Pastor Brodie Kalamen | Be a Blessing | Open Hands Open Heart | November 8th, 2020

Hey, let's take a moment to go ahead and text and share this stream with some of the people that are on your friends list on Facebook, perhaps, or go ahead and throw a text to someone.

It's always great when you're hearing the message together.

It gives you something common to pray into, to talk about, and hear the message together.

What is God saying to the church at this time?

We want to be able to rally as many people together as possible.

For all those of you who are faithfully online every Sunday, thank you for leading from your living room.

I know the engagement process is such an important process for us as a church.

We're a charismatic, we're an engaged church, and I know that if you're home watching, you're engaging today.

It may mean a book and notes and your Bibles out, you're ready to listen to the word.

Way to go.

It's great to have you joining with us at Kelowna Christian Center.

My name is Brody Calluman.

I'm the lead pastor here at Kelowna Christian Center.

And I'm so excited to be able to share with you this new series that we've entitled Be the Blessing.

Be the Blessing, where we endeavor to live life with an open hand and to love with an open heart.

It's our intention this month to actually go ahead and make a difference wherever we're going.

And I want you to be a part of this journey.

We've done this for a number of years.

At about this time of the year, we use the opportunity of the season to go and make a difference in the lives of other people.

And it's either through intentional acts of service or through intentional special giving.

So we want you to participate along with us during this series.

Specifically this week, we'll be discussing what it means to be a blessing.

A blessing.

And if you're having difficulty identifying with that terminology, with that language, what does a blessing really mean?

And you're struggling with the semantics of that word because it sounds a little bit old-fashioned, perhaps.

I'd like you to translate the word blessing into the word giver.

Be the giver.

Be the one who's giving.

Be the one who's got something to offer.

Be the one who's got something to pass on to someone else.

This message isn't about receiving, it's about the opportunity of being able to be the giver in this season.

In our culture, in our environment, in our neighborhoods, in our church, to our friends, to our family, in our workplace, wherever you are, we're being the giver.

Now, in studying about this attitude and the biblical concept and aspect of living as this blessing, this person who goes about blessing, this person who goes about giving, there's a biblical saying that I've actually heard a lot, specifically in the last number of years, and it's this it's you can never outgive God.

You can never outgive God.

It just tells so much about his nature.

There's something about that phrase that really is so compelling to me that I've always found it to be true.

I've always found it to be true of his nature, that our God is a giving God.

And I'm intentional in pursuing that, that same attitude, that same spirit day to day.

I think about it like my grandma's apple pie.

She can make the best apple pie.

And I endeavor, I don't know how to make it, but I endeavor, there's something in me that is compelled to go ahead and try and be like grandma.

Be like the one who makes this delicious apple pie that's always such a treat in Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So today, our message, I want to lean into the reality that Jesus was the greatest giver.

He was the greatest blesser of all time.

And I want to lean into some of these powerful principles that we read from the book of Philemon.

Now, the book of Philemon is a short book in the scripture, and we're going to be taking a passage from Philemon chapter 1, verse 6, and reviewing that today.

Philemon 1:6

And it's a letter from Paul to his friend and his fellow worker, Philemon.

And so we can become more like him.

And this is the challenge of Paul to Philemon to be more like Jesus.

Wouldn't that make a difference in the world?

If all of us took one step closer in our journey, in our life journey to being more like Jesus, what would that do to our city?

What impact would that have in our community, in our neighborhoods, in our family?

We want to be like Jesus.

So the first principle is this: giving starts with God.

Giving begins with God, and it's really important for us to recognize that God, that giving starts with Him.

If you look in the book of Philemon, chapter 1, verse 6, take a look at this portion of Scripture, and we're going to highlight a few pieces in this at this point here.

Philemon 1:6

It says, I am praying that you will put into action the generosity that comes from your faith.

As you understand and you experience all the good things we have in Christ.

Paul just makes it abundantly clear here.

He knows this generosity that we have, it doesn't come from me.

Like I can take credit for a lot of things, but generosity does not come from me.

It comes from where?

It comes from my faith.

It comes from God.

Everything I am, every part of me that's generous, every part of me that loves to give, it comes from God.

Now, generosity doesn't start with us, it starts with God.

And we have to realize that before we do anything.

We just pause for a moment and we recognize that everything we have comes from God.

And everything we have is based upon what He has already done for us.

It always starts with Him.

In fact, the Scripture makes it really clear.

In Psalm 14, verse 2 and 3, it says, The Lord looks down from heaven, and he looks on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.

Psalms 14:2

I hope we're those who are understanding, those who are seeking God.

All have turned aside, the scripture says, they've become corrupt.

