1 Corinthians 16 - Intentional Heart-Centered Giving

Is designated from a church budget that George establishes

with the help of the leaders. And we have categories of, of

spending for, you know, like the overhead of the church.

You know, our rent here and utilities, you know, run us

probably 90,000 a year that comes.

We pay that because of what you guys were able to give.

We have other expenses. We have, I believe it's 13

people on payroll. No one's getting rich here and

no one's making more than what the average person would make in

a job out there. Some people are part time.

We also have the expenses of, of Grace FM, which is is pretty

high to, to run the radio station, the the building out

front. We've been praying about

possibly expanding. This used to be 1 big building

with the Family Dollar when they were there.

They're gone now and the landlord said you guys might

want their clothes, right? Whatever goes out of business,

I'm thinking, well, that's never going to go out of business.

Well, guess what? They're out of business or their

clothes, right? So there's 8000 square feet

there and we love to be able to do that.

So we, we talked to the landlord, had you guys praying

about it and they want $18.00 a square foot, which is like more

than we can afford. We, we spend about, it's about I

think it's $5.60 a square feet, square foot for 13,000 square

feet, which we have here. So we're not going to go and

spend that and triple that to have that small space upfront.

So pray that the landlord might change his mind because the

sign's been up for a long time and no one's talking about

renting it. So maybe they might come back to

us and say, hey, you know, this might be good for you guys,

we're going to give you a better deal.

So if they would, then we could expand and, and have that space.

And then we also have a fund of savings for future need if down

the road something opens up. There's a church that contacted

us a while back that may be interested in selling their

property. And it's, it's a really nice

facility and we would have it as our own instead of renting.

But in order to do that, we have to have money to do that, right?

And we wouldn't ever do anything to put the church in financial

upheaval or pressure. You know, it's something we're

just praying about. But we we habitually save also.

So there there is maybe something to help us down down

the road in the future. So giving is an act of worship.

It's it's not they're leaving. They don't like the message.

Our money. I'm just kidding.

You know it, it's it's part of the worship like we sing, we

worship, we're in the word, we worship, we take communion where

we worship and giving is part of our worship.

Jesus said seek first the Kingdom of God and his

righteousness and everything else you have need of will be

added to you. So the more you understand that

concept and you put God first in your budget, the more and this

isn't a prosperity message your gospel here.

It's just the reality of if you, if you so abundantly, you'll

reap abundantly. Cindy and I always and I didn't

have much money when we first married.

We always understood the principle of giving and it was

always the number one line item in our budget.

You know, had mortgages and cars and raising kids and all that

kind of stuff, entertainment, vacation, those are all part of

the budget. But we all, we, we never

circumvented putting God first in our finances and he's, he's

blessed us because of that. We've never been in a situation

where we've been out of work or needed to beg for money from our

parents or anything like that. He's just provided so

faithfully. So it's a principle of giving.

Jesus says layout for yourselves.

Treasures in heaven versus treasures on earth, where

treasures on earth moth and rust corrupt and thieves break in,

steal away cars rest as great as it is when you get a new car,

eventually it's not a new car anymore.

It's dinged up, right, John? And that's how you make money

fixing cars that are dinged up it it's funny, man, you ride

passes graveyards of cars and you see that all those, all that

metal in there rusted away. And how much did we spend for

our cars at one time, right? You got to be cautious about

that, I guess, But and then you know, people can rob you.

I remember when we were first married, we lived in a motel

room as efficiency in Atlantic City.

And somehow someone got in the door with a key and I didn't

have it locked properly. And next thing I know I wake up

and someone's in a room. Like thank God I chased him out

and and we had our money, our paycheck in our pockets of our

pants instead of on the table. So he didn't get much.

He got a camera and I think A8 track tape recorder or

something. And that was, that was it, you

know, but it was gone. And, you know, we didn't have a

whole lot back then. But when you find that you, you

have a budget and, and you got to, you got to pay your bills,

you got to pay your taxes, you got to take care of your kids

and your mortgage and your car payments and all the, all the

things are important. You never want to not have the

Lord in your, your budget because this is, this is what

this is about. Because of them being faithful

in how they manage the offerings.

They didn't have to tell the people, hey, these people in

Jerusalem need some help. So we're going to have another

offering today. It was already there available.

So we have that in the bank account for crisis as we have

that in the bank account for benevolence.

When someone in our, our Community Church here is in

crisis, we're able to help them and, and help them get through

some tough times temporarily. And, and that's a blessing.

So this is the purpose of, of the giving.

