Why Do You Give? with Ashton Vattelana

Welcome to Hub City Vineyard.

To get connected or to give online, go to hcv.church or give.htv.church.

If at any point during this message you feel called to make a change in your life, text

change me to 970-00. Thank you and enjoy the message.

I love that Chris's heart for our church is to bring us the truth and to bring us the

word from the Lord and that part of that, and I think it's a subject that some churches

tend to shy away from because there can be mixed emotions and mixed feelings, but I love

that we're spending a series talking about generosity and I know that that's almost a

trigger word for some people because immediately you think about finances, but it's so much

more than that and God has so much more for us in that.

So I love the fact that we're talking about it and Chris, I've been able to share my story

with him, so he asked me to share it with the church because God has just done amazing

things in my life that has grown me in my spirit of generosity.

I know just sort of as a background, I mentioned I had worked on a farm for a while. Before

working at a farm, I was working in biotech biopharma and living very comfortably, making

a really good salary and for me tithing and being generous with my finances was something

that I thought was optional. It would happen occasionally if I remembered, if I hadn't

already spent it on something else like Starbucks, it wasn't an act of obedience for me. It was

an option.

So I felt at one point while I was working in biotech biopharma that the Lord called

me out of that and actually called me to take a job on a farm in the middle of winter, sleeping

with the rats. So that's a whole other story right there. But I went from making what I

had been to making $150 a week, eating beans, not having heat. It was a very humbling experience,

but I decided in that season that I was going to start being diligent and faithful in the

tithe because it's really easy to give 10% of almost nothing. It's certainly easier than

when you're making more. The check gets a little bit bigger the more you make. So I

was faithful and I was diligent in the small things, just like the word says. And during

that season, I ended up getting into a really significant accident. It landed me in the

hospital for a week. I had two emergency surgeries and I wasn't making enough at the time to

afford life insurance. So when I got out of the hospital, they hand me this bill and it's

for a quarter of a million dollars. And at the time I had about 300 to my name in my

bank account. And it was something I remember it so distinctly where it was something so

much bigger than anything I could figure out that it was so easy for me to hand it to God

because there was nothing I could do so it had to be God who was going to fix this. And

in the midst of that fear and financial insecurity, I stayed faithful in my tithe of my $300.

And the state called me about a month and a half later and they said, Ms. Catalina, we

would like to apologize. It turns out you were actually like really broke and really

poor. And so we've redone the calculations and you owe us $125. Which I had, I could

pay that one. So God just wiped out this quarter of a million dollar bill and I owed $125.

And from that season, I just saw God be so faithful and be such a provider that it was

so easy for me moving forward to never doubt his faithfulness, to never doubt his provision,

to never doubt my financial security again because God had just absolutely blown my mind.

So fast forward, you know, I'm no longer working at a farm, as you can tell. I am no longer

working at a barn. But I'm now in a position and a job where I'm very grateful to be very

financially blessed. And where God put it on my heart recently to live out generosity

and to be a blessing was right here at HCV. It was the Sunday service before Easter where

we had four incredible services planned and the screens started glitching out. And you

know, Pastor Christ in it, he didn't call for a special offering. He, I think he even

said, you know, we're just going to keep it in prayer and we'll figure it out. And so

during that service, I'm sitting there and watching the screens glitch out and I just

felt the Lord put it on my heart to go to Chris after service and let him know that

whatever that invoice came out to, whatever it took to fix that problem and to get our

church ready for Sunday service, that they were just going to send me the bill and I

was just going to take care of it. And I have never written a blank check blessing before,

which took a lot of faith. But it was so easy for me to say yes, because I knew that if

God put that on my heart, he was going to provide and that the resources would be there

because I've seen his provision in such a big way in my life. So went up to Chris, told

him to send me the bill, whatever it looked like. And he was a little shocked. But, but

I knew, you know, there, there was no hesitancy. There was no question that God was going to

to show up and show off. And so the bill comes in and you know, praise the Lord, I had the

finances to cover it. And I'm sitting in church the next Sunday, and I'm in one of the four

services and it's absolutely packed. And I'm sitting off to the side in the room where

the drums are. And I'm looking out over this packed sanctuary. And I'm just thinking, praise

God that I was able to be a part of, even in a small way, I was able to be a part of

people coming and worshiping together and our families coming together and our community

coming together and hearing about the love of the Lord. And I felt in that moment that

the Lord just put on my heart that that's, that's the impact of obedience. That is the

impact of saying yes. I will never know whose lives I touched that day. I will never know

what a difference I made. And that's okay, because God knows. And you know, it's, it's

not just the financial aspect of it. You know, you saying yes to the Lord, prompting you

to text someone that you're thinking about them, that you love them, you'll never know

the impact of that. It's you saying yes to helping out in kids ministry, you, you will

never know the full extent of what your yes does in the lives of the kids that you touch.

