Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Hey, New Life Gillette Church, we are thrilled you decided to listen to our teaching on your favorite podcast app. If you made a decision to follow Christ today, would you let us know by visiting? Yes.newlife gillette.com Here is this week's teaching.
[00:00:25] I want to say good morning to everybody joining us online on Church 307 to our friends down at the prison who join us every week. We're so glad that you're with us today. We're going to be in Malachi chapter three. So if you have a Bible with you, open up to Malachi chapter three.
[00:00:39] Before we jump in today, today is the last week of our generosity series. And I just want to share with you some things that we're celebrating that are related to generosity. First off, this whole month we've been telling you how we need 30 volunteers to staff our kids ministry for our three services next week. And last week we had 15.
[00:00:59] Well, guess what?
[00:01:01] Since last Sunday, 18 people have signed up. We have 33 volunteers. Absolutely. We're ready to go. We're really, really excited about this. Also, at the beginning of this series, we shared with you that someone in the church, in their generosity had funded a child rescue through Hope of Life International. Hope of Life rescues children who are malnourished or have medical issues and provides life saving care. And someone had donated that well since then, for a total this month, we have rescued three infants through your generosity.
[00:01:36] Absolutely. We, we had a family in the church through a local business, make a $25,000 donation to Blessings in a Backpack this week, which is going to feed a lot of kids over the weekend. Yeah, you, that deserves some clapping. All right.
[00:01:50] In addition to that, we've got 21 teens who are headed to camp this week and through parents and fundraising and you guys supporting the fundraising and a donor in the church stepping up pretty big all of that combined, those te are fully funded. All their scholarships are paid for, and we're like halfway paid for next year already.
[00:02:09] So. Yeah, I want you to see. We've been talking for this whole month about how generosity is about our hearts. That's 100% true. It is. But it's also about impact. Both of those things can be true at the same time. And when we trust God with our finances, he saves lives. He feeds kids, he takes teens to a camp where they are going to encounter Christ in a way they might not encounter him otherwise.
[00:02:37] Lives actually change when we surrender our hearts to the Lord and trust him with our finances. Amen.
[00:02:43] All right, we are going to read A very positive and uplifting passage of scripture. Today we're going to start reading in Malachi, chapter three, verse six.
[00:02:52] I, the Lord, do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors, you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty. But you ask, how are we to return? Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. I told you. Uplifting.
[00:03:14] But you ask, how are we robbing you in tithes and offerings? It keeps getting better because you are under a curse. Your whole nation because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and po so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it's ripe, says the Lord Almighty. Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land, says the Lord Almighty.
[00:03:56] Let's pray.
[00:03:59] God, this is your church. This is your word. You are holy God. This morning and every morning, we get to try it out for just a second of what it's like when every creature on heaven and earth and under the earth bows their knee and proclaims that you are Lord. And we get to taste heaven for just a second. Thank you for that.
[00:04:20] God, today, as we open your word, would you speak to us? We don't need my opinions. If my opinions are in the sermon, let. Let us notice them and throw them away.
[00:04:30] But anything that's in this sermon that's consistent with your character and faithful to your word, would you plant it in our hearts that it would grow up and that we would become like you? Jesus, we love you.
[00:04:41] Amen.
[00:04:43] Have a question for you. Who here is a runner? Anybody like to run? Anybody? We got some runners. Okay. We got. Not as many as in first service. Praise the Lord. I don't understand.
[00:04:51] I don't understand why someone would run. Honestly, I don't understand why humans would develop the urge to run. I think it's unpatriotic to run.
[00:04:59] I don't think it's with the founding fathers.
[00:05:02] These colors don't run. I'm a patriot. And I just think if you could imagine looking Paul Revere in the eyes and telling him you're a runner and the red coats aren't even coming wow. He'd roll over in his grave.
[00:05:13] I'm kidding. I say all this out of insecurity. I wish I was a runner. I want to run. I want to be a runner so bad. I think people who run, people who run marathons, people who run ultimarathons, I think it's so cool. It's so impressive. It seems superhuman to me. I mean, it's really, really cool. And I've tried over the years a few different to become a runner.
