Poured Out, But Filled Up

How we feeling today. Feel good, you're not sick like everybody else in town. You're not okay, you're feeling good. Just give me a thumbs up. I can't see anything in the room, that's okay.

Oh, now I can thumbs up. We good, all right, we'll practice an engagement today. This is this sermon, is this whole series, and I just got to communicate this over and over because I want to make sure I'm learning as a leader that if you communicate it once like, I'm learning as a parent, not just a leader. I'm learning as a parent that if I communicate something, that that doesn't necessarily mean it was like received or that I communicated it well. In fact, anyone that's a parent in the room, they might learn that.

You know their kids can grow up a little bit. But more than anything, you're learning how bad of a communicator you are. Right. I, nobody, that's me. I'm learning it's like iy, clean your room, and then I go up and the room's not clean and he's like: you didn't say to clean all of it.

Like you said, clean your room. I picked up some stuff, threw it in the closet and we're good. I'm like: no, that's not what I meant. It's like what did you mean, Dad? What you mean.

Anyways, it's completely in aide. I am learning this, though. I want to communicate over and over and over again the things that the Lord is very clear about, and I'm going to say it and some people you're going to hear it 10 times, before you take one step, and that's why we did five total weeks in this series is because the content of this series can be so powerful to you if you receive it. James talks about the idea of receiving God's word implanted, and he's talking about the word of Salvation, the word of Revelation. He says it's able to save your souls and I think the word that he communicates us to us in terms of how we deal with our money and how we trust him in the area of our finances.

If we can receive it, man, it'll. It'll save you from some pain and some struggle, but more than it, save you from fear, and I'm believing today that the people who take a step of faith and believ in God for a word for 2025, those who take the step of giving for the first time, those who take the step of increasing to the whole tithe or 10% to God through the local church, and those who give above and beyond that, God will reveal himself to you. Malachi 3- and I say this every week because the Bible says it- I'm just trying to tell you what it says. Malachi 3 says: test me in this, says the Lord, God Almighty, and see if I won't unleash the floodgates of Heaven on you. And that is spiritual and material, and I've communicated over the past four weeks.

I'd encourage you to go back and listen because it could be helpful for you. You that when we trust God, he's faithful. He is faithful when it comes to revealing himself to you. First and foremost, he is faithful in things that you may have been dreaming of. The Bible says he'll do immeasurably more than you can ask or imagine.

And, and- and I believe one of the ways that we unlock that ask or imagine level in our life is by taking steps in obedience to do what God has called us to do. Last week I preached what I thought was kind of a hard message. It was hard for me to preach it at least, cuz I don't like to look at people who maybe struggle with the same stuff that I struggle with and say: get better. You know I don't like that, but I talked about two cycles: the cycle of scarcity and the cycle of abundance. The cycle of scarcity is rooted in and results in fear.

The cycle of abundance is rooted in generosity and it results in continued blessing from God and more generosity in the world. And so today, our final sermon in the series called: if you know, you know, the heart is to get you to test God in the area of your finances, and my hope would be that, as you were talking to God about a word or a phrase that you're believing him for, in 2025, that God maybe revealed to you something about your finances. Maybe there's some areas that you've uncovered in this talking to God time where you realize, man, God has blessed me. So, since God has blessed me, how can I receive that blessing? Not store it or hoard it, but actually give it back as he is so graciously given to me?

Today, I want to talk to you about the idea of being poured out but filled up. Poured out but filled up. This is a paradoxical phrase, because how can you be poured out but also filled up? Our faith in many ways is paradoxical. It doesn't make complete sense, but somehow, when you've experienced it, when you, when you have like, connected with God.

When you have tested him in this area, he proves it to you. I have found in my own life that when I'm poured out, Paul would say he's being poured out as a drink offering. When he's in prison and he's writing to a group of people who are going to read his words later, he says I'm being poured out as a drink offering. He says my time is almost near. It's almost a joy for Paul to be poured out for the Lord.

It kind of makes sense, doesn't it? What do Jesus even call us into? The craziest thing in the world for me is that we've got more than 1 Point 5 billion people who would claim Christ as their Lord and savior. I don't know if they live it, but they claim it. Yet, forget about what he says.

Anyone who is going to follow me must first take up their- anyone with me- cross. This is a cruciform life. It is a life of being poured out as a drink offering for the purpose of God in this world. And when we are poured out as a drink offering for the purpose of God in this world, we are blessed, blessed continually. That's the overarching point is that when you trust God in this, you are blessed, and for those of you who hear the message is: look, another preacher talking about the blessing that comes when you sew into the local church.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The blessing is not just material, though it can be sometimes. The blessing is that you know God better. In fact, this is not a promise that you're going to end up rich financially if you trust God with your finances. Some people will: , you're going to, you're going to have a good job, you're going to continue to be generous as God calls you to, and he's going to continue to make you responsible over that income and more and more income.