It's saying yes to being a greeter, it's saying yes to going and getting lunch with someone.

You know, if the Lord puts it on your heart, just living open handed and saying yes has

such a ripple effect that you'll never know the extent of. So that was incredible. And

I was, I could not have thought of a better way to spend that money than to just be a

blessing to our church family. But we serve a really big God who loves to do above and

beyond and who gives back so much more than we could ever give. So a few weeks after that,

about two or three weeks after, a long time client of mine came in. And we were talking

about something completely different. But out of nowhere, they turned to me and tell

me that they would like to bring $10 million over to my business, which is huge. And of

course, I said yes to that. I accepted that blessing gratefully. But I look at that and

I say, you know, okay, I said yes to $5,000, which is not an insignificant amount of money.

But God blessed me with 10 million. And, you know, I never, I never give to get it's never

me challenging the Lord to outdo me. It's walking in obedience and showing myself faithful

and knowing that I'm going to show the Lord that if he chooses to bless me, if he chooses

to provide me with resources, I'm just going to live open-handed. And that if he needs

me to get those resources to someone else, the answer is yes. And, you know, I think

a lot of times people will think to themselves that they're not in a position to say yes

yet. But I would really encourage you to know that you don't know the blessing that's on

the other side of your yes. And it might be a financial blessing for you because God has

done that time and time and time and time again in my life. It might be a financial

blessing, but it could be an open door opportunity. It could be someone in your family being touched

and ministered to or a prayer request that's answered. You just, you never know because

God has so much for us and he's just looking for people to partner with. And he's just

looking for people who are willing to say yes and live open-handed with their time,

with their money, with their heart and generosity and their talents. And if he knows that he

can use that, he's going to bless you and prove himself faithful to your faithfulness.

And you can never out give God. You will never beat his generosity. And he wants to give

it to you. And I love what I've seen the Lord do in my life. I couldn't, I'm not where I

am today without my yes. God is good and he is faithful.

That was good. You'll never out give God. You can't. You can't. It's, you know, when

you show up with two loaves or what, two fish and five loaves, God feeds multitudes. And

he is, he's just looking for people who are willing to say yes. And the sad truth of it

is that not enough people are. And you know, I was talking about tithing at my old church

once and it's this idea that we sometimes have that when you hear of a need, whether

it's financial or volunteering in the church, serving somewhere, when you hear of a need,

a lot of times our default response is someone else will take care of that. Someone else

will do that. And it kind of reminds me of, you know, when you go into the store, when

you're going into the Walmart parking lot and you see these shopping carts that are

just left everywhere, it's because we have this immediate response of, well, someone

else will take care of that. Someone else will do that. But what if you're supposed

to be that someone else? Because not a lot of people are saying yes. And not enough people

are willing to step up and say, you know, I'll do that. Send me Lord, I'll go. And

the sad thing is when you don't take that opportunity to participate in the miracles

and the blessings that the Lord has, you're actually shortchanging yourself. You, not only

are you preventing that blessing from getting to someone else, but you're preventing the

blessing that you could receive and how you'll be blessed by your yes. So I love living open-handed

and I love saying yes to the Lord because he just blows my mind every time with the

blessing that follows it. And I love benefiting from and receiving the blessings of the Lord.

I've, you know, I'm in a place now where I just built my first home and I'm able to

continue to bless my church family. I'm able to continue to bless my community and serve them.

God is just so good and I'll never reach the end of his blessing

and I'll never be able to outdo him.

Picture yourself sitting the Sunday before Easter. Yes. Whenever the screen glitched out

and you went up to Chris afterwards and said blank check blessing. Yeah. Which is why.

Blank check blessing. Only what I've done so far. I'm sure the Lord has more planned in the future.

