Stewardship - Part 2

I'd like you to open your Bibles this morning.

Very important Scriptures I want to read from 2 Corinthians, chapters 8 and 9.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

2 Corinthians, 8, verse 1.

2 Corinthians 8:1

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for, in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part, for they gave according to their means, as I can testify and beyond their means of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.

And this not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then, by the will of God, to us.

And look at verse 8 of chapter 8 of 2 Corinthians.

I say this not as a command, but to prove, by the earnestness of others, that your love also is genuine, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor so that you, by His poverty, might become rich.

And go to the next chapter, chapter 9 of 2 Corinthians, beginning in verse 6.

The point is this whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that, having all sufficiency and all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

Let me just say to those who are guests with us this is not in any way to be embarrassed, but just to set the stage, because I'm going to talk a little of this morning about money in the Bible And inevitably someone came this morning that hasn't been in church for years because he or she said church is only about money.

And here I am talking about it.

But I've been coming to Trinity, i've been the full-time lead pastor for a little over six months and I've been coming in the transition with Steve for a year and I haven't talked about money.

So I hope you will give me grace this morning to say we don't do this every week.

We're not about money, but we are about being biblical and doing things right.

And really what we're talking about, which we opened up last week in this two-week series, is we're talking about divine stewardship.

We want to understand what is at the heart of biblical stewardship One of the things we realized last week.

That is steward is a person who understands that God owns everything, but that God has made him or her a manager of all that the Master has given them.

That's what a steward is.

It's more of a mentality than it is just about money or paying a debt.

The ultimate goal of a steward, we said last week, was to manage his or her money well so that they might send it on ahead and lay up a good foundation for the future.

We said it this way in the latter part of the message We can't take it with us, but we can send it on ahead.

And in this installment of our teaching, i want to talk about grace-based giving.

Grace-based giving, i want to talk about moving beyond duty and moving into delight when it comes to giving.

Is that possible?

Is it possible to move from duty and obligation into delight as a giver?

Not only is it possible, it is a necessity.

Now there is a profound difference.

How many of you have discovered in your Christian life?

there's a profound difference between doing something out of duty and doing it from delight.

Example Valentine's Day is coming.

Let's say I go and find the most beautiful bouquet of roses, a dozen white roses, the best roses in Knoxville and I buy a dozen for Shelley And I bring them to her.

And I give them to her and she is overwhelmed And she says honey, they are so beautiful, you shouldn't have spent so much.

And I say, wait a minute, don't say that.

I'm your husband, it's my duty to give you roses on Valentine's Day.

She's doing this on the front row.

I'm in trouble already.

But what if I give the roses to her and she says honey, they're so beautiful, i know they're expensive, you shouldn't have spent it.

And she's, and I say to her honey, i love you so much that there is no amount of money in the world that is too much for me to spend on you.

I can't look over there.

How does she appear?

One is an expression of duty, and how many think Shelley would feel loved and appreciated if I give her the roses and say it is my duty as a husband to present these to you?

You know what she would do with them.

Stick the first thorn available up my nostril passage.

Now, this has so much meaning when it comes to the whole area of giving And what I want to talk about, moving into grace-based giving, which is 2 Corinthians, 8 and 9, is all about.

God's plan for every man and woman in Christ is not only that we are giving regularly and systematically, but that we are doing it for the right reason and for the right motive.

Now, to achieve this, we first need to be clear on duty.

We don'tgrace-based giving doesn't mean there's no duty or obligation, or that God has no standards of giving.

He does, and the word of God is clear, as I said a moment ago, that God intends that His people give systematically and in a disciplined fashion, not sporadically and when moved upon emotionally.

And there are two passages I want to talk about.

First, so that we are clear, because grace does not remove obligation.

It frees the heart to respond to obligation in a totally different manner.

Sometimes people pit grace against duty and say well, i'm under grace, so I have no duty or obligation.

Not true, and I want to make that clear Now.

First thing, i want you to look at a text in Leviticus 27, when we're talking about what God expects of His people when it comes to giving And when God redeemed the people from Egypt.

Here's what He said every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees is the Lord's.

It is holy to the Lord.

Now, for those of us that may not understand yet you might be new in your faith or maybe you never understood this.

Tithe is 10 percent And God, when He redeemed the people from Egypt and adopted them as His own, taught them that they had a responsibility to give them the right to give, that they had a responsibility to bring the tithe the 10 percent of that portion which is the Lord's to the house of the Lord.

