Open-Handed – Here for Good

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

To get us started today, yesterday was kind of an interesting day.

Yesterday afternoon, my wife and I went to a funeral, kind of a memorial service for a really sweet lady in our church.

And anytime you sit in a service like that, you get reminded that this life isn't all that there is to this life.

And we were so amazed we heard the stories of how her life has made such a difference that will be felt for generations to come.

And it reminded me of a funny moment I had literally just a few years ago.

I kind of had this realization that my wife and I were living and we're doing all kinds of fun things, but we didn't have a plan if something were to happen to us.

So on one day several years ago, my wife and I, we went and had a meeting to set up a will and a trust.

If you don't know what that is, a will is where you tell all your money, like whatever happens when I die, give all the money to these people.

So we go meet with this sweet man and he's asking us questions, and I say, bro, look, we are going to be the easiest couple you've ever had.

This is gonna be so easy as we set up this will.

Um I just want to make it really easy.

We are till death do us part.

My wife and I love each other.

We're not going anywhere.

If my wife ever leaves me to quote my grandpa, I'm just going with her.

That's what we're gonna do, okay?

So when I die, just make it easy, just give everything to her.

That'll be really, really easy.

I said it like that.

And he goes, Okay, cool, that's really good.

But um, he goes, What do you do with your money if you die and she chooses to remarry?

I said, Write this down.

Shoot him, shoot it, like shoot him.

Chest, face, dealer's choice.

I don't care, just shoot him, shoot him.

You have my blessing.

Write it down in my will.

Jason says, Two words, shoot him.

That's what I want you to do.

Okay, so it's this weird question, this whole thing.

So, funny side note, a couple days later, my wife and I were in the car on our way to Orlando, and I was thinking about this.

Like, what happens like if I die?

Like, what about my life is gonna keep on doing this?

And I I had this thought, I was like, man, I should say this.

And I got overcome with emotions, and I reached over as I was driving and I grabbed my wife's hand and I said, Babe, look, I love you so much.

If I were to die, I want you to like mourn, but then like move on.

Like, find find someone else.

I want you to have a companion, I want you to be happy.

I kid you not.

She didn't even look up from her phone.

She literally said to me, She goes, Yeah, that doesn't apply to you.

I don't want you to be happy.

Okay.

She goes, You'll never do better than me.

True, true.

And then she said, Um, I've also got ladies lined up to make sure you never find happiness again.

Okay.

Oh, welcome to my world, everybody.

And um so back to the meeting.

We're setting up this will and this trust, and at the end of the meeting, the the man asked this one question.

I thought this was profound.

He said, as you think about all of these things with your money and your resources and everything you've built, he said, What will you do that will outlive you?

That's a good question for you.

What will you do that will outlive you?

Yesterday I'm sitting in the memorial service for a lady whose life is outliving her.

All of us have to ask that question someday.

Now, according to scripture, there's two things we can do.

The first one is living in a way that my life outlives me.

And secondly, it's giving to something that will outlive me.

Both of these ways, in my opinion, are open-handed, godly kinds of ways to think about the legacy of your life.

A couple weeks ago, we started this series, and we started in the book of 2 Corinthians.

The Apostle Paul writes a letter to a church in a city called Corinth, and he gives us this beautiful picture for how we should think about giving so that our life keeps on keeping on after we're gone.

2 Corinthians chapter 9, Paul says this.

2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

He says, Remember this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

It's the law of sowing and reaping.

He goes on, he says, Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

We said in week one, the Greek word for cheerful is this word, Hilaron, which means not just joyful, but it means one who has already decided what to do.

God loves someone who is intentional with their generosity and giving.

And he says, and God is able to bless you abundantly.

Come on, we talked about this last week.

God can't help himself.

Every once in a while, someone's like, Well, is that the prosperity gospel?

I don't really know and I don't really care.

What I do know is you serve a God who loves his children so much that when they're faithful to him, he's faithful to bless them.

God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having what?

All that you need.

