God's Way - First Things First: Part 4

God’s Way - First Things First: Part 4 - A Cautionary Tale

Genesis 4:2–16; Matthew 23:23; Romans 12:2; Malachi 3:10–12

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, good morning, everybody. If I haven't had a chance to meet you, my name is Pastor Chris, part of the team here, and I have the privilege of leading this church. It's an honor to be able to worship with you this morning and to wrap up our series we've been in now for the last four weeks: "God's Way, First Things First." And if you've been in church for a while, maybe this is the first time in a while, or maybe you're here checking it out for different reasons—yes, we are talking about money today. It has been a journey that we've been on for the last four weeks, just digging into Scripture and asking, "God, what do you have to say about money? What does it matter to us? Why do you care about it? And why is it a thing?"

We started off week one, and I said this, and I'll say it again. I think I've said it every single week that in our lives, there are dark areas. There are places where the light of God has yet to shine. Until we allow God's Word to penetrate those places and shine His perfect light in them, we will continue to be in bondage. A part of this is talking about a larger conversation about discipleship. We've said it before that our vision and mission here is to see our community saturated with the glory of God through making disciples in the everyday stuff of life. I don't know about you, but for me, the everyday stuff of my life probably includes finances. God has called us to live in a certain way as financial stewards of what He has blessed us with.

In the beginning of humanity, we read in Genesis that a lie was told to Adam and Eve by Satan in the garden. This is the same lie that we believe today. The lie is this: that God is holding out on you. That God does not give you enough. God will not give you enough. And so, in turn, we have to take control. We have to make sure that everything is taken care of, and we have to be the ones making all the calls and decisions in our lives. It's the same lie that was told to Adam and Eve in the garden with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Whether you want to admit it or not, at some level, we all still believe this lie. For the last four weeks, we've been deconstructing that and breaking it down, trying to see where this lie begins. We talked about Abraham and Isaac and how God wants to pour out His blessings on us, but it involves trust. We've talked about so many other ways in life of what Jesus has said about money. If you haven't been around, I encourage you to please go listen to those on our website or podcast. There's really good stuff in there that helps us begin to understand that God is not holding out on us, and that God truly wants to bless us, but it is an act of trust.

Last week, we talked about firstfruits. We talked about the fact that God is actually the one who first gave to us. He gave His first and His best, and His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross for us. So the act of generosity isn't one where God's just up there, the big man upstairs in heaven looking down going, "You mess up, I'm gonna zap you." Rather, He is the one who actually gave first and says, "This is what generosity looks like. This is the way I want you to live." There's a system, a process to all of our lives, and that isn't just how we treat our relationships or our marriages, or how we raise our kids, or what we do with our lives, or the words that come out of our mouths, but it also includes how we spend our money.

Today, I want to talk through a couple of cautionary tales that we see in Scripture. Does anybody know what a cautionary tale is? Hint: the word is in the title. It's a tale of caution. It's okay, you'll get there this morning. Drink some more coffee. But a word of caution, a cautionary tale—what does it do? A cautionary tale has two purposes. The first is to tell us, "Hey, don't do the thing that I'm cautioning you against. Don't do it." And the second is, "If you ignore the teaching I'm giving you, if you ignore the caution, this is what is going to happen. This is going to be the outcome." The outcome, most likely in cautionary tales, is going to be negative. I won't tell you later, "I told you so," because I'm telling you so right now. Cautionary tales equip us to be better decision-makers, revealing clear cause-and-effect truth in our lives.

We're going to talk about a set of brothers who were second-generation humans on this earth: Cain and Abel. They are actually the sons of Adam and Eve. What's interesting here is that we come to this point in Genesis when Adam and Eve had sinned, and they actually got kicked out of the garden because of their sin. They're trying to figure out life, and then they have two sons, Cain and Abel, and they're just trying to figure out this world. But what we do know is that in Scripture, God is still clearly having a relationship with them. Sometimes I think we get caught up in thinking, "Oh, they were in the garden with God, and they got kicked out, so then God doesn't talk to them anymore." But that's actually the opposite effect. God is a very relational God in their lives. He's talking to them. He's telling them how to live. He's giving them direction and instruction on their lives on a regular basis. We see this all the way through Scripture up to the flood. Because the reality was, Noah didn't just wake up one morning and go, "Hey, I wanna build a boat. I don't even know what a boat is. I've never seen a boat. I don't even know that I knew the word boat, but I'm gonna build one." No, God gives very deep instructions. You could read in the Bible down to inches and feet. God gives him a clear blueprint of what to build when He says, "I want you to build a giant boat called an ark." So God is still speaking with His people on a very regular basis, giving them directions for how to worship, how to live their lives, how to conduct themselves, and how to live in relationship with other human beings on this planet.

So we come to Genesis chapter four, where we're going to spend most of our time today. It says, "When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd while Cain cultivated the ground." Now, first off, these are both great professions. These are both good. God loves both of these. These are both very necessary to sustaining life. One is not better than the other, okay? I wanna get that off the front here. "When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift, the best portions of the firstborn lambs of his flock." Last week, we talked about firstfruits. We talked about why God wants the first things. Why does God want the first? Because the first is the best. Do you know who gets the best pineapples? The first crop. Hawaiians. It never leaves the island. I hear they're magical. I hope one day to taste one. It pales in comparison, I guess, to what we have here in the States. But think of olive oil. The first press of the olives is what? Extra virgin olive oil. It's the best. And then every press after that, it kind of goes down in grade. God wants the best for us, and He gave us the best in His Son, Jesus, and He asks for the best of us as well. The first is the best.

Continue on. "The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but He did not accept Cain and his gift." What a jerk God is, right? Or wait, hold on. There's probably more there. Unless maybe God had, at some point, given instruction to all of humanity about what He wanted in the gift of the harvest. Hmm. God's standard was already clearly communicated. And yet, Cain kind of went rogue. And this was not good. Continue on. "This made Cain very angry. He looked dejected." Here is where the cautionary tale begins. The caution here is that we are to give God what He asks. Plain and simple. And the caution is that giving whatever you want instead causes issues. Growing up as a kid, we had a dog, and one of my weekly chores was to get my butt out into the backyard and pick up all the little and large deposits our dog had made in the grass, the flower beds, and sometimes the brick patio and all over the place, right? And I remember there was one time where my dad was like, "Hey, garbage night, get out there, go pick up the dog poop." And I'm like, "Dad, I don't want to. I've already done my laundry, I unloaded the dishwasher, and I cleaned my room." And my dad went, "Fantastic, that's great. Now you have time to go out and do what I've asked of you." Because doing the laundry, picking up my room, unloading the dishwasher, was not the directive that my father had given me. He said, "Get your butt outside and pick up the dog poop." Now, don't use your hands if you're picking up dog poop. Use like a little pooper scooper. But the principle here is the same. God says, "I want you to give in this way. This is my expectation of you." And yet Cain goes off and does what he wants. And I think he comes with a little bit of an attitude and says, "Hey, God. Like, yeah, here's some of my crop. It's what it is. You're welcome." Cain's got this little bit of an attitude thing going on. And God is like, "Hold up." Cain is choosing independence over obedience to God.

I think maybe this question is close to where we are in our lives: where have we given God something else than what He asked for, the first and the best? And so God, in His graciousness, has a very direct conversation with Cain. He says this: "Why are you so angry?" the Lord asked Cain. "Why do you look dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right." A caveat here: There are times in our life, I've experienced it, and I think many of you have, where God presents two really good options. You could go this way or you could go this way. And in His love and His grace and His care, He says, "You choose. I love you. I'm gonna bless whatever route you wanna go on. You choose." He's great like that. This is not one of those situations. This is not a moment where God says, "Okay, Cain, well, I want this, but you choose, bud." No, He's saying, "You need to choose what I've asked you to choose." And Cain let his brokenness and selfishness make the decision and not be obedient. I think some of us have done that. Cain is not choosing the direct, clearly previously stated obedience. God's saying, "Hey, Cain, bro, what's going on, dude? I told you what's up. You're not doing it. We need to have a conversation." This is Chris's translation, if you didn't know. That's not a biblical quote right there. But hey, Cain, dude, we gotta talk. So He says, "Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right, but you refuse to do what is right. Then watch out. Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you, but you must subdue it and be its master."

I could wrap up today right here and go home. That is such a good bunch of theology right here in this passage. And I think for so many of us, we could take this and immediately apply it like right now, right? But this is a cautionary tale. It's saying, "Hey, Cain, if you keep walking down this path, bro, it's not gonna end well for you. It's not gonna end up in a place where I think you want to be. So you gotta watch out. That sin is crouching. Do what is right. Master it." And what I love here is that God's patience is so huge in this moment. God had already given him direction and he already disobeyed. Like how great is it that God is like, "Hey bud, let's talk about this." I mean, He could have been like, "Zap, you're done, next." Seriously, this isn't a mystery to Cain. Cain's like, "What am I supposed to do?" God's like, "No, this is how you're supposed to do it. Hey, Cain, you're not doing it. We need to talk about this." Because God is like, "Hey, I have a calling. I have a path. I have a way of life for you. And that way is filled with peace. Cain, I made you. I love you. I care so much for you. I have a calling for you. And if you do it my way, 100% of the time, it is going to turn out great. But you got to do it my way." But how many of us are like Cain? I'll admit it. I'll be the first. I want to do it my way the first time. "Me do," as my three-year-old says in our house. "Me do." I'm like, "Baby, you don't know how to mow the lawn. And you're out here going, 'Me do, me do' with the mower. I'm like, no, this is not gonna end well."

Because if you see this outcome that God is saying don't do, there's already anger and dejection from Cain. We're gonna see in a moment, there's violence, there's loss, there's wandering, there's blame. Like Cain's path just compounds into just bad. Have you ever worked with someone who you have to follow to clean up their messes afterwards? Have you? People are saying names. Don't say names. Some of you are like, "I can think of four people right now." Like so much work. You have to follow this person and fix the mess that they are making. It's exhausting. It costs time. It costs resources. It costs money, your energy, your sanity. But God is saying here, do it my way, the right way, the first time, and there won't be anything extra fixing needed. It's easier to keep relationships healthy than it is to repair a broken one, right? It costs time. It costs energy. It costs sometimes counseling to mend broken relationships, and we could have just done it right the first time. God here in His grace is trying to warn Cain, but he's choosing his own path. Verse eight: "One day Cain suggested to his brother, 'Hey bro, let's go out into the fields.' And while they were out in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him." Welcome to church. Maybe you've heard this story before, maybe you haven't, but God literally just told him, "Bro, you go down this path, it's not going to end well." But Cain chooses anger and dejection and then takes it out on his own flesh and blood, his own brother. Guys, there's like, I think, at this point in time, four or maybe five people on planet Earth, and 20% just got killed.

And I think sometimes we can look at this story with Cain and be like, "Man, that's horrible. I'd never do that." But I'll admit, I've had bad days and come home and I wasn't the nicest to my kids. I wasn't the most loving and caring husband that I should have been. And I have to go back. I have to ask forgiveness. I say, "I'm so sorry. I had a horrible day at work. This happened, this happened, this happened. And I just took it out on you guys." And maybe you've done that to people in your family or people that you care about. Or maybe it was done to you. I don't know all of your stories, but I know some, and I know some of you didn't grow up in the best houses with the most loving and caring parents. And dad might come home after a hard day. Or mom. Or maybe a sibling to sibling, like we read in the Bible. Maybe it was a teacher. Maybe it was a coach. Maybe, unfortunately, it happens. Maybe it was a pastor at some point in your life. And I'm so sorry for that. And Cain is continuing to choose to do it his own way rather than choosing to do it God's way. Verse nine: "Afterward, the Lord asked Cain, 'Hey, where's your brother? Where's Abel?' Well, I don't know," Cain responded. "Am I my brother's guardian?" But the Lord said, "What have you done? Listen, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has swallowed your brother's blood. You will no longer will the ground yield good crops for you, no matter how hard you work. From now on, you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth."

There are always results to our actions. Always. There are always results to our actions. Is it God's fault what happened to Cain? No. God warned Cain. He said, "Dude, don't keep going down that path. There's gonna be outcomes. There's gonna be results that you cannot even fathom that you do not want." The fallout wasn't God's cruelty. It was a consequence. Consequence, I think sometimes we hear that word, we think only just bad stuff, right? Just consequences. But here's the definition of consequence: A consequence is the result, outcome, or effect of a prior action, decision, or situation. Consequences can be good. Consequences can be bad. And for Cain, it was a bad consequence. It was a curse. God was trying to present him with good consequences if he chose His way and His path, but Cain decided to do something else. Cain decided to make him and his identity, his outcomes, his crop, his income, his God. Instead of submitting to Yahweh, God Almighty, in saying, "You know what, God? You are right. You are God. I am not. I am submitting to you." And yet I think we do the same at times, right? We make things in our life our gods. Now, are they little carved wooden or metal figures or different things? No, idols throughout culture have looked like all sorts of different things. We talked about the rich young man a couple weeks ago that he had made money his God, and he comes to Jesus and says, "Hey, how do I get into heaven?" God says, "Well, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength, love your neighbor as yourself, honor your mother and father." And he's like, "I've done all those things." And Jesus is like, "Awesome, bro, that's great. But you need to sell your wealth and give it away because that's your God." And he walked away dejected, just like Cain, because he didn't want to surrender what had become his everything, his whole world, the center of his life.

The reality is that God is the one who brings the provision. It's nothing that we do. Cain gave such value to his crop, it became his idol. And I find it interesting that this is a similar curse that his parents had felt and walked through. Because in the garden, it was this perfect, immaculate place where they had to work for nothing. God created an environment that things just grew. Food was available. It was there. They didn't have to water. They didn't have to fertilize. They didn't have to weed. They didn't have to plant. They didn't have to grow. Man, that sounds like a great place. My garden gives you some of that. But then Adam and Eve, they get kicked out. And now part of their curse, because of their sin, they have to work the ground. But God still allows things to grow. And now Cain gets removed a degree further from that, that it says that the ground will not produce for him. His idol he once had is now completely gone. And a curse is put on him because he broke the relationship with God. Even after God said, "Hey, here's how to live your life. Hey, here's a warning, you're not going right. Hey, buddy, get back in line, it's not going good." Boom, murder. And for some, that kind of sounds extreme. I don't think anybody in this room has ever killed anybody before. But all of us have sin in our lives. And all of us at time, from time to time, choose our way, our selfish, our own way, our own path. And then Cain kind of has a little bit of a four-year-old temper tantrum. Cain replies to the Lord, "My punishment is too great for me to bear." I find it interesting sometimes that when we get caught in something that we know we did wrong, we have justified our actions so far gone that we can't even understand what fair is. We're at such a far, sinful, broken place that we can't even see clearly because we're so burning with selfishness inside of us. Cain's acting like a little child right here. Then Cain goes on to say some things that God did not say. He says this: "You have banished me from the land and from your presence." Did God ever say Cain was banished? No. But Cain knew his consequences. He knew what it meant for his punishment that was coming because he had chosen himself over God rather than allowing God to come in and to be the choice that he selected. It was Cain's choice, not God's.

Continues on: "You have made me a homeless wanderer." Cain, I tried to tell you, man, I really did. "But that warning I gave you about those things tempting you, they became your master rather than you mastering those temptations. These are the results." He says, "Anyone who finds me will kill me," Cain said. "Nope," the Lord replied. "For I will give a sevenfold punishment to anyone who kills you. Then the Lord put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who might try to kill him. So Cain left the Lord's presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden." We don't know what this mark was. We have no idea what it is. There's some bad theology in church that gets thrown around that some people say this is where darker-skinned people came from. And that's a lie. That's not true. It's a lie from the church to manipulate, to control, to degrade people that are created. All people are created in God's image. And so if you've been told that lie or you've heard that lie, like put that away. That is not from God, okay? We don't know what this mark was. We have no idea. But all we know is that whatever it was, it was clear as day: "Hey, do not touch that, bro. He messed up with God. You don't wanna get pulled into that garbage. Stay away." This is the cautionary tale from the Old Testament. Now I wanna talk about a cautionary tale from the New Testament. These are words of Jesus in Matthew 23:23. Jesus says this: "What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law, which are justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things."

What is Jesus saying here? Jesus is saying, yes, you should tithe. That's what you should do. But see, if Cain was over here going, "Whatever, God, you take this," the Pharisees over here were so high and mighty, they're like, "I'm gonna even tithe my herb garden. Here's 10% of my basil, 10% of my rosemary, 10% of whatever." Okay, side note: please don't bring me your garden tithes to the church, okay? I have my own garden I'm struggling with, okay? I don't need your garden too. But Jesus here is saying, "You're doing it your own way." Huh. Is there a story from the Old Testament of someone who was trying to be tithing and giving and worship in their own way? Oh yeah, we just talked about Cain. And here's the opposite of the Pharisees saying, "We are following every aspect of the law. We are so high and mighty." And Jesus is like, "Okay, cool. But what about justice and mercy and my grace and my love and my faith and my hope? Like, what about that?" Jesus here isn't saying not to tithe. He's actually affirming the Old Testament principle of tithing. And He's actually kicking it up a notch and saying, "Hey, there's more to it than that. Tithing is the foundation, not the ceiling. Like there's more to it." And we've talked about that. We talked about in the Word, we said the term extravagant generosity is what God desires of our hearts and our lives. "Well, pastor, you know I'm tithing. And so like, God, He doesn't care about these little sins in my life. I'm doing the big one. I'm doing the 10%." Wait, sorry, excuse me. What? We don't get to just pick and choose what's kind of nice for us, or what's okay in our eyes, because we selfishly say, "I'll do it." Do we? We see the world through our own eyes, right? We see the world through our perspective, and when we think we see what is good and pleasing and all that, we say, "Perfect. I'll just do that. That's exactly." No, no, no, no. God wants all of you. And that includes your finances. The Pharisees were giving themselves permission to ignore God's heart of justice, mercy, and faith. "We're going to do it how we want to do it, Jesus. We got this law thing figured out. Don't worry about us. You need to go look at those sinners over there." And Jesus is like, "Are you just pointing at yourself? Because I'm here talking to a sinner right now."

But it's hard, right? It's hard. And it's uncomfortable sometimes to walk through these things. And I've learned in my life, I know that there's times where I have to say, "Hey, search me, God. I'm blind in areas. I need you to open up my eyes. I need your perspective. I need to change who I am. I need you to put your new spirit in me so I can see my blind spots in my life." And God will come in and He'll work in your life and He'll soften your heart and He will give you new desires for His will and His way. Because the reality is, this is a discipline of discernment. We're out here having to filter through what is God's will and what is my will? "Well, God put that thought into my head, so that must be God's will." No. I've heard Christians come and say, "Well, God wants me to get a divorce." Nope. I think you're leaning a little bit too much on your will and not looking into and trying to discern God's will. But it's difficult. Discernment isn't guessing, guys. Okay, isn't just like poking in the dark going, "Okay, maybe here, maybe there." Discernment is a transformation process. It requires humility and Scripture and Christian community. That's why we gather here. It takes a commitment, a daily commitment to waking up saying, "Jesus, I am yours today. What do you will for my life?" Scripture calls this a renewing of our mind. Romans 12:2: "Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way that you think. Then you will learn, you will know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." Cain and the Pharisees chose a way that was sinful, selfish, and full of hatred. But God's desire for our hearts is good, pleasing, and perfect. And it requires an obedience shift to begin to walk in God's way. We have to change our mind. Our mind has to be renewed into who Jesus wants us to be. It's a practice of obedience. Obedience. God's law is not a cage to control us. God's law is a compass for us to navigate this world. And we have to step into obedience with His guardrails for our lives.

So what does this look like when it specifically comes to finances? Well, it looks like this. If you have given nothing to the church, you've given nothing back to God. We talked about the storehouses last week. If you have given nothing to God, I wholeheartedly believe that He has a heart of generosity He has put within you when you've accepted Jesus Christ into your life through the power of the Holy Spirit, and has a calling for our lives to be generous. Maybe you've started giving, and that's awesome, but maybe it's inconsistent. It's kind of here and there. It's your choice. Maybe kind of like Cain's choice. He gave what he wanted to give. Maybe you haven't stepped into full obedience to Him because you're just going, "I'm just gonna give this right now, God." But God is saying, "Step in obedience. I want you to trust me. And I am going to give you my first and my best in Jesus. And I ask of you to do the same to me." Maybe you've stepped into practicing consistent obedience with a tithe or a percentage when it comes to your finances. A tithe is 10% of your total income back to God. It's what He asks of us in Scripture. And so if you're in that place, praise God. That's amazing. You've worked to get to that place. It takes time. It is hard. It is not easy. But maybe God is asking you to step out into more generosity beside that. To order your finances in your life, to live in a way that says, "I need less because I want to be God's light in this world. I want to give out of His immense generosity that He's blessed me with." This happened recently with Lauren and I. It was really interesting. God put on my heart for about a week, and I wrestled with it, that I needed to be generous to someone in our lives and to give them a few hundred dollars. And I wrestled and I wrestled and I wrestled. I went back and forth. I go, "Well, what about just 100, God? Can we just do 100?" God's like, "That's obedience. I want the two. I want the full amount. I want all of it. Because I want your trust. I want your obedience." I'm like, "God, I'm tithing right now. This money's really tight. I got bills coming up." God's like, "No, you need to be obedient." And so I wrestled and I wrestled and I said, "Okay, fine, God. You're right." And I've been preaching this series. This was like week one. And I was talking about how God has everything to give to us and provide and pour out of storehouses. And I'm like, "Okay." So we gave it. About a month later, just a few weeks ago, I got all that money back when someone blessed our family. And God goes, "Do you trust me? Do you trust me enough that I have enough that I wanna just blow your mind? But you gotta trust. You gotta step out. You gotta walk in generosity."

