Open Topic 2023 // What's In Your Hand? (Dan Pettersen)

This morning, especially if you are a visitor here, it is.

Good to have you with us. I have really been enjoying our

series on, who are we and getting a lot out of that and

God has a priest. A lot of things on me and

convicted me of lot of things. It's been really good, really

enjoyed that. We're going to take a little bit

of a break from it this week. We'll be back into it next week.

Kind of go go off on a little bit of a tangent this morning.

We're going to talk about what's in your hand.

That's the the title of this morning's message.

I think we all kind of have a desired only to want our lives

to count for something, right to to think that we can make a

difference. Right?

That when we there when we leave this earth, the world is a

better place than when we came into it, because we had some

impact in some way there. True.

Yep, and it's Christians in particular that we have

connected some people with their savior, right?

So who gives a hope and a purpose that you can't really

get anywhere else, right? But I think when we think about

that stuff, I think we kind of think that I like, on a big

scale. Like, you know, we wanted to

come in and impact this sort of, you know, have the sort of major

change and, and do incredible things, right?

But it's True. Right?

That you can, you can make or break a shop assistants day,

right? By the things you do.

Write a lot of times this impact stuff that's influence stuff

happens on Earth on a very small level, right in the little

things that we do each day. You can, you know, how you treat

that shop assistant, or what you say to your boss or, you know,

you can, you can impact attendance or your lawyer, or

your Barber or, you know, all you.

Didn't see teachers, you know, all the people that you come

into contact with you have influence on them, every time

you write an email, right? You're influencing somebody or

impacting somebody every time I take a photo, right?

Every time you give me time. I gossip to someone, right?

I'm influencing them. And so the question is, not

really. Am I having an impact?

The issue is, what kind of impact am I having?

I am I have an impact for good, or for bad for writer, for

wrong, for Christ or not for Christ, right?

What kind of impact am I having? And the Bible says that, you

know, we should, we should think about this.

And we should be more intentional about our impact.

God wants us to recognize where we could be an influence for

good. And for God, you know, I think

about your interests. What kind of person am I?

And how could I use? That to impact people in a

positive way. And if you think about you, your

job or your career, right? What I do is work, you know, how

can I use that for influence and then I should use the best of my

abilities for God, right? So the question sort of becomes

how, right? How do we do that?

How do we, how do we use? What we have two impacts people

towards the cause of Christ to influence some of that in their

Direction. 22. Possibly change things.

And so I'm going to try and answer that question this

morning with a question and it's a question that was asked of

Moses that God, God asked, Moses Moses, if you remember was a

murderer On The Run, he was a criminal and then God comes to

him. He's a fugitive.

And God says, to him, I want you to go back to Egypt and leave my

people out of slavery there right now.

If you remember the first time he tried that, it didn't go

well, right? They went about as bad as it

could go. He ends up getting a guy and

then fleeing and they didn't follow him.

Right? And so for lots of reasons,

Moses doesn't want to go back, right?

But then, 40 years later, right? He's out in the desert and he

sees this Burning Bush. And God says, Moses I want you

to go back to to Egypt and leave my people out.

This is a story where God gets his attention, right?

But you know, you imagine he's thinking what, how am I gonna do

this? They didn't.

It didn't go so well for me last time and God makes a statement.

Right. And in Exodus chapter 4 verse

Exodus 4 · chapter mention

number 2. The Lord said to him, what is in

your hand? And he said a rod, right?

A Shepherd stuff and he said, God said, cast it on the ground.

So he cast It On The Ground. Why did God asked Moses?

What was in his hand, right? Didn't he didn't even know,

right? Cause he knows he's God, right?

Because he knew what was in the same.

When God asked a question like that, it's for the benefit of

the person. He's He's asking, you know, not

for his own benefit, what's in your hand and he says a Shepherd

stuff. Now, if you are if you remember

depending on you know if you're of a certain age you want might

remember the Ten Commandments movie, right?

Charlton Heston and he's got the staff there and he throws it on

the ground and and it turns into a snake and and scares you know

Moses runs from it becomes alive it's kind of filled with power

and then he and then he says I want you to pick up the snake.

