up on the screen. Acts 2:46-47, we see this picture of the early church embracing their community. It says, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching "and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, "and to prayer. "Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs "performed by the apostles. "All the believers were together "and had everything in common. "They sold property and possessions to give "to anyone who had need." Verse 46, "Every day they continued to meet together "in the temple courts. "They broke bread in their homes and ate together "with glad and sincere hearts, praising God "and enjoying the favor of all the people. "And the Lord added to their number daily "those who were being saved." Every day they were together. They met together, they spent time together, they made food together, they ate and did life, they took care of each other. It was more than just physical proximity, although that was very important, but it created a spiritual intimacy and an emotional unity.

Why did they gather so often? Well, they needed each other and they knew they needed each other. They were aware of it, so they did something about it. Many believers, all believers, need that community too, but I think, especially in our modern day, we've forgotten it. We have forgotten how much we need each other. Maybe we have our immediate family, maybe we have our best friend or our spouse, but then beyond that, we forget that we need other people. A lot of us have embraced this, an isolating existence, maybe not even intentionally, but with the way of technology and advancement in conveniences, we work and shop and play online. We have social media that's not actually that social. We think it is, we pretend it is. And don't get me wrong, you can make real, I have made friendships with people online, but it's different, it's different when you are in person. We watch sermons, we listen to podcasts, we listen to audiobooks, all online. We think we don't need anything else, we don't need to go out or be with people. These are not bad things, please hear me on that. I do all of those things myself, these are not bad things. But I think we've lost the thread when it comes to truly living in community with other people, of seeing others and being seen by them. You can't do that when you're alone, you can't do that when you're just behind a screen, you can't do that when you're choosing to live in isolation. The reality is that as we all know, relationships can be messy. It can be scary to be vulnerable, to open ourselves up to people, to risk being hurt, 'cause we're all imperfect, we're all gonna mess up. And honestly, I think sometimes it's just inconvenient. We have work, we have our homes, we have our families, we have things we've gotta do, and so to put those on pause, to go be with other people can be really inconvenient, or even to invite people into that can be really inconvenient. So we don't, or we limit it. But see, being with each other is so good for us. It's good for our mental health, as science shows. It is good for the joy of our lives, it adds so much joy. It provides opportunity for encouragement and accountability. It helps breathe spiritual growth like nothing else does. You need each other, we need each other. Acts says that they met together daily, in person, in their homes, they went to each other's houses. They were all up in each other's business. They saw each other parenting, they saw their marriages, they saw what happens when they were stressed. And the thing with those kinds of relationships and that kind of community, it doesn't stay at surface level for very long, it can't. When you see who someone is when they are stressed out, you know who they are. I mean, if you think about what do we do when we have a loved one or someone we care about that suffers a tragedy or a loss? Maybe we send a text, hey, thinking about you, praying for you, let me know how I can help. Maybe we send flowers or drop off a meal on their porch. These are all good things, don't stop those things, do those things. But may I encourage you to pick up the phone. I think I'm probably more talking to my generation and younger, we have like an allergy to phone calls. Right, pick up the phone, let them hear your voice. Or, and hang with me here, go to them. Go be with them. Show up on their porch with a hot pizza and a hug and you are just ready to practice the ministry of presence. You are just there for them. You're a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry in, you don't have to say anything.

Sometimes people just wanna know that they are seen and they are known and they're not alone. I think sometimes we don't feel like we've maybe built up the relational equity needed to do that, needed to step into someone's space or to invite them into ours. But do you know where that relational equity is built? In regular, intentional community. When we are intentional about being with each other, it builds that relational equity so that we can show up for each other. Having Christian community, being the church, having this be your third place will not happen by accident. It has to be done intentionally. But when it is, it's what combats the loneliness. It's what fights against the things we talked about earlier from the Harvard study. It says, it's gonna provide someone who can help you meet your needs. It's going to give you someone whom you can share your hurt with, who will listen to you and pray for you. It's gonna give you someone to love and who will love you. When we commit to being in relationship with others, it combats the loneliness, it pushes it back in our own lives, but also in the lives of others. When we are committing to Christian community, we're creating the opportunity for ourselves to be in community, but also for others. What if, at least to some extent, God is asking you to live in Christian community, not for yourself, but for someone else? Maybe you're one of the two out of three that isn't struggling with loneliness or isolation right now. You still need community because other people need you. Someone else may need you to be there, to show up. And I promise you, one day, you're gonna be on the receiving end of that, but you have to be engaged consistently and intentionally in the body of Christ.

Our leadership team here has worked really hard to try to create some of these spaces and places for you to come and be a part of that. Our monthly men's and women's events, the guys just had an awesome time at ax throwing on Friday night. Yeah, I heard it was so much fun. Ladies, should we go ax throwing, maybe? No, okay. I'm just saying, the guys had so much fun. Well, we have our men's and women's events, we have our weekly Bible studies, we have youth on Monday nights for our students, family fun night we got coming up on Friday, and we want to create more. We're working to gather more opportunities for us to come together in addition to our Sunday morning. But we do this because like the early church, we know that we need each other. But here's where I might step on some toes. We can provide the place, but you have to choose it. You have to prioritize it. Just like we often choose things that cause us to live in isolation, sometimes we choose things that prevent us from engaging in that Christian community, from being there when we know we should be. And sometimes it's as simple as we over schedule. We say yes to too many things, not necessarily bad things, but we just say yes to too many things. Maybe we have all the kids' extracurricular activities or sports, maybe we take all the overtime shifts that we can. Maybe we just are hiding. Instead of opening ourselves up to other people, we would rather hide. We'd rather stay isolated. We'd rather protect ourselves. We don't want to be inconvenienced. 'Cause it is, it can be inconvenient. But it is so vital to our Christian life, to our spiritual growth and to our walk with Christ to do so alongside other believers. That is why we gather. The early church knew that and we can model our life after that. So what do we want our Christian community to be like? Well, I think there's many things, but we're gonna look at four things that we want our Christian community here at Spring Valley Church, your third place to be.

Number one, we want it to be full of grace. Acts 20:32, Paul is talking to the believers in the church and he says, "Now I commit you to God "and to the word of His grace, which can build you up "and give you an inheritance among all those "who are sanctified." We are given God's grace for the purpose of our sanctification, which means we are just being more, made more and more like Jesus. But because we have been given His grace, we can extend that grace to other people. So when someone walks in, it is not a place of judgment. Everyone is welcome. Come as you are. Jesus called people to Him. He didn't say, "Go clean yourself up first." He said, "Come follow me." So just like we have been given so much grace, we live in that grace and we extend that grace to other people. So we want our community to be a place that is full of grace. And all of these things require your participation. I can say these things all day long, but all of us have to embrace these practices so that we are all participating in this community, in this way. So we gotta be full of grace.

Number two, we want our community to be a place of healing. I read a pastor's quote this week. He says, "Confess to God for forgiveness. "Confess to people for healing." Now, we can be healed. God is the one who does the healing. But there is something supernatural that happens when we confess to someone else. James 5:16 says, "Therefore, confess your sins "to each other and pray for each other "so that you may be healed. "The prayer of a righteous person "is powerful and effective." I've said it before and I'll say it again, revival will not happen without confession and repentance. We cannot have revival in our own hearts or in our church until we confess and repent and turn away from what breaks the heart of God. Now, confessing often just means confessing your sin, admitting the sin you've had. You take it to God and you ask for forgiveness. But when I talk about confessing to other people, I'm talking about sharing that with someone, expressing that struggle to them so they can pray for you, so they can hold you accountable, so that they can be there for you. But it can also mean confessing something else that you are going through. Maybe it is a struggle, maybe it is a past hurt or trauma that you've never shared with anyone and you can't experience healing because it is keeping you in bondage 'cause you've never told anyone. When we practice confession with other people, when we surround ourselves with people that will pray for us and will intercede for us on our behalf, we experience freedom from bondage. Chains are broken, supernatural and spiritual healing comes through confession. So we wanna be a place of healing.