So wherever you are in this process, I'm not asking you to do what you want. I'm asking you to have a conversation with God. Talk with Him, search His Scriptures, and ask, "God, what do you desire for me? How do you want me to be obedient when it comes to this financial discipleship and this obedience?" And then I want you to step into that and to trust God. Malachi chapter three says, "Bring all the tithes in the storehouse so there will be enough food in my temple. If you do, says the Lord of heaven's armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in. Try it. Put me to the test. Your crops will be abundant for I will guard them from insects and disease. Your grapes will not fall from the vine before they are ripe, says the Lord of heaven's armies. Then all the nations will call you blessed for your land will be such a delight, says the Lord of heaven's armies." I want that second final part to be true for each and every one of our lives. I'm gonna ask the ushers to pass out a card this morning to you. And I want you to take a look at this and begin to pray about what God wants you to do. Because the reality is that we cannot have the latter without the former. We don't get to have God's poured out heavenly blessing in our lives in the way that He asked us to without the obedience. And I want you to not give yourself the excuse or a pass or permission and say, "Ah, God, yeah, I know this just doesn't apply to me." I want you to push back against the lie of Satan in the garden. Maybe you're just gonna look at this card. Maybe you're just gonna take it and you're gonna take it home and you're gonna pray about it. Maybe you'll throw it away on the way out. I don't know. But what I want you to do is I want you to have a conversation with God and to say, "God, where do you want me to step up? Where do you want me to begin to trust you to push back against that lie in the garden that you are not gonna provide if I say yes to one of these things?" God's Scripture is very clear there in Malachi. Test me. It's the only place in Scripture where God says, "Put me to the test. See what happens. See that I will not just give you everything that you dream or imagine or hope to have in life."

Now is it always going to be financial? No. Lauren reminded me of a story of the church that we were in previously, of there was a challenge that we did in the church. And there was a couple who had been trying to get pregnant for a really long time. And they signed up and felt like God was asking them to step into this 90-day challenge or three months. And they did, and they started tithing faithfully. And then soon after that, they got pregnant. The blessing may not come in the ways that it might not be financial. It's not going to be always my story where God asked me to give, and then He just returned it back to me. That might not be it. But what God is asking us is to step up into this and to trust in Him. So the first part of the card says, "I have no income and I need some help." God is not asking you to tithe out of finances that you are not bringing in. But maybe if you are bringing in finances, maybe that is retirement. Maybe that's investments. Maybe that's through different benefits. Maybe that's through, I don't know, a side hustle. Maybe that's through your full-time job. Whatever that looks like for you, if you don't have any of that, mark that first block because we wanna be praying with you to say, "We wanna come alongside of you. Maybe we can help try to figure out how to get you a job. We know different people. We're gonna put feelers out. But we wanna be praying with you because I don't believe that God doesn't want you to live in a space of not having income." Maybe you're the first box after that that says, "I am stepping up and giving for the first time in the amount of blank." You fill in the blank. Maybe this is for you to step up for the very first time and God, I've been listening to you for these four weeks, I don't know how it's all going to work out but I feel like I'm supposed to do this, and that's that first step into obedience into God. Maybe you've been talking and praying about you're the third box as I am stepping up and accepting the 90-day challenge to give regular in the amount of blank every how often. I want you to kind of put some rubber to the road here of how often, whether that's whenever you get paid. We talked about that firstfruits of when we get paid. So maybe you get paid weekly. Maybe it's twice a month. Maybe it's once a month. Maybe it's quarterly. I don't know how your income works. We all have kind of different. But whatever that looks like, you are saying, "I'm going to put God to the test. I'm going to step up and I'm going to give this amount every this time." Maybe you're the third box and saying, "You know what? I've been giving. It's been here or there, but it's only like maybe 20, 50 bucks a week, or maybe it's 100 bucks a month. That's just kind of where you are. But God says, that's great, and I love you in that, but I have a calling for you to step up into a tithe, and a tithe is the 10%." Maybe that's you. You're going to check that box, say, "I am stepping up and accepting the 90-day tithe, 10% challenge, to give in obedience to God's instruction in the amount of blank, every blank." You fill in the timeline. Maybe you are the fourth group or the final group and you're like, "I am already a biblical tither. Praise God, that is amazing. And I am committing towards extravagant generosity. I am giving and stepping up and wanting to give extravagantly in the amount of fill in the blank." And then yes, we want your contact info because we want to be praying alongside of you for these next 90 days. We wanna be walking with you, want to be encouraging you. We want to be helping you. You might need to get some financial resources in your life like Pastor Andre talked about to get finances in order. You might have to reevaluate your entire budget of where you spend your money and realize, "Man, I'm going to Starbucks seven times a week. It's probably not the best. Or I'm eating out all the time. I'm DoorDashing. I'm Ubering food to my house because I just didn't wanna go buy groceries and cook something." You might have to reorder some things in your life to begin to have a place of space and margin for generosity with God. And so I want you to ask, "God, where are you calling me? Not where am I comfortable, but God, where are you leading me to trust and have faith in you."

And so we're gonna have a moment here. The worship team's gonna come up. And we typically don't do stuff like this, but I wrestled with God again this week. He keeps doing this to me. And I was like, "Okay, God, I'm gonna have him fill out the card and then I'm just gonna like, just leave it on the seats. Just leave it on the seat, just let them walk out, go on with their lives and do that." But God's like, "No, I want them to step forward in obedience." And I'm like, "God, this isn't who our church is. Like people don't come forward for prayer, let alone a commitment to give money to the church. Like, God, that's not going to happen." He says, "You need to trust me. You need to trust me in what's going to happen next." And so I have no idea what's gonna happen, but this is what God's asked me to do. So I'm being obedient. So I wanna put out a bucket here. And I want whatever God is pulling on your heart right now to come forward and to do. There may be nobody that comes up, but God's calling me to be obedient in this moment. So I'm being obedient to Him. My obedience isn't contingent on your response. And maybe two people come up, maybe one person, I don't know. But maybe the reality is you need to go home and you gotta talk with your spouse. You haven't had the conversation I've told you to have for the last three weeks. You've been ignoring it. You've been skirting it. You've been, "Oh, we're too busy." And so you can't actually come and put a card in right now. We will continue to have this going forward. We will provide cards next week. So if you go home and then you forget it on the way back to church, we'll have more cards next week. But I want you to come in obedience. God asks us to come and bring our worship to Him. I think we get caught up and think worship is just music, this, the band, right? No, no, no. Worship is actually our entire lives that we're called to give. And every act of obedience is worship. And so we're going to sing this final song. We're going to worship God. And I want you to continue to pray about this card. And I want you to come in obedience to trust to Him. Only if He is asking and calling you to step forward, okay? Don't come grumpy. Don't come angry. Don't come mad at God. "Fine, whatever, dude, here." Don't want that. He doesn't want that. Only come if He's actually truly leading you in obedience in this to say, "This is what I'm asking you to do." Eyes are gonna be on you. It's gonna be awkward. Let's just call it what it is, okay? "Well, I wonder what they're gonna give." Nobody gives a crap because everybody's sitting in that chair and they're wrestling with God themselves right now too, okay?

Jesus, we thank you for who you are, God. You're amazing, you're incredible, you're generous, you're gracious. You gave first, Jesus. And so God, you are asking us to step in obedience with you. So Lord, as we sing this song, I pray for our people. Lord, I pray over their hearts right now as they sit and they wrestle. And you're gonna call some, maybe, God, hopefully, into obedience to step forward. But maybe some aren't gonna step into the obedience this week, but that's okay. You have grace for them. You love them. You hear them. You see them. You know where you are. And so you see into their hearts and you're gonna continue to stir and you're gonna continue to work and you're gonna continue to draw and you're gonna continue to pull them closer to you in every aspect of their lives. And this includes finances at this moment. And so Jesus, in the song that we sing, God, we trust you. We worship you. We thank you. God, I pray for those who are checking that first box, say, "I don't have a job. I got nothing. I am so lost right now." God, I pray a prayer of provision and blessing over them in ways that they cannot dream or imagine right now what you're gonna do in their life and how you're gonna rock their world and say, "Here I am." So Jesus, we trust you this morning. We praise you. We worship you.

God's Way - First Things First: Part 3

God’s Way - First Things First: Part 3 - Financial Discipleship Q&A

1 Corinthians 16:1-2; Malachi 3:6-10; Proverbs 22:1-7; 1 Timothy 6:6-10; Deuteronomy 14:22-23

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are continuing in our God's Way First Things First series. And if you haven't been around maybe the last couple of weeks, we've been diving into and understanding what it means to put God first in everything in our lives. And that until we let God's glory and His goodness shine into all the dark areas of our lives, we will continue to be in bondage in those places. And if you've been with us, we've been talking about and processing this foundational lie that began in humanity all the way back in the garden in the beginning of the Bible in the book called Genesis. And this was the lie that the serpent told Adam and Eve in that garden: that God is holding out on you. That you don't have enough, so you have to look out for yourself. You have to control everything. You have to say, "Hey, God, you're not providing, so I'm going to do it my way."

We've walked through maybe what it looks like, how we live this lie out today. We live this lie out in how panic drives who we are. Our anxiety and our worry—the stats as of late, they are through the roof in society. That we over-schedule ourselves, running here and there, everywhere, to make sure everything gets done. We focus on being self-providers to make sure that we have enough. But we know that this lie, that we don't have enough, that God is holding back on us, is truly that: a lie.

And then it comes down to a point of real trust. And we talked about Abram, who then became Abraham. He had all this wealth in the world, but he had no heirs. He had no children to pass that wealth on to, and he was angry with God. He was frustrated. He's like, "God, how could you even let this happen?" And God goes, "Let's go outside, buddy. Let's look up at the stars. See all those? Try to count them." Abraham ran out of fingers and toes real quick trying to count stars. And God said, "Those stars represent the descendants that you are going to have." And Abraham's like, "We don't have any descendants." And God goes, "I know. I got a plan." He's like, "Well, but what about this? And my wife and I, we are way past those days of when that is to biologically happen." Sarah, even at one point, laughs at God.

I had a frustrating conversation with God two weeks ago in the middle kid's room down in this hallway. And I found myself going, "I am no different than Abraham and Sarah." And I have personally been on a journey along with you guys in this of what does it mean to be truly obedient to God in everything that we are and everything that we have. And I love it because I'm having conversation with you guys as well. Many of you have been hearing from God. You've been having the conversations. You've been praying. You've been saying, "Okay, God, well, I don't know what this fully looks like, but I'm here and I'm listening. God, speak to me." Many of you are stepping into financial discipleship and biblical stewardship. And I love this because honestly, I have just been asking you to have a conversation. I haven't even put a challenge in front of you guys yet. But you're being intentional with this. You're hearing from God.

And we too, as a staff, we've been having conversations of, "Hey, maybe how we have gotten in the way." The first of which is, I haven't really ever talked this bold about money in the church before. Hi, my name is Chris. I'm your friend. And you guys have been so receptive. You've been so gracious. I thought by week three, there'd be like two of you right here. That would be it. But you're here and you knew it was coming. Maybe not all of you, but.

And today I want to kind of walk through maybe a little bit different of a talk this morning, but some Q&A to maybe answer the why behind why we live the way that we live and why God calls us to live this way. And so the reality is that when we look at money, we look at how we spend our money, how we save our money, how we use our money, it reveals who we are at our core. And that this relationship with money has instructions given to us by God in His word.

And we're going to be in a few different scriptures this morning, but the first of which is going to come from First Corinthians chapter 16. And this here is Paul writing a letter to the church in Corinth, which is another small church that started around the Mediterranean area. And he's telling them, kind of giving them some instruction when it comes to finance. He says this: "Now regarding your question about the money being collected for God's people in Jerusalem, you should follow the same procedure I gave the churches in Galatia. On the first day of each week, you should put aside a portion of the money you have earned. Don't wait until I get there and try to collect it all at once." So Paul here is talking about this idea of don't wait to the last minute to try to figure all this stuff out. And Paul isn't necessarily talking about what the Old Testament talks about—we're going to say, walk through in a minute—of this principle of first fruits. I don't know if you guys have heard that before. But Paul is echoing this idea of when you put your finances together in order, there is a system in which you should do that. And he is echoing this idea of honoring God with every single aspect of our lives.

No different than maybe when you get to work and you pray, "God, I am your servant here at work. Use me how you desire." Or maybe at home, you come home and you go, "God, use me in this place how you wish. I am your servant." Maybe in parenting, for me as a father, I pray regularly, "Lord Jesus, give me your strength. Give me your hope. Give me your help. I am your servant in this place as I father the children that you have steward to me. My children are not my own. I just have them for a certain amount of time. They're God's. But I am called to lead them and to instruct them and to teach them into God's word."

And so a theological posture for us would be that honoring God in every single sphere of our lives begins with what we do first. And that this idea of first fruits is about not a transaction. It's not a transaction, but it's about worship. We talked about that week one. It's about trust. We talked about that last week. And it's about priority realignment. We're going to dig into that a little bit more.

But the first question that I commonly get when talking about money and finances is this in the Bible: Why does it have to be first? What matters for these things to be first? Does it matter if it's in the middle? Does it matter if it's the end? Like if it comes from the same pot, why does it matter? And I, honestly, that's a legitimate question. And I think it's something that for us to think about and to discuss. The logistic reality is what matters most receives our first attention in our lives.

If you are married and you have a spouse, my spouse is right here. This is Lauren. As an earthly relationship here on this planet, she is my number one. God is my ultimate number one. But as an earthly relationship, she is my number one priority. And so she deserves the best of me. She doesn't deserve my tiredness. She doesn't deserve my leftovers. She doesn't deserve my second best. She deserves my number one. And so as we would say, I think, in here, those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus and Christians, God deserves our number one, right? And things in our life are really important. They become a top priority. And so this also carries into our other relationships and our other things in our life. They are set in a certain particular order. And so we will carry this into our whole lives.

Side note, if you're in here and you are unmarried, I want to encourage you: make God number one in your life right now. Because it is only going to carry into your future marriage and relationships in a way that is going to be a solid rock foundation in ways you can't even imagine. And it's just going to set everything in order, perfect the way that God instructed. But when we think about our finances, the biggest chunks take priority and get to the front of line, right? I think for most of us, that would probably be a mortgage or a rent, right? Probably our largest expense we have on a regular basis. Now, if you own your home, I'm very jealous of you. But when you were paying that baby off, okay, that was your largest thing. And then that brings the largest thing, then puts other things in order and perspective, right? And so as an order, this top thing, everything else just kind of slides into place as you go through your finances.

This is about priority realignment and putting God first in our finances reorders our priority with everything else. Because God is in first place, then that puts everything else in their right place. I think I got a slide for that. I want to put that up on the screen. When we put God in first place, it puts everything else in right place. See, our financial world falls in the right place when God leads.

We talked about this a few weeks ago, the different levels of financial engagement with the church. Maybe you never have given before, and that's fine. That's okay. Maybe you've given one time to something like our Operation Christmas Child, where we send shoeboxes with practical gifts and toys in the gospel around the globe for kids to hear about Jesus for the first time, and you gave to that. Awesome. Thank you so much. Maybe you have a monthly thing where you are regularly giving. Maybe it's $20, $50, $100 a month. Maybe you're putting something in on the regular saying, "God, I want to be in a relationship of financial discipleship with you." I know some of you others have stepped up into tithing regularly. And we're going to talk about what a tithe means. But you look at your whole sum that comes in, you get, "God, I'm going to give 1% of all of this back to you." And then maybe 2%, 3%, growing in that, in your generosity. And then you have tithing, which is 10% of that. And then it stops right there, right? No. God asks for extravagant generosity. And I've said for the last few weeks, and I'm gonna say it again: you are a recipient of extravagant generosity.

This space, this facility, this building would not have happened without extravagant generosity. There are people, a part of this church and others who are no longer with us, that sacrificed big time for us to be able to purchase this facility and to move here to have a place to call home. Because we were just bouncing around before that. We started in a school in 1999. Set up and tear down. There was no home for us. But God opened up doors for rental facilities. They were a place, but they really weren't our place. And then God allowed a place like this for 24-7 ministry to happen. For youth group during the week. For children's ministry. For Bible studies. For events. For weddings. For funerals, for things that we can call home and a place to take a foothold in the community for the kingdom of God.

So however you are regularly paid, maybe that's weekly, twice a month, monthly, quarterly, however you get that income, you give God the best and the first and this puts everything in order. And when we do that, put God first, we have our fixed expenses, then everything else kind of falls in line. And you may come to a point where you get to the end of the month and there isn't another trip to TJ Maxx in store. Sorry, ladies, I just stepped on some toes. I apologize. Man, we can't go back to Bass Pro or Home Depot or, I don't know, where are guys spending money these days? Golf. There you go. Golf. There's not another round at the end of the month. But when we put this in order, everything orders out the rest. And when we are intentional about something, it orders our priorities.

Now, sometimes there may be a situation where you don't get the tithe to be like the first thing, auto-pay bills. They'll sneak in there on you sometimes. But it's a personal practice of worship. For my wife and I, we get paid around the 15th and the end of the month. And I will intentionally that morning when I wake up and my phone says, "You got money, a direct deposit," I try to take a moment and to worship God and literally write the check right there to say, "God, this is the absolute first thing that is coming out of this blessing that you have given." I know some of you will take a moment and utilize our online giving portal and you will set up a moment. You will sit down, you will pause, you maybe turn on some worship music, maybe you sing a song to God and then you click the button and you give the tithe. Others of you, you write the check during week, you come in, that is the first stop that you do and you go to that drop. You will not talk to anybody else. You're like, "I am going to worship and you walk in, you drop, and you're like, hello, I can talk to you now." But it's a priority. It's your first thing that you do.

And when we put God first in things, the other things that kind of just suck up our finances become less of a priority. "Ah, you know what, Pastor? There was a lot of stuff that happened this month and just, we got to the end and it just, there just wasn't enough." Okay, it happens. But maybe you need to reorder some of those things so that it is a priority, is a first thing, it is something that is done at the beginning. Now I'm not saying this: get this right, you have to pay your mortgage and rent, that's just reality of life, okay? I wish it wasn't the case, it is, and in California stupid expensive, let's be honest, we just call it what it is, so that is a big chunk. All right. I realize you have that. I realize you have to put food on your table. Okay. You have to provide maybe for your family, for your kids. You have to take care of them. I get that. I don't think anybody came in here this morning hungry intentionally because you did not have enough. So I know if you did come in this morning and you don't have enough and you're hungry, please come talk to me. We have people in this church who have asked, "Pastor, when someone comes in, they are hungry, send them my way. God has blessed me and called me to take care of them." That is the purpose of the church. Okay?

But when we prioritize, what gets cut at the end of the month isn't God. It's what's less essential. The less over becomes less and even less wasted if you want to talk about it. Last two weeks, I've asked you to go home and have a conversation with God, if your spouse, if you have them, with your family, maybe even with your kids, about what this means. This week I want you to begin to maybe pull out your bank statement and begin to evaluate where you are spending your money. And then just let the Holy Spirit speak.

Because I know for me, I am the first, things can just slip in. I've been trying to make iced coffee on my own during the week. I love me some cold brew. Okay, I have some like right here in front row. And I've been trying to make it at home because it's now stupid expensive, but we went on vacation and we came home and I got out of routine and then I didn't have this and I was out of beans and all this stuff. Like a week has come by and I've gone to Starbucks like four times. Don't tell my wife, okay? And I'm literally going order and I'm like, because I know it's not, I'm not being wise there. There's better ways to do things and it might take us some time to sit down, and it's not going to be fun. It's not going to be comfortable, okay? I'm telling you that. But on the other side of that, oh, guys, let me tell you what that is. It is amazing. So ask ourselves, is this honoring God with the provision that He has given us, or are we feeding extra just stuff?

Question two, I get asked: how much should I give? What is tithing? Great questions. I get asked this lot as a pastor and people come to me. And I want to go to a scripture in Deuteronomy chapter 14. And it says this, it says, "You must set aside a tithe of your crops, one-tenth of all the crops you harvest each year. Bring this tithe to the designated place of worship, the place the Lord our God chooses for His name to be honored. This applies to the tithes of your grain, new wine, olive oil, and the firstborn males of all your flocks and herds." Anybody a farmer or cattle or rancher in this room? No, this makes no sense to us, right? Let me translate this a little bit. This was their currency, their grain, their crops, their wine that they would grow their grapes and turn into wine, the olive oil they would get from their trees to press out, the firstborn males of their flocks and their herds. This was all their money. And God is saying here, I want you to set aside a tithe of all of that, a tenth of what you bring in.

Did you know that we don't get the best pineapples? Did you know that? A couple of people have been to Hawaii here lately. The best pineapples stay on the island and they are the first crop. I think that's called a plant crop, I think is the correct term, you guys will correct me later. But this is the initial pineapples that are grown on the plant and I guess they will just, you can see the future if you eat them. I've never had one personally, I hope and dream and wish one day I can, but they are the first pineapples. Hard because they are the main one off the plant and then everything that grows is kind of an uproot sprout outside of that. It's secondary and that plant puts everything into that first pineapple that it grows and they will just, they will blow your mind. You guys ever thought about extra virgin olive oil? It's the first press, right? Oh, it's the best. I don't know how or why they came up with that name, whatever. But then you have like extra virgin and the next press is virgin and then after that it's just like it just gets like blended up, I guess. I don't know how it works. But when we go to the store and we're like, "I'm gonna buy olive oil, what you got?" Extra virgin? I'm not going to muscle anything else. It's the first. It's the best. You guys have had like, we had friends who went to Italy and came back and brought us like true extra virgin all the way from Italy. Oh my gosh, guys. I want to just like spoonfuls of this stuff. It is amazing. But it's the first. It's the best.