And he picks up the snake in. It becomes a staff.

Again, quite a cool Miracle, you know, that that kind of went on

the air. Why in the world did God do

that? Was it just to show off?

No God doesn't do miracles to show off, right?

Miracles. Are they were always done to

confirm to people that somebody had the authority to speak on

God's behalf, right? Because Moses, it was going to

be saying thus, says the Lord fried and and this miracle

confirmed that he had God's authority to say those things.

But there's also often a lesson or a Churchill truth, there's a

principle behind it. And here's what he was saying to

Moses. He says, Moses, what's in your

hand, right? And so Moses is a shepherd and

he has a Shepherd stuff. It's just a stick, but that's

staff kind of represented everything that that Moses was.

He's a Shepherd, right? So it represented his income,

that's how he made his living. Right?

It was kind of symbolic as of him as a as a ship.

That's that's where his money came from, you know, he tended

sheep not an easy job either for Moses because it says that he

was out. The Bible says, he was shipping

out on the backside of the desert, it calls.

It calls it. So you know, tough place to be

farming but that stuff represented as income it also

got a represented his identity when you saw someone carrying a

stuff like that you in our Shepherd kind of like, you know,

you see it. Men in uniform or nurse or

Soldier or something. You think it was kind of

represented, kind of his, his identity as a person.

And in a couple of weeks Peterson is going to take us

through. Who are we as individuals?

What does the Bible say about that?

It's a lot about our identity and it, but it also represented

his influence, that's those Shepherd stops.

That's what they're for, right? Get along little sheepy, right?

That's it. Kind of represented the

influence that he had. And so when he says, What's in

your hand? And Moses said, I've got the

stuff, you know, it's a Shepherd stuff, it represents his

identity, his income and has influenced.

And so God's kind of saying look Moses if you'll give me your

influence your identity in your income, I'll make it, come

alive. All Empower it.

I'll do miraculous things from it.

And so Moses when he presents that, right, when he puts it

down, when he when he throws it down, he's essentially saying

God, I'm giving you my identity, my income, my influence, and he

lays it down and become something of power.

Now, from that point on the staff was the staff that Moses

used for all those different Miracles, right?

And if you've seen all those different movies, you know, this

one's from the The Prince of Egypt, right?

It's an astonishing. Off that he used.

If you if you read through the scriptures to stop that, he used

to split the Red Sea. It's the same stuff that he used

to hold the water in the Nile and turn it into blunt.

And it's the same stuff that he used to strike the Rock and

water came out. It's the staff to do all the

Miracles. And in fact, from that point on,

it was never again, Called Moses staff.

But the Bible refers to it as the rod of God.

The rod of God, all of a sudden what had been a simple and plain

kind of crazy. Little stick thing.

God is using as a tool to do incredible things.

Alright so here's the point here, right?

Because Moses gave God, what was in his hand?

His identity is income as influence because God Moses gave

that to God. God used it as a tool to impact

history. All right, everybody knows, you

Moses fight exterior view, you don't go to church, right?

You didn't grow up in church, you're probably We heard of him.

You probably seen one of the movies, you know, he completely

changed history because he gave God what was in his hand.

He used those things that he had to influence for good and for

God and it was never the same again, right?

So this morning God is asking us the same question.

What is in your hand? What is in your hand?

Let's say, two weeks time. We're going to, we're going to

have a look at Peter's going to take us through.

Who are we as individuals? We're going to kind of look at

identity this morning, I'm going to talk about the income part of

this. The income part of what is in

your hand. Now, preaches, hate talking

about this, right? Pastors and teachers.

And, you know, we hate it, because it sounds like, give me

money right. Send money now and we're

probably all heard those sermons, you know, we're

somebody says, I give God some money and he'll multiply it back

to you, many times, right? In other words tie, then God

will make you rich, but they kind of twist things.

Little bit. You ever heard that?

See, ya, the few people nodding there, right?

