Core Values 2024 - Week 2: Generosity

Reached. We're in our series called Core and we're talking

about our core values, the thing that sets us a

little bit different, the things that make us who we are,

that DNA, that thing that makes the ethos, our characteristics

what it is here at Cornerstone. And last week we

talked about transparency, and especially if you are hold on,

I tickle, let hold and you say, Jeremy gets me

tickles down here sometimes because he's just a big kid. Amen,

and uh so, uh and his wife is shaking her

head yes, uh so, and his mama is throwing her

hand up too. Come on, somebody, the whole family's here

telling on you, bro. Uh but we uh we we

talked about transparency and you need to You need to

go back and listen to that, especially if you've gone

through engage, if you're a ministry partner here, you need

to go back and listen to that message from last

week on transparency. And this week we're talking about generosity.

And listen a lot of times when I preach on generosity,

I take the offering up at the end. Come on, somebody,

but I don't want you to give out of emotional motivation, Amen.

I want you to give because you choose to do that,

So that's why we did it up front today. But

we're gonna talk about generosity, and generosity is not just

you giving more. Generosity is a lifestyle that you live.

Generosity saturates every part of your being and it becomes

an extension of the heartbeat of God through your life.

And we would never preach for you to be generous

if we weren't also generous. As a matter of fact,

you know, we could probably do some nicer things around here,

but we just give it away. We just look for

need and we meet those needs. It's just what we do.

We're always looking for an opportunity to impact and to

sow away from ourselves because I believe that generosity is

something that is sorely missing, especially from our culture, but

just in society in general. We have been trained to

build more and more and more and more. But the

Kingdom says, give it away, give it away, give it away,

and you'll never be able to give it all away

because when you start giving it away, He's just going

to start giving more to you. We believe that the

greatest expression of our love and faith to God is

extravagant displays of generosity as we live generous lives. God

works through us in miraculous ways. The core value of generosity.

If you've got a Bible, go to Second Corinthians, chapter nine.

Second Corinthians, chapter nine. Want to start there today, And

when you when when we're preaching this, when I'm when

I'm teaching you this, I want you to keep in

your mind. I want you to allow this to not

just be about money. Now, some of the scriptures I

read will be about money, but truly generous lives, also

generous with talent, also generous with treasure, also generous with time.

There are multiple levels of generosity in our lives if

we truly want to live out the heartbeat of Christ.

So just because we're talking about or we're reading money,

this is also supposed to spread to every area of

our life. So keep that in context. Keep that in

mind that when I talk when I say we're talking

about generosity, I'm talking about your whole life. When I

say we're talking about giving, then we'll be talking about money. Amen.

All right? Tey to Corinthians chapter nine, verse five. It says,

therefore I thought it necessary to extort, to extort, what

a terrible what a terrible tongue tie to talk about generosity. Therefore,

I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to go

to you ahead of time and prepare your generous gifts beforehand,

which you had previously promised, that it may be ready

as a matter of generosity and not. You know, when

we read this passage of scripture, the Apostle Paul is

literally telling the court the Corinthian Church. He's getting ready

to go to the Corinthian Church. He's bringing some people

with Macedonia with him, and he's sending people ahead because

they have said they're going to give an extravagant offering.

And he's sending some people ahead to make sure that

the offering is ready when they get there, so that

it's not an embarrassment to him and them, and that

the Macedonians are encouraged by it. And when we think

about this that you know, in the church, if I

sent somebody, okay, let's just say I sent board members

out every Saturday, and I said, okay, you're gonna go

visit everybody's house and remind them that tomorrow they're supposed

to give an offering. So as you go to everybody's

house and get them to count the cash out for

you right there and make sure they have it, put

a rubber band around it so when they get to

church they can give Listen, this place would be empty.

It would be empty. Tell me like, oh that all

that preacher done, all he cares about is money. All

he cares about money. But the man who wrote a

good portion of the New Testament is doing just that,

and he says, so that it's a matter of generosity,

not of obly, we want you to prepare ahead of

time so that you don't get in the heat of

the moment and feel pressured into doing something that you

weren't already prepared to do. See, generosity is not something

that happens in a moment. Generosity is something that's planned.