And, by the way, this corresponds with Proverbs 3.9 that says honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of your crops.

When God redeemed and adopted a people out of Egypt, he taught them that, as God's children, they were to give to God first, not last.

They were to bring the first fruit portion first, not last.

And when the children of Israel, centuries later, failed in this matter, god rebuked them through the prophet Malachi and said you're robbing God.

Now everybody look up here and stare at me for a minute.

We are new covenant believers.

We are not this is a word that was spoken to and people under an old covenant.

And we are new covenant believers and we are living under grace, not under law.

I want everybody to know, if you haven't suspected it by now.

I hate legalism.

I do not want to put new wine into old wineskins, but I have a question and I want us to settle this question Under the grace of God which has come to us in Christ.

Does God expect less of me than He did of the poorest Israelite in the old covenant era?

Yeah, many believers who are under the grace of God would, if they're honest, say yes, god expects less of me than he did of the Israelites, including poor Israelites, under the Old Covenant.

Because according to a survey done by George Barna this is older now.

This is 2001,.

I don't know if it's improved Barna's survey revealed that American Christians give, on average, 2 to 3% of their income to the work of God.

2 to 3%, that means folks that in the wealthiest nation on earth we give, the body of Christ gives a fraction of what was required of Old Covenant believers under the law.

So the question that I hear a lot in the body of Christ and I've asked it myself is tithing, a standard for New Covenant believers?

Can I tell you what tithing is?

I hope this doesn't offend you.

Tithing is training wheels.

How many of you have ever remember when you learned to ride a bike with training wheels?

You know it's pretty depressing, you don't go too far or fast, but you got to have training wheels and eventually you get rid of the training wheels and you don't need them anymore because you are free to ride your bike.

That's how tithing works, i think, as New Covenant believers.

It isn't the ceiling, it's the floor.

It isn't the finish line of giving, it is merely the starting point And, according to Barna, many people haven't even started there who've been in the body of Christ, though I have.

I just want to say, fundamentally, based on the fact that I understand that we are a New Covenant people and we are no longer living under an Old Covenant, i have no problem with people who say tithing.

You know we're not under the tithe law, brother Neal, we're New Covenant believers.

But many of them and Barna bears this out use that as an excuse for doing less than the law demanded.

And I think, if Barna and others are right, the current current pattern of most believers in America indicates they need the training wheels.

But let me tell you, once you learn to be a cheerful giver, tithing is irrelevant.

You don't need the training wheels Now.

Paul, in these chapters that we read, encouraged voluntary giving, but he talked about it in terms of obedience.

So if you are here this morning and you have not yet developed a lifestyle of giving and don't know where to start, let me encourage you.

Start with the training wheels, and I've talked to so many givers in my lifetime and almost all of them, without exception, started learning.

And some of them give 60, 70, 80 percent of their income to the work of God.

And most of them, if not all of them, began by being faithful tithers And they learned that, as God provided faithfully, it encouraged them to give more and more of their income away.

And some of them now, if you ask them if they tithe, they'd laugh because they're way beyond them.

They laugh because they're way beyond that, but that's how they learn to give.

The second thing I want to say from Scripture regarding duty is that giving should be planned and systematic, not sporadic and haphazard.

Look at 1 Corinthians 16.

Go back to the book before and look at 1 Corinthians 16, verses 1 and 2.

1 Corinthians 16:1

Now, concerning the collection of the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatians, so also are you to do On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.

The background of this and we don't have time to explore it is Paul is going to the churches of Achaia, which is Corcoranth, and Macedonia, which is Philippi, and collecting an offering for the poor saints in Jerusalem.

You can read about it in the Book of Acts.

It was one of the last things he did before he journeyed to Rome and was taken there by Roman expenditure.

Paul is concerned about taking up an offering for the saints.

It was not only for their financial need, but it was to bring mending between the Gentile churches and Jerusalem, and there was a lot more behind it.

But even though he was asking them to take up an offering, as we did this morning for Aaron, for a special need, paul told them to do it and to give towards it on a weekly basis in advance of his coming.

So I understand there are some things that applies, there are some things that don't apply, but he knew, paul knew it was better to give in a systematic way rather than a haphazard way when a need arises.

I want you to notice three things Paul says in these verses.

It is critical to understanding how to cooperate with the grace of God in giving First.

They were to do so and bring their offering on the first day of the week.

Which day is that?

Sunday, the Lord's day?

He says.

On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside, so forth and so on.