I don't know that might be you. For me, what I found is that God makes me more and more responsible over spiritual matters. I mean me trusting God got me into pastoral leadership, which doesn't necessarily end with the largest paycheck in the world- I don't know if you look at the lists, but it's not the biggest in the world- and so I want to encourage you to trust God in this, because it gets you closer to your calling and he provides for you as you step in to your calling. We're going to be in 2 Kings 4: 1 through 7. Before I jump into that, I just give you a little anecdote from my yesterday.

Can I give you a little anecdote from my yesterday? Yesterday morning I woke up and I'm training for a marathon and, I, I ran several miles yesterday and when I was running, the Lord and I were chatting and if you don't want to grow closer to God, don't go for a run right like it, like running is really helpful for me in my walk with God. In fact, if you don't want to go closer to God, don't show up at church consistently, don't open your Bible, don't go for long runs and listen to Christian podcast. Don't do any of that stuff if you don't want to grow closer to God. But when you do some of those things like running while listening to a Christian podcast, he's going to convict you of things.

And so I was listening to this podcast and it was a group of people who were talking about their journey of receiving blessing from God and becoming increasingly, radically, actually generous, and it was a cool story to hear. And what I like received from that story is that at some point in their life they trusted God and they continued to do so to the point where it was almost as if money had no hold over them any longer. And you might think, well, that's easy for rich people to say, yeah, maybe, but statistics show- and I showed you those last week- that it's actually harder, as you make more money, to be more trusting of God with your finances. But at some point they trusted him. As I was listening to this podcast, the Lord did what he doesn't do every year, but he has done a couple times over the years.

Where my wife and I had chosen what we were going to give on Tuesday, we gave on Wednesday for year end, above and beyond. And then yesterday morning I was, I was feeling convicted again, and so I sent the podcast to my wife and I said: listen to this, before tomorrow morning when we give. And she's like: I ain't got time for that today, sweetie, if you want me to listen to it, just tell me what you're thinking. Which I wanted her to listen to the podcast and hope that she would come to the same page, but she had a whole conference thing and so she didn't have time to listen to the podcast, and so we talked last night on the way back from the playground with Lucas and Micah, and I was scared. I started processing with her the conviction that I had and I said I feel like the Lord's called us to increase our amount.

And I just kept beating around the bush. She said: well, how much? And I said I don't. I want you to come up with it on your own, sweetie, like maybe pray about it and just figure. I wanted you to listen to the podcast, sweetie.

And she said: just tell me. And so I told her and, she went: okay, I thought you were going to say our life savings or something like that, and it wasn't that. So she was calm about it, that so for husbands or wives, if you want to spend a lot of money, set it up like it's the worst thing you could possibly ask them for, and then they'll be relieved when you tell them it's less than that, but anyways, maybe next year, sweetie, but anyways, God was calling us to increase on that and I don't tell you that in any type of braggadocious way. I tell you that because there is something about trusting God financially that, no matter where you are, whether you've never done it or whether you've done it every season of your life as an adult. God is always calling you to trust him, and what I've learned is he's always better with my money anyways, so I'm going to give it to him.

Like, when you put your money into savings, you're either trusting Chase Bank. You're trusting We Trust Wesley and investment Foundation. For some of our savings you might be trusting an investment Bank- Fidel or or Schwab, or whatever. You're trusting somebody with the money. And what I have learned is that God is the most trustworthy with my money.

So, no matter what the amount, I have learned that he multiplies it. And so now let's jump into 2 Kings, 4, veres 1-7, because one of the stressors I've had in this series is that I know who I'm talking to, and often I'm talking to people who maybe have good income, but you're still stressed financially. Sometimes you find out exactly who who you're talking to. Someone reached out to me this week and said it had nothing to do with money or anything like that, but they just said: can you pray for me, Pastor, because, today I found out I lost my job that I've had for many years and I don't know what I'm going to do. And I'm sitting here like I just like sent my sermon over to Carz to put into the system and I was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, Lord, this is.

This is hard because I have this deep desire to be empathetic to everyone's life situation and when you're going to say something that's going to feel, feel a certain way to specific people and then you know their specific issue, you're like I don't want to preach this message, Lord, but I' already sent it, so it's too late. But I know who I'm talking to and when I started to look back at the passage, I was like yo, this is going to be good. So, for anyone who leans in, this can be really helpful for you learning how to trust God, even when it doesn't make sense. Starting in verse one, it says this: the wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, your servant. My husband is dead and you know that he revered the Lord, but now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.

Now, I'm not going to give you the whole context. This is in Second Kings, right after Elijah has been taken up. Now Elisha, who now has a double portion of like prophetic gifting, is now doing Ministry in Israel, the Northern Kingdom, at this time. The job of a prophet is to speak forth the Oracles of God, not necessarily to predict the future, though sometimes they did that. It was mostly to talk about the character of God to people who seem to be missing the character of God.

That's the job of a prophet. These prophets often had many followers. Many of you remember in Scripture, when Jesus comes and starts doing his ministry, he sends the disciples out two by two to the other cities to proclaim the message that Jesus is bringing. It's very similar. Elisha, who has a double portion of what Elijah had, has a company of prophets who he would send out and proclaim the messaging that he's trying to communicate, whether it's to Kings or to small villages.