It's something that you hear, it's something that you strategize.

It's something that you put on your calendar and that

you put in your budget. It's that programming, that programming

of that part of our lives that creates true generosity

that spills out of us. The apostle Poslic says, Okay,

I'm sending some people down there to make sure you

don't embarrass me, because if the Macedonians get down there

and they've heard all these rumors about how generous you are.

If they get down there and it's not true, first

of all, they're gonna think that the gospel is a lot.

And secondly, they're going to think that you're not who

you say you are, a hypocrite. You know who do

we say that we are as believers? Are we really

at the very core of our being, the material of

Jesus at the core of our being? Are we trying? Now? Listen?

This is a journey. Come on, somebody, raise your hand.

If you're still on the journey, we're all being disciple.

If you weren't, you'd be in heaven today. The moment

you get perfect is the moment He's coming to get you. Amen.

So I'm gonna be here for a long time. The

reality is that we're all still growing and learning. But

our goal should be to eradicate selfishness, to eradicate stinginess,

to eradicate those questions of when you listen, everybody, listen

to me. When you drive by that person in the

home Depot parking lot and they got a sign that

says need food out of work, there's lots of signs,

and the first thing you think is, I'm not giving

them money because they're just gonna use it for plug

in the blank of whatever sin you want to plug

in right there now, I'm not saying don't use wisdom,

but I am saying that if that's your first thought,

maybe you've become desensitized to the voice of the Holy

Spirit and the compassion of Christ. My first thought should

be I'm giving him something. And listen, I'm still working

on this too. I'm still I'm still I'm still moving

through it too. A work in progress. But our first

thought should be how can I intervene, how can I

step in? How can I make an impact? And I

don't care if you run it through the church or not.

You know that's I'm not trapped for For For my

first few years in the Assemblies of God as a

youth pastor, there's this thing called a Speed the Light.

It is the missions giving arm of the Assemblies of

God for teenagers, for youth, and listen, our kids gave

a lot of money to speed the Light. They they

bought a they bought a rescue van for somebody in India.

They bought we redid a school. Our students, just teenager

giving not was it the whole church just teenager giving,

bought a generator for a village in Malawi, all kinds

of stuff. And there was always this this moment at

the end of every year where they would get everybody's

missions giving numbers and they would have this big bank

and they still do it, by the way, it's not

I just don't go. Uh. They have this big banquet

called Speed to Light Banquet, and we would go and

we would sit down and they would feed us a

nice meal, like a nice meal like steak and baked potatoes.

It was not come on, some nice not like what

I feed you all. Come on, somebody. I mean, it

was nice. And then you know, if you reached a

certain level, you got prizes for reaching a certain level.

You know, for like five hundred dollars you got a

little pen, and for a thousand dollars you get a

golf shirt, ugliest golf shirts in the world. And then

you would get a plaque. And I remember that that

that we were there and the d y D got

up and he started talking about the knee we had

of Georgia missionaries in the Georgia district and uh, and

he was like, you know, we need this much money

for this one. We need this much money for this,

we need this mone So I'm just sitting there thinking,

and you know, I just I'm a very practical thinker.

Come on, somebody, and I'm looking around. I'm like starting

to count steaks right and shirts. And after it was over,

I just walked up and said, hey man, how much

did this cost? He's like, what how much did this

banquet cost? He's like, oh, you know, this is just

we just want to do this. You know, it's just

so special, you know, And and listen, I I was

after I wanted. I wanted to be number one because

everything I do I want to be I want to win.