We've probably all seen these kind of, you know,

televangelists, you know, and they just going to dripping with

jewelry saying, send money now. Yeah, yeah, I remember a friend

of mine went back in the early 20s and he had a satellite dish

and we've got the Satellite Dish hooked up and we were looking to

think it now will see, will be let it watch all this

International TV and there's all these Christian channels on

there. I thought this is going to be so

cool and I flicked through. And there was that and then that

and then they like, it was just people could send money now,

right? This kind of stuff.

Now, there is a Huge scope for abuse here, isn't it?

And that's part of a problem with this, right?

People can say what you don't love the Lord, if you don't do

this, right? I'm so this guy, Jimmy Baker.

You might remember him? That's his house there in the

background parts of his dog kennel with gold-plated.

Yeah, no joke. All right, send money now.

Right? This guy here are Roberts, are

all gotten up in front of his congregation.

He said, God's given me a revelation.

He's going to kill me on a certain.

Date, unless you donate eight million dollars and everyone

went on, I don't kill oral. We love viral right now.

They gave all their money and sold all this stuff and

whatever. Now they never got to the 8

million but you didn't die. Yeah.

But there's all this this kind of abuse, right?

So there is scope for abuse here and so we want to kind of look

at is that this idea of what is tithing?

What is that? Who does it?

Why would you do it, right? And so what we want to do is go

to the Bible and as much as we can forget, everything.

Thing else that we think we know about this stuff and see what

the Bible actually. Says, the first mention of it's

in the book of Genesis in chapter 14 and in verse number

18 and you can, you can go there, if you'd like, Genesis

14, 18, we will have a versus up on the up, on the screens, but

it is always good. If you can follow in your own

Bible in sort of see the context in the place of it.

So the bit of background here or long time ago, like 1700 BC,

right? There's this kind of Alliance of

Teams from over. And what we know is now is

Southern Iraq over here. So, in something like, there's a

sort of Alliance of Kingdoms and that's where Abraham was

originally from, from this area. And so right over the far side

there, we Babylon an error and all that down in that area and

this Alliance of Kings. They took an army and they made

the way around the federal, president came over into what.

We now know is Jordan and they conquered a bunch of cities in

their whole bunch of these cities in Jordan, right?

So they made their way. Right across the here anyway.

So they make their way into Jordan and they conquer a bunch

of cities in there. They took all this stuff and

then for 13 years, they made them pay taxes back to Iraq.

All right. So these Jordanian little

city-states if you like sort of Kingdoms had to pay taxes back

to Iraq and after 13 years they went, you know what, we want to

do that anymore, so they just stopped paying the tax and the

Iraqis went, let's see about that, shall we?

And so they sent the Army back again and the Army came back

into into. To Jordan there and reconquered.

These cities took all of their stuff and a whole bunch of

hostages and people as kind of, you know, sending a message.

Don't mess with us right now. Well over there they thought

let's a kind of expand this a little bit.

They cross the border over into Israel, towards the

Mediterranean Sea, their into Southern Israel.

And they took a couple of cities there as well, Sodom and

Gomorrah particular, which was quite big powerful cities in

those days and took all the stuff out of there as well as

well. Is took a lot of hostages and so

they are hitting hoo. They're heading back to Iraq

with all the stuff they've taken from all these cities plus a

whole bunch of hostages, and they're on their way back.

Now, Abraham lives a little Way north of where Sodom and

Gomorrah were in a different area but his nephew lot lived in

Sodom and and so lot, and his family are among the captives

that have been taken by these Iraqi Kings.

And so Abraham, by this stage, has this Massive, farming

operation going on and he has 318 employees who worked for him

as Farm hands. And so he prays hard about this

and then Abraham and his 318, farmhands go and take on the

Iraqi Army and in one of those amazing miraculous God, things

they win, right? And so not only do they win,

they get all of the loot that the, the Iraqi Army Iraqi kings

are taken from Jordan and the stuff they taken from Saddam

Sodom Gomorrah and they get all the people back.

Well, right? And so after winning this big

battle, Abraham and his and his, he's got a farming operation

staff hitting back home and then this happens, this is a in verse

number 18 here. It's Genesis would like to thank

you. That's on the screening Genesis

14. It says this then Melchizedek

king of Salem brought out Bread and Wine.