So he is talking about something that happened weekly, which was on the Lord's day.

In the law, when God required Israel to come to the temple three times a year for festival, he said to them none shall appear before me empty-handed.

And Israel was taught that when they came to the house of the Lord they were to come with an offering.

That could not come before God empty-handed.

And when we gather on the Lord's day, a fundamental, integral part of our worship is that we bring our tithe and offering before the Lord and not come empty-handed.

Now, some of us, i realize, don't get paid every week.

Some of us get paid every two weeks, some of us get paid monthly And some of us don't get paid.

I hope you're not in the latter category, but the Lord, paul, is expecting that on the Lord's day the people come and they are laying aside what they're intending to bring.

And I just want to say by this that one of the ways we worship corporately on the Lord's day and come together in this building is to worship not only by lifting our voices and hearing the Word of God, but in giving of our tithes and offering.

It is worship folks And I know people that get paid once a month but they break up their tithe and offering into four increments, and so every weekday, every Sunday, every Lord's day in a month, sometimes there's five they have something to bring.

You're not under law and obligation to do it that way, but this is critical, that we think in terms of I'm coming to worship and part of that is I'm giving of my tithes and offerings.

I realize this morning I just want to say I'm preaching to the choir, to a lot of people that know this and do this, but I am not going to assume anything because the two or 3% haunts me.

Second, paul says each one of us.

He says each one of you should do this, not a few, not certain ones who feel led.

Each one of you should do this, how many?

So I appeal to you this morning that if you are a believer and you are part of this house and you are not, in the practice and the discipline of bringing your offering to the Lord on the Lord's day, paul reminds us that every one of us in God's house have an obligation to do this.

Someone might say, well, i don't bring money.

I give of my time and talent to the Lord, and that is part of stewardship.

There are so many people in this body that give tirelessly, sacrificially, in tithes and offerings I'm sorry in talents and stewarding their time.

There are people here that never get noticed.

We blessed them in our servants' heart banquet a few years ago.

But they serve tirelessly and they bring their offering of their time and talent and that is valid.

But not only should we steward our time and talent folks, we should also steward our money by giving regularly on the Lord's day.

That means not no matter how little I have or how much I have, i have to bring.

I don't care if it's a dollar or a thousand dollars, it doesn't matter.

Bring it and offer it to the Lord.

And God's plan is that we do this systematically and a disciplined matter, not sporadically, just when we feel led.

And thirdly, look what Paul says.

Not only are they to do it on the first day of the week, and everyone was to do it, but he says in this text each is to give listen as he has prospered.

And here's a principle that Scripture backs up and it's alluded to here, but it's clear in other passages.

God intends that the more we prosper, the more we have to give.

Again, tithing's, the bottom level training wheels.

Your goal and my goal should be the more that we prosper, the more we have to give.

I know families I mentioned it, but I know them who lived what has been called planned poverty.

They've decided what they can live on the rest of their lives, maybe 40 or $50,000 a year for the size of their family, and they have settled that they can live on that and will live on that and say every dime above that we are giving to the work of God.

Here's a principle.

I hope you're not offended by it.

It's true, but Americans need to learn this God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but my standard of giving.

Now I'm not saying well, we just remodeled our bathroom.

You're condemning me.

I'm not saying that we just upgraded our car, you're condemning me.

No, i'm not talking about living in poverty and your car's breaking down and your bathroom doesn't flush, your toilet doesn't flush and you can't fix it now because Neal said it's ungodly.

But there is a principle that as I prosper and as God blesses me, i will raise my standard of giving, not only my standard of living.

I like what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 9, 11, listen to this.

You will be enriched in every way.

To be generous in every way, so many Americans would write that if they were honest.

You will be enriched in every way so as to lavish it upon yourselves.

There was a great saint in England in the 19th century, george Mueller, who raised up an orphanage, many orphanages throughout England, and never asked one person for a dime.

All of these orphanages were funded by faith.

He trusted God.

They had a policy not to ask men but to bring all of their needs to God.

And Mueller's biography is replete with examples of miracles, of provision that God gave.

And he said this, mueller, about giving.

He said, quote are you giving systematically to the Lord's work or are you leaving it to feeling, to impression made upon you through particular circumstances or to appeals?

If you do not give from principle, systematically, we shall find that our brief life is gone before we are aware of it and that in return, we have done little for the adorable one who bought us with his precious blood and to whom belongs all we have and all we are.

What a great quote.

Now that's our obligation.