And this is what God is asking of us is that He has a system and an alignment for us that He wants this best for Him and for us to learn in that. And this tithe piece is the foundational piece of scripture about financial generosity. And it's a process of growth. Talked about all those different phases. Stepping into that next phase, and I trust you, God, more. That next phase, I trust you, God, more. Next step, I trust you got more, to lead us to a place that is ever blessed, that we're going to talk about in a moment here, comes with a promise only found in a certain part of scripture, only about tithing and finances.

So what does that look like practically? Chris, like break it down for me. Well, if you get whatever your paycheck is, $1,000, $2,000, $100, whatever that is, you just move the decimal over one, and that's your amount. So if you made a hundred bucks, you move it over one, it's $10. That's what that breaks down to. And God here isn't saying, "I have to have your money." Okay? That's not what this is. God is greater than all of this. He is beyond that. He has Everything at His disposal. It's a step in relationship with trust with Him. And I will tell you, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. Wait, pastor, you just said, yeah. Don't want to do it? Don't do it. You got free choice. You got free will to be able to do it if you want. And especially don't give grumpy, please. Nobody likes a grumpy face. I'll use other words, positive relationships in church. Don't give grumpy. We're gonna, we're gonna read a scripture on that in a moment. But but the the reality is asking, "Lord, what do you want for me to do? Where do you want me to begin?"

Now people get lost in the weeds: is it pre-tax? Is it post-tax? Is it net? Is it gross? Is it off my retirement, investments, birthday money? Is it over if I get cash back on a return? Is it like people can get so lost on this stuff. I found a quarter on the ground. Now I got to find two and a half pennies to give to Jesus. I can't break a penny in half. Do I round up, round down? I'll just give a whole quarter to God. I don't want to. And that's not what I'm saying here. What I'm saying is a heart posture with Jesus. And I'll tell you, I have some thoughts on it. I have my own personal thoughts. These are Chris's thoughts, not God's thoughts. So if you want to talk, love to talk. And you might have different thoughts than I do. I know some of you in this room have different ideas about some of those little details in that. But it's a heart, a posture, giving that to Jesus, growing in relationship with God.

And here, there is a promise that is given to us out of Malachi chapter 3 and it is an incredible thing and it's only found in that scripture with no other topics besides that one. And that when we step into the tithe there is an incredible blessing and a promise from the Lord that comes with that. And I know some who have stepped into tithing were like, "I couldn't be generous. I stepped into tithing and now I can be generous in ways that I never imagined. I have money to just buy somebody a meal on the street. I have money to be able to..." There was a time when Laura and I were going through a hard time in life. And we had friends who didn't have a whole lot of money. But they were really good about this stuff. And they just sent us like 200 bucks. Blew our minds. I'm like, "I think you guys are actually making less money than we are. How? What the...?" "We want to bless you." And it's an amazing how God works this out. Because I will tell you, one plus one equals infinity with God. The math doesn't math with God. I've tried to figure it out. I carry the one in the movie, He does something just awesome in the middle of it and He just makes it incredible. But it has to start with this: Malachi chapter three.

"I am the Lord, I do not change. This is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed. Ever since the days of your ancestors you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me," says the Lord, "and I will return to you," says the Lord of heaven's army. "But you ask, how can we return when we had never gone away? What do you mean? Should God's people cheat you? You have cheated me," says Lord. "But what do you mean? When do we ever cheat you? You have cheated me in the tithes and offerings due to me. You are under a curse for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my temple. If you do," says the Lord of heaven's armies, "I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great that you won't have enough room to take it in. Try it. Put me to the test."

This tithe is the only time in scripture where God guarantees an outcome when you are obedient to God. He's saying, if you trust me in this, then I will open up the heavens and I will rock your world. Is it always financial? No. Okay? I'm not saying, well, if I start tithing today, then God, you better send me that $20,000 check in the mail. It's not what He's talking about. He's talking about a blessing over your life and your family and your family's family and generational things here, guys, that will change everything about who you are.

But this blessing, this storehouse, heaven, what does that mean? Well, that's a great question. If I remember correctly, from the Bible, in heaven, the streets are made of something that starts with G, ends with old. They're with, okay, that's your part. You say that back to me. I give you a clue and you say, okay, perfect. Okay, so the streets in heaven are made of gold. Guys, they are paving with gold in heaven, paving. What are they making their storehouses out of? And then what are they putting into those storehouses? Like, you guys ever thought about that before? I had this moment of like, what? This week. That's where they keep the good stuff. And God is saying, "Will I not open up the gates of heaven? I will not pour out upon you." Whoa. And the Israelites over here have been stingy with God. "Well, we haven't cheated you." "Yeah, you have." "Well, what do you mean we haven't?" "You're not being generous. You're not tithing." "Oh, yeah. Yeah, sorry, we forgot." God says, "Trust me in this and I will take care of everything. Trust me in this and I will take care of everything."

And there's a discipline piece here that is required of us. And I'm not saying having a lot of money is bad. Do not, I did not say that. Okay? Don't try to go there. I did not say that. And I don't know how it all works. God gives money to some people and less over here. I don't understand. He creates it all. But the obedience principle is exactly the same no matter where you're standing. Honestly, sometimes a lot of money means a lot of tithes. And that might be honestly sometimes even harder than having less in a smaller type. But it's an obedience piece. And it's the same calling that we all have. Asking ourselves, am I honoring God first?

So where do we give? Where do we give? That's a good question. Where do we give? Well, how many are traveling to Jerusalem, to the temple on a regular basis? No? No? Nobody? You're not weekly flying over there and depositing? No? Okay. It's a joke. But what I'm saying here is that today, the modern temple or synagogue is the local church. The storehouse is that piece. And so He's calling us to bring all the tithes into the storehouse. Another translation says, bring the full tithe into the storehouse.

And I've been asked this before, and some people say, "Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, What if I put like 3% over here into this really good thing, and I give like 5% to Spring Valley, and then like 2% like goes over here." And I will say, I love your heart of generosity. That is phenomenal. Don't stop being generous. But I would like to provide maybe an alternative perspective here from Scripture that says to bring the full tithe, the full 10%, into God's house. And then out of that, live your generous life. Give to missionaries around the world. Give to parachurch organizations. Help pastors plant churches in different places around the world that don't have the gospel accessible to them. Yes, be generous in that. But the way we live our lives, how we live and give, is interpreted of what we do. I've heard it once said, give where you are being spiritually fed. And it's a heart check for us. Because generosity follows God's lead, not our obligation.

All right, I got two more questions. I got to go hurry here first. How should I give? It's a great question. Some people have asked, how should I give? Well, I see three pieces to this. That it's first intentional, it's accountable, and it's accessible. What do I mean by that? Well, intentionally: when when COVID happened we stopped passing the buckets or passing the plates, if you grew up in church or whatever it was called, and we moved to just a drop box because we didn't want to, here you go, here's your COVID, like we didn't want to pass that around, okay. And some of you that was a hard move. You were used to coming in church, worshiping, singing a song, doing the the offering tithing piece during worship, and you just like, we just went to a box. But we've gotten used to the box, right? And it's not necessarily in front of us. Sometimes something that's in front of us reminds us on a regular basis what needs to be important and how we need to live our lives. We are talking about possibly bringing back the buckets because it's an act of worship as a family together rather than just a boop in the back of the room. And we have to be incredibly intentional in that, that we are doing on a regular basis. It's a deliberate choice to honor God so we don't forget and we have to be intentional.

Is it accountable? And this isn't just tax purposes, okay? I'm talking about a financial shift that might happen in our lives when our, and that usually tends to be our giving changes. And this, I will tell you as a pastor and as our team and our pastoral care team, you don't necessarily bring us in on the loop. You don't necessarily tell us. And so when there's some tracking systems of finances in the church, when those things change, that can be an indicator that we need to just touch base. And not in the sense of, "Hey, where'd your tithe go? You're not giving, you're used to." No. "What's going on? Can we help you? How can we come alongside you? You lost a job? Okay, well, we know this person, they're looking to hire over here, and this person over here, how can we connect these things?" It's a family. You'd want to know, I think, as a parent, if your child was struggling through something, right? And so part of tracking that, writing on the envelope, we don't fingerprint the money in the back, guys. So if you're just dropping cash back there, awesome, God bless you. We don't know. And there's another accountable piece in that for you to be able to begin to track of like, "Hey, pastor was challenging me to give and I started giving and I've given this much and like my finances haven't dipped. Like things are still good." And it's a moment to go, "God, you are amazing," but you're not tracking that. You don't know. We don't know. We can't help you in that.

Is it accessible? I talked about this, trying to figure out, do we begin to pass the place? Do we have some sort of other way to do that? We're making sure our online giving is always 100% secure. We are working to make sure that there are easy ways for you. If God prompts you to be able to be generous in things like even Camp Awesome and Operation Christmas Child and being able to have you guys as a stirs in you to be able to have a quick avenue, an easy avenue with no barriers, to be able to engage with that and to be obedient. It says this, 2 Corinthians 9-7. "You must each decide in your heart how much you will give. And don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure. For God loves a person who is giving cheerfully." God loves a cheerful giver. I said earlier, don't give grumpy. Right here in scripture.

Fifth question, what about debt? What if I have it? Oh, great questions. Love this. I want us to think in this way, okay? Because we probably have it, the reality is. And when I'm talking about unsecured debt, I'm not talking about like housing, like a mortgage. That's more secure because you have the problem. I'm talking about like credit card debt here, okay? Three things I want us to think about this, okay? Think mission possible, not mission impossible. Because sometimes we got debt, it feels impossible, right? It feels impossible to get out from this mound. One, avoid it when possible, okay? There's times it's going to happen. Happens in life. It's happened in our life where you're just like, "Oh, man. Did not see that coming." Life happens. I got to put something on the credit card. Okay. There's grace in that. Okay. But when possible, avoid it. Don't just be like, "Charge it, charge it, charge it, charge it." Like, don't do that. Two, pay it off as quickly as possible. Don't make minimum payments. You will never get out from underneath it. It is set up in a system that is to just destroy your soul. Don't. And then don't take on more debt when possible. Figure out how to realign. It's going to be hard. It's going to take work, I promise you. But it is worth it to get out of that. And we have resources and different things we'd love to connect you with to help you if you are finding yourself in that place right now. God wants you to have freedom from that.

I want you to hear me this morning. God does not want you. But we live in a world, right, where it's like, "I have to have a good credit score and have a good credit score. I've got to have debt. But if you have debt, then you have a bad credit score. But if you don't have debt, then why do you need a good credit score?" Something there going on that's fishy. Proverbs 22. We're going to close with this. "Choose a good reputation over good riches. Being held in high esteem is better than silver or gold. The rich and the poor have this in common. The Lord made them both. A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. A simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. True humility and fear of the Lord lead to riches, honor, and long life. Corrupt people walk a thorny, treacherous road. Whoever values life will avoid it. Direct your children onto the right path, and when they're older, they will not leave it, just as the rich rule the poor so the borrower is servant to the leader. Choose a good reputation over riches."

I don't think we hear that in life very much. But what about the cool dude who has all the stuff and the toys and all that? Yeah, he's probably up to his eyeballs in debt, let's be honest. And one missed payment, all of that fun stuff goes away. Talk about finance with your children. Prepare them. I was a product. I had a grandfather who was so financially sound. And he taught me at an early age. He brought me alongside me and said, "Hey, this is this. And this is what this means. And this is like, it's your tithe. And this is how you got to pay your taxes. And you got to invest." And like he set me up and taught me some core principles I'm so grateful for today. Teach your children about these things. Plan ahead.

I don't know if you guys know when you drive your car, your tires start disappearing. They just poof, go away. And if you bought any lately, you know they're not cheap. Right? So the scripture says a prudent person saves away for the future. Maybe we need to start putting away some money on a regular because you know those tires and those new tires are coming. And if you don't have the money, it's going to get you into a bad place. Think ahead. Plan ahead. How do I set new healthy financial habits? 1 Timothy 6. It says, "Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. Pouring out the riches of heaven, right? Remember that scripture? After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into this world, and we take nothing with us when we leave it. So if you have enough food and clothing, let us be content. But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. The love of money. And some people craving money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows."

That's interesting, pierced. I did a cultural background on this. Did you know when you borrowed money from somebody, you owed somebody, they would pierce you with their name. I owe somebody 20 bucks for both of these. I'm just kidding. But that's what they would do. And to walk around with piercings was actually shameful. You would walk around and you would see a loop maybe in someone's nose and it says, "Doug." Like, "Oh, you owe Doug money." What does that year say? "Susan?" "Susan?" But people would appear, and it would be a cultural shame. We don't have that today, do we? We tout, right? We're like, "Woo, look at us." You don't want to know my credit score. I get emails every month. I'm like, "Delete." I don't care. I'm not buying anything. But it's a cultural shame. Great wealth is actually true godliness and contentment.

So as we close, how or what has God told you today? Maybe there's a question. Maybe you had a question and I gave you an answer today. Maybe you have more questions. Maybe it's about debt. Maybe it's about financial discipleship. Maybe it's about first fruits. Maybe it's about contentment. But what will you do about it this week? And on your card, on your program, you came in your little response card. I want you to check the box. Maybe if God said something to you today about financial changes that may need to happen in your life. And I'd love for you, we're gonna have ushers in the back on the way out. Drop that in there. And we wanna be praying alongside of you. We're not gonna be like, "Hey, what did God tell you you're supposed to start giving?" No, it's between you and God. We are presenting the gospel and the scripture. And it's your choice on how you want to respond to what God is saying to you.

But don't forget, remember, I want to leave you with three things right here. Ask Him, trust Him, and align with Him. That's what it's about. And it's a journey. You're not going to figure this thing out overnight. You never will. It's a journey with Jesus as He leads you deeper into trust and faith and hope and freedom in Him. Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for this morning, God. We are so grateful for your encouragement, God, for your grace, for your love and care. God, even as we mess up with this stuff, God, you are still there saying, "I love you. You are my child. I have better things for you." And so Jesus, I pray that we would listen to your leading, listen to your calling in our lives. God, maybe we need to have a conversation about our finances, about our budget, maybe where we're spending some things, maybe how to focus in on getting out of debt. But God, at the same time, you don't say, "Hey, if you got debt, make sure you pause that giving. You can get out of that debt first." No, God, you ask us to be obedient in the midst of it all. And so God, I pray that we would step forth and trust and faith in you. God, that we would know who you are and the better calling and the better life that you have for us and the freedom that is on the other side of that. And you want to pour down, God, the blessings of heaven and just blow our minds. God, I pray that you would do that this week. We love you, Jesus. Amen.

God's Way - First Things First: Part 2

God’s Way - First Things First: Part 2 - How God Gives First

Genesis 15, Genesis 22, John 3:14–21

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, good morning, everybody. Excited that you are here with us today, and we're going to be continuing in our God's Way First Things First series. We will be in Genesis here in a moment, but I wanted to give a quick recap of where we were and how we wrapped things up last week. If you were with us, we began to walk through this idea that there is a lie that has been told to us since the beginning of time, which began in the garden with Adam and Eve. That lie came from the serpent, or who we know as Satan. He came to Adam and Eve and said, "Did God really say that you can't eat of that one tree in the garden? Did he really say that? Like, why would God allow that to happen? To create something in the garden, a poisonous fruit, which is probably what we know is reserved for Disney movies, right? Like, why would God create a poisonous fruit in the garden?" He says, "Actually, what you don't know is that God doesn't want you to have the knowledge. He doesn't want you to have the knowledge that he has. He, God, is holding out on you. He's withholding his everything from you. And so in return, we have to figure it out on our own. We have to take control. We have to be the ones that call the shots because God isn't gonna give us enough." And this lie has perpetuated and passed itself down year after year after year until even today: that you can't have God's blessing because he's not going to give it to you. He is going to hold out on you.

And we began to walk through what it means that God desires the absolute best for our lives. He wants the absolute best for us. But there are areas in our life and in our heart where there still is darkness. Until God's light shines in those dark places, we will continue to have bondage in those things. So the only way for us to begin to stop believing that lie is to trust in God, because he is the perfect designer. He's designed everything in our world. You want to know how he's designed marriage? Read the Bible. You want to know how he's designed relationships and families? Read the Bible. You want to know how he has designed sex? Read the Bible. If you want to know how he has designed community, church, life, and relationships, read the Bible. If you want to know how he has designed finances, open up God's word. Because he is the perfect designer, and he has a design for us.

And like I joked kind of last week, I talked about how our cars are designed to run in a certain way. The price of gas lately is out of control, and it would be easier for me to find an alternative liquid to put into my car. For me, I would say that would be water, right? My spigot's right next to where I parked my car. I could just fill it up, top it off, and I'm on my way. But that would cause catastrophic damage to my car. It wouldn't run anymore. It wouldn't work. And God has a plan. He has a design. And yet we go, "Oh, God, okay, I know you have your plan, but you know what? I know best. I know how this works. You can keep your instructions. That's fine." And yet we struggle in our lives, our marriages, our world, and our finances. And we go, "God, why are you letting this happen?" And God's like, "I had a design for you guys." But we take control because we don't think that we're going to have enough.

So we talked about these maps, these zones of where we are with our trust on the spectrum with our finances with God. The first zone is kind of the beginning line of where we've never given to the church. The finances are ours. I direct them. I choose where they go. You've never given to the church. Maybe you've given once. Maybe it was through something like last Christmas. We had Operation Christmas Child where we gathered things. Maybe you donated some toys or some socks or maybe something to that. And that's amazing. But the next step that God wants us to take is consistency in giving. Maybe for you, that looks like starting with about twenty bucks a month, fifty bucks a month, whatever you're at. But you're beginning to have a faithful, regular giving system where we see God is in the systems, that you would have that flowing in a system. And then maybe from there, you would step up to a proportional commitment. You give a percentage. You begin to look at everything that God has blessed you with: your income, your retirement, your investments, everything that comes in as income. And you begin to say, "Hey, I'm going to give a portion of this, maybe one percent, two percent, three percent." And that's where I'm going to start, having a proportional giving of what God has blessed me with.

And then I said from there, the Bible talks about biblical stewardship, discipleship, is a tithe. And what does a tithe mean? Well, tithe is the word tenth. And you could be like, "Holy buckets, Chris. You're talking about ten percent of everything that comes in?" Yeah, that's what the Bible says. But that's it, right, Chris? There's nothing more that God's asking. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. We kind of want to land there and be like, "Okay, good. I'm good, God. I did. I'm fine. I'm set." But God goes, "No, no, no, no. I have a level five that is extravagant generosity. That is a biblical ten percent tithe and beyond. Giving to things like local para-church organizations, maybe like a Christian pregnancy center or gathering in a local nonprofit that works with the homeless. Or maybe it's a situation where you are a recipient of this, and the fact that you're sitting in a facility that was only possible with people who had extravagant generosity. Before this building, there was not a home per se for Spring Valley Church. There were leased buildings. It began set up and tear down in elementary school back in 1999. And then God opened up different doors and then eventually this one here where we can call this place our home, ours, twenty-four seven. And because of that, we have things like youth group that happens on Monday nights. We have things like people being able to come and worship God during the week. Men's and women's Bible studies, children's ministries, Camp Awesome, that we would have a space to call our own to even be able to do something like that for days. Like this is amazing. And you are sitting in a place; you are a recipient of that extravagant generosity."

But this lie that Satan began and gave in Genesis 3 really begins to influence everything that we are. It influences our finances. It influences our time, our resources, our life planning. And Jesus spent, I talked about this last week, one-third of his time talking about money, possessions, and finances. That's a pretty big deal. And I began to really wrestle with that. I'm like, "Jesus, why did you spend that? I mean, I thought you were all about love and grace and forgiveness." He is. But he also knew that at the forefront of that was where our hearts were. And there was a rich man who came to him that said, "Hey, Jesus, how do I inherit heaven?" And Jesus says, "You have to obey the law, honor your mother and father, love others better than yourself, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your strength, everything that you are." And he goes, "I've done all that." And Jesus goes, "Sweet, you're getting into heaven." No. He says, "Sell everything you have and give it away." Why? Because Jesus knew that that rich man had made finances and money his idol. He had replaced God. Yes, he had checked the boxes, but he had replaced God in his heart with his money.

Jesus says in Matthew chapter six, "Don't worry about food or clothing. Take a look at the birds of the field. Take a look at the flowers, the lilies. Do I not care for them? Do I not feed them? Do I not clothe them in glorious splendor? Will not your heavenly Father do the same for you?" Don't believe the lie. And this ties us into our spiritual readiness regarding money and finances. Our financial decisions reveal our ultimate allegiance. Is it trust in God or trust in ourselves? And it's not about the amount. I don't want us to get caught up in that. Well, okay, Chris, what do I need to write my check every week? How much cash do I need to bring to every church on Sunday and put in the drop box? It's not about that. It's about a posture of our heart. And Jesus spoke on these things because he knew for us it was going to be something that we were going to have to wrestle with. That it was going to be a tough thing to trust God over trusting ourselves. It's a spiritual issue.

And we closed last week and I gave you a challenge. I said, "Go have the conversation." First, go have the conversation with God. Where are you at financially? Go talk to God about it. And then if you have a spouse or you have a family, go talk to them about it as well. This is a family unit thing that you all are on the same page biblically when it comes to financial discipleship. If you forgot, fear not. You got a whole nother week. But if you did have a conversation, I'm proud of you. That's awesome. But don't skip it. Don't just say, "Oh, don't worry about it." No one just stumbles into financial discipleship, just as you don't stumble into a six-pack. I'm not talking beer here, okay? I'm talking our fitness. No one stumbles into being physically fit, right? It takes intention. It takes planning. It takes discipline. But we don't like those things. They're uncomfortable, right? Last time I checked, I don't think God called us to a comfortable life. I think he called us to an obedient life.

