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00:00 Let me start by asking you a question.
00:02 It's a personal question, and I wanna ask you
00:05 about what you're good at when it comes to your money.
00:09 What are you gifted at?
00:12 What are you good at when it comes to your money?
00:16 I'll give you some options.
00:18 I wonder how many of you would say, honestly,
00:20 that I'm really good at spending?
00:21 Raise your hands right now, raise your hands.
00:23 If you need to raise the hand of the person next to you,
00:24 go ahead and do that, raise your hand up.
00:26 Some of you, you've got the spiritual gift of spending.
00:30 You are to shopping what LeBron is to basketball,
00:34 or Jordan, whoever you want it to be, right?
00:36 You are so good at spending
00:39 that your credit card asked for a vacation.
00:43 You're really good at spending.
00:45 I'll ask you another question.
00:46 How many of you would say
00:47 you're actually good at bargain hunting?
00:50 You're great at bargain hunting.
00:52 You actually think if you find something
00:54 for 50% off and buy it, you saved money, right?
00:59 That makes perfect sense, right?
01:00 You're thrifting, you're on Facebook Marketplace,
01:05 you're the coupon king or the coupon queen.
01:07 You've got a bumper sticker that says,
01:09 "I break for garage sales."
01:12 You're good at bargaining.
01:13 So we have spending, we have bargaining.
01:16 How many of you are good at saving?
01:18 Raise your hand.
01:19 A few of you, you're good at saving.
01:20 Your grandma told you to put some aside first,
01:25 and you've been doing that for years.
01:26 Some of you, you have so much cash under your mattress,
01:31 you could buy a small country.
01:33 You're really good at saving.
01:34 What's interesting when you think about it,
01:38 there is not a single Bible verse
01:41 that says we should be great at shopping.
01:45 And there's not a single Bible verse
01:49 that says we should be great at bargain hunting.
01:52 And there's not a single Bible verse
01:55 that says we should be great at storing up
01:58 for ourselves treasures on earth.
02:01 But there are plenty of verses in God's Word
02:05 that said we should be great at giving.
02:08 We're in a message series called "More Than Enough."
02:12 And we were actually studying
02:13 through 2 Corinthians 8 and 9.
02:17 And I wanna give you the context if you missed last week.
02:20 Paul was writing to the Christians in Corinth,
02:25 and he was encouraging them to be generous like Jesus.
02:29 Now, previously, the Corinthians had said,
02:33 "We wanna give, and we're going to give,
02:35 "and we plan to give, and they plan to give,
02:39 "and they started, but they stopped.
02:41 "They had good intentions, but they didn't follow through."
02:44 And so in 2 Corinthians 8, 6, Paul actually said this.
02:49 He said, "We've urged Titus,
02:52 "who encouraged your giving in the first place,
02:55 "to return to you and encourage you
02:58 "to finish what you promised,
03:00 "to finish the ministry of giving.
03:03 "You had good intentions, and you were going to,
03:05 "but you didn't finish what you intended to do."
03:08 And then I like that Paul calls it,
03:10 "Finish the ministry of giving."
03:12 And I want you to realize this,
03:14 that giving is very, very spiritual.
03:17 It's actually a ministry when you give, like praying.
03:20 Everybody goes, "Well, praying is obviously spiritual,
03:23 "and fasting is spiritual,
03:26 "and reading your Bible is spiritual,
03:29 "and going on a mission trip is spiritual,
03:32 "and serving in life, kids, is spiritual,
03:36 "and serving in the two-year-old room
03:38 "may be the most spiritual thing that you ever do."
03:43 But don't forget that giving is very spiritual.
03:47 It's actually a ministry.
03:49 And Paul said, "Hey, why don't you finish
03:51 "the ministry of giving?"
03:54 And so he continues in verse seven and says this,
03:57 "Since you excel in so many ways."
04:00 In other words, you're great, and you excel in your faith,
04:04 and you excel with gifted speakers,
04:07 and you excel with your knowledge,
04:09 and you excel with your enthusiasm,
04:11 and you excel with your love from us.
04:13 And what does he say?
04:15 He says, "I want you to excel also
04:18 "in the gracious act of giving."
