We Are Venture: Generosity

Well, it is going to be back preaching today. It's my first time

preaching in twenty twenty four. I've made up for it this weekend though I

did a memorial service yesterday, preaching three times today, then I'm preaching twice

tomorrow at Northwest University. So back in the pulpit for twenty twenty four.

I want you to grab your Bible's turn Matthew chapter thirteen. Today I want

to share with you a principle, and I believe that this is the principle

if you will apply to your life, it has the potential to change your

future. Jesus said, this is that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a

mustard seed which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is

the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest

of all garden plants and becomes a tree. The birds come and perge in

its branches. Interesting principle to think that you and I make decisions today that

determine tomorrow. The illustration that Jesus uses is he talks about mustard seed.

I keep this in my office because it illustrates literally everything we've seen at our

church that God can take something small that we plant and multiply it. Here's

an example of how small mustard seed is. It's one of my staff members

holding a mustard seed on their thumb. That's small, but it can grow

into this. God has the ability to take something small that you and I

plant and in the future multiply it into something great. 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. Twenty twenty four is going

to be really fun. We are going to celebrate twenty years at Venture all

year long. And one of the things that I'm going to do every time

I speak is I'm going to share a significant story from our history that you

can be excited about. Dian and I were serving as youth pastors at a

church in California. My pastor said, I'll keep you on staff till the

end of the year, but I'll give you September through December to raise money

for your church plan. The deal that I made with my pastor is that

I would be back in town to be there for my youth services and at

the time. In Modesto, we did three youth services a week, so

I would be in town for my youth services, and I would try to

book out Sunday mornings to raise money for the church. Now, my strategy

was I wasn't taking monthly pledges. I thought that was too complicated. What

I wanted to do is believe God that we could take large offerings at all

the churches that would invite me to come in to speak. Now, we

had guestimated that we needed to raise a minimum of two hundred and fifty thousand

dollars. So I want you to process this is in twenty year ago money.

So I had to raise two hundred and fifty thousand dollars between September to

December to have all the resources we needed for the first six months of our

church plan. So I start booking out all those services, and then,

as you would imagine, I wasn't able to book out every Sunday. Every

Sunday I had a speaking engagement mattered, and I was speaking at a church

planning conference and I met a church planner from Idaho. His name was Dan

Johnson. He had started a church in a city that I'd never heard of.

Ten years before, he had planted a church in Moscow, Idaho.

Now I knew about Moscow, Russia, but I didn't know that Russia had

planted a city in Idaho. So I had no clue where this was.

But Dan said, Brandon, I love to have you come in and speak.

He said, my church is primarily college students. We have a little,

tiny building. We do three services, but we'd be willing to have

you come in. Well, I was willing to go anywhere anybody would have

me. I was just going to trust Jesus. So I booked it for

Thanksgiving weekend that year. Remember I lived in California. The show up in

Moscow, Idaho, which by the way, is not easy to get to,

and it was eight degrees when I got there. It was the coldest

place I'd been in five years. And it was also the first time that

I had been sick in years. I could tell I was starting to get

sick when I got on the airplane, but I only had so many Sundays.

I was trying to raise money, so I was going to power through.

I ended up having strep throat en bronc itis, they found out later

on, So I was like legitimately sick. And that Saturday night, I

checked into my hotel room and I had never been colder or sicker at one

time. You gotta picture this. I don't get sick very often, so

when I do, I'm a baby. So I really needed my wife to

take care of me, and I was there by myself. Couldn't sleep that

night because I was so tired and I was sick and shivering, And finally,

at about three in the morning, I just gave up and I started

pacing the hotel room, wrapped in a blanket, shaking. And it was

in that moment the Holy Spirit began to download on me. And do you

remember back then there would be a notepad and a pen in every hotel room.

So I grabbed that note pad and pen and I wrote this sermon and

then I shared it three times that morning at that church almost collapsed when I

was done. I was so sick, but I'll never forget the church treasurer

running to me. Afterwards. I was at lunch with the pastor and he

said, Pastor Brandon, he's holding an envelope in his hand, and he

said, it is a miracle. He said, we took the largest offering

in the history of our church for your church plant. And I opened the

envelope up and it was thirteen thousand dollars from this little church in Moscow,