Number three, we wanna be unified in our mission. We wanna be on the same page when it comes to what we are called to as a body. Acts 2, again, 46 through 47 says, "Every day they continue to meet together "in the temple courts. "They broke bread in their homes "and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, "praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people "and all the Lord added to their number daily, "those who were being saved." Our mission is to spread the gospel. That's our number one goal, is to point people to Jesus and make heaven crowded. We want to see our community saturated with the glory of God. That's our mission, is to be filled up here and then go out and overflow to the world. When we are operating in community regularly, we become more unified in that mission. Are we adding to our number daily, those who are being saved? No, but we are growing. And again, that's something we're gonna celebrate this afternoon. That we are seeing numbers being added to us daily. And we don't celebrate them just for the sake of bigger numbers and seeing those numbers grow. We are celebrating souls that were lost that have now been found. Lives that have been surrendered to Christ. People that have joined our Christian community and chosen to be part of our Spring Valley family. That is what we are celebrating. But again, it's because we meet together regularly that we build up the body, that we become clear in our mission. That we're in it together, that we're stronger together and that it builds our faith and it builds our relationships so that we can be more effective for His kingdom.

Number four, it is where we become battle ready. Our time and community makes us ready for the spiritual battles that we face every day. In the church in America, I think we really downplay the spirit realm, spiritual warfare. And I think part of it is we're afraid of sounding a little crazy or even of running the risk of over spiritualizing things. But at the risk of over spiritualizing it, I'm gonna tell you there is a spiritual battle. We all face those battles. And so when we come together, it is an equipping of the saints. It is getting us battle ready for when we go out and we face those spiritual battles. The Bible says we don't fight against flesh and blood, but against powers and authorities and principalities of the dark world. We're not gonna be very good at fighting spiritual battles if we have not become ready, if we have not armored up and been prepared. So we come together and we're equipped through worship, through the teaching of God's word, through fellowship. Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, "so one person sharpens another." You can't sharpen something without contact. It has to come into contact in order to be sharpened. But when it's sharp, we become dangerous to the enemy. Through community, we are given the tools we need to combat, to combat the enemy, to combat in spiritual warfare, and we are just stronger in numbers.

Paul talks about this in Ephesians when he tells us to put on the full armor of God. When he's writing this, he's referring to the Roman soldier's armor. And he talks about the shield of faith, that that is the main form of protection. And the Roman soldiers would have a giant shield that would, basically big enough to hide behind. But when the enemy was sending flaming arrows arcing over into their territory, they would circle up and lift up their shields to create a shell. So not only was it protecting them, it was protecting their fellow soldier. So when we become battle ready, not only is it going to help us and prepare us to fight a spiritual battle, it's gonna protect our brothers and sisters. We have a couple guys in our church who are ex-military, and they have tattoos that say I-G-Y-6 And I asked them about it. I said, "What does I-G-Y -6 stand for?" And they said, "I got your six." Meaning, I've got your back. Paul talks a lot about soldiers and being ready and armoring up and military language. So just like our men and women in uniform, we as the body of believers, we have each other's backs. We can say that because we are operating in community, I got your six, I've got your back. But we can't do that if we don't know each other, if we aren't spending time together, if we aren't with each other.

When we live life together and have real conversations, when we open ourselves up to vulnerability, when we get equipped, we're gonna be more prepared to defend against the devil schemes. Friends, there's a lot of darkness in this world. We are not ignorant to that. We've seen that time and time again. More school shootings than I'd like to count. Oh, immigrant woman being brutally murdered on public transportation. Charlie Kirk being assassinated over and over. There are stories of terrible things. Evil is rampant in our world. But I'm here to tell you that the church of Jesus Christ is alive and well. But we have to get ready. When we are full of grace, when we are a place of confession that leads to healing, when we are unified in our mission, in our battle ready, we will together be able to push back that darkness. We'll be able to stand firm with clarity and courage against the lies of the enemy. We can push back against tribalism and division. Then we get to offer peace to the world, the peace of Christ. We get to be the peace bearers that go out and point people to Jesus. Our loneliness will be our downfall. Our isolation from each other will be our downfall. But Matthew 18:20 says, for where two or three gather in the name of the Lord, He will be there with us. So maybe loneliness and isolation will be our downfall, but victory through Jesus will happen and be found in community. So we are the church. Who's ready to commit to being a part of the body of Christ, to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Sign me up for that. Sign me up for that.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you that you made us for community, that you made us for relationships, that you put us together so that we can make each other better, so that we could sharpen each other, so that we wouldn't be lonely or trying to do this life in isolation. God, thank you for our church family. Thank you for this place that we can call our church home, that we can come together and fellowship with each other, that we can be with each other in the lows and celebrate in the highs. We praise you for designing us this way, for knowing that we would need each other. Help us to lean into that. Help us to be vulnerable. Help us to be open. Help us to be committed to where you have placed us in the body of Christ. We praise you. We thank you. We love you. In Jesus' name, Amen.

We Are The Church: Part 2

We Are The Church: Part 2

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, my name is Andrei, I'm one of the pastors here and we're glad that we're all together this Sunday. We are taking a break, as was said, from our Genesis series. We're doing the We Are The Church series. I want to remind you that we sent out an assessment, a church assessment via text, via email this past week and many of you have taken it, we really appreciate that. If you haven't yet, don't you worry, you're getting another text and another email and another opportunity to take that church assessment. And again, it's all to help us as a church and our leadership to understand where we're at and to move forward with the best steps possible. So if you could take some time this week, if you haven't yet, to take that church assessment, we would really appreciate that.

Last week, Pastor Chris started off our series, We Are The Church, and he had three mindsets for us, to be more devoted, to be more generous, and to share the love of Jesus, which we're going to talk about more today. But he ended with the encouragement to change the object of our devotion by taking one step. And he said maybe that is to begin tithing or to increase your tithing, to begin volunteering at church, to pray daily, and whatever that step was for you, I pray that God has been stirring within you clarity over what the step is to take and that you guys are taking those steps every day and these weeks ahead. So we are excited about what this series is going to mean for us individually and us as a church.

Today we're going to be talking about a question, why are we the church? Why are we the church? And while the verbiage may be different from every church that you go to generally, there are two things that are hidden in every kind of mission statement or vision statement for a church, and that is to bring glory to God and to bring people to Jesus. So those two things, to bring glory to God, to bring people to Jesus, this is why the church exists. We say it, it's on our wall here at Spring Valley, to see our community saturated with the glory of God through making disciples in the everyday stuff of life. So you can see in there we're trying to bring glory to God, and we're also trying to bring people to Jesus. Sometimes that can go from the forefront of our minds to the back, and we tend to forget why we are the church, why we're Christians and what our purpose is and why we gather together, even when it is a huge font on the side of our sanctuary. Sometimes we forget.