[00:05:34] I bought running shoes.
[00:05:38] Turns out that didn't work.
[00:05:40] Turns out I thought maybe if I could make. If I could get the right shoes, if I had the right gear and it was a little more comfortable, that I would want to run. Turns out I just looked at the shoes.
[00:05:48] That's all it did.
[00:05:49] I bought one of those Fitbit things. I bought a knockoff, those that vibrate on your wrist and tell you when you're supposed to be up and moving. And it's fitness tracker and stuff. And I took it off. I just turned it off. I didn't like it vibrating to remind me to run. I didn't like that. So that didn't work. But I thought maybe that would motivate me to run. It didn't for a while. I started running with people.
[00:06:11] I thought maybe having friends to hang out with, that running would be more fun if I did it with people. Turns out I hate running more than I liked them, and I quit running with them.
[00:06:22] So none of that worked. I am still not a runner. I thought that there was a way I could kind of hack running, that I could make it more fun and then I would want to do it. But probably everybody here who's ever tried it or is a runner.
[00:06:37] You know that you become a runner by running, not by liking it, right? You learn to like running after you do it. You don't just wake up one morning and think, you know, it would be fun. 26.2 miles, that'd be fun. That's not how it works.
[00:06:50] In fact, here's what I learned. I learned that if I want to become a runner, that I have to care more about becoming a runner than I care about being comfortable.
[00:07:00] That's the only way it's going to work.
[00:07:02] In fact, I want to put that on the screen.
[00:07:06] If I'm going to become anything, I have to care more about who I'm becoming than I care about being comfortable. If I want to kick the addiction, if I want to develop good habits, if I want to be a better husband, if I want to be a better parent, if I want to be a better spouse, I have to care more about who I'm becoming than about being comfortable. Because the Lord changes me. The Lord saves me, the Holy Spirit empowers me. But the Holy Spirit doesn't have a habit of making things comfortable.
[00:07:34] At some point, I have to decide to do the uncomfortable thing. And then the Holy Spirit meets me in my obedience and multiplies and brings about actual change.
[00:07:42] But I've got to be more concerned about who I'm becoming than I am about being comfortable right now.
[00:07:50] If I'm going to become anything, here's the thing.
[00:07:54] Generosity. Being generous is something almost everyone would like to become.
[00:08:00] There are very few people on Earth who think that generosity is a poor trait for a human to have. Most of us would think, yeah, I'd like to be a generous person. That's why we have philanthropists. That's why you can read news articles about billionaires giving away lots of money. And we hear that amount, wow, they wrote a really big check. What a generous person.
[00:08:21] We like that. We aspire to be that. But I think we all probably know, at least I know for me, that there's a difference in my aspirations and wanting to become generous and who I am.
[00:08:34] And I think that gap is comfort.
[00:08:38] See, I think we think about generosity like this circle right here. I want to show you. Here's how we think about generosity and becoming generous. We imagine that this circle, this white circle, represents everything I have. So this is my money, my things, my resources, the valuable, monetarily valuable things in my life. This is what I have.
[00:08:57] And then this spot right here in the bottom that's filled in, what we imagine is that that's what I'm comfortable giving away.
[00:09:03] So I have all this. This is what I could pretty comfortably, pretty reasonably give away right now. So there's this amount. And what we think of is that generosity is an amount.
[00:09:15] Because we hear stories of people writing big checks, we hear stories of people making big commitments. So we imagine being more generous means giving away a bigger amount. So because we think of generosity as an think we have to become more generous. Let me show you two circles.
[00:09:33] We think what we have has to grow.
[00:09:36] That's what it means to become more generous. If I'm going to increase in generosity, then I have to have more things because I'm comfortable giving this much away. So if I have more things, then the amount I can comfortably give away, the amount I can comfortably be generous with will increase as well. So, God, if you Want me to be generous, then bless me with more. And if you bless me with more, then I can be generous with a larger amount. Mount.