Some of you are like, I don't know how I'm gonna make it.

God wants to provide everything you need.

You will abound in every good work.

And then it goes on, it says, As it is written, they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor, their righteousness endures forever.

Now, he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.

You can't read this and think that God doesn't want to bless his children.

And then the next verse is one that if you're not careful, you can twist it into a pretzel and miss the point of it.

He says, You will be enriched in every way.

And I think this is the goal of a lot of givers.

A lot of givers treat God like a cosmic bending machine.

We put our money in to give and we expect that he's gonna spit out something that's a blessing to us.

It's like we we only do it for what's in it for us.

And I want you to see this.

Paul says, You will be enriched, like God's gonna bless you in every way so that you can be generous.

Like you should ask the question, what's the more for?

And I've got bad news, the more is not for you.

You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and then there's a promise tied to it, and the promise is this and through us, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

Essentially, what Paul says is the world will take notice of how your generosity has made a difference.

So when it comes to your money, in my opinion, we have to be intentional.

When it comes to your money, you need to think about your life not just for here and now, not just for how much can you accumulate.

Like God uses our giving not to fund his ministry, but it's to form us.

So here's what I said last week.

There's three levels of giving there's intentional, sacrificial, and extravagant.

Intentional, according to scripture, is the word tithe.

Tithe is an old word, it's not even just a Bible word, it's just an ancient word that means one-tenth or ten percent.

Biblically, tithe means the first ten percent.

It means that God comes first.

Before I know if there's any surprises or any unexpected medical bills or car car issues, God's my source and God's my provider, so of course I put him first.

I'm intentional with it.

The second level is sacrificial giving.

We talked about this a little bit last week.

It's when God blesses us, we give over and above to fund the ministry that has that blesses his heart.

And the final level, I said this last week, is extravagant giving.

Extravagant giving is when God shows up and he says, I need everything.

Will you trust me?

And here's the thing most Christians never even get to the first level of giving.

But I challenge you, I double dog dare you, get to tithing, because tithing, according to scripture, is what elicits the blessing of God in your life.

Listen to me.

If you never tithe, you'll never get to these next two levels, but I'll make you a promise.

If you will tithe, you definitely will.

Why?

Because God can't help himself, he blesses his children.

Today, I want to talk about that second level of giving.

Today I want to talk about sacrificial over your tithe, over and above kind of giving.

And um, let me just kind of confess something to you, okay?

A really good speaker or preacher would do this.

They would take you to the Bible, they would build a big, profound case for why we should do it, they would get your emotions all tied up in it, and then at the end they would say, and this is how we're going to do it.

Well, we don't have that person today, you're stuck with me.

So I'm gonna do it backwards, and let me tell you the reason.

I never want to manipulate you.

I never want you to feel like I'm twisting your arm or forcing you to do something you don't want.

I want to show you how we've done this and how we're gonna do this moving forward, and then I'm gonna take you to God's word and show you what God's word says about it, okay?

Uh, six years ago, January of 2020, we we announced this new idea.

Now, anybody remember 2020?

That was a roller coaster ride, everybody, and um still talked to my therapist about it.

It was a good time though.

And uh 2020, we announced that our church, which was meeting in a high school for so long, had finally gotten the building I'm standing in in South Lakeland.

We were so excited about it, and we were gonna have our first offering ever to help fund this on March 15th, 2020.

Well, we didn't have church on March 15th, 2020.

We didn't have church in person again until March of 2021.

Still talking to my therapist about that.

And so in January, we unveiled this idea called legacy.

Legacy asked the question, what will you do that will outlive you?

And every year we've updated it, but but here's what we said: we challenged you to pray about what God would have you to give over and above your tithe to fund or to accelerate the vision of our church to reach people for Jesus.

And what we said in Legacy was all the money will go to these five lanes of generosity local, national, global, next gen, and expansion.

And this was really, really good.

In fact, you are so crazy generous, and I so I love you, and I celebrate you for this.

But I could never shake this thought.

Remember the story of David and Goliath?