I never let my kids win. LEXI, three years old,

try to shoot basketball and I am I'm slapping that

stuff up in the woods. I mean, you know, it's

just I want to be number one. So I mean

these things I valued at the moment, and I said,

why don't we stop doing this and just give this

to missions? And the answer was, well, people wouldn't give

as much. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, you think

my students are giving thousands and thousands of dollars a

year so I can win a golf shirt that I'm

never gonna wear. It's green, dude, not pretty green, ugly green,

I said. And you think that's the motivation, because what

he didn't realize is that somewhere along the lines, those

students stepped out of giving for a cause and realized

the immense blessing of giving beyond themselves and the moment

we started giving, the moment they started giving, and they

came up and they started saying things like this, Hey,

I wanted this new pair of At the time, UGG

boots were everything. Okay, I said, I wanted this new

pair of ug boots for Christmas. And you know they're

like one hundred and seventeen dollars. But I'm gonna tell

my parents I don't want the boots. I just want

the money and I'm gonna give it. And then another

kid said, hey, you know what, I'm just gonna give

my whole Christmas. And it became contagious. Ashley Marlowe was

there in those days, and it became contagious, and it

was like that speed. The light thing was like the

push because it became about generosity and understanding that I'm

part of something that's so much bigger generosity connects you

to something so much bigger than your little budget in

your home, and it connects you to the economy of

the kingdom. And the economy of the kingdom has the

ability to shape the world. Right here in this church,

less than twenty percent of the people give over eighty

percent of the total giving less than twenty percent. You

see me cut my eyes over there to Cathy so

she could shake her head like you get double checked.

Imagine what would happen if everybody embraced generosity. How many

people we could feed, how many people we could help.

Back to my message that was offering in verse six,

he says, but this I say, he who sows sparingly

will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will

also reap bountifully. So let each one he gives as

he purposes in his heart, purpose in your heart. What

you stop asking the Lord what you should give? Y'all

are looking at me like a calf looking at a

new gate. Because once he says it, it becomes an obligation.

If he asks you for it, it's no longer an offering.

It's a dedicated thing. Dedicated things in the scheme of giving,

have the same out pouring from God as the tithe,

rebuking the viral on my behalf, making sure my vine

is producing time, making sure that that rain is falling

on the seat I saw. He says, you purpose in

your heart? What now? God will ask you for things.

God will move you. He will, He will move you

over in way, way, way, sometimes over into that discomfort

of giving, that sacrificial level of giving. But here he says,

purpose in your own heart. What you should give, not

grudgingly or of necessity. For God loves a cheerful giver.

Because cheerfulness is contageous. Cheerfulness changes the environment. Cheerfulness changes

the environment faster than anything else. You go into a

room and somebody's mad. Not everybody gets mad. You go

into a room and your cry, and not everybody cries.

As a matter of fact, most people leave the room.

So that's uncomfortable. Right. Somebody goes into a room laughing hysterically.

Watch it. Everybody in the room starts smiling, and it

raises the temperature, the joy temperature in the room. Because

joy is contagious. And he says, listen, this shouldn't be

beating you down. It should be lifting you up, and

it should be contagious to the people around you, because

God loves that cheerful giver, that generosity that says I

have time for you, that generosity that says listen, Yeah,

I have some skills. And you know, I don't really

tell anybody about those skills. But I don't want to

bury them in the sand. I want God to use them.

So I start telling people about my skills, and I

get involved in a team, I get involved at church,

and I put my skills to work. In Luke chapter fifteen,

we have this amazing story, one of my favorite in

all of scripture. You probably know it as the story

of the Prodigal Sun, and it's a story of three people,

and I let's jump in. In Luke chapter fifteen, verse eleven,

it says, then he said a certain man had two sons,

how many sons? Certain man had two sons, And the

younger of them said to his father, father, give me

the portion of goods that fall to me. So we

divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after,

the younger son gathered all together journey to a foreign country,

and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living or wasteful living.

We actually don't know what he wasted his money on.