This reminds me of a story. When I was a pastor at a former church at East Parkway, there was a group. As I was pastoring, the group started coming to church, and it was eight to ten people, and they all came in this big van, this big 12-passenger van, and they were people who were in recovery or homeless, and they all came from a shelter up the road. They came from a long ways away, men and women, all dealing with, again, some point in their recovery, and they would drive over an hour to be here because someone, the person who was bringing them, had gone through recovery and seen the importance of church. They had a family member that went to that church, and so he was like, "Hey, I'm going to church now, and I think all these other people should also go to church." In order to be on time, I can give you the setting here, they would get there really early because they were driving far away, and so they'd often just be there in the parking lot for more than a half hour just chilling. For those who didn't know their story, it kind of looked a little odd. There's a group of 10 or 11 people, eight to ten, whatever, people sitting in the parking lot, smoking a lot of cigarettes, and not looking maybe like everyone else at the church. They were dressed in their best, but sometimes you go to a certain church setting, and there's just like, "Oh, well, we all look like this, and these people don't look like that." And again, it was a little off-putting for those who didn't know the story of why is there a group loitering in the parking lot and just smoking away, and then they come and they take all our brownies and cookies in the morning, and they keep drinking all the coffee. But for those who did know, it always put a smile on our faces to see that they were there. Why? Because we knew that this is why the church existed, to bring glory to God and to bring people to Jesus, and the person driving those people was bringing people to the house of God to go to church on Sundays. And as their story kind of came out over Sundays after Sundays, and people were asking, "Who are they? Who are they?" And then eventually the whole church knew, and the whole church, even if they didn't at first understand and see, but they were coming as they were, just love them as they were, and so the church had to learn to do the same.

And today we're going to be in a passage in Scripture where Jesus accepts someone just as they are, and the example that it is to us of why the church is the church. And so we're going to be in Mark 2. If you have your Bibles, you can follow along on the screen or on your phone. So we're going to be in Mark 2, and just to give a little background, Jesus has returned to home base, Capernaum, and he's teaching in a home, and there's no room left. As you can imagine, Jesus has quite the following, and when he comes into town, people want to hear, and so he comes to this house, and it is packed. It's like if Jesus showed up to one of your life groups, and you'd just be texting, like, "Hey, he's here, and you should get here," and your house was full. And this group at this house has got some pretty important people. You got everyone from the next-door neighbors to religious leaders who showed up to hear Jesus talk. From our passage, I want us to see the types of people that we see in this story and remind us that it's the very same types of people that we see in church today. So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to read. If you guys could bow your heads one more time with me. God, thank you for the chance to gather. We do not ever want to take this for granted. We can gather on a Sunday freely and worship you and hear your truth be preached. God, we pray for this message that you have prepared. I pray that it would reach our hearts, that it would draw us closer to you, that it would encourage us to give you everything we have and to live for you every moment of every day. And God, I pray that as we have a deeper understanding of who you are, we would have a deeper understanding of who we are and why we as a church exist. So be with us this morning. We give this time to you. We pray this in your name. Amen. All right. Let me go ahead and read our passage, starting in verse 1, Mark 2. A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Now some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Immediately, Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier, to say to this paralyzed man, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat, and walk?' But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins." So he said to the man, "I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home." He got up, took his mat, walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone, and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this.”

Another pastor, Pastor Greg Crochell, has some helpful insights into this passage, and I want to share some of those this morning. So we are going to look at five different types of people. In every church, you see five different types of people. The first is, you walk into a church, every church, you see someone in need. In our passage, it's the paralytic, in need of healing. Obviously, he has his friends there, but he needs something. He is living a life where he is not whole physically. And for that culture at that time, someone who was paralyzed, it was often associated with a generational sin. His parents must have done something, that he is now living a life like this. We won't get into all that right now, but this man is in need of physical healing. Today that could be in our church, someone battling depression, dealing with financial struggles, a single parent, someone feeling alone and hopeless, fighting anxiety. You come to church, and you are in need. There are people in our church today who are in need, in this room, who are in need. Sometimes that's us. We walk in, and we just need Jesus, and we need those other Christians in our lives. Other times, you go to church, and you're in a good place, you're experiencing a good season, God's blessing you, and you're able to think outside of yourselves, and you're aware of the needs around you, and that brings up our second person.

In every church, you will find someone who cares. In our passage, we see the four friends of this paralyzed man, who took it upon themselves to bring the man before Jesus. And they don't just stop once the house is filled. They didn't take him there like, "Hey, look, we couldn't get through. So sorry. Maybe we can meet Jesus next time, next week, at the Life Group, at this house." They care, they cared enough to keep going, determined to find a way to bring their friend to Jesus. Come back to that in a second. Today, in our church, there are people who care deeply for others, who have the capacity to care deeply. They are mindful of the lives that we are living, and people in need, and they want to do something about it. And maybe that's as simple as connecting with a person, sending them a text, "Hey, I know I was talking to this person on Sunday. I know they're going through a hard time. I'm going to reach out this week and just let them know that they're not alone. I'm thinking of them. I'm praying for them." Maybe that's meeting up for coffee and saying, "Hey, I know that they have a hard time getting out of the house. I'm going to go invite them to coffee. We're going to spend some time together." Maybe it's providing meals. Someone who's, "Hey, meal prepping is the thing that is very difficult right now. We're going to provide some meals for that person." Or maybe it's someone that we all cringe at, helping someone move. A classic, classic church help. And it's still good. We should all do it. We should help people move. It's a tough one. Maybe it's giving some money to someone who is in need and say, "Hey, I'm having a hard time this month. I'm doing my best, but it's just things aren't there." And there's someone who has the means to provide help. Whatever the need is, there are people in church who care. And I know, and I know that you guys know, I want to encourage us, there are people at Spring Valley who care, who have the capacity to care.

So you see, in church, you see someone in need, you see someone who cares, you also see someone who is preoccupied. In our passage, there's a whole house full of people, wall to wall, so full that four people could not get through. They had to dig a hole in the roof. I want to show, do we have the picture? There's a picture of a house. Can we put that up there? This is what they would have, something like this would have been what they were working with. So there's a kind of a courtyard, that was all full, just imagine that whole place packed with people. And the roof was made of some wooden beams, some straw and clay manure mixture, and then when it rained or if there was water put on top, that clay would kind of seal and harden. And so when it said they had to dig through the roof, they literally had to dig through some very hard materials to get through. And there was also like grass up there and people would work up there and just relax up there maybe after, I don't know. But there's, you could walk up on that roof, it was very strong. And so it was not a small thing to say, hey, we're just going to like put apart some straw. It was no, it was a whole material that they had to dig through. That's how committed these friends were, to get through all of that. And the friends could not get through that house. It was so packed. Even with, I imagine they were whispering, hey, we have someone here who needs to see Jesus. They're not just like, hey, we just want to go to the front. There's like, hey, we got something going on. Can we get through? And no one will let them through. They were all preoccupied. They had their backs turned to the person in need. I like how Pastor Craig says it in regards to how it can look today. It says there can be Christian circles that love Jesus. They have their Christian bumper stickers. They have their Christian language. They say, praise the Lord, hallelujah. They listen to KLOVE radio. They have their favorite podcast. And without knowing it, and without meaning it, just because they were preoccupied, their body language, their posture essentially says to people around them, you can go to hell as far as we're concerned, because we're doing our Jesus thing. They didn't mean to, but they can just have their little Christian thing going on, and it's a good thing. They all liked each other, but they didn't realize they were preoccupied and had their backs turned to someone who was in need. Are we too preoccupied that we don't see people in need? We all have our own needs. We're not denying that. But there's also, we need to be aware of the people that are sitting around us in this room that we encounter outside these walls in our lives that are needing Jesus. And even something good, like our own personal walk with God, should not deter us from lifting up our heads and saying, "Who's around me right now that may be needing Jesus? And can I participate in them seeing Jesus, meeting Jesus, hearing Jesus?" Those four friends, they didn't give up. They didn't let those circumstances stop them from getting their friend to Jesus. That's the kind of attitude and heart and action that we need to have as a church, willing to do anything short of sin to reach people who don't know Christ. Pastor Craig says to reach people no one is reaching, we'll have to do things no one is doing. Let's sink in for a second.