He was a priest of the god most high, right.

So we got this guy Melchizedek don't know a whole lot about

them but he He's a, he's a king who's also a priest of God most

high and he blessed him blessed Abraham.

And he said this blessed be Abraham of God.

Most high possessor of Heaven, and Earth, and blessed.

Be God, most high, who has delivered your enemies into your

hand and it says, and he Abram, gave him a tithe of all.

So the word tithe comes from a Hebrew word that just means

1/10. 1/10. Abraham voluntarily gave one

tenth of all the all the treasure that had that had got

back, you know, off the rocky Kings and he gave it to this

priest king. Okay?

So that's the first time we see it in the scripture the first

time. We kind of see this this ties

thing going. Okay, so next event is Genesis

Genesis 28 · chapter mention

chapter 28. So this is several Generations

later and Jacob is on the run after committing fraud against

his brother and his brother. Is an excellent expert Hunter

tracker and so Jacobs just running thinking he's coming

after me, right? Any minute now is just going to

come over the rise and bow and arrow and and it's all over is

expecting death at any moment. Thinking, it's all over thing

is, he's totally ruined everything by his bad decision

making and that there's no hope. And then at that God wouldn't

want anything to do with somebody like him.

He just kind of collapses in a heap exhausted and he falls

asleep. And he has a vision, right?

Of this ladder going up to heaven from where he is with

angels going up and down, right? God is at work in this place,

right? Things?

Things are happening, and God promises that he will be with

Jacob. And so Jacob wakes up from this

and he realizes that that God is still at work.

And he says this Genesis 28, 16 says Jacob awoke from his sleep

and he said, surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know

it and he was afraid and he said how awesome This place awesome.

There could also be translated as terrifying.

Terrifying. How awesome is this place?

This is none other than the house of God, and this is the

Gate of Heaven. Then.

Jacob Rose early in the morning and he took the stone that he

had put in his head and he set it up as a pillar and poured oil

on top of it and he called the name of that place Bethel, but

the name of that City had been low has previously.

Then Jacob made a vow say Saying if God will be with me cause

that's what God had told him and keep me in this way that I'm

going and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on because

again that's what God had promised them in the dream.

So that I come back to my father's house and peace, then

the Lord shall be my God. And this Stone, which I have

said as a pillar, shall be God's house and of all that you give

me. I'll surely give a test you.

Yep. So there is again.

Second time we kind of see that. So again, voluntary offering

10%, Abraham offered 10% of The Spoils of autumn to Melchizedek.

Jacob offers 10% of everything. Okay?

So, originally the examples, all that we have there, right?

Are of voluntary offerings around 10% and then came Moses,

right? And and the law.

And so, the law was given to Israel as a nation as a country,

right? It was to be their National

laws. For running their country once

they took position of it. Now it's very important to know

that we are not under that law, right?

There was a law given to Israel and Paul says the whole point of

the law was to show us that we're all lawbreakers.

Right? And we're in need of some

serious help. We need a savior, but in terms

of tithing, the law was kind of complicated for the Israelites.

They pretty much ran things on a seven-year cycle and depending

where on the on the, in that cycle, you were dependent on how

the tithing have the ties were, you know, And, and depending on

what ceremonies they had going on, depending on how the ties

were collected in and when they were given and that kind of

stuff. But let's just have a quick look

real quick. Look at one of those passages

from Deuteronomy 26 generally, 26 verse number 12.

This deals with year, three of the cycle.

And it says this when you have finished the side laying aside,

all the tithes of your increase in the third year, the Year of

tithing and they've given it to the levite, the stranger, the

fatherless and the No, so that they may eat within your Gates

and be filled. Then you shall say before the

Lord, I have removed the holy tithe from my house.

And I've also given them to the levite, the stranger, the

fatherless and the Widow, according to all your

Commandments. Would you have Commander me?

I've not transgress your Commandments, nor have I

forgotten them as 14. I have not eaten any of it.

