Finding Peace Through Faithful Stewardship

Oh, Crossing family, it is so good to be with you all and

welcome those of you joining at all of our different locations,

those of you watching online and those of you who are part of the

Crossing Inside Nation. I also want to welcome those of

you who are joining us for the first time or the first time in

a long time. We are so glad that you are here

and I hope that you will swing by the new here booth and all of

our different lobbies and take advantage of the QR code on the

seat in front of you. You have come on the perfect

weekend because today we are starting a brand new series

called Map Makers. And the goal of this series is

we are going to chart a path to better stewardship, to less

stress and to greater impact. All of us would like to be

better stewards, All of us would like less stress, and I believe

all of us want to have greater impact.

And so that's why we put this series together.

Map Makers. We want to chart a different

course than the course that we have been walking, and this

sermon series was born out of a broken heart that I have for so

many people who call the crossing home.

This is an area in our life that is causing a great deal of

stress and anxiety. In fact, surveys show that today

people are constantly stressed out and one of the number one

reasons for their stress is their financial situation.

In fact, look at this from Money and Mental Health Policy

Institute. This is what they have.

Their reports have revealed that people have financial

difficulty. You guys, you know, you don't

have to raise your hand, but you know somebody, you've heard

stories of people who are having financial difficulty.

What this leads to is them having stress and anxiety

because of collections or going without essentials or things not

turning out the way that they thought that they would turn

out. You know what this leads to?

This leads to mental health problems.

You know what mental health problems lead to?

They lead to people making bad decisions make.

It leads to them having a harder time earning money, managing the

money they do earn, and spending their money in the right way.

You know what that leads to? Financial difficulty.

You know what that leads to? And the cycle goes on and on and

on. You are going to, over the

course of your life, manage some of you hundreds of thousands of

dollars, others of you millions of dollars.

And most of us were not taught how to handle our money.

And so we are stressed out because we have yet not yet

figured out how to manage our finances.

Furthermore, not only does the mismanagement of your finance

causes all kinds of problems for you personally and in your

mental health and creating anxiety and stress, it also

impacts your marriages. An estimated 20 to 40% of all

marriages and citing financial issues as the 'cause it is the

number one issue related to divorce.

On top of that, the average divorce cost $15,000.

So you're already stressed out about the marriage that you're

in. You decide you got to figure out

a way out of it because you can't handle the financial

pressure. And to get out of the thing you

got yourself into is because of money is going to cost you

another 15 grand to get out of it.

This means that the way you and I handle our money has a direct

correlation to our mental health and our marital longevity.

You know what also it means? It means that how we handle our

money can determine whether or not kids grow up in a house with

a mom and a dad. And the sad truth today is that

most Americans are not good with our money.

Recent statistics show this. 48.6% of Americans consider

themselves to be broke. If the word that they were to

use to describe their financial situation, almost 70% of people

in America would say I'm broke. The irony is we are the richest

group of people in all of human history and we see ourselves as

broke. Furthermore, it gets even more

heartbreaking. 6 or 66.2% of Americans feel like they are

living paycheck to paycheck. That means that there is no

margin in their lives. If something bad happens next

week and they don't get the check for that week, they don't

know how they're going to make everything work.

And then there's a couple people out there who they seem to be

doing really great financially. The problem is, is they're

probably not that better at managing their finances.

They just make way more than there's.

They are stupid. They've out earned their

ignorance because even people who have an awful lot of money

sometimes make really bad decisions.

And unless somebody came alongside of you and taught you,

unless somebody came alongside of you and mentored you, most of

us don't actually have a financial strategy.

And so we find ourselves waking up stressed out, anxious,

struggling, and then it impacts the person who's supposed to be

our support system, our spouse, and then it impacts the kind of

parent we want to be because now we're going through a divorce

and our kids are having to navigate it.

And I just have a question. I think that there's a better

way. Would anybody else want to walk

that road if there was one? Because there is a fundamental

statement here at The Crossing that we believe that God's way

is the best way. And would it surprise you to

find out that when it comes to handling your money, the Bible

has an awful lot to say. We believe that God's way is the

best way in every area of our life, and we preach it.

