The Benefit Of Giving | Test Drive the Promises Series | Pastor Dwain Wolfe

Father, we welcome you in the word. Now we just

welcome you to make a deposit in us through the

Word and grow us up into the fullness of Jesus.

Grow us up, grow us up, grow us up, grow

us up, stretch our faith, build edify, strengthen our inner man.

We ask in Jesus' name, and everybody said, a man,

you may be seated. My focus is on offerings again today.

And here's what barn And Research says. Do you know

who George Barney is? Anybody know who George Barne is?

George Barna is upholster so like gallup. Have you heard

of the galloper? Heard of the gallop? Okay, George Barne

is a polster like gallop. According to Barna Research, twelve

percent of born again Christians and five percent of all

Americans tied. Twelve percent of born again Christians. Yeah, can

you believe that twelve percent? So I think the assumption

is as long. You know, we had a saying when

I was growing up. When I was growing up, there

was acute little saying that church members would joke about.

Because my dad was a pastor, and so church members

had a little saying. They would say, Lord, praying for

their pastor. They would say, Lord, you keep him, We'll

keep him poor, and you keep him humble. Oh yeah, yeah.

Can you imagine what would the church be like today? Right?

If one of Christians gave a tithe of their income.

Can you imagine how powerful the church would be? What

an influence the church would be in our nation? If

imagine these churches that are you know, suffering. I've told

you seventy five percent of all churches are by vocational

in America. That means the pastor has to work full

time and lead the church, lead the building project of

the church, care for all of the flock members, do

all the hospital visitation, pray for the sick, preach a

sermon that has to be perfect on Sunday. And then

his wife has so lead worship and lead the worship

team and lead the children's ministry. Yeah. I mean they

got right, They got a million things going on. Uh,

and there run and work full time. You know my

dad Uh if I remember right, I'm trying to remember Marcola. Yeah,

I don't think my dad never pastored the church where

he didn't have to work full time in a career

of ministry and assimbly of God. Churches. He never pastored

to church where he didn't have to work to to

pay the bills. But what what if uh, I don't know,

you hear what I'm saying. Isn't that crazy? So I

think part of this is there's so much unbelief woven

into the church. We are we are ununder a blanket

of unbelief. And fact is, if you just go to

if you just go to any of your web browsers,

right and just start typing in some stuff about giving offerings,

tithing or anything like that, immediately you run into the

common theological position of the church today across America, which

is that God does do not give to get, do

not expect anything from God if you give to God.

And that's bananas.

Thank you, Terrell. That's beautiful, that's beautiful. That's better than amen.

That's bananas. That kind of theology is bananas exactly.

So, you know, and just all of this, and I

think that's part of the problem. The other part of

the problem is this, this this negative view toward the future.

You know, we believe that the church, we believe that

the church season is essentially over. We believe that we

are at the cusp of the Antichrist taking over. We're

going into one world government, one world money. We're going

into the appearance of the anti Christ. We're going into

a preparation for tribulation, and that's going to be great

because we're all going to get out of here right

before it happens, anyway. I mean, this is the mindset

of the common Christian across America is they have this

very pessimistic view toward the future. So why in the world, subconsciously,

why would I invest my money in the church? Why

would I invest my money in a sinking ship? Like,

why would I really sacrifice for something that's about ready

to kind of fold up? Anyway? And we're all going

to ride off in a fivery chariot in the rapture anyway. Right,

So you got this pessimistic view of the future, which

is if you're a New Horizon, I you know, that

is not the thrust of New Horizon. The thrust is

an expanding kingdom, a growing kingdom, a billion soul harvest.

We listen, We're not even gonna throw France out. We're

not even gonna throw France to the to the dogs. Right.

You heard about the opening ceremony for the Olympics. You

heard it was just a big queer show. And you

know you heard about all of the garbage was going on, right,

did you hear about it? Anybody in the building heard

about it? All right? Well, those of you that didn't

be informed, France is the apex of hell in the

world right now, So okay?

So?

