Unlocking True Generosity

What up crossing family? It is so good to be able to

spend some time with you all and welcome those of you gathering

online, those of you gathering with the crossing inside.

We are celebrating the 11 baptisms that happened there all

across this region. That's exactly right.

And I also want to welcome all of you joining at one of our

physical locations. Now, before we get into the

message, we definitely need to address what happened yesterday,

early or late afternoon, early evening.

One, if you did not pay attention to our sermon series

called Don't Take the Bait on Faith and politics, I would

encourage you to watch it. I am so thankful to God that

we've already done this series and that this is not the

introduction to a series on faith and politics.

Two, I am incredibly thankful that President Trump was not

seriously harmed. We should never wish death or

pain on anyone. My core conviction is that I am

not completely sure that Donald Trump has an intimate personal

relationship with Jesus. And I believe that this opens up

a great window for someone to be able to have that conversation.

And so we should be praying for that.

Third thing we should know is that the rhetoric that is

happening on all of the mainstream media, and they'll be

conspiracy theories and there will be memes and they'll be all

kinds of that stuff that that is not how Christians operate or

behave. We should be a light in the

darkness anytime something like that happens.

Third, the way you conduct yourself tells them where your

hope is placed. And your kids, this will be

their 911. They will remember how you

acted, how you responded, how you behaved.

So set a really, really good example. 4th, the shooter.

I don't know all those details, but boy, you got to be in a dark

spot. And there's going to be a mom

and a dad and sisters and brothers and cousins who are

going to gather around a grave and they're going to bury

somebody that they love and that the whole world hates.

When we say that we care for people and lost people, that's

our heartbeat. So pray for the upcoming

political season. Pray that people don't lose

their mind. Thank God that Trump is still

alive. Pray for Biden as he finishes

out his term. And pray for those who are

affected and will be hurt and misguided.

And pray for people who are in dark spots.

Because Christians are people of prayer and we are people of hope

and we are people of peace. And all of that comes from our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Deal now next week we will be

starting a brand new series called I'll Get to this left

Third Decisions in the Desert, and we will be looking at one of

the most famous stories in all of scripture.

It is one of the most referenced stories in all of scripture and

this story will help you understand your story.

The decisions that you make in the desert will determine your

destiny. The decisions that you make in

the desert will define you. And Jerry Harris will be here to

start the first two weeks of that sermon series.

And I'm telling you, if you guys have hated this sermon series,

which is the last one, the next sermon series is going to be the

perfect sermon series for you to invite a friend.

And this series is 14 weeks long.

So here's the challenge I'm issuing to you.

Crossing family. There is probably somebody that

you love, that you care about, that you wish had a relationship

with Jesus. And during the next 14 weeks,

I'm going to encourage you to bring that friend, say, hey, I'm

going to take you out for lunch afterwards.

We'll go golfing after that, hey, I'll, you know, pay your

mortgage, whatever you want to do to help your friend show up

for church. Because this series, I mean, it

will be transformative if somebody is new to their faith

or doesn't have a faith. And So what I want you to do

when I was saying that you probably thought of somebody.

So what I'm going to do is we're going to take a little bit of

time and we're going to pray for him.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the way that you love

us and you care for us. God, obviously right now our

country is in crazy political turmoil.

And God, I'm asking that you would help us to live

differently, live in a way that reflects you and your glory and

the presence of your Spirit. God, I pray that you would watch

over our words and our actions and our influence over our kids

and our relationships. And God specifically, there are

people in our lives that we care deeply about, that we want to

find what we have found in you. And God, I pray that you would

open up doors in this upcoming series for us to see those

friends come to faith in you and in my pray.

Amen. Well, today we are finishing up

the sermon series called Map Makers, where we have been

charting a path to better stewardship, less stress and

greater impact. And today at the very end of

this message, I'm going to talk to you about what greater impact

looks like. But the reason for this series

is because while we are some of the richest people in all of

human history and some of the richest people in the world,

statistically, we are not good with our money.

And as a result, we are struggling with mental health,

with stress, with anxiety, with worry.