When in mourning nor have I removed any of it for unclean

use nor given any of it for the dead over bade, the voice of the

Lord, my God, and I've done. According to all that you have

commanded me. Essentially tithing was a sort

of a legislated 10% tax on all food in Israel and because most

of their income came from, you know, farming crops and

livestock essentially it was a ten percent income tax is what

it amounted to. But what's important here in

this passage here is what it was to be used for right now.

It takes a bit of time to go through all that and for time

sake, we won't do that. But Um but basically it's kind

of a two things right to help the poor and those who are

unable to help themselves. Yeah and to provide for the

Levites and so God had set things up so that the tribe of

Levi was to be responsible for organizing worship.

A small subset of the tribe of Levi, were to be priests, right?

And a big part of their role was to teach the Bible and answer

questions about it, but the rest of them were responsible, kind

of for the grunt work, maintain the building's preparing, the

sacrifices organizing singers or all of that kind of stuff.

Now, when you remember that twice a year, every man in

Israel was required to go to a to his celebration, as well as

all the other things that they had going on.

This was a massive job, right, there was a lot of Evolved in

doing this. So Old Testament law, right?

Tithing was a mandatory 10% tax on all food.

It was used to feed the Levites and the poor who are unable to

feed themselves. And then we give voluntary

offerings on top of that. You see, when they, for example,

when they were building the Temple, they gave offerings for

the building materials and gave up their time to help build it.

Okay? So the sort of the question

becomes, why did God want them to do it?

Why did he, what did he want them to do that?

Because we, you know, might put it out this morning, right?

God doesn't need anything sound 50 here, you know?

God has a reason. So why did he want them to do

it? Well, it's the same Principle as

with their sacrifices, right? And Isaiah 66, is this as I said

this, God speaking for I desire Mercy, right?

Let me see means compassion and loving kindness and not

sacrifice and the knowledge of God, right?

That's, that's about understanding God, wrote about

relationship, more than burnt offerings, and you'll find that

lots of other places as well. So I'm chapter 40, another

place. Other places from there, right?

So if God doesn't need it, why did he ask them for it?

And now we didn't read it. But after, you know, Abraham

after he gave that 10% to Melchizedek, he gets back to the

king of Sodom and the king of Sodom says, don't worry about

the money Abraham. Keep the money.

Just give me the people back. And I remember him guys.

No, no, no, his, the money. He said, I don't want you to

say. Yeah, Abraham does a right

because I gave him a truckload of money.

He said, I want you to understand that, my God takes

care of me. I don't have to worry about this

stuff, right? Very different attitude to money

that Abraham had now, remember Abraham left his home back at

over in southern Iraq, there he had nothing.

God said, I want you to leave your home, he left when it had

nothing and it wasn't all plain sailing.

But years later now he's got This pig farming operation,

right? So he kind of understands this

concept, they look, God takes care of me.

God takes care of me. And so Abraham said to the king

of Sodom note, take the money is yours.

I don't want it. So God wanted Israel to

understand that. Everything they had came from

him and by giving the first 10% of the gross income even when

times were tough, they were acknowledging, I trust God for

everything even though I feel like this is Lot and this is,

you know, I'm gonna do this as an acknowledgement of my trust

in God to take care of me, right?

So that was kind of the plan that he set up now because the

Israelites were giving their tithes on certain days according

to the law, they ran into some logistical problems, right?

Because what would happen is there, everybody put their grain

out on the street and try the live stock up on the street and

all this sort of stuff waiting for the for the Levites to come

and collect it and it caused all these traffic jam.

He's and all kinds of issues, right?

So Hezekiah says, okay. We're going to fix this and so

he built. So these massive big storehouses

up by the temple and he said, take your time is up there and

store them up there, right? And so everybody would do that.

But then what happened was then it's kind of out of sight, a

little bit, people got a little bit slack right in the 10% just

kind of dropped off and when they gave animals that give the

one with a you know the sick ones or one with a bum leg or

whatever, you know and everything kind of just kind of

dwindle away to almost Nothing. They very seldom gave offerings

on top of their tires and when they did, they did it

begrudgingly and so, the prophet Malachi, pulls them up on this,

right? He quotes God and he says this

Malachi 3:8. He says, will a man rob?