A lot of people preached that. You know that it

was fast cars and fast women, but you know, we

just know that was wasteful. For all I know, he

could have went and just bought t bone steaks and

that was it, and he wasted all. We don't know,

But what we do know is there was no generosity there,

and he found himself in a predicament because once he

ran out of money, famine hit and he had to

join himself to someone. First of all, we know that

was not of like faith, because he was a pig

farmer and Jews don't raise pigs, and he he indebted

himself to this person. And then we have that famous

passage of scripture where it says, as he was in

the pig pen and he realized that the pigs were

eating better than he was. It says that he came

to himself and he realized. And I've preached this a

lot of different ways, but in my study for today,

I found out that that statement he came to himself

actually doesn't mean realization of his situation. It means that

he finished his indebtedness, that he paid off his debt,

his debt to society, his that to that man was done,

finished over. And now because he had completed his obligation,

he was free to return home, if that's what he

chose to do. So this boy who got his inheritance early,

that wasted it all, is now on his way back home.

And in verse twenty, it said, and he arose and

came to his father. But when he was still a

great way off, his father saw him and had compassion,

and ran and fell, and ran and fell on his

neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, father,

I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and

am no longer worthy to be called your son. I

was gonna be honest with you. It sounds like some manipulation.

You know. If you run up to your daddy and

say I'm not your kid anymore. I'm so bad, they're

gonna be like you always be, my son. You can't

ever do anything to disappoint me. I mean, we know

the speech is parents, right. What he really wants is

some dinner. Come on. Now. He really wants to be

taken back. He's wasted everything. Now he wants to be

part of the family business again. But listen. But the

father said to his servants, bring out the best robe

and put it on him, and put a ring on

his hand, and sandals on his feet, and bring the

fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat

and be the word there is mary, but literally and

be joyful. There's a theme with generosity. If you're generous,

you'll become joyful. Let us eat and be merry for

this My son was dead and is alive again. He

was lost and found, and they begin to be joyful.

Of course, God loves a cheerful giver, a joyful giver.

God loves when we celebrate the act of giving something

to someone else. Because none of this belonged to this boy.

And the dad didn't question his motivations. He just fell

on his neck and said, listen, you were dead, now

you're here. Let's be joyful. Let's celebrate, cheerful, let's enjoy

what God has done. How many sons did the man have?

Let's see what that other rascal was up to Luke

Chapter fifteen, verse twenty eight. But he was angry. This

is the older son. But he was angry and would

not go in. Therefore, his father, the generous father, Therefore

his father came out com pleaded with him. So he

answered and said to his father, Low, these many years

I have been serving you, and I've never transgressed your

commandment at any time, and yet you never gave me

a young goat. I just wanted a goat. I just

wanted you to watch. I wanted you to give me

a goat so I could be joyful. I wanted you

to give me something to make me joyful, the opposite

of generosity, selfishness, that I may make marry with my friends.

But as soon as this son of yours, who has

devoured your livelihood with harlots, who killed the fatty calf

for him, I'm here and I'm doing what I'm supposed

to do. But you never gave me anything. Now, I

want you to remember the very beginning of this story,

the very beginning of the story. The father divided the livelihood.

The younger son, according to the traditions, got one third

of everything the father owned. The older son got two thirds,

because the first born gets a birthright portion, which is

two thirds and then one third. The father didn't own

anything anymore. The father didn't own anything. But when you're

waiting for someone to give you something. You live in

a state of bondage in your mind, where everything is

unfair and everything is waited against you. And that's the

way this older son thought. And the older son owned

everything that was there, and he said to him, son,

you're always with me, and all that I have is yours.

It was right that we should make joyful, that we

should make cheerful celebration for your brother who was dead

and his life again and was lost and is found.

He said, it was right that we do that. I

didn't need now watch this. It didn't belong to him,

He said, I didn't even check with you because it

was the right thing to do. And now here you

are out here, puffed up like a bullfrog, mad that

your brother is home. That church's growing too fast. I

can't even center in my seat no more. Buy another one,

Buy another chair. I'll put it somewhere else, and I'll

ask the guests to sit there. But buy another chair,

buy another one, buy a comfortab one. I'll put it

where that is, and I'll put your chair somewhere else

so they can sit in in an uncomfortable chair. But

we have this mentality, and when we don't live generous lives, well,

I gotta hurry, hey. But when we don't live generous lives,

we live this jaded existence where we see through this

filter that somebody owes me something and that things are unfair.