Furthermore, our inability to handle finance as well is

impacting this. The health of our marriages and

the length of our marriages. And beyond that, how we handle

our money impacts us spiritually.

The stat that kind of broke my heart was this.

When asked Americans said this, 48 percent, 48.6% of Americans

consider themselves to be broke. 66.2% of Americans feel like

they are living paycheck to paycheck.

So since we believe that God's way is the best way, and since

we know that God blesses obedience, we've been talking

about what it looks like to handle our money the way God

says to handle our money. And the very first thing we

learned is that everything we have, everything belongs to God.

That's what it says in Psalm 24. One, the earth is the Lord's,

and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.

You belong to God, your stuff belongs to God, everything

belongs to Him. The second thing we're supposed

to do is we're supposed to tithe.

Malachi chapter 3, verse 10, bring the whole tithe into the

Malachi 3:10

storehouse. So bring 10% to the local church

that there may be food in my house.

Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not

throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much

blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.

Tithing is 10% of our income. Our increase is to be brought to

the church where we attend, where we serve, where we grow,

and where we make a difference. I wasn't going to do this, but

during this series I've answered emails and I've heard pastors

talk about some of the conversation they've had with

people who call the crossing home.

And so there's a bunch of questions.

And even though what I'm about to say was not really the

general thrust of this sermon series, I realized that I have

not clearly communicated some stuff to you that might be

advantageous to you as you're processing.

So this is what we're going to call a 10 minute rabbit trail,

which means we're going to get you guys out of here by noon.

All right? The tithe is not something that

you and I control. The tithe belongs to the Lord.

God is the Lord of the tithe, which means the only thing I'm

supposed to do is I'm supposed to give 10% to where I attend,

which is what Jennifer and I do. We attend here, we give 10%

here. I don't get to choose what I

want to do. So when I'm at, you know, some

place and they say, hey, would you like to round up for, you

know, basically when I'm at McDonald's and they say, do you

want me to round up? OK, that round up is not a part

of my tithe because that would be me controlling where my money

went. Anything time I'm doing that

after I've started tithing, anything I do beyond that is

where I get to become a generous person.

So when we are faithful in tithing, that's where we give

10%. Our generosity journey begins

after that, that's where we get to have greater impact, which is

the general thrust of what today's message is.

Now, the sad truth is that many people today do not honor God

with their money. And that puts a limit on the

effectiveness of their church. It impacts the relationship with

God, and it puts a lid on their spiritual life.

And in my experience, there are three reasons why people don't

trust God with their finances. And some of you, you might see

yourself in one of these three categories.

The first one is ignorance. You don't know any better.

You're young in your faith. You didn't know how you're

supposed to operate financially and you didn't know what you

don't know. And how can you be obedient to

God in an area of your life that you don't know where God expects

you to operate you? The Bible says how can they

believe upon the one in whom they have not heard?

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?

So there are people who are living in ignorance because they

don't know what God expects of them to do.

Hopefully this series has taken a lot of you out of the

ignorance camp. The second category that kind of

people find themselves in is the area of disobedience.

They know better, but they ignore what God says.

Maybe you struggle with selfishness and you want to keep

it all for yourself. Or maybe it's pride and you just

want to remain in control. Maybe it's consumerism and so

you kind of get out of pocket. And then the third reason, which

is why I think most people operate, is worry.

You're just simply scared to trust God and walk by faith.

You haven't grown to a spot in your intimate personal

relationship with Him where you trust him to do exactly what he

says he will do. You read Malachi and you're

like, I'm supposed to bring the whole tithe in.

Well, what does the blessing actually look like?

If I knew that I was going to get the blessing, then I'd do

the tithing. So let me give you context for

our church here at the crossing. There are a lot of people that

attend and I'm going to use some internal language for you to

give you context. So we would say that there's

about 30,000 people that would say the crossing's my church.

So I'll be at a restaurant and somebody like, oh man, I go to

your church. Like that's awesome.

They're like, so you know, do you preach at 48th St.