[00:10:04] Throughout the Book of Malachi, we see the people of Israel interacting with the same idea. Basically, historically, the Book of Malachi happens after the people of Israel come back to their homeland. They had sinned over a very long, extended period of time. Period of time. And God had finally punished them for their sins. And many of them, most of them, had been exiled to a different land.
[00:10:29] But God kept His promise. He was faithful to them, and he brought them back to their home, to Israel, to Jerusalem, the place they longed to be that he had promised them. But the thing is, they get back and they're kind of imagining that getting back home, everything's going to be great, right Back there, things are comfortable, things are easy. Have you ever noticed how the grass is always greener over there?
[00:10:51] It's always greener somewhere else. Right. It's not true the grass is greener where you water it, but we always imagine that over there things are better.
[00:10:59] So they're imagining once we get home that everything's going to be easy. But they get home and things are pretty uncomfortable. They get home and there are other people that have moved into the land, and now they're competing for the limited resources with the other people that are there. And there are pagan religions that have infiltrated the people living there, and they're kind of in a drought. And they also find that the city and the temple and these things haven't been kept up very well. So there's a lot of work to do. When they get home, they're not in a very comfortable position at all.
[00:11:32] So the Book of Malachi is this conversation between God and his people, talking about what the people are doing and how they're relating to God. And God starts by saying, look, I have loved you from the beginning. I've always loved you. I've always been faithful to you. I kept my promises. And the people of Israel say, in effect, what do you mean?
[00:11:50] Look at our circumstances. If you loved us, things would be a lot easier. Things would be a lot more comfortable right now. And God's response is, hey, look, I held up my end of the deal, I was faithful, I brought you home, but you're not holding up your end of the deal. And they say, what do you mean, we're not holding up our end of the deal? So here's God's first objection. In Malachi 1, he says, you're bringing in defiled offerings that's the first thing he says, the offerings you're bringing to my temple are defiled. The people of Israel lived in a sacrificial system.
[00:12:22] So what that meant was, and this goes all the way back to Cain and Abel really, is to acknowledge the severity of their sin, that when they sin, to acknowledge that sin demands death, that sin is bad, it separates them from God. They would bring in an offering, sometimes a crop, usually an animal, and that that animal would be sacrificed, would be killed on the altar as an offering to the Lord. And this represents the holiness of God and the severity of sin and the distance and the death that sin demands and shows us God's love and his protection of us even in the midst of our sin. Now you can imagine that what they're supposed to do is bring in a significant offering because sin is significant, right?
[00:13:00] They're supposed to. They're instructed to bring in an unblemished, blemished animal to bring in the first fruits of their crops. Don't bring in the stuff that the weevils ate, bring in the good stuff. They're instructed to bring in usually a firstborn male animal that's strong because that represents, because that costs something, right? And that represents the price of sin.
[00:13:19] But the people had effectively said, look, God, you haven't given us enough to bring in the good stuff. So they're bringing in, they're bringing in the old worn out offerings, they're bringing in the crops that are diseased, they're bringing in the animals that are sick. They're effectively saying, look, that one was going to die anyway, so give that one to God. It won't hurt us at all to give that one to God.
[00:13:38] They're saying, oh, that one's got a bad leg. It can't pull a cart anyway, we'll sacrifice the one that's blind or we'll sacrifice the one that's got a bad leg, because we can afford to lose that. We can't afford to lose the good stuff right now. And they're basically saying to God, look, if you want us to bring in the good stuff, you got to give us more good stuff.
[00:13:54] All right? If we're going to bring the good stuff to you, give us more of it, and then we'll be comfortable giving back to you what you've asked, right? Make we want to give the amount, but you got to give us more if you want us to do that.
[00:14:08] And then they start divorcing their wives for seemingly no reason. The men are basically like trading up. I'm not comfortable in this relationship. I'm going to go get a different relationship. That's what they're starting to do. And, and in addition to that, they're intermarrying with the people around them. And they're not just intermarrying but they're adopting the worship practices, the pagan beliefs of the people around them. And kind of what they're doing is they're saying, look, God, I know you're the provider and you've kept the promises thus far, but because currently I don't really see your provision currently things are pretty uncomfortable. I'm going to worship you, but just in case, I'm also going to worship this idol a little bit because you haven't come through yet. So just to make sure that my bases are covered, I'm going to worship this other God a little bit. I've got a backup plan just in case you don't come through, which in marriage we call that having a side chick.