David goes and brings the shakuterie board to his brothers who are fighting, and he sees them there, and that Goliath is challenging the people, and like he says, Why won't you fight him?

I'll fight him.

And then David gathers his courage and he goes to King Saul, and Saul says, You're just a kid, don't be ridiculous.

And David convinces him, and Saul tries to take his armor and put it on David, but it's armor fitted for a grown man, not for a teenage boy.

Felt like he was wearing something that didn't fit him.

Legacy has been great, but we got this idea from a mentoring church of ours.

And while it's been wonderful, if I could just be real, it's never felt like us.

It felt like wearing someone else's armor.

Today I want to introduce you to what we're going to do moving forward.

We are Access Church, and I want you to see this.

We are here for good.

And you hear this all the time.

This is who we are, and it means two things.

Number one is it means we're not going anywhere.

It means we are here and we're going to collectively make a difference for the long run.

And if we're here, it means we should also be here and do some good.

So when we're here, we're going to literally make a difference together forever and ever and ever.

And I want you to understand this.

To simplify where our resources collectively will go, we've said it like this our heart is local, global, and future.

I hope this gets so embedded in your heart that you wake up in the morning thinking, I want to be a part of a church that's about local, global, and future.

Let me explain it to you.

First of all, our heart is local.

What does it mean?

It means we want to meet the needs right here in our church and in our city.

I want you to see this.

Like we bought this van a couple years ago because of your legacy giving.

We have like delivered tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of furniture, beds to children who are sleeping on floors.

We have delivered diapers, we have delivered needs, we have met all kinds of needs here in our city.

Beyond that, we have this desire to start in our church.

And every single week we hear from people who are walking through unimaginable hardships, days away from losing their house, days away from their power being shut off, days away from not being able to afford medicine to take care of their kids.

And we hear about it all the time, and we say yes as much as we possibly can to meeting needs, and that's because of your generosity.

I've always had this dream of having a church that could be a yes man.

That literally, anytime someone comes up to us with a need, we just say yes, and we're gonna keep doing this.

Like one of the thoughts I heard early on in the history of our church was if your church were to shut its doors, would the city notice?

And I think we've made such a difference in Lakeland and North Lakeland and Bartow that our city would notice if we shut down, but it's not enough.

Let's keep changing our cities.

Uh, the the second part of this local thing is we want to plant local churches all over the country.

Why?

Because for a church, a local church to make a difference, it has to be local.

It needs to be there.

So we're gonna continue uh planting churches.

The second part of our heart is this our heart is global.

Jesus said in Acts chapter 1, he said, You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, that was their city, Judea and Samaria was their country, and to the ends of the earth.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

And Access is a to the ends of the earth kind of church.

Like we partner intentionally with missions organizations, missionaries, and people who are literally out there changing the world in the four corners of the world, and we bring the hope of the message of Jesus to it.

So I want you to hear this.

Every year, Access, you build churches on the other side of the world, you build homes for widows in Central and South America, you meet needs like medical needs and physical needs and emotional needs.

You show up and provide things like private education for students.

You are literally changing the world through your generosity.

We care about reaching the world for Jesus.

I just always think when I think about giving globally, about something I heard as a kid.

And it was that someday you'll be in heaven, someday, and someone will come up to you, like this sweet lady holding a Bible in her native language.

And she'll come to you and she will say something to you like you don't know me, you've never met me, you may have never set foot on my continent, but I'm here because of you.

May that be true of us.

Our heart is local, our heart is global.

The third one is our heart is future.

And I want to say this as clearly as I can.

If you're a part of Access, you care about the next generation.

You really do.

You don't believe that the next generation is the church of tomorrow.

You know that the next gen is the church of today.

So, because of that, listen to me, we will do everything we can.

This church champions the next generation.

What does it mean?

It means we do anything we can to resource them, help them, and help them know Jesus.

Let me say this as bluntly as I can.

There's actually a need in our church at all of our locations right now for godly adults to get involved in the next gen.

