22nd May 2022 - Teaching Service - Dave Food - Giving more than - enough

We're in a series of giving more than exploring giving more, and I want

to explore today giving more than enough. Scripture says God will supply everything we

want, all our needs. Thank you, Joe, well done. God

will supply our needs. And Scripture also talks about press down and running over.

So God is a god of generosity. God is God is a god

of more than enough. So one of the things I did last week as

part of our theme was to ask us how would you treat yourself? How

would you treat yourself? There was I chased people up with WhatsApp messages send

them out to We have over fifty adults in the church now when we consider

everybody on line and everybody who's watching from home with those people in the room.

So I reached that to over fifty people and said how would you treat

yourself? And there was a pause. Some people came back really quickly,

obviously very clear about how they treat themselves. Some interesting day. I have

to think about that one. Somebody else said, oh, give me a

bit more time, got some answers, and I'm going to share that later

on in the service. But do you know what I think I told you

two weeks ago that you know, if we don't receive when somebody gives us

something, then we rob them of the opportunity of giving. And I told

you the story of being given the bank of the blanket in Neu Gander.

I'm not going to tell that story again. But do you know sometimes we

say oh, no, no, no, no, thank you very much,

that's very kind of you. And we're not very good receivers. And

do you know what, I honestly believe it starts with us. Can we

give to ourselves? Can we appreciate ourselves? Do we feel okay about ourselves?

And here's an interesting thing. One of the things that came out of

I said, how could you treat yourself? Have a budget of about five

pounds? Somebody came back and said they'd go into London and have a meal

out and go to a show. And I thought, hmm, I don't

know what kind of show you're watching and what kind of restaurant you're going to

and a train fair into London or for five pounds, I guess it might

be possible. I don't know. I'd love someone to prove it to me,

but ah, how would you treat yourself? And We're going to come

to that in a moment, but let's think a little bit about giving.

In Luke chapter eleven, verses five to nine, it says this, and

he said to them, which of you shall have a friend, and go

to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me some bread,

some loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me on his

journey, and I have nothing to set before him. Has anybody ever been

like that? You had somebody pop in and you're thinking, I've got nothing

to give them. And he answered from within and say, do not trouble

me. The door is now shut. My children are with me in bed.

I cannot rise and give to you. I say to you that though

he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet

because of his persistence, he will rise and give him as many as he

needs. So I say to you, ask and it will be given.

Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you.

So I say to you, okay, So so ever been persistent,

ever kept on knocking, ever kept on asking. For those who are parents

or aunties, or uncles or grandparents. Have you ever had a child,

say or money? Can I have an ice cream. Well that he can

have an ice cream. And you probably remember presents that were open at Christmas

where the child said I really want this, and then it's opened and put

aside in thirty seconds, and you think, hmm, I wonder whether they

really wanted that. You know, when a child, when a person comes

back again and says, I would love an ice cream again, I'd love

an ice cream, And I'm probably making people think about ice cream now,

sorry about that, But do you know what when we're persistent, persistence breaks

through, and God encourages us to be persistent. The effective, fervent prayer

of a righteous man or woman avails much effective and fervent means persistent. Keep

on asking. And so why did this friend come down and eventually give some

bread to their friends Because of persistence, not because of friendship, but because

of persistence. I'd like you to turn this into your world. You're sleeping

upstairs and there's a phone call or a front door bell ringing, and you're

thinking, who on earth can that be at this time of night. You're

in bed. Maybe you look out the window and I'm still not sure.

But then they should call up and say, I just have a need of

something, you might say, go back and go away and come back in

the morning. Please, Well, what are you doing knocking at this time

of night? If they kept on ringing, eventually you'd probably go down and

say what's going on? Because of their persistence. And it's this last verse

in Luke eleven nine. So I say to you, ask and it will

be given to you, not may it will be given to you. Seek

and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. I'd

like to challenge each one of us. Have you ever been looking for something?

You've lost something, your keys, an important piece of paper, a

ring, a piece of jewelry. You've lost something, and you spend maybe

a few hours looking, but you're now so frustrated with yourself you give up.

Ah, But maybe you come back again, and maybe you come back

again. And many times we've found things suddenly, or maybe when we walk

away, our minds just processes and says, where was I when I last

saw that? Ah? I was happy. I was in the dining room

reading some books. You move the pile of books and there's the piece of

paper that you were looking for. You know, there's very much a guidance

here to saying, Let's persist, Let's persist in giving, Let's persist in

sharing, Let's persist in seeking, knocking, and looking. I'd now like

to look at a verse because I do want to think about giving. James

Chapter four Versus two and three. You lust and you do not have.