There was a company of prophets and one man from the company of the prophets died and his wife is left. Now. I don't know the full story, but I know that this man had debt. Whether he was responsible or whether it was just a hard situation, he had debt. Now, in the ancient world, when you die, that debt falls to the rest of your family.

That might happen here in this day and age, but there remedies to that in our world, but in their world, when it fell, to that family, in a patriarchal society where the man kind of was the head of household, who earned the income, who brought in the crops, who did what he needed to do, who owned the business. When he's gone, this leaves his wife, the Widow, very, very desperate and what would often happen in the ancient world, and it's shown here- her kids, because of the debt, were about to be taken by the creditors and sent into SL slavery. Now many of us may be in a financial position where we're desperate, where we're scared, where we're struggling, where we're frustrated, where we don't know what God's going to do to get us out on the other side, where we need to learn some lessons. But I don't know about you. Maybe say Amen, if you agree with me on this.

I don't know that any of us have ever had to almost put our kids up for slavery because of our debts. Anyone, no, okay, y'all get. If you're not, I mean, if this has happened, we should talk, because that, I think, is illegal in the United States. She is in a desperate situation and she brings it and I love this about this woman: she brings it to someone who speaks for God, and I am different than Elisha. So when I say I speak the words of God, I am not like Elisha.

Elisha is a different ball game than I am. I try to communicate to you out of the text. I'm trying to figure my life out and do as responsibly as I can what God calls me to do. But Elisha, he's got this double portion. He's living, he is talking to God on the regular.

So this woman brings it to someone who she believes can help and she tells him the situation. So my first point that I want to give you is, when it comes to things of financial weight in your life, when it comes to you praying and believing for a word or phrase in 2025 that God's going to perform in your life, I think the best thing you can do is talk to God about it. That's my first point. Talk to God about it. Many of us are scared, to talk about the tithe, which is what the Bible says is like the command from God to test him in that area.

The whole tithe, 10% of your gross income to the local Storehouse, which is now the local church, so that it can be utilized for God's purposes in the world. That's the tithe. Many of us look at that and, before we ever talk to God about it, we're like nope, can't afford it, can't lay it out there, can't figure this stuff out, and so I think it would be helpful for each of you: don't just choose a word that you want to do next year. Don't just choose an amount that feels comfortable right now. Talk to God.

In fact, this is why my wife and I sometimes, like we, we have long conv? Ation about this, and we've done this every year since 2017. At year end, we have long conversations about this, because we both, at some level on our own, have to have a conversation with God about what we're believing him for in 2025 and how much he's calling us to increase our faith for an offering at year end, and that is her walk with God and my walk with God, and that has to come together, and we have to talk about it so that we can get where God wants us to be. We've got to talk to God about it. That's- it's a good discipline.

Even if you're married, right, you need to talk to your spouse. That is very important. You should talk to your good friends- good friends, the good friends ones only. You respect. You know the ones that don't give bad advice.

You should talk to your good friends about stuff. You should talk to people who are wise about things. You should talk to your parents if they give sound advice, but the first person that you should talk to about any substantial decision in your life is God. It is important for us to talk to God now. This woman brings it to a life who was the mouthpiece of God in Northern Israel or the Northern Kingdom at the time.

This is a wise step for each of us to take. In fact, if I were randomly choosing a word or randomly dropping an offering, believing God would do something, but I never talk to him about it. It almost it almost feels more superstitious or legalistic than it is a faith step. And, like I've told you from the beginning, this is not about finances alone. This is about faith and our finances and making a choice to trust God with those finances actually unlock the door to Greater momentum and faith in our lives.

That's the point of this exercise. It's to trust God more. So we got to talk to God and so this woman talks to him, and I love because when you talk to God, he doesn't give you the example or, sorry, he does not give you the answer that you're always looking for. Not always, sometimes he does, but I found in my life I'm not as wise as he is, and so there is a there's a time period where my wisdom needs to elevate to the wisdom of God, and usually he teaches me something in the process. So when I talk to him, he responds.

You see this in Scripture. Whenever Jesus responds to somebody, they ask him something and he's like: well, hold on, he'll ask him a rhetorical question or he'll ask them a question that kind of signifies their motive a little bit and helps him think more properly. And this is what happens here. So first you've got to talk to God about it. Philippians, chap 4: 6 sayso not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with Thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

It is so crucial for us to talk to God. In fact, when we bring our anxieties to God, when we bring our financial concerns to God, when we bring the struggles we have in our family to God, he returns to us something better in this passage in Philippians, chapter 4, what is very clear as you continue to read on in that passage is that when you bring your anxiety, God returns peace. When you bring your struggles, God responds with something that is better. Talk to God, just just just talk to him. It might be on the way to work.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

It might be, like me, when you're standing in the shower. That's why I talk to God a lot. It might be when you're processing through something with your spouse. It might be when you're frustrated about life. You're just talking to God.