You've heard us talk about it. Do we believe that there is not

a single area of our life that is off limits to God and there's

not a single area of our life that God doesn't have a best

plan for us to walk in? When it comes to how you

navigate your marriage, we believe that God's way is the

best way. If you were to come to me and

ask for parenting advice, you know what I tell you?

I tell you that when it comes to parenting, God's way is the best

way. If you were to come to me and

say, Clayton, I'm trying to figure out how to navigate my

sex life, I would say God has a plan for that too.

He also has a plan for your work life.

He also has a plan on how to spend your life and he also told

you how to focus your energy and your efforts.

God has the best way when it comes for when you want saved,

when you want to experience the power of the Holy Spirit, how to

handle hurt, how to navigate forgiveness, how to overcome

adversity, and yes, even how you handle your money.

The tough part is almost everybody that you know has

said, I want God in all of these other areas of my life, but when

it comes to my finances, we want God to leave us alone.

And I just have a question to ask you, in any area of your

life that you've turned over to God, has it gotten better?

And the areas of your life where you've said, God leave me alone,

has it gotten worse? I know that's true for me and I

know it's true for the people that sit across the table from

me. The sad truth today is that many

people are living in rebellion to God's best way.

People who call themselves Christians are rebelling when it

comes to God's plan for their finances.

And So what I want to do over the next couple weeks is I want

to show you if God is a father and the Bible says that he is a

good father, I want to allow God to kind of sit across the table

from you and say this is how I think that you should handle

your money, that God is going, this is my plan for you.

And then I'm going to challenge you in a radical way to trust

him in all these different areas.

We're going to talk about tithing.

We're going to talk about budgeting.

We're going to talk about saving.

We're going to talk a little bit about investing.

We're going to talk about how to become a generous person if you

are a generous person. And we are going to do

everything in our power at the crossing because we love you to

give you a chance to go on the journey to experience God's best

for you. Why?

Because Satan has a stranglehold on so many of us when it comes

to our finances. Satan loves to destroy a family,

and money is destroying families.

Satan loves to destroy yourself. Esteem yourself worth and your

identity, and Satan uses money to attack it.

Maybe that's why Jesus and the Bible spend so much time talking

about money. 11 of Jesus's 39 stories dealt with money.

There are over 2300 verses in the Bible if you were to read

it, that talks about money, wealth, and possessions.

God is not silent on this issue. He doesn't stop talking about

this issue. Our issue is not that God is not

speaking. Our issue is that we are not

listening. We are not obeying.

And you've heard me say this before.

Remember, God blesses obedience. You know this to be true as a

parent. How many of you, your kid has

been acting a fool and you rewarded him.

You said, Oh my goodness, I gave you this task to do and you

didn't do it at all. I'm going to give you even more

responsibility. How many of you, when you set a

curfew for your kid and you said you better be home at 10:00 and

they came home at 12:30, said, you know what?

Because you were such a good kid.

Your new curfew is 230. None of you did that.

You'd be crazy if you did that. What you did do is when your kid

honored what you had asked him to do, over time, you gave him

more responsibility. We instinctively reward and

encourage our kids when they are obedient, and we coach and we

correct people when they are disobedient.

So if you and I want to create a better path to better

stewardship, less stress, and greater impact, we need to start

handling our finances God's way. The tough part is that when it

comes to God's ways, His ways are so different than our own

ways. They're so counterintuitive.

Let me show it to you. Matthew chapter 20.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

So the last will be 1st and the 1st will be last.

This is Jesus talking. You know what that seems like to

me backwards? That didn't.

That's not how it happens here. Around here, it's first is

first, last is last, and 2nd place is the first loser.

But when it comes to God, he's saying, listen, those of you who

will be last in the Kingdom of heaven, you're going to be

first. Oh, it gets more radical than

that. Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it.

But whoever wants to lose their life for me and for the gospel

will save it. You know what we would say, if

you want to save your life, you better save it.