In John chapter fifteen, verse eleven, Clay, you guys, come

and get ready. John chapter fifteen, verse eleven, it says

these things I've spoken to you, that my joy may

remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

This is my commandment that you love one another as

I have loved you. Greater love has no one than

this than to lay one's life down for his friends,

the ultimate act of generosity, to lay your life down

for the people around you. Jesus says, it's not a

question for Jesus. Going to the cross was never a question.

In that garden, he apprecies, Father, hate this cup from me,

but not my will. Your will be done, Jesus said,

if there's another way, Dad, now's the time. But I

came here prepared, and I'm still prepared. When you leave

your house, be prepared to lay it all down that

one may be found. Just just just live your life,

just to and how do I do that? Enter into

generosity and gladness joy will follow. Selfish people live short,

bitter lives. Generous people don't even know that their life

is ended because their impact lives on and on and

on and on. Everybody staying with me, LEXI come up

here with me for a second. This is my youngest daughter, Lex.

Everybody saying, hey, Lex, you know, every time we go

to the grocery store and she goes with me, she

look for somebody to pay for their groceries every time,

say that I'm not allowed to go with them anywhere

because it's like, okay, let's witness to somebody that has

like one of the short carts, right. She wants to lick,

you know, someone with the extra wide cards who she

likes to witness to, you know, And that's really cool

that she wants to impact people's lives. But it's beyond that,

you know, she's very generous in her whole life. As

a matter of fact, I have to look at her

and say, listen, baby, you can't spend three hundred dollars

on your friends Christmas pre You've got twelve friends. But

it just spills out of her. Listen. It's not something

I taught her. It's just something that she woke up

in love with Jesus and it happened. Amen. You know,

Lexi's one of those creative people, not real emotional, but

very creative, and a lot of times creative people have

an easier job with this. Thank you baby. You know,

emotional people normally are moved to give, and we think that,

but you know there's a lot of people that you know,

you think, well, you know that's not easy for me

because these numbers are going through my head. Listen, let

me tell you about one of the most generous people

I know. Arossio Odavola is one of the most generous

people I know, very analytical thinker. Like you ask him

a question, you might as well sit down because he

gonna look at every angle. He's gonna give you the numbers,

the websites, he just he's gonna think through it all

the way. But he doesn't let that get in the

way of generosity spilling out of his life. Stop using

your condition as a crutch to not be generous. It

will turn our community upside down, and we need to

be turned upside down. When you step into generosity, you'll

step into a joy you could never imagine. And maybe

you're hearing you're saying, Hey, I'm out of work. I

don't even make money to give. Be generous with your time,

because if you're not working, you have time. Come on somebody,

or maybe you know what. I make just enough to

get by and I'm working eighty hours a week and

I don't have time. But maybe you have some talent,

Maybe you have a skill you can use for the kingdom.

Use that skill, but step into generosity and it will

change your life. And it'll change Cornerstone, It'll change oakwood,

spill over in the flowery branch, Buford and Gainesville. Because

you chose to look like Jesus. Jesus gave his life

for you. And if you're here and you've never asked

Jesus forgive you of your sins, you've never asked him

to be the lord of your life. But today you

want to trust Jesus. Today you want to come back

to him. Maybe you prayed that prayer, but you're far

from him right now. I'm going to count to three

in just a minute. And if that's you, if you

want to come to Jesus, I want you to step

out and make your way to the front Altar team.

Come and get ready, or maybe you're here and you've

struggled with generosity in your life. You want to listen,

you want to give, you want to do those things.

You want to give your time, but you've never been

able to take that step because of whatever limited resource

you may have. I want to believe God for him

to remove that barrier so that you can step into generosity. So,

if you're here today and you want to step into generosity,

or you want to trust Jesus as your savior, ask

him to forgive you of your sins. Make sure everything's

okay between you and him. If that's you, on the

count of three, I want you to step out and

make your way to the front. One, two, three, step

out and come right now. The band's gonna sink. These

men and women of God are gonna meet you right

here and believe God for you. But I believe God's

got great things. The best is yet to come.