You can blank check bless me if you would like. There you go. So I haven't felt the Lord prompting

me for that one yet, Stephen. It'll come. He is right now. There you go. And there's your

confirmation. No, but you were sitting in service. The screen was glitching out, whatever. Yeah. What

feeling or vision or what happened while you were in that service that made you want to do something

as crazy as write a blank check. Um, okay. So thinking back to there, I definitely stopped

paying attention to Chris and anything that was coming out of his mouth because the screen was

super distracting and it was driving me crazy. And all I could think about was, oh my gosh,

we have four services planned next week. And Easter is one of those holiday seasons where

it's some people's first time coming to church and I could not imagine them coming in for the

first time. Maybe it's their one and only experience with HCV and not, you know,

God can do anything and bless anyone, speak to anyone. He's done it for centuries without screens.

So I knew that not, if we didn't have screens, it didn't mean that people couldn't still receive

the word of the Lord, but I, I mean, we have such an incredibly talented group. The worship is

amazing. The preaching is incredible. Our media team is awesome. And I didn't want not having that

available to hinder anyone from receiving from the Lord. And like I said, Chris didn't, in that

moment, he wasn't asking for a special tithe or a special offering to be given or anything like

that. It was just this thought of Lord, there are so many people that you are going to bless and

minister and speak to next week. And I don't want anything standing in the way of that.

How do we fix it? And I'll be honest, I did not think that the Lord's response to that would be,

you are the solution and you are going to fix it. Um, you know, to give you even more background,

I was getting ready to close on my first home, which is to date, the largest financial decision

I've ever made and a little bit terrifying. And I had no idea, you know, what I would need for closing

costs or anything like that. So I knew that I had this big bill ahead of me and I was about to be a

homeowner with a mortgage and all that fun stuff. Um, but you know, I, I had just seen God provide

in such a big way, so many other times that knowing that I had this money saved up and set aside for

my house, why wouldn't I want to use it to bless our house here? And that there would be so much

more impact to the lives of people. If I said yes to this, then, you know, spending it on myself.

And so it was just this feeling of, God, what are we going to do? How do we fix this? And

having him turn around and say, you get to be the answer. And then after that, I still,

I still had to choose. Chris had no idea that the Lord had put this on my heart. It wasn't like as

I was walking out the door, if I didn't say yes, Chris would be giving me a call later. It was,

it was just this idea that I was given the opportunity to say yes and to live open-handed

and to be generous. And I could choose to do it or not. And I don't think that the blessings that

I've received since then and the favor that I've seen in my business since then necessarily would

have been there if I had missed out on that opportunity. So, I don't think that I would have

been able to do it. So, there was a little bit of sweat. There was a moment where I was like,

Jesus, I don't know what that check is going to look like. But he did. And if he told me yes,

then he's going to provide for it and he'll have the resources. And so I just said yes.

I like it. King, King David says, the Lord will not let me slip and fall.

There you go. It was like, well, Jesus, you're wanting this check written. So you're going to

write it. You know what you're doing. Yeah. How? So here's what I'm picturing. Service ends. Yep.

Screen doesn't work. Yep. You're leaving. Maybe you give a high five to Chris. How does the

conversation with him go? How do you feel before? How do you feel during? How do you feel after?

Um, I imagine scared, but also very proud. Um, you know, for me, so I, I made sure I was very

intentional. I was actually sitting on the other side of the church from where he was giving

everyone high fives. And so I made sure that I went out that door and I just pulled him aside for,

I think 30 seconds. And I said, Hey, Chris just wanted you to know how did you feel before from

walking from the side where the drums were to the side where Chris was. How did you feel?

On it. And this is, this is going to sound weird and I don't know that it's going to make sense

to anybody else, but there, I mean, I think the moment I heard the Lord put it on my heart to

offer the blank check, there was a moment of, so God, what does that look like? And then immediately

following that there was just a piece because you know, the enemy is never going to be the one to

encourage you to give, to be a blessing. So I knew that it was from the Lord. And

because I have this history of seeing God come through in such a big way, I knew that he was

going to do the same here. And so truly I, from 10 seconds after I decided it in my heart that that

was what I was going to do, I was going to just offer that blank check. I had a piece about it

that this, this is what we're going to do and this is what we're prompted to do and God's going to

provide whatever it looks like. So no hesitation, no fear, no concern going over to Chris and, you

know, just pulling him aside. I think he thought I was a little bit crazy. I don't know if he's

received those kinds of offerings before he may have, but yeah, just pulling him aside and saying,

Hey, Chris, just wanted to let you know, while you guys are figuring out what to do, I'm going to

figure out what you have to do over the next week to get us ready for service, whatever it costs,

whatever that looks like, I just want you to know, you know, send me over the bill. I've got it

covered. And he asked me if I was sure, which I appreciate. He asked me if I was sure about that.

