Understanding Generosity

It's true. One thing I'll tell you, you'll never regret

you won't respond to an altar call and afterwards think

I wish I wouldn't have done that. There's never a

waste when you respond to an AULT call. I want

to just say, welcome back, I'm back. I've missed you all.

I promise my mom that I won't be traveling for

the next couple months, so I'll be here for a

couple of weeks. If you didn't know, Di and I

were on a kind of a holy land trip to Egypt.

I want to just publicly thank our board of directors

who find immense value and Die and I going on

a trip like this every year. What it does for

us is it allows us to experience places in the

Bible where significant things happened, and as we're teaching through Genesis,

we are literally in the places where these events took place.

So it's pretty always means a lot. Occasionally, when we

come back from one of these trips, we bring something

back with us, and I did, which is why I

won't be greeting you in the lobby afterwards. That was free,

but since if I was in the lobby, you'd all

ask me this question. I'll ask it now and then

I'll answer it for you. Everybody's gonna come up and

they're gonna ask me this question. PB. What was the

biggest takeaway from your Egypt trip? Here? It was Dian

and I had a fascinating conversation with a gal that

was on this trip. And there were people, pastors, key

leaders from churches all around America on this trip with us.

This particular gal is Australian. Her name is Robin, and

I would say she might be the most fascinating person

I've ever met. So this is a little bit of

Robin's bio. Robin lives in Pittsburgh. She after graduating from college,

became a dental hygienist. After that, served in the Australian

military for fourteen years. She was a drill sergeant. After

her fourteen years in the Australian military, she moved to

London to become a nanny. After that, she decided to

move to Italy and she started a business fixing chipped

paint on cars. That's where she met her husband now

and they started this business together. It blows up becomes

a worldwide business with multiple franchises around the world. It's

why they moved to Pittsburgh because that was where their

business was basically state And while they were in Pittsburgh,

they encountered Jesus and that's where faith became a key

part of her life. Well, Diuy and I met her

after she'd been retired for eight years. What had happened

was eight years before her husband had tragically passed away,

and multimillionaire from all of her businesses and things, and

all she does is travel around the world and do

different things like that. On the trip that we were at,

she was leaving after our trip to then go by

herself to Alexandria, then fly to the Jordan and drive

a car all the way around the country of Jordan

and tent in places. Just a completely crazy wild woman.

She tells me this story. She says, it was two

years ago when my pastor came to me and said,

would you start a food bank at our church, And

she said, sure, I've I'd love to do that. So

she takes all of her business knowledge and she starts

this food bank as a volunteer. It eventually grows and

becomes the largest food bank in the entire city of Pittsburgh.

This is a really really sharp woman, impressive woman. At

the end of the conversation, she started talking to Die

and I about our church and she started by asking

us what are you learning on this Egypt trip? And

this was my response to her. I said, as I'm

sitting in this spot right here, having this conversation with you,

I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude. Like this trip, I just

am so grateful and thankful for where God has me

in life. I'm thankful for Jesus. I'm thankful for the

family that I'm blessed to have. I'm thankful for this

amazing church that I'm given the privilege to lead. And

I was just overwhelmed with gratitude. And I remember sitting

there thinking, if you'd have told sixteen year old Brandon,

when he knew for sure that he was called into

ministry and didn't really know what that meant, if you

would have told him that, Hey, there's going to come

a day you're going to be leading this large passionate

for Jesus church in the Seattle area, and it is

going to provide you the opportunity to do significant trips

like to of the Holy Lands of Egypt with your

spouse I'd have said that was the furthest thing from

my mind. And so I was sitting in that moment

immensely grateful for you, my wife, my family, and everything

that Jesus has done. And then Robin asked this question.

She says, we've heard you talk so much about you

and I talk so much about your church, and she says,

and how much it's grown and all of that. And

she's a business woman, so she wants to know what

is the key factor, like, what is the thing that

you guys learned that I can turn around and tell

my pastor and he can implement it at his church.

You know, she thinks that way. She says, so, what

is the one thing, like the big thing that is

key to what has happened that venture over the years.