And there's no one who does good, not even one.

Like there's no one here that has goodness inside of them.

There's no one good, not even a little bit good.

There's no one good, there's nothing good in me that's original in me.

Everything that's good in me comes from God.

We don't naturally carry this generous spirit.

Everything we do, we we think about if we're going to give something, what are we going to get out of it?

But generosity is different.

We want this generosity to be alive in our hearts.

So generosity, from its original language, uh traced throughout scripture, has a connotation to it.

And this connotation represents a full saturation.

A full saturation.

Let me express it this way.

It's like someone jumping off the top diving board and hitting the ground with a cannonball.

Or hitting the water with a cannonball.

If they hit the ground, that'd be a problem.

But if they hit the water with a cannonball, I've seen it happen where this spray of water erupts from the pool and it drenches all those who are sitting around the pool and perhaps lounging, uh getting some sun or whatever it may be, they they get drenched.

That's the spirit of generosity.

It's a full saturation.

It not only drenches you, but it drenches everyone else.

It's different than someone who just dips their toe in the water and checks the temperature of the water.

Generosity means your cup runs over.

Or the, as the King James says, your cup runneth over.

It runs over.

In other words, you have enough for yourself, but you also have more than enough.

You have enough to be able to be a giver to other people.

This definition is just so apropos when we think about God, despite what some people might believe about God, the truth is that God is an extravagant God.

He's a generous God.

He's an extravagantly generous God.

When it comes to love, the Bible says he doesn't just give a little love.

In fact, the Bible says he pours out unconditional love.

Ephesians says, look at the depth, look at the breadth, look at the height, look at the width of this love.

It's love that you can't contain.

And it's unconditional.

When we look at grace, it's not just a dab of grace.

It's not just a spoonful of grace.

In fact, this grace is incomprehensible.

Where sin abounds, grace abounds more so.

Where you think, oh man, there's nothing that could forgive me.

There's no one who could forgive me in this moment.

Grace comes and forgives us.

It is truly amazing grace.

My grace, the scripture said, is sufficient for you.

His power is made perfect when you are weak.

In your weakness, he steps in and becomes strength.

You don't know what you don't have enough in you to offer, he steps in and fills you up and gives you enough.

He makes you sufficient.

God's forgiveness is generous.

It's not just for small things.

But in fact, when you've gone off course and you've lived your life far from God, his forgiveness reaches out to you, into your life, and he brings you close and he identifies with you and he draws you into a relationship and he rejoins you not only to other people, but to himself, to your friends, to your family, to your community, and also to him.

That's God's forgiveness.

If the scripture says it's as simple as if you confess your sin, he's faithful, he's just, he's willing to forgive you and purify you from all your unrighteousness, from your sin.

And your freedom, if we think about freedom, a lot of people, when they think about the church and they think about God, they think he's about restrictions.

But it could be no, it could be no further from the truth.

In fact, the scripture says that in Isaiah that he actually came to declare freedom to captives, to those who are trapped, to those who are boxed in.

He said, This is the year of Jubilee.

This is the year of freedom.

This is the year of our God.

So go ahead and just enjoy this life that's been so generously given to you.

The scripture says the enemy comes to rob, kill, steal, and destroy, but God has come.

Jesus came that you may have life to abundance.

There's freedom in this.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom wherever he goes.

He ushers with him freedom.

It's such a liberating experience to be walking with God everywhere you go.

You experience and you can offer freedom to whoever is there.

Our God is an extravagant God.

The Bible, over and over, it describes God as this giving God, extravagant God.

And it's fundamental to who he is.

It's in his character.

He doesn't change.

He's this giving God, the father of blessings.

James 1.17 says this every good and every perfect gift comes from God.

Every good gift, every perfect gift comes from God.

He's like the father of light.

Everywhere he goes, just like light shines, he's offering and giving gifts.

So when we come around this conversation about giving and being the giver, we have to realize that we can't start with ourselves.

Brody doesn't have the capacity to give.

But we need to start with him.

Because when we start with him, we have everything that we need.

It's like he becomes our the giver in and through us.

Before we talk about what we can do, we need to talk about what God has already done.

The Lord, Psalms 84, says this, verse 11, for the Lord our God is our son and shield.

The Lord bestows favor and honor.

No good thing does he withhold from us.

From those who walk with him, blameless, those who walk with him, he doesn't withhold one good thing from us.

If there's something good for you, God wants to give it to you.

And that's just incredible.

And we might say, well, I don't get all the things that I think I want.

Well, God knows if it's a good thing for you, He'll give it to you.

God is a giver.

If it's something He knows that you need, He's something that you know, He knows that you don't have the sufficiency, He will become the sufficiency for you.