To reach people that no one is reaching, we might have to do some things that no one else is doing, to have the conversations that no one else is having, to go take the time and sacrifice our time to go spend it when no one else is doing it. The friends of the paralytic do that. They say, "You know what? We can dig a hole through the roof. No bad ideas. We are determined to get this man to Jesus. How are we going to do it? We're going to go up to the roof, we're going to dig a hole, we're going to lower our friend down to Jesus." Imagine the scene inside. You're sitting there, probably standing there, standing room only, shoulder to shoulder, trying to hear Jesus. All of a sudden, some dirt starts falling down from the roof. What is going on up there? And then a man, this gaping hole opens up, and there's a man being lowered down in front of Jesus. And I imagine Jesus with the biggest smile on his face as he sees what's happening. I think we know that Mark 2:5, it says, "When Jesus saw their faith," saw their faith. For those friends, faith wasn't just an internal belief. It was a strong enough belief that it led them to action. You ever know someone that had such a strong faith you could see it in their lives? I know I have. I've said this to people. I can see their faith in the way they serve. I can see their faith in the way they pray. I can see their faith in the way they love people who are really hard to love. I can see that person's faith in the way they give. I can see a person's faith in the way they have compassion with people. I can see a person's faith in the way they love, in the way they talk to their children as a parent. I can see a person's faith when they're talking with people who they disagree with, and they are loving them like Jesus. People can see the way, they can see our faith in the way that we live. And in moments throughout life when we are choosing to be like Jesus, those four friends had a faith that you could see. And Jesus says, "When I saw their faith, something amazing happened." I imagine the paralyzed man through all of this hoping and praying for physical healing. That's why he's there. His friends, that's why they're bringing him there for physical healing. I no longer want to be paralyzed. I want to walk. I want to be whole. And yet Jesus didn't just give him healing. In fact, he does something else first. Even though the man brought the paralytic to be healed, Jesus sees a need that is more important because Jesus can do that. He can see what we want but knows exactly what we need. Pastor Craig says it this way, "Sometimes God gives us what we need before he gives us what we want." The man is lowered down. It's probably clear what the situation is that he cannot walk. And before healing him, the first thing that Jesus says to him, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Sometimes God gives us what we need before he gives us what we want. The man wanted his body to be healed, but Jesus knew that his heart needed to be forgiven. Praise God that he can see what we truly need, not just what we want. And it's at this point though, there were some people in the house have issue with what's happening. And maybe it started with they got dirt in their face and they're a little upset by that. But definitely the healing of someone and claiming to be God, forgiving sins, is where some people got really upset.

And that brings us to the fourth type of person that we see in every church. It's the uncomfortable one. Brace yourselves. Someone who is critical. I don't mean like vitally important. I mean someone who is always critiquing what is happening in the church. Verses 6 through 7 say, "Now some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, 'Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone?'" They're saying, "Jesus, you can't do this. That's not how this is going to happen. It's not how this is done." In churches today, there can be...that is present. There can be a lot of that. Someone who is critical, someone who is unhappy with things in church that aren't aligned with their preferences. They might not call them preferences. People who never seem to say anything positive, only negative, and complain and choose to see things through a critical lens. People who choose to ignore the work of Jesus that is happening in a church and instead make it about themselves and how they think, "This is not how I would do it," which means this is not how it should be done. But Jesus doesn't stop for the critics. Verse 10 says, "But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. So he said to the man, 'I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home.'" Take up your mat and go. You don't need it anymore. Jesus continues his work. And he might be saying today, "Maybe not take up your mat, but hey, leave your struggles here. Leave that financial struggle behind. Leave that anxiety here. Let go of your bad habits. Leave behind the shame. Go and follow me in your day-to-day life." That's what the paralytic did. Who's no longer a paralytic, a healed man. He gets up, healed by the power of Jesus, walks out in full view of all of them, and everyone's amazed. They've never seen anything like it before. This man's life was changed when he encountered Jesus, both internally and outwardly. And his physical, his body was healed, but his heart was forgiven. His sins were forgiven.

So, we'll see. In every church, someone in need, someone who cares, we have them all listed up here, someone who is preoccupied, and someone who is critical. Which one are you? Take a moment here. Look at that list. Assess your heart, where you're at in life. Maybe you're more than one. That's possible too. Maybe you go through different seasons, and so at one season you were this, but now you're in a season where, hey, now I'm this person. You might be someone in need. And if that's you, if you've said, hey, I'm the person in need, then this is the perfect place to be. You're exactly where you need to be, because in every church is someone who cares about your need. You are around people who care about what you're going through. Unfortunately, there are also those of us who are preoccupied. I've been there before. We put our heads down. We go to church. We say, hi, hey, hey, nice to see you, great, great. We go on with our day. We go on with our week. Yeah, I've got to go to church. And we're just going through the motions. We're in a rut. We're not bringing people to Jesus. We're kind of doing our own thing. We might have our backs turned to the people in our lives who need Jesus. And we may need Jesus to help us a bit more, to enable us to be considerate and caring to the people around us. Maybe there are those of us who are critical. Maybe we woke up on the wrong side of the bed one Sunday. Or maybe we need a good look at our heart, at what's going on inside of us. We need to ask Jesus, why am I thinking these things? Why am I saying these things? Which one are you? Someone in need, someone who cares, someone who's preoccupied, or someone who is critical? There's actually one more type. I said five types of people in every church. The last one is this. We in every church, we are all someone who can be changed. We are all someone who can be changed by the grace of God. All of us, every single one of us in this room, changed by the grace of Jesus. When you walk into a church, whether this church or you've been visiting other churches, you've been to other churches, when you walk into a church, who do you see all around you? But people who can be changed by God. Scripture tells us that if anyone, it doesn't matter who or what you've done, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old is gone and everything is being made new. If you are in Christ, you have freedom. Says he who the Son sets free is free indeed. We don't come here as perfect people. We don't come here as a social event. We don't come here to top off our spiritual tanks and be like, "I was just missing a little and now I'm back to being perfect again. I'm good to go out throughout my week." It's not how this works. We come here, whether you've known Jesus all your life or you just accepted him yesterday, we are all in need of Jesus and the life that he gives us and the grace that he bestows on us. We are all someone who can be changed by Jesus.

Now let me shift gears here. Who do we not see at church and who do we not see in this passage? Sounds tricky, but it's really simple, I promise. We don't see the people who aren't there. Gotcha. See, you see what I did there? We don't see the people who aren't there. Maybe in today's circumstances, maybe it's the woman who almost went but was too afraid because she had so much going on in her life and she was afraid that if anyone were to find out anything, that shame would keep her from making connections and being a part of that church. Maybe it's the guy who was interested but didn't want to miss the Sunday morning football games. I was just like, "Hey, no one's really invited me. I kind of thought about it, but I don't want to go." Maybe it's someone who before COVID was interested in going to church and then COVID happened and afterwards they never re-sparked that interest of going to church and no one's talked to them about going back to church. The list goes on and on and on about people and why they're not here. But what's needed is people who care, people who will invite them to church or invite them to have a conversation about Jesus. People who will care about not just what that person wants but what that person truly needs. I think of that group at my old church. They were only there because someone cared and because that person took action, they had a faith that led to action, said, "I'm going to get a van. I'm going to load all you up. I'm going to take you there every Sunday." This is why the church exists, to bring glory to God and to bring people to Jesus.