Malachi 3:8

God, I can somebody Rob God. This is yet, you have robbed me.

But you say in what way of we robbed you in tithes and

offerings Malachi tells them, this is your curse with a curse

for you. Have robbed me.

Wait. God tells them through Malachi,

you're cursed with a curse for you have robbed me.

Even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into the

storehouse that there may be food in my house.

Try me on. This is like test me on this,

not very many times. You see, God, say that right,

says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you, the

windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing.

There will not be room enough to receive it.

So God says, look, trust me on this test me.

If you'll trust me, it will have an impact on your whole.

Action. Our money is a very strong

indicator of our trust in God. There are roughly five hundred

verses in the Bible about salvation kind of direct ones

about 500 vs. About faith.

There are about 2000 verses about money.

Why is that? Because how we use our money

indicates that level of trust Matthew 25.

Jesus tells a parable about the master leaving some money with

three of his servants, remember that?

And then it goes away on business overseas.

He comes back and said, right, how'd you go with the money and

the first one says, why I invested, I made a lot and so

that's good. And the next one says why I

invested it? I made a little bit.

This is that's good. And the third one says why

buried it. Here it is.

And the muscle is really upset. He said it.

Could have at least put it in the bank.

Got some interest, you know, on it.

Let me tell you a true story. Let's fit a lot of too much time

on this, but this is hilarious. This guy's name is Timothy

Dexter. He's worth looking up.

If you look them up on Wikipedia or Timothy decks to live in a

Massachusetts in around 1750 and when he was 20 years old, he

married a widow. She was 31 and she was very

wealthy. And so he just all of a sudden,

has all this money and he's 20 years old and he thinks I should

invest this money. They didn't really know what to

do. So we just started asking some

wealthy people around town. Well, I started playing games

with him and they said, well, you want to do, is you want to

send some Bibles Down To Jamaica, right?

Knowing that, you know, the wind, many Christians in Jamaica

and those days. So he did that.

There was this huge big evangelism, kind of explosion

down there, all the Bible sold for profit.

So then the guy said, well what you want to do is you want to

send some mittens to Jamaica because, you know, people might

get cold down there now Jamaica's in that, you know, in

the tropics. It's pretty.

Hot place. He bought as many mittens as he

could, and he shipping to Jamaica.

Right? When they got there, these

Russian trawlers came through and they bought up all of the

mittens. He made a fortune.

So then people have that they were getting more and more

frustrated, they said, know what you want to do is send some

warming pans. You know, that like there's

little bronze pans. You put a fire in because they

they might need those. So you bought up all the bronze

pansy. Could he send them to Jamaica

and they sent for quite a long time and then after a while,

somebody realized that these pans will ideal for Like

molasses, which so making and all of all the pain sold at a

huge profit and it goes on and on and on and we won't go into

it, but it ends with them convincing him to send coals to

Newcastle. Send coal to Newcastle right

here of Massachusetts, you Castle was the coal mining

capital of the world, but he didn't know that, right?

He rented like, dozens of ships, filled them up with all the

coal, he could buy and sent them to Newcastle, en route to

Newcastle a minor strike broke out and you castle.

And there was no Nicole in all of England and we have, when his

ships arrived, he made a fortune, right?

It's an amazing story. He's worth looking up, Timothy

Dexter, is his name, right? What did I tell you all that,

right? The application here is Timothy,

Dexter wasn't particularly Savvy in what he invested in, but he

made money because he invested. Yeah, and Matthew 25 tells us

that God wants his people to invest what he's given them,

that's what they're Parables about.

But but God's idea of investing has different different from

your typical, you know, like Wall Street Wall Street

stockbroker or, you know, that kind of thing.

God isn't concerned about whether or not we make a killing

on the stock market. God isn't concerned about

whether we make a shrewd, business deals, and make

enormous amounts of money. And all that God simply wants us

to invest in the things that are important to him.