But in God's economy, he says, if you want to save your life,

you better lose it. You better turn over control of

it and give it to me. It gets worse.

Matthew 23 The greatest among you will be your servant.

For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who

humble themselves will be exalted.

That's not how it true it works around here.

Whoever exalts themself will be exalted.

That's how it works. Hey, if you want to become the

greatest, you be the greatest and everybody else serves you

not when it comes to God's plan, God's best way for you is if you

want to be the greatest person ever, be the best servant ever.

God's ways are not our ways. It gets worse.

Luke chapter 6. But to you who are listening, I

Luke 6 · chapter mention

say, love your goodness gracious what?

Love your enemies. You're not supposed to love your

enemies. You're supposed to hate them.

Oh no. And God's economy.

We're supposed to love the people who hate us.

In fact, we're supposed to do good to those who hate us.

We're supposed to bless those who curse us.

That's not what we do. We out curse the people who

curse us. We do the one finger wag right?

We pray for those who mistreat us.

That's not true. We pray against those who

mistreat us. God's plan is so profoundly

different than our plan, and that's why it's so hard to walk

in his ways. But Jesus says that wide is the

path that leads to destruction, and narrow is the road that

leads to eternal life. Jesus constantly says these are

hard teachings. Who can understand it?

What do you mean is who will follow it?

And I want you to be a person who has the courage to walk the

narrow Rd. So it shouldn't come as a huge

surprise to us. Then when it comes to how we

handle our money, God has a different plan than our plan.

And the first step in starting to handle your money the way God

expects you to handle your money is to realize that your money is

not yours, it's His, that it comes from Him.

Matthew or Psalm 24 says this. The earth is the Lord's and

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

And you might be going, OK, that's great, big picture, big

strokes. Totally agree.

Because the trees are His and the oceans are His, and the

galaxies are His, and the mountains are His, but not me.

Actually, he owns you. And you're like, no, yeah, let

me walk you through it. When you got baptized, you said

that you want him as your savior, which means that you

need rescued. You need saved.

You can't do it on your own. You're in a spot that you can't

get yourself out of. So Jesus saves you and you want

him as your Savior and your Lord, which means He owns you.

We are His sons and daughters, but we are also, in a sense, His

slaves. We have turned our lives over.

We have lost ourselves in Him, so that way we become His agents

to do what He wants us to do with the lives that we have

turned over to Him. Your life is now under His

control. If you're a Christian, that

means that we love people who are our enemies because we

belong to Him now. It doesn't stop there.

The Bible teaches that all the money and the wealth in the

world belongs to him. I'll just give you one verse,

Haggai chapter or two, Verse 8. The silver is mine and the gold

is mine, declares the Lord Almighty.

And you're going. Yeah, but I worked for it.

And like, I'm the one who punched in at the job.

I hate working for the boss. I hate it was me.

Well, I got news for you. Deuteronomy chapter 8, you may

Deuteronomy 8 · chapter mention

say to yourself, it's as if he's been listening to our

conversation. My power and the strength of my

hands have produced this wealth for me.

Well, actually, But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who

gives you the ability to produce wealth.

So your life doesn't belong to you, your money doesn't belong

to you, and your ability to make the money doesn't belong to you.

So then how should we handle our stuff?

That's not really our stuff. How should we handle His stuff?

This is where we get a super biblical term.

It's called stewardship because what we have is not our own.

We are stewards of something that does not belong to us.

And you and I have a choice. What kind of steward are we

going to be? Are we going to be a good

steward of the things that God has given us?

Are we going to be a bad steward of the things that God has given

us? And once we realize that it all

belongs to God, the next logical thing that we should do is what

He tells us to do. And this is where it gets even

more upside down because the first step is recognizing that

it all belongs to God. The second thing that He wants

us to do is tithe. The very first step and you

operating financially the way God wants you to operate

financially is to honor God with the tithe.

Now you might be going, you're brand new to the church.

You're like, what does this mean?

The in the Bible, the word tithe just means a 10th.

It's 10%. When God made man, He gave them

this charge that they were to bring their first and their best

to Him in worship and sacrifice. It was the first fruits.