You guys should have got a card on your seat today. I want to pull that card out right now. It says, "I'm praying for an opportunity to share Jesus with someone." There's space for you to write a name down or a few names down. Just take a moment and think about who in your life needs to hear about Jesus. Write those names down, there's pens in the seats in front of you. I'll give you a moment to think about that. Who in your life needs to hear about Jesus? Family member, friends, neighbors, co-workers? Hopefully by now you've thought of someone, someone's come to mind. You guys should do me a favor. If you know someone who has not yet given their life to Jesus, who does not yet believe, would you guys mind raising your hand? If that's you, if you know someone who does not yet know, take a look around. Almost everyone in this room knows someone who needs to hear about Jesus. Every single one of us has someone in our lives who doesn't know him yet. We are called to be the church, to partner with Jesus in His kingdom work. We are the people that can share Jesus with others. You may be sitting there saying to yourself, "Yeah, but I don't know what to say. I don't have all the answers. What if they ask these really hard questions? And what am I supposed to say to that?" Well, I want to say this. It's okay, I'm giving you permission to say, "I don't know." That's a great question. I don't know. That's a really, I see what you're saying there. It's a really hard question you're asking and I'm not sure. I'll let you in on a, it's not a secret. I have a Bible minor, a Masters in Divinity, I'm ordained in the church. I don't know all the questions about the Bible. I put years and hours and I don't know. And I still say I don't know when I come to certain people and I have certain questions and I say, "That's a great, I don't know." And I lead them to what I do know. And this is the encouragement to you. You lead them to what you do know. So you have experience. If you are a believer in Jesus, if you've been following him in your life, then you have experience with Jesus and you share your experience. I don't know that answer that question, but what I do know is I've seen God work in my life. I've seen him provide for me. I've seen him work a miracle. I've seen him heal. I've seen him answer my prayers. I've seen him and how he loves me and I think he wants to love you. I know he wants to love you too. That right there, that's all you say, that is sharing Jesus with other people. And they may come back with, "But why did this happen?" I don't know. I have no idea. But I know that he loves you and he wants a relationship with you. That is sharing the gospel. It's what we're called to do. So the band comes back up for worship.

Hopefully you have someone on your card. And so, yeah, a couple of things. You have that card. You take that with you this week and put it somewhere where you're going to see it. You're going to be praying for that person, where it's going to be in front of you to say, "Hey, I'm praying for an opportunity." And maybe you're as bold as to walk right up and be like, "Hey, we haven't had a conversation yet. I need to talk to you about something." Or maybe you're just praying and you're waiting for the right opportune moment. And then maybe this week, it may be months from now where you have a chance to share. You may also be sitting there thinking, "This person's pretty hopeless and I've tried and I don't know if I'm going to be able to reach them." I want to say this. Sometimes those who look farthest from God are actually the closest because God is doing a work inside of them that we can't see. And sometimes it's at the lowest of lows where they're most open to hearing about Jesus. Even when people we'd love to see come to Jesus seem far away, we need to have hope and believe that God is the God who can do anything. And so you have those names. So I exhort you to look for an opportunity to share what you know, your experience of God with them. And we do this because we are the church. We exist here at Spring Valley to bring glory to God, to bring people to Jesus, to see our community saturated with the glory of God through making disciples in the everyday stuff of life. Do not forget your purpose. Don't leave these doors and this sanctuary thinking, "I just go back and I leave church behind me." No. You go into your life. You go into the people, your neighborhoods, your family, and you carry with you the burden and the desire and the urgency to say, "When I get the chance, when God opens that door, I'm going to share the truth. What's so important to me and what I want someone else to value too." We are all someone in need and we can all be someone who cares about someone by sharing Jesus with them. We're going to head into a time of prayer. We've done this once a month now and Pastor Lauren's going to be on this side. I'll be on this side. And in this next song, we want to invite you to do a couple of things. If you want to respond to what you've heard today in singing, we invite you to stand and sing and praise God. You have those names on those cards. If you want to just pray for those people and take this moment to pray for them and that opportunity to share them, I encourage you to do that. We're going to be on the sides here. If you want to bring those people up and we can pray with you about reaching those people. And if you just have stuff going on in life and you're like, "Look, I barely got here today. I got a lot of questions about what's going on in the world today and I would love some prayer." And please join us up here and we'd love to pray for you.

We Are The Church: Part 1

We Are The Church: Part 1

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

This morning we are doing a first part in a series called We Are The Church and I'm going to get to the sticker on your seat there in a moment for this series, but I want to give you a little peek behind the curtain, okay? Can I do that? As a pastor, let you guys understand a little bit here. There are times when being a pastor is a real struggle. And there are times when I first started studying to be a pastor in college and I moved across the United States. I grew up here in Northern California, Carmichael. I packed up a truck and I moved all the way to Indiana, thousands of miles away from anybody that I knew. At the time, my lovely girlfriend came with me, my now wife. She was there. I had a buddy from high school. He was there. So I had some people, Lauren, she had family in the area, but no family that I knew or that she knew. And it was kind of a struggle. And when we started, when we got to college, we both made a promise to each other that we were going to find a church and we were going to plug into a church and we were going to get connected. And this began probably, I don't know how many months of going and attending a church and then going out to lunch afterwards and going, "Okay, what did we think?" Because honestly, the reality was that we both grew up in really awesome churches and the bar was set so high for us that we found it a struggle to find a church. And as we went around to different churches and we got to know a lot of really cool people, I'm not saying these churches were horrible, it just, it was hard. Midwest church versus West Coast church is a lot different. Way different. And so we would go to a church and we'd go out to lunch and we'd be like, "Okay, we love this about this." We're like, "This is like, oh, that one, that one, that. Not too sure about that. Could we go there?" We kept going. We eventually found a church and we said, "We're not going to just attend until things got weird.”

Because here's the reality. When you go to attend a church, the church isn't batting a thousand every single Sunday. Like, let's be honest. Church isn't perfect every Sunday. The church isn't perfect. So newsflash, if you're searching for a perfect church, welcome, we're not perfect. But as we started attending a church, we said, "Okay, we're committed. This is where we're going to go." And so we started serving. I started serving on the worship team. My wife started serving in youth ministry. And we said, "We're committed to this church." And as we went through college and as I studied the Bible, I felt this hypertension because I realized when I read about scripture and the church and the Bible, the modern church of today didn't look the same. There were some big differences. And as a pastor, we spend a lot of time, I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, okay? As a pastor, Pastor Andrei, myself, Pastor Lauren, we spend a lot of time during the week preparing for a weekend service. And we spend a lot of intention and thought and we try to do our best to think through all the details and we figure out the right songs. Andre spends every year, at the beginning of the year, he spends a good amount of time looking through, reading scripture, helping direct and plan our series for the year. We sit down together. We talk through these series of what each week is going to be like, what part of the scripture we focus on. What is the theme here? What do we want you guys to walk away from after you come to church? And I sit here and I still continue to look at the scriptures and I see, I go, "This church is different than what I see at the church and the Bible." And I think we do what I would hope, I think, a really good job here at Spring Valley, working to teach truth and teach theology and to teach the Word of God.

But when I look at, maybe, let's say outside of the church, I'm going to say Big C Church. You guys mean when I say Big C Church? I mean just the church in general. Let's say just the church in North America. I see churches that are sometimes playing it safe. Churches maybe that are disconnected. Some have slipped, maybe I dare say, into being boring. And I look at the calling of Jesus and the life that He lived. And as Christ followers, meaning we are to emulate Christ in our lives, there is nothing safe about Jesus, right? He touched lepers. He hung out with prostitutes. He called tax collectors to be on His team. There's nothing safe or comfortable about Jesus. And yet when I look at the church, sometimes I see comfortable. I see safe. I see not the picture of what the church was at the beginning. The church that Jesus established, that the Holy Spirit led, that brought down onto the disciples who became the apostles, who became the first pastors in the beginning when Jesus left and went back into heaven. I see a difference there. I see Jesus who was radical. He loved those who hated Him. He blessed those who persecuted Him. Jesus welcomed those who religion of the day had rejected. And this is where I struggle as a pastor sometimes. But not only as a pastor, but also as a disciple of Jesus as I read the Bible and I look at the church today, it pales in comparison to what once was. Jesus didn't come to condemn, it says, but He came to save the world. He came to bring life. And not just simple life, barely getting by life, but life that is full. Life that is vibrant. Life that is attractional to the outside world. And today, the next two weeks after, we're going to take three Sundays and we're going to seek to begin to please God as His church. Because here's the reality, it's not my church. It's not your church. Pastor Andre's church. Not the pastor who founded this church way back in the day. It's not their church. It's God's church. His church. And I want to look at specifically the beginning version of the church in Acts chapter 2 and to give us three mindset shifts. Mindset shifts. Easy for me to say, I speak for a living. For us to think about and walk away today and begin to really think through as we seek God and His church today.