Like, yeah, yeah, I'm there pretty much all the time.

I'm almost, I'm almost ever never someplace else.

So you're like that person. They'll be here on Easter.

OK. Then out of that group, there's

about 12,000 people that we would call insider language,

active people who are regularly engaged in the crossing in some

way should perform. Out of that 12,000 people,

there's about 4000 people that give a dollar or more, OK.

And out of that group of 4000 people, there are about 400

couples, 800 adults who demonstrate what I would call

tithing behavior. And that group of 400 people

make up 60% of everything that you see happen here at the

crossing. That means that a vast majority

of the people who call the crossing home find themselves in

one of these three categories. And just so you know, if I can

speak on behalf of the 400 plus families who demonstrate tithing

behavior, I want you to hear me say this.

And I think, you know, you guys, if you're one of the 400, you

can e-mail me and say don't speak for me ever again.

But these 400 people, I think this is what they tell you

because this is what Jennifer and I would tell you.

We love it that you call the crossing home, and it is our

privilege to do everything in our power to make sure that you

have a place to call home. We love it when you show up in a

seat that you didn't pay for. We love it when you show up for

a room and you complain about the temperature even though you

didn't pay the utility bill. We love it when you wipe with

toilet paper because your beautiful little booty needs to

be wiped. And we want you to know that

when you drink from the water fountain, we are happy to supply

it. And when we send your kid off to

camp and when you want us to show up at the nursing home or

the hospital, we are happy that to do it because we don't ever

send a bill. We love it when you bring your

friend to church. We love it when you come to the

steps for the very first time and pray.

We love it when you raise your hand to worship for the very

first time. And boy do we love it when you

bring a person that you love into the baptistry and they find

an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

It is our joy. It is our privilege.

We will give you all the time that you need to grow and

develop in that relationship with Jesus Christ.

But our hope is that one day you will find what we have found and

you will experience what we have experienced.

And we look forward to the day where you are not just a

consumer of what is happening at the crossing, but you are a

contributor to what God is doing at the crossing and

participating in what He is doing in our midst as we try to

make this region the hardest place on planet earth to get to

hell from. We can't wait until you discover

that God's way really is the best way.

We can't wait until you experience that God blesses

obedience. I was, I was putting this sermon

series together. I've been praying for 100

families to take this step that out of a Church of this size

that there'd be 100 people who would say, you know what?

I'm ready to start being a part of what God is doing and taking

God at his word. And I know that 100 people

sounds incredibly small, and I know that God can do

immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.

But for our church to go from 400 families operating like this

to 500 families would be life changing.

That they would be able to go out on a limb and experience the

faith filled life that God has called him to.

End of rabbit trail After tithing, we discussed how to

live below our means, to live on less than what we make.

Proverbs 2120 In the House of the wise are stores of choice,

food and oil. But a foolish man devours all he

has. If you are living above your

means, you are going, you are devouring everything that you

take in. But a wise person lives below

their means, and they have something called margin.

And in many ways our addiction to consumption has put us in all

kinds of trouble, and it has removed our freedom and our

flexibility. Proverbs 25 verse 28 says like a

Proverbs 25:28

city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks

self-control. If you do not establish the

discipline of self-control now, it will ruin you later.

And there is a gift that you can give to future you, but that

gift of freedom and flexibility and margin has to be purchased

by present you. Then we talked about saving

Proverbs 1311. Dishonest money dwindles away,

but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.

Storms are going to come and we want to be prepared for them.

We want to be ready for them so that way when it happens, we're

not destroyed by them. As we begin to save, our

stewardship increases, our stress decreases, and it becomes

a gift that we give to our future self.

Ask yourself what are the things that future you wants to do?

Present you has to set future you up with those options.

When we do all of this, we will move into a place beyond the

tithe and we will begin our generosity journey.

John Wesley, a famous theologian and evangelist and church

leader, stated that Christians should make all we can save all

we can so we can give all we can.

In the book of Job in the Old Testament, we find these words

Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart.