Let me show it to you. Leviticus chapter 27.

Leviticus 27 · chapter mention

This isn't the first time this is mentioned, but this is the

clearest way that it's mentioned.

A tithe. 10% of everything from the land, whether grain from the

soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord.

It is holy to the Lord. It's separate.

It belongs to Him. Let's keep going.

Whoever would redeem any of their tithes must add 1/5 of the

value to it. So let's say we were sheep

farmers and we were running all of our sheep to God and we would

be going, OK first sheep is gods.

Then we go sheep 2 sheep, 3 sheep, 4 sheep, 5 sheep, sheep's

sheep. We get to sheep 10.

I don't want to make a clip, I don't want to make OK then we

get another one, but all of a sudden you're like hold on a

second. I really like that sheep.

I want to redeem it. He would say you can.

What's the fair market price for that and add 1/5 to it.

There was a tax almost imposed for you, trying to keep good

things for you. Let's keep going.

Every tithe of the herd and flock, every 10th animal that

passes under the shepherd's rod will be wholly to the Lord.

No one may pick out the good from the bad or make

substitution. OK, I want to keep oh man, I

don't want that one doesn't get to go to God.

I really like that one. So I'll give him this one and

you give him like the ratty looking lamb, you know stop.

You almost saw me go somewhere. OK.

What he would say is the moment you tried to pull that off.

Both of them now belong to the Lord God is hand smacking stingy

behavior. He's saying, in light of

everything I've done for you, bring me your very best holy and

cannot be redeemed. Next one, this one says in

Deuteronomy, you must not worship the Lord your God in

their way. He's talking about the way other

people worship their gods. But you are to seek the place

the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to

put his name there for his dwelling.

And then what are you supposed to do when you get there?

Let's keep going. To that place you must go.

Therefore, bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your

tithes and special gifts that you have vowed to give, and your

free will offerings, and the first born of your herds and

your flocks. Let's keep going.

What else does it say in the Bible?

Deuteronomy 1422? Be sure to set aside a 10th 10%

of all that your fields produce each year.

Let's keep going. He ordered the people living in

Jerusalem to give the portion to the priests and the Levites, so

they could devote themselves to the law of the Lord.

As soon as the order went out, the Israelites this the people

of God generously gave the first fruits of their grain, new wine,

olive oil and honey, and all that the fields produced.

They brought a great amount, a tithe of everything.

The people of Israel and Judah who lived in the towns of Judah

also brought a tithe of their herds and flocks and the tithe

of the holy things dedicated the Lord, and they piled them in

heaps. Let's keep going.

This is where we're talking to Jesus.

Here's Jesus talking. Woe to you, teachers of the law

and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You don't ever want to be called

a hypocrite. You give a tenth of your spices,

mint, dill and cumin, but you have neglected the more

important matters of the law, justice, mercy, and

faithfulness. You should have practiced the

latter without neglecting the former.

This always happened when we're talking in a sermon on tithing.

There are people who come to our church and they are already

tithers the like, it's kind of nice to have a weekend off.

You know, this is a sermon for everybody else.

You know, I'm already tithing. I'm already trusting the Lord

with my finances. And what Jesus would say to you

if you were reading this passage is you'd say great.

Don't just check the box on your finances.

Make sure that you're paying attention to the other things

that matter even more. Make sure that you're paying

attention to justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

But to the people who are listening right now and you've

never started honoring God in the area of tithing, Jesus says

that you're not supposed to neglect the former, neglect the

tithe. You and I are not supposed are

supposed to not only be good at tithing, we are also supposed to

be good at justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

Tithing is not your time. Tithing is not your talent.

Tithing is your treasure. It was about giving back to God

what is God's. If He supplies everything you

have, then everything you have belongs to Him.

God says you are supposed to bring some of it back.

Let me illustrate it this way. Does somebody have a truck that

I can have and let's do $100 somebody.

God bless you. Thank you so much.

You guys sit right there for just a second.

That was awesome. You guys are so generous.