Idaho. And in that moment, really two things the Lord impressed upon my

heart. Number one was that venture wasn't a Brandon and Die idea, that

from the very beginning, this was a God idea. And the second thing

he reminded me is that God is able to take the small seeds that we

plant and do something really incredible out of them. Today, I want to

share with you a principle that I believe, if you apply to your life,

will change your future. This is a guarantee. It is a principle

that you were going to see interwoven through scripture from out God's word. I'm

going to take you on a journey Old Testament, New Testament, different authors

that all talk about this same principle. This is something that you and I

in twenty twenty four need to apply to our life. So let's go to

the beginning. Genesis, chapter one, Verse one. Bible says, in

the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now, the earth

was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep,

and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. The Bible says that

the earth was formless and empty. Other translations say the earth was formless and

void, and then it says darkness covered the entire earth. At the moment

that creation happened, God already existed, Heaven already existed. Like to wrap

your mind around the fact that God has always been and he always will be,

that he had no beginning, he had no end. That the heavens

had been around for millennium, millennium, whatever the word is. And then

we don't know when it happened. We just know that it happened. That

there was a time in history Lucifer was the worship leader in heaven and his

job was to get all of the heavenly host to worship God, and he

would gather them up and he would say, worship God, Worship God.

This likely happened for thousands of years. But there came a point where Lucifer

took his eyes off of God and he put it on himself, and it

went from worship God to worship Me. He probably said worship God, but

also worship Me. But then there came a point where he said, just

worship me. There was a war in the heavenlees, and God kicked Lucifer

and a third of the angels out of heaven, and Lucifer the devil,

ended up on earth. And wherever the devil is, the place turns to

Trash says the darkness was over the surface of the earth. Darkness means chaos.

Darkness causes chaos. Whenever we have darkness in the world, we have

chaos. Finally, God had had enough, and in verse three he says,

let there be light, and there was light. Light always brings,

Or there's the simple truth. We understand that Jesus is the light of the

world. If you have a lot of chaos and darkness in your life,

the response to it is Jesus. The more Jesus you have in your life,

the less darkness you will have in your life, the more order you

will have in your life. And then God sets up this divine order for

you and I to win over darkness and chaos. Are you gonna do with

me? Move down to verse eleven. Then God said, let the land

produce vegetation, seed bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with

seed in it. According to the various kinds. And it was so.

So God is creating the earth, It's creating the world. And when he

creates plants and vines and trees, you have to imagine that he created them

fully grown, that all of a sudden, these trees ripe with fruit were

there, these vines ripe with vegetables and fruit were there. That all of

these plants were fully ready to be harvested right then and there. And then

next verse twenty seven comes you and I. It says, so God created

mankind in his own image, in the image of God. He created them

male and female. He created them. God blessed them and said to them,

be fruitful, and increase in number. Fill the earth, subdue it.

Rule over the fish of the sea, and everybody said amen, and

the birds of the sky, and over every living creature that moves on the

ground. Then he said this. Then God said, so he creates Adam

and Eve. And he says, Adam and Eve, I want you to

look around. You see all these trees, all these plants, all these

vines. You see the things hanging from them that looks so appetizing. Says

this, He says, I give you every seed bearing plant on the face

of the whole earth, and every tree that has fruit with seed in it,

these will be yours for food, he says, Adam and Eve.

These things that look appetizing, that's your food. So Adam and Eve go

over. They start picking these plants and vegetables and fruit, and they start

eating. But then God says Adam and Eve, be careful. Cannot eat

the seed. He said He in every piece of fruit and in every vegetable

inside of it is the seed. And that seed is for you to have

food in the future. So you got to take that seed and plant that

seed. You cannot eat it. If you eat it, you will not

have a future. But if you take it and plant it, you'll have

food for the future. Church. This is such an important principle for you

and I to understand. Don't eat the seed. If you eat the seed,

you don't have a future. But you plant seed now believing you're going

to reap a harvest on it in the future. Here's the crazy thing about

a seed. That little tiny seed doesn't just produce one piece of fruit.

Die and I have an apple tree in our backyard. I am not exaggerating,

and I say this one tree every year produces hundreds of apples. I

didn't plant the tree. I didn't have vision for the tree. I don't

even know how old the tree is, how long it's been there. I

just know that someone had vision and they saw a tree there, and they

planted a seed, and it grew into this tree that produces a multitude of

apples. One seed produces a tree that can harvest apples year after year after

year. You're with me still, Genesis eight. So now we're the time

of Noah. So God has taught Adam and Eve this principal plant seed,

so you have a future. So they're doing this. Flood comes, time

of Noah comes, and then God should with Noah Verse twenty two of chapter

eight. This is referred to by theologians as the immutable laws. What does

this mean? It means you have nothing to do with this, You have

no control over this. You're stuck with this. This is the way it

is. You can pray all you want, these things will happen, and

here's the immutable laws that these happen, whether you like it or not.