And it wasn't a duty, but it was a responsibility.

And it wasn't like, I'll give whenever I feel like it.

It was systematic where like every week or every month, some

people give by month, some people give by week, whatever.

It was like program like I, I can't tell Verizon like or my

cell phone. Hey, you know, I'm a little

tapped out this month. I'm not going to pay my bill.

Guess what, I'm not going to have any cell service or my gas

bill or my water bill or my electric bill.

And but it's, it's interesting how I don't know we, we know

those things are important, but we don't think about God's

Kingdom that way. But but God doesn't need our

money like he he can, He does what he doesn't regardless of of

what you give or what I give, but we get a privilege of being

part of that giving right. And and so he says in my

father's house are many mansions.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

And if I told you I'd go to prepare a place for you that

where I am, you may be also, guess what?

There's going to be mansions in heaven.

And whatever you invest in God's Kingdom will be somehow tied

into the type of place you have in heaven.

I don't know what it's going to be like.

There's no socialism in heaven. And, and it's interesting, the

Lord knows who's who's on his team and who's really involved

in supporting his Kingdom and those who are sort of

lackadaisical about it, right? And so, but we won't be thinking

like we get to heaven, boy, why does Eichelberger have that big

house? And I have a small one, right?

And the Lord said, well, well, Steve was really focused on my

Kingdom. And, you know, he, he, he was

really, you know, studious and he gave his income.

And I know you helped too, Clark, but you didn't help us.

And it's not be that way, OK, we're not going to be jealous or

wondering why, why that, but but the ability to experience the

Kingdom in a in a deeper and richer way is going to be

predicated on how much you were involved in in that Kingdom.

And so that's why he says invest in treasures that aren't on

earth, but invest in treasures in heaven.

And so the early church met on Sundays and that was not out of

coincidence because Jesus rose from the dead on Resurrection

Sunday. And we just left chapter 15

where it talked about the resurrection.

And now we're in 16 and he's talking to them about meeting on

the first day of the week, which is, which is Sunday.

So Paul didn't ask for special collections.

He assumed and, and, and planned on that church being prepared to

help with this crisis in Jerusalem, which they were able

to do. We have a big missionary focus

in this church and we'll talk about that in a minute.

The missionaries we support, why we do and all that kind of

stuff. But giving is a personal,

individual deal, has nothing to do with me or anybody else.

It's between you and God. And giving helps with outreach.

It enables us to do things that we could never do without being

a team together and what it is we do do here.

One of the the toughest things when you're a pastor is when

there's a snow day and your church got to close, right.

The church is closed. Guess what, there's no offering

that Sunday, right? And so God catches up with it.

But I I looked at that Sunday that it snowed.

The church lost $7000 that week. That's a lot of money, right?

Does it the, the catch up? Well, the Lord where he guys, he

provides and the church has caught up.

But we don't have to worry about, you know, the finances

because as long as we do it the right way, God's going to bless

the finances. But everything's based upon

Matthew 2820 where the Great Commission says go into all the

world and preach the gospel to every living creature.

In order to do that and to send people out and to plant churches

and have missionaries, it requires revenue or cash.

God tells us that we're to give as he's prospered us In Second

2 Corinthians 9:7

Corinthians Chapter 9 verse 7, it says we're to give

cheerfully, not out of constraint or guilt trip.

I love this verse. It says let each one give as he

purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity.

For God loves a cheerful giver. So if you're not cheerful and

giving, don't give. Don't, don't.

Whatever you do, do not give because it's going to burn.

Don't think like, well, you know, I, I should help this

church out. So I'll throw 5 or 10 bucks in

the box on the way out. But I really don't want to do

that because I'd rather go to Longhorn for lunch, right?

But you know, if you're thinking that way, don't give.

You know, God only wants you to give if you have a heart and a

desire to give, right? It's supposed to be joyful, not

a not a like have to, but I want to.

I remember one of our teachers in Bible colleges, a funny

story, he was talking about the word to give hilariously.

And what does that mean? And I don't know if he was a

golfer or whatever, but he said, yeah, it's like you're playing

golf and you get a hole in one and you're so excited.

You go to the 19th hole where people have a beer or a glass of

wine or coke or whatever their interest in drink, and he goes

in, he's so happy because he got that hole in one.

He's a drinks for everyone and he doesn't care about how much

it's going to cost. He's just so excited.

He got the hole in one. And so this sort of an

interesting concept that you want to have that kind of energy

and that kind of joy and giving cheerfully and you you give

proportionally. Like obviously everybody has

different budgets. Some people are really tight to

the line and they're only able to give a certain amount based

upon their income. Some people say you give 10%.