And it was clear across all of the world with

billions of people watching, right, And they had they had

the drag. Folks did a mockery of the Lord's Supper.

If you didn't see it, I mean it was open mockery.

They had Moloch on the platform. I mean it was

they had open mockery of everything that is good in God. Right,

guess what they're in for a big surprise because God

is not done with France. God is not done with France. Now,

God is done with Satan, but he's not done with France.

And I think they they just marked themselves with a

big old branding iron of revivals, coming, revivals, coming, Revival's

coming and awakening. Who is coming to France? And that's

the kind of kingdom we want to give into. Right.

This is Isaiah nine seven through nine Isaiah and nine

Isaiah nine seven through nine. We will call him wonderful

counselor Almighty God, Prince of Peace, Almighty God. And of

the increase of his government of peace. There shall be

no end from that day until it's accomplished. Is what

it was. What it says, from the day of Him,

until it's accomplished. The increase of his kingdom is here.

We're living in the days of increase, not the days

of darkness. So that's you know, that's part of it.

If we shift our heart toward a growing kingdom, then

we will know that every dollar that we're sowing in

the kingdom endeavor is well worth it. If Elon Musk,

an unsaved, ungodly guy, can put forty three million dollars

a year a month, he's investing forty three million dollars

a month into a conservative platform and the advancement of

a conservative president. Surely we can bring a dollar or

two and make a difference for the Kingdom of God

by building the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Malachi

three seven through twelve. I mentioned last week. There's two

things mentioned in Malchi three. I want to allude to

those again because we're going to focus again on offerings,

not on tithing, but on offerings. Though I told you

something super important last week theologically, I want you to

study it for yourself. I'm not ending this message as

we did last week. I'm not ending two weeks in

a row. I'm not ending with an offering. This is

not about coercion. This is not about convincing. This is

not about trying to get more money from you. This

is all about money, trying to get more money to you.

And this is about entertaining just the purity of your mind,

with drawing you in to look at the scripture yourself,

be a barean and see what the Bible says, because

the Bible will shed a lot of light on people's opinions.

The Bible will shed a lot of light on denominational opinions.

The Bible will shed a lot of light on preachers

who think they know more than the Bible. So I

talked to you about tithing and about offerings. One of

the things that I said, I humbly presented again is

that you haven't given an offering until you've given a tithe,

because the tithe means that it's something you freely bring

above and beyond the tithe. So the tithe is ten

percent of your increase, and the offering is something above

that ten percent. So if I'm not tithing, I'm not

giving offerings because an offering means I've got a tithe first,

then I give an offering. So and my focus, though,

is on the offering because the offering is so crazy

significant and what it does in our lives is significant,

and so I'm focusing on that again this morning. Malachi

three seven through twelve. Return to me, and I will

return to you, says the Lord of Hosts. But you say,

how shall we return? By the way, where America has

been heading is not far from France. Where America has

been heading is not far from France. And the change

doesn't start at the White House. The change doesn't start

at the courthouse. The change doesn't start at the Olympia House.

The change starts at your house. And Jesus said, it

starts with your money. He's going to know where your

heart is by looking at where your treasure is. Wherever

you put your treasure, that's where you put your heart.

If you're not putting treasure in what he wants to build,

then your heart isn't with him. So when we see

twelve percent. Another study, the van Co study, it's another

surveyed don based on actual giving through credit sources, actually

says it's even worse. It says only five percent of

the Christians or those who attend church in America tithe crazy. Right.

So I'm just saying that for us to partner with

God for the growing kingdom and the increase of heaven

on earth, right, then, really the repentance starts right here

in this room. It starts with us, with this house,

not the White House. It starts with this house. And

it starts with our house, our personal house. When we

say me, for me and my house, we will serve

the Lord, it means that we gladly bring the tenth part,

and we gladly bring offerings. And God loves not a

loathsome offering bringer, but he loves a hilarious offering bringer.