As Jerry Harris used to say, there are no U hauls behind a

hearse. You can't take it with you.

You don't get a If you get buried with all your stuff, your

stuff just disappears in the box.

Proverbs 1124 says this one person gives freely yet gains

even more. Another withholds unduly but

comes to poverty. Verse 25 A generous person will

prosper. So if you're going long term, I

want to be a person who prospers.

The pathway to that is being generous.

We're not generous until we've become obedient in the other

areas of whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

People who curse the one who hoards grain, but they pray

God's blessing on the one who is willing to sell you and I.

This might surprise you when you feel the desire to be generous.

That is actually a natural feeling because you were created

in the image of God and God is a generous God.

However, our spending habits and our saving habits can get in the

way of what our heart wants to do.

I've told you some of my financial stories during this

sermon series. And I want you to know that not

all of my financial decisions have been great.

Because even though my dad taught me some great financial

disciplines, when I went off to college, I got a credit card.

And this is this is what happened.

I had a really good, generous heart, and I had a credit card.

And so there were some people in my life that were, you know,

struggling financially. And so when we would go out to

eat, I would pick up the tab for everybody.

Why? Because I had a really good

heart and a credit card. And then there were some people

who are navigating some real financial hardships.

And so I kind of interceded and took some of their financial

burden off of them. Why?

Well, that's because I had a really good heart and a credit

card. And I did this for a long time

because I had a really good heart and a credit card.

And then one day I kind of looked at the statement and I

realized I was in a hole that I was not getting out of.

So I drove 65 miles and I sat down at my father's kitchen

table, the same table that I wrote out my budget when I was

13 years old. And I said, dad, I need your

help. It was the most embarrassed.

Oh, so embarrassed. My dad is a really good man, and

my dad bailed me out of my whole.

I had a really good heart, but I didn't have the discipline to

sustain it. And so my ability to do good for

other people and experience the joy of that giving was actually

covered by my dad's financial discipline.

I hated that feeling so much that I put me on a completely

different path for generosity and you guys can make fun of me

for this. But if I were to pull up my

accounts, you would see my general checking account, you

would see my car savings account, you would see my

general savings account, and then you'd see my generosity

fund. And every year Jennifer and I

determine an amount of money that is going to go into that

generosity account so that when a need surfaces, I have already

pre planned to be able to do something.

Because I hate being in that spot where you're like, I would

like to, but I can't. I wanted to build in margin so

that way my my heart can do what it wants to do.

And can I tell you, this is my favorite money to spend.

Every time I get paid, money goes into my generosity account.

And there's things that like I, I save up for.

So when we get ready to do camp scholarships, you need to know

this. Jennifer and I, we're the first

ones in because we love your kids and we can't wait to see

them find Jesus. When it comes time for year end

giving, we're the first people in because we can't wait for the

Kingdom of God to expand. And when there's golf outings,

we're the first ones in because we can't wait to see what God is

going to do. And we look forward for

opportunities to partner with people and help people and bless

people because we are consumed by people finding what we have

found in Jesus and that is an intimate personal relationship

with Him. And you need to know this by

refreshing others. Jennifer and I are abundantly

refreshed. Last year was 2023 was a really

big year for us because last year was the first year we gave

more money away than we paid towards our house.

And I have a lifetime giving goal of I want to give

$1,000,000 in my lifetime to the advancement of the Kingdom of

God. Now you need to know that you do

not have me on a trajectory to make $10 million in my lifetime

as the pastor of this church. OK, you guys, OK, you're not,

you're not hitting that target. And so I'm thinking like, how do

I still make this happen? And I also want to have what

kind of long term impact do I want to have in my life?

Like what kind of legacy do I want to leave?

Because there's really only two legacies you can leave.

It's what you leave in people and what you leave to people.

And I can only leave in you while I'm alive.

I can only invest in your relationship with God and your

development and as becoming a Christian while I'm talking to

you, while I'm preaching to you, while I'm sitting across the

table from you. And that investment stops the

moment I take my last breath. But is there a way for me to be

able to continue to leave to you even long after I am gone?