And I actually responded to her, probably in the most

bizarre way. I said, I think what has amazed me

the most about our church is our generosity. The venture

is what it is today because of the generosity of

the people. When the people of God are generous, it

has overwhelmed me with gratitude not only for you, but

also gratitude to God. I want to read with you

a passage in Sewod Corinthians, chapter nine. I'm actually gonna

pull out my glasses so that I don't stumble around

really embarrassed about this, So no mocking. Then we'll pray.

It says. Remember this, whoever so sparingly will also reap sparingly.

Whoever sos generously will reap generously. Each of you should

give what he has decided in his heart to give,

not reluctantly or under compulsion, For God loves a cheerful giver,

and God is able to bless you abundantly, so that

in all things, at all times, having all that you need,

you will abound in every good work. I want to

ask everyone to buy your heads, close your eyes. I

want you to repeat this prayer after me. Everyone say,

Dear Jesus, speak to my heart, change my life in

Jesus' name. Amen. I want to share with you today

what are three words of advice that the apostle Paul,

who wrote Tewod Corinthians nine would say to you and

I about generosity. So these are three words of advice

that are clearly in his word right here. Number one

is this God blesses generous people. By the way, this

is not some prosperity gospel thing. This is not me

saying you should give so you get. You should be

a bigger giver, so you should be blessed even more

by God. If that is the way you think, think

your thinking is wrong. Like this verse is really clear

that what God is able to do is that each

of you should give what He has decided in his

heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. But God

is able to bless you abundantly. Why does he do

it so that in all things, at all times, having

all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

So basically, God will bless generosity so that you can

turn around and be more generous. Like, God does not

bless your generosity so that you get rich. God blesses

your generosity so that you can be even more generous

with it. You see, you and I, we don't give

to be blessed. This is the weird part about this

is your motivation forgiving shouldn't be so that you get blessed.

You should be generous because God has been so generous

with you. You should be willing to give because you

realize that everything you have is an absolute blessing and

miracle from God. You don't give to be blessed. The

crazy part is that when you actually give with the

right attitude, the right heart, the right spirit, we end

up getting blessed because of it. But if your motivation

and giving is to be blessed, you got it all backwards.

But if you do it the right motivation, he'll bless you.

I know it's complicated. Everything else to do with your heart,

your attitude. God is able to bless you abundantly so

that you can be generous on all occasions. You tithe.

You can give a pledge to kingdom builders. You can

give to a disaster relief program. You can give to

this missionary who's hoping to go out on the mission field.

You can give to this person that you've come in

contact with, that is less fortunate than you, that has

a need that you can give at all times for

all people. Paul goes on and he uses this illustration

of a farmer does this in verse ten, He says,

now he supplies seed to the sower and bread for food.

Who is the heat? This is God. Jesus provides the

seed for the sower. So you wouldn't have any seed

to plant. If God didn't provide it for you. The

craziest thing about seed is that when God gives you

a seed and you plant one seed, it doesn't just

produce one piece of fruit. It doesn't just produce one vegetable.

When you plant a seed, it can grow into a

tree that can produce an abundance of fruit from one

seed that we are given by God. But we were

faithful with it. So he goes on and he says,

he supplies the seed to the sower and bread for food,

he will also supply increase your store of seed. So

not only do this, not only does He provide the

seed that if we're responsible with he like supernaturally blesses

and annoyance. It's like God takes the seed that you

plant and he fertilizes it with some sort of steroid

that makes it just blow up. And then he says,

because you've been so faithful, I'll even make your storehouse bigger.

And it goes on and it says, and I will

enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. So Paul uses this

farmer analogy and he says, when you're generous, God will

even give you bigger storehouses. God will give you seed

that is supernaturally blessed that will then lead to a

massive harvest. Why does he do this? The end goal

isn't that you have a bigger house, that you have

a nicer car, and if you end up with those things,

so be it. But he does that so that you

can be even more generous. That's why he does that.

God trusts generous people with wealth because he knows with

that wealth, they'll be kingdom builders. We talked about that

a lot over the last couple of weeks. And the

thing about being a kingdom builder is it's not you

building your own kingdom. There are too many men and

women in America that are really into acquiring wealth to

build their own kingdom. But a man or woman of

God understands that the wealth that God gives us is

to build his kingdom, is to further his kingdom. King

David did this huge building campaign just crazy ask all

the people of Israel, will you give of your wealth?