04:22 Paul said, "You've got big faith
04:24 "to believe God for miracles,
04:26 "and you've got gifted communicators,
04:29 "and you're great at seeking biblical knowledge,
04:32 "and you're great with spiritual enthusiasm,
04:34 "and you're great at showing love.
04:36 "I also want you to be great at giving.
04:40 "I want you to be world-class givers."
04:44 And what I'm guessing about most of you
04:47 is you're probably a little bit like me.
04:49 You actually want to be great at giving.
04:52 You've got good intentions.
04:54 You wanna be great at it,
04:55 but sometimes we don't follow through.
04:58 How many of you would say you've ever thought
05:00 about giving something, but you didn't?
05:02 Would you be honest enough to raise your hand?
05:04 This is me.
05:05 Just recently, Amy and I were going
05:07 to one of our favorite restaurants.
05:09 We frequent it all the time,
05:10 and I'd stopped by the ATM machine to get some cash.
05:14 Some of you don't know what cash is.
05:17 It's money that you put in your wallet
05:19 that you don't use hardly anymore,
05:20 but I wanna have a little bit in there.
05:21 And so I picked up $200 cash,
05:23 and we went to our restaurant,
05:24 and sure enough, there was this single mom there
05:28 that we really enjoy talking to every time we're there.
05:30 We've gotten to know her.
05:31 She's not a believer.
05:33 We're sharing our faith with her.
05:35 Her baby daddy's not involved.
05:37 Her four-year-old boy's involved in soccer.
05:38 We know a lot about her.
05:40 And as I was going through the line,
05:42 I felt prompted to give her the money in my wallet.
05:46 And I thought, I think God wants me to do this,
05:47 but I didn't have time to talk to Amy about it.
05:50 So I thought, well, maybe that was God.
05:52 Maybe that wasn't God.
05:54 Maybe I need to ask Amy's permission first,
05:56 and I should, but that might be kind of weird.
05:57 And she's like, "Why is this guy giving me this?"
06:00 And so I felt prompted to do it.
06:03 And I didn't do it.
06:04 And afterwards, I went off with Amy.
06:06 I said, "I think I was supposed to give her that money.
06:09 "What would you have thought of that?"
06:10 And of course, Amy's like,
06:11 "When have I ever talked to you on a given money?
06:13 "You should have given it, you dummy."
06:14 And then I thought, well, I wasn't really sure
06:16 if it was God.
06:18 And then she's like,
06:18 "When has the devil ever tempted you to be generous?"
06:21 (congregation laughing)
06:28 I am glad you're clapping for my ungodliness.
06:32 (congregation laughing)
06:33 But like, I thought about it, and I wanted to do it,
06:36 and I didn't do it.
06:38 I had good intentions, and I didn't follow through.
06:41 So Amy will told you, we have gone back five times
06:45 trying to catch her working there,
06:46 and we have still not found her there.
06:50 And I pray to God she still works there
06:52 because I don't want to not follow through
06:56 on what God put on my heart.
06:58 We want to be generous.
07:00 And Paul was talking to the Corinthians
07:02 who had the same issue that many of us have.
07:06 We want to be generous,
07:08 but we're not necessarily great at being generous.
07:11 So if we want to be great at anything, what do we know?
07:15 We know that nobody ever becomes great
07:18 at anything by accident, right?
07:20 I don't know anybody who just said like,
07:22 "I just walked up to the piano and dang."
07:26 I was the concert pianist.
07:27 I mean, I don't know how it happened.
07:28 No one says that.
07:30 No one ever says, "I just did heart surgery
07:34 for the first time.
07:35 I didn't even know, I just took out a kitchen knife,
07:37 and man, I was good at it," right?
07:38 You just don't do that.
07:40 The way you get great at something
07:42 is you actually plan to work at it.
07:46 You strategically decide, "I want to be good at something."
07:51 No one ever just accidentally became irrationally generous.
07:56 And the reason that we don't accidentally
07:59 become irrationally generous
08:01 is because we are naturally selfish.
08:05 And I can prove this to you.
08:07 If you have ever been around any two-year-old,
08:10 you never have to have selfish lessons.
08:13 You never say, "Hey, kid, today,
08:16 I'm gonna teach you to be selfish.
08:18 I'm gonna hand you a toy,
08:20 and then when I try to take it back,
08:22 I want you to scream as loud as humanly possible,
08:27 a blood-curling, like fingernails on a chalkboard scream.