I've just talked to you about duty training wheels, tithing, base level not the ultimate goal, but a good place to start if you're not in the habit of systematically giving.

But God's plan is not for us to just meet obligation and live dutifully when it comes to the Christian life.

This does not apply only to giving.

It is true of the entire Christian life.

You can live in duty or you can move from duty to delight And delight.

Grace-based giving does not remove duty or obligation from the equation.

It allows God's grace to so change our hearts that our giving is now motivated by something more than obligation.

God wants our giving to be an expression of our love for Him, who was the greatest giver and is the greatest giver who ever lived.

And how many know?

when the greatest giver who ever lived is your Lord and His grace fills your heart, you will live a life in which you reflect His nature.

You will be a giver.

God so loved the world that He gave, he who spared not his own son but gave him up for us all.

How shall he not also, through him, give us all thanks?

It really is true that how much we give and the attitude, more importantly, by which we give demonstrates or reflects our love for God.

So here's three things that are characteristic about grace-based giving and grace-based givers.

They also teach us how it's possible to move from duty and obligation.

Did you read that text with me?

It's really in the Bible.

We read it this morning.

God loves let me translate it properly God loves an ecstatic giver.

So God's not looking and saying did you meet your obligation this morning?

Yes, and I hated having to do it, but I did it for Jesus.

He's looking for hearts so filled with grace that we are always giving and delight in giving and find great joy in giving.

If you talk to true givers who have a gift of giving, they love it.

It's not an obligation.

So that's number one.

Grace-based givers give willingly and cheerfully.

Second Corinthians, chapter 8, verse I'm sorry.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

Chapter 9, verse 7,.

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Notice, paul says don't be under compulsion, don't just yield to the pressure of having to do it.

God wants your attitude in doing it to be great.

God is not looking for people who will begrudgingly put money in the plate, but those who get joy.

Someone once said there are three types of givers.

There are three types of giving grudge giving, duty giving and thanksgiving.

Grudge giving says I have to.

Duty giving says I ought to.

Thanksgiving giving says I want to.

What category are you in this morning?

Are you in the have to or the ought to, or are you in the I want to?

In other words, some give because they say they can't keep it.

Others give because they say they owe it, but others give because they can't help it.

Now, what's the reason that Paul gives?

God loves a cheerful giver.

We need a reason to give that way.

You've got to be nuts to give this way, unless there's a reason biblically that only a Christian can understand.

Because it sounds sort of like, you know, when I go to a person who's really depressed and I'm real sensitive and I just say cheer up, gee, thanks You ever, ever, anybody do that to you, cheer up.

Well, i need more than that And here is what Paul presents to the Corinthians, or reminds them of that must possess our hearts.

And this is what changes giving from duty to delight.

You know the grace of our Lord Jesus that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that you, through his poverty, might become rich.

What Paul pulls on knowing this alone will change the heart is the grace of God which came in Jesus.

He who was rich became poor so that we might be enriched by God's grace.

This is not a promise of wealth for every Christian.

There are Christians who are poor in the third world that live this out.

I would have been with Christians in China whose lives were filled with richness and grace because they understood this and they had very little to give.

You remember when the tabernacle was being built in the book of Exodus And God said to Moses tell the people to take up a free will offering and contribution for the building of the tabernacle, and you know what it says.

The people started doing it, but God was very clear Only men and women whose hearts move them or who were willing to do it should come and bring this offering, every man and woman whose heart moved him willingly.

And so they began to take up the offering.

And do you remember what happened?

They gave so much that Moses had to give a command stop.

We want to experience that here.

You are allowed to experience that.

We will tell you when we have enough.

We want to pay off this building.

God wants us to, and when we do it we'll let you know.

What Paul is saying is when a believer realizes and lives in the reality of the mercy and grace which has been bestowed upon us in Christ.

It frees the heart to give cheerfully.

It allows you to move into a realm where you're not living only in duty but in delight.

It's the same thing said of the Lord Jesus in Psalm 40, lo, i come.

In the volume of the book it is written of me, i delight to do your will, oh God.

Number two, as I said, and I just remind you of it, number one is grace-based giving should be cheerful and willing.

Number two grace-based giving should be planned and systematic.

If you're not in a regular habit of giving, get a plan.

Don't just do it haphazardly.

Think about it.

It's one of the spiritual disciplines and, again, the place to start if you don't know where to start is with the training wheels of tithing.