I want to pray real quick. Jesus, we thank you for another wonderful Sunday. God, we thank you for today. God, a day to worship you, to give you praise, the honor and glory. Couldn't think of a better day of the week than right now, God, to gather together to worship you, to give you the praise. And everybody said? Amen.

Well, it says this, Acts chapter 2, if you want to flip there, it's going to be on the screens. You've got a Bible in front of you, a lot of people on your phone. That's awesome. But Acts chapter 2, we're going to start in verse 41, and it says this, "Those who accepted His message were baptized," being those that believed what people said were baptized. And they added to the church that day about 3,000 in all. Peter gathers together a giant group of people, and he begins to preach who Jesus was to these people. And 3,000 people that day say yes to Jesus. Whoa. I wouldn't even know what to do. Let's be honest. You have a program management pastor problem day one as a church. Don't get caught in that. Sorry, side note. "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions and gave to anyone who had need." Every day, every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes, ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. The Lord added to their number weekly, monthly, yearly.

What was it? Shout it out. Let's go daily those who were being saved. Maybe I could just stop the sermon right here. A little bit different than today, right? A little bit different than Peter saying, "Hey, guys, we're going to meet temple courts Sunday 1030. Get your kids there at 1015. We'll check them into the side yard. We'll get them taken care of. And then service is over. You want to hang out. We're going to have some food. You can bring something to share. But we're going to be at Mary's house on Wednesday for a Bible study if you want to be over there." No, they met together daily. That's pretty awesome. Daily they're hanging out. And then they're Sabbath-ing together. They're having meals together. They're encouraging one another. Someone comes to them and says, "Hey, I need some help. I got it. What do you need? I'm here. Titus over here, he wants to hook you up. He'll take care of you. Just go see Titus." There's just this beautiful picture of this community in Acts chapter two.

So I thought it might be fun. Maybe look at the Big C church today and do today's translation or a modern-day version. This is me. I wrote this. Okay, I'm not saying. I'm not putting this in the Bible. But what if we wrote this about today? It may be something like this. Today's church, it says, "They devoted to their comfort, their happiness, their personal goals, their dream, their bucket list. No one really noticed the Christians because they were focused on themselves. Very few of the believers were together. And when we were, they fought over stupid things. If they sold anything, they used the money to buy something better for themselves. They claimed to love God, but they didn't even love each other. So they felt empty, alone, depressed. As a result, most people disliked them and very few lives were changed.”

Obviously, this isn't the picture that God has for His church. He wants something better for what the Scripture calls His bride, His love. And I think for us, there's been a lot of awesome, great churches and pastors. I don't want to discredit any of that. Okay? I'm here to just like, "Oh, church is so bad." But there has been a lot of things where we've gone astray in the church, right? And the only way that we can become better and to recognize where we can grow is to be honest with where we are at. If we want a different result, we have to have a different mindset. We have to change the way that we think, the way that we do church, the way that we live our lives because the reality is, as your sticker says, we don't just go to church, but we are the church. Say that with me. Say it. We are the church. The church isn't a building. The church isn't a campus on the corner of Sunset and Fairway or wherever in 123 America Boulevard USA. That's not where the church is. We are the church. They didn't have a building. I mean, they had 3,000 people and they didn't have a building. And yet what? God added daily those who are meeting Jesus and His saving grace for the very first time. So for us to become the best version of ourselves as the church, I see three things in this scripture about how the church operated, who they were, their priorities, and what they did. We will have to have three things changed in us to become more like the perfect version of the church from Acts chapter two.

The first thing we will have to be is we will have to be devoted. I just said we don't go to church. We are the church. There you go. You guys are catching. I'm proud of that. We will be devoted. We just don't go to church. We are the church. Oh yes. I love it. I love it. Acts 2:42, it says this, "They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, the teaching of Jesus and to fellowship, to community, to relationships, to breaking of bread, to food, to caring for one another, to loving each other, to prayer, to practically praying over each other by the power of the Holy Spirit, lifting one another up, going before God." And what the big fancy word would be, "intercession," which just means you're praying for somebody else so that God hears you praying for somebody else and that you love one another in the way that you care by taking time to think about them to say, "Hey God, I want to think about this person right now and what they're going through in their life." This is what the early church did. And when we look at this, I want us to focus in on that word, "devoted." I practiced this Greek word last night. My daughter came out. She's getting ready for bed and I'm literally online playing this Greek word to try to learn how to say it. So I'm about to butcher it real bad for you. But the Greek word for devoted means proskartereō. Yeah, see, you guys don't even know the difference. I love this. Proskartereō. And this word means devoted. It means to live in a constant state of relentless pursuit to be persistent, ongoing, obstinate, devotion. It's an imperfect tense. Ongoing action means it was and it is and it will be. Any English teachers in the room? I think I said that right. English was not my strength. But here's what this is. They were devoted. They were striving every single day to become more and more and more and more like Jesus. To be devoted to something is to strive to keep working at something. Consistency, repetition, habits, one after another after another becoming better and better and better even if it's an incy-binsy teensy-winsy little bit.

This weekend is the start of the NFL season. Okay, you knew I was coming here. You were waiting for it. And so for the past eight weeks, teams have been gathered together in what they call training camp. It's this ramp up period before the season actually starts. We started last Thursday night. And for the last eight weeks, players have done everything that they could to prepare for the season for one goal. One goal. To win a championship. And so for the past eight weeks, they have been obsessed, devoted, persistent with learning a playbook, developing their own personal strength, sharpening their skills, growing themselves hopefully to one time in February, I believe it is, to raise the Vince Lombardi trophy in victory with no other team standing. That's their obsession. And every day, they are persistent with their reps, repetitions. One rep after another after another. Because each rep builds on itself. Because then that begins a habit. And a habit develops a skill. And a skill will eventually show itself on the field when bullets are flying. They talk about some of these players who are just obsessed to a level that is probably unhealthy. Rep after rep after rep. Mental reps, not just physical reps, not just on the practice field or a preseason game or against a scrimmage against another team in a joint practice. But mental reps, too. On the field, off the field, in the classroom, with their coaches, in the weight room, at home, working out, studying their playbook on their own, watching videos of practice. Watching videos of practice. You guys realize that? They film all their practices and they go back and watch their practices again. Obsession. Each day. Because the most devoted, the most persistent are usually the players that are the best players. And they're the ones that can step up when their team is down, the game is on the line, and have ice in their veins and just go. But the players that settle never last long in the NFL. They just don't. Just don't make it. They might have all the skill in the world. I've seen some amazing football players come out of college that have all the skill in the world. But they're not devoted to the game.