And so today's objective, I want us to shift from identifying the lie to understanding God's actual pattern of giving. Generosity is who God is. It's his core character. And when we have that, there's an abundance that follows steps of faith. So what does it mean for us to act the way that God acts? Well, this is where we're going to be. Genesis chapter 15, starting in verse 1. We're going to have it on the screens if you want to flip there with a Bible or open it up on your phone. It says this in verse 1 in chapter 15: "Sometime later, the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you." Now, maybe you might be thinking, "Hey, Chris, I thought the dude's name was Abraham." That's going to come later. We're going to talk about that in a moment. But right here, God is saying to Abraham, who is going to protect him? Is it gonna be by his own strength? Is it gonna be by his own might? Is it gonna be by his own children that Abraham is gonna be protected? No, God says, "I will protect you. Do not be afraid, Abram." This is God's character. He is protector. He is provider. He is promise keeper. And Abram's expected response was to depend on God, not his own strength, not his own control, not his own choices, not even his own children. Because the reality is he has no children.

So where's the lie? Continue on in that. He said, "But Abraham replied, O sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don't even have a son? Since you've given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant of my household, will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir." Where is the lie? God, you're holding out on me. You have not given me a son, an heir to everything that you have blessed me with. And he admits he has been blessed. But there is no son to pass it along. Abraham has wealth. He admits it. He has wealth. But he cares also where it goes. And it's going to go to someone who isn't his flesh and blood. Some person who is just a part of his crew that is just going to receive it, and there is going to be no legacy.

I think there's a modern parallel to Abram's fear, maybe in our lives, that fear has this incredible grip on us. We have this financial anxiety. If you're, I have a fear, will I ever be able to retire? I joke about, and my wife, we make this joke, that we are too young to have lived through the housing boom and we are too old to have been an online social media influencer. We are in this gap of living through many crises in life: 9-11, financial crisis, pandemics, inflation, wars, bloodshed around the globe. And there's an anxiety that we don't know if there's going to be enough. There is uncertainty. There's debt. There's less than ideal income. And this even goes into our parenting that sometimes we think, "God, you gave me what?" I remember that first time holding Adelyn, my daughter who's almost 12, going, "Lord, I don't know what I'm doing. And I not only have to be responsible for my own life, but my wife, which I committed to years ago, and now this tiny little human that can't do anything on their own to survive. Lord Jesus, help me." I remember praying that prayer, holding her, going, "I don't know what I'm gonna do, God."

And some for us, this rolls into how our children become our idols in our life. We become taxi drivers for our children to make sure they're at this sport, at this camp, doing this thing, over here at this thing. Why? Because we just want the very best for them. And I think it comes from a really good place. But when we look at what might be our idols, take a look at where we spend our money and how much we spend our time. It's only in America does it feel like there's this rat race for our children. Well, you know what? I didn't make it in the NBA, but my kid is going to. And I'm going to make sure that they get there if that kills me. Newsflash, it's going to kill you. We have deified our children in our life. Are they a blessing from God? Absolutely. But they shouldn't control everything that we are.

See, the problem is when we live and believe this lie, fear crowds out our faith. Fear replaces our faith. And when we go to count and we don't see, instead of trusting what God can do. Abram, God, you're not doing a good job. I don't have a son. I don't have an heir. And God in his grace just goes, "Oh, small little man, you know nothing. You don't understand what I am doing." He moves on in verse 4. Then the Lord said to him, "No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir." Then the Lord took Abram outside and said, "Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can, buddy. That's how many descendants you will have." God here directly refutes the lie. Your servant will not be your heir. You will have a son.

And I think there's some imagery here that God is speaking to him inside and then takes him outside. Sometimes we need to get outside of our little world. We're stuck in this inside little bubble thinking God can't do that. He's not enough. It's not gonna make it. We're not gonna last. We're not gonna survive. God is calling us to step outside of that. And he takes Abram outside and says, "Look at the stars, dude." One of my favorite things when we go up to South Lake Tahoe at night is to go out and look at the stars. Like if you guys have never done that, gotten away from the city and been outside in like really darkness, but to be able to just look up into the sky, like holy buckets. There are so many stars. And I'm reminded when I look up that, I was like, I can only imagine at that place in that time in the world with like no light pollution, what would have the night looked like for Abram? And God goes, "Count him. I double dog dare you. Don't lose track. You can't count him." Because fear says you will not have enough. But God says to Abram, "My promise is you will have everything." We have to replace our limited human perspective with the unlimited divine promise from God. And we have to shift our perspective to God, knowing the full truth of everything that he is. To the point that you will not believe your own eyes. And it will remove your fear because it will come to a point where you can't even count the blessings that God is bestowing upon you.

It won't always look like money, guys. That's what I'm not saying. I'm not saying you start tithing and then your money will be perfect. You'll start reordering your heart in the way that God wants you to, but God will provide in many different ways to bless you in things that you can never dream, ask, or imagine. For Abram right now, counting zero was easy, right? That was his tunnel vision: zero. How many kids? Zero. But God is saying, "Look at the stars. That's how many descendants you're going to have." And this is one of the greatest verses in the Bible. I absolutely love it. In verse six it said, "Abram believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness because of his faith." The lie is God is holding back that you have to do it your way. You have to control it. You have to make sure that you have your plan and your system. But the truth is that God says, "Do it my way and all of my abundance is yours. Everything that I have, I want to bless you with." See, the key principle here is abundance follows faith. Our way triggers scarcity and anxiety, but God's way unlocks overflow.

Abraham had a change of heart in his mind and his action in that moment. And it wasn't just lip service. It wasn't like, "Okay, yeah, God, sure, I hear you. Stars equal descendants and there's a lot of them. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Cool. Thanks, dude." But there was a promise that God was going to come through. So do we believe the lie that Satan has been telling us forever, or do we believe that God, when it comes to money, says "you will have what you need, put me first, everything else will be taken care of"? Because this is ultimately the financial question before us, right? Are you trusting yourself? Like the lie, like Adam and Eve, like Abram before God came into his life? Are you trusting God? And what's awesome here is after this moment, God has a ceremonial covenant moment with Abram, and he actually changes his name. The name of God, if you don't know in Scripture, is Yahweh. And I know there's a whole lot more to it if you know Hebrew. I don't know Hebrew, so you can ask Pastor Andre. He's very skilled and knowledgeable in that. But the word Yahweh literally has within its core this idea of God's breath. And I heard it said this way once, and it changed my perspective. It's literally like Yahweh. It's literally the breath of God inside of us that sustains us. That is who God is. And God goes through this ceremonial covenant with Abram and says, "From now on, your name is going to be Abraham." Abraham. God literally puts his name in the middle of Abram's name. How cool is that? So that every time that somebody would call Abraham's name, they were saying the name of God. And Abram was reminded of that covenant that he has with God.

And so we come to chapter 22 and it says this. It says, "Sometime later, God tested Abraham's faith. Abraham, God called. Yes, he replied, here I am. Take your son, your one and only son, Isaac." So God fulfills his promise, right? We read that shortly after that covenant God says, "Hey, I'm gonna come back around a little bit and you are going to have a son." And Abraham and Sarah go, "What?" Because by this time they were old. I'm not gonna say a number because then that might offend some of you in the room, okay? But there comes a point in life where men and women just do not naturally conceive anymore. Okay. And Abraham and Isaac had, or Abraham and Sarah had tried time and time and time and time and time and time again to have a son, to have a child, and it didn't happen. And they just gave up on that hope. And then God comes along and tells them, and he's like, "What?" And it's interesting because Sarah laughs so loud that God, having a conversation with Abraham, goes, "Did your wife just laugh at me?" And Sarah goes, "No, no, no, I didn't." Okay, now, first off, if you didn't know, you can't lie to God, okay? He knows everything, all right? But Sarah doubles down on this going, "I know my life, I know my body, I know biology, the basics of it. That doesn't happen when I'm my age." But you're talking to God, the God who promised an heir. But Sarah just digs down and fights and says, "No, I know better. I know best." Isn't it awesome when you get to have a conversation with someone who thinks they know better and they know best? Isn't that just the most fun? No, it's miserable. They sit there, they dig down. "This is my side of the story. This is the truth. This is what is right. This is what is true." And they fight from their perspective.

We're going to touch on that a little bit. But God says there's going to be a son. And God says it's not going to come through your concubine. It's not going to come through your messed up plans that you've screwed up to try to create. Now you've got Ishmael around. But it's going to come through my promise, my design, my way, not yours. And so Abraham and Sarah have a son. And they call him Isaac. And so here in verse 22, he says, "Take your son, your only son. Yes, Isaac, the one that you love so much and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you." Do you ever read a Bible verse and go, "I just don't like that?" Like this is one of those Bible verses where I'm like, "I don't like this. I don't like this concept. I don't like this test. I don't like anything about it." And I go, "God is, man, like, we have the understanding of the other side of this, but Abraham didn't." And I'm thinking, "God, sometimes in life, I'm like, God, is there any way you could teach me a lesson and just make it easier? Like, why does it have to be so hard sometimes?" But God here is saying, "Hey, I need to know if you trust me." You've said you trust me. You've had probably some small actions that show that you trust God. But God goes, "I need to know because I think deep down in here we get caught in this as well that we begin to idolize the blessing that we receive from God rather than the one who provided the blessing." And God here is saying, "Abraham, I've given you the blessing of the one son that you deeply desired, the son who you love with everything that you are. Do you trust me with this? And do you love me more than Isaac?"

And there's this nature of just spiritual testing, and it's almost comical. That at the moment that we have a commitment to God, it is always followed by testing. So the question, and you may have experienced this last week, I asked you to have the conversation. Did you avoid it or did you have the conversation? If you did have the conversation, either something happened to you last week or something's going to happen this week. Because here's what happens. It is so incredibly regular that God tests us to verify our obedience. Not to trip us up or to mess with us or to say, "Ha, ha, ha, you little idiot, like you messed up again." Like, no, no, no. But God tests us to want to know, do we truly believe what we say we're going to do? I had this happen a few weeks ago, preparing this sermon series. And I was doing some errands around here. I was driving around and all of a sudden, my engine kind of running a little rough. And I'm like, "That's weird. I'm like, it won't happen again. Keep driving." It happens again. I'm like, "Okay, that's, wow, what? Something's not right here." And all of a sudden it goes and goes. And I get to the point, the check engine light is not only on, it is flashing at me. So I'm like, "Oh no." I'm trying to come up Sunset over here past Rocklin Event Center. You know that's a big hill. My car is revving, shaking, making the most Lord awful sound I've ever heard in my life. And I'm like twenty miles an hour. People are honking at me. They're flying around me like, "What's this idiot doing?" And I'm like, "Lord Jesus, just get me to the church, please, Lord." And I limp it up the hill and I coast down a little bit and I sit in the light. I'm like, "Lord, the church is right there. Just please." And I'm like, "This is it. This is my car's toast. It's done. It's over. The engine's shot. The transmission is destroyed." I'm like, "God, we don't have the money for a new car. We don't have money for a car payment. This car is paid off. Lord, do you know how amazing that is?" God, no. Limp it into the parking lot, back it in, sit in front of the church, and I pop the hood, and I'm just like, "God, I don't know." And I'm like, "God, I trust you. You have a plan. You have a purpose. We're doing everything we can to live within your design financially. And we're not coming up a short, but I'm staring down something that looks like I'm going to be coming up short."

So I call my dad. "Hey, dad, stuck at church. What are you doing?" I'm like, "Hey, can you get me this tool and this tool and this tool?" This is what happened. He's like, "Okay, I'm on my way." So he comes up. I'm looking at the... I can't do anything. I don't have the connection to do the check engine. Like he brings that up. We check the engine and the most glorious peace, love, grace of God comes over me and it says an engine misfire. And for those of you who were just like that went straight over your head, that is a blessing because it could have said engine default, exploded, it's over, good luck, see you later, goodbye, transmission no worky. And so we're like, "Okay, misfire means something's wrong with the spark." We're like, spark plugs. And I start looking around. Every auto parts store in this place is shut down except for the one that is right over here. I cruise in. I grab the spark plugs. We come back. Dad helps me. We swap everything out. It was amazing. Just a little cover that comes off. Like that doesn't happen when you work on a car. Like just one cover. Replace the spark plugs. Get back in the car. Jesus, start it up, and it starts. It's not shaking. Like, okay, that anxiety-riddled lap around the block. You guys have been there if you've worked on a car. You're like, "All right. So you go around the block. You keep it simple. Keep it chill. Everything's good. You're like, all right, let's get that speed up. Let's get those RPMs." And I take it up the hill, cruising, flip a U-turn, come back, cruising, pull in the parking lot, and I go, "Thank you, Jesus." What I thought was going to have to be a brand new car, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars, $59.95, four spark plugs. Yes. And I remember driving home, I was still anxious, but I was just like, "Lord, you are so good. You are so good."

But when we step into this truth of God, he's going to test us because he wants to know whether our obedience is faith that's just a verbal one or is a visceral one that is down to our gut. So Abraham puts the wood on the back of his son, grabs his fire starter thing, whatever, flint, whatever they used, and they start on a trek. And Isaac turns to Abraham, his dad, and says, "Hey, Dad, where's the sacrifice?" Because this wasn't the first time Isaac had done this. He had gone with his dad before to offer this worship to God. And he knew that there needed to be something that was going to have to be killed and sacrificed to cover the sin. And I cannot imagine, as a dad, to have to turn to my son and to say, "God's going to provide, bud. God's going to provide. I don't know." And so he gets to the place. They build the altar. He puts the wood on. And he bounds his own one and only son and puts him on the wood and he raises his hand and God stops him and says, "Now I know." That even says in Hebrews chapter 11, the faith chapter, it talks about that Abraham had such faith that even if he would have gone through with killing his son, he had such faith that he believed God would raise him back to life. Because he embodied the covenant and the promise. And God provides an animal, a ram that's stuck in a bush right there. It's the only way God can, right? And they have a sacrifice. And there might've been silent treatment from Isaac to dad for a few weeks. But the faith that Isaac now had watching his dad trust God in a way that I pray that we never have to be tested in was amazing.

This parallels a story from the New Testament. If you guys have read your Bible and seen the whole story, but it says this in John 3. "As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, the Son of Man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. For this is how God loved the world. He gave his one only Son so that everyone who believes in him would not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son to the world not to judge the world but to save the world through him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him, but anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God's one and only son. And the judgment is based on this fact. God's light came into the world, but people love the darkness more than the light for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed." He's talking about this, shining light, all areas of our life. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see what they're doing, what God wants. You might have heard this scripture before, maybe a different translation, maybe you memorized it. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him believes what?" Well, believes the same thing that Adam, Abraham did with Isaac. God the Father did with his one and only son, except God finished the job. Christ died on the cross for you and for me so that we could be reconciled. That's a big fancy term that means we are fixed in our sins, that they would not be counted against us, but they would be counted against his one and only son because God's son was given for you so that you could come into the light and be in right relationship with God. And God wanted to know that Abraham was in right relationship with him.

See, God gave you his first and best, not his leftovers, not his second choices, not what was just kind of there at the end of the month, but God gave completely, fully, freely, holding absolutely nothing back with no conditions to his love. And not only that, he actually adopted us into his family and calls us his own. Do you guys believe that? I've preached this stuff for a long time and I still don't get it or understand everything that God is doing. But it's a call to discipleship. We are invited in to act like God, love like God, live like God, and give like God. Fear shows that we're holding back. Faith shows that we are trusting. God's generosity is the blueprint for our obedience. The conversation I want you to have this week now is are we willing to move forward in actually putting our faith in God with our finances? I didn't ask of anything last week. I'm not asking of anything. We're not signing on a line. You're not committing to anything right now. I'm just asking, are you willing to move forward in your biblical financial discipleship with Jesus? And it just starts with a conversation. Another conversation of God. What do you want us to do? What would it look like for us to give in the way that you have given to us, God? God holds nothing back. God has never held anything back. But I know at times, I'll be the first to admit, I have. I've held back. I've had fear overcome my decisions. Because trusting God with our everything, including our finances, is actually our full and ultimate act of worship. Giving is our worship.

We're going to talk about this more in the next few weeks, but how do we worship God? Do we worship God with our hands, with our heart, with our actions? Is it our entire life, including our finances? And are we putting our life in a way that would be correct and proper to the way that God has, as the ultimate designer, designed our lives to be? We're addressing some things here at church of how can we remove barriers? How can we invite people into practicing regular biblical financial stewardship? Maybe that's stuff that we need to do as a church. We stopped passing the plate during COVID because we didn't want to share COVID, right? Maybe we need to bring that back so we can worship together as a body. I don't know. We're still wrestling with some of these things. Maybe we need to change the way that we have our drop box in the back and the way that we have our online setup or the way that we send out our statements of those who financially give on the regular. This is a theology of giving that we need to have for our lives. And obedience flows from trust. I want you to get this right. There is no guilt. There is no shame. There is no manipulation. It is just an invitation into what God has called us to do. And I will admit, I need to ask for forgiveness from you guys. I haven't talked about this as well as I should have. And so I'm sorry. I haven't led you well in this area. Out of fear. I was afraid everybody was going to leave. I start talking about money. You guys all showed back up this week. I won't tell you we have two more weeks of this, so I'm just kidding.

But we're at a crossroads here. Is God going to be the first in our spiritual life? Is he going to be the first in our financial life? Are we going to trust him the way that he has designed things? Are we going to stop believing the lie? Because reality is free will still remains, guys. You don't have to do this. You don't. But I think, and the way that I have found, is that living in this, on the other side of it, there's no other way to experience this without just fully going in on it. That on the other side of it, there is just this place of, oh. The Bible talks about a peace that passes all understanding. I'm telling you, we've tithed for a long time, and the numbers never matched. I would do the math over and over. I'm a math guy. It didn't make sense. But God asked for faithfulness. I said, "Okay." And we've never gone without. Things have been tight. We've had to say no to things. We've had to make sure that we budget in a certain way so that we have that ability to put God and him first in everything that we are. And I know some of you I've had those stories with you of how you fought it and fought it and fought it and fought it and you just said fine and you did it and you're like, "Oh my goodness, what? Why didn't I do this sooner?" Because there's just something on the other side of obedience that just opens up our world and no other way can you attain that without that trust. I encourage you step in faith, step in trust, trust the one who is the blesser. God, don't get so wrapped up in the blessing but trust God. Have a posture of faith and of prayer and of life realignment because we might need to reorder our life around God to make this happen. And it's not going to be easy, but I'll tell you it is so worth it on the other side. And I think Abraham, if he was here today, would agree.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you, Lord. We thank you for your gift and for your sacrifice. God, we thank you for your first generosity. God, we thank you for how you first gave your one and only son, that we would even have the opportunity to be here in this place, to have new life. Jesus, I pray for courage as we have these conversations with our family and with you, God, that we would ask that you would open our hearts to what you desire for us, God. More spiritual depth, more maturity. God, shining that light in all those dark places that we wanna control and hide from you, but God, you already know those places. So God, I pray, I ask for forgiveness for maybe our fear-driven decisions that we've made in the past and are focusing on our self-reliance. God, give us strength for small faith. This isn't something that we just wake up tomorrow and go, "I'm tithing and I'm being extremely generous." But it's a journey. It's a process. God, I even pray for you inviting testing. God, you desire the best for our lives and that might take us being tested a little bit. God, we thank you for what you're doing in our lives, in our giving and our tithing as worship. And God, I pray that our life would be a life of praise and declaring to you and to the world and everybody around us that you are the number one thing in our life, Jesus. God, may it be so. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen.

God's Way - First Things First: Part 1

God’s Way - First Things First: Part 1 - Shining Light On The Hidden

Matthew 6:19–24; Genesis 3:1–6; Matthew 19:16–22

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

So I'm excited to be back and jumping into a new series with us today called God's Way. This series kind of came out of a little bit of research I had been doing, some studying of the Word, and after kind of working through our tough questions. And if you guys remember, I kicked off our tough questions series, and I said, "If you want your church to be happy, to like you as a pastor, and to come back every single week, don't talk about certain topics. Do you remember? Hell, money, or politics." Good news for you, I have already covered hell. So you can go back and watch that sermon. And we're going to hold off on politics. We might jump into it later. So just forewarning, that might be coming. But here's the bad news: we're going to be talking about money.

And I felt like in this series that this was something that was very important to cover. And I know everybody, you already have the thoughts, right? They're already flowing through your mind. You're like, "I haven't been to church in months, and this is the Sunday I show up, God. Are you kidding me?" So just keep an open mind, okay? Keep an open mind to what God has to teach all of us, including myself today. And in this, we have a core theological principle about our belief and our walk with Jesus. And we know this to be true: until God's light shines into the dark corners of all of our lives, those dark corners continue to stay in bondage. And it is only when we allow God to shine into all of our lives that we find perfect, true, whole freedom.

This is only possible when we begin to identify areas in our lives where we are misaligned with God's will. I will be honest: these topics are 100% uncomfortable, and I might step on some toes. You may not like what you hear in this series, and that's fine. What I want to do is articulate to you Scripture and God's Word for our life. I always thought it was uber cheesy when people do this with acronyms and stuff, but I've heard it said that the Bible is our Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. And it is so true that the Bible gives truth to our right-now lives. Not old Bible-timey lives. Not before-Jesus Bible, old-school, Israelite, lost-in-the-desert lives. But our personal, right-now, end-of-May-2026 lives and beyond.