[00:14:58] And it's bad, for the record, it's very bad.
[00:15:02] Same thing in religion. They're worshiping God like, yeah, look, I'm loyal, faithful to you, you're the provider. But also just in case I don't get what I need, I've got a little bit of, I've got a little bit of other worship over here to make sure all my bases are covered, right? God, if you would increase the amount. God, if you would just. If you would just increase the amount, we would give all our worship to you because then we wouldn't have to trust anything, right? They're basically saying, look, God, I'll trust you once you come through.
[00:15:29] Can I say that again?
[00:15:31] They're basically saying, look, God, I'll trust you once you come through.
[00:15:35] Prove again that we can count on you and then we'll fully trust you. Increase the amount so it's comfortable and we'll do it. Which for the record, it's not trust if it's proven, it's not trust if it's a guarantee.
[00:15:48] That's just knowledge.
[00:15:51] It's trust if you're not sure but you're choosing to believe anyway.
[00:15:57] So they're saying, God, increase the amount.
[00:16:01] And then we get to chapter three and God says, you're robbing me. You haven't brought in the full amount, the full tithe. Well, God, why would we bring in the full tithe? You haven't given us enough yet.
[00:16:13] Bring in more, we'll give you more.
[00:16:18] Do you notice what God's answer is?
[00:16:21] Bring in the full tithe.
[00:16:24] Anyone know what the word tithe means?
[00:16:29] 10%.
[00:16:31] The Hebrew word literally means a 10th or 10%. A tithe is not a gift. A tithe is 10%.
[00:16:39] So what does God say? Bring the full percentage into the storehouse.
[00:16:45] Bring the full tithe into the storehouse. In other words, what we have to see, what God's saying is that generosity is a percentage.
[00:16:57] It's not an amount.
[00:17:01] Generosity is a percentage.
[00:17:04] It's not an amount. God never gives his people an amount that they're supposed to give. He doesn't say, go fundraise this amount and bring it in to me. No, he tells each of them to bring in a percentage. 10%. That's literally what it means. God's answer to their struggles is bring in the full percentage. Now that's really important because comparison so easily draws our hearts as humans. Have you noticed that comparison? So it captures us so deeply. We look at other people and we say, oh, if I had what they had, if I lived in their life, if I had their husband, if I had their wife, things would be so much better. And when it comes to generosity, what we do is we read these stories and we know people who have a lot to give.
[00:17:49] So they write big checks, they give big amounts, and we think, oh man, they're so generous. I'll never be able to be generous like they are.
[00:17:57] And then what we say is, well, that means my gift doesn't even matter, right? Why would I even give? I mean, I can't even be generous because I can't give the amount they do.
[00:18:07] But generosity is not an amount, it's a percentage. So you can't compare amounts when it comes to trust, obedience. I want to show you three more circles.
[00:18:19] This is what increasing generosity looks like.
[00:18:22] Increasing generosity does not mean what I have increases.
[00:18:27] Increasing generosity is when the percent increases.
[00:18:31] Growing in generosity is growing in trust.
[00:18:35] Because if what I have increases, I'm not trusting God anymore when I'm generous.
[00:18:41] But if the percent increases, then my trust in him has to increase because I'm taking what I could use for myself and giving it to be used for his kingdom.
[00:18:52] So therefore, I have to trust him to give me what I need for myself. Increasing generosity is not about having more to give.
[00:18:58] It's about giving what I have.
[00:19:01] Can I say that again?
[00:19:03] Nobody ever amens in a money sermon.
[00:19:08] Increasing generosity is not about having more to give.
[00:19:13] It's about giving what I have.
[00:19:16] Why?