You murder and cover and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you

do not have because you do not ask. One of the things we have

as human beings is the ability to speak. Most of us have the ability

to speak. We have the ability to ask of someone, and I firmly

believe that sometimes God is looking and waiting for us to ask from him.

A different version says this, you ask and do not receive. Because you

ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. A different version would

say this, you want something. This is in the AMPLI. You want

something, but you can't get it. You kill and want what others have,

but you can't have what you want. You argue and fight. You

don't have what you want because you don't ask God. When you do ask

for something, you don't receive it. Why because you ask for the wrong

reason. You want to spend your money on your sinful pleasures. And I'll

go back to the question I ask you, how would you treat yourself?

Well, okay, if you spend it on sinful pleasures, maybe that's not

a good investment. But some people said they were going to buy a book.

Some people said they get a piece of music. I can't imagine that's

a sinful pleasure. There are times when children will come to us and they'll

ask us for something. We think, no, that's not so good for

you. You know, they've already had a packet of crisps and a bunch

of other things, and now they want a chocolate and an ice cream and

something else. Anythink, now you can have an apple there, I don't

want an apple, or you can have an apple if you want one.

Ask and let's go back to what he says in Luke. Ask and it

will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the

door will be opened. Let me give you yet another version of James four

verses two and three. You are jealous and covet what others have, and

your desires go unfulfilled, so you become murderers. Okay, it's too small

for me to read. The hate is the murder. As far as your

hearts are concerned, you burn with envy and anger and are not able to

obtain the gratification, the contentment, and the happiness that you seek. You

fight and war you do not have because you do not ask, or you

do ask God for them, and yet fail to receive because you ask with

the wrong purpose, evil and selfish motives. Your intention is when you get

what you desire, you'll spend it on your own pleasures. Motive. It

starts to speak to motive. And so why would we give to ourselves?

Why would we treat ourselves well? Because we're made in God's image, We're

created in his image, were created to be more like him. In two

Corinthians nine, verses six to nine, it says this, But this,

I say, he who so sparingly will also reap sparingly. And he who

sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes

in his own heart, not grudgingly or necessity, For God loves a cheerful

giver. God loves a cheerful giver. So I want to encourage us to

give. That's part of the logic. And I went, I didn't pick

one up in the end as part of the simple logic. Why we have

mugs and bags and magnifiers and pens because we want to give to others.

Do you know I in the last week, I've given three bags away,

and each time I saw a need, I had to replenish the bags in

my car, actually because I'd run out. But why did I give a

bag away? Because I saw someone struggling. They were walking down the street

trying to they'd obviously tried to save on a plastic bag save the tenp So

I said, I've got, I've got, I'll have one in my pocket.

I richly thank god I've actually put it in my pocket this time.

I don't know whether you've ever had this, when you've thought, this is

the time to give out a magnify, this is the time to give out

a bag, and then you think, and then you go look in the

car and it's not there either, and so please. The whole purpose is

to encourage us to be a church that gives, to be part of mirroring

and showing that God is a generous God. But then it's also an excuse

to have a conversation. You know, I love it when Judy says to

me, Dave, we're going to have to replenish one of these things because

we've given them away. We need to get some more. I love it

when that happens because that means people are giving things away. And so please

do keep on taking mugs, taking bags, taking pens, taking magnifiers,

keep one in your car, keep one at home, have a conversation,

and then give it away and then remember to replace it, because you know,

I don't want you to think, oh, I wish I'd had one.

Just keep on taking them because it's about having that conversation about God's a

generous God. Church's part of God's plan, and let's give into all that

we have. So let's have a little look at the survey. Then I

asked you how you would treat yourself. I said, we had reached out

to over fifty people in the church. Now we didn't include children, and

I'll explain that next week. I'll explain why I didn't include the children next

week, because we're going to continue this into next week as well. I

asked how you would treat yourself. I then had to put a budget on

it, and that was a budget of five pounds here's some numbers about what

I can tell you that we we got feedback on fifty two percent of people

said they'd treat themselves with some kind of food. Twenty percent said to your

coffee, I'd bundled those together hot drinks, twelve percent said plants or flowers,

sixteen percent that's the others. That's the one hundred percent. Then if

anybody says it's an app add up to one hundred percent and you're gobba,

be already calculated that the seventeen percent from a different calculation, But you know

food. But here's the interesting thing. Seventeen percent, even though I said,

how would you treat yourself, seventeen percent said I would treat myself by

doing something with somebody else. So even though I was talking focusing on you,

you still said I'm going to do it with the friend. Somebody said

I would go to a coffee shop with a friend and I'd have a coffee

or a latte, or I'd go for a walk and then I'd have a

drink with somebody, those kinds of things. So even in the midst of

focusing on you, people were still saying, I want to take somebody with

me and I want to explore that. So let's explore the food survey firstly

for a moment. I don't know what. I don't know what. You

guess the top food items were. Anybody wants to guess chocolate? Okay?