As a pastor, it is my calling and my duty to equip those whom God has called me to equip. I want us to be people who are grace-filled and Spirit-guided, with transformed hearts, lives, people, and families, and to have our church as a gospel-centered place. But we have to have a cultural reality check to be able to address some of these things. And I want to make sure that we don't elevate Scripture over things, or things over Scripture. Because when we put things above Scripture, we lessen and we degrade God's Word in our lives.

Society has these rules of engagement, right? They tell you, like I said before, we don't talk, especially around the dinner table or maybe a family meal with outside family. You don't talk about politics. You don't talk about religion. You don't talk about money. You don't talk about even sex. But I want to tell you that God has a design for everything that He has created. He does. And Scripture is very clear about how we are to live our lives in every single aspect of it. Take government and politics, for example. Did you know that there is an entire book in the Bible that is dedicated to how God wants to see, use, and roll out government and politics? Does anybody know what that book of the Bible is? It starts with a D and ends with a Y. What book? Oh, you guys, you're so good. I like that. No, I'm sorry. But we are called to understand God's design.

Sexuality and relationships. God created sex. And it's a beautiful, beautiful thing when held within the context of biblical marriage. He has given it to us as a gift. It's a blessing, guys. But there are clear instructions on how that is to be lived out throughout Scripture. And when we understand His design and live it out, it leads to a place of health, joy, and just greatness. But without it, it becomes manipulated and twisted. It leads to a place of shame, control, and abuse. God has a lot to say about money and finances. I found this out. I didn't know this: a third of what Jesus talks about and is recorded in Scripture was all about addressing money, possessions, and stewardship. It is the single most discussed topic that Jesus spoke about in our Bible. So that tells me it's probably pretty important.

And yet, in the church, we do a horrible disservice by tiptoeing around it, not really addressing it, not taking it head-on, and not giving clear, biblical, direct instructions on it. And I have failed you as a pastor. Throughout my entire pastorate, I don't think I've ever dug this deep into biblical stewardship. I was talking to another pastor this week, and he's been focusing on this in his church as well. I was like, "Oh, this is awesome. I love this." But he called it financial discipleship. I was like, "Ooh, I'm going to steal that. I like that." But we like to categorize it in a way that it's just kind of over here. I'm over here. And maybe I'll get close to it, but I don't like it. But Jesus focused and taught a lot about finances. Well, I thought he talked a lot about love and forgiveness. Yeah, he does. He talks a lot about that. But when we back up a little bit more, we realize that Jesus' focus here is actually addressing finances, which are a primary barrier to practicing love, to practicing forgiveness, and to spiritual maturity.

What we do with our resources shows our true allegiance. See, in the church, we are not influenced by the world. Is that true? No! We fall into these same traps of self-absorption and consumerism that the world has too, and yet we're supposed to look different, right? And this is an opportunity for us as a church to show the world how to live. It's an opportunity for us to speak truth in grace and with patience, and with love and forgiveness, which flips the argument in a way that the world doesn't understand. And I want to, during these weeks, offer a different alternative for us to live. When lived out, as the Bible says, it brings blessing upon blessing upon blessing.

And you might know a lot about this topic. Maybe some of you are like, "I know this front and back. I know exactly what I'm supposed to do." Awesome. I would suspect you probably got a little area you can grow in. And maybe you've never heard the church talk about money before. All you've heard is some televangelist say, "Send me your money and you'll be healed." Not talking about that either. Or maybe you're like, "Yeah, I'm supposed to, but it's just hard. Have you seen the price of bananas lately?" And my desire is to just have open hands and hearts, and to let the truth of God's Word just pour over you, and continue in your discipleship walk with Him, and to let Him continue to form us into the image that He so lovingly desires for us.

I wanna pray real quick. Jesus, we thank you for today. We thank you that you have not hidden yourself from us, God. This isn't some mathematical equation that nobody knows about except for you, and we don't have to try to figure out how to just unlock this blessing. But God, that you have shown yourself, you have shown your will, your way, who you are, and through Scripture, I pray that today our hearts and minds would be open to what you have for us. That we would be receptive to what you wanna say to us individually, how you wanna challenge us, how you wanna call us up, God, into a new way of living. And maybe there might be some repentance, God, along the way too. God, I pray in this process that your Holy Spirit would move freely and that we would not resist it. That God, both as individuals and as a body of believers, that you would lead us deeper into healthy, biblical discipleship and to live into right relationship with you. Jesus, Lord, we need you, God. We need you now more than ever. We love you, Jesus. We pray all of this in your name. Amen.

Can I share a little secret with you? I love it right there, right here. I am a little bit of a closet apocalyptic movie fan. I don't know anybody else who is big into end-of-the-world movies or TV shows. Yeah. Okay. Right. You're right here with me. I'm not huge on zombies; the most I would go is *World War Z*. Okay. So, I'm not all in on *The Walking Dead*. That's just not me. But things like *Greenland* with Gerard Butler? You guys seen that one? Okay. They just came out with a second one recently, continuing the story. Great stuff. Or maybe *The Day After Tomorrow*, maybe a little bit of *Planet of the Apes*. Anybody? No? No? There's a recent movie, not a movie... yeah, a movie and a show that came out called *Homestead*. It's really good. Movies like *Revolution*. Anybody remember *Revolution* back in the day? Were they like the nanobots that got into stuff and knocked all the power out? The show went on way too long. I'm like, guys, we should have ended this seasons ago. But then there's another new, recent one called *Paradise*. If you guys are streaming that one, it's pretty intense.

So, I love these movies, and the premise of an apocalyptic movie is that you don't know what's coming. You come onto the scene, and life is great. The world's moving, everything's fine. And then all of a sudden, something happens. Maybe it's some massive weather event that changes the polar ice caps, or it's a volcano that goes off, or maybe something from space collides into Earth, or just like aliens show up, or a biochemical outbreak. And it's just like, ah. What I've noticed with these movies is they all have one thing in common: when it all happens and chaos ensues, people abandon all of their stuff and prioritize what is important. Yet, we tend to build and live our lives surrounded, centered, and focused on all of this stuff. No one in these movies is like, "Hold on, before we leave the house, I gotta make sure I have all of my shoes in the car. But what about my purse collection? I can't leave that behind." No. Nobody's like, "Let me go get my sports trophy from my seventh-grade soccer game that I got a participation award for."

Nobody's loading up their books or their coin collection or their golf clubs. No. What are they loading up? What are they loading up? This is the interactive part here, okay? What are we loading up? Kids, you're family. You're loading up family. You're loading up medicine. You're loading up water. You're loading up food, the necessities. Weapons? I took a dark turn. Okay, there we go. Gold star for my mom. But the important stuff, right? Nobody's like, "Hold on, hold on, we forgot grandma's gravy boat. Like it's in the huge, top corner on the right. For when we have gravy?" As we're running through the forest for our lives from zombies? Nobody's trying to unbolt their flat-screen TV from the wall and be like, "Put this on the truck." No. You go after what is important. And yet, what do we do? We spend our lives, even decades, collecting stuff and focusing our lives around what would be left behind in the middle of a crisis.

Jesus has an upside-down kingdom that He's called us to live. And He says that some stuff is really just the opposite of how we're supposed to live our lives. And we in the church at times get caught up in this stuff, and we can laugh at ourselves, but we get caught up in this and we build our lives around stuff that just isn't worth focusing on. Jesus talks about this in Matthew chapter 6, where we're going to be today. If you want to turn there, it'll be on the screens. But this is in the middle of what is called the Sermon on the Mount. This is where Jesus takes a moment in His ministry and preaches the greatest sermon ever written and ever recorded. And He, in here, a third of the time, talks about money and finances and financial discipleship. But He focuses in on this set of verses I want to talk about this morning, starting in verse 19.

He says, "Don't store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Rather, store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there your heart will also be. Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. And when your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. If the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is. No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one, love the other, or you will be devoted to one, and you will despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money."

Jesus said this 2,000-plus years ago. And He talks about three core things in here. I want to walk us through them this morning. The first of which He says is to store treasures, not on earth, but to store treasures in heaven. Treasures on earth versus heaven. He says, earthly wealth decays. Don't know if you know this, but no matter how hard you try, you're not taking anything to heaven. When you die, it all stays here. It doesn't go anywhere. I've heard the stories of people buried with all their possessions, loaded in a car, thinking that that's how they're gonna go to heaven. It doesn't go anywhere, guys. Jesus says here, what happens to it? It's destroyed. It falls apart. Moths eat it. It rusts away. Thieves steal it. But heavenly treasures are secure and eternal. What you sow and reap, some big church words here, farmer terms, I think we don't really know very well. We're not farmers. We may be backyard gardeners. But He says, what is in heaven, what is eternal, will last forever. And this is really our heart allegiance. Whatever your treasure is there, your heart will also be, it says in verse 21. Finances reveal our true spiritual posture.

Jesus continues on to talk about the eye as a lamp. A biblically healthy financial perspective will illuminate and trickle and flow into our whole life. And the same is true for an unhealthy one: it will breed spiritual darkness in our lives. And then He finishes with the dual-mastery improbability that no one can serve two masters. It's completely impossible because you're either over here loving this one, which means you're hating that one. And then you go over here and you love this one, which means you're hating that one. There's no way around it. You cannot serve God, He says, and be enslaved to money. Devotion to one brings contempt for the other. And so why does Jesus, if I said He talked about this a third of the time, why does He continue to come back to this time and time and time and time again? With some other topics, He talks about them once and then He's done with them and moves on.

Well, I think it's this: that His disciples, and I believe many of us modern-day disciples, are constantly defaulted towards control, assumption, and fear over trust. We constantly find ourselves at battle with our inner self, and discipleship requires confronting the gap between cultural habits and kingdom economics. And this was a reality check for His disciples, and it's a reality check for us today that Jesus taught about this repeatedly over and over and over again. Why? Because the disciples still hadn't gotten it. And I think for most of us, I will be the first to raise my hand, I'm still not getting it. And I need to be reminded in Scripture and to still trust who God is, to focus on not self-reliance, but surrender. And at the core of this, which is what I found in my study, is that we are all still believing a lie that originated at the beginning of the world and humanity. We're still being stuck and caught in this deception that happened all the way back in the garden with Adam and Eve.

If you flip to the front of your Bible, the first book is Genesis. And in Genesis chapter three—so like one, two, three, boom, right at the front—we come to this moment where Satan comes before Adam and Eve and tells them a lie. And it's the same lie that I and all of us continue to believe to this day. And this is the lie: that God really didn't say you would die if you ate that fruit on that tree, right? He's talking to Adam. He's like, "That's so silly. Like, why would God make poisonous fruit? That's only for like Disney movies. Like, really?" No. You know what the truth is? The truth is that God doesn't want you to be like Him. And if you eat that fruit, you'll have knowledge of good and evil. You will be like God. And this lie ultimately boiled down to this: that God is holding out on you. And because God is holding something back from you, you must take control and you have to provide for yourself because God's not gonna do it. It's the same lie that He gave Eve that said, "Hey, eat this, go take it out of him. Go give it to him if he needs it too." That to do it in a way that isn't God's way so that we can take care of ourselves, we gotta be in control.

And we live this out every day. I do. "Well, I got it, Pastor. I gotta work 60 hours a week, or I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to provide for my family." Or maybe, "If I do it God's way, I've run the numbers, Pastor. I calculated it out. We're just gonna run out. There's just not enough to go around if I do it the way that the Bible says." Oh, you ran the numbers? You don't think God might be big enough to provide? You must be right. God must be wrong. Just on this topic though, just on this one, right? Just this one. And it leads us to a place of financial hoarding, a scarcity mindset, and an anxiety-driven decision-making process. And I want to tell you today, we have to break the lie. You will never be able to find the peace, the hope, the joy, or the blessing that God has for you until you break the lie.

Jesus talked about this in Matthew 19, just a few chapters later than six, when a rich young man comes to Him and says, "Jesus, how do I get into heaven?" And Jesus says, "Well, you obey the law. You honor your mother and father. You love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength. You love others, your neighbor, rather than yourself." And he goes, "I've done all that." And Jesus said, "Sweet, you're getting into heaven, right?" No. He says, "Take all of your wealth, all of your possessions, sell them and give it away." Because Jesus knew that this man had made wealth his God. He had made his riches an idol, and he left dejected after meeting Jesus. Because to do what Jesus was asking him to do was giving up way too much control that he didn't want to do. Because we are constantly at war with that. We're constantly at war with God's system versus our human intelligence. Fighting back and forth, back and forth.

However, when we read the Scripture and Bible, we see that God is fundamentally into systems. All throughout Scripture, we find different instructions, processes, direction, systems on how we are to live our lives. And it's funny, it's almost as if the Guy who designed everything understood how we are to live our lives. And when we live in that design, in God's plan, God's way, it works 100% of the time. Because He is the Designer with the perfect design. And our place isn't to come in and go, "Good job, God, I'm gonna do a little redesigning, do a quick renovation of this." No, our place is to be obedient and to trust. He even says specifically in this, in this topic of finances, to actually test Him in it. That's how much He believes in His system. It's a testament. And will I not throw open the storehouses and provide for you in ways that you never dreamed, thought, hoped, or imagined? We're gonna talk about that another time.

But I think of it this way. Has anybody seen the price of gas lately? It's ridiculous. It's like, there's just no limit. It's a free-for-all out there. And I was thinking, you know, it would be a lot cheaper, a lot easier, and a lot quicker just to put water in my car. Right? It's right by my house. I could fill up my tank. It would be easy. It wouldn't cost as much. It's liquid, right? It's just liquid. But if I did that, it would be foolish. And the ramifications of that would be catastrophic. I actually did a bunch of research on that when you get water in your gas tank. Like, it is a big deal. And yet, what do we do in our lives? We think, "Okay, God, I know you got your system, your way of doing it, but I got a better, quicker, cheaper, easier way. I'm just going to run with that." And yet, we find our marriages falling apart. Our families are struggling, our finances are stressing us and a burden on our shoulders, which sometimes feels like we can't even breathe. Our anxiety levels are through the roof as a society in a world today. And we wonder why. Because Jesus, who is the ultimate mechanic, came to earth, fixed what was broken. And yet we said, "Thanks God for fixing that. I got it from here." And we just run with it. And then all of a sudden our car's like, "Why God, would you allow this to happen?" Well, He's like, "Well, I gave you something that had something to say about that."

Scripture offers us a way that gives blessing upon blessing upon blessing upon blessing if we are obedient and walk in that. Here's the funny thing about discipleship: we can be really awesome in one area and be completely just falling apart in another. And we like to highlight the ways that we're doing well. "I know a lot of Scripture." Well, good for you. That's awesome. "I volunteer in the children's ministries." Beautiful. "I love it, Pastor. I'm here every single Sunday. I haven't missed a Sunday since 1972." Amazing. I'm glad that you're here. And you know who's the worst at this? Doctors. You go to the doctor, and they just have like this one thing they want to nag you about. You're like, "Yeah, yeah, I've been eating good, I'm working out, I'm getting my steps in every day, I don't go to Taco Bell anymore. Like, I'm doing great." He's like, "Yeah, but have you seen your cholesterol numbers?" You're like, "Shh, stop. Look at everything I'm doing that's great. That's awesome. Yes, yes, you're doing that right, that's great. However, if we don't address this one thing right here, you're going to have lifelong ramifications." And this is Jesus coming along our side and saying, "Yes, you're doing great. I love you. I applaud you. Keep going. Don't stop doing that stuff. Keep doing that stuff, but I got some tweaking I wanna do over here."

Because the reality is our spiritual health is bound to our whole self. Our spiritual health is bound to our whole self. We can't divide this up. And this is the funny thing about discipleship: there is usually massively unequal growth in our walk with Jesus. And that's okay. And I want to tell you, if you might be there at that place, God loves you so much. You're His son; you are His daughter. He sees your growth. He sees who you are. He says, "I want to address something else to bring full health." And so, as we close, I got a scale I want us to look at. And this is just honesty, okay? If you can just be honest with me in this, I want to walk us through a couple things here. I call it the Five Zones of Financial Discipleship. And the first zone would be, I would say, Zone Zero. You're like, "Wait a minute, you said five." I know. Okay, okay, good. This is the starting place. Maybe for those of you who are in this zone, you've never given anything to the church, whether that was your time, your resources, or your money.

You're on complete reliance upon yourself. There's no trust established between you and God. You're like, "This is mine. God, do your thing. I'm doing my thing." And if you are here in this camp, again, I want to tell you, God loves you. God absolutely loves you. This does not change your salvation. This doesn't change your place in heaven. This doesn't change whether you have to wait after you die to get in heaven. No, no, no, none of that, okay? He loves you, and He wants the very best for your life. He wants to have an honest conversation with you, and He wants you to be honest with Him. He wants you to bring your worry, your anxiety, your fears, maybe your even anger. "God, how come you're not providing? How come I have to live paycheck to paycheck to paycheck? You've got to change this, God. I am mad." He wants that. Bring it to Him.

The first step after that would be Zone One. This would be what I would consider a one-time engagement. You, at some point throughout history, at one point gave something to the church. Maybe it was last Christmas, holiday time, we did Operation Christmas Child, where we sent shoeboxes to poverty-ridden countries that brought the gospel message to them through a practical gift in their life. If you did that, thank you so much. You changed a little boy's, a little girl's life in ways that you'll never know or imagine. And you might walk into heaven one day and meet them and get to hear their story. This is big. I want you guys to get that. This isn't, "Well, I'm only in Zone One and he's up in Zone Four. I'm less." No, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying, okay? Maybe you bought something for the church. Maybe you donated something to the church. And this was a first step of trust. I'm so proud of you. This is awesome. But it was still self-directed. Okay?

The next zone, Zone Two, would be emerging or stepping into stewardship and biblical discipleship in a standard method or a system. And this would look like an occasional gift on the regular. Maybe it's you throw 20 bucks a month in the backdrop box, and you're like, "God, this is what, boom, I'm giving." But you're consistent in it. And like I said, and we'll explore this more, God is into systems. And so we believe the same here at Spring Valley Church, and we have systems for you to be able to give to God, whether that's through an envelope in your chair, whether that's a drop box in the back, maybe it's online, secure. Maybe it's a way that you set up online giving on a recurrence that just automatically gets given to the church in a system that is just easy and regular. But you begin to see how God has systems set up. This is phenomenal.

The next zone, Zone Three, would be when you shift maybe from 20 bucks here or there, or a little bit here, you begin to go to a proportional commitment. What do I mean proportional? That would mean that you begin with, say, 1% of your income, you say, "God, I am giving back to you." So it is proportional to the blessing that you have received. Now, if you want to know, I will tell you that biblically, there is a word called tithe, and that is translated tenth or 10%. The desire that God has for us in this is to not stop at 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, whatever percent, but to rise up to a level of 10% of our income that He has blessed us with is given back to God through the church. This is huge because you begin to understand intentional alignment with biblical Scripture.

Zone Four would be you are arrived. You're at the 10%. You're like, "Oh my Lord, Pastor, 10%." I just lost count. I didn't get to 10%. I am extremely fortunate that when Lauren and I got married, we had somewhat of a commitment to tithing, but we decided that we were gonna commit to this 10% when we got married. And when we got married, we were both still in college, full-time. We were both working part-time jobs. She was at a Christian bookstore. I was at a Starbucks. And our rent, which killed us every single month, was $325. Oh, Lord Jesus, bring it back, Lord. And it hurt to tithe. But in that obedience, there was a peace. There was a blessing. There was a hope that without that actual commitment every single month, we could not have experienced without being on the other side of it. And it's going to take you being like, "You said 1%, now you're at 10%. But how the?" It starts being intentional. I know people who start with 1% and said, "By this time next year, I'm going to be at 2." And they continue to work at it. And 2 turns into 3 and 3 into 4. It just grows and grows and grows. It's going to take a reordering of the priority of our lives. We might have to go without some things. Like that?

"And then that's it, Chris, right? Zone Four, we're good, that's it?" No. Jesus has a standard even beyond that, and that's what He calls extravagant generosity. This is beyond the baseline of 10% obedience, but is a heart actively seeking opportunities to bless others and advance God's work around the globe. You would not be sitting where you are sitting right now without extravagant generosity. Because there were people who came before us who sacrificed and gave and went above and beyond to get us into this facility. Some of you know who I'm talking about. And that we would not have a place to call home. We would not have a children's ministry down the hall. We would not have Monday night youth group. We would not have men's and women's Bible studies. We would not have different moments of men's and women's events to be able to gather in a place that we call home to hold a foothold for the kingdom of God in Rocklin and Roseville and Plaster County without extravagant generosity. This might look like also donating to parachurch organizations, a local one called Mercy, maybe Sierra Pregnancy Center. Another one known as Gathering Inn who works with the unhoused in the area. This is the ultimate peak of what God desires for us in our biblical financial discipleship.

Now, let me be clear. This growing in these zones is about progression and is posture-driven, not performance-focused. I want to get this absolutely clear right now. That it is about a process over perfection. And I don't want you coming up to me and going, "Well, Pastor, you know I'm a Zone Five Christian." Blessings on you, I don't want to know. God cares about it, and we're not going to come in and have different seating arrangements based upon what zone you are in. Nobody's talking about that. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand or say, "I'm in Zone Three" or "I'm in Zone..." No, no, none of that. What I'm talking about is moving to a place of financial discipleship. And the reality is, the last six years have been absolutely chaos. The world stopped in a way that we never thought the world would stop. Things happen that we never thought would happen. There's fear, there's trauma, and this does cause pullbacks. But I want us to have an invitation from God right now, here in this moment, to have an honest reset. To take a moment to pause and to think about where we are at. I'm not asking you to come forward today and start committing, "I'm tithing 10%," or "God's housing me, I got to give $500,000 to the church." No, that's not what I'm saying. If you do have that, and God is asking about that, let's get lunch this week, okay? But what I'm talking about is asking for you to move forward with an honest conversation with God. And to ask just simply, "God, where should I begin?" Because it is a shift from control to dependence in these finances that will then trickle down into our entire lives. It's a process of surrender. Surrender control, embrace peace, walk in obedience.