Says as long as the earth endures. Guess what other translations say, as

long as the earth remains the earth is still here. I know you've been

warned by all your environmentalist friends that it's going away, but it still exists.

So as long as the earth endures, these things will happen. Seed

time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.

They will never cease, whether you like it or not. Winter is

coming in Seattle. Man. I pray, I've tried, I've facted,

I've sought the heart of God, and it still gets cold and rainy here

every winter. I pray like I don't know if it's El ninyo or La

nin ya. I know that one of them is supposed to be good.

I pray for the good one, and it still is cold here. It

doesn't have anything to do. I have three kids, and when my kids

were little, they prayed every day that night would not come. But every

night they had to go to bed. Like you and I have no control

over these things. Three of them, they just happen. But there's one

that God invites you and I to participate in the process, and that is

seed time and harvest. You and I get to be actively involved in the

process. Church, do you realize your future, your tomorrow is totally dependent

upon what you do today. You are making decisions right now for what your

tomorrow will look like. And this applies to every single area of your life.

You are planting seeds now that are guaranteeing you a future tomorrow. Some

of you were thinking, well, this is just in Genesis, Jesus came

died on the cross. I don't even worry about the Old Testament. All

right, Let's see what the New Testament says. These are the words of

Paul. Paul is echoing back to that principle in Genesis in Galatians chapter six.

Here's what Paul said. He said, don't be deceived. What would

we be deceived by? We would be deceived by the idea that those Old

Testament principles don't apply to us. Paul is saying, don't believe that lie.

They do, whether you like it or not. Seed time and harvest,

and he says this, He said, a man reaps what he sows.

Whoever sows to please this flesh from his flesh will reap destruction. Whoever

sows to please his spirit from the spirit will reap eternal life. My future

is totally determined by what I plant today. The seeds that I plant today

are what I will sow and reap on in the future. And this applies

to every area of your life. Many of you hear you're a parent.

Why do you, as a parent raise your kids in church? Why do

you make sure that they're in the kids classroom? Why do you make sure

that you pray with your children, read the Bible with your children? Why

do you do that because you are planting seeds today that you are hoping to

reap on in the future. Because they will become teenagers, and when they

become keenagers, they have a mind of their own, and then they become

young adults and they really have a mind of their own. And you,

as a parent, as you worry about your kids, you want to be

able to hold on to the fact that I planted good seed with my children,

and I'm going to hold on to God's promise which tells me that if

I raise my child in the way that they should go when they're old,

they will not depart from it. Do you plant seeds now believing for the

future. You do this with your physical health. Why do you learn discipline

habits to work out and eat right when you're young so you don't reap a

negative health in the future. And this really applies to your finances. You

should discipline yourself now so you get your paycheck. The first ten percent of

your paycheck you tithe. The next ten percent you should put in savings.

Why, because you are planting seeds now that you will reap on in the

future. You want to tithe to make sure that you stay in the blessing

line. I always tell people you can choose to tie or not. But

here's the deal. You're making a decision. Am I going to be in

the bless me line? Or do I want to live in the test me

line? And people don't like taking tests. And the reason that you put

money in savings is that you don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. You don't

know when a car breaks down, or a furnace breaks or a pipe explodes.

Come on, you're making decisions now for the future. We're doing this

date night in a couple of weeks. Why should you go to the date

night? I got a good marriage because you're planting seeds now to make sure

you have a good marriage in the future. Some of you were saying,

I already walked an altared with my wife I said, I do. I'm

gonna tell your wife ate that seed a long time ago. You gotta keep

planting seeds in your marriage over and over and over again. Why do you

go to things like that because you're planting seeds to reap a harvest in your

marriage in the future. The number of times we as pastors have had this

conversation, I wished I would have gone to that. I wished I would

have done pre marriage counseling. I wished I would have done this, and

I wished I would have done that. And then we always look at them

and say why didn't you, And they'll say, I was too busy here,

I didn't have enough time, or I didn't think it was important,

and I just look and say, a man reaps what he sows. But

I do definitely believe that this applies to our giving two. As we enter

into twenty twenty four, our church has three major focuses for the year.