And I've said it to you before. The only way

you can possibly be a hilarious offering giver is if

you know what an offering's doing, how God's actually using

an offering to bring you increase. God's using your faith

woven up in an offering to leverage you forward to

bring you increase. Return to me, and I will return

to you, says the Lord. How we'll return in tithes

and offerings. Two things in tithes on offerings. Then he

goes down below. He says, test me in this, says

the Lord of Hosts. If I will not open for

you the windows of heaven and pour out for you

a blessing until it overflows. Does anybody in this room

believe that? Because I'm telling you this is you know

it's all about seed, and I'm going to get there

in a minute, but you know the offering is about seed.

But I want you to I just felt the Holy

Print spirit just on me so strong this morning that

the breakthrough we need is a breakthrough of believing. The

breakthrough we need is a breakthrough of believing. Because we've

looked at these scriptures and then we've heard in the

back of our head then they saying of this person,

that person, the other person, this theologian, this commentary, this writer,

this speaker, this radio teacher. We've heard in the back

of our head how we aren't supposed to expect anything

from God. And so when we read this stuff or

we hear that we should expect from God, then like

we've got this big argument. And as long as you've

got an argument, you haven't conquered. You're stuck in unbelief.

And as long as you have unbelief, then even though

you might give, you can't partner your faith with the giving.

And if you can't partner your faith with the giving,

then the giving cannot produce. You are killing the seed

instead of igniting the seed because you don't see it

providing sufficiency for you. You don't see God moving because

of your sacrificial seed giving. You see that you're just poorer,

and that's a real pain. It's a pain that I'm poorer.

And that's what you're seeing, and that's what's even determining

your offerings. Your offerings are actually small because we have

to twist your arm to give an offering, and so

after we get it up to a certain height, you say, okay, okay, enough,

would you stop the offering? Message, I'll put in ten bucks.

And so you're not partnering with your faith with the

Holy Spirit and calling it seed that will produce a

great harvest. Instead, you're giving out of being worn down,

being constrained, being convinced, being talked into it, and feeling

like okay, well, others are given to all right, Okay,

well I'm a worm. If I don't, who wants to

be a worm? Honey, write them a check for twenty bucks.

How much you spend it on your mags this week?

Three thousand, But don't tell anybody. Those are special billet aluminum,

specially made for aim. You don't even know what billet

aluminum is. Uh huh. They make a mag out a

one junk of aluminum. Oh, it's called billet. The lathe

cuts it out of one piece of aluminum. But I

put in twenty bucks in the offering. I'm a good guy.

He wants to overflow. What he's saying is that even

in our drawing near to him, when we're drawing near

to him, and we say that we're drawing near, and

we're establishing more prayer and more devotion, and we're setting

aside time with him, even in all of that, if

we don't bring our money, then he truly doesn't have

our heart. And if he doesn't have our heart, he

can't fully pour out all that he wants to upon us.

We're actually closing the windows of wisdom, opportunity, self control,

risk taking, insight, understanding, creativity, we're closing the release of

those things over our inner man because we're withholding gracious giving,

gracious giving. But if we turn that loose, Wow, what

would happen? So crazy enough, he calls scripturally, by the

Holy Spirit, he calls the giving of an offering. This

is an offering, not a tithe. But he calls the

giving of an offering. Everybody say offering. He calls it seed.

Everybody says seed. Now the moment he calls by the

Holy Spirit the giving of an offering a seed, he

creates this metaphor. And remember, the Bible was written in

two metaphors, only two metaphors, agricultural metaphor architectural metaphor. That's

the Bible. The whole Bible is either agricultural or ur textural.

So when he starts talking about a seed, this is

an agricultural parable or metaphor. He wants us to get

a picture and understand what's happening. Every time we give money,

every time we give offering money. Every time we give

offering money to the poor, to the needy, to the outreach,

to the building, to the evangelist, to the profit. Every

time we give money like this to the prison ministry

to the mission. We've been pouring money into missions. I mean,

we get these phone calls. We got a phone call

the other day us AS needed two thousand dollars to

license the clinic, and then they a bunch of their

crops failed. And literally, you know, if we don't get

money over there, so we can take money right and

we can convert it into that which blesses them, and

he calls it sowing seed. So and there's you know,

there's other instances where we see, like in Luke eight eleven.