[00:19:17] Because of that comparison. Because it's about trust. Because it's about fully trusting God and what we want to do is we want to say, like I said before, I can't give what they can. I can't be generous. I'm not a very generous person. I'm barely paying the bills this month. I'm not a generous person. That's not me. And we look at other people who give these giant checks and we say they're generous. But then if you're the type of person who can give a of people lot, right, Then we're tempted to look at other people who can't and think, look at the amount I gave.
[00:19:44] I'm generous.
[00:19:46] But here's the thing. There are tiny gifts given that represent extreme generosity because they were a high percentage. And there are huge checks written that represent no generosity at all because it was such a small percentage, because it has nothing to do with the amount. Generosity as a trait of the human heart has nothing to do with with the amount. It has to do with the percentage. We see this clearly in the New Testament. In the New Testament, there's a story called the widow's might.
[00:20:12] And in this story, Jesus and his disciples are watching people come in and bring in their offerings.
[00:20:20] And they're effectively these wealthy men who are making a show of their giving, right? Effectively what they're doing is they're coming in and very loudly saying, sure, I'll add another zero to that ch. Check. And making sure everybody knows.
[00:20:33] And then a clearly poor widow comes in and drops in. Two mites is what it says, which is effectively some change, a couple of quarters, couple of dimes, something like that. Very tiny amount. Jesus leans over his disciples, hey, see that widow?
[00:20:50] She gave the most generous gift given today.
[00:20:54] They're like, what? That's not true. They gave way bigger amounts.
[00:20:58] And Jesus isn't saying, well, we can feed more poor people with the two mites. He's not saying we can preach the gospel more effectively with the two mites. He's saying her gift was more generous.
[00:21:08] Why? He says, because they out of their wealth gave very little. But she, out of her poverty, gave all she had to live on.
[00:21:16] In other words, they gave a tiny percentage.
[00:21:20] She gave a big one.
[00:21:22] It was increasing generosity.
[00:21:26] So we can't look at one another and say, I don't have what they have. I can't give like they do because it's generosity. It's generosity. It's trust. It's a percentage. But on the other side of that, if we have a lot to give, we can't look at the amount that we can give and say, hey, look at Me, I'm such a generous person. Because generosity is living in trust and obedience. It's bringing in the full percentage. It's fully trusting the Lord. And the thing is, Scripture is fully.
[00:21:53] We have to say this when we're talking about money and we're talking about wealth and we're already uncomfortable. Let's get more uncomfortable. Because we have to talk about all of the times in Scripture where God cautions us against the allure of wealth.
[00:22:05] First Timothy, chapter six, we read that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. But godliness with contentment is great gain. Money isn't evil. Having things isn't evil. Having a boat or a vacation house isn't evil. But the love of money is a draw on our hearts. Why? Because it's so tied to our identity.
[00:22:25] Usually when we think of ourselves, when we think of our future, when we think of our safety, we think of how much we're going to have.
[00:22:31] Usually when we think of retirement, we think of where we're going to retire and what we're going to buy and what golf resort we're going to have passes to or. I don't know. I don't golf. I don't know if it's a. I don't know. Anyway, that's what we think about. We think about an amount and a comfort level when we get there.
[00:22:45] That is what I'm going to have. So the more money we have, the more comfort we're giving away when we're generous. That's why Jesus said, do not be fooled. God cannot be mocked. Man cannot serve two masters. He will hate one and love the other.
[00:22:57] Man cannot serve both God and money because it draws our hearts. There's another story where Jesus interacts with a man called the rich young ruler. What do we know about him? He was rich and young and a ruler. It's a very creative name. And he doesn't want to give anything away. He doesn't want to trust God with his finances because it's his identity.
[00:23:17] And Jesus says something terrifying. He says it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for the wealthy to get into the kingdom of heaven. Which is a horrifying statement because in general, if you're an American, you're in the top 5% or so of wealth in the world.
[00:23:36] But he says later, with God, all things are possible because finances have such a draw on our hearts.
[00:23:44] So I want you to know, if you're here and you have a lot, if you Have a lot that you can give. One of the most spiritual things you can do is give.