Morgan preached on one a couple of weeks ago, and it's gratitude twenty years

of venture. I want you to look around and just say, look what

the Lord has done. Look at God. Lets me be a part of

and just be thankful. For the blessing that God has allowed us to be

a part of. So I want us to look at twenty twenty four with

gratitude. And then last week I talked about the second thing I want us

to focus on, which is growth. We've had so many people come to

our church and find Jesus within the last three years, and as the pastor

who has the heart of an evangelist, I love it. I love seeing

people commit their life to Christ, to renew their commitment to Christ. But

ultimately, the pastoral side of me wants you to be a fully developed follower

of Jesus, wants you to grow. My desire for you is that you

love this book. One of the creeds that venture is we believe that Gospel

changes lives. That it is not my persuasive speaking. It's not a one

liner that a preacher does that changes your life. It's God's word that if

you will get this word in your heart and in your mind, it will

transform you from the inside out. We want you to grow. And the

third thing we're believing for for this year is to unlock radical generosity in our

church. Last portion of scripture I want to teach is in the Book of

Ecclesiastes. Some of you have never turned there before. As you're finding it.

It's page five ninety nine in my Bible. If that helps, let

me tell you a little bit about Ecclesiastes as you're trying to find it.

It was written by Solomon, David's son, the King of Israel. What

they've said about Solomon is that there's never been a smarter person that has ever

walked this earth. There's also never been a wealthier person that's ever walked this

earth. Solomon, at a key point when he was beginning being king,

the Lord to him and gave him a wish. Basically, he said,

Solomon, you can ask me for one thing, and I'll give you whatever

you want. Process that one. If God said to you, I'll give

you one thing, whatever you ask, I will give to you. What

would you ask for. I think many of us we'd ask for unlimited money,

make us president, you know, we'd ask for power. We'd ask

for maybe the healing of a loved one, but it would be very much

focused that way. But Solomon actually said, God, give me the wisdom

to lead well. And God was so blessed by Solomon's answer that he not

only gave him the wisdom to lead well. But he also gave him wealth

and power and affluence that was beyond imagination. So Solomon, this powerful,

wise king, writes several books in the Bible. He wrote Song of Songs.

Song of Songs he wrote when he was young and in love, and

it's full of romance and hope for the future. Ecclesiastes. I like it

because he wrote it as an old guy. He had led, he'd gone

through the ebbs and flows of life, and he was looking back and he

was giving advice to people. So these are the words of a successful leader

later on in his career, giving advice to those that are younger. Do

you understand the context. Here's what he says. Ecclesiastes, chapter eleven,

Verse one, cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it

after many days. What is he talking about. He's actually talking about generosity.

So he started with this understanding that if you cast your bread upon the

water, you'll eventually have it returned to you. And then he says this

in verse two. He says, invest in seven ventures, yes and eight,

because you do not know what disaster may come upon this land. Before

Warren Buffett told you to diversify your investments. Solomon did. Before there was

Merrill Lynch or Edward Jones, there was Solomon. He's saying, don't just

put all of your resources in one endeavor. Invest in seven ventures, maybe

eight, because you don't know which one is going to turn a profit.

Then he goes on, smartest man that ever lived, wrote this, if

the clouds are full of water, they pour rain on the earth. Moved

here. When I was in first grade, I learned within a month to

look outside and see a cloud, and I knew if I needed an umbrella.

I mean, we all know that cloud it's gonna rain. But the

smartest man that ever lived says, hey, if there's water in a cloud,

it's gonna rain. It's like the ultimate Yeah. And then he drops

this one. Tell me if this is not wise. He says, whether

a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where

it falls, there it lies. Here's what he's saying. If a tree

falls right here, it's not here, it's right there. If it falls

here, there it is. You should be asking why why is he doing

this? Why is he giving us these no duh statements? Because he's trying

to emphasize, not one of you will argue with the fact that if a

cloud is full of water, it's gonna pour rain on the land. But

if a tree falls and it's right there there, it is not one of

you will argue with that. But for some reason, for generations, people

argue with casting your bread upon the water, And after many days you will

reaper return. So you can believe that, why is it you can't believe

this principle? And he dives in and he says this. He says,

whoever watches the wind will not plant. He says, if you only pay

attention to the circumstances in your life, you'll never give. If you wait

until your finances are set up this way, you'll never be generous. He

who looks at the wind, he'll never plant. And he says, he

who looks at the clouds, that person will never reap a harvest. He

says, if all you pay attention to is the circumstances and situations in your

life, you will argue away from giving over and over and over again.