So when he says this, it's interesting because then we

get this interesting understanding about money when money is given

as an offering. And like in Luke eleven eleven, he

says that the word of God is seed. That's the

parable of the sawyer. Have you heard the parable of

the sower? Does it seem weird to you that the

Word of God could be a seed? Anybody? No, So

if we tell you the word of God is a seed,

and that that word of God gets sown like the

word of God doesn't do you any good under your arm.

The word of God has to get sown in the

soil of your heart. Then the word of God can produce.

It can produce a harvest, right, so that we start

learning all sorts of stuff about the power of the

Word of God. Well, the Word of God is a seed,

and we understand other things about the Word of God.

Like Galatians Galatians six. Everybody said Galatians six. So Galatians six, six, seven,

and eight says, do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked.

Whatever a man shows that will he also reap. So

Genesis one starts its way too, that as long as

the earth remains, there will be seed time and harvest.

Then in Genesis one it says another thing it says

about the word. It says that the fruit has the

seed in it, and that the fruit always, according to

the seed, reproduces in like kind. Right, it always produces

after its own kind. This is a monitor right here.

It's not a sound monitor. Did you know that that's

a TV screen in there? You didn't know that. So

the Word of God produces after its own kind as well.

If you read on righteousness, it begins to grow righteousness

within you. If you read on love, it begins to

grow a capacity of love within you. If you read

about mercy, it begins to grow a capacity of mercy

in you. Right? Why because seeds always produce after their

own kind. Here he says, don't be deceived about that.

They always produce after their kind. Right. So that means

if you sew money, if Paul and if Solomon called

money a seed, if you sow money, then you can

expect like a farmer. Right, do you know of any

farmers that sow seeds and don't expect a harvest? Did

you know? Did you know that Jesus is the word

of God, meaning he's seed. Jesus is the fullness of

the Word of God, meaning he's the fullness of seed.

That's why he said over himself in John twelve twenty four,

if the seed is not sown into the earth and dies,

then the seed will abide alone. But the seed has

to be sown. If the seed is sown, then it

produces a great harvest. He was speaking about himself, because

he is the fullness of the Word of God, and he,

through death was sown. And even the father expects a

harvest on what he sows. The father expects a harvest. Now,

that's not like a nasty thing, that's not like a perverse, nasty,

naughty thing. I don't know a farmer that doesn't expect

a harvest on what they sow. There isn't why because

it's called the law of reciprocity, right sowing and reaping.

Sowing and reaping is actually a law, just as sure

as the law of gravity. Sowing and reaping is called

the law of reciprocity. So the moment he calls an

offering a seed, he's telling you that you should actually

partner your faith with your giving, and you should believe

that God will multiply that seed back to you, and

that there will be a harvest, not only a reward

harvest in but there will be a harvest of economic

increase over you. Otherwise you'd run out of money. Otherwise

you'd run out of money. But what he's trying to do,

he's trying to get more money to you by rewarding

your righteousness. So he's converted an offering to a sde

so that you could partner with your offering with your faith,

so that he could then partner with you to bring

you more increase, so that you would have more to

sew in the future. Let's read it second Corinth end,

chapter nine. I'm intentionally calming myself. Helu jah. See I

get all wound up. Then they turned the microphone down.

Then I get more wound up. And I'm living proof

of this. Joel and I are living proof of this.

Many of you in the building are living proof of

God's goodness, living proof of God's goodness. And guess what,

He's not done. He's not done. I just feel like

I need to say that you didn't miss anything yet,

because today and tomorrow you can begin to dive into

God's goodness in a new way. Now this, I say,

the one who sews sparingly will also reap sparingly. No

is that true? No? No, no, no, I mean farming talk.