He will become the provider for you, He will become the offering for you.

People struggle with this.

And I know that there's a struggle in our culture because we think that God, when He comes, He takes things away.

He doesn't give things to us.

And let me just try and address this from a practical space.

I can imagine that there may be people who are watching online and you haven't crossed that line of faith yet.

And you haven't made that decision to choose Christ personally.

You're still even looking at the church, and perhaps you're even kicking the tires a little bit, thinking, is this really for me?

And if that's you, I want you to know that before anything else, I'm so thankful that you've come and you've tuned in and you're listening today and you're allowing us to be a part of that spiritual journey and just influence that way, answering those spiritual questions.

But at KCC, I want this place to be a place where you can belong here first, and you can come with your questions.

You don't have to believe first.

You can just come and just bring these questions because I want to help move you to a place where you realize the true nature of God and the fact that God is a giver.

Because sometimes it comes in this conversation about giving.

We have an apprehension or perhaps even a resistance to this reality in this conversation.

And you might even have tuned in thinking, oh, this is the church, and of course, the church just wants things from me.

They want my money, they want my service, they want my time, they want all these things from me, they want my faith.

All this is from you to us.

But we don't have a conversation like this because of what God wants from you or from somebody.

We have a conversation like this for what God can do for you and for somebody.

This isn't to take anything away from you.

This is a uh an expression of who the church is to actually announce to you who God truly is and what he wants for you because God is the giver.

He gave first before you could give anything.

God's already that giver.

And that doesn't change in him.

The question is, do we receive it or not?

That's the question.

Maybe this time you're joining us this weekend, and the reason why you're here is not based uh on what you'll be compelled to give.

Perhaps today it's what you're going to receive.

And I understand that, and I appreciate that, and I want that for you.

So don't see this as a message about taking.

This is a message about you just receiving that.

God is a giving God, and He's offering you something today.

And that's a part of His nature, and it will not change.

So believe that today.

We're recipients of God's grace, and He chooses to give it to us, He chooses to give us that life, and we appreciate it so much.

So giving, number one, starts with God.

Number two, giving transforms our hearts.

Philemon says this I'm praying that you will put into action.

Action happens because of something that happens in your heart.

The generosity that comes from your faith.

As you understand and you begin to experience all the good things you have in Christ, giving actually transforms your heart.

When you begin to understand and you begin to experience his generosity to you, it changes your heart.

Giving transforms your heart.

You can notice that Paul is saying that giving it starts with God, but certainly there's something that happens when we all put the very same thing into action.

We begin to model this example in our lives, we begin to apply it in our living it in our lives by living it out.

We begin to understand and experience generosity.

And when you begin to understand and experience generosity, it changes you.

You begin to understand and experience this, it changes you.

You think, wow, generosity.

God was generous with me, and look how it changed me.

If I was generous with someone else, how will it not only change me, but change others as well?

When we understand and experience generosity, it changes our heart.

You cannot experience the reality of God, a reality of his nature, without having a conversion experience, a transformational experience in your own life.

Paul said you'll experience all the good things we have in Christ when we put generosity into action.

I've uh noticed in my life that really people walk with two types of postures.

They tend to walk through life with an open hand, open hand, or a closed hand.

And they walk through life open or closed, and this translates, and this could be no more true than it translates in their life.

Because not only do people walk that way with an open or a closed hand, but they walk their life, it begins to emulate that spirit or that posture on how they walk.

Um I remember this last week, as many of you know, is uh October 31st.

And October 31st, um, as usual, we actually at our home become a light on our street.

And it looked a little different this year, but we become this uh party place on our street.

And it's in our cul-de-sac, and after a super busy evening of being able to throw candies down a shoot, down to the kids at the bottom of our our driveway.

Um, we handed out candy.

I decided, you know what, I'm gonna start to scavenge a little bit of candy off my kids, right?

Like every good dad should do.

It's the dad tax, right, for Halloween.

But I went to their um their candy bags and I saw them sorting everything out on the floor and separating them all into chocolate bars, and they were gonna start doing their trades.

You know, I'll trade you two boxes of Smarties for anything because no one liked the Smarties.

Maybe you do, and I'm I'm just sorry.

We'll pray for you later if you like the Smarties.

But but in this point, in this point, I looked at it and I knew what I wanted.

And I was gonna grab some of those, that candy, and I went down to reach for one, and the response I got from my boys in particular was a fervent no way, that's mine.

And I knew it.

I could see it in their eyes, I could see it in their posture.

They were hoarding that candy.

It was a mountain of candy.

Did they have enough candy?

They have enough for a year, but it was there.

