We Are Family: If You Tithe

Welcome to Venture Church. If you don't know who I am,

I'm Brandon. I am the lead.

Pastor of the church.

If you are new in the last three months, I

was on vacation for three months, but I'm back, so

I'd love to meet you. If you're new, in the

lobby after the service, come find me and shake my hand.

It's going to take like five times of meeting you

before I remember your name, so give me grace with that.

But woul everybody do me a favorit? Would you buy

your heads, close your eyes. I want to pray for

everyone this morning, Lord, as we prepare to open up

your word, I ask first and foremost that you would

anoint me as I speak. Lord, allow the words that

I share to not be my own, but may they

be yours. And more than anything, Lord, I want to

express your heart to the people of Venture and God,

I ask for each one of us that's here that

our hearts and our minds would be open to hear

what the Spirit is saying to us individually. And God,

that's what I pray that you would speak to each

person as we unwrap this text. I want to pray

that people will individualize this to themselves, and they'll ask

themselves how am I supposed to respond to the word

of God this morning, God, I thank you, give you

all the glory and all the praise. I thank you

for this amazing church, the privilege it is to teach

this morning, and your name, I pray Amen. While I

was on vacation during that period, my son bought a

condo and my wife and I came back and we

were helping him move. Like literally, we come back from

Europe and then we get to help somebody move.

Isn't that awesome? It's just what you love.

I hadn't seen the condo, didn't know much about it,

saw a few Zillow pictures and that was about it.

And as we drove to his condo, I had a

trip down memory lane. You see, my parents moved to

the Seattle area when I was about nine years old.

We moved from Montana and.

We lived for about ten years in the Lynnwood Edmunds area,

and this is the area where Judah bought a condo.

So as we're driving there, I am next to my

wife and I am telling her all these memories that

are coming rushing back. We drove by my elementary school,

Beverly Elementary. We drove by my high school, Meadowdale High School.

We drove through Parenville, and even know where Parenville is.

Why did they name it Parenville? By the way, I

hadn't been to Parenville in forty years and it has

not changed in forty years. But Parenville is where I

would ride my bike and I would occasionally go fishing

off the pier that was down there. But most of

all Pacific Trading cards was there, and that's where I

would buy baseball and football cards. So then we started

driving up the hill and the memories came flooding back.

We drove by one of my elementary school mates houses.

Her name was Ida.

If you were ever one of my youth kids, I

have many stories that I tell about Aida. The main

thing about Ida was Ida had a really mean older brother,

and I was like, that's the older brother that used

to chase us all around.

And then kept driving and then.

I drove by the yard that I would mow every

two weeks. If you're a gen x er, you relate

to this. If you're older than a gen xer, you

don't relate to this. Basically, as soon as we could walk,

our parents expected us to go get a job.

So most of.

Us, like we're nine and we're delivering papers around neighborhoods

and things like that. And then once you out grew

or graduated from the paper route time. For me, I

did yard work at neighbors houses, and so I remember

when I was mowing this particular neighbor's yard, I saw

in their garage a really nice, high end skateboard. And

I went to the owner of the house and I said,

do you use that skateboard?

And he said no, And I.

Said, what can I do to get that skateboard? And

this was the first time in my young life where

I experienced the principle of an if then promise. He said,

if you were willing to come mow my yard three times.

I'll give you that skateboard.

So it took six weeks waiting and mowing and waiting,

but finally I was rewarded with this skateboard.

If you do this, then I will do this. We're

in twenty twenty four.

If there is anything that is more counter cultural than

if you do this, then you'll get this. It's that

principle because we live in a day and age today

where people think they don't need to work for something

to get something, I should just get it because I am.

I should just get because I exist.

I gotta be honest. That might be you. It's not me. Now.

I think you work a hard forty hours, you should

be rewarded for it. You work above and beyond the

call of duty. You should be rewarded for that. But

I think it's fair, it's reasonable. Did you know that

the Bible is absolutely full of if then promises? God says,

over and over again, do you and I, if.

We do this, God will faithfully do this.

In fact, there are so many if then promises from

Genesis all the way through Revelation that most of you

if I asked you to tell me and if then promise,

you might be able to tell me three or four.

But believe it or not, there are over.

Fifteen hundred if then promises in Scripture. Fifteen hundred times

God says, if my people, if you.

Do this, then I will do this.