08:32 I want you to scream, "Nah!"
08:34 You never have to teach a two-year-old to do that
08:38 because we're naturally selfish.
08:40 It's the same thing with looking at a group photo.
08:43 When you look at a group photo,
08:45 who do you look at first in the photo?
08:47 No one tells you to look at yourself,
08:50 and no one tells you that if it's a good picture of you
08:53 and it sucks of everybody else, it's a good picture.
08:56 But if everybody else looks amazing
08:58 and your eyes are like this, it's a bad picture
09:02 because naturally we're selfish.
09:05 And so nobody becomes irrationally generous.
09:08 Nobody becomes great at generosity.
09:11 Nobody excels at generosity by accident.
09:14 We actually have to plan for it.
09:17 In fact, Isaiah 32, eight tells us this,
09:20 but generous people, let's say it aloud, what do they do?
09:23 Generous people plan to do what is generous,
09:26 and what else do they do?
09:27 And they stand firm in their generosity.
09:30 I love this.
09:32 Like seriously, if you really wanna be like God,
09:37 who gives for God to love the world that he gave.
09:40 Some people have said you may never be more like God
09:43 than when you give.
09:45 If you wanna be great, if you wanna be like God,
09:47 be great at being generous, you plan to be generous
09:52 and then you stand firm in your generosity.
09:56 What's interesting is most of us don't plan to be generous.
09:58 I didn't plan to be generous.
10:00 I just had money in my pocket,
10:01 thought maybe I'll give it and then I didn't.
10:04 Most of us don't plan to.
10:05 We plan a lot of things.
10:07 We'll plan a vacation.
10:09 We'll plan to remodel the kitchen.
10:11 We'll plan a party.
10:12 We might plan a date,
10:13 but most people don't plan their giving.
10:17 Most of us, how do we give?
10:19 We give spontaneously.
10:21 And I wanted to say right now,
10:23 it's not wrong to give spontaneously.
10:25 You're driving down the road,
10:27 you see someone in need and you think,
10:28 "Hey, I wanna bless that person."
10:31 You want to occasionally give spontaneously.
10:35 But please listen.
10:37 If you only give spontaneously,
10:42 you will never be great at generosity
10:46 because there is a massive difference
10:50 between giving and being generous.
10:53 There's a big difference.
10:55 What do we know?
10:56 That giving is what we do,
10:59 but generous is who we are.
11:02 There's a big, big difference.
11:04 Giving is actually an action,
11:07 but generosity is a mindset.
11:10 And so to be generous,
11:13 we have to change our mindset
11:15 and we have to plan to overcome our selfish tendency,
11:20 to plan to be generous
11:23 and to stand firm in our generosity.
11:26 So what I wanna do today is as we look at God's Word,
11:29 I wanna show you three qualities of generous people
11:33 and pray that God helps us to grow into these qualities.
11:36 And what are the qualities?
11:36 The first thing is this,
11:38 generous people give how?
11:39 Say it aloud.
11:40 Generous people give willingly.
11:41 Number two, generous people give proportionately.
11:45 And God's Word teaches us
11:46 that generous people give sacrificially.
11:49 Let's look at God's Word
11:50 and we're gonna study the first thought.
11:52 How do generous people give?
11:54 Number one, generous people give willingly.
11:58 Generous people give willingly.
12:01 Scripture says this, 2 Corinthians 8, verse 10.
12:04 Paul says, "Hey," to the Corinthians,
12:07 "Last year, you were the first not only to give,
12:12 "but to have the desire to do so."
12:15 You wanted to do it, you just didn't follow through.
12:19 He says, "Now finish the work
12:21 "so that your eager willingness to do it
12:25 "may be matched by your completion of it."
12:28 Close the gap between your intentions and your actions.
12:32 You wanna be generous, make sure that you are.
12:34 Now, how do you do it?
12:35 According to your means.
12:37 He says, "For if the willingness is there,
12:41 "the gift is acceptable according to what one has,
12:44 "not according to what one does not have."
12:48 Generous people give willingly.
12:51 In other words, God isn't just concerned with the amount,
12:55 but he's also very concerned with the heart.
12:58 And I can tell you right now,
12:59 sometimes I've tried to give with the wrong heart.
13:03 I hate to say that.