Thank you. And you might be thinking, how

do these two young guys so freely come up and give me truck

keys and $100? It's because I gave it to him

before the service started. They have no problem returning

to me what they realized belonged to me in the 1st place.

And what do you think I would have done if they had not

returned it to me? I would have had our security

snipers address it post haste. All right, guys, have a seat.

Thank you. Guys.

Give them a round of applause. OK, So they gave it back to me

because they know that I gave it to them.

So here is what tithing looks like.

This is going to freak some of you out.

If this week you're babysitting, you're a babysitter.

You're just doing the babysitting thing.

You made $100 this week. If it was your birthday, today's

my son's birthday. If he gets $100 from his

grandma, which is grandma should give him $100, he's getting

expensive. He would show up for church and

he would give $10 back to God. Everything that Zane has comes

from the Lord and He returns 10% of it.

If you are out there and you're working and you've got a a side

hustle and you made $1000 this month on your side hustle, you

would bring $100 and you would give 10% back to God.

If you are crushing it and you're making $10,000 a week,

that means that every week when you'd show up for church to

honor God in the area of tithing, you would bring your

first fruits. The very first thing that you

would do with the money that you made is you'd give $1000 back to

God. If you make $100,000 a year, you

would every single year make sure that you were giving

$10,000 to God. You would give it back to him.

And if you're killing it and you're making, you know, you

sold your business for $10 million, guess how much money

you would write to the church you would write a check for?

Yeah. So yeah, that we got six of you

that are still awake. God bless you.

And you're going. Yeah, that's a lot.

You get to keep 90. When Jennifer and I, when I

first got into ministry, that was the first time I was making

like real money. I don't want to brag, but I was

making $18,000 a year. Don't.

I know, I know, I know. I would go to McDonald's

sometimes twice a month just because I could.

And when I was making $18,000 a year, every year I was giving

$1800 to the church. When I was in Bible college and

I was preaching at a little church that would give me

$200.00 a week to preach at that church, there would be a check

for $20 that would go in the offering plate.

And when you start tithing young, when you start off

operating in God's plan at an early age, it is not nearly as

hard as finding yourself one day in a spot where you're making

$100,000 a year and you've been living on $105,000 a year.

And now you have to figure out how do you get yourself in

alignment with God's will and God's purposes.

But look what happens when the Bible says that we honor God.

Proverbs chapter 3. Honor the Lord with your wealth,

Proverbs 3 · chapter mention

with the first fruits of all of your crops.

Then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats

will brim over with new wine. What God is saying here is when

you honor Him, He will take care of you.

God's blessings flow in the direction of your obedience.

This is a fundamental truth that Christians have.

You might attend our church. You may have been around here

for a while, but the people who have trusted God in this area of

your life, this is what they would say to you.

They believe that 90% with God is better than 100% without Him.

That they want to trust God in this area of their life because

they would much rather have God be a part of their financial

picture than not a part of it at all.

And I want to show you an example that God gives of a

group of people who chose not to put him in their financial

strategy. It's in Malachi chapter 3.

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

I, the Lord, this is God talking, do not change.

So you, the descendants of Jacob, this is the people of

Israel are not destroyed. Verse seven.

Ever since the time of your ancestors, you have turned away

from my decrees and have not kept them.

You have not done what I have told you to do.

You have been disobedient. Return to me and I will return

to you. There's a correlation that God's

proximity and God's impact in your life is impacted by your

obedience to what God calls you to do, says the Lord Almighty.

But you ask, so the people go. But how are we to return?

Let's keep going. Verse eight Will a mere mortal

rob God? Yet you rob me.

The people go. You're God.

How could we possibly be robbing you in tithes and offerings?

They're going. How are we supposed to return?

How are we robbing you? Because you are not giving back

to God. What belongs to God?

Verse nine, You are under a curse, your whole nation because

you are robbing me. God's blessings flow in the

direction of obedience. What do you think flows in the

direction of robbery? They're under a curse because

they are not being good stewards.