You will never live a generous life, and you will never reap what it

means to cast your bread upon the water. And many days later, receive

a return if you only pay attention to the wind and the clouds, the

circumstances. And he says this. He says, as you don't know the

path of the wind or how the body is formed in the mother's womb,

so you can't understand the work of God, the maker of all things.

I love this. He's saying, you and I will never understand the mind

of God. There are principles, spiritual principles that you and I are to

live according to that logically don't make sense in our minds. Just as you

cannot wrap your mind around how God has always been and he always will be.

Just says you can't wrap your head around this, you might not be

able to wrap your head around casting your bread upon the water, and after

many days you will reap a return. He says, just as you trust

these other facts, trust this. Then he ends it by saying, sow

your seed in the morning and in the evening. Let your hands not be

idle, for you don't know which will succeed, whether this or that,

whether both will do equally well. I love it. Solomon is giving advice.

He's saying, give and trust God, pray like crazy, trust Jesus,

for your family, for your business, for your finances. And he

said, and at the same time, work like crazy, pray like it

depends on God, and work as if it depends on you. And he

says, maybe both working together will lead to your success in life. They

handed out this piece of paper when you came in, and it says,

I we commit to tithing. That's my challenge for you today. I'm going

to invite our ushers to make their way forward. We are going to receive

our mornings tithe. But before we do, here's what I want to challenge

you with. I want to challenge you this year cast your bread upon the

water. I want to challenge you to tithe. Some of you were saying,

well, I already do that. We really want everyone to fill this

out. If you already do it, you're just committing to continue tithing.

But for many of you, this is the first time I have this idea,

this vision in my head that we are going to receive like six hundred

of these back. And if we do, the mission of Jesus for this

church won't be hindered by the resource of this church. If just the people

in our church are obedient to what God has asked them to do. Two

last things as you're filling all this out that I want to say, and

then I'm gonna pray. There are two things that I share during discover one

oh One that at Venture, we don't argue about two things. You can

come in debate with us about any issue biblical, spiritual, economic, political,

we don't care anything. But I don't argue about these two things.

Number One, I do not argue about women in leadership period. We have

women pastors, we have women preachers, we have women leaders. I don't

have that argument because I've concluded after years of leading Venture, that the only

people that argue with me about this are people that are already saved. They

came from some sort of religious tradition that's said otherwise. In the end,

I tell them up front, let's not even argue about this because I'm not

changing Venture. I'm probably not changing your mind. So if you're going to

come here, you accept that this is a non negotiable for our church.

Number Two, the other thing we don't argue about. We don't argue about

the principle of tithing. Again, years of serving at this church, I

have learned that the only people that have ever argued with me about giving are

people that have come from another church. The thousands of people over the years

that have gotten saved at this church, they don't seem to have a problem

with the principle of generosity and giving, so we don't even argue about it.

We believe in generosity here and I want to challenge you to be generous,

cast your bread upon the water, and then after many days, you'll

reap a return. It was nine years ago I get a phone call from

a friend. His name is Terry Gurno, and he said, Brandon,

let'sh coffee. And at this coffee he said, Hey, I have been

the interim pastor at a little church in Moscow, Idaho. He said,

they're down to eight people and they're going to close their doors. And he

says, but the eight people that are there still talk about that time ten

years ago you came and preached at their church. He said, would you

consider having venture take over this closed church and launching a campus in Moscow,

Idaho. Well, I I preached it probably two dozen churches, raising money,

and over the years I only remember speaking at that Moscow church. And

when Terry came and made this proposal. Before I could even think logically about

it. I thought of the verse that I preached at the church, cast

your bread upon the water, and after many days, maybe nine years,

you'll reap a reward. So I said yes. Fast forward ten years later.

It was a year and a half ago. We bought the Mormon Tabernacle

in Moscow, renovated into a big church. You're gonna hear us talk next

week that our Poloosee campus is running over three hundred people. It's a thriving

campus today. And who knew. So I can preach that Ecclesiastes passage and

tell you I was not smart enough to figure out that any of this would

have ever been a possibility. Well, God does. Doesn't make sense to

me, but I know that His principles are true, and you are determining

now what your tomorrow will be. As these buckets are passed, I want

you to drop in this commitment and also your offering. Let me pray,

Lord Jesus, I thank you for venture and the people over the years that

have lived extravagantly generous lives. This is a church that has been marked by

radical generosity, and I thank you for those people and as we enter into

the next twenty I'm praying for even greater, more extravagant generosity in our church.

Speak to people, challenge people to make the commitment to tithe and to

give. And Lord, I pray that you would take the small seed that

we plant, and that you