Will you give of what you have so that we

can build a temple basically their version of a church

building campaign. And the people of Israel were exceedingly generous.

They bought, brought gold and sin and jewels and whatever

they had each one gave as they were able, and

as they've built the temple. Afterwards, David was overwhelmed by

what he saw. And these are the words of David

in First Chronicles twenty nine, verse fourteen. David said, who

am I? And who are my people? That we should

be able to give as generously as this, And then

he goes on and he says, everything comes from you.

All we've done is given you only what comes from

your hand. So David is amazed by what he's seen.

And by the way, I don't think he was amazed

by the generosity of the people. I think he was

amazed that the people get it. Here's what they get.

They get that everything they have is a blessing from God,

like what you have is a gift and a miracle

from God. One of the things that was really frustrating,

let's say, about ten years ago, about being a boss

having employees. There was some weird spirit that had swept

through the nation about ten years ago. And if you're

a boss and you've had employees, you remember these people.

These are the ones that thought they were doing you

a favor by working for you, like it was a

right to have a job. Having employees that treat their

job like it is their right make them frustrating. It

also makes them not aware of what reality is where

in reality it is a privilege, Like it is not

a right for you to be employed, It is a

privilege for you to be employed. And if you step

out of your job, there's ten people that want your job.

And when you work a job like it is a

privilege that you are blessed to have that job. It

makes you an better it makes you a better employee,

but it also puts you in a position with a

perspective that you realize that you're not you didn't deserve this,

you didn't earn this, that you aren't blessed because of this.

And this is what David is overwhelmed with. He realizes

that these people know that everything they have wasn't because

they're great, wasn't because they're so gifted or talented. Everything

they have was a miracle and a gift from God,

and everything they gave was out of what God had

given them. Kind of a crazy way to put it.

Look at it this way, parents, especially the dads, you know,

Christmas is rolling around with your little kids, and your

Birthday's rolling around you give your kids money so that

they can buy you a present. It's your money, but

so they can buy you a present. I'll never forget

the day, Dian I did this. We gave Judah and

Elijah some money so that they could buy us Christmas presents.

Sounds weird, and Judah, I remember when I opened it.

It was a three foot tall nutcracker. I didn't know

I needed a nutcracker. But did you know what is

the first Christmas decoration we still set up every single year?

That nutcracker that Judah bought me, that I technically paid for.

Think of it this way, like you give your kids

some money to buy you a birthday present. They come

back and you open it up and it's an ashtray

and you don't smoke, but it's like your favorite president ever.

You're like, son, daughter, thank you for this ashtray. If

I ever smoke, I'm gonna use this. That is That

is the way giving is supposed to be for us.

It's you and I realize that he gave us the seed,

he gave us the harvest, He gave everything to us,

and all we do is turn around and give him

back what he gave to us. And when we do that,

He's filled with joy and he blesses us because of it.

When I played basketball in high school, my basketball coach

used to always say this. He would say, you all

have potential, potential, But then he would say, but potential,

all it means is that you haven't done anything yet.

When people talk about your potential, it means you haven't

done anything yet. You have giving potential. Every single person

you have giving potential. What are you gonna do with

that giving potential? I want to illustrate it for you.

Probably wondering why is all this fruit and vegetables behind Randon?

I want to illustrate it for you this way. There's

a fuse Morgas board up here. Let's take a water melon.

I'll put one over here. Egg Plant, pepper, earths aren't bad.

What is this papaya? That's right. David Diaz before the

service was saying, you know, Brandon, if you eat papaia. He

was explaining something that it does that I wasn't really

listening to. There's some bananas that grapefruit really wants to

go over there. Anybody like grapefruit? Good good, You're all

healthy people. Here's a greapefruit that is on steroids. What

is this thing called again a pamello? It looks like

a gargantuan lemon, but it's a pamello. These taste good?

All right? Heather said no, but two of you said yes.

So I'm listening to Heather. These taste good. Pineapple. Get

that over here. Kale. I gotta do is say kale.