When you talk to him, when you open his word and talk to him in line with his word, he produces something in you. And this woman goes to Elisha and he responds- and here's my second point and I'm going to give it to you before I read about it: bring what you have. It's the second Point: bring what you have, verse two: Elisha replied to this woman and he says: I love this. How can I help you? Now?

You might not be realizing, kind of kind of, how this conversation will go in real life now. This woman just explained very clearly her desperation. We know that this woman has lost her husband. We know that this woman, her kids, are about to be sold into slavery so that they can pay off these debts. Now, when she comes to Elisha, she makes these requests known to him and he's supposed to talk to God on her behalf and help her out of this situation.

At least that's what she thinks- and he responds with a question. He says: how can I help you? Now? If you would come up to me and told me your entire thing and I responded to you with: , so, so how can we help? You might be frustrated.

I'm seeing by the blank stairs. Maybe you're not. You're not tracking with me. This is a response that is really interesting, and if I'm a desperate person in this situation and someone responds to me like that, I'm not necessarily going to be thrilled. How can, how can you help?

I just told you what's happening, bro. I just told you all that's on my heart: my husband's dead, my two kids are about to get sold in the slavery he had, he had debt and so we got to pay off his creditors. Somehow. I don't. I don't have anything, I'm poor, I'm desperate, I'm destitute.

How can you help me? I already told you, bro. But he asks, and I love it because often, when we talk to God about our deepest struggles, he's going to respond in suit. He's going to respond in such a way that he wants you to think about it. He wants you to.

Let's continue. He says: how can I help you? And then he responds again. He says: tell me, what do you have in your house. Tell me, what do you have in your house now?

This reminds me every single time I talk about this passage, of the same thing that Jesus says to the disciples when they come up to him. He's about to feed 5,000 people, but they don't know it. They see 5,000 people and they don't see enough food to get it done. So they come up to Jesus and say we need to send all these people back to town so that they can get their own food. Jesus says: you feed them and they're- they're freaking out amongst themselves.

How are we going to do that? This is: we can't do this, Jesus. This is impossible. And he looks at him. He says: well, how many loaves do you have?

Go? Look very similar here, right? Elishah responds to her. Jesus responds to the disciples and I think God wants this internal dialogue between you and him. He wants, he wants to ask you that question.

You say you can't honor me with your time. You say you can't honor me with your tithe. You say you can't do what I've called you to do because you don't have the resources, because you don't have the capacity, because you don't have the family members, because, because you don't have the clout, because you don't have what you need, hold on, what do you have in your house? Look at your neighbor with a smile on your face and tell them this: you got something. Oh, this is oh good.

I'm G to help y'all out. Other neighbor. Turn to the other neighbor and I want us to be super celebratory about this. U because the fact that you even have breath in your lungs, the fact that you got a roof over your head, the fact that God has blessed you by you living in the United States of America, the fact that you get to sit here today and freely worship God on your own, you have something in your house, right. Look at your neighbor, the other one, and try harder.

You've got something. All right, we've all got something in our house. And this woman says- and I love how she says it because it's just like you and me- she says: your servant has nothing there at all, pause, well, except a jar of oil. Now, this betrays something about this woman, but I perfectly identify with it. What it tells us is she didn't know what God can do with a little jar of oil.

And you're looking at your house, you're like I, I don't have it. That's, that's. That's for somebody else to do. Generosity is for someone who makes way more money trusting God with their life. Is for someone like a disciple or Paul, the Apostle, or Peter, or or Matt, who talks on stage and, like you, you know, rais funds to come out here and do all this.

This is for somebody else. I don't have have it in my house, but you, you got something you got. You got some s sort of capacity in your life. You've got a gifting that was given to you directly from God. You've got breath in your lungs.

You got a place that you're staying. You've got the ability to do something. You've got resources that you're not thinking about. You have something in your house, she says, except a SM small jar of olive oil. I didn't say this in the first service, but I got to ask you: what is the jar of oil in your house, house that God has provided for you, that he wants to multiply, but because of a lack of faith, you're not utilizing it.

What's your jar of oil? You can think about it like that's something for you to process with you. But I can look around. I look in my full closet. I mean, technically I've got resources that I'm storing, that I'm not utilizing and that I'm not giving away to somebody else.

So it's just sitting up there in my closet taking up space for something better to sit there. That's just a Clos CL space. Anyone go open, open up your pantry and look at all. I'm not telling you just go donate it all to the poor. If God calls you to do it, do it.

But I'm saying you got something in your house. You got way more than a jar of oil in your house. Now, oil back in the day was something that when you produce plenty of it, you could fill other people's jars and that would make you a solid income. And so this woman had a jar of oil. It's just one jar.

It's only a jar, but I wouldn't say it's only anything if God provided it for you so God can utilize it. And I wrote this down and I think this will be helpful for you. You're not responsible for the multiplication, you're responsible for the obedience, you're responsible for the jar that you've got. You're not responsible for everything else. In fact, it's God's job to multiply the fish, to multiply the loaves, to multiply the oil, to multiply the resources in your life.

