Cultivating a Spirit of Abundance in a Scarcity-Focused World

So to our online audience.

My name is Stephen Feith.

We pastor of Madison Church, glad that you're here.

Jesus is known for his profound wisdom and paradigm-breaking teaching.

Even 2,000 years later, after Jesus' life, death and resurrection, we find ourselves challenged to live in the ways that he has called us to live.

You might think that after 2,000 years we'd get better at it, it'd be easier, but neither of those things are true.

It's still as difficult today as it was 2,000 years, a long time ago.

And I want to start today, not with a story, not with stats, not with a joke, but with a quote by Jesus, a very short statement that's simple at first, but is one of his most counter-cultural teachings of all times.

For 2,000 years, this has been challenging people.

He's quoted as saying in Acts 20, verse 35, it is more blessed to give than it is to receive.

Acts 20:35

Now, what's odd about this statement is that I'm imagining most of you have heard this.

Maybe you didn't know it was Jesus who said it, but most of you have heard this thing and you probably agree with it to a point.

Right, it's a point.

You'd agree that to a point it's better, and you'd at least acknowledge that there's an aspect to it.

That's valid.

Jesus is not saying it's wrong to receive, he's just saying that it's not as good as giving.

And I think I can prove that for you today.

Every year, we do a holiday gift drive with a community center on the West Side, and what we do is we go out and we buy presents for kids who might not otherwise have gifts for Christmas, and you don't know them Like.

We don't get to meet the kids, we don't get to hand them, the kids, but every year, the first Sunday, we say here are the gift tags, they all get taken, and then you all go out and you all buy gifts for complete strangers that you're never going to meet, and you find a lot of joy in that.

And some of you might say I find more joy in buying a present for a stranger I don't know who might not have gifts this holiday season, than if I got something, even if it was something I really wanted.

And so, right there, we can all nod our heads and agree, yeah, that giving is better than receiving in a lot of ways.

And so then the question is why do we maybe only do it once a year, around Christmas, right?

I mean, that's the gift years or maybe a birthday.

We'll do that too, but what is it about giving that?

Maybe we know it's better than receiving, but we don't do it more often.

Today we're in the final part of a three-part series called Finding Financial Freedom, and this is easily the hardest topic we cover every other year at Madison Church.

Why?

Because talking about finances can make us feel guilty, can make us feel ashamed.

Depending on your upbringing, there might have been a lot of guilt and shame around.

Money might not have been enough and, as such, money might have been a source of conflict and pain for you growing up.

Maybe right now we know inflation's weird, the economy's weird, people are losing their jobs.

All of these things are an issue.

So we know that money is a source of conflict and pain, and these are the exact reasons.

The things that make it hard to talk about, the things that make it hard to talk about in this space, are the reasons that we talk about it.

We also do it because the Bible talks more about money and possessions than any other topic combined.

Either directly or indirectly, one third of the Bible has to do with money and possessions.

It's like God knew people in every culture, whether they have a dollar or something else.

Like people are gonna struggle with money.

They're either gonna be really rich, they're gonna be really, really poor, and there's gonna be stresses for people who have a lot of wealth and there's gonna be stresses for people who don't.

And so God is dealing with it.

God knows that of everything that can harm our relationship with him, of everything that can harm our spirituality, he's pointing at finances and saying red flag, this could be it Now.

So that's why we're doing these studies.

None of those experiences that I talk about with the guilt, the shame, the conflict, that doesn't sound like freedom.

And yet we're promised in the biblical texts you can experience financial freedom and you don't have to have a million dollars to experience it.

That's the good news for all of us today, you don't have to be a millionaire to experience financial freedom.

Throughout the last two weeks and today, what I've hoped to have done is to present you with some of the biblical texts talk about when it comes to money and possessions.

As I said, one third of it deals with money and possessions.

So I couldn't, in the last three weeks, unpack a third of the Bible with you.

That would just be way too impossible to do, but I hope that over the last two weeks, and I hope today, that in doing so and talking about things like less is more and more isn't always better talking about how debt isn't great for you, how stress is bad I hope that in the process of doing these things, that you're drawing closer to God.