The key, though, is to get into habit of doing it every week, and as you begin to do it, it might not feel good at first.

How many of you have learned?

you know, not long ago, i joined the gym because I saw John Hefner's body and got jealous Where's John?

There he is, and I could you see me like that It's like super-ju And I hadn't worked out in a long time on machines, man, and the next day I knew it was a lie from the pit of hell that told me to join the gym.

It wasn't happening, but as I began to do it a little more, i began to feel better, and I began to no longer hurt at the next day, and as you start giving, if you're not in the habit of it, it may be obligation or duty that drives you.

At first.

Okay, i'm gonna tithe, and it's my obligation, but something begins to happen.

God's Spirit can quicken it so that you begin to love giving.

I think Jesus was alluding to that when he said it's more blessed for you, it's more blessed to give than to receive.

I used to read that and say I don't get it, but as you give regularly and grace is motivating you.

Your heart gets into it and you know it's true If you've ever been around real givers.

They love it.

I've had people beg me.

Please let me know what you need.

I want to give, with joy and ecstatic expressions on their face, and I'm sitting there convicted because I want to receive.

And thirdly, generous living and giving results in bountiful blessing.

Generous giving and living results in bountiful blessing.

Listen to Paul in 2 Corinthians 9, verse 6.

2 Corinthians 9:6

We read it.

Let's read it again He who sows sparingly shall reap, and he who sows generously will reap generously.

We'll just stop there for now.

Bountifully.

The point is, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.

Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

It is possible.

Now we have to be clear in what this text is saying.

This is not a promise to wealth.

There's no promise that if you start giving you'll be a millionaire.

Maybe you will, maybe God will bless you, but this is not that kind of thing.

But what it is a promise is God has promised bountiful supply and blessing for those who sow bountifully and generously.

Jesus said it very simply in the Sermon on the Mount in Luke's version Give and it will be given to you.

Good measure, press down, shaking together, running over We'll men put it in their bosom.

Someone said to me not long ago well, i'm really hurting right now.

I can't afford to give, and I said you can't afford not to.

These verses make it clear that there is The law of sowing and reaping does operate when it comes to giving.

And I know this is true because our minds have been blown, as we've been faithful in our giving, how God has blessed us.

And the reality is, i want to tell you I don't have everything I've always wanted, but I have everything I've always needed.

And Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians 9, having all that you need, you will abound to every good work.

The last phrase at the bottom there Having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

So what he's saying is God wants to fill us with His blessing.

As we give faithfully, so we are increased to have more to give and to meet needs.

This pertains to finances and it pertains to blessings on a whole different scale that are countless in unspecified ways, always remembering too that the blessing might not always be in this life because, reflecting on last week's principle, you can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead, and every man and woman in this room is storing up, or not storing up, a treasure that awaits you in your heavenly home.

Sometimes we reap manifold blessings in this life, and I believe that's promised in this text, but other times it awaits us in eternity.

There is no doubt that this text and many others make it clear that God blesses bountifully those who are faithful and giving You.

Remember the Lord's rebuke to the Israelites in the book of Malachi And don't go around telling people you're under a curse because you don't tithe.

That's not new covenant reality.

But he did say this as a way of encouraging them to bring their tithes and offerings, which they had been unfaithful to do for decades and they had robbed God.

And here's what he says bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

This is one of those times in Scripture where God says test me, prove me, bring the tithe and watch and see if I don't open the windows of heaven and bless your socks off Now.

From this text is derived the idea, which I believe is biblical, that the tithe belongs in the local church, not to your favorite TV evangelist And we might.

We should ask what are the things that God has ordained to be supported in a local church through the faithful giving of its members or partners?

I believe, first and foremost, shepherds.

First and foremost, god calls some men in the body of Christ who are elders to be full-time, calls them to ministry, and 1 Timothy 5.17 reflects on that.

I don't have time to go there this morning, but where you are supporting those who give themselves to the work of God and as this church grows, we want to support in the future more men who are called to full-time shepherding of God's people.

We are presently training several men for eldership.

Some of them will never be full-time, some of them will continue to work a secular job and shepherd as well, and there's no requirement that a man leave secular employment to be a fruitful, effective elder, but some are because of the weight of ministry on their lives.

Then, secondly, god calls for local church members to be faithful to support the other aspects of ministry, and at Trinity that includes our building, our overhead and so forth and so on.

Now let me say something very clear, and I'm going to end on this note We have done a lot in the last few months to cut our budget.

We've cut positions, we've cut all the health care of the family members.