It is your job to bring what you have to God so that he can do something with it, because he'll do better than you would. Anyways, trust me. I mean, if you don't trust me, trust God's word. If you don't trust God's word, try it out and see what happens. You're not responsible for the multiplication, you're responsible for the obedience.

I could give you example after example. I could think of Gideon, who doesn't understand why 300 people makes more sense than 3,000 people. But God called him to do it and he provided I. I can think about the people of Israel when they're trying to conquer the promised land and they walk around Jericho seven times without enough inst, without enough equipment, without enough capability of defeating this nation, but for some reason God was able to make the walls fall down by them blowing a trumpet. I could give you story after Story: the Nets and the fish.

It didn't make sense, but God's able to multiply it. All we're responsible for is The Obedience. So let's go further into this story. He tells her in verse three- and we won't go back there- but he tells her to go to her neighbors and, grab some empty jars. So just because you don't have all the resources doesn't mean God hasn't provided them in your midst.

They might not be in your house, but they might be in your vicinity and you can utilize those things. 2 Kings 4: 4-6. I'm going to read this, and he says this: then go inside, shut the door behind you and your sons, pour oil into all the jars and, as each is filled, put it to one side. She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons.

They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son: bring me another one. But he replied: there's not a jar left. Then the oil oil stopped flowing. There's something that I have understood in my walk with God, and I could give you example after example in Scripture, .

But what I've noticed is that God tends to, he likes to allocate his resources properly. He likes to put them in ground. That is going to be the best investment. I think God's a good businessman and in this scenario, she has a certain number of jars. He's multiplying the amount of oil and the amount of jars she brings, which could represent maybe the amount of faith that she's bringing to the table.

CU, I don't know. I don't know if I mean it said: go to all your neighbors. How many neighbors did her kids go to? I don't know. I'm not saying she didn't go to all her neighbors.

Let's assume she went to all her neighbors. Was that all the jars that her neighbors had? I wonder if there were more neighbors down the street that she could have gone to. She's like: well, I'm going to do all my neighbors, but I'm going to go six miles down the street and see what happens. I'm going grab their jars too.

I think God's going to do something, so I'm going to keep grabbing jars. And what I wrote here is what, if you're faith and your movement toward that Faith helps facilitate the miracle that God wants to perform? Now I want to be careful here, because what I'm not saying is: it's your faith that produces the miracle. That's not what I'm saying. God is the one who is working miracles.

God is the one who can multiply. In fact, on your own, you have very limited capability to do much beyond what you currently have. I'm not able to multiply loves. I mean, I can make more loaves. I can go to verado and grab all the sourdough loaves that are existing over there.

I could- that was a joke. I can do all that stuff. Sourdough is kind of a trendly. You know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I can go, I can go find some loaves, but I can't multiply them from nothing.

I can't. I can't raise someone from the dead. I can't do that stuff. Only God can do it. However, sometimes, unless you walk through a door, you're not going to see the miracle God wants to perform.

And so what I say when I say facilitate, what I mean is, when you have faith to step through a door, it makes it 10 times more likely that you're going to see God multiply something he's always capable, and you're not capable of going beyond what your capacity is able to do, but when you step Through the Door of Faith, you get to see God do what only he can do, and that's what we see in this situation. However many jars she had, was the amount of oil that was going to flow. Every single jar that she filled was a miracle, cuz she only had one and she just kept pouring. God kept multiplying and my belief is that however many jars she was going to provide, God was going to continue to provide it. Then she sells the jars to her neighbors.

I mean, she gives the jars back, but she sells the oil that was in the jars. And then they got to keep the proceeds and the oil that was left and they got to give it or give it back to the creditors and she got to keep her kids. That is a miraculous situation, but had she not believed, had she not walked through that, that door? I mean, many of us- we hear the Elisha of the world- and I'm not Elisha, that's just the Bible, right? They hear the Elisha of the world that say, Hey, go grab all these jars and start pouring.

And we're like: I don't want to go grab all the jars, I've only got one. I don't understand what you're going to do with this. Why would I go to my neighbors? They would probably have to know that I need to borrow something from them, and that makes me look poor or bad or desperate or frustrating. I don't want to look needy.

I don't want to look like this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to be disciplined enough to do this. I don't want to take the risk. If any of those reasons had kept her from going to grab more jars, she would have never seen a miracle, cuz she had one, but her obedience enabled her to see the multiplication.

And what I'm trying to tell you is that if you want to see God multiply things in and around you, you've got to take a step of Faith. Now we don't always we- we talk about tons of different Steps of Faith. It could be attending consistently, it could be trusting Jesus, it could be taking the step of baptism, but this series is focused on one specific type of Step of Faith which is bringing, in tandem with the belief for a word, faith enough to trust God with our finances. Some people are going to bring a gift for the first time, some giving their tithe, and starting today to tithe, and some are going to give above and beyond. But I want to give you an example.