I hope that we're moving this barrier that is finances and moving it so that you can have a better relationship with God, and what I hope is that by tomorrow morning, as I've been saying for the last three weeks, I hope that by tomorrow morning, you're experiencing more financial peace tomorrow than you were three weeks ago because of the stuff that we've talked about today in the last couple of weeks.

Of course, you gotta put it in the practice, right, I can talk about it all day till I'm blue in the face.

We'll have 90 minutes of content on YouTube that you can go back and re-watch, but ultimately, it's up to a choice that you make.

How am I going to go about and live?

So, two weeks ago, we talked about that idea that less is more.

Well, one of the deal with the hearts we live in a society that tells us and tells us you don't have enough.

You need a newer car.

You need a better car.

They got this new refrigerator out there.

You need this upgrade for your home.

And we kinda pursue more and more and more.

And what we talked about was like they did a big study of millionaires and they said how much money do you need to be happy or to increase your happiness?

And it was 85% of them said anywhere from five to 10 times more.

So it wasn't this like you don't get to this destination where it's like $1 million or $10 million and all of a sudden you feel like you've arrived.

The truth is is that you've gotta arrive where you're presently at.

And then last week we talked about getting out of debt and stress.

We talked about how God wants us to be out of debt, that God doesn't want you to be stressed.

And today we're gonna talk about the subject that many of us struggle with and that is generosity.

And there are lots of ways to talk about generosity, but today I wanna just talk to you about it in terms of what the biblical texts say about giving back to God through the lens of this is God's will for your life.

Jesus' statement it is more blessed to give than it is to receive flies in the face of our way of life and many of our daily habits and, as such, jesus is saying you're missing out.

There's something better, it's more blessed to give than it is to receive.

And so when we don't live that way, jesus is saying you're robbing yourself of something better, you're settling for something less, something that's not as good for you.

And giving is good.

And yet many of us struggle to live a life of intentional and proactive generosity.

What I mean is I know you all are generous in some capacity.

I get it.

But I think a lot of times how we express our generosity, how we practice it.

I think it's both unintentional and I think it's reactive.

It's unintentional and it's reactive.

We wait for the opportunity to give and then we're going to give to the need and then we're going to walk away.

It's unintentional and it's reactive, and we struggle to faithfully and generously give back to God on the regular.

But if we know that it's more blessed to give than it is to receive, if we're taking Jesus seriously, if Jesus really meant that, why don't we focus more on that and why don't we walk in the way that he's telling us to?

Well, I get to talk to a lot of people.

I get to talk to a lot of people about this subject.

All the time when you check that box they're like no more information about giving back.

These are one of the conversations that we get to have, and I think that there are three primary struggles that people say when it comes to being proactive and intentional about generosity.

The first one is just, you're just not in the habit, like you've just never done it before.

It's just never been a part of your life.

You didn't do it, you've never done it, your parents never did it, you don't have friends who do it.

You're just not in the habit.

So when it comes up, yeah, you'll give to the Christmas fundraiser, you'll do that.

Like I said, we're celebrating that.

Nothing wrong with that, that's great.

But for a lot of people becoming more proactive and intentional, it's like, well, I've just never been proactive or intentional about that before, and so we want to start to center our lives around God too.

It's easy to neglect giving back to God because we just keep our finances private, like we don't really want to talk about it with anybody.

We might talk to about it with our partners out of obligation, because we have to.

We have shared income right, so we have to talk about it.

But for the rest of us, you're not talking to your friends about this, you're not talking to your kids about this, you're not talking to anyone about this.

So one of the reasons that we don't ever talk about generosity is because we're uncomfortable about it.

A third reason and I believe that this is the predominant reason that we don't get more proactive and intentional about giving back to God is because we live with a scarcity mindset.

It's a scarcity mindset and what I mean is like this is the lingering thought.

I know this.

For a lot of us, we have the scarcity mindset to some degree.

It's a thought in the back of my head.

It's the feeling that I don't have enough to be generous right now.

It's the idea that I will, at some point after I pay off the debt, after I really agree that less is more, I will get there.