And you know this is health food. It's name kale.

It's gotta be good for you, and it's gotta taste terrible.

I have a garden in my backyard and I grew kale.

I didn't eat it, but my dogs did. Let's see

what am I missing anything? Oh? The squash. Here's a

squashs yes, I agree, squashes gross. Oh cauliflower. Cauliflower and

broccoli are the two vegetables you force people to eat

because it's supposed to be good for them. Any of

you like cauliflower, some of you. I like cauliflower rice,

It's all right, you know what I do like? I

love broccoli. Weird, I know, I like broccoli. It's like

eating a little tree. Uh. Heather Lane is especially proud

of these carrots because they're wilting and they're like gross. Uh,

there's one last. I think there's all the candlo. How

do you say candalo? Canlo? Right? Right? Canallo? Megan Martin

calls it cantalope. She enunciate cantalope. How many of you

are on the cantalope? Side? Two of you? Good? Two

people say it wrong? All right? I want you to

look at this. I think we did miss one more.

I missed the cabbage. We got to put a cabbage

over here. Whenever you go to the grocery store and

you're what you want to buy a mango? You know

how you grab the mango and you feel it. How

many people have felt that mango before? You took it

with you first, But when the mangoes mushy, you put

it back. This is actually a good mango, but I've

man handled it now though. All right, I want you

to look at this. One table hardly has anything on it.

One has an abundance. The irony is God gives all

of this to us, but this is all he wants.

He just asks for this. He lets us have the

table of abundance. If you need an illustration for what

it means to tithe here, it is. Everything you see

is a blessing and a miracle from Jesus, but he

asks in return that we tithe. This is what he asks.

This is this small amount, and he lets us have this.

This is kind of a crazy deal. God blesses generous people.

The second thing that generosity does is generosity is an

act of worship. Today in the church world, people are

obsessed with worship. People make decisions on the church they

attend based upon the worship. If I was to ask

half of you, why do you come to venture? If

it was me talking to you at you'd throw me

a courtesy. Oh, it's your preaching, PB. But really you

choose church for the most part because you liked the worship.

People leave churches because it's not their particular worship style.

We get upset because the music is too loud, or

it's too soft, or it plays too many current songs

and not enough hymns. And people are obsessed with the

singing part of worship. Do you know that when you give,

that is an act of worship. Did you know that

when you serve that is an act of worship? That

the singing part is only a piece of worship, but

your giving is just as important. Like one of the

reasons that we try to prompt you to get excited

when the ushers come forward to receive the offering, because

it is illustrating to you that this is an expression

of our worship, and that when we give, we don't

give out of compulsion, but we give out of an

act of worship and gratitud to Jesus, because He gives

us all of this, and he only asks for this,

and he in actuality gave it to us anyways, was

from his hand, and we give back to him. Paul

said this, and Tewo Corinthians nine twelve. Paul said, the

service that you perform is not only supplying the needs

of the Lord's people, but it is also overflowing in

many expressions of thanks to God. Verse fifteen, he says,

thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. When you

give it, is you saying, Wow, Jesus, my life is blessed. Jesus,

you have given me so much as an act of gratitude,

as an act of worship. I willingly release this to you.

And I know it was already yours to begin with,

but I give it back to you. It's crazy. When

we give, God is giving us permission to regift a

gift He gave us, and just like me with that

three foot tall nutcracker. God rejoices when you willingly, without compulsion,

generously give, especially when you give understanding that what you

have is a blessing from Him, that it came from Him.