Yeah, he wants us to invest in the things that are important to

him. God statement to Israel was that

their attitude was to giving was a key indicator that they didn't

trust them. He said, change your attitude

with regards to how much you trust me and watch it.

Have a positive effect on this whole nation.

Okay, what about us? New Testament.

Tithing is not commanded in the New Testament.

It's not commanded in Matthew 23.

Jesus says, these are the Pharisees were very particular

about making sure. They tithe correctly and Jesus

said, you know, it was great that they were tithing and they

should be doing that, but it's a shame that they went.

So can so concerned about the other important things, like,

justice, and mercy and faith. Those kind of things.

So the New Testament pattern, is that it Moats voluntary giving

rather than compulsory tithing. But it seems to use that ten

percent of gross as a kind of a guideline minimum as it goes

through it. Hebrews 7 RI tells that story

about Abraham and Melchizedek and brings up that 10% several

times. Second Corinthians 9 verse

number 5, right? And so, a little bit of

background on this one, Titus had come in and Titus had told

the church family at Corinth, which is in Greece about Some

hard times that were affecting Christians in Unix, newly.

Planted churches in Macedonia. Is to look, these guys are going

through some tough times. And so the Corinthian Church had

promised that they would give some money to help with that

said yet we're will help them out.

The macedonians in the past had been very good at helping out

others when others were struggling and so that.

Yeah, they said, well how about that?

And Paul says, don't he says to the Corinthians he's writing to

me says, don't forget that you promised that right?

Because I'm going to turn up with some guys.

At some point, I'm going to turn up with a couple guys from

Macedonia to coming. Take the offering off you and

take it back to Macedonia and he says I've been bragging about

you all through Macedonia. And I've been saying a kaya

province is really the act on this.

They've been ready to go since last year, they're going to send

some some money to help and he says, I don't want to turn up

with some macedonians and say, hey we're here to pick up your

offering and you go and you know, you don't have it, you

know, he said, you know, that would leave kind of both us and

And you a little bit red-faced if there happened so he's

telling them that. Right?

So verse 5 Second Corinthians chapter 9 verse 5.

2 Corinthians 9:5

Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort or to encourage the

Brethren, to go to you ahead of time and prepare your generous

gift beforehand, which you had previously promised that it may

be really as a matter of generosity and not as a grudging

obligation because they turn these men, these pollutants up

these, macedonians they go hey we're here to get the offering

and Corinthian Church goes. Oh yeah that's right we must we

promised them some money for that I suppose we better give

them Look what he says verse number 6 is but this I say he

who sow sparingly will also reap sparingly and he who sows

bountifully will also reap bountifully, right?

You get what you get right? What comes around goes around.

So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, right?

No, set amount there, right? Let each one give as he purposes

in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity for God, loves a

cheerful. Cheerful Giver.

Right. This is about attitude.

It's not about the money, it's about the attitude.

So if you begin, if you give because you feel like you have

to don't bother Remember what Hosea said?

It's not the physical act of sacrificing that God wants, it's

the attitude behind it for the sake of time, we won't go and

look at it. But in the previous chapter and

verse 8 in chapter 8, Second Corinthians 8, Paul's telling

the Corinthians about met the macedonians and he said, you

know, these These are, these were fairly poor people

Macedonia. And he said they heard about a

need somewhere. They begged us to help.

They, you you wouldn't believe how much how much money they

gave to help with this issue, and these not wealthy people and

he said it was because they were With God and they understood

that Jesus was rich and he gave up everything for them and that

attitude just kind of affected the way they behaved.

And he says the Corinthians I'm telling you this to inspire you

right to inspire you guys. There's another time in First

Corinthians 16 did been a famine in Jerusalem and the churches

that are in galatia, which is sort of Northern turkey, and at

Corinth, down in Greece, were collecting money to send to

Jerusalem to help, and they collected the money every week,

and eventually they send it off, right?

To help write some other things that they to do with money in

tithing, the, in the New Testament.

First, Timothy 5:17 says this, let the elders who rule well, be

counted worthy of double honor. Especially those who labor in

the word and Doctrine for the scripture says you shall not

muzzle an ox, while it Treads out the grain, right?