13:04 But we had a guy at one time that was not a believer
13:07 who did some work on our house,
13:09 and I was trying to be a witness to him.
13:10 And at the end, I paid him more
13:12 than I thought he should have charged.
13:14 But I thought, okay, I need to be a witness,
13:16 so I'm gonna give him a tip.
13:18 And I thought, I'll find something in the house to give him.
13:21 And I went in the bathroom,
13:22 and I found a Chili's gift card that said $50 on it.
13:26 I think it was $50.
13:26 And so I came and said, "Hey, thank you for doing this.
13:29 "And I just wanna be a blessing to you."
13:32 And I feel like God put this on my heart,
13:34 I'm supposed to give this to you.
13:36 And he's like, "No way."
13:37 I was like, "Oh my gosh, I love you.
13:39 "Thank you so much, this is amazing.
13:40 "I'm going there tonight."
13:42 And so I was like, "Okay, that's good.
13:43 "I didn't really wanna do it, but I found it.
13:45 "Someone gave it to me."
13:46 So it was easy to give to him.
13:47 So he goes to Chili's, I guess, whatever.
13:49 Three hours later or so, I get a phone call.
13:52 I picked it up, it's him.
13:53 He goes, "Hey, bro, what's up?"
13:55 I said, "What's up with you?"
13:56 He goes, "No, what's up?"
13:59 I said, "What's up with you?"
14:00 He goes, "No, what's up?
14:02 "There's only $2.43 on this card."
14:05 (congregation laughing)
14:08 And there is a witness in the name of the Father,
14:10 the Son, and the Holy Spirit, right?
14:12 I mean, my heart wouldn't ride as half-hearted
14:16 and it just kinda failed.
14:17 And so God isn't concerned with just the amount,
14:21 but he wants the heart to be willing.
14:24 In other words, somebody could give a bigger gift
14:28 with the wrong motives, and that's not really generous.
14:31 Or somebody could give a smaller gift
14:33 with the right heart and the right motives,
14:35 and that's more generous.
14:37 It's not just about the amount,
14:39 but it's about the heart.
14:41 And so whenever you do give,
14:43 you wanna give with the right heart.
14:44 This isn't like to relieve your guilt,
14:45 like, "Oh, pastor talked about giving,
14:48 "I better do something today."
14:49 It's not to make you feel better.
14:52 It's certainly not to impress people.
14:54 It's not to show on social media,
14:56 "Hey, look how generous I am."
14:58 It is to honor God and to bless people.
15:02 When you give from your heart,
15:04 it's not a, "I have to," or "I better."
15:08 It's a, "I want to.
15:10 "After all God has done for me,
15:12 "I wanna be a blessing to others."
15:15 Generous people, they give willingly.
15:18 The second thing that's important to note
15:19 is that generous people give proportionately.
15:23 They give in proportion to what they have.
15:27 And what's crazy is like one person could give $10, $10,
15:31 and that is incredibly generous
15:34 because that's all they have.
15:36 And another person might give $1,000,
15:38 and you go, "Wow, that's generous."
15:40 And God might say, "That ain't generous at all.
15:43 "They're so rich, they would not even notice that."
15:47 Generous people give in proportion to what they have.
15:51 And maybe that's one reason Paul said this
15:53 in 2 Corinthians 8, 11.
15:54 He said, oh, there it is.
15:56 Give in what?
15:57 Give in proportion to what you have.
16:01 Give a portion of a little,
16:03 give a portion of a medium amount.
16:06 When God blesses you with a lot,
16:08 give a portion of a lot.
16:09 Give in proportion to what you have.
16:11 Whatever you give is acceptable
16:13 if you give it eagerly, if you give it willingly,
16:16 and give according to what you have,
16:18 not what you don't have.
16:21 Scripture says, give in proportion to what God has given you
16:25 and we're gonna watch as Paul teaches in the New Testament
16:30 a very similar principle
16:31 to what we see all over the Old Testament.
16:34 Essentially, he's gonna teach us to prioritize your portion.
16:39 Set aside a portion in order to give.
16:43 And you see it all over the Old Testament.
16:45 We looked at some verses last week.
16:46 This week, we'll just look at Leviticus 27, 30.
16:50 This says this, a tithe, the Hebrew word is maaser,
16:54 and that means one-tenth.