Over the next three weeks, I want to talk to

you about three of these if then promises, and I'm

going to do this in a way that explains our

three pillars at Venture, our three core values of venture mission, community, generosity,

simply by highlighting several of the if then promises in Scripture.

Many of you, right now you are living.

A life that is blessed because you accidentally accomplished one

of the ifs of an if then promise. There are

others of you you're struggling and you don't know why,

and it's because you haven't accomplished one of the ifs

of the if then promise. And today I want to

focus on our value of generosity. Venture is a generous church.

Christian just shared with you that when it comes to

global missions, we are one of the largest global missions

giving churches, not only in our region, but in the

entire West Coast. We're going to do a Compassion Sunday

where we talk about sponsors kids through Compassion International.

We right now are the third.

Largest compassion sponsoring church in America.

Third.

We are very generous with how much our church gives to.

Convoy of Hope.

And I believe in the principle of generosity for us

as a church, for us as an organization, but I

also believe in the principle of generosity for you as

a person. One of the lines that I teach whenever

I do one oh one which is how I meet

new people in the church and I share with them

the mission, vision and values of the church. When I

talk about generosity, I always use this line. In fact,

there is a line I've used for twenty years, and

it simply is this principle that I believe it is

irresistible for God to bless a generous church. By the way,

at the end of the month, Morgan already alluded to it.

You're gonna hear me on August twenty fifth share with

you how God God hooked our church up again. I mean,

it's gonna blow your mind. Like literally, your mind is about.

To be blown.

Come on August twenty fifth. It's irresistible for God to

bless a generous church. But I also believe it is

irresistible for God to bless a generous person. One of

the crazy things about our church is like, you're in

a building that is the result of people's generosity.

Some of you, you're new to the church. In the

last four years, you weren't.

Involved in all the fundraising that it costs to build

this building. I tell everybody, we fought all of hell

to get this building built. Venture is not a church

that has two or three really wealthy people that are

bankrolling everything we do. This is a church full of

people that have united together in a spirit of generosity,

and God has done awesome things as a result.

So you were here. This is the result of generosity.

We are celebrating twenty years as a church. Before we

ever launched this church, there were individuals and churches that

gave generously twenty years ago so that this dream of

venture church might become a reality.

These are people that have never attended to church.

They're churches that have never been here, but because of

their generosity.

Now we fast forward.

Twenty years later, we are in one of the largest

churches in the state of Washington.

Thousands of people have gotten saved at this church.

Hundreds of people have been baptized, many many, thousands of

lives have been changed because they were generous before this

church even gave. It's irresistible for God to bless the

generous church, and it's irresistible for God to bless a

generous person. Grab your Bible's turn to Malachi chapter three.

When you think about giving. This is the chapter you

think of.

Believe it or not.

I've never preached from this chapter before. Whenever I've taught

on giving. I've always used portions from the New Testament,

but I want to share this Malachi Chapter three portion

of scripture. Now Malachi the person of Malachi. He was

a minor prophet. He became a prophet in Israel several

decades after the Israelites had returned from exiled being exiled

in captivity in Babylon. Now I preached through Jonah and

Daniel this year, And in Jonah and Daniel it tells

the story of what led to the Babylonian exile. They

were conquered by the Assyrians, captured by the Babylonians. Eventually

the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians, and for seventy years,

the Israelites.

Were removed from.

The place that was their home, their promised land, and

they were slaves servants held at captivity in Babylon for

seventy years. They eventually returned back to Israel. This is

taking place about thirty years after they're.

Finally back in Israel. Got the setting two of you? Okay? Good?

So the verse starts verse six. It says, I the

Lord do not change, so you the descendants of Jacob,

are not destroyed oh, so much is packed in that statement.

You see, we live in these if then promises that

if we do this, God will do this, and I

will tell you that God is always faithful. The problem

is you and I struggle with our faithfulness. And since

the beginning of time, there is this thing, this cycle

that happens in people's life. You see it throughout the

Old Testament. It's called the deuteronomical cycle. So follow this

is I call it the cycle of human nature.

This is just what people do.

So all of a sudden, everything is going bad. Everything

that could go wrong is going wrong. So we get

really spiritual.

We cry out to God, so God save me, rescue me,

help me.

And God is faithful. If you repenny restores you that

you may serve him. It's another if then promise so

God comes through. He raises up a deliverer, raises up

a judge, he does a miracle, something happens, and all

of a sudd sudden, God like saves you and you're

spiritual for a little bit. But then after a while

apathy sets in. This always happens. You start thinking, well,

all of this blessing in my life isn't because of God.