They are rebelling. They are robbing some of you

listening to the sermon and you're going, you know what, I'm

going to start giving back to God and I'm going to start

giving like 2% or I'm going to start giving 3% because 10%

seems like a lot. I would just tell you God is

accusing them of robbing him, and the solution is not to rob

him less, Right? Like your kid.

Your kid does something he's not supposed to.

Did you throw six parties at the house this week?

We gave you a rule. No parties at the house.

All right, all right, I give up. I'll just throw 3 this week.

Bosses. You kept somebody robbing from

you like you've been taking 1000 bucks a week.

I know. I'm so sorry, I want to make

this relationship right. I'm only going to steal on two

days this week. It sounds so simple when we put

it in our world, but what do you think is impacting your

relationship with God? If we are in a position where we

are robbing Him, the solution is not to rob Him less.

The solution is to be obedient. So how much do you give the

person who cut your hair as a tip?

How much do you give to the person who hands you your coffee

out the window as a tip? How much do you give the

waitress who brings you your food that you didn't actually

order? And how much do you give to the

one who gave everything you have?

How much do you give to the one who died on the cross for your

sins? How much do you give to help

other people find what you have found in Jesus?

Verse 10 Bring the whole tithe 10% into the storehouse.

This is where you worship, this is where you gather.

This is where you grow. This is where you attend.

This is where you serve. This is where you learn.

Bring it to the church that there may be food in my house.

Then God says, 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. Verse 11 I'll prevent pests from

devouring your crops, and the vines of your fields will not

drop their fruit before it is ripe, says the Lord Almighty.

Verse 12 Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours

will be a delightful land, says the Lord.

All mighty. So my entire life I have been

operating in the area of tithing, no matter how little or

how much I made my commitment as a bare minimum has been 10% and

you might be going. So Clayton, are you a multi

trillionaire? I'm not.

The blessings that God has poured into my lap have not been

over the top financial success. What they have been is I have

not had stress, I have not had worry.

He has supplied all of my needs. He has been there every step of

the way. He has showed up in miraculous

ways in this area, in my life, in ways I never thought

possible. And every single week when I'm

at church and I walked, watch the baptism video, I go.

I was a part of every single one of those.

And that blessing is worth all the blessings in the world to

me. God is saying when you honor me,

I will take care of you. And I want to put me and my

family in a place that God blesses, in a place that God

protects. And you might be going right

now. This is really hard.

Trying to give 10% of what I make to God is really hard.

That's going to take some serious faith.

Isn't that the point? Faith Hebrews Chapter 11, verse

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

six. And without faith it is

impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must

believe. That's faith, that he exists and

that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

If you and I are going to be Jesus people, we are going to be

giving people. We're going to be obedient

people. And you guys know this to be

true deep down inside, that you can give without loving, but you

cannot love without giving. We give money to all sorts of

things. We give it to the government.

Some of you don't love it. We give money to restaurants and

we didn't like it. We give money to the cell phone

company and we can't stand the way they treat us.

We give money to Netflix, we give money to Hulu, we give it

to the bank. I've never met somebody who's

wearing the I love my Bank shirt.

That didn't work at the bank. Like I love the bank.

I can't. I go there all the time.

No, we can give to all kinds of things and not love them, but

you can't love without giving. Think about your family, your

friends, your church, and your God.

How can you and I possibly say we love God and not give to

accomplish the very thing that He called us to accomplish?

Because at the very heart of the gospel is a generous God who

made a generous gift. You've probably missed this

before, and the most popular verse in all of Scripture is

this principle. John 316 For God so loved the

world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes

in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

This is an issue of God's generosity and our faith.

You and I, we were made in the image of God.

That means that He has woven generosity into our DNA.

And we might be the most like Him when we are obedient to Him

and generous on His behalf. Because whoever believes in Him,

this issue of faith will have eternal life.

And when we trust God, He promises to bless us.

And when we want to chart a path to being better stewards and to

less stress and to greater impact, the first thing God

asked us to do is realize it all belongs to Him.

And the second thing He asked us to do is to honor Him, to bring

Him. The tithe will impact the rest

of it. Next week we're moving to a time

decision.