We need people serving in access kids, we need people serving in access youth.

And if you've never served with the next gen, you're the one losing out.

Like I want you to do this not for me, I want you to do this for you.

Beyond this, our church has this desire to keep expanding our footprints, to keep moving the tent post out, to keep reaching people for Jesus in our area.

Right now, God's blessed us to have three amazing locations.

I don't have an announcement, there's nothing on the horizon, but I believe over the next few years we will launch locations all over the place.

Like I imagine a day when there you have family and friends who move to Winterhaven or Plant City or Auburn Dale or Davenport or somewhere else in this area, and you're like, oh, that's awesome, you're moving there.

My church is there.

Remember, for a local church to make a difference, it has to be local.

So we're gonna continue to go after this together.

Our heart is local, global, and future.

That's what we're about.

Now, you have been so generous.

I want to show you what you did last year through Legacy.

You you blow me away, Access.

You gave$479,882.

It's amazing.

And I love this, and and while I I'll sometimes set a goal, my goal is not really numeric, my goal is always participation.

I want you in on this.

I think of giving to uh the here for good offering.

I think of it like this it's kind of like being invested in an indexed fund.

If you're an investor, you know how this works.

It's like you own a little bit of a hundred companies or five hundred companies.

It's the same thing.

When you give through your local church, not to it, but through it, you're invested in what God is doing around the world.

So our goal this year is$750,000.

But my actual goal is that we will have 100% participation where everybody wakes up excited to be a part of this.

And here's my promise to you every month on the second Sunday of the month, we're gonna talk about it.

Now, in the past, we received quarterly offerings.

We're not doing that anymore.

We're just gonna talk about it and ask you to be involved throughout the year as God places it on your heart.

Some of you will make a plan, some of you will give as God blesses.

But every month on the second Sunday of the month, we're gonna give you an update of how your giving is changing the world.

Can I give you an example, everybody?

Here's a picture of a church in Kenya, in Africa.

Our church has now built, I believe, 22 churches in Kenya, which is amazing.

I want you to see this because this is cool to me.

Uh, in my hand is a check for$60,000 that we are giving today to our missionary who is here on the front row, our missionary to Kenya, Pastor Wayne Derry, and here's what it's going to.

We have been building for the last couple years something called a triangle of hope.

It's three buildings.

It's a double-sized church, it's a health clinic, and it is a school that will be a private school where kids will get free Christian private education.

Today we've completed two of the three buildings, and this is half of the final building, which is the school, and money for a church.

Can we give God praise and thanks for that, everybody?

It's a big deal.

And sometimes people will be like, well, you shouldn't brag about it.

I'm not bragging on me.

I'm telling you what your giving does so we can give gratitude to our God who takes care of us.

Okay?

Now, all throughout the year, we're gonna give you updates, and then once a year, I'm gonna invite you to give in what we're calling a miracle offering.

This year it'll be on the second Sunday of November, November 8th.

What's the miracle offering?

It's not about you getting a miracle, it's about you being a miracle for somebody else who needs it.

So here's what I want you to do.

I want you to pull your phone out and write this down.

Access.tv slash hereforgood.

Access.tv slash hereforgood.

Why does it matter?

Lots of projects.

There's lots of dreams on our heart, things we want to do locally, globally, and for the future that are all there.

Take a look at all of it and let's give collectively to change the world.

Now, let me show you my hope, okay?

As I've been praying about this, as I've been praying about this change, one of the things that God placed on my heart is that this whole campaign, this whole idea of here for good would be something of joy for us.

That we wouldn't write checks begrudgingly, that we wouldn't give and think, oh, I wish I had this for me, but it would be such a joy to give.

Like the kind of joy where your kids are in on it.

The kind of joy where your kids are having lemonade stands and baked sales because they want in on what our church is a part of.

The kind of joy where you make this promise.

You say, God, if you will bless me, I'll give it away and I'll make a difference through my church collectively.