And so I really want to was like, I wonder if we could have

an endowment here at the crossing that I could leave

money to so that would support the ministry and the advancement

of the Kingdom of God long after I'm gone.

And so we got a group of people together and they just went out

and made this happen. And they call it the Legacy

Project. And here's what the Legacy

Project is. It is an endowment fund that is

comprised of seven smaller funds.

And what happens is, is when money goes into the legacy

project, it gets equally distributed into all these other

little funds. So like one of them is the

capital fund. You know, there's going to be

capital projects that are going to happen across all of our

locations at different times, and this alleviates the burden

of that on the general budget. Then there's the influence fund.

You might not know this, but there are churches all across

the country that lean on the crossing for help.

They want us to help them pull off their Minsk conferences.

We were asked to help put together a conference in Phoenix

this year and support that. We're pastors from all across

the country gather to learn and grow, and we get to be a part of

that. There's the vision fund.

This is an opportunity for us to prime the vision that God has

every single year at the crossing to do something new

that's never been done. And often times there's not a

line item in the budget to make that happen.

So now there would be with the Vision Fund and then there's the

expansion fund. We would love to make sure that

people in different parts of our region who don't have a

relationship with Jesus, who don't have a church, have an

opportunity to experience what we have experienced.

And this would be the first money spent every year on

expansion. This is how long term you'd be

able to have another Jacksonville or another Monmouth

or a Connect partnership. Then there's the scholarship

fund, cuz man, we love your kids and we want to make sure that

there is no financial hurdle that they have to go through for

them to be able to connect and grow in their relationship with

Jesus Christ. Because we don't want them to

make the same mistakes that we made.

We want them to find Jesus early and have one of the most boring

testimonies on planet earth. I found Jesus when I was young.

I trusted in the whole way through and I took as few stupid

pills as humanly possible. That is the testimony we want

for your kids. We want a way better testimony

for our kids than we have for ourselves.

Then we have the Impact Fund, which is the one that I'm the

most excited about. This would be to help the least

of these among us. It's designed to help people who

got nothing. It's money set aside to help

people who need benevolence or need stuff from the thrift store

and who need counseling and medical help.

And then there's the mission Fund that we want to give added

money to our different missionaries when they have a

particular project that sprouts up and we want to be able to be

pre positioned to be able to meet that need.

This would be the legacy project.

And there might be some of you who are hard wired like Jennifer

and I, and you want to have an Ave. for your treasure here on

earth to impact the Kingdom of God until the return of Christ.

So and Jennifer and I are in the process of doing our will and I

know some of you are going to e-mail me and say you should

have done it way earlier. OK, you're right, but I'm doing

it now. And what we're doing is, is

we're putting 10% of our net worth upon our death to the

advancement of the crossing through the legacy project.

That's right. We're tithing even in our death.

Why? Because we want as many people

to find Jesus humanly possible. So how am I getting to my

$1,000,000 number? Because let's just say for a

second that I, you know, I'm going to die.

My family heart attacks and colon cancer.

So I'm going to get bit one of these days.

It's just going to happen. And when it happens, it'll have

very little to do with McDonald's and everything to do

that. When my dad met my mom, they

were not ideal for building people to live forever.

And I'm going to get bit. And so when I put that 10% away,

let's just say for a second that Jesus doesn't come back till the

year 4000. Every 20 years, whatever I put

in there will have doubled in its impact in perpetuity.

That there'll be funding available for people to find a

relationship with Jesus Christ until the return of Jesus

Christ. And for us, that means the world

now, right now, we're going to do something.

And I know for some of you who are brand new to the crossing,

this is going to seem weird. Just come back next week.

You're going to love the next sermon series.

But as we've been going through this sermon series, there have

been some of you who are going. Yeah, I'm ready to go on this

journey with you. If you guys wanted all of our

locations, you guys can begin coming forward.

And there's some of you who are going.

Yeah, I'm, I'm one of the 100. I'm one of these people who I'm

ready to start trusting God in the area of my finances.