I want to give you an example because I, you, I believe with all my heart. This is kind of how God works. This, what is this? Everyone, I make sure with me, it's a picture of water. It's a picture of water.

Let's let this picture of water represent the source, the blessing of God, what we want him to overflow into our life, what we want to receive from God in terms of Revelation, but also the layer of the fact that we need him to provide for us as we do what he's called us to. So this is both the material and the spiritual blessing that comes from God. The water in the picture is the source of our supply, and this is you and me: a jar. This is the jar you can bring. This is what you've got.

God calls us to bring what we have. This woman had one jar. You've got a jar. Now, I don't know what the capacity of this jar is. I don't know much about it at all.

It's just a jar, and what we want from God is to bless us. God blesses all of us. In fact, since you're all blessed, I'm going to go and pour some of this Source blessing into this jar that represents your life. You are blessed, filled to the brim. You really are blessed.

Even if you don't realize it, you are blessed. I preached on that last week. Go watch it. I don't got time to talk about it today, but you're blessed and God has filled you with something. Whatever is in your house can be utilized for the purposes of God.

But what we tend to do is, rather than think about what God's called us to, we think about what we have and rather than being generous with it, we're fearful of losing it and we keep asking God for the blessing. But we're like that man in the parable that Jesus tells in Luke, who built this Storehouse, filled it with grain and crops, and it wasn't big enough because he kept storing. So he tore it down, built a bigger Storehouse, filled it with grain. He wasn't generous with it, he didn't tithe with it, he didn't do what God had called him to do with it. And then God comes to him, or the master comes to him, and says: you, foolish servant, today your life will be taken from you.

And the impetus of this message. What we should understand from it is that God's called us to do more than hoard and store. But what we do is we. We store it, we're filled up and we're happy, we're good, we don't want to lose it, and we keep asking God for blessing. And for a while there he- I mean he- keeps blessing you.

You're blessed. But here's what's funny: when we don't shift our perspective into the abundance mindset that I chatted about last week and we stay scarce and we try to keep what we have rather than trust that God's going to continue to provide, even if we give away, we're filled. He continues to bless, but since you're overflowing, like you don't, the waters, it's the same water, like you're filled up, but you're not feeling the blessing. And many of you aren't feeling the blessing of God in your life because you, you, you have enough, but you keep trying to keep what you have rather than trusting God and stepping into your calling. And we've just got a bunch of overflowing, blessed people who keep hoarding what they have been given to by God.

But God wants you to do something more with this. God wants you to trust that he's going to continue to provide, because this is the source, and I don't know about you, but a little bit of blessing on top to overflow is not the blessing I'm looking for. In fact, this is what God wants from us and this is something that is much better. This is also you, but this is a different type of you, where you were filled up and instead of hoarding it and keeping it so that we waste half this water here and this blessing here, because we're keeping it all for ourselves. God's called us to give it.

God's called us to do something with our lives. God's called us to give 10% back to the church, but God's also called us to be generous. God even called the people who were already giving a tithe in the Old Testament. He called them to also let people glean 10% from their crops and then, every three years, he called them to do more giving. In fact, in the New Testament, Jesus calls us to radical generosity, because what he gives us is not meant to be hoarded and stored.

It is meant to be poured. And when you pour it, oh, you may feel empty for a moment. But then what have you done? You have provided space for more blessing from God, and when you're filled, God wants you to continue to bless others. You provided more space so you're more filled.

The life that God wants you to live is not to receive from God and keep it for yourself. It's to keep looking at the source of your supply, which is the real blessing in the first place. And I continue to receive from God, but I continue to pass it out, distribute it, be generous with it. I continue to use what I have in my house to bless other people. Why?

Because I'm not scared about lacking anymore. I'm not scared about not being provided for anymore. In fact, I am just excited to receive more and more blessing from God that I can then radically be generous with, because my f focus is on receiving from the source and then passing it out and guess what? Here's what's interesting about this: the life lived with generosity, radical generosity, where we trust God with all of our finances to do what he will with it and to continue to give back to him, knowing that he's going to bless us. You've got this amount of blessing from the hoarder and the stoer.

I got to ask you who got more blessing from the Lord. This is what I found in my life is that he continues to bless me regardless of what I choose. But I get to see more and more of Christ Jesus when I choose his way. I get to see more and more of that provision when I choose his way. I get to see more of my family members come to know Jesus when I choose his way.

I get to see floodgates of Heaven unlocked in my life when I choose his way, but you. But it takes faith and I would be a terrible person if I just preached a message with an interesting illustration to you but didn't act on that myself. That's the only reason I told you the conversation I had with God and then my wife yesterday. That's the only reason I'm vulnerable with you about this stuff. It's not cool to me, it's not special.

There are people who give more there, people who give less. For me, this is what God called me to give and it's a step of Faith. You might call this momentum right, because momentum is mass moving in a direction at a certain velocity. So every step is you choosing to increase your momentum. Whether it's choosing to come to church for the first time, whether it's choosing to give today, whether it's choosing to believe God for a word and to write that word down.