16:56 It's a portion, one-tenth of everything from the land,
17:01 whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees,
17:05 belongs to the Lord.
17:07 It is holy to the Lord.
17:10 Scripture says in multiple different places
17:12 that we return the tithe to God.
17:16 10% of what he trusts us with, we give back to him.
17:19 And many of you are thinking the very same thing
17:22 that I thought the first time I heard that.
17:25 No way.
17:26 Like, there's no way.
17:29 Like, things are so tight right now.
17:31 There is no way I could possibly,
17:35 I mean, to give 10% to God,
17:37 I would have to rearrange my entire life around God.
17:41 (laughs)
17:45 I'd have to make some changes to do that.
17:47 I'd have to actually prioritize God
17:51 over all the things that I'm already doing in my life.
17:57 That's crazy.
17:59 And Paul said essentially the same thing,
18:01 prioritize your portion.
18:03 In 1 Corinthians 16, two, he said this,
18:06 "On the first day of each week, what should you do?
18:09 "You should each put aside a portion of the money
18:14 "that you have earned."
18:17 Generous people are going to give
18:18 in proportion to what they have.
18:21 And the very first time that I took the faith to tithe,
18:25 I was 19 years old and I was a college tennis player.
18:28 So I actually started a camp in the summertime,
18:31 had employees working for me
18:33 and made, was a lot of money for a 19 year old.
18:35 At the end of the summer,
18:37 I heard it by like the third tithing message.
18:39 I finally said, "Okay, God, I'm gonna trust you."
18:41 I wrote what was the biggest check of my life as a tithe
18:46 and shaking, "Oh, okay, God, I trust you."
18:50 Put it in the offering plate.
18:52 And God is my witness, my grandmother,
18:55 who we didn't think had anything,
18:58 just after I did that, called and said,
19:01 "I'm so thankful you're now walking with Jesus.
19:04 "And I wanna bless you."
19:06 And my grandmother, my mom's here to tell you a true story,
19:09 bought me a new car, not just any car,
19:12 I'll show you a picture of it.
19:13 It was a Honda Accord and there's Amy.
19:16 And you know the joke that's coming
19:18 if you've been here for a while,
19:18 it was a biblical car
19:20 because all the disciples gathered in one accord.
19:25 See what I did there?
19:26 (congregation laughing)
19:27 Okay, and it was a game changer.
19:29 And what I'm not saying,
19:31 and I want you to hear me clearly,
19:31 I'm not saying if you tithe, you're gonna get a car.
19:33 I promise you, I'm not telling you that.
19:36 What I am saying is that God said, "Test me."
19:39 That's what he said in the Bible,
19:40 "Test me and see if I will not prove myself faithful."
19:43 God will provide, he'll bless, it may be material,
19:48 it may be financial, it may be spiritual,
19:50 it may be relational.
19:51 God just proves himself
19:52 and it's the only time he says to test him.
19:55 And to tell you the rest of the story,
19:58 it was a big, big deal
19:59 because I had $6,000 saved to put toward a car.
20:04 And there's a guy named Mike who's in this service,
20:07 who's a part of our church,
20:08 who was an older fraternity brother,
20:10 like really old guy, like 31 or 32, right?
20:13 He was way up there.
20:14 And he was an attorney and he came to me and he said,
20:16 "Hey, my mom has a house.
20:18 She'd like to sell it to somebody, you wanna buy it?"
20:20 Like, I'm not gonna buy a house.
20:21 And he showed me the numbers.
20:22 He said, "We'll carry the note."
20:24 And I took the money that I had,
20:25 put it as a down payment on my very first house.
20:28 That house right there, believe it or not, was $14,900.
20:31 After my down payment, my monthly payment was $151.66 a month.
20:35 I said to my fraternity brothers,
20:36 "You can live in here for $100 each."
20:38 Six guys moved in and I became a landlord.
20:41 (congregation laughing)
20:45 At the age of 19.
20:47 And six months later, another house came up for sale
20:49 down the street in August, I bought it for 11.9.
20:52 By the time I graduated from college,
20:54 I had four rental units and have continued to be faithful
20:59 to multiply what God has given me.
21:02 And our whole ability today to be a blessing
21:07 and to understand how to manage resources in the church
21:10 started with God's faithfulness after the very first tithe.