So giving is an act of worship. Deuteronomy fourteen twenty

three says the purpose of tithing is to teach you

always to put God first in your lives. When you tithe,

it is you acknowledging God your first. God. You matter, God,

You're important. This act of obedience, this act of submission,

is me stating Jesus, you are what matters most. Finally,

number three, what does generosity do? God blesses people that

are generous. Generosity is worship, and the third thing is

generosity is also witness. Recently on my podcast, I talked

about the statistic that only one percent of churches crazy,

one percent of churches in America, when surveyed, said they

had an effective angelism system one percent. We wonder why

they are less Christians today in America than there were

last year, when only one percent of churches care about

people beginning a journey with Jesus. One percent of churches

care about people getting baptized, people getting disciples, people finding

faith in Jesus. One percent. That's pretty brutal. But one

of the greatest witnesses that you and I have is

through our generosity. People are amazed by radical generosity. It

doesn't matter where you're at in a faith journey. If

you see generosity, it amazes you. Here's what Paul said

about it nine thirteen. Paul said, because of the service

by which you have proved yourselves. So this giving, he says,

others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your

confession of the Gospel in Christ. So Paul acknowledges the

giving is obedience. But when people see you be obedient

in your giving, what will it do? And your generosity

in sharing with them and everyone else? That when people

see you be generous, that makes them amazed about Jesus. Oftentimes,

there are people that you interact with every single day

and they cannot figure out what is different about you.

One of the things is a youth pastor. I used

to always say that your friends that you invite to

youth services will know when you worship what is different

about you. They will also notice by your generosity. What

is different about you? Ever share this part of mine

and die story really ever? But the only person in

our immediate family that doesn't have faith in Christ is

my father in law, dies dad. So he has watched

Die and I go into ministry together. He's watched us

be in ministry for thirty years, and the entire time

I've been a ministry, he's never a one time attended

a service that I've led, and it's just never. He's

never really had any interest. Something happened to Christmas though,

started talking to me about this. He said, Brandon, what

is going on with your church? And I was like,

why do you ask me? He said, I keep running

into friends of mine who now attend your church. And

he said, they'll tell me they go to church. Let's

say they go to Venture Church and he'll step back

and he says, wait a second, I think that's my

son in law's church. And so my father in law

started asking about building this building, and I told him

about how we were given the Seattle building and I

told him about what we just did. How in a month,

I said, did you know we're expanding our building because

we're out of space? And I said, and we we

raised a million dollars in a month, and he was like, oh,

with people pledging and I was like, no, we raised

a million dollars over a million cash in a month

to view this building project. And he's like, you.

People gave a million dollars so that you could make

that building larger. So your generosity has my father in

law asking questions that he has never asked before about faith,

because he cannot deny that people left to themselves are

stingy that they would never do this. The only reason

that people would give so generously is because there's been

some sort of transformation in their heart.

I honestly I left Christmas thinking this. My father in

law when he finally begins his journey with Jesus, it's

not gonna be because his son in law is a preacher,

his daughter's a preacher. It's gonna be because of you.

What has amazed him is your generosity. He cannot deny

that something is different in you. God blesses generosity. But

your generosity is an absolute act of worship under Jesus,

and your generosity is an amazing witness to people. I

told you five years ago, when we raise the money

to build this building that for decades, people are going

to drive down thirty fifth, they're going to see this

building and they are going to ask, how did they

build that church building there? And as we expand this building,

they'll last that even more so. And that is always

going to give us the opportunity to talk about man.

Everything we have is a gift from God. We just

give a little bit back to him. And what he

does is he takes that little bit that we give

and he multiplies it like a seed that grows into

a tree that produces not one apple, but a multitude

of apples. That is generosity. And I want to challenge

you as we end this series to make sure that

you head into twenty twenty five that you live a

life of generosity. Tonight, we're going to talk about the

vision for twenty twenty five. We're going to share with

you some exciting initiatives we have for the church. On

your way out, we're going to hand you the goal card.

This should spike your interest. By the way, if you've

not signed up for our meeting tonight, it's not too late.

Overwhelm my staff with last second sign ups. They love

it when you wait till the last second. To sign up,

but I do want to invite you to come out

hear about our vision for twenty twenty five. But I

will tell you we are able to believe for amazing

things because you are generous. I want to ask everyone

to buy your heads, close your eyes, Lord Jesus, I

want to pray, first off, the twenty twenty five would

be a year we would never forget that you would

do something just so significant in our church that as

we meet together tonight we talk about what we're believing for,

we reflect on what you've done. May our hearts be

united together with the sense of mission. And now Lord

specifically speak to each person wherever they're at about their generosity.

Just as they have goals for their physical fitness, have

goals for their business, have goals for their family, Lord,

I pray that they would have goals for their generosity. Lord,

we commit this to you in your name. I pray Amen. Amen,

We