Well, I know people that are focused on giving 2030405060.

There was a guy, RJ Letourneau had an engineering school in

Texas. He was very wealthy, aerospace

kind of guy, long before aerospace was a big deal.

He's an engineer in flight communications and Letourneau

Institute and he wanted to challenge God based upon what

God bless them with. He said, Lord, I want to

eventually live on 10% of what I get.

God made that guy so wealthy multimillionaire that the 10%

was nothing. He eventually was able to give

90%. Very fascinating story.

So people give as God purposes in their heart.

So if I'm making say 500,000 a year, which I don't, I wish I

did, but I don't, 50,000 is 10%. Well, someone else is making

10,000 a year gives 1000. I'm, I'm not any better than the

person that's given the one proportionately, but if God's

blessing me and I have bandwidth financially that I can afford to

give to his work and his work isn't thus Calvary Chapel.

It's every ministry around the world that you might be

compelled to be involved with. If I'm making 500, maybe I can

afford to give 30,030% of my income or someone else has given

10%, but there's no number on what God says you give as far as

percent, 10% is a good place to start, but it how can you out

give God? And if God says to me, Clark, I

want 10% of what you have, I'm thinking that's a deal, Lord, I

can keep 90%, right? That's what it was like in the

Old Testament, 10% was a very small percentage of everything

got in, entrusted the people with right.

So those who earn more obviously have the ability to give more.

So what percent is that? Well, that's something you and

the wife or the family or individual, you, you, you get

before the Lord and you talk about your budget and then you

manage what it is that He's given you.

Now in this church, George is the pastoral financial manager

of the assets of the church along with the elders.

And we vote on things and we pray together before we do

anything. No one does anything

arbitrarily. Lewis and I have no ability to

control anything that happens here.

It's through the body of Christ and through the leadership.

We pray and we steward what it is that God entrusts us with.

So the books are always open. If you're ever concerned about

anything, you can ask George and he'll show you the categories

and what the church has done. If you're, if you're a serious

person who gives and you have any time the opportunity to get

a hold of him. If you're concerned about

anything regarding how the church handles its money, we

have nothing to hide. Total 100% transparency.

If you don't give, then you really have no business looking

at the budget, right? If you give 2%, I don't know, I

don't think you should really even be concerned about the

budget. But if you're giving a

significant amount of your income and you're questioning or

you're ever concerned, you always can look at it and we

have nothing to hide. So enough's enough, right?

I covered enough of that, right? Does anybody not understand what

I said? Is everybody, anybody like what

I said? Raise your hand because anybody

don't like what I said, raise your hand.

OK, we'll talk outside. Get your boxing gloves on.

OK. We're going to talk about

missions now, right? And what what happens in the

church regarding regarding missions.

I'm going to move his chair here so I can see a little bit

better. So put the first slide up.

This is Joy in and Hope Coda. Hope grew up at Calvary Chapel.

She was a teenager, young girl, used to sit in the back, never

talk. We're really shy.

Her and her husband, Christian, they're both church planners

now. And as coming out of this

church, this is a fruit of this ministry and we want to be

involved in helping them with what it is that they do.

So there are significant missionary support team.

They're in Chile working with young girls, Bible studies,

outreach. Chili's a predominantly dead

country as far as Christianity, and so there's a lot of work to

do, but they're they're planning the church there.

She was involved in the Calvary Chapel Bible College in Peru

and, and met her husband Julia in there.

And and so they got married and then they had a heart to go

plant a church in a unreached community and country.

So that's where where they are in Chile.

They just glow for the Lord. Very, very humble, just just a

real blessing. And I saw her at the pastors

conference last year. And sometimes you, you see the

countenance of someone and she just glowed.

She was so beautiful. I said, are you pregnant?

You know, usually when women get pregnant, they glow, right?

And he's. Her husband said, no, no, I

don't think she's pregnant. Yeah.

No, it was Jesus. She was so excited about what he

was going to do in Chile. And so pray for them.

That's one of our main missionaries.

Next one is the Marquis. Marquis.

Wonderful people. They were in Ukraine, Budapest.

Eventually they had to flee Ukraine in the midst of the war.

They're in Budapest now, planting other churches, but

still going back and forth to Ukraine, helping the the people

who are leaving Ukraine and going to different parts of the

country like Budapest, Hungary. And that's where they live now.

His father was a dear friend of mine.

