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.

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 5

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 5

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 4

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 4

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 3

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 3

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 2

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 2

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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