It's because I work hard. It's because like I'm so

gifted and talented. It's because everything I touch turns to gold.

It just where. And so we become apathetic.

We start doing things like missing church, start doing things

like I need to take a break from serving for

a while.

Ah.

We do things like you know what, I don't know

if I I'm not gonna tie, I'm not gonna give,

And we all the little things that we do when

we're really spiritual, fired up for.

Jesus, we just stop doing.

And then after a while, the next thing we know,

we find ourselves far from God. It's a great principle.

God won't force himself on you. If you don't serve God,

he won't make you serve him. If you don't want

to follow Jesus. Jesus won't make you serve him. He's

not gonna force himself on you. If you just say

I'm apathetic, complacent, and then after a while you're like,

now I just don't want to do that anymore. God

will be like, all right, I'm not gonna make you,

and he'll step back from you. And what you find

out really quickly is that when you were serving God,

there is all kinds of consequences for your actions that

God kind of protected you of. But then he steps

back and the blessing and protection and provision of God

is no longer over you, and you're just reaping the

natural consequences of your life decisions. Sometimes they're good, sometimes

they're bad. And God won't force himself on you, but

He is faithful. So the descendants of Jacob, God made

him a price. They did their part of the if promise,

God will do his portion of the then promise. So

here you are, thousands of years later, and God is

saying you, the descendants of Jacob are not destroyed. You

should be, But because I made a promise to your descendants,

I'm not going to destroy you. Then he goes on

and he says, ever since the time of your ancestors,

you've turned away from my decrees. See what happens in

that deuteronomical human nature cycle is once we realize everything

has fallen apart because we've turned our back on God,

we repent and that God, as his word is true,

restores us again. And then the whole cycle starts over again.

And here the.

Cycle is happening again, and he says, you've turned away

from my decrees and have not kept them. And then

he says, return to me, and I will return to you,

says the Lord Almighty. Whenever people are confronted with the truth,

they respond in different ways.

I think.

Sometimes when people are confronted with the truth, sometimes it

penetrates their heart and they change. Sometimes, when people are

confronted with the truth, they kill the messenger. Other times,

when people are confronted with the truth, they get outraged.

They deny its truth and they argue about it. And

the people of God at this point in history, instead

of obeying the call or responding to the challenge or

the prophet Malachi, they started arguing with Malachi.

They got outraged. And so when.

Malachi I says, God is saying to you, return to

him and He'll return to you. You ever been in

that moment where you're like, I just feel so far

from God. I just don't feel him anymore, feel far

from him. You can spend your life running away from God,

but all it takes is one step towards Him and

you're back.

Now.

You can spend years running away from God, but if

you repent, he'll restore you that you may serve him.

You are not far from God. And so Malachi is saying, you,

guys have fallen away. Turn back to God. It's that easy,

it's that simple. It's just a choice.

Come back to God.

And then Malachi kind of mocks them and he says

that I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking, well, how do I return to God?

And so Malachi is literally quoting the people arguing with him,

and then he gives them an example about how they

haven't obeyed God. You see, the people understood the reason

that they ended up in captivity in Babylon, that that

seventy years of being in captive in Babylon is because

of two reasons. Number one, they had not kept the Sabbath,

and number two, they had not obeyed the principle of tithing.

Because of those two decrees.

That God gave them that they did not obey, God

stepped back from them and allowed the natural course of

their life to happen.

They end up conquered by their enemies.

Their enemies get conquered by their enemies, and then their

enemies get conquered by their enemies, and the whole time

the people of God are just the collateral damage.

And he was waiting for them to repent.

So Malachi says, return to me, and I will return

to you. But you ask how are we to return?

And then he makes this statement. He says, will a

mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me? Other translations

say will a man rob God? Yet you rob me?

But you ask how are we robbing you? In tithes

and offerings? You were under a curse the whole nation

because you were robbing me. Just Malachi made this statement

to say, you're stealing from God.

You were ripping God off. You know why he's saying that,

because if I came up.

To you and I looked at you and said you

were stealing from God God, You're gonna immediately be like, say,

what what.

Are you talking about? That's really harsh.

It was meant to be an astonishing statement. It's astonishing

because I wouldn't dare steal from God if I truly

believe who God is, If I truly believe that He

is the ultimate creator and ultimate judge, I'm not ripping

him off. If I truly believe that God knows everything,

that he can see everything, that he's all places at

all times, I can't even get away with stealing from.