And I think for us, it's easy to sit and to point at them and go, "Oh, look at them." But it's easy to settle, right? No, it's just a me thing? I think it's all of us in this room, if we were honest, deep down inside. We settle. But we don't think about settling. We think of just being too easily satisfied. We get to a point and go like, "Okay, I'm good. Life's good. Jobs, nah, not too bad. It's been worse. I'm doing okay. House is good. My marriage is fine. My finances are good. Life's good. I'm set. I don't need to think about anything." We get to a point where we're okay with just living life as it is in front of us, right? Here's the thing. We often settle for too little of God. We're good with a little bit of change of God in our life. And we're thankful for God's grace. Don't get me wrong there. We're thankful for God's grace, His love, and His mercy. Yet we become spiritually satisfied long before the grace of God has completed its work in us. See, I'll tell you today, right now in this moment, there are people in this room that have met Jesus very recently. And there's people in this room that have been following Jesus for a very long time. The truth about both of those people is God's not satisfied with where they are. He's not. And when I look at the early church and I see the apostles and those who follow Jesus and their devotion, their obsession with God and everything that God had for them, it wasn't like they had this big moment. Peter had this big Billy Graham crusade and prayed and 3,000 people came to know Jesus and he just gave them a high five and said, "Go with God." No, it didn't end there. That was just the beginning. And that's the same for us. That when we think about whether it was yesterday or a lot of yesterdays, the moment that we accepted Jesus in our heart, in our lives, we brought His salvation upon us, that was just the beginning. That was just day one of eternity. See the fact that God loves us so much that yes, He sent His Son to die for us on the cross, to give Himself for us so that we would have our sins forgiven. But God also loves us so much that He won't leave us as He found us. God is in the business of transformation, sanctification, and redemption. Now, I'm not talking about earning our salvation by the way that we live our lives and we have to do good and it outweighs. No, no, no, I'm talking about that. Your debt has been paid for eternity. But God's still got work to do in us. And when I look at the early church and I see this and their devotion and their commitment and their striving every single day as they met together in the temple courts, praising God and sharing everything that they had, breaking bread, loving one another, praying for each other, being with each other. I see a "proskartereō" see I said differently their time. I should have done that. Their whole selves in the early church was dissatisfied that they were looking and relentless pursuit for God to have more for them. This should be us too. This should be us. Church, I want to encourage you today, don't quit on the grace of God. It is not complete in you yet. Has God saved you, set your eternity in stone forever? Yes, your name is written in the book of life. You're good. But if you're still here, there's still work that God has for us. And I want us to be grateful for this. This isn't a discouragement thing. I want you to see that. It's just a mindset shift. It's not that we've done something horrible. It's a mindset shift for us to think about as we go forward that God is still working on His grace in our lives. And we are thankful that the Savior through the Holy Spirit continues to work even when we don't necessarily want the work. Okay, I'm done there. I'm done there.

The other thing we have to change is our mindset is that we will be generous. We will be generous. We are not spiritual contributors. We are spiritual contributors. We are not spiritual consumers. Acts 2:44-45 says, "All the believers were together and they had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need." It then says a couple chapters later, further on in the development of the early church. This wasn't just a moment in time right at the beginning. But it says, "And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all," okay, "continuing to work in them powerfully that there were no needy persons among them. From time to time those who owned land or houses sold them and brought money from the sales." See during this time in the Roman Empire, there were no government programs. There were no food stamps. There was no healthcare. There was no Section 8 housing. There were none of these things, which I think are good things. But those things that actually are now today actually originated in the church. They started in the church. Think about that. Could you imagine today that if the church came to the point where they stepped up, that they actually got rid of all of the welfare programs and all those things because they weren't needed anymore because the church was meeting all those needs? Whoa. That's why the church shined so bright. Because the reality was if you didn't have those things, you were probably homeless on the street and you probably died. That was the reality. Maybe you got sick. Maybe you never got any food. You're begging for your life. And the church shows up and says, "We got you." Everybody contributed. Big, small. And I want to be careful here because we think, "Oh, he's just talking about money.”

No, I'm talking about everything. I'm talking about our all. Yes, I'm talking about money. Let's just call it what it is. Talking about money. I'm also talking about time. You know, these early apostles and people in the church helped other people. Maybe it was fixing something in their home. Maybe it was going out to their farm. But they took time to do that. Maybe it was a skill, a talent that I believe the Holy Spirit gives each and every one of us. He's created us in a unique way to give back in that way. And together they all contributed in a way. They contributed with their money. They contributed with their time. They contributed with their gifts. And when I look at the church today, I don't know if we're all doing that. I don't know if we're all into that point because this idea at this time was completely countercultural. You think life is hard today. Think about life back then. Roman Empire was dog-eat-dog. It was kill the person next to you so you can take whatever they have so you can scrape by. It was ruthless. And the church comes along and says, "We got a better plan for that. The Holy Spirit, Jesus, has a better life for us to live together in community." To the point that no one ever had a need that went unmet. But I want you to catch some things here in these Scriptures. It wasn't that just a few of them had some resources in common. It was everyone. All the believers. Yes, it says in Acts 4 that some had their stuff. They had houses and land that they sold to give. That's great. But all the believers contributed in some meaningful way. Money, clothes, food. This is what it means to be a church. And that also means that all the believers went with less. Because this stuff just doesn't pop out of thin air, right? The extra clothes, the extra food. I don't know. It says they sold houses and land. Was that a second home? A vacation home? Was that development property that they inherited? I don't know. Maybe it was their only thing. And they said, "The gospel is more important than my property." Did I just say that? And because of that, they were able to provide tangible needs to the point that nobody was needy among them. Can I ask you a question today? I'm going to ask it anyway. If someone looked at the way that you spent your money, would they know that you're a Christian? Would they know that you're just a steward of what God has blessed you with? Would they see how you spend or give away or contribute? Would they go, "Yep, that person's a Christian. I can tell." How they spend their money shows their heart. But Chris, you don't get it. You've seen the cost of things lately. Inflation, the housing market. Have you seen everything going on? Yeah, I have. I'm living here too, guys. Did you see the economy and the world and the cost of things in the Roman Empire? The taxes? You think taxes are bad here. Taxes, like Roman Empire robbery, aka like... But they still had generosity. This past year as a church, we had some real financial struggles. I think you guys follow along in the program. But at the bottom on the back, we talk about our finances. And we want to be honest with you. We have budget presentations. We talk about how we spend all of our stuff.

And this last year, unfortunately, we were not able to contribute to certain things in ways that we had previously. Times where there were new churches starting that we knew about and they were planting. We wanted to contribute, but we weren't able to. They were contributing to education of future pastors and church leaders, and we weren't able to. There were times with missions. You guys remember Vivek from India. He came. We've had Shane and Sarah who are doing gathering of nomads. We wanted to contribute to them, but because financially, things were too tight. Here, we did not have enough. We weren't able to contribute to those. And I wrestle with this because I think, okay, it doesn't matter. We still need to contribute, right? We still need to give. Things are tight. Who cares? God's got it all. He's going to take care of it. But it's an us thing. And I will tell you, we have some incredibly generous people in this church. Gosh, guys, I am blown away. I don't know all the details of everything, but I know that there are people who give so much. They give the way the early church did. They go with less so that the church can have more, and they give, and they give, and they give. And it blows my mind. It's amazing. But all of us have a role to play. All of us have a peace to contribute. All of us probably are spending money, myself included, on ourselves in a month that should probably go towards the work of God in His kingdom rather than the work of Chris's kingdom. Relentless devotion. It's hard. I know it is, guys. I get it. But I also get on the other side of eternity, a lot of stuff that we're chasing after just doesn't matter. And the kingdom of God matters. God's work matters.