And what I want to do is I want an opportunity to be able to

cheer you on. And So what they're doing is

they're passing out a commitment card.

Now, let me explain to you what this commitment card is.

There's a pen somewhere around your chair or someone's handing

them out. And here's what this card has on

it. I just want you to this is not a

pledge to the crossing. You're not going to get a phone

call from me saying, hey, you said you were, but you didn't.

It's none of be, none of that stuff.

There are some of you, though, that you want to go on this

journey. And if you were to get baptized

this weekend, our church would clap for you.

If you were to start signing up for a ministry, our church would

cheer you on. If you were to get plugged into

a small group, you'd have people going, man, I can't wait to see

what God does in your life next. But sometimes when we get ready

to do stuff financially, we do so in isolation.

We do stuff with nobody cheering us on, with nobody praying over

you. And so here's what we're doing.

We're asking you to fill out this card and then our staff are

going to pray over you. And I'm going to send you

encouragement as you go on this journey.

And so I'm just asking you to look over this, write your name,

fill out the information and check a box.

Some of you are going, you know what, I'm going to start

tithing. Awesome.

We're going to cheer you on. Some of you are going.

We've already tithing. We're already trusting God.

We're some of the 400. We're going to keep tithing.

Awesome. There might be some of you are

going to check the box. You know what, I'm going to

start giving above the tithe. I'm going to start my generosity

journey. Awesome.

Check that box. There's some of you are going to

go. I'm just going to keep doing

what I've always been doing. I'm going to keep tithing and

I'm going to keep being generous.

Praise God for that. And there might be some of you

are going. You know what, I'd like more

information about the endowment. Awesome.

We would love a chance to get together with you sometime in

the fall and get you some more information.

I want you to put your information on it.

I want you to check one of those boxes or two boxes if you want

information about the endowment and then I want you to sign it.

You might be going, Clayton, Why should I sign it?

Well, you sign all the documents that are important to you.

You sign your marriage certificate.

You sign your offer, your house, you sign for your car.

Why not sign your commitment to God?

There's no amounts here. This is between you and Him.

We just want to celebrate the journey that you're getting

ready to go on. Now there might be some of you

are going. I cannot believe you just did

this. I am not doing any of it.

Great. Guess what?

You keep coming here and nothing changes for you.

But what I don't want to do is I don't want to rob some people

who are ready to trust God because it makes some people who

aren't ready to trust God uncomfortable.

There are some people in our church who are going.

I've been waiting to be challenged, waiting to go on

this journey. I've been reading my Bible and I

see it talk about giving all over the Bible and I've been

looking for an opportunity and I just need some encouragement

along the way. Now I'm going to let you guys

come and collect all those. Hopefully you've already filled

that thing out. I'm going to have people start

collecting them and I'm going to tell you why Jennifer and I do

it and the 400 here at the crossing do it.

Second Corinthians Chapter 9. Remember this, Whoever sows

2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows

generously will also reap generously.

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to

give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a

cheerful giver, and God is able to bless you abundantly, so that

in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you

will abound in every good work. As it is written, they have

freely scattered their gifts to the poor.

Their righteousness endures forever.

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will

also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge

the harvest of your righteousness.

You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous

on every occasion and through us your generosity will result in

Thanksgiving to God. This service that you perform is

not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people, but it is

also overflowing and many expressions of thanks to God

because of the service by which you have proved yourself.

Others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your

confession of the gospel of Christ and for your generosity

in sharing with them and with everyone else.

This is going to not sound spiritual for a second, but

sometimes I think of all the things I could have bought if I

didn't tithe, I could have a motorcycle.

Do you know how good I would look on a motorcycle?

Fat guys look the best on motorcycles.

Oh, Jennifer riding around on the back, cut off leather.

Come on, I'd love it. I could have a hot tub.

Do you know how good a hot tub would feel?

Especially as bad as I am at golf?