Him because he sees it. It's meant to be astonishing.

It's also meant to be astonishingly ungrateful, because if we

truly believe that everything we have in life is a

gift from God, then why would I ever steal from

the person who has been so gracious to me. It's

astonishing because stealing from God is shamelessly self senselessly, self destructive,

like it's only gonna hurt me, Like when you rob

God you have, you don't rob from the person who

owns everything.

You steal from you.

And then it's astonishing because if I really am ripping

God off, it's not gonna go unpunished. You see, God

called it robbery because they had unlawful possession of what

belonged to God. It's not just the tithe that belongs

to God. That word tithe comes from a Hebrew word

which means ten.

And people that love to argue.

Against the principle of tithing, especially like people that have

never studied the Old Testament have I've only read like

maybe three or four gospels in the New Testament will

say things like Jesus never talked about tithing, and they

love to say things like that fail to understand that

tithing has always been. This is a principle, a teaching,

a decree that existed before even the Ten Commandments. We

see Abraham tithing. And by the way, when Abraham talks

about tithing, he doesn't do it teaching a spiritual principle.

You're just matter of factly informed that as he's supposed to,

he just tithed.

In this spot.

It's like something that is always been and always will be,

this principle of tithing, because everything belongs to God. Like

everything you have is due to the blessing of God.

The money you have in your four oh one k,

your stock portfolio that is simply because of the blessing

of God. The house that you live in blessing of God.

The woman you married, the blessing of God, those kids

that are the joy of your life, the blessing of God.

Everything belongs to God. The Psalmist said, to earth is

the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all

who live in it. The cool thing, though, is God

doesn't command us to give everything back to Him that

belongs to him. He allows us to keep most of

it as managers on his behalf. But the tithe is different.

The tithe is not something you are given freedom, whether

or not you manage it, is God's. If we tithe,

it isn't as if that remaining ninety percent is ours

still belongs to God. He's just allowedwing us to manage it,

not to do as what we please with it. It

all belongs to God. The one thing that I will

tell you is that people who joyfully generously tithe find

that what's left over goes much further. I'm gonna make

a really cheesy statement. This cheesy statement has been preached

for fifty years. It's totally cheesy, and I'm embarrassing it,

but it's totally true. So I know it's cheesy, and

you're gonna roll your eyes when I say this, and

you've heard it one hundred times before, but it is

the truth. And then it's I would rather have ninety

percent of my wealth blessed than one hundred percent of

my wealth cursed. Have you ever noticed that people who

don't give never seem.

To have enough.

It doesn't matter how much money they make. Throws broke.

Why is that? The prophet Hey Guy kind of explains

it to us. Hey Guy won five and six. It says,

this is what the Lord Almighty says, give careful thought

to your ways. Said, you have planted much, but you've

harvested little. Now I'm doing everything that everybody else told

me that they did that led to them having wealth

and blessing, and it's not working for me. I've planted much,

but I see no harvest.

Why is that?

And he says, you eat but you never have enough.

You drink but you never have your fill. You put

clothes on, but you're never warm. And then the prophet

says this. He says, you earn wages only to put

them in a purse or a bag, as if they

have holes in them. It's like you take the money

that you earn and it's like it just just peers

through holes, and I don't know where it went. You see,

by not tithing, we don't fulfill our covenant with God,

which means God can't fulfill his covenant with us.

If you do this, then I will do this.

When we rob God, we ultimately rob from ourselves. We

rob ourselves of the blessing of obedience.

And the problem is that when we rob from God the.

Money we keep, even though we logically think we need

it all, it's never still enough.

It's always something comes up.

Some extra doctor, bill, car breaks down, something needs to

be fixed in the house. If you have dogs like mine,

they eat things they're not supposed to eat.

You end up with massive vet bills things like that.

But God always gives us an opportunity to turn around,

and there is a clear if then promise attached to

our giving. We give as an active faith, and God

rewards faith by the way. We don't give to get.

We give as an active worship. We give as an

act of trust, as an active gratitude, as an act

of obedience, as an active faith.

But if we faithfully obey God.

God is faithful to keep his promises. The Israelites are

reaping that because of their sin and their neglect of God,

God could wipe them off the earth. But instead he says,

because of the you are descendants of Jacob and the

promise I made to Jacob, here's.