The kind of joy where you hold dinner parties and you cook and you sell tickets and you give all the proceeds, and people don't just buy a ticket, people give you a thousand dollars more because they want in on what brings you joy.

And I thought about this idea, God give us joy for this, and then it hit me.

When I was a kid, my parents used to sing the song.

I don't know how old it is, but it's older than me.

The song was a joy song, and it said, Jesus and others in you, what a wonderful way to spell joy.

Well, I was thinking about it, and I'm like, that makes perfect sense.

The first Sunday of the month, we put God first and we give to God.

The second Sunday, we're gonna talk about this here for good offering.

Why?

Because we're a church that doesn't put us first, we put others first above us, and this is where joy comes from.

Let me show it to you theologically for just a moment.

Generosity blesses Jesus, it blesses others, and generosity blesses you.

If you're a note taker, take notes quickly.

Number one, generosity blesses Jesus.

In the Old Testament, there's a story before the law even exists, where Abraham, one of the forefathers of our faith, brings an offering and a tithe to Melchizedek.

He's the high priest.

Uh, many scholars believe that Melchizedek was actually Jesus himself.

It's like saying, when we give, we're not giving to a church.

Jesus himself receives our generosity and it blesses him.

The author of Hebrews says this in Hebrews chapter 6.

Hebrews 6 · chapter mention

God is not unjust.

He will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.

So here's an awesome principle about God.

God forgets our sin and he remembers our generosity.

Anybody else thankful for that?

Anybody else that God doesn't sit back in heaven and hold a grudge?

He doesn't hold a grudge, he holds on to the memories of your open-handedness.

Jesus was talking in the book of Matthew, chapter 25.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

He said, Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for who?

He receives your generosity.

So why don't you go ahead and live a little open-handedly?

Generosity blesses Jesus.

Number two, generosity blesses others.

And this is what our Here for Good does.

It blesses others, it accelerates the vision of our church to reach people for Jesus.

Um, the very first time we had a service for access, I'll never forget this.

I preached that like if we're gonna become this church, we need to look at the first church.

And you can find the first church in Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4.

Acts 2 · chapter mention Acts 4 · chapter mention

In Acts chapter 4, there's this verse and it haunts me.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

It says about these new followers of Jesus that they gave so freely that there were no needy persons among them.

Like, how unbelievable would it be to be a part of a church where it's said about them that man, if they go to access that, that church takes care of people.

That there's no needs among them because we live so open-handedly.

It goes on, verse 35.

It says, For from time to time, those who owned land or houses sold them.

They brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Now we do this all the time through your giving and through your generosity.

And I want you to see why this matters.

The theologian Diedrich Bonhoeffer said this.

He said, The church is only the church when it exists for others.

It's not about you.

I love you, but the church really is the church.

We are thriving and living in our purpose when we exist for others.

So generosity blesses Jesus, generosity blesses others.

But number three, generosity blesses you.

And I love it when science catches up to what the Bible's been saying the whole time.

Notre Dame did a study on generosity.

It said this people who practice regular generosity report 68% higher levels of happiness and purpose in life.

Well, that's awesome that science is finally catching up to it.

Look what Jesus is quoted as saying in the book of Acts, chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

It says, the Lord Jesus Himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Like we think it's fun to receive, and ain't nothing wrong with getting a gift, but you're the one blessed when you're the one living open handedly.

In the book of Proverbs, Solomon says this it says, one person gives freely yet gains even more.

Another withholds unduly but comes to poverty.

That's an interesting upside down way of thinking about money.

He says, A generous person will prosper.

Refreshes others will be refreshed.

This is from the NIV, the message paraphrase of the Bible from Eugene Peterson takes that same verse and he says, the world of the generous gets larger and larger.

Conversely, the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.

Look at me, church.

I want you to live a big life.

I want you to live a life that leaves a legacy and a ripple effect for generations to come.

One of my favorite books in the Bible is 1 Timothy.

And the reason it's my favorite is it feels like it's written to me.

A lot of books are for everybody.

First Timothy is a letter from Paul to his young protege, Timothy.