21:14 It's spiritual.
21:18 It's God honoring.
21:20 And scripture says it belongs to the Lord.
21:23 You can't out give God.
21:25 And some of you, you'll do what I did.
21:27 You'll go, "Okay, praise God, let's go, 10%."
21:30 Others, you can go, "Ain't no way."
21:32 And so a lot of times people go,
21:33 "Ain't no way," so you don't do nothing, okay?
21:36 If you don't do anything,
21:38 you're never gonna be more generous by doing nothing.
21:41 Let me just say, when you do nothing,
21:43 you train yourself to be not generous.
21:45 You're training yourself not to trust God
21:47 with your finances.
21:49 So if you wanna do what I did and start 10%, do it.
21:52 If you can't get there and you wanna say,
21:54 "Let's start at 3% or 5% or grow from there,"
21:57 I would just encourage you to start somewhere
22:00 because you will never accidentally be great
22:03 at being generous.
22:04 Generous people have a plan
22:06 and they stand firm in their generosity.
22:08 Mom, you can clap for that if you want to
22:10 'cause everybody else is being quiet.
22:11 (congregation applauding)
22:15 Generous people, they give willingly.
22:18 We want to be like God.
22:20 We wanna be a blessing to others.
22:22 They give proportionately.
22:24 And then this one's actually difficult.
22:26 Generous people give sacrificially.
22:29 They give sacrificially.
22:32 They don't just give when it's easy
22:35 and they don't just give when it's comfortable,
22:39 but they'll actually give in a way that they often feel it.
22:44 In fact, Jesus told a very powerful story
22:48 about a poor widow that gave sacrificially.
22:52 And he says this, Mark's gospel tells us this.
22:56 "Jesus sat down near the collection box in the temple
23:01 and watched as the crowds dropped their money in."
23:04 May I pause for a moment and say,
23:06 that's a sobering thought,
23:07 that Jesus is like looking around the column
23:10 and actually watching
23:12 and looking at the amount that people put in.
23:16 Many rich people were there and they gave what was easy.
23:19 They gave large amounts.
23:20 Then a poor widow came and dropped in two small coins.
23:27 Jesus called his disciples and he said to them,
23:31 "I tell you the truth,
23:33 this poor widow has given more than all the others
23:37 who are making contributions,
23:39 for they gave the tiniest part of their surplus."
23:43 It wasn't a sacrifice, it was easy for them.
23:44 It wasn't even a proportion, it was easy for them.
23:47 "But she, this widow, poor as she is,
23:51 has given everything that she had to live on."
23:57 Incredibly emotional, incredibly emotional.
24:01 Some of you, you are like that widow.
24:05 You are so generous with your financial resources,
24:10 with your time, with your faithfulness, with your service.
24:14 Others, not so much.
24:16 And so I would ask you just to think about
24:19 when is the last time you gave sacrificially?
24:24 When is the last time that you gave and you felt it?
24:28 And let's just call it what it is.
24:29 For some of us, it's really difficult to do that
24:33 because at some point you can have,
24:36 you can be so comfortable that you can give
24:40 what seems like a large amount to everyone else,
24:42 but we don't feel it at all.
24:43 When is the last time you've given your time,
24:48 your part, your faithfulness, your resources,
24:51 in a way that you actually felt it?
24:53 I'll tell you about a time that we felt it
24:56 and God showed up in a very special way.
24:59 We were early in the church, back in the old days
25:02 when we only had four kids.
25:03 We had a starter family, just a little starter family,
25:07 two more to come.
25:08 And I was exhausted, pretty burned out,
25:11 and had been saving for our first real vacation
25:15 that we had since the beginning of the church
25:16 and had enough money saved to go on a 10-day vacation
25:20 we were really, really excited about.
25:22 And there was a couple in our life group
25:24 that had been praying to adopt for quite some time.
25:27 And they had a lead and it fell through.
25:29 And they had another, it's gonna happen,
25:31 and it fell through.
25:31 And they had another one, you get to adopt,
25:34 and it fell through.
25:35 And finally, they got the green light.
25:38 A little girl from another country,
25:40 they were gonna get to adopt,
25:41 but they just had a massive financial setback.
25:45 And they had always been ready,
25:47 now financially they were not ready,
25:50 and they had a significant gap.