Well done? Number one? Anybody who want to guess number two? I

have actually already mentioned it. Okay, Ice screamed, no surprise there,

and I bet you maybe no. I think maybe one person in the room

might guess the third one. It's a South African delicacy built on well done.

Yes, absolutely had a number of votes for built on. Okay,

if you've never tried it, speak to Nikki, speak to others. I'm

sure we can source you with some built on. But you know what,

why have I done this? Well, I've done this because I wanted to

encourage people to treat themselves. I think in times when we felt pressured,

when we felt I think it's good to give to yourself, give time to

yourself, give space to yourself, give yourself permission to have a bit of

a luxury, to have a break. The most common words I'm hearing right

now as I'm stressed, I'm overworked, I'm under pressure, blah blah,

blah blah blah. I could keep on going. So when was the last

time you had a break. When was the last time you just had a

bath and relaxed sat in the sunshine? Oh? I don't have time for

that date. Okay, let me be really honest with you. You are

a God's creation. If we don't look after God's creation, we're missing something.

And I'm pointing to myself as much as anybody else here. You know,

there's work I've got to do. I deliberately decided to buy some more

fruit this week, just to encourage myself to eat fruit rather than something else.

I know there's simple things, but we've got to pay attention. We've

got to look after ourselves. Because God is a generous god. And so

in Luke six thirty eight it says, this, give, and it will

be given to you in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and

running over, will be put into your bosom. For within the same measure

that you use, it will be made back to you. Give and it

will be given to you. Proverbs fantastic books. Is this he who has

pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and he will pay back what

he has given. Now, I want to explore this word lens. I

don't know what you think about the word lens. As soon as I'm using

that word somebody, you are probably immediately thinking about something that you lent to

somebody that hasn't come back yet. There was a book that Julia and I

love, this book called No Compromise by Keith Green. I don't know whether

you've read it. If you haven't read it, I encourage you to read

it. But we bought one and we lent it to somebody. And then

when we had somebody else come around and we said, oh, you really

must read this book, went to the bookshelf, Ah, who's got that

now? And immediately in my mind was that I haven't given back. So

we bought another copy. I think we ended up buying three or four copies

and lending them away, and some of them are still out there somewhere.

I think we've got two copies on the shelf at the moment. But what

does lending mean? Most of you know that I worked in Papua New Guinea.

In Papua New Guinea, the word lend meant you give it to someone

else until you ask for it back. You give it to somebody else until

you ask. Now, I'm not saying that should be your definition. I'm

just giving you a different death. You give it to somebody else until you

ask it. But now I'd learned this because the girls at the school that

I was teaching at, they often used to cook at the weekend. They

go into the bush and they'd take some pots with them and they'd cook it

and they'd have a bit of a picnic. They were allowed to do that

within a certain distance of the school. And one of the girls in one

of my classes didn't have enough money to have a pot to go and have

a picnic with her friends to cook sweet potato and yams. So she said,

brother David, which is what they called me, then can I borrow

a pot? Emmy emmy wanting pot belong you, which means I'd like a

pot, borrow one of your pots. So I lent her one of my

pots. Now I had I had my Western mindset on that I'd lend it

to her, she'd use it, and she bring it back. It was

about three months later. I thought, wonder where that pot is? And

I went back to her and just said, have you still got that?

Did you lose it? If she said no, no, I've been looking

after it for you. Do you need it back? And immediately asked it

for it back. It was all clean and ready to go. She gave

it straight back to me. But their model was you give it to somebody

until you ask for it back. Now it's a different mindset, but you

know what, I think it's an interesting one. We start thinking about the

economy of God and things like paying it forward. Let's say you lent a

book to someone. They found it so interesting they wanted you to recommend it

somewhere else. So they took your book and they passed it to somebody else,

and then they passed it to somebody else. Now is that bad?

No, Four or five people are getting blessed by the book, but you've

lost. You've lost where your book is now. And if you ask them,

well I've lent you, I've forgotten. But you know, sometimes I

think we need to let things go sometimes. I honestly believe there are people

who've got little notebooks of things they lent people twenty years ago. I'm sure

there are people out there like that. And if that's you, I'm pressing

your buttons. Apologize. Pal one hundred and twelve, verse five says this,

the good person is generous and lends lavishly. God is a generous God.

I'd encourage you to be generous, and so I want to model this.