And as a dad, my question was this simply it was like, at what point of this journey does this belong strictly to you?

At what point in this journey does all this candy belong only to you?

I'm not if I'm not mistaken, I own the house, I owned, I bought the costume, I went and dressed up the house, and mom went walking down the street with you.

Provided the opportunity for you to go out and gave you the bag, and uh now you're sitting on my floor in my place, sorting out candy that you think belongs to you and you're gonna hold back from me.

Oh my goodness, it really hit home for me.

And if you can see the spirit in it, I I pushed it a little bit, perhaps, but after realizing like my airtight rationale wasn't going to pass for the boys, uh, they gave me some candy and they were happy to do it.

But I can't be too hard on them because I realize that that same posture is actually in my heart at times.

Where I begin to hold back in my life to God in my life, and I'm sure that God sometimes may ask the same question of us and say, you know, at what time in this journey of your life did you come to a conclusion that this is strictly yours?

That you were produced, you produced this, that you have this because of what you did.

And everything you have in your journey is really made possible because of the things that God facilitated for me in my life, for my experience.

And God is literally the owner of everything.

The psalmist even said it this way he said, the earth is the Lord's, everything in it, it all belongs to him.

The world in it, all who live in it, it belongs to him.

But in my life at times, I like to hold things to myself.

Everything I have belongs to him.

My car, my house, my my everything, my, even though my investments have my name on the title, they belong to him.

Everything I have belongs to him.

The air I breathe belongs to him.

It's his.

And he's been open with me.

This is the core of Lordship.

When you say, Jesus is my Lord, Jesus is my master, you're literally saying, Lord, you have my everything.

And really, he's either Lord of all or he's not Lord at all.

He gets it all or he doesn't get it all.

And in my life, I've chosen to say, Lord, it all belongs to you.

Now, what do you want me to keep?

What do you want me to hold on to?

And if you're wise, we realize that God wants to do what he wants to do is place resources in our hand in order to share them and be able to give them to others so that his kingdom, his message, his mission is accomplished.

So we open up our hand to be able to release to others.

Now, if we go back to these two postures, this open hand posture is really the posture we want to be living with.

The person with an open hand has this intention to be a blessing to others.

I want to be someone who lives with an open hand.

I can enjoy what God has given me, and then I can release what he wants me to be able to release to others.

When it comes to this open hand posture, I've realized that the people who live this way oftentimes are purpose-driven, joy-filled, peace-filled, they're happy, people, they've got a grace in them, they're always walking with their head up, they're not, they're not in any way postured to be restrictive.

They're hospitable, they're the type of people that you just love to be around.

On the contrary, you have people who walk with a closed fist or closed hand.

And those people who walk with a closed hand, if you know those people, they walk through their life and they walk through it with like a stingy spirit.

They're always protecting and hoarding and covering things, they're always anxious about the things that they have and what they do have, and they don't realize that everything they have actually was given to them.

And when they walk with a closed fist, there's a challenge to this because if you were to throw me something right now, I could receive it.

Because I'm walking with a closed hand.

And so it keeps you from being able to receive from God.

It keeps you from being able to receive everything that God has for you.

So we don't want to walk with a closed hand.

We want to walk with an open hand.

And what Paul is saying here says when you lean into God and you say, Lord, I have an open hand, an open hand, it will translate from the hand to the heart, and it will move from here to here and be able to release back to others.

God will give to you what he can't trust will flow through you.

So we live our life, our best life is lived with an open hand and an open heart.

So not only does giving start with God, but giving transforms our heart.

And lastly, giving fuels the mission.

Specifically, it fuels God's mission.

There's a proverb, and it says this, and I've discussed this with our Connect group at times.

Uh just this past week, I made this our discussion point.

And I said, Proverbs 11:10, it says, When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices, the city celebrates.

Proverbs 11:10

When the godly succeed, the city celebrates.

And I haven't like really experienced that when people prosper.

When people prosper, like you hear of Jeff Bezos, he made another billion dollars, a few billion dollars, and he wants to, he's on track to being the next trillionaire, personal trillionaire.

It's like I I don't celebrate that.

I don't celebrate it.

And so where's in this proverb, where's the reality that when when people are prospering, then the city rejoices?

Um personally, I've had this, even had to look at my own heart and said, you know, when people prosper, do I celebrate?

And I think about my friend who went out salmon fishing and I was on another boat, and he was, he and his wife were on another boat, and and they came in and they came into the shore and they had their full limit of salmon.

And I was thinking, man, that's so I was I was celebrating with them, but part of that celebration was a little bit uh little bit internal because I was thinking, man, we're gonna have smoked salmon and steaks, and I was just happy for them for the things that I could receive.