Maybe it's choosing to be consistent at church, maybe it's choosing to step onto a team. Whatever you're choosing, if it's a faith step, what that does is it's a choice by you, in your lane, utilizing what you have in your house, to take a step and then another step, and then another step, and every step you take increases your momentum, and when your momentum increases, you get to see God: take what you choose to do with your resources and multiply it. So I would say it this way: my job is to create momentum by taking regular steps of obedience toward God. His job is to multiply whatever those steps initially produce. And so that's what I do personally, but I also want to us to do it as a church.

And that's hard right, because, like making a personal decision, if I make the worst financial decision in the world and I trust God and he doesn't prove himself true, then I'm in a bad position. My wife's mad at me for a little bit, but it affects none of you. All, right, like that's me, I can make a financial decision, but when you're making decisions as a church, it's a different thing. It affects people and, at the same time, God still calls us to trust him. That's right.

God still calls us to trust him. And, back in April, we made a decision to bring Carz gogin on full-time, which was a tough move for me. I'd never hired anyone before, in a organization that we started two months before. Like, I' just never done that before. Any of you own a business.

You get it, but like it's tough right, like that was a scary thing, because now it's not just my mouth to feed. I can go live on ramen noodles and stuff, but then somebody else like I want them to live on ramen noodles. They'll. They'll sell somebody else and, like you, making that dude live on Ramen Doodles. I don't want that.

And so I'm thinking about that and I felt from the Lord, if you want to see blessing unlocked in this church, you need to take steps of obedience and Faith. It's a simple thing. This is what he called the disciples to do. This is what we see here. She had to take steps of faith.

God said: I want to see something happen in the West Valley of Phoenix, but everyone in the church, you got to start taking steps of Faith, starting with you, bro, the, the guy called to help start this thing, and so we took that step. I said: you know, we've got some in the stores. God blessed us with some in stores and we're not called to hoard it, individuals or as a church. And so, okay, we got some in stores. Let's utilize it to take a step of Faith to produce what we believe God wants to produce.

So we took the step. We decided to hire corz, even though the monthly income coming in from tithes and offerings did not meet up to the amount. But there was some in stores. So we said we're going to take a face step, we're going to utilize some of what's in stores to cover that and take this face step, believing God's going to provide. Check this: not once did we have to jump into the stores.

God provided. And now we find ourselves in kind of a similar boat and, we know that in order to see multiplication in certain areas of ministry, we have to make Faith decisions on our own to help facilitate that result. We've got to walk through that door, if you will. And what's so cool about the decision I'm about to tell you about is that this is kind of a two-sided Faith step. Right, so this is a faith step for me to bring somebody on the team.

But the fact that they even get the opportunity to do that is because they took Faith steps on their own. And so at this time I'm going to ask Kaye to come up here and I want to tell you about kayle's story for a second. Can we do? Do that? Y'all give it up for Kaye so it's not awkward for her.

I remember, . Now I moved to Joplin, Missouri, and we opened up in the middle of Co. It was July of 2020, so that was fun. Anyways. She showed up I think the first or second Sunday, and that next month you were like the first person that we baptized and you started taking Faith steps.

You started to serve, you went on some mission trips like you, you were taken some steps and then God calls us to start a church out here in Phoenix and she's like I don't know, maybe God's calling me to do that. And whenever God's calling someone else to do something and I see it happening, I'm like I ain't saying nothing. I don't want to ruin what God's already doing right. And so I start to watch. And what I also saw her do is she came to the year end offering- was it 2022?

And she believed God had called her to the word abide. And the reason you chose the word abide didn't have to do with necessarily serving or going on mission trips or even necessarily just coming out here. It was you recognizing that God was calling you to trust him in every area and specifically, this one had to do with your finances, right, and it was one of those things where I'll preach on it. I try not to talk too much about it because I ain't trying to get in people's like business, you know, and so I talk about it, but she would bring it up while she's talking about trying to come out to Phoenix. She decided, or believed, that God was calling her to Phoenix and started pursuing that.

Now, as you were pursuing that, God was convicting you of the tithe. I'm just telling this story. I'm just telling it. I'm not trying to manufacture it or anything. She was processing through the tithe while she was trying to do something you felt like God wanted you to do, and I remember we would have these conversations because you were asking what it meant to tithe and all these other things.

Like you had drop some in periodically, but this was where God was calling you to choose the tithe and you made the decision to tithe. What was it? August or July of 2022? August of 2022, and I'll never forget this cuz. She was coming over to our house for a, young adult small group and on her way she- a rock- hit her car and put a crack in her windshield in her new car and she- she walked in and she said: and I was going to tithe this month, there went my tithe and, I just I kept my mouth shut.

I never do that. I just kept my mouth shut. And, she walked in the house and I walk in and I'm just talking to somebody else and she's having a conversation with one girl. And then my wife and, somehow they started talking about hair. You had just gotten your hair colored or something like that.