A scarcity mindset practically looks like this I need to do this project in my house before my house will be good enough.

My house currently isn't good enough, but if I do this, then it will.

That's a scarcity mindset.

The new car my neighbor bought makes my car look like a circus toy.

I need a new car.

I need a better car, a newer one.

We'll never be able to afford as nice of vacations like my sister-in-law can.

A scarcity mindset it's just never, ever going to happen.

I've certainly had these thoughts.

I would imagine that you all have as well.

And it is.

It's true, because in America, the United States of America, we're programmed at birth and we're told and we're sold.

You get on Facebook, you get on Instagram there's ads.

You turn on the TV there's ads.

You get on the radio there's ads.

You get that random phone number that says scam, likely it's an ad.

They're trying to get you, and so we're very defensive about this.

But what happens is that then we convince ourselves that we need, we need.

It's not a want.

I need the best, I need the newest, I need the biggest.

And then what happens is the scarcity mindset that I can't give right now because I don't have enough is kind of like week one we talked about.

You don't ever just arrive and say that I finally have enough, my house is finally big enough, my car is finally new enough.

You never arrive, and so the scarcity mindset is behind that.

That keeps pushing us forward.

Now, what's the opposite of a scarcity mindset?

Right, because, like knowing what the scarcity mindset is, okay, check, yeah, I've got that.

What's opposite?

Well, it's an abundance mindset.

And an abundance mindset is the choice to say that God always provides, that I can trust in God and that God will provide.

And so the abundance mindset looks around at your house, at your car, your job, at your vacations, whatever it might be.

And what your mindset then is is that it's gratitude.

It's gratitude for the car that you have, it's gratitude for the house that you have.

It's contentment I'm fine with what I have.

The vacation no, it's not as nice as my sister in law is, but you know what?

This is my vacation and I can enjoy this just as much, and it's joy, it's joy.

It's joy that money can't buy.

It's joy that you don't get to a certain number in your bank account, and you experience it.

But it's joy.

And this abundance mindset wells up in us, a desire to pass the blessing forward and to be richly generous.

Today we're going to be reading out of 2 Corinthians and we're going to begin with chapter 8.

If you want to follow along with the house Bibles, I'll have the words on the screen.

But Paul is going to talk about the abundance mindset, what it looks like, with a group of believers in Macedonia.

And he says, beginning, like I said, chapter 8, verse 1, paul writes now, I want you to know.

Now let me back up.

Paul is writing to a church in Corinth, so there's a church over here, and this is who Paul is writing to about.

Now he's talking to this other church over here, about this church over here in Macedonia.

So this letter, he's using these guys as an example.

He says, dear brothers and sisters, what God in his kindness, has done to the churches in Macedonia.

They are being tested by many troubles and they are very poor, but they are also filled with abundant joy.

Aha, it's possible to be very poor and filled with joy which has overflowed.

Their joy has overflowed in rich generosity, for I, paul, can testify that they gave not only what they could afford but far more, and they did it of their own, free will.

They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for believers in Jerusalem.

So Paul is writing to this church.

It was apparently not very generous.

Apparently, they're not as poor as these guys, they're not as generous as these guys and Paul isn't guilty or shaming them.

I mean I don't get that.

I read that.

I don't get that.

But I think he's saying look at these guys who have far less than you and they've given far more and they got way more joy than you guys do, and so maybe it's not a matter of how much, maybe it's a matter of your heart.

He says these guys in Macedonia they're going through some real severe trials and you can imagine 2000 years ago, where there's not social security or Medicare or healthcare, there's no food stamps.

You can imagine that when he's talking about severe trials, we're talking about people who probably don't have enough money to eat full meals a day.

We're talking about people who don't have money to get the healthcare that they need.

They're going through real severe trials and in my mind I imagine that if anyone would have been justified to not give to believers in Jerusalem, it would have been them.

But it says that they are very poor.

You gotta think way poorer than American poor.

Okay, it's like right, that's a contextual thing.

Okay, there's America poor and then there's like world poor, and our poor doesn't quite equal in a lot of ways, most ways world poor.