[00:23:55] I realize that's an uncomfortable thing to say, but it's true. Because what you're doing is you're actively resisting the pull that finances have. You're actively resisting one of the primary temptations that's on your heart. You know, when we don't have a lot. The interesting thing about not having a lot of is that we live in dependence on God.
[00:24:15] My wife and I were missionaries.
[00:24:17] I'm not going to say giving was easy because it certainly wasn't. But we were kind of dependent on God all the time for anything. We were dependent on God for Christmas presents and for our groceries most months and for just about everything.
[00:24:29] So it wasn't that hard to imagine God providing and we could just trust Him. It was our day in, day out, right? If you're trusting God to pay the bills this month, then trust is.
[00:24:40] It's pretty normal for you. But the more we have, the easier it is to not have to trust.
[00:24:45] Because what we convince ourselves is that, oh, I've got enough.
[00:24:48] I actually don't need God to bail me out. I don't need God to do anything for me this month. I'm good. I earned it, I made it. And because it's ours, we have a hard time trusting it because we can't see. We don't see his provision constantly. We have a harder time surrendering it to the Lord. So I just want you to know, if you have a lot to give, I hope you're looking for opportunities to give. I hope you are looking for the chances to be generous. Because generosity is a basic trait of following Jesus and because you have the opportunity to give in such a way that it makes a very, very significant impact. It affects your heart and it impacts the world around you. So I hope that you're looking for opportunities to trust the Lord financially by giving generously. This is how we trust the Lord with our resources. Whether we have little or whether we have much is in generosity.
[00:25:31] Did you see what God said after. After he said, bring the full tithe into the storehouse. Did you notice it? He said, test me in this. Do you know how many times in the Bible God tells us to test Him?
[00:25:45] One?
[00:25:47] Only once. In fact, other places we're told, don't test the Lord, but here he says, test me.
[00:25:54] Why? Because he knows how much it has our hearts. He knows how easy it is for our finances to be, our identity to be our security to be everything.
[00:26:04] So he says, you know what? Test me. Put me to the test. Try it out and see. It's crazy. God's giving us a good reason to not be generous. If he doesn't come through, then don't do it.
[00:26:16] If he proves unfaithful, then you don't have to be generous. Test me and see if I will not open the floodgates of heaven. And look, he doesn't say, I'm going to make you wealthy. What he says is, your crops will grow, they won't rot, they won't wither. Basically, what he says is, you. You will get the return for what you want for your work. Right? He doesn't promise to make us super rich. He promises to give us everything we need, though.
[00:26:37] Test the Lord and see if he will not open the floodgates of heaven. We can trust him because he says, call my bluff and see if you bring in the full percentage. If you trust me, try it and see if I won't be faithful.
[00:26:55] See, here's the thing. We've been hinting at it all morning, but I want to make it as explicitly clear as possible. Trust leads to generosity, and generosity leads to trust. If I trust God, if I am living in genuine dependence on God, if I am living trusting him to be the source of everything that I need, then generosity is one of the natural fruits of that. Because I'm going to look at what I have and say, hey, it's not mine anyway. God gave it to me. He's the provider. I can give it away. He'll give me more if he wants me to have more. And it's fine because he is the One that I trust to, and he is the one that I depend on. Generosity is the natural outflow of trust. But if you're having a hard time trusting the Lord, do you know the best thing you can do to learn trust?
[00:27:36] Be generous. Because God says, test me and see.
[00:27:40] Give it away and see if I won't provide.
[00:27:43] Choose to be generous and see if I won't follow through. If you don't believe you can trust me, try it out. If you have trust in the Lord, generosity will flow out. If you struggle with trust, generosity will lead you to trust. Trust leads to generosity and generosity leads to trust. Which means the more we do of each, the more we do of the other.
[00:28:05] It affects our hearts.
[00:28:08] We trust the abundant generosity of God and it makes an impact.
[00:28:17] I brought a monkey on stage with me today.
[00:28:20] You probably can't see it. It's a tiny little monkey. It's probably worthless it is made of seashells and clay.