I want to model this as a church. So let's go back to

the question that I asked you, surprise. We want to model generosity as

a church. So the treit that you decided that you wanted next week,

the church will give you or give you a way of going out and buying

it. We will give you somebody. It will be about if you said

coffee, you'll have a voucher for coffee. If it was you know,

we're going to work out how to do that, even if it's just giving

you the cash. If it's a bit more complicated than I wouldn't want to

buy you a plant and then you think I don't like that plant. Well,

okay, I want to model generosity. So the church is going to

give you and what we'll start giving them out next Sunday at church. But

that's for everybody who's already answered, But it's also for anybody who hasn't answered,

who answers by the end of play today. So all you have to

do is get a message. If you already told us, that's already in

the list, don't worry about that, don't have to tell us again.

But if you haven't told us, then let me know and we'll add that

and then we'll start giving the gift out from next Sunday at church. So

you got till the end of play today. Why would I say the end

of play today, Well, just because we've got to start organizing getting these

things. So God's a generous god, We're are generous people. And this

is not the end of the story. I'm going to add to the story

next week when we talk about actually giving it to you. So treat yourself,

look after yourself, give and it will be given unto you. I'll

end with this story. It's a very old story because it's when I was

a student at university, so very long time ago. I remember going to

a particular church on Sunday, and I used to go to the same church

every Sunday morning, but Sunday evenings I used to go to different churches.

And I went to this particular church on the Sunday evening. I decided where

I was going to go, and I had to catch a bus to go

where I was going to go, so I bought the ticket, got to

the church, and I don't know why I'd bought a single, but I

bought the I think I was going back somewhere else afterwards. And in the

service came the time for the offering, and as I prayed, how should

I bless these people? I felt the Father say to me, give everything?

So I took the pound note pound note out of my pocket, shows

you how long ago it was, and put it in the And as the

offering bowl was coming around, I felt a little nudge as I said and

the rest, and I was thinking, oh, yes, I've got some

coins. I put my hands in the pocket, took the coins out,

and then I thought I haven't got a bus fair and I had a real

you know, there's my need. I need to get back. But God's

asking me to give everything. It wasn't a lot of money, but it

was. It meant I didn't know how I was going to go back from

church to where I was going next anyway, fit a peak fit of obedience,

put it all in the offering. But comes to the end of the

service for having coffee after church chatting to somebody, and I got chatting to

this person. Where do you live in town? I told him. He

said, you know, I lived just around the corner from you. Can

I give you a lift home? Oh? Yeah, okay, God has

the details in mind. I don't know whether I would have got Here's the

interesting thing. I do not know whether I would have got offered the lift

home if I hadn't put everything in the offering, Bob, I will never

know. I will never know, But sometimes i'd encourage it. Just find

out how generous God is. He goes before us. He thinks his plans

are ultimately amazing, and they're incredible. And so let me encourage you.

Be generous to others, be generous to yourself. Give and it will be

given unto you. Let me pray, and I'm going to pray about a

couple of things. And the first thing I want to pray about is motive.

You know, many times when we get asked for something, where immediately

why do they need it, What do they need it for? How are

they going to use it? Think about someone who asks you for some money

to buy some food. And we need wisdom in these times. But let

me encourage you not always to jump to the assumption of what you see.

And so, Father God, I pray that Lord, you'd multiply that which

our hands are set to do. Father, would you cause us as workers,

as volunteers, as servers of community, family and friends. Father,

help us to be people who have space and time and resources in which we

can give. From Father, I pray that you'd release to us all that

we need and more that we can give to others. You are a generous

God. You're you're able to give you measury more than we ask or imagine.

And so Father, I'm asking of you the Lord, you give to

us, and Lord, we carry it for a short while, But Lord,

we give it to others. Because the economy of the kingdom is an

economy of multiple location. The economy of the kingdom is thirty sixty one hundredfold,

not one two three. And so, Father God, help us to

see beyond our needs, to see to others that, Lord, we can

do it together. We can have fun together, we can give together,

we can celebrate and do it together. I think of those people who said

that even when they were blessed, even when they were treating themselves, they

still wanted to do it with someone else. That speaks of community, That

speaks of church, that speaks of relationship, Father God, help us to

do that. And Father, where we lack, where we're literally running out

ourselves. Father, would you bring people to us, resources to us.

Where we're running out of time? Lord, would you bring partners co workers

to come and stand and to do and to be what we need to do

and to be. And so, Father God, help us to be your

churchill work in this time. Help you help us to be kingdom builders,

and help us to see many more drawn into the kingdom at our heart of

generosity and the place of givenness for your glory. Lord, Amen, m

do and do the notices. Nicky yep, okay, let's click onto the

notices. Then, please Rachel