Timothy was studying to be a pastor, so Paul writes him this encouraging letter.

And here's what Paul says to me to teach you.

Here's what he says.

1 Timothy chapter 6.

1 Timothy 6 · chapter mention

He says, Command those.

So I command you, command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God.

Time out for just a moment.

Maybe you hear this and you're like, well, I'm off the hook because your boy ain't rich.

Like I don't have anything extra.

Fun news if you if your household, if you live with roommates or a spouse or friends or family, if your household makes more than$50,000 a year, that puts you in the top 1% of the world.

Sounds pretty rich to me.

If you walked into a pantry this morning and thought, I don't really have anything to eat, but there's tons of ingredients, you're rich.

If you walked into a closet full of clothes this morning and thought, I don't really have anything to wear, you're rich.

If you have a jar in your house where you keep your loose change, it's like you're throw away money.

You've got so much that you throw it away, you're rich.

He says, Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share in this way.

They will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age.

And then I love this line so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

You could infer from that that the way of this world when it comes to money is the opposite of truly living.

But God's way is the way that leads to life.

Here's what I want you to do.

If you're fighting me in your mind, you're like, that's all good, but I can't even get to tithing.

How will I ever get to giving over and above?

Let me give you a really simple roadmap.

Okay, I want you to write this down.

I want you to do the three things.

I want you to plan, vision, and dream.

Plan, vision, dream.

Here's what they all mean.

Plan asks a question.

It asks what's in your hands.

Here's what it means for some of you.

Some of you have extra in your life.

It's already there, and you can start to give.

You can set aside money, you can pray about being involved.

Some of you already tithe, and God's blessed you so much that you can give over and above every single month to hear for good to make a difference.

But it starts with what's in your hands.

The second question is this it's vision, and vision asks what's in God's hands.

So you got what you've got, but God has all the riches of heaven, and it asks this question if God were to bless me with what's in his hands, what would I do with it?

Every year on December 31st, my family goes through a memory jar.

We celebrate all that happened in our family for the last year.

And on January 1st, we do a dream day and we ask the question, like, what are some goals you have?

And so we have exercise goals and reading goals and all kinds of goals.

And years ago, I started writing down a giving goal.

And it's funny, if you come into my house and go in my garage, you'll see it.

It's you know, 2019 giving goal, 2020 giving goal, 2021.

I always have a goal because I'm asking God, if you will take it from your hands and put it in mind, here's what I'll here's how I'll give it.

You need a plan and a vision, but here's the third thing is you need a dream.

Dream asked the question, what's in your heart?

Some years ago, I got invited into a small group of pastors from around the country, and it's awesome.

When I first got in this group, I was honestly a little overwhelmed.

I was probably the smallest church in the group, church, mega, mega church pastors in this group.

First time we got together, I was so excited to be with them.

And we went to a restaurant and they put us in a private room in this big square table, and to my left was the pastor who was the one organizing this whole event.

So we get together, I know half the people in the room, I don't know the other half.

And this, the leader of the group, Pastor Randy, goes, All right, everybody, since we all don't quite know each other, let's go around the table.

Everyone tell us your name, tell us your church, and then tell us a big audacious dream you have.

Jason, you go.

And I promise you it happened just like this.

I said, Okay, Jason Burns, Access Church, the Access Church.

And then I don't know where this came from, but out of my mouth came these words.

I said, uh, a big audacious goal is I would like to personally give$10 million, not from my church, but from me and my family through my church to change the world.

And it was funny because that's such an audacious goal for pastors.

People in the room started laughing.

One guy said, Oh, Pastor Jason, you should leave your church and come to mine and give it to my church.

And I said, I will punch you in the face.

Okay, um.

And I don't know where that came from to this day.

I don't know where it came from, but I think God's gonna do it.

Why?

Because I'm gonna play and vision and I'm gonna dream.

And I'm gonna say, God, if you'll put more in my hands, I'll be faithful to what you've given me.

Let me end with this thought.