[00:28:26] Looks like something you would get in a gas station in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
[00:28:33] I've had this monkey for as long as I can remember, and it has sat on my desk for my whole adult life.
[00:28:41] I am pretty sure that I got this monkey from Papa Joe.
[00:28:47] Papa Joe was a businessman in western North Carolina, where I and my dad grew up.
[00:28:53] And he owned auto shops and a few different businesses. And he was wealthy. Papa Joe had money. Papa Joe had, like, classic car collection with a Rolls Royce in there kind of money. Like, he had money.
[00:29:08] Everybody you've ever met that knew Papa Joe would have described him as one thing, though, and it was generous.
[00:29:14] My dad was a professional kickboxer, and he was into cars. So he wound up in his speed shops, in Joe's speed shops a lot. Because Joe would promote fights, and he'd let him hang posters and stuff.
[00:29:24] My dad and Joe got to know each other until finally one day in 1984, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the floor of the speed shop, they knelt down and Joe led my dad to Christ.
[00:29:35] And I am here in a very direct way because of Joe.
[00:29:41] Funny thing about Joe is he had a lot of money, but it didn't have him.
[00:29:46] He'd have given it away in a heartbeat. He gave it away all the time. My dad eventually became a pastor, and Joe went to a different church in town. And I'm sure he tithes there, but every once in a while, he would show up at the church my dad pastored, and before he left, he would drop a check in the offering plate. Y' all remember when you used to offering plates, Some of you, Y' all right? Yeah.
[00:30:05] He would drop a check in the offering plate, and it would usually have my dad's name on it. And then on the way out the door, he'd say, hey, I put a little something in there to make sure y' all have everything you need.
[00:30:15] Just out of the abundance of his heart, he would just give.
[00:30:19] And he collected these little trinket things and toys and stuff. And sometimes when my parents would take us to his shop, he'd just let us pick something out.
[00:30:29] Go grab whatever you want. And so, for some reason, I picked this dumb monkey one of these times, but I keep it because of Joe. I barely knew him, but he was a clear picture of what it looks like when someone has surrendered and trusted God, when they have the freedom of surrender and the freedom of generosity and the impact.
[00:30:52] Because I can tell you, 40 some odd years later, I still think of him almost every day, even though I barely knew him.
[00:31:00] I can tell you every sermon that my dad preached after that was directly tied to Joe.
[00:31:06] And now we're a couple, we're a generation later. And I can look back and I can say, somebody's generosity, somebody's generous heart is impacting me.
[00:31:17] It's impacting my family, it's impacting my church.
[00:31:20] What I'm telling you is that generosity is about our hearts and it's also about impact. And it's about both. That when we trust God, he uses us to actually make a difference in the world around us. When we trust him, he proves faithful to us and he actually does create and impact and make a difference. That he is faithful to us and he is faithful to use us. That if you want to see the world change, generosity is one of the first steps.
[00:31:49] Its heart and its impact, both are true.
[00:31:53] Trust leads to generosity and generosity leads to trust. Because you will see God's faithfulness in you, and you will see his faithfulness through you.
[00:32:02] We've been in this series for four weeks now, and we said in the beginning that we were going to ask for you to give, but not yet. In fact, you probably saw these cards that you almost sat on when you came in and you were like, oh, cool.
[00:32:17] And we've spent four weeks doing this because we didn't want this to be an emotional story with a monkey and then just try to. To convince anyone to give. We wanted to explain it biblically from Cain and Abel, and we wanted to hear it from multiple perspectives, and we wanted to hear the testimonies of people who have been generous. And we wanted to be able to talk about the impact of generosity on other people and the freedom of generosity in our own hearts so that we actually see both clearly the biblical truth related to our finances and practically the experience and testimony of what happens when we trust the Lord. We wanted us to be able to see this and make an informed decision.
[00:32:51] So today I want to ask you to do something.