Your chance to repent. So what do we do?

So?

What do we do if we're.

Struggling, we feel like our finances are under a curse,

we feel like we're struggling.

What do we do if? As soon as I.

Heard Pastor Brandon was teaching on giving. I got irked.

It bothered me, like there's something I do not like.

I get offended when preachers teach on giving. One of

the things that I love to remind people is people

come and get saved adventure all the time. And when

people come from the world and they get saved. Did

you know they're not offended when I talk about giving.

Never They like expect that I'm going to talk about generosity,

partially because they've heard preachers talk about this, so they're

not surprised. The people that get irked are people in

the church who've been going to church for a long

time that haven't been tithing. Those are the people that

get mad.

That was free.

So what do you do, Malachi is really simple. You

can turn, and here's how you turn. He says, you

bring the whole tithe into the storehouse. By the way,

there's I could unwrap that word storehouse a lot. It

could be an entire sermon, but the storehouse very clearly

means church, synagogue, cathedral, like where you worship. Back then,

they not only gave a tithe of their wealth, they

gave a tithe of their harvest. So they would bring

in wheat and they would bring in grain and.

Things like that.

And so in these cathedrals, tabernacles, church buildings, they would

have huge storehouses where they would receive this tithe, and

they would store it in the storehouse, and it would

be used to feed the priests and the rabbis.

But then in addition they would give it out to

the poor.

So bring the whole tithe in the storehouse, that there

may be food in my house. Here's the if then promise.

You've probably heard.

This statement said many times.

This is the only time in scripture God dares you

to test him. He literally says, test me in this

and see if I will not throw open the floodgates

of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you

will not have room enough to store it. Okay, there

are three things that God promises when you and I

tie three things, Remember Bible full if then promises.

God is always faithful to keep his promise.

He made a promise to Jacob, and years later he's

still honoring that promise.

That's the way God works. So there are three.

Promises that he gives the first one he says is

I'm gonna throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour

out so much blessing.

That you won't have room enough for it.

Now, there's been a hundreds of terrible sermons preached.

On that text.

Let me tell you what it meant to the Jewish audience.

This imagery made a lot of sense to them because

they constantly prayed and hoped for rain. They needed rain

so that they could have food to eat, They needed

rain so that they could have resources to provide for

their family. And so in the Eastern culture, there is

this image that God up there in the.

Clouds has a vault of water.

That this vault of water has got doors and windows,

and their prayer is that God would open a door,

open a window, and it would pour out blessing.

So when Malachi talked about.

This, the people were like, I've seen that image, I've

taught that image of I've believed that image. And this

is them saying, when you give, God opens those doors

and pours out blessing. But that's not the only thing

that God's word promises.

It also says this. It says, I will.

Prevent pat from devouring your crops. The vines in your

fields will not drop their fruit before it's right, says

the Lord Almighty. So this is not only will you

open up the floodgates of heaven, but he rebukes the

devourer to this culture who where they primarily harvested and farmed.

There are so many things that can go wrong. You

can do everything right, and there can be too much

rain and it floods your harvest and you get nothing.

There can be no rain, only sun and it scorches

your harvest and there's nothing. You can have a great

harvest that's growing, and locusts can come in.

And destroy everything.

There were so many things that could go wrong where

they just had to trust God.

Now you might not be a farmer, but you get this.

If if you were some body in your profession you

do deals, you know how many things can.

Go wrong in a deal.

If you're a real estate agent, just because that contract

is signed, do you know how many things can go

wrong before that house closes. There are so many things

that are out of your control that could go wrong

and make it so that deal doesn't close. We have

business men and women that are here and you sign

big deals that your whole livelihood and all your employees'

livelihood rests upon these deals going through. But there's so

many factors that are out of your control that can

thwart that deal.

You get what this is like?

This is God saying, when you were faithful and I'm

blessing you, You're going to have supernatural anointing. When it

comes to these types of things, I always talk about

what is anointing. Anointing is supernatural favor from God. It

is where you do things that you would always do,

that other people will always do, and it just seems

that you just get blessed. Like deals that maybe shouldn't

go through, will go through hiccups that will normally come,

you'll overcome them. I mean, I just say this building

is the greatest example. This building should never have been built,

and we fought all of hell to get it built.

But God allows what shouldn't happen to happen, rebukes the

devour and then finally, this is the one that I

like the most, and I'll close. He says, when when

you are generous, not open, Not only will I open

up the floodgates of Heaven and pour out blessing on you.