And in that same spirit, I think, that's where people begin to celebrate.

And the whole city celebrates, the scripture says, when the godly succeed, because the godly take the prosperity, take the success in life, take the blessing, and they pour it out to the city.

So when the city sees the righteous succeeding, the righteous are are, they know that those are the type of people that will give to others and bless others and be the givers.

And when they come with that heart of success, and they the city knows that they'll become the benefactor of that success.

In a practical way, I hope that's what KCC still holds in their heart and towards their community.

And they continue to hold this reputation that we've had in our DNA for the last 40 years.

Believe it or not, I've been in this church for 40 years, and I've watched the church be extremely, extravagantly, even to sacrificially giving, to the point where they're generous to our community and generous to the people around us.

And I hope that when you see this generosity and you see the city celebrating along with us, that you begin to celebrate as well.

Let me give you a few examples here.

Every time you hear of a young adult coming to a place where they realize that their life has become restored and they begin to serve in ministry, I think about our Lake Country campus.

I hope you celebrate.

Those young people coming to Christ and lives being restored.

Every time you hear of someone being baptized, I hope you celebrate.

I did a baptism of two weeks ago on the first snowfall of the year.

I was in Okanagan Lake with my fishing waders on, and I baptized a woman from our church congregation before her family, and it was just one of the most incredible experiences.

I hope you celebrate.

When every time you hear of someone overcoming addiction and moving forward in their faith from some of the counseling service and addiction services that we love to support here, or from the organizations that use our facilities out at Lake Country, I hope you celebrate along with the community.

When you hear of a student that's come to know Christ and found belonging and service and is connected and found life because of the ministries of our church youth program at KC Youth, I hope you celebrate.

When you hear of a child taking a step closer in their faith through our KC Kids ministry, I hope you celebrate.

When you hear of a person coming to Christ because of our delivery of Bibles in Thailand and our mission outreaches through Ethnos Asia, through people from within our church, I hope you celebrate with them.

When you hear of a church expanding in Mexico and churches being built and the expansion into our community and the service into our community and into the mountain communities in Mexico, I hope you celebrate.

When you hear of the Jewish families being fed and the churches that are under persecution being served in Israel and the ministries that we're supporting there, I hope you celebrate.

When you think of Kenya and our agents in Kenya, there's Larry and Francine Cruthers who are serving those who need hospital attention, medical attention, and kids going through our children's homes.

I hope you celebrate.

When you hear of every child who's moving forward in their life and forward in their faith, when a neighbor comes to the church and a need is met through our compassionate ministries and the houses of mercy, I hope you celebrate.

People celebrate when the godly succeed.

The city celebrates when the godly succeeds.

And I pray that you as a church may celebrate as well, along with us.

It's a practical place to be.

And I know that there's so many ways to be generous, and we're going to give opportunities for you to be generous this month.

In the month of November, we have some areas we'd like to give resources towards and be able to support for our children and our and our families and some of our seniors and into our missions.

And I'm just encouraging you to pray and to start with prayer and say, Lord, instead of, you know, how much should I give?

Just say, Lord, how much do you want me to hold on to?

So that I can like replicate and mirror who you are as the great giver, as the great blesser.

We have so many opportunities to give online, on our app, uh come to the office, come talk to some of our pastors.

There's a place for you, there's a place in our heart for your treasure, and we can help facilitate that.

May the Lord bless you.

And if you've been here today and you're you've never experienced this giving spirit of Jesus in your own life, I would love to be able to pray with you today.

And we have a prayer that we pray with everyone who comes to know Christ.

And it's a simple ABC.

You've got to accept him to be your personal Lord and Savior.

We talked about that today.

Making Jesus Lord, Lord of all.

And believe in your heart, the scripture says that He rose from, He went to the cross and He rose from the grave and He defeated death and He took sin, your sin on your behalf, and then confess Him to be your Lord, then you too can receive Christ.

And you too can receive this great forgiveness when we repent and we say, Lord, I'm sorry for living my life my own way.

So if you haven't received Christ today, I want to pray this prayer with you.

I'm gonna read it so you can pray it along on the screen.

And uh may the Lord bless you.

I'm gonna pray this simple prayer.

Lord Jesus, thank you for coming to earth.

I believe you died and you rose again so that I could be forgiven and have a friendship with you.

And right now I ask that you forgive me for my sin.

I let the past go.

I ask you to come into my life to be my savior.

I receive you today as my savior and to be my Lord.

Make me the person you want me to be.

Thank you.

Amen.

God bless you.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at our at the church at Colonel Christian Center.

We love you.