So it says they're very poor, but they're filled with joy.

They're filled with joy.

Someone needs to hear that today You're poor, okay, you're getting paid minimum wage, whatever You're like.

Well, if I just got paid more, I can experience joy.

Paul says, no, you can experience joy right now.

You could have experienced joy yesterday.

Make the choice.

He says I can testify that they gave not just what they could afford.

It's like the church sat around like, well, this is what we could afford, and then they gave more than that.

That's something that the trustees at Madison Church we'd be like.

I'd have to fight them to do that right and be like, no, we can do it, like we can't afford it.

And Paul says they did it of their own free will.

Paul wasn't twisting arms, he wasn't manipulating.

They chose to do this.

He says, as a matter of fact, we have to unpack this statement.

They begged again and again.

What does that mean?

It implies that they gave and Paul said thank you, now stop.

They begged him.

They said no, can we please give more?

And Paul said no.

They begged to give more, even though they were poor, going through many trials.

They had already given.

They had to ask.

And so Paul says yeah, sure, and this is all possible because of the grace, some of your translations, if you're reading a different translation than the NLT.

The NLT says because of God's kindness, and other translations.

It says the grace God has given, the grace God has given.

So it was because of God's grace, god's kindness, that this church was able to give beyond themselves, give beyond their means, beyond anything that seemed to make sense, something that a financial advisor would say don't do that.

But they were able to do it.

And, as you all know, or you should know, I'm gonna clarify for you right now.

I want you to confidently know you don't earn God's grace.

It's a gift, it's given to you and it should make you uncomfortable.

How great God's grace is it should.

It's beyond anything you and I can understand.

It's something that we have received and Paul challenges us to grow in our grace.

So we're covered in grace.

And Paul says you're covered in grace, now grow in your grace.

And verse seven he says since you excel in so many ways talking about the church in Corinth, now he says you excel in your faith, your gifted speakers, your knowledge, your enthusiasm, your love from us.

Those are all great things.

But again, paul's tackling the issue of generosity with this church.

He says I want you to excel also in this gracious act of giving.

I want you to excel in this gift.

You have great speakers, you have great teachers, great programming.

You can almost imagine him talking to a modern day church.

Right, you have the laser lights and you have really comfortable chairs and the band rocks and the kid ministry.

It's like Chuck E Cheese found the Lord.

Like you know, it's all of those things.

But you know, the one thing that you struggle in, the one thing you struggle in, is that you're not generous and that you need to grow in your generosity, just like any other aspect of your faith, any other aspect of your faith.

And so are you willing to pray?

Am I willing to pray this prayer for ourselves, the bold prayer that God helped me to grow in this gracious act of giving?

Don't pray it if you don't mean it, okay, because God will say, yes, I'll help you, I will.

But as you think about it and you think about generosity and you think about growing in this gift as all of these other areas, are you willing to say you know what?

This is scary, this is a real step out of the boat moment and see if I can walk on water.

Am I willing to pray that?

And then I began to wonder.

As I wrote this out, I said what would it be like to get this vision?

What would it be like if everybody in here individually prayed that prayer God, help me grow in this grace of generosity, help me to grow.

What if everyone individually did that me, you and then collectively we came together and all of those resources come together?

How might that change the city of Madison?

How might that change our neighborhoods?

How might that change the lives of the families in here?

Not because you're gonna receive, but because you're giving and you're stretching yourself and you're going beyond what you thought was possible.

What's gonna require you to trust God?

Right, trust God.

And I'm not just saying say it, but I'm saying practice it.

And the way that you can trust God and begin to walk and grow in the step of faith is by being generous.

Now I believe that getting started giving if you've never given before, I believe that is the second hardest step.

I'll talk about the hardest step next, but the second hardest step is just getting started.

Because when you think about it, whether it's $5, $50, $500, whatever it is when you start to think about it.

Well, that's less money for you.

That's less money for you this week.

That's immediate.

That money's gone.

And you think about all of the things that you would.

You already don't have enough, right?

There's the scarce, all right.

So how can I give?

And so we do.