And I was like, yep, no, God put it on my heart. So that's what we're going to do. And it was just

this definitive settling in my heart that, you know, if God has prompted this, then he's going

to pay for it. So I walked out of service and just waited to get the bill. And I got it a few days

later. And I remember texting back, you know, do you want me to send it to you cash? Do you want

me to wire it to you? Do you want me to put it through the online giving? How, like, how do you

want me to get the money to you? And praise God that I've got the funds. And then after, during

the Sunday service, that's where I thought I got my blessing. That's where I felt like God poured

back into me because like I said, I'm sitting in one of four of our packed out services,

worshiping with my church family, seeing God impact so many lives and knowing that, I mean,

there's just such an incredible feeling that you get to experience when you get to be a part of

what God is doing and the impact that God is having. And I imagine it's how the worship team

feels every Sunday and how Chris feels when he gets to share the word and how our kids ministry

feels when they've got these kids that just absolutely fall in love with Jesus because of

the incredible ministry that they receive here. It's this feeling of I got to be a part of that

because I said yes. And that is, it's the best feeling. I mean, truly, if you haven't experienced

getting to say yes to something like that and getting to be a part of something like that,

you don't know what you're missing out on because there's nothing, there's nothing I could have

spent money on that would have given me that same feeling back. But then like I said, God does above

and beyond and so much more and then blesses my business in such a huge way. And I didn't expect

that to happen. And he keeps blessing my business because I keep saying yes.

This won't be on the video part, but for the podcast part, for the audio, can you

for the people listening, can you pray for the people that are listening to this right now?

Yeah. Does that make sense?

So father God, I just, I thank you for the incredible church family that we're a part of,

that we have such a heart for our community and for those that call this home family, that we

are excited and we cannot wait to share the abundant life that you have for us,

that there's so much that you have for us and that we want to share our testimonies of how good you

are. Father, I thank you for the testimony that you've written in my heart. I thank you for the

testimony that you've written in my own life, that my story could encourage or inspire other people to

live open-handed Lord, not just with their finances, because that's such a base level blessing.

You have so much more for us and you ask so much more from us, not just with their finances,

but living open-handed with their time, their generosity, being sensitive to what you might

put on their heart, what you might call them to. It could be saying yes to being a greeter. It could

be calling someone that they haven't spoken to in a long time to let them know that they're loved

and that they're thinking about them. It could be financial. It could be that they need to be a

financial blessing to someone else. But Father God, I just, I pray that you've used my words,

you've used my testimony, the story that you've written in my life of your incredible generosity

and how you out give me every time. And you would just let this word take root in their heart,

that they would think about it, that they would pray about it, and more importantly,

that they would come out of this series, out of this message and start to ask, you know,

God, how can I be a blessing? God, how can I live open-handed? How can I say yes to what you have

for me? Because they don't know the impact that their yes has on someone else. They don't know

the blessing that you have for them on the other side of their yes. And so Father, I speak in faith

and I thank you in advance for the incredible blessings that you have for your children.

I thank you for the incredible blessings that you have for them and the incredible opportunities

that they have to participate with you and to join you in blessing others.

Father God, I pray that they would be sensitive to you throughout the rest of this week where they

look for those opportunities to say yes to you, Lord. And that Father, if they don't know you,

if they haven't said yes to the greatest gift and the greatest blessing that you could ever give us,

which is salvation, Lord, I pray that they would start with that yes, because you could never bless

us bigger or more incredibly than an eternity with you and a relationship with you. And so Father God,

I pray that if they haven't said yes to that, that that's the best place for them to start.

And that they know that after they say yes to you, that their lives will be forever changed

and that they have a church family here that is so ready to walk alongside them in what that looks

like next. Father God, I thank you for the blessing of your salvation and your son.

If you gave us nothing else, that would be enough. But I thank you that you are so much more abundant

in your blessings to us and that you have so much more beyond that.

Father, I thank you for our leadership team and the heart that they have for everyone under their

sound of their voice. Father God, that they would just carry this message to your people,

that they would hear what they need to hear, and that they would just walk into this absolutely

abundant life that you are inviting us to participate in. I thank you Father, and in

your name we pray, amen. Amen.

That's a wrap. God is good. You killed that. Oh, we get the tambourine going.

You killed that. Sweet.

Amen.