Farming talk. Joel's relatives over in Spokane. You know, they

had about a thousand acres, but then they were prospering,

and so then they got like another thousand and then

you know, if you're prospering, then you can lease other

parcels from other neighboring families, you know, and next thing

you know, you got three thousand acres of wheat grown

over there. You know. But if you go out and

you just oh, a hundred of those acres, are you

going to reap a thousand acre? Reaping. Sometimes we think

that way, like, you know, why hasn't God come through

for me? You know, I can't believe it. I've been

putting in ten dollars every so often, and I can't

believe I'm not having these crazy breakthroughs in my life.

Like Pastor says, we should have. Well, God has Spokane

or anybody over in the Columbia Basin with a large

farm and asks them to get a thousand acre harvest?

Can they do that with a hundred acre seed? Not

gonna happen, right, So this I say, the one who

says sparingly will also reap sparingly. In the one who

says generously will also reap generously. Each one must do

what he's decided in his heart, whilst not reluctantly or

under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Now, remember

I talked about this passage. This is coming out of

second from the chapter eight, that's the preceding part of

the story. Because in chapter eight they were going there

to collect a offering for the saints in Jerusalem who

were suffering. They weren't collecting a tithe for the leadership

of the church. They were collecting an offering for the

saints in Jerusalem that were suffering a year before. Now

they're coming to collect what they purposed in their heart

to give a year ago. And God is able to

make Now he's encouraging them, right, He's like He's gonna

lay this stuff on them, this truth, on them, to

encourage them. And I mean today we would call this

like crazy preaching, Like this is what all of the

Internet is blown up against. Just go read on the internet.

You'll find that common Christians of today don't believe this

stuff at all. So that means they're completely contrary to

the man who wrote a third of the Bible, you know,

a third of the New Testament, and who was caught

up to the Third Heaven, and of whom we've got

all of our new Creation theology from. And this guy says,

God is able to make all grace overflow to you,

so that always having all sufficiency and everything, you may

have an abundance for every good deed, as it it's written.

And then he quotes like out of Psalm one twelve,

he's scattered abroad. This is what the righteous man does.

The righteous man scatters abroad seed talk again, seed he

gives to the poor. His righteousness endewers forever. Sam one twelve.

This is what the righteous man does the righteous generation. Now,

he who supplies seed to the sower, who supplies seed

to you. To me, well, God gives us seed, right,

he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food.

So you know what we do in farming. Not that

I'm a genius by any means, But a bunch of

the harvest is to eat. It's going to produce bread

for me to eat. But then some of the that

I can't eat all of it. I shouldn't eat all

of the harvest. If you eat all of the harvest,

pretty soon you're going to be starving. Because you save

seed to sew for the next harvest. This is what

he's trying to talk to us about. He's saying that, actually,

when you're making money, you don't want to eat all

the money. Some of the money you got to market

as seed for next season's harvest. So he who provides

seed to you, he provides bread for you to eat,

and he provides seed for you to sew. Some of

this is for me to eat, but some of it

I gotta hang on to and distribute as seed to

sew some of this I've got to sew. I can't

eat it all. If I eat it all, I don't

have something for that next harvest. He who's applies seeds

for the sewer, bread for food will supply and multiply

your seed, or missay, multiplood, multiply your seed for sewing,

and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You'll be enriched

in everything for all generosity or liberality, which through us

is producing thanksgiving to God. Now, I think if you

want an assignment for this week, say this over yourself

every day. Say this over yourself every day, and especially

if you are already an offering giver, and we identified

last week areas to give into. You know, there's the widows,

the poor, the orphans, the prisoners, right, there is missions,

there's the building of the Tabernacle, the House of God

uh and there is any prophetic ministry that's not a

part of the Malkizedic or the levitical stream. So you know,

so if you're giving offerings into something like that, right,

maybe you're involved with Compassion International and you're sending money

to feed some kids, or you're involved in supporting some

orphans somewhere you're doing. But if you're involved in giving

and offering somewhere, you ought to be declaring this over yourself.