We kind of we don't trust God in the sense that we say I'll start giving when I get out of debt, I'll start giving when I get a raise, I'll start giving.

We're all tithed when I win the lottery, right?

Judd keeps from seeing me that.

So I'm, you know, fingers crossed.

He's gonna win that someday.

But I wanna challenge that.

I wanna challenge that Because if Jesus' life, death and resurrection isn't enough to move us to generosity already, then an extra dollar an hour won't, then paying off that credit card won't, because what Jesus did is so much greater and better for any of us than those things.

And if that doesn't move us to generosity, those things won't.

It's when we step out in faith and we trust Jesus that we really experience it is more blessed to give than it is to receive, and we open the door.

When we do this, we open the door for God to do something supernatural in our finances.

Paul told Philemon in verse six I am praying for you that you will put into action the generosity.

Put into action the generosity that comes from your faith, as you understand and experience all the good things we have in Christ, your follower of Jesus, and you love God.

And he says, philemon, I know you do, but now you gotta put in the practice the generosity that is a part of our faith.

We put our faith into action when we give, and absolutely this helps if you have a plan.

Talk about being proactive, talking about being intentional.

Planning is about being intentional and proactive.

If you don't schedule anything on Saturday, whatever happens on Saturday is gonna happen.

It'll just be very reactive.

Right, maybe you watch TV, maybe you won't.

But if you have a plan on what you're gonna do next Saturday, have it be with the kids, have it be you're going out with friends, you're gonna go visit someone, you're gonna go travel.

Well, now, that's a plan.

I'm proactive and I'm taking control of my Saturday.

And the same thing is true with our finances.

We need a plan, we need to make the decision and make the plan.

That more isn't always better, I know that, but now I gotta live like it, that getting out of debt that's gotta be a priority for me.

I gotta get out of debt and that giving is an aspect of my faith that I'm not supposed to just do, but I'm supposed to grow it.

And since it's more blessed to give than it is to receive, how can we come up with a plan to be a blessing to more people?

How can we come up with the plan?

And, as part of the plan, very practically speaking, I would encourage you to set up a recurring gift.

This is about being intentional.

Pick the number, pick the frequency, but just start, take a step.

And the reason I recommend recurring is because I know how life is.

You're gonna get paid on Friday and the freaking dryer's gonna break right.

That's gonna happen.

And all of a sudden I can't give because now I've got the dryer or the car's gonna need the oil change.

I get all of those things, which is why, with our family, we do the recurring.

So on the day that I get paid, I see two transactions from Madison Church.

You see my paycheck go in and I see my tithe come out, my gift to the church go out.

So it's right away.

So it's like I've never even had the money.

It's like I never even had it.

And that's how I personally fight a scarcity mindset in my own life.

I force myself because then I'm like, well shoot, my dryer is broken and I do need to get it fixed.

Where's this money gonna come from?

And it's in that moment that it's like I just gotta trust God.

I just gotta trust the God and I got my dryer fixed.

Guys, it came through.

This is a true story.

This really did happen.

Okay.

So this is how we fight the scarcity mindset, and so I would encourage you something's gonna happen in your life and not to go overly spiritual on you but, like you do have a spiritual enemy, you have spiritual foes who don't want you to walk in God's blessings for your life.

That doesn't want God's will to be done in your life.

So when God is saying, be generous and I'm gonna do some amazing thing, it won't just be a scarcity mindset, but you will open yourself up to a little bit of a spiritual attack in which you're gonna hear those voices you don't have enough.

You don't have enough to give.

You can't trust God like that.

Don't trust God like that.

That's irresponsible.

That when I get the spiritual attacks.

When it comes like giving or other aspects of my faith, it's always very pragmatic.

It's irresponsible.

God wouldn't want you to do that.

Why just read that he did?

You must misunderstand that.

Huh, maybe I misunderstood that.

And so we have to fight the scarcity mindset.

We walk in what God has and we pray about it.

But the second way that you can grow okay.

So for some of you, the step is that just to take any step, any step of generosity is great.

But the second way to grow in your grace of giving is to step forward.