Final thought for us today as we close is that we will share the love of Jesus. We will be devoted. We will be generous. And we will share the love of Jesus. We are the church, and we exist for ourselves. No, we are the church, and we exist for the world. Acts 2:46-47 says, "Every day they continue to meet together in the temple courts." They're having Bible studies all day long. "They broke bread in their homes. They ate together, glad and sincere hearts. They praising God and enjoying the favor of all God's people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." See, here's the reality of Spring Valley Church. Spring Valley Church exists here for now, for this moment, for today, and for tomorrow, and for any other day that God continues to allow this church to be here on earth. But you think, "Oh, the big church right over there, big one. They got all the money. They got all the resources. Have you seen how many campuses that church has?" They're the ones that's going to be here. They're the ones that's going to reach everybody. No. There's people in your life that only you can reach. There's people that God has placed next door, the next cubicle, in that staff meeting, at that restaurant you love going to, a coffee shop, your family. Your best friend. God has placed them in your life for you to share Jesus with them. And you are the only person that can do that. You are plan A and there is no plan B. So when we think about why we exist, no one else is you. It is our desire to see our community saturated with the glory of God. But here's the thing about saturation. See, that was a very critical word we put in there. Saturated. Water. You guys remember probably back in the day, it's been a while, I might do the sponge sermon again. Let me bring that one back. But I had a sponge up here and I had this bucket of water and I splashed the sponge and I still got the water spots in my Bible from it. But I had this sponge and I took this sponge out and I squeezed it and all this water ran out. I said, God has given us for us to absorb who He is into us, so as we go through life we leave a little wet mark of Jesus with everybody that we meet. But here's the reality. That bottle of water that I poured over that sponge, I have to open that bottle to get the water out to saturate the sponge. Some of us are bottling up Jesus in our life and we're keeping Him on the shelf and He's great. We go see Him, we hang out with Him, we maybe drink a little bit, put the cap back on, send Him back on the shelf. God wants to rip that bottle off the top and dump it out in your life. Dump it out in the lives of your family, dump it out in your friends. He wants to flood their lives with His love to where things they have no idea are coming for Him. He wants to knock them down like a wave of the ocean with a kid not paying attention. That's what He wants to do to them. He wants to just all over them with His love. And you're the only person in their life to share that Jesus with them, to saturate them with His love and His glory.

Heard this quote this week from Paul David Tripp. He says, "This is your mission and every relationship in your life to make the grace of the invisible king visible." Spring Valley Church, we are going to be a faith-filled, big thinking, bet the farm risk takers we will never insult God with small thinking or safe living. Are we a small church? Absolutely. Are we the average in America? Absolutely. Does God have more for us than that? Absolutely. God is moving in this church in powerful ways, but it's gonna have to take all of us. It's gonna have to take all of our devotion. It's gonna have to take all of our generosity. And it's gonna have to take all of us sharing the love of Jesus with our worlds. We got a pretty cool group of pastors here. Can't do it all. God has that calling on your heart and your life. So what do you want me to do about it, Chris?

Here's the final closer here. I want to give an open invitation for each and every one of you to change the object of your devotion with one step. Change the object of your devotion with one step towards Jesus. What does that look like? Well, for you, it may be reading God's Word. You're gonna say, "Pastor Chris, I'm gonna commit. Every single day I'm gonna start reading God's Word." If you haven't, okay. No shame, no guilt, no nothing. Change. Do it. Go forward. But I want to give you a warning. You gotta be careful. Because the Word of God, as it says, is alive and is active and is living. It's gonna begin to change who you are. So be careful.

Maybe you need to start stepping up and serving in church. We just launched three classes today. It's awesome. We got three classrooms rocking. We have an amazing team back there, but we still don't have enough volunteers. We got other slots where we got holes and we're kind of putting things together. We're trying to make things happen because God's doing some amazing things here. And we don't want to just sit and wait for everything to fall into place perfect and then step forward. We got to step forward in faith. But I want to warn you, if you start serving in church, it's addictive. You start loving on people. You start loving on them. Start loving on people. Start helping kids. Start talking to people on a Sunday morning saying, "Hello, you want to talk to more people? You want to see how they're doing? You want to serve in a tangible way?" It'll be addictive.

Maybe some of us need to start tithing. When you start with our finances and our time and the talents that we've been given, we need to start tithing into God's church. But we got to be careful because your heart follows where you give. You start giving, you might want to start giving more and more. And you might hear about this need over here and go, "God, I want to take care of that." You might hear about this need. You might see this person in your life. "I want to do that. I want to do that. I want to do that." We gather up the ties and the offerings every week. We have the envelopes. You guys put your stuff in there. There's a guy in church he writes down, he says, "For God's work." Every week. And I love it. For God's work. Sometimes you think about, "Oh, the church just wants my money for the church to have my money." It's for God's work. It's for other churches to start, for more people to find Jesus. It's for more pastors to have the call, to be developed, to go out and to do more churches and to lead churches better. It's for God's work around the world and missions and missionaries putting their lives on the line in some of these places where they can't even talk about where they are. One of those is Vivek. We don't know where exactly he is. He can't tell us. Because he's had police show up on a Sunday morning and shut their church down. It's happening around the world, guys. What if together with our generosity we could change the world for God? That's something that's worth investing in, right?

Maybe you need to start praying daily. You go, "God, sometimes I just come to you when I need something. I need to come to you when I went just to be in your presence. I want to lift up my brothers and sisters in this family who are going through some really tough times right now." But I want to warn you, God, be careful. Because you're going to start seeing miracles and you're going to start praying more. And you're going to start seeing more miracles and more miracles and more things. You're going to see God moving in his church and in his family in powerful ways. You see lives transformed. Maybe you've seen some scary spiritual stuff happen in this realm. Maybe you start praying more. One thing I want to ask of you is the saffron of the Bible.

One thing I want to ask of you is this afternoon you're going to get a text from the church. And it's going to be an invite to answer some questions. And this is going to be what we call our church pulse assessment. And what it's going to do, it's going to take about eight to ten minutes of your time, maybe a little bit more. But it's going to ask you some questions about your personal focus with Christ. But it's also going to ask you about the church health. And this is going to be a critical tool for us as a team to be able to help lead and guide this church into the next seasons. And it's going to measure across seven dimensions. Not like weird matrix dimensions, but just like seven different ways. That makes sense. Seven different perspectives. We'll say perspectives instead of dimensions. But you're going to get this text. I'm going to ask of you. And the expectation is here. And this is what we want. We want each and every person in the church to answer this 100%. Honestly, there is no right or wrong answer. There isn't. But for us to be able to become forward and grow and to become the church that God, that He wants us to be, we have to address where we are and how we become better and areas of growth that we see in ourselves. And so you're going to get this text. You'll probably get a couple of these texts. We're going to bombard you over the next three weeks. I don't know about all apologize right now, but I'm not really apologetic. I want you to fill out this survey. So that we can help become the best church that God wants us to be.

The church is not a place to go. It is who we are. We're here to proclaim the good news that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. And I want to be honest. Come with your doubts. Chris will never go there. We'll never be there. Okay. God's a little bit bigger than that. But bring God your doubts. Bring Him your fears. Bring Him your anxiousness. Bring Him your brokenness. Bring Him your sin. Bring Him whatever. He's not too scared of it. He's not going to be pushed away by it. I want people to come to this church and when they come that they see Jesus. That's what I want. And I read the early church was the church that came and saw Jesus. I think we're doing a good job. But I know we can do better. I know we'll become better. I know we have places to grow.

Close with this scripture. Love the scripture. Ephesians 3:20. I'm just going to close out Pastor Andre if that's okay. We're just I'm just going to close this out. And I want us to just really look at this scripture. Can we put that on screens? Ephesians 3:20. And this is my prayer for this whole series, this whole time, for all of us that we're doing right here. And if you want to receive this as a benediction and just kind of a blessing as you go today, do that. You want to see receive this as encouragement. You want to receive this as like, let's go. I'm ready to go. I'm pumped. Get me out there, coach. I want to do this thing. Read it as that. But it says this, actually, let's read this. Just read this all together. Okay, here we go. “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to His power that is work within us. To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

Amen. Amen. Go with God today. Excited to see you back next week, part two. Answer that assessment with the text later this afternoon, sometime this week. I love you guys. Go with Jesus. Amen. 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 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.