So here's what we're gonna do. I wanna ask us, and you got on your program, you got a little card at the bottom. And I want you, if you're willing, to pray over this card and to just check the box there that says, "I'm going to have the conversation." That conversation is going to be with you and God. That conversation might be with the spouse if you have one. Conversation might be with a family if you have that one. We've been talking about this in our house. How do we begin to teach these biblical financial discipleship values to our children? Because it takes the whole family. And it takes all of us as a family. To shift from control to dependence. To break the lie. To focus on progress over perfection. And if I can so boldly say, embrace the awkward. Embrace the awkward. Trust the Designer. Align your home. And walk in Christ's ultimate freedom.

Today, let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for today. God, I pray that we would have open hearts and minds to be receptive of Your word. God, I pray that the Holy Spirit would break in here and put away this lie of self-reliance. God, that you would fill our hearts with your grace in ways that are sometimes really difficult, but absolutely necessary to have these conversations. God, help us to walk in confidence in Your system over our own cultural or personal engineering. God, that you would put peace in our hearts to replace our financial anxiety and to grow in us kingdom-minded trust. God, give us the strength. Lord, we're gonna need it, Jesus, to rely on You first above everything else. So Lord, I pray, break this lie of Satan. You would hold on to us. Put Your truth in us. Bring us Your provision. Bring us Your love. God, help us to see Your redemption and Your care and Your grace, that it may shine so bright in our lives to those far corners and far, far places in our hearts that we want to keep, and Satan wants to keep in darkness. God, that You would bring that light. You would break that lie. You would bring salvation to those spots.

Relationships 101: Part 4 - Workshop

Relationships 101 - Afternoon Workshop

Relationships 101: Part 3

Relationships 101 - Loving Others Jesus’ Way

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

My name is Corinne. Brodnicki and I have been here before. If I haven't met you, I would love to meet you at some point. I am a mom, that's what takes all of my time and most of my energy, and in the little bit I have after that, I am a therapist. Everyone always says, "What kind of physical therapist?" I don't know why that's the go-to. No, I am a marriage and family therapist. And then I also served as a pastor, gosh, it's been about a year, alongside Andre actually at the Hub. But I'm not really pastoring right now, so primarily a therapist. How's everyone doing? Anyone tired out here? You're smiling, so you're not tired, or you're faking it. For the last two weeks, one of my kids have a two and a four year old. We have a two and a four year old, have woken up with consistency. It's one or the other, coughing in the middle of the night, just like dry allergy cough. So every night I go to bed, I'm like, "God, please, please let no child wake up." And of course, the one that didn't wake up the night before wakes up. So I had a middle of the night wake up, but it's great. I always get an opportunity to pray. So I was able to pray for today and what God has for us. So I am privileged to be able to share part three of this relationship series. I want you to know I'm not an expert on relationships. I just probably have a lot more training than a lot of us, but we're all learning about relationships.

Relationships are without a doubt the most difficult thing that we'll ever do, right? Like engaging with people is difficult because people are sometimes difficult. So last, two weeks ago, Pastor Lauren talked about obedience and humility and how we need to encapsulate that in our relationships so that we can lead people to Christ. Chris then tackled that very large topic of boundaries and just really scraped off the top of that. We're going to talk about boundaries a little bit more in the workshop. And so now I have the privilege of coming in and saying, well, what else do we talk about relationships? Obviously not everything was covered. So we are going to talk about something that I'm not gonna tell you yet. So I wanna start with a little story. So growing up in some of you, like Cheryl and Kevin, knew me from the we days in my young life. People always said, "Gosh, you're so gregarious, "you're so outgoing, you just connect with people "so easily, you make friends easily." And I think without realizing it, I used that from middle school to really into college as this almost like yearly conquest to make a new best friend. So in the process of that, and I didn't realize it till college, in the process of that, I would literally dump a best friend at kind of the end of the year, maybe not even make it that far, move on to a new best friend, and then I would do that year after year. And it really was fun for me. I don't mean that in a, like, "Oh, I love hurting people." But it really filled me up because I had these new relationships and it was kind of this like new experience. And it wasn't until middle of college that I met my now best friend, and God just used her tremendously to help me grow from that. And it was from that point on that I really stopped that behavior. I -- and it was about that time that I started looking back and not actually about a year ago even, I messaged somebody from college and said, "I am so sorry for how I treated you." Somebody that loves people and wants to invest in people and wants people to be a priority. And I was just kind of like throwing people away at the end of the year, like I said, if that. And then what's so beautiful, this redemptive beautiful thing is I have a friend now and she came to a church event. We go to Crossroads and she said, and I spoke a little bit about kind of what I'm gonna talk about tonight. And she said, "You know, you are one of the best friends that I've ever had." And she's like almost 30. So that's a really large compliment. And in my head I said, "That's only because I'm trying to be like Jesus. It's not because I'm this wonderful person who just hasn't figured out. I'm very broken, just like the rest of us. But I'm just trying to be like Jesus." And I say that not to say, "Wow, look at me. I did it. I'm really good.”

I say that to show you that I want to share these things with you so that we don't have a trail of pain behind us like I did. And I'm really ashamed of that. I'm really ashamed of how I hurt people and I lost really good friendships because I just kind of tossed them out because I didn't value people enough. And so that's what I want to talk about today. But before we talk about that, let's talk about just relationships in general. So I mentioned this earlier, relationships are the best thing we have in our life and honestly the most difficult. Don't look at your kids or your spouse as I say that, right? So one minute, right, I said I have a two and a four year old, our four year old is a little more difficult than our two year old, and I'll look at him sometimes, I'll just look into his cute little face, which he is so cute, and people tell me that all the time I say he has to be or he wouldn't survive. And I look at him, I'm like, I couldn't love you anymore. And then I turn around, and then I go back, and he has the record player, and he takes the record off, and he double hand scratches it on the floor looking right at me. And I am a very calm, pretty low anger, pretty high anger tolerance, and I was so mad. It's like we can flash from, I can't even imagine loving anything more to, I don't know what love is, get in your room, right? And that's the same in all of our relationships. They're the most beautiful thing and the most difficult thing. And that's why we have to spend a lot of time talking about it. And that's why there's a whole job surrounded on helping people have healthy relationships. Jesus models relationship well, right? He doesn't do ministry alone. In fact, as he's going into ministry, he says, "Hey, I need some guys around me to," they pray for him, they support him, there's women that do the same, they pray and they support him. The Trinity, right? That's so intentional that God says, there's a Trinitarian reality to the Godhead. Even that is relational, right? Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Jesus exemplifies relationship. The whole essence of God is relationship, relationship with you, and then in turn relationship with one another. And yet, there's an epidemic, there's literally terms for it called the loneliness epidemic. One in four people identify as really lonely. And I was looking through a lot of statistics, and a lot of them were coming up from the COVID times, and I know we've moved outside of quarantine, but honestly, a lot of people, I think, still have the repercussions of that isolation time of quarantine. So one in four people, millions of people in the US have chronic loneliness. This is a UC Berkeley article, which is then associated with lower physical health, mental health, quality of life, higher levels of depression, anxiety, insomnia, suicidal ideation. And yet social connection is hardwired into our DNA, right?

We cannot survive well without social connection. Even if you're an introvert and you say, I wanna spend about three minutes of my day with a person, you still need connection. We still are wired to belong. I mean, it's just such a biological component for us. Another, from the University of Cambridge, so you know she's in England, so she's extra smart. She says, "Human beings need social connections to thrive, "and being embedded in strong supportive networks "can protect our well-being "when we're faced with difficulties in life." So loneliness leads to depression, anxiety, insomnia, all these negative things. Connection, and we're not talking Christians here. These are, well, maybe they're Christians, but they're not speaking from a Christian perspective. They're saying, and on the other hand, connection is what brings us together and contributes to well-being, right? So hopefully you're connecting with the reality that relationships are important. And I think that loneliness, and I don't think this is dramatic in saying, I think loneliness is kind of like an infection that slowly sneaks in. You might think, oh, I'm okay. And then eventually you're just like, I think I'm not okay. And I think Satan loves to use loneliness because it disconnects us from each other, obviously. And when we're disconnected from each other, we all of a sudden don't have that marker to know what's true and what's not true and lies feel true and we get confused and lost and I think it's one of Satan's greatest tools. But be encouraged because there is a cure for loneliness and that's authentic connection, right? Authentic relationship and healthy connection. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength. Command one. And the second is this, love your neighbor as yourself. There is no command greater than this. He gave us two instructions, many instructions. But he says, all right, it comes down to these two, love God and love people. By the way, love your neighbor as yourself, so you have to love yourself as well. That's important too. Love God and love people. Okay, it's important. So how do we do that? How do we do that? Man, if we're gonna talk about Jesus and how He exemplifies loving others, we could talk about so many things, but I think there are three that I've kind of honed in on that maybe we need to be better at, myself included, we all need to be better at, that I think is kind of the key to showing people how Jesus loves. So those are, I always like to give you the answer right at the beginning, so if you want to go to sleep, now's your chance.

Okay, loving others like Jesus requires three things, vulnerability, perseverance, selfishness, among other things, but I I wanna talk about those three today. Okay, vulnerability. For some of you, you just got anxious, your heart dropped, you said, "Vulnerability is a dirty word. "It's scary to be vulnerable." It is very scary to be vulnerable because it is risky. Of course it's scary to be vulnerable because it's risky. You put yourself out there, you don't know what might happen. But down in a safe, mutual, healthy relationship, it's one of the greatest gifts that you can receive, right? a return on vulnerability. And I think Satan's been lying to us for so long. What if I get rejected? What if I'm misunderstood? What if I get hurt? What if no one loves me? Why waste time with vulnerability? I don't need to do that. I can figure stuff out on my own. But that's what leads to that isolation and loneliness that I just talked about is really unhealthy for us. Brene Brown, have anyone heard of Brene Brown? So she's a psychologist, well, she's a social worker actually and a writer, and she says, "Vulnerability," Oh, sorry, she says, vulnerability is uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. She also suggests that vulnerability is the birthplace of joy, creativity, and belonging. To find joy, creativity, and belonging, you must face shame and fear, right? So if we want vulnerability, or if we want connection and health, we have to move through the discomfort of vulnerability. So how does vulnerability benefit us? Okay, I think it opens the door for three things. If you're a note taker, this is a great time to get out some notes. I think the first thing is vulnerability opens the door for others to know us and see us. And being known and seen is one of the greatest gifts that you can, I think, receive. Does anyone like the show The Chosen? And people don't just like the chosen. Usually when you talk about the chosen, you guys must be asleep. Because people are like, oh, the chosen. Like, it's such a beautiful depiction of the personhood of Jesus. And I think what people truly, if I've kind of like really put my psychology hat on, what I think people really love is that Jesus sees people. Like, he stops and he looks and he connects and there's love and compassion in his eyes. Because when we are seen, we can, And again, in a safe relationship, man, that opens the door for so much. We have this biological need to be seen because being seen, I think, is the beginning of connection. Depth of relationship, aka intimacy, is directly correlated with the level at which you let others in, right? We all have, we have people we just kind of say hi to, we have acquaintances, we have deep friends, We have best friends, we have spouses, right? It's a continuum. And I am not the same level of intimacy. I'm not talking about physical intimacy. I'm talking about emotional intimacy. I'm not the same level of emotionally intimate with my husband or my best friend that I am with you guys that I haven't met really, right?

Because the more open I am with people, the more open they will hopefully be and the more connected we can be, the deeper our relationship. and it's the depth of relationship we're going for. We're not just going for, I have a room, I have a hundred friends. How many times have you heard someone say, "I'm in a room with people and I've never felt lonelier." So it's not about the number of people, it's about the depth of that connection, which is precipitated by authentic vulnerability. So it lets others know us and see us. Number two, it allows others to care for us and meet our needs. If you don't open up, no one will ever know what you might need and know how to help you. So this last couple months, I have been going through some eye issues. If you've seen me before and you're like, something's different, I can't quite figure it out. I have glasses right now. And I've been going through all these like, what's going on? Is it this? Is it that? I mean, all the way to the point where I had a brain MRI just to make sure nothing was going on, significant, which thankfully nothing is. And I had so many people praying for me. And you get to a point, I think, in desperation where you're like, I will tell you anything because I just want prayer. And I had a friend recently say, "Gosh, but you're just like good at being vulnerable." I'm like, "That's born out of desperation for healing. Like that's born out of a desperation for like, I want to be healed. I want God to move. I want these things more than I care about looking stupid." And I think we need to get to that point sometimes when it comes to others being able to meet our needs. And unless we open up, they will not be able to meet our needs. And third, vulnerability opens the door to personal growth.

Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, "so one person sharpens another." When we're vulnerable, we're admitting we don't know it all. We're admitting we haven't figured it all out, and we're saying, "Can you come and help me? "Can you fill the gaps in the areas "where I don't know what I'm doing, "I don't know what I'm talking about, I need more help." And I wanna say this, growth often follows confession. Confession is another one of those words that's like, But confession is a form of vulnerability. In fact, the Bible says, "Make this your common practice. "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other "so you can live together whole and," let's do that one more time, "whole and." So confession proceeds, I'm not saying this is the only thing, but confession significantly proceeds healing and wholeness. And confession is a form of vulnerability. It's coming to someone saying, "I need help. "I have a problem. "I don't know it all. can you help fill my gap? Can you help me? Can you teach me? Can you help me grow? And in that we can grow. So if you're hearing all this and you're saying, "Ah, I hear you, I think that's really good, "but vulnerability, it's not really my thing, "or I don't wanna do it, "or I've had to have this protective wall." By the way, there's a reason you've had a protective wall and you don't wanna be vulnerable. To protect yourself. But I'm saying when you have a wall, nothing can get in, which is good, but nothing good can get in either. And so if vulnerability is hard for you, start somewhere, practice, share some feelings with somebody, share a heart thing, share a dream, a goal. It doesn't have to be ooey gooey feelings all the time. Vulnerability is the range of things. Could be, I love you because, you're so wonderful because. That's vulnerability, I'm opening my heart to somebody else. And I'll say this too, for those of you that just lean a little more naturally open book, a little more naturally vulnerable, lead by example. A lot of times in relationships, I would say I'm probably more vulnerable naturally than my husband. And so a lot of times I think, hopefully this is true, a lot of times I will be the first to lead and say, here's where I'm at, here's how I'm feeling. And I think that opens the door to kind of invite that from him too. So if you're somebody that's just naturally more vulnerable, keep doing that because it's a great model for other people. Okay, that was only one point. Are we still, we're still here?

Loving others like Jesus requires vulnerability, perseverance, selfishness. So I'm gonna keep saying that so I can get it really good in that brain there. Okay, number two, perseverance. So perseverance requires consistency and loyalty. Or sorry, reliability. And in that, we're talking about loyalty. So have you guys heard this term cancel culture? We live in this cancel culture, which I didn't really know what that means. Basically what it means is you do one thing that someone doesn't like, or a couple of things that people don't like, and you're canceled, your podcast is done, your show is over, whatever other things you're doing, done. It might be one thing. And we live in this culture where it's like, "Nah, done with that, moving on, done with that, moving on." We're really quick to dispose of people, or dispose of things. But Proverbs 17, 17 says something very opposite. It says, "A friend loves at all times." And a brother is born from a time of adversity. "A friend loves at all times." It's not conditional on are they annoying you this week. All times. And now, really quick, I just wanna say, there are times where a healthy goodbye is necessary. I'm not saying keep toxic people in your life. That's good. That's not what the Bible is saying. But the Bible is saying don't quit on people because it's hard. Follow through. How many times have you said, someone's like, oh, this is what I'm going through. You're like, I'll pray for you. And you never do. It's like the simplest thing. You could pray right then. You could be like, okay, done. And yet we don't do it. We don't even do that. Myself included. Call people, text them, maybe you even think about somebody and you're like, "Well, I really should reach out to them." Just do it. But we don't. So I think we need to be a little more persistent. Like my son, who is the most persistent in everything he ever does, what did he ask for yesterday at 9 o'clock? Do you remember? Ice cream. Mom, can I have ice cream? Probably four times before 10 o'clock, mom, can I have ice cream? because he got ice cream the night before. So let's be persistent for people and for relationships like my son is persistent for his ice cream. You're probably gonna, that's the only thing you're gonna remember from today, some of you. And don't wait, don't wait for people to initiate. Just initiate, just initiate. Sometimes we're like, "Oh, I don't know if anyone likes me. "I don't know if anyone cares about me." Just initiate. It's not, I know it's sometimes like emotionally difficult, but it's generally not that difficult to send a text and say, "Hey, I'm thinking about you. How are you doing?" "Oh yeah, you told me this thing last Sunday that you're going through some..." "Let me text her and check in on that." Or him and check in on that. How many times do we see Jesus being the initiator? Sometimes people are coming to him, of course, but he goes to the woman at the well and says, "Hey, I want to meet with you." And there's so many other stories where Jesus models that. Initiate with people in persistence. I think just way too often people are waiting for someone to initiate. Like no one cares about me. No one loves me. Man, I've heard that so many times, which is totally a lie. So let's do the opposite. Let's be people who stick around and we don't just give up on other people when it's boring or hard or exactly what I said at the beginning, what I used to do to people. Maybe it got a little boring. Maybe there was a new, more interesting person. Man, that's not how Jesus loved.

And then the second part of this is persisting through conflict. Another word people often don't like. And people say like, oh, we don't have any -- when I meet with a couple or a person and they say, we really don't have any conflict in our relationship, I'm like, something's wrong. Conflict is normal and healthy. We're living in a relationship with another person who is very different from us, Very different from us. And we're trying -- that was my husband on the screen, if you don't know. And we're trying to figure out how do we do life together when we are so different. My husband loves to be quiet and do alone things and sit and ponder. And he's very smart and gets deep, deep, deep into his brain. And I'm like, let's have fun. Let's be together. Let's just do fun all the time. So we have to, right, figure that out. There's conflict in that almost every weekend trying to kind of navigate that. But that's good because that allows us to grow. And I think, I want to think about it this way. Instead of running away from conflict in relationships, let's run together into conflict. We're not fighting each other, we're fighting a problem. Clark and I are fighting, not even fighting, we're working to try to figure out how do we manage this difference in personality. We're not against each other. So let's be in it with people. Let's come into conflict rather than run away because we don't want to. Like let's just not be conflict avoiders. We don't need to do that. And with that I think comes forgiveness. We need to be people who forgive. Colossians 3:13 says, "Bear with each other and forgive one another. And if any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the?" You guys are doing really good. Let's do that one more time. "Forgive as the Lord." Okay. So as the Lord forgives us, we should also forgive other people. And that is gonna help us through conflict, right? Remember who Jesus says is the rock? And you will be my church, you will lead my church. Remember that guy? Also, his Peter denied Jesus three times. And still, Jesus said, you're gonna lead my church. I'm gonna forgive you for that, and you're gonna lead my church, right? If Jesus can do it, we can definitely do it for these things that people do. And by the way, forgive us, Sometimes we have this misconception like, forgiveness means I'm letting you off the hook. No, forgiveness means I'm letting me free of the bondage of whatever that was and saying, you can work out your stuff, I'm done, I'm free of this. And lastly, in that kind of like pouring out grace, I think persistence means, or sorry, I keep saying the wrong word, perseverance means pouring out grace, pouring out grace, pouring out grace. That doesn't mean we say it's fine what you did, It just means I have grace for what you did, now let's grow together. When someone hurts you, you don't say, oh, I have grace, no big deal. It's I have grace for your growth, right? So we wanna persevere through those ways, with consistency, reliability, conflict, and with forgiveness wrapped up in that.

So loving others like Jesus requires vulnerability, perseverance, and? - Selfishness. - Selfishness. Who likes that word? Oh yeah, that was a good test. Selflessness, sorry, woo! That is wrong, selflessness, yeah. Because love requires action. We see this in 1 John, it says, "If anyone has material possessions "and sees his brother in need, but has no pity on him, "how can the love of God be in him? "Let us not love with words or tongue, "but with actions and in truth." We have to love with action, right? We have to love with action, and that starts with making sacrifices. And we're gonna talk about boundaries, like I mentioned, another teaser. That doesn't mean we abandon ourselves fully to make sacrifices for other people. That doesn't mean we just do whatever anyone else wants, even if we don't have the capacity for it. None of that is what that means. What that means is, I'm willing to make sacrifices for other people. We're all busy, but we make times for things we prioritize. When I hear people say, "I'm too busy for that." No, you're not too, you might not, you might be, you're probably not too busy for that, you're probably just prioritizing things differently. Who here, all right, I'm gonna do a thumb rating, this is what I do when I teach. Who here would say, "Exercise is important." This is yes, hmm, no. Exercise is important, I'm just asking, exercise is important. Okay, who would say they invest that same level of energy and how important it is in actually doing it. My husband is a personal trainer, so he does, but he's about the only one. Right, so we're not, is it because it's, are we not exercising because it's not important? No. Oftentimes it's 'cause we're not making it a priority. Usually, and if you need any tips on exercising, just talk to my husband, that was unplanned. But usually, right, we can find a couple minutes here or there to do something, move our bodies, right?