Not only will I rebuke the devourer, but.

All nations will call you blessed, for yours will be

a delightful land, says the Lord Almighty. This is God

saying that you will be so blessed that it won't

make sense. And your neighbors and your friends and your

coworkers will come to you and say, why does this

keep happening for you? And it gives you the opportunity

to say, it's by the grace of God.

It's because of the blessing of God.

Venture today has some very wealthy people in it.

We do people that are very, very, very blessed.

I've had the fortunate opportunity to know most of those

people for at least ten years, many longer, and to

a person.

I watched their lives evolve.

The people in our church are not people that inherited

generational wealth. They were like you. They were dirt broke,

and they're faithful like some of the people that you

would know I remember back when. But the one consistent

thing that I've seen over and over again for every

one of these people is even when they were broke,

they were generous, and then when they were middle class,

they continue to be generous, and now that they're wealthy,

they just get the opportunity to even be more generous.

And to a person.

People come to them and they say, how did this happen?

How did your business get blessed like this? How did

your family get blessed like this? And every time you

have an opportunity to turn the attention off of you

and all of your giftings and to turn it to

the fact that you serve a gracious, generous, loving God,

that it is by the grace of Jesus, by the

grace of God you have the house that you have,

the car that you drive, the job that you have,

the business that you have.

It is by the grace of God that that happens.

So not only will God open up the floodgates of heaven,

not only will we rebuke the devours, but other neighbors, coworkers, friends,

We'll call you blessed, and you get an opportunity to

then live missionally and explain that it was Jesus.

So what do we do here at Venture?

I'm going to close by praying for you in the

what's next, We're challenging you to tithe, We're challenging you

to give to partner.

We want you to prayerfully consider those things.

Our strategy at Venture with discipling people in their generosity

has four categories that we encourage.

I know that there are.

Some of you you just have never given before.

Let me think you should try giving.

Just try given the offering today on your way out

given the Kiosks. There's a brand new person at the

eight thirty service. He grabbed me in the lobby. Then

he said, I was so moved by the message. But

you guys already took the offering.

How do I give?

And I just said, use one of the kiosks, or

give online through our app.

But be a first time giver.

And if you're someone that is given, but you give

very sporadically, I want to challenge you become a regular giver.

Just start giving consistently, learn the habit of giving.

Automate your giving.

Just say I want to make sure that I give

three hundred dollars a month. I'm gonna do it automatically

so I'm not tempted in a weak moment to not give.

I'm gonna give regularly. If you're someone who's been giving

regularly and you're not tithing, by the way, I believe

tithing is where obedience starts.

This is where it starts. So if you've yet to start.

Tithing, but you've given regularly. Now's your moment. Test God

in this. See if he won't throw open the floodgates

of heaven so you don't have room enough for it.

See if he won't rebuke the devourer in your life.

See if he won't have the nations call you blessed.

See if he won't says to test him, So.

You should start tithing.

And for those of you that have been faithful tithers,

I believe generosity begins once you and I give over

and above our tithe. So the number one argument against

tithing is always I don't see it in the New Testament.

If you read any of the writings of Paul, if

you understand it from the context that Paul understood, he

just thought. He just assumed everybody tithes, like he assumes

that that principle is not something that his audience was

arguing and debating. You will notice that everything Paul talks

about is living generously over and above your tithe, Like

he is encouraging you if you have been blessed, tithing

doesn't need to be the limit in what you give.

He's literally challenging us to give beyond that that tithe

is obedience. But if you have the means, you should

determine in your heart what you should give, and you

should give generously, joyfully, with a good attitude. I'm gonna

pray for you and just trust that the Holy Spirit

will speak to.

You this week. I want you to wrestle with this message, wrestle.

With this thought, and then come ready to respond.

And this is one of those things. How do you respond?

You respond very practically, and it's between you and Jesus.

There's no coming forward to an alter call, there's no

raising of hands, just you and Jesus will know if

you are responding to his word this morning. Let's pray,

Lord Jesus, I do thank you for the generosity of

this church. Constantly blown away by the truth of that phrase.

It's irresistible for you to bless the generous church. And God,

I pray that every single person here would take the

next step in their giving, that they would wrestle with

their own personal generosity. Lord, that that's just the way

that we would live, that we would be generous people.

Speak to each person, challenge them with what they need

to do. And then Lord, I asked that they would

have the strength and