[00:32:54] What I'm going to ask you to do is to take a step of generosity. I'm going to ask you to fill out this card while we're worshiping as to end the service. I want you to fill out this card, and then we're not going to have anybody come forward or anything like that. I just want to ask you, either while we're worshiping or on your way out, to drop this card in one of the offering boxes, the black boxes that are along the wall. On the way out, why do we ask you to fill out a card?
[00:33:17] Because if you don't say it out loud, it almost never happens, right?
[00:33:21] You had a crush on her for all of eighth grade, but she didn't know it, right? It's not real until you say it out loud. And she can say yes or no, which for me, it was no, for the record.
[00:33:34] So you fill out the card. And then there's three boxes. The bottom one says Life Giver.
[00:33:40] We've created the Life Giver Campaign at New Life to help us as a church learn to be generous. We know there are some of us here today that you might be thinking, T.J. i'd love to be able to tithe. There's not a chance I could do that. I'd have to change so much in my life right now. Maybe I can get there. Maybe God will help me get there. But I can't get there right now. But I'd like to take a step. The Life Giver campaign is the step for you. You go onto our website, you sign up to become a life giver. A life giver is someone who makes a recurring donation of $20 or more. It's doing something, $20 or more a week.
[00:34:14] And maybe today your step is just to do something, just to give something. And you're going to say, you know what? I can become a life giver. I can do that. I can take that step of trusting God and seeing impact. And maybe you've been a life giver for a while. You're in a place where you know that tithing is the step you need to take. Tithing is the practice that Christians all throughout church history, all through the New Testament, all the way back to the Old Old Testament, have practiced as the baseline of generosity. We do not live under the law of the Old Testament. In the time of Malachi, it was a law that they had to tithe. We live in the freedom of Christ, which means tithing is the baseline expectation of generosity for believers. Radical generosity is what we're taught through Christ.
[00:34:55] 10% giving, the first 10% of what, what comes in backs to God through the local church is the baseline of generosity that Christians have practiced throughout the generations. So maybe for you, it's that step of obedience. And look, if you're. If you're thinking, C.J. look, I know I should tithe, but I'm not doing it at a church that asked me to tithe. We said in the beginning, Let me say it again, Tithe to a different church in town. Keep Coming here, tithes to Hope of Life International, tithes to Blessings in a backpack. I don't think that's the way God intended it, but it's better for you to learn the practice, practice of giving, the practice of generosity, than it is for our budget to get bigger, because this is about our hearts and it's about impact. Once again, I believe we're supposed to bring it into our local community because that's where we're invested, that's where we serve. That's where we share the gospel. It's where we grow. But if you're not there yet, okay, just take a step.
[00:35:44] And the last box says above and beyond. And underneath it says, we'll help you find where to give. Maybe you're here this morning and you have the ability to give multiple.
[00:35:52] You can give above 10%. And. And you want to learn to give sacrificially. And if that's you, I want you to check that box. And either myself or our executive pastor, Seth, will reach out to you. And we're going to give you some opportunities to give. And a couple of them will probably be here at New Life, but a lot of them are going to be other places. We'll tell you about Hope of Life International and we'll tell you about. We'll tell you about the church plants that we support, and we'll tell you about Blessings in a Backpack and we'll tell you about the missionaries that we support. And you can give to them. It will never touch New Life's budget. It can go straight to them if you're willing to give above and beyond and you want to see that impact and let us help you find the place that's going to make the most impact. We've got ministries in house for that. We've also got lots of ministries. And here's the thing. God is generous enough that we don't have to hoard and hold things ourself as a church that God, through his people, can fund every vision and every mission and every church that needs to be planted if we can trust him. And the world needs to be changed. The world needs to be deeply impacted with the Gospel. Amen.
[00:36:54] I'll take that.
[00:36:57] We want to see the impact through our surrendered hearts.
[00:37:01] So as we worship, fill out the card, drop it in the box on your way out. Let's pray.
[00:37:06] Jesus, you are good and faithful and we love you.
[00:37:09] Thank you. That you are generous, that you don't ask us to do anything that you don't do first.
[00:37:16] Would you let us see the world changed because we trusted you with everything.
[00:37:20] Amen.