So again, it's not a matter of, is it not important? It's a matter of we're not prioritizing it. And I think the same is true when it comes to sacrificing for other people. And I had this idea, like, what if we all kind of took a time inventory of our day and our week and our month? Where are we spending all that time? Like, what does our agenda say about our priorities? We often talk about that with money. What is my checkbook or my debit card or my bank statement? What does that say about my priorities? I would say, what is your agenda, what does your calendar say about your priorities? And maybe that needs to be adjusted. I know for sure I can make adjustments there. So if anyone wants to watch my kids so I can take care of other people, I would really enjoy that. And maybe it's as simple as like, let's just try to serve one person a day, just in a simple way. Let me just buy the coffee of the person behind me in the drive-through or find a creative way to love somebody or serve them in action. And then we also have to practice humility. Philippians 2, what a beautiful verse talking about Jesus's humility. He literally was God, and yet he took on the very nature of a servant so that he could one, model that for us, but two, because he loves us. But I also want us to be mindful of our own needs too, right? Like we also have our own needs. It's not selfish to take care of yourself. So we need to be humble, but also there's a reality of like we have needs too. It wasn't until I had kids and I started taking them on planes that I realized this, when a flight attendant comes by, so we've all heard this, like, put on your mask before you, put on the mask of somebody else, right? But when you're on a plane and you have littles, they will walk up to you, they will look at you, they will say, "Ma'am, you gotta put your mask on first before I..." Every time I've heard it. Because they want you to really know, because they know you're a mom, what you're gonna wanna do is fling that mask on to one of your kids first. But right, like we have needs too and we have to take care of our needs so that we can pour out well for other people. Again, we're going to talk about them down when we talk about boundaries later. And then I think we also, another way that we can be selfless is to celebrate other people. Especially when they have things we want. This is really hard. And it's okay to grieve if there's something you want and you don't have it yet. But we also need to be celebratory of other people, especially other people in the kingdom. Because the reality is we are all on the same team. We're all on the same team, and God gives us all really different gifts and abilities. And so we need to celebrate with other people in that. First Thessalonians says, "Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up just as in fact you are doing." What a great way to love other people, celebrate with them.

All right, loving others like Jesus requires vulnerability, perseverance and selflessness. So I have a couple of questions on here. At Crossroads, we always do this end of service worship time I didn't know that wasn't happening. So what I would encourage you to do, Shelley could you pop that next one up? You can put them all up. If you would be willing to write them down or maybe take a picture of it, what I know without fail is if we don't have kind of an action step, you're gonna go and you're gonna say, that was really great. I learned some things by lunchtime, you're gonna be like, "Yeah, I don't remember any of them," which is fine. That is not a reflection of anything other than we are humans and we forget things. But I do know that God wants to grow us and growth requires action. So here's some questions to kind of guide you based on those three points. And maybe an area you could find, maybe I can really work on this one thing to be a better friend, partner, parent, so that I can be more vulnerable, more persevering, and a little more selfless in my relationships. You can keep that up, Shelly, till we're done. Because we have to model this as Christians, because the world, this hurting world is desperate, just like my friend, not a Christian that I mentioned earlier, desperate for healthy relationships. And again, I'm not perfect, I don't do it great, but I just try to be like Jesus. And so if we can do that, what a message that is to the world. Lauren said this, Pastor Lauren said this a couple of weeks ago she said we're called to point others to Christ in all our relationships and what better way to do that than through relationships marked by vulnerability, perseverance, and selflessness. So pray, pray, pray. Let me pray, let me pray and then Chris is gonna give us some instructions for after.

So Lord we come before you, we are grateful for, gosh, that you display the love first. You show us how things go. You show us what is important. You show us how to love. You show us how to be vulnerable, persevering, and selfless. And so I pray that as we go to lunch or home or to the workshop or wherever we're going, Lord, that we will take one step to being a better partner, a better friend, a better parent, employee, so that we can exemplify these wonderful qualities and lead people closer and closer to you. Amen.

Relationships 101: Part 2

Relationships 101 - Boundaries in Relationships

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Excited to be here today to teach and to continue in our new relationship series that we kicked off, Pastor Lauren did last week. And our heart and desire in this is really what it says, is a refresher course that we all need. 'Cause the reality is that we all have relationships. We all, excuse me, we all, wow. We all work and have relationships in our life. And Pastor Lauren did a great job last week kicking us off, talking about this idea of humility and obedience in our relationships within Christian community. and that our relationships are really about encouraging and spurring one another on towards holiness, to allow God to transform not us alone, but also our relationships. And I'm gonna talk a little bit more on that this week, but she left us with a really good question last week. And I don't know about you, I wrestled with this one and it really stuck with me, but she left us with this question of who is on the throne of your heart? Who is the one that's sitting there? Who is the one that has control? Who is the one that we think about the most? Who is the one that decides our decisions or is the one that influences our priorities? Who is that one? And I think for us, this really influences how we have relationships.

And today I'm gonna be really talking about boundaries in our relationships. And what does it mean to be, have boundaries in our relationships? Whether that's with people who are believers and those who call themselves Christians within the church or those who have yet to become believers or haven't made that decision yet for Jesus. How do you have boundaries in relationships and what does all of that look like? We all have different types of relationships in our life, whether it's family, whether it's friends, maybe those you have close friends or maybe you just have acquaintances, maybe you have close friends that you used to have. So you might consider them former close friends, whatever has happened, maybe season of life, distance, things have changed. Maybe you're in a new season where you have new friends in your life and you're trying to figure out kind of where you are with them and where things stand. We have work colleagues, we have neighbors, we have church friends here and in the world of the church, we have those in our lives who are somewhere easy to talk with. Some are hard to talk with. Some are kind of maybe get defensive if we start talking about something real heavy or maybe they're just, their maturity isn't there compared to where your maturity might be. And maybe your maturity isn't where their maturity might be. We have these different unspoken expectations, right? We have these within our family cultures, our social circles, our work environments. And sometimes our personalities are just different. Some of us are fine with conflict. And some of us, I just said that word and it made you uncomfortable inside. And you run far and fast as quick as you can from any sort of conflict. And that's okay, I'm right there with you. I struggle with it. But some of us are introverted and we just don't have enough juice to be around people. And we only last so long where some of us, we thrive on being around people. And if you were to lock us into a room, we would die inside. And some of us, if you're like me, you're split 50/50. Somehow God decided I'm gonna put half of introvert and half extrovert in there, have fun. And life is all crazy.

But when we look at relationships, we all have them. And on this topic of relationships within boundaries, it's one that I get asked about a lot as a pastor. People come to me with life and family situations and work situations and you're like, "You're a pastor, what does God want me to do in this place?" And some people are really good about asking boundary questions and others, they just kind of go, "Here's my life." And they're asking about, what does it mean to have a boundary in this space? But they don't even know what boundaries are or how do you even use that word? Or they don't even know sometimes the questions to ask. And so we're gonna take some time to talk about these today. And again, Pastor Andre mentioned it, but I'm gonna mention again, if there's anything, any questions that come up as you guys are sitting here and even next week, write them down, drop them off. If you go on our website, right at the top, it talks about register for the workshop. If you click on that button right at the top of our website, takes you to a page where you can register, but it also takes you to a place where you can submit one of these anonymously to ask a question as well. So you're like, hi pastor, I'm not right now, I don't think about it, but during the week, you're like, I got one. Go to our website, check that out, write that down.

But the big resource, I'm gonna talk a lot about focus on scripture today. We're gonna be going through a lot of different verses and kind of helps us in our relationships and boundaries. But if you wanted a resource to kind of further and go a little bit deeper, I'd recommend this book called "Boundaries." It's written by Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend. This book has probably, if you've been around maybe in this world, you've seen this before. And this is an incredible, incredible book. They're both psychiatrists and they go into some great depth and study of what maybe the next practical step. And I would even encourage you, if you find yourself in that place, make an appointment, go talk to a Christian counselor, talk with somebody who could help equip you and give you some tools. That's why we're bringing Corinne in next week. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist. She has more tools and resources than, I mean, We all know how smart Pastor Andre is who gave the announcements. He's so smart, but he just doesn't have that extra training that Corrine does and that's why we're bringing her in next week. But this boundaries and they even have like boundaries in marriage book, they have a boundaries with kids, boundaries in dating, boundaries for leaders. I mean, they've taken this boundaries thing and multiplied it out into all sorts of different situations. So if you want a resource to check out, I'd highly recommend this book. But here's the reality on boundaries. We got another 20 minutes or so together. And I don't have enough time to even scratch the surface when it comes to boundaries and relationships. We were playing in the series and boundaries kind of fell on my lap for Pastor Chris to talk about. And I was like, you want me to do that in like 25 minutes? Like how do you even begin to do that?

And so, but I really want to first, when we think of boundaries, we initially think of other people, right? We think about maybe the people in our life who, there's a little too much drama. there's a little, maybe some natural toxicity. Maybe there's just like, we just don't mesh. We just don't, we just not feeling it. And so I got to put a boundary up. I got to put a boundary and I'm going to keep them over there and that's going to allow me to live my life over here. But I kind of want to flip that on our head a little bit. I want to first talk about boundaries. I want to start with ourselves. 'Cause the reality is we can't control everybody around us. Right? We try to sometimes, but we can't. But what can we control? We can control ourselves. We can control our own choices. We can control our own actions. We can control our priorities. Who's on the throne of our heart. We can control those things. And so I love what the Psalmist says in Psalm 19:7-11. He says, "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right. Rejoicing the heart, the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether, more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey in the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned and keeping them there is great, great reward." I think when thinking about our relationships and thinking about those in our lives, the question first comes to us as Lauren set up, Pastor Lauren last week, of keeping God the center of your life. The first and foremost thing, when talking about relationships and setting up boundaries and having those in our lives, is really to put God first always. And you might think, well, pastor, that really doesn't help me in my relationships, but it does. And we'll get there, okay? We're gonna fully get there in the next few minutes. But when we center our lives on Christ, when the number one priority is the number one thing and the number one top priority in our life is God. Everything else flows out of that. Everything that we do, everything that we say, how we act, what we spend our money on, how we live our lives, how our attitudes are, how we love other people. If it's first centered in Jesus, then everything is in its order and will rightly flow out from there.

Before we even think about talking our relationships around us, we first need to have a DTR with God. If you don't know what DTR is, is a term that means defined relationship. You might've heard it in days of your dating, that you would be in serious trouble sometimes when that significant other goes, "We need to have the DTR." And you're like, "Oh no, this isn't gonna go well." But you need to have the DTR with God. You need to figure out who is on the throne of your heart. And I love what this Psalmist says. It talks about the life that is led when God is first. Did you catch all that? It says, when God is first in our life, we have God's perfection. We have His testimony. We have His precepts, His commandments, His righteousness becomes our righteousness. When we focus on living the way that God has called us and His perfect will, it leads us to a place of enlightenment, of everlasting rejoicing. Something more that is to be desired than gold. And not just gold, fine gold. I'm talking about that 18-carat legit gold. And none of that fool's gold or all that stuff you can find when you go up to the foothills And you see that shimmer in the water, you go, "I found it again, it's here. Sutter forgot about it, he left it just for me." No, I'm talking about the legit, most precious thing in the entire world. And when we put God in his rightful place, there is great reward. The Psalmist says, "Makes wise the simple." Man, I need wisdom every day from God in my life. And it's hard to be found, it's hard to learn, and sometimes it takes going through some really, really bad situations until you come on the other side. Do we learn wisdom? It's there for us to revive our soul. It's God's perfection in our lives.

And this is only accomplished when we allow and keep Jesus the center of our life. How do we do this? Joshua 1:8 says, "The book of the law or the Bible, God's word, shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success. There is so much in life that this book talks about. The question is, are we reading it? Jesus and God gave us this word to help us guide our life, to make the right decisions and make the right choices, to help us figure out how these messy relationships in life, how we're supposed to navigate those. I remember the days of MapQuest, or actually even before that, Thomas Brothers. And if you know Thomas Brothers, it was a giant book and it just had all of the interstates across the United States. It's a map, an old school paper map. Thankful we don't have to use those anymore. But technology kind of developed a little bit where we got MapQuest, right? You could print off directions. See with the Thomas Brothers, they didn't give you any directions. I'm here, I wanna go here. How? Here, okay, go here, go over here. And then they had little arrow markers and you'd have to add up the distance and then you'd have to do the math in your head. And then if there's an accident, You just never knew when you were gonna get to your destination. Then MapQuest came out, and then I remember, we probably were all there, where you took time to get on the computer, dial up, (imitates dial-up) and then you would put in your original spot and your destination, you'd look at it, and you'd go, "Sweet," and then you'd be in the car 10 minutes down the road, and you'd go, "I didn't click print." You're like, "No!" You're like, "Okay, can I figure this out, "or do I have to turn around?" Is anybody home called the landline? hopefully nobody's on the internet. So then someone can answer the phone. You're like, "Hey, can you just read me those directions on MapQuest? The web browser is still open." And you just chicken scratch, write it down real quick and hope that your palms don't get too sweaty 'cause you're like, "Was that a left or was that a right?" And now we live in a world where we just boop on our phones, pop in. I do all this time. I pop in my car, throw my phone up on the mount and it sometimes will say, "Would you like directions home?" Even before I say anything, I'm like, who's following me?

But this is God's word, but it's the old school kind of Thomas Brothers map quest. You gotta print it out, you gotta make sure it's a priority, you gotta take time for it, you gotta focus in on it, you gotta make it a priority. Yes, we have Bible apps on our phone and they're great. Sometimes we'll get notifications, "Hey, haven't read the Bible today," or, "Hey, here's YouVersion's verse of the day." Those are great, but it takes time to focus in on them because we have to keep Jesus the center of our life. I love what that verse said. "Make your way prosperous and you will have good success." Does anyone wanna have success in their life? I do. I wanna have success in my life, but it starts with answering the question, who is the center of our life? And I wanna have success in my relationships. I wanna have success with my family. I wanna have success with my church family. I wanna look back and go, when we followed God's word together and look where it took us. We kept Jesus the center of our church. We kept Jesus the center of our vision and our mission. We kept Jesus number one and look what God did. But we have to ask Jesus to direct our lives, to direct our choices, to direct our heart.

We have two types of relationships in this world. If you were to divide into two categories, you have two types. One would be those who are believers, those who would call themselves a follower of Jesus, that their priority is to be a disciple of Him, to learn from Him, to grow in Him, to live their life like Him. And then you would have those who are yet to make that decision. We have those who are yet to make the choice for Jesus. And in our lives, there's characteristics of both of them that are similar. And there's characteristics of them that are different. We're gonna go a little bit deeper in that, but I first wanna talk about how are they similar? Well, both of these relationships we should have a heart for. We should have a heart and desire to have relationships with those who are believers, those who are in the church and those in our lives that haven't met Jesus yet. We can't put up boundaries and go, oh, they just don't believe that they're not following Jesus, that I don't have a relationship with them. It's actually quite the opposite when we look at the words of Jesus, and if we were to not have relationships with those who haven't chosen Jesus yet, the gospel would never spread. Whoever shared Jesus with you, if they had lived that way, you would not know about Jesus because of that relationship. And we should be actively seeking both of them in our lives. Because if we have Jesus on us and we have the promise of the Holy Spirit that's been given to us, we are a light. And each and every one of us is called to take that light wherever we go, where we live, our neighbors, our family, where we learn at work and maybe school, where we play, the things we do that are fun. Maybe it's going to the gym, maybe it's going to the coffee shop, maybe it's going out and playing disc golf, maybe it's going out and doing all sorts of different things. We take Jesus with us. And we are called to be a light to that world. See, I can't go and be at your job. I might be able to pop in and say hi, or if we were to grab coffee or lunch, you could take me by your work and I can meet some of your coworkers, but they're not gonna listen to me. I don't live in your house. Some of you I'd like to, you can really, God, it's got some really nice setups. But I don't live in your house. I don't have your neighbors. You have your neighbors. I don't go to your school. I don't go and sit where you eat lunch. I'm not in those places, but you are. And you have Jesus with you where you go. I remember one of the first sermons that I preached here, I had this bucket of water and I was just splashing it everywhere. My Bible still, there's one section that has just all these watermarks in it. But I had this analogy of this sponge and I said like, the water is God and we are a sponge. And when we pursue Jesus, we soak up him and then we take Jesus wherever we go. And there's little droplets of Jesus that go everywhere. You leave a little wet spot of Jesus with everybody you come in contact with every single day. Hopefully you're not just like, psh, on top of their head. And maybe it's just a little spritzy spritz, missed. But that's our calling. And if we didn't have relationships within and without of the church, we wouldn't have the opportunity to share Jesus with those people.

Jesus showed us the ultimate example of this, right? We read his account and the stories of how he lived his life. He ate with believers. He ate with the outcasts, which was so forbidden. He cared for those who actively lived a life in direct opposition of who he was and who he represented. And he loved those in his tightest circle, his 12 disciples with the fiercest love. He did not let their judgment or their perspective from either side sway or influence his choice in his calling that he had from God the Father. And then we have relationships that are different. The biggest one in these, the difference between these two camps would be the level of influence. I had a saying my parents gave me growing up, was the friends we choose help us win or lose. And it doesn't mean that you can only, you should only choose friends that help you win, but it's the level of influence that's the determining factor. And this is easier because when we're in the church, we should share the same vision and mission to share the gospel, to grow in Christ, to make disciples that should be shared. That's very easy, common shared thought.

But in the Christian and those who are yet to become believers, should somewhat be a one-way street. The way that we live our lives is different than those outside of the church, right? If we call ourselves Christians, we should be different. If we're trying to actively follow Jesus the way He's called us to live our lives, we should look different than the world around us. Our choices, our priorities, our morals, our ethics, our language, our mindset, our generosity should be different than that of the world around us. It doesn't mean we can't learn or grow in friendship or begin to understand more or or even care for one another, or that we can't be there for each other in thick or thin. The difference here is influence. These relationships should be in a way that when they look at their relationships with those who are believers and those who are non-believers being outside the church, Do we look the same as those who are yet believers in their life? Does that make sense? When maybe your friend who doesn't go to church looks at the friends in their lives, they see you and then they maybe see another friend of theirs who doesn't go to church either, do we look different than their other friend? I hope we do. We should. Again, to be that shining light of Jesus, to leave a little wet spot of God on their lives when we interact. Jesus should be the center, not only of our lives, but the center of lives of relationships of those who call themselves believers. This one, this is a little hard sometimes because unfortunately there has been, since the beginning of the church and the time in the life of Jesus, People are going to try to leverage and manipulate this shared faith in Christ to their own advantage. It's called church hurt. And it flows through the church like an epidemic. And it breaks my heart. This is when those healthy boundaries in Jesus come into place. And I'm looking at some of you and I know your stories and you're saying, "Yep, I've been there." I've been hurt by someone who I thought was a fellow Christian, a brother or sister in Jesus sitting next to me every single Sunday. And one day they flipped a switch and my relationship was over and it was gone. And I was so confused because I thought we were all about Jesus together but they were in it for their own gain.

So how do we even begin to deal with that? How do we walk through that? Well, Philippians 4:8 Paul writes this great reminder for us "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there be any excellence, If there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Unfortunately, in the church, in our life, as we're dealing with people who are trying to figure out how to follow Jesus and are wrestling with their selfishness and wrestling with their life, we have to not let others pull us away from Christ. There's a difference between someone who is trying to force you into something and there's someone who is encouraging you to make the right biblical decision. So in this situation, real quick context, if someone tells you you should be in church more often, they're not forcing you to attend church. They're trying to encourage you to find yourself in a place where spiritual growth happens. But unfortunately, that's been manipulated in this world. Jesus was the incredible example again. Always pointing people to God time and time again, sitting with the disciples, helping them to try to learn and to grow. And even when they didn't get it, he didn't say, "Forget it, I'm out of here." No, he sat there with patience and compassion. And he is the example of the type of relationship that we have to have with one another, because ultimately it's about caring for one another and to growing to have this level of trust.

Maybe you've heard it before, the fruit of the Spirit out of Galatians. It says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and against such thing there is no law." How are we speaking with one another? Is it covered in the fruit of the Spirit? The way we talk to each other, the way that we care for one another, the way that we love each other, is it covered in the fruit of the Spirit? Are we building bridges or are we breaking bridges? Because the idea and the hope and desire I believe that God has for his church is to create a place that is a judgment free zone because we're all at different levels in this growth of Jesus. We're all at different places trying to figure this stuff out and some of us are further along, some of us are brand new, some of us are still trying to figure out where the bathroom is at church. And that's okay. You never know what somebody is going through in life. You never know. I'm continuing to learn of the stories of life, of what people were walking this church and I am amazed. God is working some incredible things in your life. And some of you are in the thick of it. And I'm over here frustrated I get stuck in traffic on 65. We're all growing, we're all learning. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. You've probably heard that before. Are we caring first before trying to throw some obscure Bible verse at them to tell them that they're not living their life perfect yet and yet we're over here not doing it?