The employees still have health care, but we have cut their family members health care And we are being faithful and we are living within budget or below budget.

But the truth is, as we sit here this morning in this wonderful facility, we're deep in debt And I declare by the word of the Lord God does not want us to stay in debt any longer And we can get out of it.

One of two ways We can pay it off, which is our druthers and our desire, or we can move out of it.

But one thing we can't do is just stay in debt.

This building is about 10 or 11 years old and we haven't really moved much beyond paying into principle And we're not going to go back in the past.

That's the thing of the past, but that's where we stand now.

But here's what I want to say, which I am convinced of To get out of the debt does not require sacrifice just on the part of a few, but faithfulness on the part of many, and I am convinced that, as we grow, if our partners are committed and faithful, doing their biblical part will be fine And we'll be able to meet our obligations, pay our debt and move on.

So, having said that, and I want to say, before I go on, that many of you, so many of you, have not only been faithful, but you have been sacrificial over the years when it comes to giving to the support of this facility.

I am well aware of that and we are so appreciative of that.

But we need to move beyond where we're at and get out of debt, and that is the conviction of this eldership, and I am calling for every partner in this church.

I am well aware that we are living in very difficult times financially.

Every family in this room is being affected by the recession.

There are jobs that have been lost, there are people struggling to make ends meet, and I am aware of that.

But, brothers and sisters, let's be faithful to our God, regardless of what we have, and the Lord will see our faithfulness.

He will pour out a blessing He knows of heaven, will be open, he will increase us And we will not only be able to get out of debt in this facility, but I believe each family in person will prosper as we are biblically faithful.

We're facing decisions that we're going to have to make in this house, but I am not asking you.

I'm asking you if you're moved by the Spirit to give sacrificially towards this building And every week people do.

But I am asking you who have not been committed to God's plan of giving and faithfulness when it comes to systematic, regular support.

You will not hear me talk about this every week.

I'm talking about it with the elders because this is not a decision that I made.

I tell the elders everything I'm preaching and we talk about it, and this is the consensus of the elders.

But I am convinced that if we would just be faithful, we'd be in good stead.

I don't know what the percentage is here.

The average again is 2 to 3 percent that Christians give on average.

I do not know.

I do not look, i have no clue.

As I stand here, i have no idea who gives and who doesn't give in this church.

I have never looked at the records.

I will only look at them for the choosing of elders, but I am convinced that that's the case And if we would be faithful, the Lord would do what He has promised.

Faithful living is not determined by dollar amounts.

Faithful living is where I, as I am prospering, am committed to God's giving plan.

I was thinking as I was preparing this message, about how Shelley and I have been so blessed in ways that we've never even asked for in our bounty, and how God and we don't have.

We've just been faithful people.

That's all.

We don't have a lot.

We've never been exorbitant, but we have been faithful and God has blessed us.

And if you ask me, do I have everything I've always wanted?

I would probably say no, i want a bigger hard drive, but I've always had what I needed.

So I'm going to close in prayer.

Stand with me.

Now Let's start.

I'd like you to grab the hand of the person next to you, and I'm not going to ask you to identify yourself.

But if you heard both these messages and the Lord's Spirit is convicting you that you haven't been a good steward, whenever you discover that you have not obeyed God, what's the first thing you should do?

Repent, change your mind.

Change your mind.

It's not enough to say that was great Man, i agree with it, i haven't been doing it right And then to go home, forget about it and fall back into normal patterns.

The Bible calls us to repentance.

It's a change of mind.

So if this struck you this morning and you know you need to make changes, let God give you the grace to repent, to change your mind, which will be followed by change of action.

Father, this morning I have poured my heart into these two messages and I commit them to you now And I commit them to your people, and I ask you, by your spirit, to grant repentance to men and women who need to change their minds, change their thinking, and I pray for grace, not only to change the way we think, but the way we live, so that, lord, we would take of the seed that we have, that has been sown into our lives, and we would begin to sow it into the kingdom bountifully, through tithes and offerings.

Father, help your people to make this adjustment right now and let it lead to a bountiful supply.

Father, we have one request We do not want to be in debt.

So, father, take Trinity Chapel out of debt, take us out of debt so that we can pay off this building and come here and pour all of our money into ministry and into the work of God and into missions.

Father, we're thanking you for it And we ask you for it.

Could you raise your hands.

Let's worship for a moment, take a moment and thank God for this right now.

Thank you Lord, thank you Father.