I met him at a pastors conference when there was only

200 of us there. And now there's almost 2000 of

us now Calvary and East Coast. And we developed such a close

friendship. He, he said, Clark, would you

come to Ukraine and help me there?

I said, man, I just started this church a month ago.

I said, I believe I'm supposed to stay there at the, at the

church in Greensburg. But he had such a heart.

And so he came out and, and shared and, and this he planted

over 2530 churches in Ukraine, 2530 churches in Ukraine.

And so hold on just for a second with the Marquis, his wife is

writing a book on what it's like to be a wife of a pastor.

All, all his sons are on fire for the Lord.

And so so we support them as Calvary Chapel missionaries.

Next one's the bail bonds. Anybody remember Christian on

the left when you came or some of you folks remember him when

you were here in the church? Christian Belmont, Just you

remember him, don't you, Christian?

Wonderful. Remember how shy he was, him and

Hope and now him and his wife. He's married, got a couple

beautiful kids. That's his mother-in-law or I

think it's his pastor and his wife.

They visit him. They're in Albania and so

they've just started the church and go to the next slide.

They, they grew up obviously at Calvary here Westmoreland.

And so we, we support them. And next slide, that's one of

their Bible studies. Next slide, that's their church,

very humble, small at this point in time, but the Lord is

beginning to, to fill it up. See where are we going next

year? This is Pakistan.

That's Phi Lehman. He's been a dear friend of mine

since the church started. He's on the left.

His dad was a pastor in Pakistan.

His dad preached in our church and many, many years ago, very

humble man. He took his shoes off when he

went to the pulpit because he said that sacred holy ground,

that was their culture. And that's a very impoverished

area. 1% maybe Christian. Philemon had to flee the country

for religious persecution, passing Bibles out.

His friend was martyred. He came back home.

His family was left there. They were safe and took him two

or three years to get them to the US And we helped with that.

And they live in Philadelphia now.

But he goes back and forth to Pakistan so that we've been

supporting them forever. Next slide more pictures of the

kids in Pakistan that they help. Next slide this is Paul and Pat

diet sort of distorted but he was one of the missionaries new

tribes mission when we Cindy and I went to Bible college and he's

like a hero to me. I was 20, some early 20s and he

was in his mid 40s and good looking strong guy and this a

real pioneer. He get down the riverboat, you

know, to these unreached people groups in Venezuela and learn

the languages. His dad was one of the first

martyrs at New Tribes. He lost his dad when he was a

little boy, but he grew up and his mom was one of the groups of

people that went back to the people that killed his father to

share the gospel and they eventually got saved.

And because of that, there's so much new birth in the jungles of

Venezuela. And Paul, he was captured in a

plane. They took his plane and he, he

was, he thought he was going to die.

And, and his story and remarkable, he told it in the

church here a couple times and how he was able to sneak out in

the middle of the night. The people, the guards were

blinded. They couldn't see him moving

around. He was able to get into the

plane. There was just enough gas to get

out of the jungle and and get safe again.

This amazing, amazing story, Paul, Paul die, they're still

alive. He's been battling cancer.

He was involved with flight training, training missionary

pilots and now he works in prison ministry.

So they just sent us a card recently.

Next slide, This is a Dawson's working in Venezuela.

They use the Google Maps to find like different places in in the

jungle. They used to think that they had

reached most of the people there and all of a sudden they see

these openings and the openings represent where people are are

migrating. They're nomadic people.

And so when they move around their jungle huts, they just

destroy them. They've taken pretty much all

the produce or whatever was available there at the time.

And then they moved to another place and they've been there.

Mike's my age, his mom and dad are missionaries.

They went there when she was pregnant with, I think Gary, his

brother. And when they got off the plane,

the missionaries they were replacing, they said to them,

you guys got to be the biggest fools I've ever met.

And the guy says, why you bring your kids down here to this baby

and then this jungle. And then, well, the Lord did

miracles through this couple and the mom and dad were there and

now they're with the Lord and, and the kids have been there for

over 50 years or 60 years now. And next slide, they were the

first. This is a tribe here that

they're sharing the torches with.

We talked about last fall, little device that has a light

on empowered by sun energy. And then it has the gospel in

their own dialect language, which is remarkable.

And it also has the Jesus information on Jesus movement

movie and all that. They go around, they take

projector and they go into these villages at night and they show

the the Jesus movie and the passion of Christ.

And these people never saw a movie before.

So hundreds of them get together and they don't move.