And, this is my wife, not me. My wife's responsible was: well, there went your tithe because it cost her like 300 bucks. And, my wife is not that Savage. I don't know where that came from, so I don't believe it's the spirit of God. I was like, I looked at her.

I said, dang, Hannah, what's going on? She didn't want me to tell that, but she's not here right now, so she can get over it. And it was that moment you decided to start tithing. But you were still looking for jobs out here. Nothing was panning out.

Well, you consistently tithed, you chose the word abide and you said: I'm going to abide in Christ, even though I don't know the result. Then January comes around and you apply for a job you had applied for but not got anything on right. And you got it and you made more than you expected and it brought you out here the same weekend that we moved out here. And then she continued. But I kept telling her.

I said: you're not getting a job up here, I ain't hiring you, so don't come out here thinking you're going to get a job. Genu words, facts, all right and, you were just abiding in Christ, you just served, you worked at your full-time gig, you learned how to do a lot of marketing stuff and you started doing communication stuff for us. You started leading kids and even then I was still saying, hey, don't get, don't get the don't think you're getting a job, I can't hire you, I'm not going to hire you, you're not. Whatever I, I try to tell people up front you're not getting something, so they don't get their hopes up and. But I kept seeing you abide and I kept seeing God's calling abiding over you.

And now this year we made the decision to bring Caron full-time. I saw what God would do, when we took a step of faith and now it's time if we want to see momentum in the West Valley, if, if, if we want to see other people take steps of faith, if we want to see our kids not deal with the same stuff we had to deal with while we were growing up, if we want them to know Jesus and start revolving their lives around Jesus, we got to take a step of Faith, don't we? We got to take a step of Faith. We've got to walk through that door so that we can see God multiply. We might not see it if we don't have faith, but again, I'm struggling because the monthly doesn't match up and we've got some stores and I believe God's calling us to pour it into investment into our children's ministry, by bringing her on fulltime starting January 1.

And I'm telling you this super detailed because I don't know what's going to happen. There's a level where I told you this, didn't I? I said, hey, we got enough for this long. People got to have faith, though we don't know how it's going to work out. But we believe that this is going to happen and in order to create momentum that Jesus can multiply, we got to take these steps.

It's the right step. I'm not stressed, just like with Carz, we didn't have to worry about it. You've had Faith, you allowed Christ. You abided in Christ Jesus. He produced something in you, and now we're simply saying: I think, I think God's doing something in you and we want to see it here.

So January 1st she's going to be starting fulltime, but here's why I tell you this: not just so you know, but so that it may, in some form or fashion, inspire you to start trusting God, because I told you on public, I mean, you'll know if God produces or not, won't you? But I believe he will. I believe he will in your life too, and so I want to encourage you: move from hoarding and storing to seeing the full, exhaustive, unimaginable blessing of God in your life. So, right now, what we're going to do is the worship band is going to play behind me and we're going to take a moment in faith. Kayle's going to stand down here.

I'll Stand down here, and what I want you to do- if you haven't done it yet- I meant to say it ear, ear- is: you've got this envelope on your seat. This line right here is meant for your word that you're believing God for in 2025. Just write it down. Whether you put anything in here, whether you write anything down back here, I want to encourage you. Put a word right here and we're all going to take a step in faith- whether it's just the word or whether it's the word- and you're taking a big step of Faith financially.

We're all going to walk up here, starting from the inside, row by row. We're going to drop that off and we've got a gift for you to commemorate. This moment says: if you know, you know on the front and on the back. I want you to write down with one of the paint markers we have outside, whatever your word is, put it on your keychain and whenever God shows up, I want you looking at this and reveling in the glory and blessing of God in your life. And whenever you're struggling, I want you to look at this and say: God's got this, God's got this, I took the step.

It's God's job to multiply, it's my job to keep trusting, and so we're going to give you this. We're going to all do it together. So write down your word, fill out this information. If you need to, we're going to drop it in. We'll hand you this and on your way out in a moment, let's keep that Faith rolling.

Write down your word and even on that little plexiglass thing that says: if you know you know on it, write down your word. We as a staff, we as a leadership team, we as volunteers, are going to be praying over your words over the next couple of months and I might come to you, if I know you, and say, hey, I saw that your word was this. I believe God's going to do something, so I'm not scared to ask. And so let's all do that together. Y'all stand with me.

I'm going to pray for us and we'll have one of the ushers up here to release row by row. All right, God, we thank you for today. We thank you that you didn't just call us to do this without an example. In fact, we see the best evidence we can in your son, Jesus, who fully did what you called him to do, who laid down his life on the cross, knowing that you were the one who is capable, with that Faith step to raise him up 3 days later. And, God, I pray now that those of us who have trusted in you have your Holy Spirit.

I pray that you would convict everyone in this room right now to take a step of faith: believing you for a word, believing you in tandem when it comes to our finances. Taking a step of faith, knowing that, whether it's Revelation or provision, you're going to produce, and so I pray that everyone would walk through that door in these, these next few moments. We love you and we trust you. It is in Jesus's name that we pray, and God's people said amen just whenever you ready.