So he says, look it's up foot to the church family to pay their

pastors. Whatever, you're paying them

that way. With double you don't starve an

animal while it's doing the work for you, that was an Old

Testament law, right? X 11:29.

This is where to feed the hungry.

James 1:27 wits, his way to help widows and orphans, right?

James 1:27

In other words, help those who for whatever reason are unable

to help themselves, okay? Summary?

Let me structure all that we can't go to all the business

because it because it's time constraints.

And I didn't want to spend another week on this, but but

here's how it goes right. God expects us to give.

Happily willingly generously. You'll see the stuff over and

over and also very important corporately as a church family,

I'll Testament law. Was 10 percent of gross income

compulsory giving to take care of worship and the things

associated associated with it as well as helping the poor and the

knee right then they gave other offerings on top of that right

now we are not under that law in the New Testament.

All all or giving us to be voluntary.

You know, this idea of churches sending bills to Well, that's

just garbage. It's all offering is to be

voluntary, but the pattern of giving 10 percent of gross plus

other offerings from time to time was followed by the, by the

early church, right? Money was collected weekly.

And then the church family decided how does how to spend

it? The choose found any is

responsible to fund its operation.

Pay pay its pastors plus give money to help the poor and the

needy, let's finish with this thought, right?

So, Imagine, if you you just inherit some money, right?

So you get a phone call from a lawyer, a letter from a lawyer

or whatever. And they say, hey, you just

inherited some money. It's a lot of money, this isn't

decent chunk of money. And so you think Mel, I need to

find myself a financial advisor, the figure out, you know, how to

invest this, right? And so you go down, there's one,

maybe a couple of doors down here on the street and you go in

there, fairly modest offices. But you talk to the people

there, they seem seem to know what they're talking about.

They seem very friendly and so you decide.

Yes. Can you It's my money for me.

So a year goes by you get a letter from them and it says,

I'm sorry, but your Investments didn't make any money this year

and you think they can't be right?

So you think, right? I'm going to go down and have a

talk to them about this, right? And when you go down there,

they're not there anymore, right?

They got new officers in this is amazing, kind of old mansion,

that's overlooking Hamilton Lake, you know?

And the guy comes out and he's in his Armani suit.

Shoot right. And he's got his Ferrari, is

parked out the front and it's very impressive set of sweets in

there, you know, we're the officers are all the equipment's

top-of-the-line and and the guy comes out to meet you.

What are you going to think? What are you going to think?

I know what I'd think. I'd be thinking this guy's been

using my money to make himself Rich at my expense.

And more than likely, he's not going to be my financial advisor

anymore. Alright, I'm going to take that

money away from him and I'm going to give it to somebody

that I can trust. Yeah, see the picture there.

Yeah. What's in your hand?

What's in your hand? God gives us resources to

invest, right? How are we investing them?

How am I using my income? How am I using my identity?

How am I using my influence to impact?

The world around me? The way that Jesus did.

We want our lives to count, right?

We want to make a difference. That's our challenge.

That is our challenge. Let's pray, father, we thank you

for what you gave up and giving up your only son.

Lord is awesome in community just to focus on that this

morning. There was a huge sacrifice there

and Jesus, who was rich became poor on our behalf.

Lord. Um this is a challenging message

Lord, then. But Lord, we just pray that we

would be people who want to invest in the things that are

important to you that. And that's the lives of people

and the different ways that we can do that.

Lord, we just, yeah, burden us for the things that that burden

you. The things that that you want

changed. Put those on our hearts.

Lord, as a church family Lord, we want to do what you Let's to

do. We thank you for the huge

generosity that we see in the in the in the things that we're

able to do every week and the Ministries that are happening

that are changing lives changing, eternities, bringing

people closer to you is incredible to watch that.

Lord, thank you for the opportunity to be a part of it.

Lord, thank you for your word and the truths are in it.

Lord, we just want to people people who draw close to you and

thank you for a chance to win. Worship you today is.

Thank you. In Jesus name.