Our Christian relationship should be centered in Jesus and we should point each other to Jesus every single day. It's called being a person of encouragement. Galatians 5:13 says, "For you are called to freedom, brothers and sisters, not only to use your own freedom as an opportunity for the flesh or what I want to do, but to serve one another in love." But being a person of encouragement is hard. And if they only understood how smart you really, really are, their whole life would be fixed, right? They only understood how much you truly know that you have all their problems figured out and fixed, their life too could be fixed. This is a hard lesson to learn in marriage. Laura and I had this saying that was given to us before we got married, and I tried to pass this on to other people. I had a buddy call me randomly a couple of weeks ago and said, "Dude, I will always remember what you said to me before I got married." And I was like, "Sorry, I don't know what I said." He's like, "No." He said, "You always told us, when my wife and I are frustrated or we're trying to figure out that I need to ask her the question, does she want to fix her or does she want a friend?" And he goes, "It's changed our marriage." I was like, "Whoa, I said something wise, cool." But this is true, my wife, Lauren and I, we have to constantly use this. And lately I'll admit, I've struggled with this, it's hard, but we'll be in a situation, I'll go, "Okay, babe, what do you want? You want a fixer or you want a friend?" And she goes, most of the time, she just wants a friend. She just wants someone to sit there and go, "Man, life is tough. And I'm going over here, you could fix this, you could do this, you could change this, you could change this." And she could look at me and go, "You need to change this, you need to fix that, you need to do that." But maybe we need to use that more in our relationships with one another. We come into church and we're like, "Man, life is, my week was hard. Okay, what happened? How can I fix it?" You're like, "No, no, no, no. I just wanna tell somebody, I got nobody else I can tell about this. Just need you to listen." And when she comes to me and says, "Hey, babe, I need a fixer." Let's go. I am pumped, fired up. I have a spreadsheet. I got a video presentation. I got YouTube help videos. I have four books and I have next steps available right now. Just call $19.95, your first payment. We will get you on our plan to perfection today. No.

But we have to be there for each other in a way of encouragement because this leads us as Romans 12:17 and eight says, "Repay no one evil for evil, but give thanks or but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all." All does not always include me. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Galatians 4, 15, "Rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head into Christ. Just because we are believers doesn't mean we don't have to have spiritual boundaries with one another. Everybody's different. If we were all the same, it would be a room of robots. I don't like robots, unless they clean my floor, vacuum, move around. God's created us all different. We all have different, I have a pastor friend relationship that is phenomenal. I love the dude to death. He runs at a hundred miles an hour every single day. I don't. And he kills me. 'Cause he is flying, flying, flying, flying. And he is so extroverted. They need another word to describe who he is 'cause he is off the charts. And I am here split 50/50 where I can come up here, I can do this, this is great. But this afternoon I am done. Just do I am, that's how God made me. It's not 'cause I'm a bad pastor, it's just how God made me. But what's great about us is he's going so fast, he gets frustrated with me 'cause I'm slowing him down, but it's healthy for him to slow down, but it's also healthy for him to help me speed up 'cause sometimes I'll just sit in my introvertedness and go, "No, thank you, goodbye." But we compliment each other and we're better pastors because of it. That's how we should live our lives, having healthy conflict resolution, loving one another, caring for one another, but going the extra mile for each other. Sometimes we need to make the first move, even with boundaries. Sometimes we have to forgive others, even when they even haven't asked for our forgiveness. Not, "No, I'm trying to slap you in the face way. Oh, I forgive you." But to live the way that Jesus did. Healthy relationships and boundaries are not passive. There's something to be said about an active relationship, trying to fix it, trying to do what we can, but then still having that boundary, not as something to hide behind, but for us to help protect ourselves, but then also on the flip side, so I did everything I could. And what do we do at that point?

We pray. We pray for one another. Colossians 1:9 says this, "And so from the day that we have heard other people outside of this church in Colossae, we have not ceased praying for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will, God's will, in all spiritual wisdom," not personal earthly wisdom, God's spiritual wisdom, "and His understanding." 1st Thessalonians 5-11, "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are during the Church in Thessalonica figured it out. Paul was excited about it, and he was saying, "Keep on doing it. "Don't stop praying for one another." Prayer is a powerful way to share the love of Christ towards others while still keeping boundaries. Others, people's crisis are not your crisis. We wanna be there for one another. We wanna love each other. But sometimes we need to go, I'm not being pulled into your drama, it's midnight. Let's talk in the morning. And that is okay. And you stop and you pray in that moment and you let the Holy Spirit lead and guide and direct on what you're supposed to do. Sometimes He's gonna tell you, nope, you need to go right now, even though it's midnight. I've been there. And sometimes he goes, "Nope, you need a good night's sleep because you need to be 100% there for your friend, your family, your loved one in the morning. And you going right now is not gonna help anything." You gotta listen to the Holy Spirit in prayer. So what do we do real quick? We're talking about those who are yet to become believers. You've heard that word, the phrase to be in the world, but not of the world. You might've heard that it comes from two different verses. Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Not minds of others, but your mind. "That by testifying, you may discern what is the will of God." What he's asking you to do. And all of that always is what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Jesus himself prays for his disciples just before he starts his journey to the cross. and he specifically praised this in John 17. So kind of put these two together, you'll get where it says in the world, but not of it. It says, Jesus says, "I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I, Jesus, am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, just isolate them, put them by themselves and boundaries all around by themselves, no, but that you would protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctifying them by the truth. Your word is true. We talked about that. And as you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world also.”

This tells us from the words of Jesus that we cannot completely self isolate and shut off everybody in all these relationships in our life if they are not founded and founded in Jesus. But it does talk about this work when it comes to boundaries in these relationships of like I said before, not letting others pull you away from Christ, keeping God priority, keeping Him number one, keeping your church attendance, keeping your scripture reading, keeping your prayer, keeping your quiet time, keeping your Christian disciplines, keeping your time with Jesus, sitting in his presence going, "God, how do you wanna form and change "and make me more into who you are "and what is my calling today for you?" Keeping your Christian relationships and keeping your relationships and family a priority. You were not created to be a doormat. God didn't create you to be a doormat. Yes, Jesus tells us to go the extra mile and even the extra mile beyond that, but you can also share the love of God with those without being physically, mentally, emotionally and verbally abused. Hear me out. And if you find yourself in this place trying to navigate a really tough situation, I would encourage you to go meet with a Christian counselor who also is a follower of Jesus, who also knows the word of God, who also is in their life trying to walk in the way that God has called them. And they can guide and direct because some of this stuff gets so nuanced and so messy and so hard, but there's people in this world, even including Pastor Andrei and myself, that if we can walk with you in this, we want to help you to become who God has called you to be. but you have to set up boundaries within that.

Jesus tells us that honestly, when we signed up to be a follower of Jesus, that that stuff was gonna come at us, right? We're gonna have trials, we're gonna have tribulations, we're gonna have hardships, we're gonna face tough things in our relationships because you and I have said yes to Jesus and the world doesn't understand that. It's not the world's fault, they just don't understand. And so it's not for us to close them off, but then also for us to live in this healthy place because ultimately the reality is that Jesus has already won. Amen? We just celebrate that a few weeks ago on Easter. He has risen, He has already won. He has already taken on the greatest enemy of death and He has won. And in that we get to share His victory. So you and I don't have to be preoccupied with how we have to figure this thing out or to have the final word because that's Christ's job. And in our relationships, we're still called to be an encouragement. Whether we're outside the church or inside the church, we should look different to the world around us and how we are ourselves. And not in like the obnoxious way of like that friend who just started like that new hobby or diet or exercise or vacation plan or brand new car, sometimes it feels like. But in a way that is loving and is caring and has the Holy Spirit covered in it in a way that is just the peace of God follows you wherever you go kind of influence, right? Covered in love, grace, mercy, kindness, joy, fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Everything that we do and say and our actions should be covered in the fruit of the Spirit. We should be like that messy jello salad that grandma brought to every Thanksgiving meal. And when we do all of this and we live in this place where we love God and we put Him first, where we do God's will and He has the purpose for our lives and we're a person of encouragement, it leads us to the place where we do the things that glorify God. And that's ultimately what's about. That in our relationships that people would see Jesus. I don't have it figured out, I'll figure it out. Pastor Andrei doesn't have it all figured out. Every pastor doesn't have it all figured out. They might have a few more miles on their tires, but none of us have figured out. We're not gonna figure it out till we see Jesus. But what we can do is we can be intentional along the way. We can be intentional in the way that we use our words, how we encourage each other, how we have our actions, how we love one another. Because being in a relationship with Jesus and relationship with those around us is active, not passive. That's the way that God has called us to live our lives.

Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this morning. God, so grateful for your word and your reminder for us to step in and to follow the calling that you have for us. And God, I'm so thankful that you've given us your word as we've read so many scriptures today that you would continue to guide us, that you would continue to lead us, that you have equipped us with those of us who have called Jesus our Lord and Savior, and we have the Holy Spirit on us. You have given us everything that we need to live this life here on earth with relationships that are glorifying to you, that have healthy boundaries, that live in a space where we care for one another, even if we're from afar through prayer, God, that we are are living in a life that gives glory to you, Jesus, that you would look down on our relationships, whether we're inside the church or outside the church, God, and you would just smile because you would just see how much your goodness, your love and your mercy is being shown in our communities wherever we go. So Jesus, I would pray for us this week to think about our relationships, that we would be intentional, that we would be active, that we would think about, God, how do you wanna use this relationship to give glory to you? And that God, we would have healthy boundaries, not to shut us off from those who we don't like, or we don't wanna be around them, or they're not a Christian yet, so I can't be around them. No, God, that we would use these spaces and these moments to give you glory, even if that means all we do is pray for them. You tell us in your scripture to pray for our enemies. God, are we praying for our enemies? Jesus, work in our heart, work in our lives this week. We're excited for what you're gonna do in our relationships. We look forward to next week, coming back together. Jesus, we love you, we praise you, we thank you. Everybody said Amen.

Relationships 101: Part 1

Relationships 101 - Marriage & Singleness

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We're heading into a relationship series. Tell me you're married without telling me you're married. when you show up to church in the same color. (audience member speaks off microphone) Generally unintended. We were getting dressed this morning, we're like, "Uh, this wasn't planned." That's okay, it's appropriate, 'cause we're talking about relationships today. We took a break from our Philippians series to have Palm Sunday and Easter. We will be heading back into that here in a few weeks, but we are doing our Relationships 101 series, as you've heard this morning, and we are just so excited about this. This has been something that's been on our hearts for a while and just something that we think is really valuable that we can all glean something from. We're all in relationships of some shape or form, right? So we can all grow in this area. So we're gonna be kicking off today talking about relationships in general and also I'm gonna be touching on marriage and singleness. And then Pastor Chris is gonna come in next week and hit on boundaries in relationships. Yes, believers can have boundaries, it's good. And then week three, as he mentioned, Corinne will be here on Sunday morning and then our workshop in the afternoon. But if you have questions about relationships or about anything pertaining to relationships, we would love for you to fill out one of the question cards in the back over the next few weeks and just drop it in there. And Corinne is gonna hit on those during the workshop. So we would love for you to leave your questions. We're gonna be covering a lot of different kinds of relationships and relationship situations, But relationships are as unique as the people in them. So there's no possible way in this three week series that we can cover every unique situation and scenario. So as things come up, as we're talking, as you're thinking, maybe you have some questions that are just kind of brought to mind. We would love for you to drop those questions in the back and Corinne will be able to get to those during our workshop.

Our goal with this series really is just to equip you. We want to equip you with biblical principles for all of your relationships to help you have strong, healthy, kingdom-minded relationships. That's the goal with this. We want them to be strong, healthy, and kingdom-minded. Now that doesn't mean that every relationship you're in will be with other believers, right? You can be in relationship with other believers and that naturally would be a kingdom-minded relationship because you're growing together in your faith. But when you're in relationship with a non-believer, who's someone who doesn't know Jesus, that can also be a kingdom-minded relationship in the way that you speak to them, act around them, respond to them. That can point them to Jesus. So we want all of our relationships to be kingdom-minded. So that's our goal for this series. So let me open us up in prayer. Jesus, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this topic. God, you created relationships. And so we pray that you will help us to have the best relationships that we can that are glorifying and honoring to you. Bless this time together in your name, amen. Well, ironically, we are on a break from our Philippians series, but our passage today is from Philippians. So we are going to actually just dive right into that here at the beginning. But this part that we're talking about is in chapter two. And it really, when we reference this verse, it's really about Christ as it should be. The Bible should be mostly about God, right? We see, we try to put ourselves in the Bible and really we should be looking for God in the Bible. And this is referencing the nature of Jesus. But something, a little shame to admit, that I had not caught before, like until very recently, like embarrassingly recently, is the first line of this verse, all right? So let's read it together. This is chapter two of Philippians. We're gonna start in verse five. It'll be on the screens. You can pull it up on your phone or in your Bible. The first verse, “In your relationships with one another,” that's the part I missed, okay? “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 becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” Y'all glad you showed up today? Y'all ready to be like Jesus in your relationships?

He is a prime example of how we should be in our relationships. It is not very likely that we will have to die for our relationships, but are we willing to be like Christ? The key things that I wanna pull out here are humility and obedience. He humbled himself. He took on humanness. He lowered himself to be like us. And then he was obedient to God's plan, to the point of death, to sacrifice for us. So in our relationships, we can be humble and have humility with others while having obedience to God. When we have humility and obedience in our relationships with God and others, it's gonna solve a lot of the problems just right off the bat. It'll just take care of a lot of things, right? So we want to practice humility and obedience in our relationships. It's interesting, statistically in the church, the number of single people is actually rising. People are getting married later. We have, you know, there's other circumstances such as divorce or death, but people are just staying single longer. And so we have, in our congregation, we have a lot of married people and we have a lot of single people. And then we have a lot of unique situations within that. Maybe you've been married for a long time, maybe it's just been a short time. Maybe you are divorced, maybe you're widowed, maybe you're on your second marriage. For singles, maybe you are single out of choice, or maybe you're single not by choice. Maybe you are, again, widowed or divorced. Maybe you just haven't found the right person yet. Lots of different scenarios. but both are so valuable. And that's, I want you to hear me on that. Both are valuable in the church and in the kingdom of God. The ground at the foot of the cross is level. Okay, we all have something to bring to the table. Both are good and both are hard. Each of them has their own things that are hard about them. We're not gonna play the hard Olympics to see who has it harder. But we understand that there is hard parts of marriage and there's hard parts of singleness, just like there is goodness and joy in marriage and there's goodness and joy in singleness.

Romans 12 talks about how we're all part of the body. It says, "For just as each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function, So in Christ, we though many form one body and each member belongs to all the others.” We're all part of the body of Christ. It is not about our relationship status. It's about the status of our relationships. How healthy are our relationships? Our romantic ones, our friendships, our familial relationships, even coworkers and neighbors, how healthy are our relationships? So talking to the married people here for a minute. Married people have certain obligations to their spouse, to their family, if they have children, that often means priorities look different with work and finances. It's a beautiful picture of the gospel. You know, the church is called the bride of Christ. So it's this beautiful image of marriage, of how the church is married to Christ.

Paul talks about this in Ephesians, talks about marriage, says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord." He goes on to say, "Husbands, loves your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy." He quotes back to the Old Testament, says, "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ in the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband." He's laying out here what a marriage relationship looks like. It takes humility or mutual submission and obedience to God for the way the marriage should be. Marriage is good. Marriage is God ordained. The Bible basically starts off with God creating marriage with Adam and Eve. He says, "Adam, it's not good for him to be alone. I'm gonna give him a helper. I'm gonna give him a mate." And so he creates Eve. It is good. There is value in that. But for the single people, it is good and there is value in singleness. I don't know if you know, but Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament was single. There's a lot of single people in the Bible. Most of the disciples were single. People in the Old Testament, Rahab who helped the spies, the Israelite spies, she was single at the time. She ended up getting married because we know she was in the lineage of Jesus, but she was living in her parents' house when she helped the spies. God can use you regardless of your relationship status. Jesus was single. Let's not forget, There is nothing lesser than or greater than marriage or singleness. They're just different, but they both have strengths.

Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians. He says, "I wish that all of you were as I am," being single, "but each of you has your own gifts from God. One has this gift, another has that," meaning marriage or singleness. "Now to the unmarried and the widows, I say it is good for them to stay unmarried as I do." Did you catch that though? He called it a gift. Both marriage and singleness are a gift from God. Those who are single have different obligations and responsibilities. A lot of you have more resources that are just available because it's just you. Maybe not finances, yes, but even just your time and your energy, You're able to live differently, to give differently, to meet people's needs differently. If there's someone in the church who needs a meal or needs a ride or needs help, you very likely may have more availability than a young mom with a million kids who just can't. Hi, I'm that mom with a million kids. But you just have a different availability And that is beautiful. And that contributes to the kingdom of God. Both though, the singleness is also a picture of the gospel. Because it is this image of being complete in Christ. Marriage, you don't get married to be complete. You get married to compliment each other. But in singleness, you get to live out being fully complete in Christ and being that picture that you are whole and complete in Jesus. Your identity is in Christ, whether you're married or single, it should be in Christ. It is not in your marriage, it is not in your singleness, it is not in your divorce, it is not in your past, it is not in any of your relationships, it is in Jesus. Both are good, both are hard, both require humility and obedience and selflessness.

Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians chapter seven, verse 17, says, "Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them." He's called you to your relationship status. Now that doesn't mean it can't change. Single people get married, and unfortunately, sometimes married people become single again. It happens. So he's not saying your identity is in your relationship status, but he's saying that you should live as a believer in whatever situation God has called you to be in. In this season of life, you can do it so well in whatever season you're in. We're called to steward our lives well and point people to Jesus in all of our relationships. but strong relationships require that humility and obedience. For married people, there's a selflessness that comes with living with somebody else, with considering your spouse's needs and desires, thinking of others in that way, of those that are in your home, and what is he maybe making sacrifices of what you want to provide for your family. For single people, there's a selflessness in the sense that you could very easily do whatever you wanted. You have less to other people to consider in your home. It's just you. But you don't live on an island. You can choose selflessness by how you interact with the people around you, by how you choose to spend your time, by getting out of your home and into the community or into your church. That still requires selflessness.

Humility and obedience are required for relationship within Christian community. So Christian community is this, it is the church. It's coming on Sunday mornings, it's being in relationship with other believers. This is Christian community. And we're all broken human beings who bring our own stuff to the table. And so it requires us to choose humility and obedience to God. We were created for community though. God is a communal God. He is triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is in relationship within himself. And so our communal triune God created us for community with Him and with others. When we are pursuing holiness, or sorry, pursuing humility, it allows us to pursue holiness in a much better way. Holiness is the process of becoming more like Christ. It is growing in our behavior, in our heart posture, and allowing Jesus to transform us to be more like Him. And the best way to do that is in community. Some ways that we do this through discipleship, small group, midweek small group, diving into the word, Bible study, practicing spiritual disciplines, accountability relationships, to hold each other accountable to the things that we say we're gonna do or not do. coming to church, being here, serving on a Sunday morning or in the community.

All of this is you growing in holiness. But all of these things outside of a few spiritual disciplines you do in community. When we invite Jesus into our relationships, Those relationships become more fruitful. They're thriving. They can be more intimate. We can be more authentic with each other and they build the kingdom. 'Cause when we're in relationship that has Jesus at the center of it, we're gonna build each other up. We're gonna be encouraging. We're gonna pray for each other. We're gonna be honest with each other and hold each other accountable. We're gonna allow people to speak into our lives as we speak into their lives. But it only works if we have the mindset of Christ. If we choose humility, if we put on the nature of a servant, he became like us, but in order to have healthy relationships, we have to become like him. and becoming obedient to God, in whatever that looks like.

I was listening to a podcast this week, specifically it was about singleness, but there was some really good stuff for everyone. And he wrapped up the podcast episode with this analogy. And he talked about, some of you may even have heard a similar analogy before, but he talks about who is on the throne of your heart. Right, so if you imagine you have your heart and it's Jesus' or someone is on the throne, it should be Jesus, spoiler alert, but someone is going to always be on the throne. Is it you? Is it another person in your life? Is it something you love very much? Perhaps it's a goal or something that seems good, but it's become higher than God in your heart. Is it a sin? If it's anything other than Jesus, you're gonna have problems. He said, when we are on the throne, we play defense because everything is about protecting your own little kingdom. When Jesus is on the throne, we learn to play offense. We get to be on offense when Jesus is on the throne of our heart, because we're not trying to defend our own little kingdom. We're not worried about other people being a threat to us and a threat to this kingdom we have set up. Because when we're on the throne, everyone is a threat to that. Can't really have real, authentic, kingdom-minded relationships when you see everyone else is a threat to your own personal kingdom. But when Jesus is on the throne, He can defend Himself. You get to go on offense. You get to go into relationships and love people. Out of His love for you, you get to love people. You get to walk confidently into those relationships to have the strong, healthy, kingdom-minded relationships that we're after. Because your identity is in Him, not in anything you can do, not in the relationship itself, it's in him. He is on the throne. So you get to be confident in those relationships and you get to continually choose humility and obedience and Christ likeness. So that together, either on your own, if they're not a believer or with that person, you get to grow in holiness. You get to be more like Jesus. And those relationships can help you grow as well. So who's on the throne of your heart? The beautiful thing of it is it can change. If it's not Jesus right now, you get to pick, you get to decide. You get to put him on the throne. And you're gonna be able to enter into relationships in such a healthier way. and a healthier mindset and more like Jesus.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for this time. We thank you for this topic. We thank you that you created us for community, for relationships, for marriage and singleness. We thank you that you created the body to work together, that everyone brings something to the table that is everyone is valuable. God, we thank you for the relationships you've given us. We pray for the ones that are struggling. God, help us as far as it depends on us to live at peace with everyone. God, that you will just change our hearts so that we can infuse love and kingdom mindedness into our relationships, God. And the ones that are doing well, God, continue those relationships, build them up, grow them, help us to grow in holiness because of the relationships you've given us. We thank you. We thank you for Christian community. We thank you for community with you, that you, the God of the universe, want to have a relationship with us. Help us to walk in this truth this week as we head into our relationships. Help us to bring peace and your love into our relationships this week. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.