25:53 Well, the significant gap was about a 10-day vacation worth
25:58 that Amy and I had saved up.
26:01 So we're sitting there in life group with this family,
26:07 going, we could actually take the money
26:09 we had set aside for ourselves
26:10 and we could give it to them.
26:12 Or we could give them a little portion
26:14 and pray that everybody else gives them some, right?
26:17 'Cause I don't wanna do that.
26:19 And the more we prayed about it
26:21 and the more Amy and the Holy Spirit talked to me,
26:23 they're...
26:24 (congregation laughing)
26:26 Sometimes I get them confused.
26:28 Is that Amy or is that the Holy Spirit?
26:29 Is that Amy or is that the Holy Spirit?
26:32 I came around to not only, not reluctant, but willing.
26:37 Yeah, God, this is the right thing.
26:39 Yes, let's do this.
26:41 And said, hey, we wanna take our vacation money
26:44 and provide for your adoption.
26:46 They said, no, no, no.
26:47 Yes, you can't talk us out of this.
26:48 This is what God's called us to do.
26:51 And we gave, no strings attached.
26:53 And that felt like a sacrifice
26:55 because I felt like if I don't get time away,
26:58 I was the early years of the church.
27:00 I don't know if I can go on.
27:00 It felt that real to me at the time.
27:03 And lo and behold, you cannot out give God.
27:07 A sweet family from the church came up to us
27:10 a few days later and said,
27:11 "Hey, we have a condo in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
27:17 Would you guys like to go and stay there free?"
27:20 Let me pray about it.
27:21 Yes, we would.
27:24 And I'll show you a picture of this condo.
27:26 This is little Anna, who's now married,
27:29 sitting over here next to Luke with a baby and a dog.
27:31 That's Anna coming down the condo.
27:33 And this is Amy with the four kids that we have.
27:36 And we had the most peaceful, most restful time that year
27:40 that we went back to Steamboat the next year
27:42 and the next year and the next year and the next year.
27:45 And eventually we outgrew their condo
27:47 and we had the resources to rent a bigger condo
27:50 and rent a bigger one and a bigger one.
27:51 For 23 years straight, my family has gone back to that place
27:56 because it's the place where God refreshes my soul.
27:58 And I sit there and think to myself,
28:03 I gave sacrificially.
28:06 I felt it.
28:08 And God gave back extravagantly.
28:13 Because I wanna promise you, you just can't outgive God.
28:17 And so when it comes to your money, let's just remember,
28:22 God never said to be great at spending on yourself.
28:26 And you gotta admit, we got a generation
28:30 that can hit click buy faster than anybody.
28:33 There's so many boxes coming to your house,
28:34 you better get the UPS guy Christmas present.
28:37 Bible never said be great at spending on yourself.
28:41 The Bible never said be great at finding the best bargains.
28:45 And the Bible never said to be great
28:48 at storing up for yourself treasures on earth
28:50 where moth and rust destroy,
28:53 but be great at storing up treasures in heaven.
28:57 Be great, excel at the ministry of giving
29:01 because giving is spiritual, it is a ministry.
29:04 And so let's not be like the Corinthians
29:09 and let's not be like me in the line when God prompts you.
29:13 But let's give willingly, joyfully, hilariously, thankfully,
29:18 and let's give proportionally.
29:19 Let's start with the tithe.
29:20 I'm not a starting point.
29:22 10% back to God,
29:23 then we're gonna give offerings above there.
29:24 I know it sounds crazy, but you watch as God shows up.
29:26 Let's start there and let's be givers.
29:29 And then every now and then when God prompts you,
29:31 let's give sacrificially.
29:34 And what you may find is you just can't outgive God
29:39 because when you give, you may never be more like God
29:42 for God so loved the world that he gave,
29:45 you may never be more like God than when you give.
29:49 So Father, we thank you for an amazing church of people
29:54 that are growing in generosity.
29:56 Thank you that you enable our church to give,
30:01 to give the Bible app, to give free resources,
30:03 to give to churches around the world,
30:06 to give to people in need, to give to ministries,
30:08 not just money, but to give people,
30:10 to give time to make a difference.
30:13 God, help us to be great, to excel at generosity.
30:18 As you're praying today, I hope this is all of you.