And if you haven't been declaring it, declare it over

yourself until you wear your heart. You got to wear

like a fire spot in your heart. So this just

becomes a part of you. Stand with me this morning,

and we're going to do this together. And I want

you to see this. I want you to say it,

especially versus eight versus eleven, versus eight versus eleven, say

this with me first Father, Claire, erased, eradicated, removed, and renounced.

Is every word, doctrine, commentary, teaching, preaching that I've ever

heard that has diminished your reward and your harvest and

your outbreak of blessing on me when I partner with

you through the seeds of offerings. I don't want that

in my life anymore. I don't want to pay attention

to it anymore. I don't want it dominating my heart anymore.

I don't want it hindering the grace of Heaven over

my life anymore. I want it broken off of me

in Jesus' name. I want you to see something too.

It says so sparingly, reap sparingly? Right? Does it say that?

Did you know what that means? Though? That means that

you can test this with a sparing offering. You don't.

You don't have to test God with a giant offering.

You can actually start testing God with a small offering.

I think that's exciting. You guys needed more coffee this morning,

But I mean, I think that's exciting. Can you imagine

God is saying, put me to the test, Go ahead

and risk risk a small offering, and see if I

won't do something with it. Now. It won't be a

giant harvest, but it's going to be a small harvest.

And a small harvest will still write something on your

heart that it awakens faith within you for a little

larger trust and a little larger seed to be sown.

I think that's exciting. I think that's exciting. Verse eight.

Let's say it together. God is able to make all

grace overflow to me so that I will always have

all sufficiency in everything, so that I will have an

abundance for more good deeds. Verse eleven. I am enriched

in everything for generosity, which is producing thanksgiving in those

who are blessed by my sewing. I want you to

think about this, and he talks about it here in

this pathage. I want you to study it on your own,

but I want you to see something that your generosity

is lifting somebody else by becoming sufficiency to them. So

God comes and he's sufficiency to you, and others come

along and they pour into you and their sufficiency to you,

and then you pour into others with generosity and they

are lifted into sufficiency, so they can become generosity. And

if their generosity to those around them, then they are

lifted into sufficiency. And if they're lifted into sufficiency, then

they can pour out of that with generosity. And now

all at once, now, all at once, everybody is getting touched.

Everybody's getting lifted. Others come into sufficiency, and out of

their sufficiency, they can be generous and lift utters into sufficiency.

And this is what God wants, so that everybody, everybody receives,

and everybody is blessed and everybody is strengthened, and God

gets the glory. God gets the glory. I want to

say one thing I said last week. I think one

of the things God does with this realm when we

partner in faith is He opens us up to a

harvest that's beyond our education, the strength of our arm our, creativity,

our wisdom, our skill, our knowledge, our background, our risk taking.

Everything that's important. Everything I'm naming right now is super important.

Like you have to have relational eq IQ. You have

to have relational like you. You gotta have risk to

You gotta have all this stuff. You gotta have diligence,

you gotta have all this stuff. But what happens when

we partner with God through our seed is the harvest

is bigger than the sum total of all of that.

And so who's going to get the glory for everything

God does? You're not going to get the glory because

it was beyond you. You are compelled. You have to

give the glory to God. You have to give the

glory of the God because you wreck recognize that even

though I did my best, and I worked hard, and

I was creative, and I was diligent, and I lived

a holy life and I did every there's no way

what I was doing could have produced this. This was

only what God could only God, only God, and that's

what he wants. He wants so much grace on you

that you have these only God harvest experiences. So Father,

we bless their people right now with the courage to

rise up like they've never risen in faith, in faith,

and partner with you with offerings like they've never partnered.

We believe for it right now in Jesus' name and agree.

The strongholds of the enemy against God's people, against these people,

those strongholds are broken, and we're no longer listening to

the enemy. We are no longer listening to the enemy

in Jesus' name, And everybody said, Amen. Prayer teams coming

up front as we leave in worship this morning. If

there's something you need to leave here be prayed for about,

or you're recommitting your life to the Lord, just come

and do it. As we're dismissed this morning