Imagine this, okay?

Imagine you showed up for a dinner that you you were invited to, but you didn't know who was gonna be there.

And you go and you go to the Olive Garden, you get those mozzarella sticks and a tour of Italy, and you sit down, and there's three other people sitting at the table with you.

And you don't know these people from Adam, so you say, guys, it's good to good to be here, good to meet you.

Just out of curiosity, what do you guys do?

Point to this guy, and he goes, Well, I'm a I'm a missionary.

I I live in a really dangerous part of Southeast Asia, and my whole ministry is rescuing teenage girls out of human trafficking, setting them up so that they can live a free, healthy, godly kind of life.

And you're like, Wow, oh, what about you?

Next person says, I'm from Central America, and I and I lead a ministry, it's an orphanage, really, is what it is, because we have this problem in our country where parents have babies that are born with physical abnormalities or deformities, and they don't want them, so they literally dump them on our doorstep or they leave them in the trash.

And when we find them, we raise them and we raise them to know and love God, and we try to place them in families, and it just breaks your heart.

You think, Oh my goodness.

What about what about you?

This person says, I actually live here in our city, and I've given my whole life to helping people get out of poverty, out of the negative cycle, out of homelessness, and to get back on their feet, off of drugs, off of alcohol addiction, and back on their feet to rehab them, to send them back into the community as healthy and whole.

You think, man, what you guys are doing is amazing.

And as you're hearing their stories, the server comes and brings the check and sets it down.

Now, look, I don't know anything about your personal finances, but if you were wired anything like me, I would break my hand trying to grab that check and pull it back before anyone else could get it.

Why?

Because these people are serving the Lord, these people are changing the world.

If I can give a little bit, it'll make a big difference in their lives.

Of course I'd want to do that.

Wouldn't you?

Like, wouldn't you grab the check every time you give through our here-for-good offering?

You grab the check.

Why?

So that all may hear, so that the world can know Jesus, so there can be no needs among them, so that we collectively can make a difference, so you and I can be shareholders in what God is doing through our church.

Can I get a good amen church fam?

Amen, amen, amen.

Stand up with me everywhere if you would.

Stand up at all of our locations.

I'm gonna ask you to do this.

Would you open your hands like this as we pray?

So, God, would you give us a dose of supernatural courage?

Courage to trust you, courage to push back against the fear of like, well, what if I don't have enough for me?

As a reminder that you are our source and you are our provision.

God, we we literally have our hands open to you.

It's more than symbolic, but we are saying we're open to whatever you have for us.

So, God, give us the courage, number one, to be intentional and obedient to tithe.

But God, I pray for a supernatural wave of generosity to wash over our church.

May we live open-handedly.

Would you give us a plan and a vision and a dream?

And God, we'll be careful to honor you.

We understand the more is not just for us, it's to make a difference.

So, would you use our church and would you use the incredible people of our church to live open-handedly?

And God, we're gonna change the world together, and we'll give you all the credit for it in Jesus' name.

With your head still bowed and eyes still closed at all of our locations.

If you're here and you don't know God, maybe this means you've never started following Jesus, or maybe you just feel like you've walked away.

If you need to start or restart following him right now, would you just raise your hand?

No one's looking and no one's talking.

Thank you, thank you.

Oh, so cool.

Thank you.

I see you.

If this is you, no matter where you're joining us, would you pray this prayer out loud?

Praying this means everything when you mean it with your heart.

Changes everything when you mean it.

We're not gonna let you pray alone.

In fact, our whole church family is gonna pray this out loud with you because we really want you to know that you don't stand alone.

Our church stands with you.

Come on, all of our churches, let's pray this together out loud.

Say, Jesus, I give you my life.

Save me, change me, make my heart new.

Jesus, I believe that you gave your life for me.

And today I make this choice.

I give my life to you.

From this day forward, I choose to follow you.

I choose to receive you as my savior.

And from this day forward, I'm yours.

Jesus, I love you, and I give you my life in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Church fam, let's celebrate those.