And usually for those of you who do give regularly and you practice generosity, it usually starts with a small step, right, like what we just talked about.

Just a small step, any step.

Get going.

We get comfortable with that, you get used to it, you experience some of God's blessings and then you get comfortable where you're at.

You get comfortable.

I'm doing it, check the box, I'm practicing generosity.

But we need to take a step forward and, like I already mentioned, this is going to be, I think, in my opinion, the hardest step that we push people to take, and that's we want you to start tithing.

We believe that this is biblical, that the tithe, which is to give back to God 10% of whatever we make.

We see this act.

If I'm gonna go through the Bible really fast on tithing like where does it come from?

You've probably heard it talked about before.

Tithing comes from a Hebrew word that literally means one-tenth, and we see tithing mentioned by name for the first time with Abraham, when God instructs Abraham to tithe.

But we see tithing happen all the way back, not called by name, but with Cain and Abel, so the very first people we see out working Cain and Abel.

They're supposed to bring the best of their livestock and the best of their fruit and vegetables to the Lord.

And then we see it's written down in Levitical law that you know, if you're a Jew, you've got to tithe whatever you got.

If you're into steel and metals, you tithe steel and metals.

If you harvest, you do your plants.

We see this go all the way through thousands of years, all the way to the time of Jesus.

And though I want to clarify right now, you and I are not bound by Levitical law.

Okay, so I'm not telling you to tithe because it's written in Leviticus.

Okay, but in Matthew 23, 23, jesus talking, he says yes, you should tithe, but do not neglect the more important things.

So if you were looking for an affirmation from Jesus and kind of this new covenant that we live under, it's right there.

And what I love about this statement the most I talked about this a little bit at our partner membership meeting I love that Jesus says do not neglect more, neglect more important things.

He says you know there are way more important things than tithing.

You know there are way more important things than being generous.

The examples he gives in this passage are mercy, justice and faith.

He says dude, you know there are more important things.

It's like, but if you can't get generosity rights, forget about mercy, forget about justice, forget about faith.

I mean, it's challenging, but that's what we expect to hear from Jesus, the guy who says it's more blessed to give than it is to receive.

We absolutely should expect him to say something like, yeah, generosity, yeah, it's important.

Tithing, yeah it's important.

It's not as important as justice.

If we can't get that right, then we're not gonna get justice right.

And a funny fact about this passage it's triggered our one and only one star review on Google.

So if you go to Google and you Google Madison Church and you'll see that you know 30 ratings and we're like at a 4.9, and you got a one star.

And they're like you know they teach tithing at their church.

As a person I've never met before they teach tithing and I love a one star review like that.

I love it because our church and what we believe about generosity and finances is offensive to the rest of the world.

How we talk about generosity and living open-handed and was an abundant mindset bothered someone.

It offended them that they went to Google and they've never met us and they gave us a one star.

It's too radical.

Good, because if there's anything I want to be known for when it comes to radicalness, I want to be known as radically generous, and that's fine.

I think I thanked them.

I'm the one who replies to the Google comments.

I think, if you go and look at it, I think I thanked them.

So I did.

It's missional, guys.

It's missional that we believe in this and it's awesome if it bothers people who don't know God.

It's awesome if it bothers people who can't understand how you can be so generous.

That's awesome.

That's a testimony.

That's way better than anything you can tell them.

They know that Jesus loves them.

They've heard that before.

They've heard the street preachers talk about hell.

They do that.

But have they heard and seen you living financially like peaceful, with joy, even though you're not a millionaire?

Well, now that might intrigue some people.

We see that the early church and even the followers of Jesus had a hard time.

In Malachi 3, this passage you might have heard before God is speaking through the prophet Malachi says bring all the tithes to the storehouse so there will be enough food in my temple.

And if you do, says the Lord of heaven's armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you.

I'll pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it all in.

Try it, put me to the test.

For those of you who are kind of Bible nerds, okay, we're told over and over again Don't test the Lord or God.

Over and over again Old Testament, new Testament.

The devil, while tempting Jesus in the wilderness, says why don't you test God?