30:20 Every one of you that's a believer, I hope this is you,
30:22 but how many would say, I really do, I wanna honor,
30:24 I wanna be like God, I wanna be generous,
30:25 I wanna be great at being generous.
30:27 Would you raise your hands right now?
30:28 Lift up your hands and praise God for you.
30:30 Online, just type in the comment section,
30:31 I wanna be great at generosity.
30:34 Father, stir within our hearts,
30:37 give us faith, God, give us an abundant mindset.
30:42 God, give us, we talked about last week,
30:44 give us the barn mindset, the barn blessings
30:48 to give first and to trust you.
30:50 And God, whether it's a portion of a lot
30:54 or a portion of a little,
30:56 may our hearts be right before you.
30:59 Give us eyes to see, opportunities to give,
31:04 to be a blessing, to empower your church,
31:08 to bless people that are in need,
31:11 to occasionally give spontaneously,
31:13 but to often give strategically,
31:16 to plan to be generous and to be people of God
31:22 who stand firm in their generosity.
31:24 As you keep praying today, nobody looking around,
31:28 I wanna tell you about a generous God.
31:30 There is no one more generous.
31:32 How did God give?
31:35 For God so loved the world.
31:38 Let me just make it more personal.
31:40 God loved you so much.
31:44 Even while you sinned against him, he sent his son,
31:49 God so loved you that he gave his one and only son, Jesus.
31:54 How did God give?
31:56 God planned, God planned to send his son.
31:58 It was his plan and purpose to send Jesus.
32:01 God gave his son willingly.
32:03 God gave his first, he gave his first, he gave the first.
32:10 And God gave sacrificially,
32:13 the most sacrificial gift ever.
32:15 Jesus, the son of God who never sinned,
32:17 the lamb of God who was slain
32:19 for the forgiveness of our sins.
32:21 Jesus gave his life in our place on a cross
32:25 and God raised him from the dead
32:27 so that anyone, doesn't matter what you've done,
32:29 doesn't matter how dark your life is,
32:30 doesn't matter how far from God you feel,
32:34 anyone who calls on that name,
32:36 the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus,
32:39 your sins would all be forgiven.
32:42 Your old would be passed away
32:44 and you would become completely new.
32:46 There are those of you around the world,
32:48 there are those of you in church right now,
32:49 you're not here by accident,
32:51 you're here because God is loving you toward him.
32:54 What do you do?
32:55 You just step away from your old life,
32:56 step away from your sin and say, yes, Jesus,
32:58 I receive your gift, the gift of eternal life,
33:02 the gift of salvation.
33:03 He gave his gift and you receive it.
33:05 Those who say, yes, I step away from my sin,
33:08 I step away from the old, today by faith,
33:10 I give my life to Jesus, I receive his gift,
33:12 I give my life to him, that's your prayer.
33:15 Lift your hands high right now, all over the place
33:17 and say, yes, that's my prayer.
33:18 Right here, praise God for you.
33:20 Others today saying, yes, right back over here,
33:22 yes, praise God for all of you.
33:24 Say, yes, I call on Jesus, I surrender to him.
33:28 Those of you online, just type in the comment section,
33:31 I am surrendering my life to Jesus
33:34 and today, wherever you are, we all pray together.
33:36 Would you pray aloud, pray, heavenly Father.
33:38 Heavenly Father.
33:39 Thank you for the gift.
33:40 Thank you for the gift.
33:41 Of sending your son.
33:43 Of sending your son.
33:44 I give my life to him.
33:45 I give my life to him.
33:46 Jesus, forgive me.
33:47 Jesus, forgive me.
33:49 Save me.
33:49 Save me.
33:50 From all of my sins.
33:52 From all of my sins.
33:53 Make me brand new.
33:54 Make me brand new.
33:54 Fill me with your spirit.
33:56 Fill me with your spirit.
33:57 So I could know you and serve you and follow you.
34:01 Make me like you, full of love,
34:05 full of compassion and full of generosity
34:10 to show your love to a world that needs you.
34:16 Thank you for new life.
34:18 I give you all of mine.
34:20 In Jesus name, I pray.
34:23 Hey, could somebody worship right now?
34:24 Somebody tell God, thank you for who you are.
34:26 Thank you God for what you have done.
34:28 (congregation applauding)