They just sit there. And then the tears start coming

down their eyes because they start to realize that Jesus died

for them. And because of that, there's

believers all over the tribes of Venezuela, and they're so

thankful that this horrible government event, Venezuela, has

been toppled now so that they can have gas to get into the

villages, because that guy that was running it before really

made it very, very difficult for the missionaries.

So that's the Dawsons, that's the torch there.

And that we keep trying to help supply more of those so that

they can have more to keep getting the gospel.

This is next slide. This is my brother, Pastor Mark

Abrams. He spoke at Calvary Philly here

from Calgary, Philadelphia, initially.

And he's in North Philly now. Big earth when we spoke in our

church last year, Very dear, close friend of mine.

He's a big earth, wind and fire guy.

And anybody like earth, wind and fire in here.

Yeah, I always get him to sing. That's the way of the world

every time we see each other to Congress, come on, sing some

earth, wind and fire for me. But anyway, he's got that high

falsetto voice and he's he actually leads the worship

there. His voice is unbelievable.

And he he's in an impoverished area in in Philly, North

Philadelphia. We support that ministry and

they do all kind of outreaches. Next slide.

They go into the community in the city and food giveaways and

clothing giveaways in the parks in the city of Philadelphia.

Some of the former Eagles help him with the Bible studies

there. It's just really exciting

ministry. This is Christian counseling

associates. We're involved with them.

They are a wonderful organization that has counseling

ministry and three states local and then Arizona and some other

places. They will provide counseling for

anybody that's in crisis, OK. And if you don't have the money,

most counselors will say we we're sorry, we can't help you.

They'll charge only 15 bucks or something like that that you

would pay for a McDonald's meal to help people.

They don't turn anybody away and they're having a banquet coming

up. We support them, wonderful

people. Our brother back here and his

wife, they're involved in serving in that ministry.

Stand up once. We're thankful for what you guys

do in that ministry. Thank you and what else we got

here. Turning Point USA.

This is an organization's faith that we are involved in to.

It's not a political organization on our side, but it

is a conservative organization. And the purpose of TPUSA faith

is to get the gospel out to be salt and light in the community

with outreaches and ministries into the county commissioners

meetings and the school board meetings and the high schools to

help the young people that are leading these groups and most of

the high schools around here. Tuesday night we had or Thursday

night we had a young man from Ligonier High School, 17 years

old, talking about the issues of the culture and they need to get

the gospel out. Very, very smart, sharp young

guy at 17. If any of you young teenagers

are looking for a guy that you want to possibly date, let me

know and I'll hook you up with him.

He's a good looking guy and, and he's got his act together.

Believe me, not too many guys and they're 1718 have their act

together. This guy is solid.

So Fred back there. Fred, stand up for a minute.

He's our local point guy of turning point in our church.

She's a retired military Colonel from the Air Force, right?

And, and so he, he understands the dynamics of what we're

doing. Also the midterm elections that

are coming up and the big ones in the, in the fall, these are,

these are critical for conservative people to vote.

And so we want to have a voting drive to get people registered

to vote so that all Christians are voting.

Last election, 30% of the Christians didn't vote because

they didn't like Trump. 20% of gun, gun owners didn't vote.

Push all that stuff away. Trump will eventually not be

present anymore. Right now he is.

Thank God for the sake of the safety of our borders and these

kind of things. A lot of things he does I'm not

real happy with either. But he's the better of the

choice at that time, right? So you got to vote the lesser of

two evils because you only get two people to choose from, but

you need to vote the Bible. We're going to have Bible

training voting classes so that people understand when they

vote, they're voting biblical principles, not personalities.

OK, That's very important. And if we can get the vote out,

we won't go backwards again. So TPUSA faith is something

we're involved in. Next thing, Grace FM, this is

the the biggest ministry that we're involved in as far as

missions. Let's see here the budget of, of

our mission in the church is 20% about $75,000 of what you guys

give goes toward missions and Grace FM is, is one of the, the,

the biggest things because of the expense of running it,

building it and the to build that station about $130,000.

And the church was able to pay cash for that along with a

partner that we have, Bob Stevens, who is involved with

partial ownership of that station.

Christian guy who owns a lot of radio stations.

He has classic rock, country, easy listen and pop.

We're in the process of getting some ads on those stations to

point people to the sister station, which is 91.7 Grace FM.

So pray for that to be able to reach a secular audience with

letting people. Another Grace FM is involved in

the community. That station reaches far and

wide and people were able to hear the gospel.

Some of you were here because you've heard Grace FM and you

listen to it. And that's that's very, very

exciting.