And Jesus says no, no, no, I can't test God, but here God gives us permission.

This is the only time in the entire Bible that you're allowed to test God.

And God says when it comes to your money, test me.

Test me and see that I don't open up heaven and just pour it out.

Now I want to clarify.

That does not mean you're winning the lottery this week, does not mean you're gonna get the raise, the promotion at work.

I don't read it as a get rich quick scheme, but aren't blessings a lot more than stuff?

Aren't blessings a lot more than money?

And perhaps God's blessings.

You won't even know what they were, but you'll be really thankful someday that you had them.

You won't know when God protected you from being harmed or hurt or injured or sick.

Those are the kind of blessings that I want to walk in.

And this isn't my words, these are God's words.

Who says try me on this?

Now, I know a lot of you are probably thinking, or you're watching, listening online.

You're thinking giving 10% is crazy and it's impossible.

In order to do that, I would have to totally and completely, 100% rearrange my life around God.

Yeah, that's kind of the point.

It is the point.

That's why it's the hardest step, because it's a total surrender of something so tangible that we put so much faith and trust in and putting it into something that is intangible and putting more faith and trust in that.

But this is what we do at Madison Church we challenge each other.

We challenge each other to seek God every day.

Read the Bible every day.

We tell people that we're not ashamed of that.

We tell people pray.

Every day, we say seek other, seek God in our weekly gathering, seek God in your small group, go out to eat with one another.

And now we're challenging you with your finances, this resource that is limited.

Trust God with it.

And so, for some of you, you're on your first step.

That's great.

That's great.

Ignore what I'm about to say.

For those of you who have been on this step, though, what would happen if you tried tithing for the next 90 days?

You just tried it.

You're putting God to the test.

Seems fair, says do it.

So what if, for the next 90 days, you put God to the test?

If you got a hundred bucks, you give God 10.

You got a thousand, you give God a hundred.

And what would happen?

Now?

The thing is, I've given this challenge in the past.

Some of you guys who have been around Madison Church a little bit longer, you know I've done this before and I can tell you testimony-wise I've never had somebody try it and then get to the end of it and say they wasted money.

I've never had somebody try it and then stop tithing after it.

That was the next thing.

I was actually raking my brain.

I'm like when was the last time I gave the challenge?

And then who tried it?

And I was like, okay, yeah, they tried it and they tried it and they're still doing it, and it's amazing.

And then they talk about all of the ways that God showed up and they said we thought you were crazy.

We thought you were crazy, but we gave it a shot and it's great.

It is more blessed to give than it is to receive, and I know that for many of us, in order to live the kind of ways that we've been talking about today, it is going to have to be rearranged, and maybe that starts with an idea that less is more.

Maybe it starts with the idea that I got to pay off debt.

It's a step of faith and generosity, but it is more blessed to give than it is to receive.

And in closing, I just want to mention that I know this is a tough, challenging talk.

We won't cover it again for two years.

So you guys, you know, praise Jesus, right.

But I want to end with this because I told you one of my goals at the beginning was not that you would feel guilty, ashamed.

I don't want you to feel manipulated.

So I want to end with this passage in 2 Corinthians again, but this one's in chapter 9, and it's verse 7.

Paul says you must each decide in your heart how much to give, and don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure, for God loves a person who gives cheerfully.

If anything said in the last 30 minutes makes you feel pressured, well, biblically Paul says don't give then.

So if you needed to hear that, I want you to hear that If you feel manipulated, ashamed, guilt, any of those things, paul says, okay, don't give.

But I want you to be able to discern today a difference between manipulated and pressured and challenged, because growth always happens through challenge and there are always growing pains.

And so today, if right now you just feel challenged, that's so awesome, I'm so happy for you and you don't have to go through it alone.

We're all here for you.

We have each other's back.

There are people I'm looking at them all over the room who live the way that we've talked about today we're just giving something, getting started, and we celebrate that but who are taking steps of generosity to tithe.

We celebrate that too, and I just want you to know that we're here for you, we love you, we care for you and we want to see God do amazing things in your life.

Everything is good, and may God help us grow in the grace of giving.