Hot tub could be healing. There's a lot of things I could

have, but if I had a choice between a motorcycle or a hot

tub and being obedient to God and going on the faith journey

that He's taking me on. If I had a choice between having

a motorcycle and a hot tub or watching you walk into the water

with your kid that you've been praying for all day, every

single day, I'm choosing you. I'm choosing Him.

You know, the favorite part of my service, Just so you know,

it's not my preaching. The favorite part of my service,

It isn't the worship. I love it when I see people pray

at the steps. That's not my favorite part.

My favorite part is when we play the baptism video because I want

to be a part of every single one of them.

And because of our generosity and other people's generosity,

people are overflowing in thanks to God and those who refresh

others are indeed refreshed. We're moving to a time, a

decision. So if you don't know Jesus, if

he could get anything from you today, it would not be

pocketbook. It would be you.

But look at how generous your God is.

Look at how he operates inside of that passage that I just

read. God decided in his heart to give

you Jesus. The Bible says that Jesus,

joyfully or cheerfully, before the joy set before him, endured

the cross and scorning its shame and endured it on your behalf,

He poured himself out so that you could be cleansed.

And because of this great an extravagant gift that He has

given to us, you and I are able to pour out our praise back to

Him. And we have seen God do the most

incredible stuff and raise an incredible harvest out of the

messiest of soils. We have seen Him raise a mighty

harvest out of the most unlikely of places.

And you got to know this. I can't wait to see what He is

going to do and you do. I can't wait to see what He is

going to do in your life. But you'll never find that out

until you start to trust Him. And as soon as you start

trusting Jesus, He's going to move you out of your comfort

zone. So will you have to trust Him

more. And the more you trust Him,

check this out, the more you will trust Him.

And over time you will build a life of faith where you will get

to the point where you believe to the core of your being that

God will always do what God says he will do.

But you will never experience that get to that place if you

stay inside your comfort zone. It's only when you move out and

there are some of you who you have been living under your own

rule for far too long and you've never said, you know what, I'm

going to place my life in His hands and I'm going to begin an

intimate personal relationship with Him.

And if you're here today and you've never started that, don't

put it off. And in just a few moments, when

the people around you stand and sing and some of them come to

the steps and pray, I'm going to encourage you to take a walk of

faith all the way up underneath that screen next to the

baptistry and start a conversation about how to begin

an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

If you're watching online, if it hasn't happened yet, it's going

to happen soon. They're going to open up a

window in the chat for you to be able to click on it, ask them

for prayer, and they'll take you off to their own separate spot

where you can have a conversation in isolation

without everybody else seeing what you're going through.

And you can begin that exact same conversation to the rest of

you in this room, To those of you who are Jesus followers.

I think deep down inside, we want to be a church that is a

blessing to our region. We want to be a church that

honors God and loves God. We want to do something about

reaching the lost around us. And I'm praying that God would

raise a mighty army of generous people out of this church who

care more about the mission of God and the life change in our

friends and our family than we do our personal treasure.

I know there's some of you who you know exactly what's going on

in people's lives because you remember being there.

You're part of the 400 and you know the challenges that are

going through their mind. You know the obstacles, but you

also know the rewards. And won't you be praying for

them? And when we get ready to open up

the steps and people come up and pray, listen, you can pray about

anything you're going through. You can come up here and pray

about what's happening in your home.

You can pray about your health. You can pray for the political

season. But if there's some of you in

here that just want to pray that God would help you as you start

this financial journey, man, the steps are open for you too.

Would you guys stand with me? God, I'm just trusting that

you're going to do a mighty work in us, not just at the

individual level, but at the corporate level.

God, there's so many people hurting, people that are hurting

in our lives, in our homes. Gather so much fear and worry

and doubt all around us. And God, we want to shine.

We want to shine like a star in the heavens pointing people to

you. God, I know there are people who

are getting ready to go on a journey that they never thought

they'd go on, getting ready to start doing something they never

thought that they would do. And I know that every step of

the way, Satan's trying to pluck that seed from the path, prevent

it from producing a harvest. But God, I'm praying that you'd

win, that they'd overcome the obstacles, and they'd be who

you've called them to be. You name my praying.

Amen.