All In 2 | Jesus, The Generous Giver

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Our desire is that today's message will be fresh and encouraging to you.

For more information on KCC and how to connect, visit us at KCC.net.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Yay.

How many of you are thankful today?

All right.

We're in continuing our series in October called All In.

Would you say that?

All in.

All in.

Now turn to your neighbor and tell them, all in.

That's right.

That's right.

All in.

It's part of our service series on our core values.

And we're just addressing a number of them throughout this series because we feel like we need just the vision bucket and the value bucket has holes in it.

We just got to keep on filling it up.

We got to keep on reminding ourselves what we're in this for and why it's so important.

And so when you come to KCC, especially this church here, I believe you come, you come as you are.

It's a place where you come as you are, and you don't have to be perfect to come.

When you're all in, you you're coming in flawed, broken.

How many of you came in and you were like a little lost, confused?

A little questions, the questions that were going on in your mind were were all there, and you're like, where, where I know I need Jesus, I know I need this, but I don't know what to do to get it, or where to go to get it, or who to connect to, or what what it is all about, or who this spirit is, or why we raise our hands, or this unction that we have in our our guts inside when we're singing a song about victory, and something comes up inside of us, and it goes, wow, this is truth, and you your spirit resonates with it.

When you come all in, we don't come in perfect, and we don't believe this is a perfect place, but this is a healthy place for you to grow.

It's an important place for you to grow and to bring those questions and to bring those considerations into this place and bring them before the Lord and say, Lord, help me today.

And that's why we go to the Word every Sunday.

How many of you need help to move forward?

How many of you have got questions moving forward?

You've got these thoughts, these considerations that are going on in your own heart.

And you say, in order for you to be all in, you want to be able to go in with intention, go in with knowledge, go in with uh a spirit that says, you know, I know where I'm going, I know what what I have to do, and who I need to become, and and who it is I'm following, I want to go all in.

So this morning, we're gonna be talking about the uh the awareness of the generous gifts that Jesus has given us in our life, and how we too then can echo those gifts and echo that life that He's given us to the world around us.

We have been given so much our cup runneth over.

And we've been blessed to be a blessing to the rest of the world.

So let's just take a moment and pray before we begin.

Let's open our heart to his word.

Father, we thank you today for your word.

It's life, it's truth, it's the way to the Father.

And we thank you, Father, that we, as we were reminded in prayer, we can go boldly into your throne room, before your throne of grace, and we can come boldly into your presence.

So today we take your word and we go boldly into that place where no man has gone before.

We go there today, Lord, into that supernatural place.

And we ask you to do a supernatural work in my in our hearts today.

A work that no doctor, no physician, no counselor could do here on earth, that only you can do.

A moment of revelation, a moment of God knowledge that would change and shift us and move us closer to becoming more like you and your intention for us in our lives.

In Jesus' name.

Everyone who agreed says, Amen.

All right, let's look at Psalm chapter 50, verse 23.

Psalms 50:23

It says this a sacrifice that honors me is a what?

A thankful heart.

This is a sacrifice that honors God.

It's a sacrifice that is an attitude of gratitude.

It's an attitude that is thankful.

It's our thankful note that we just send to Him.

Uh, it's it's in our spirit, we carry it.

And it what's interesting about this sacrifice is that it doesn't matter your age, it doesn't matter time, it doesn't matter space.

You can constantly be giving this sacrifice.

It can be an ongoing sacrifice.

I can I can offer it right now.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

It's a thankful heart.

It's a thankful, it's a thankful heart for the the what God has done in our lives.

It's honoring God, and and it's good for God.

And if that wasn't enough, it also blesses us.

A thankful heart.

Scientists have recorded it's one of the most healthiest emotions that not only benefit God, but benefit us.

And and there's nothing better for your health than actually having thankfulness as a part of who you are.

Listen to some of the benefits.

It opens the door to more relationships.

How many of you love being around thankful people?

Yeah, you like being around people of thanks, it improves your physical health that releases like endorphins and sense of uh life into your own body.

It improves your psychological health when you say thank you.

Just everyone just say thank you.

You just took some medicine right there.

Thank you.

Some of you need to say it again.

Thank you.

Yeah, right on.

It reduces aggression.

Needle your neighbor, yes, you need to say thank you more often.

And enhances empathy.

It is a grateful, this grateful heart allows you to sleep better.

It uh improves your self-esteem by reducing comparison between other people when you say, Thank you, God, for what you've done for me.

Thank you for what I have.

It's it's not about what other people have, it's what you've done for me.

And you begin to be grateful for what has happened in your life.

Thankful heart.

It's important.

So why should we have a thankful heart?

And I believe that we need to have this thankful heart because God has been generous with us.

God has been generous with us.

God was the first and most generous giver.

He was the first one.

He was the first one who gave to us.

He was the first one who forgives us.

He's the first one who loved us.

Look at the scripture here.

God gave us love.

Um, this powerful emotion that the whole world is looking for, people are searching for, there's songs that are being written about it.

We're looking for love.

And uh the scripture says it was Christ first who loved us, and we love him because he first loved us.

How many of you know that you the love we have is first came from him?

He first loved me.

That's the love that God had that while we were still sinners, while we were still far from God, God reached out and loved us and brought us close and welcomed us in.

God loved us first.

And out of that first love came our heart's response towards Him.

Uh, forgiveness, it's that ability, even the ability to be able to forgive, uh, that we might think is just common, exists because God forgave us, that we're supposed to forgive others just like Christ has first forgave us.

We've all experienced this forgiveness.

We've all experienced this, this uh, this um cleansing of our our our sin that when we say to the Lord, I'm sorry, would you forgive me?

I confess I'm a sinner.

The Bible says he is faithful and just to forgive us of all unrighteousness, to give us a new start and a new beginning.

He was the first giver, he was the first forgiver.

He's been generous towards us, and that generosity towards us is what causes us to be thankful to him, to wake up every day with that thankful heart and offer to him a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Thank you, God, for forgiving me.

Thank you, God, for loving me.

Thank you, God, for giving me mercy.

Thank you, God, for giving me freedom of access to the throne of grace.

Thank you, God, for allowing me to come boldly into your throne room.

Thank you.

Amen.

Amen.

God was the first giver.

So generosity, he was generous in this love, generous in this forgiveness.

And generosity is just simply this love in action.

You can give without living, uh loving, but you can't be loving without being generous.

If you are a giver, if you want to be generous, you want to be able to be, uh, and if you want to be loving, you have to be willing to give.

I wouldn't say that I love my kids if I'm not giving of my time, giving of my my compassion, giving of who I am to my children.

I wouldn't say I'd be loving if I'm not giving my wife all of who I am, if I'm reserving something for me, if I, but I'm offering, uh I'm offering a relationship that's uh all in in terms of our marriage.

I want our heart to be considered generous.

I want to be considered generous so that I can experience that love.

It's an all-in love.

And love is all about giving.

It's not about gaining, it's about realizing this generous heart that came from God that we can echo to the world to saying, hey, I I've been given love, I want to be able to, I've been given love, I want to be able to release love to others.

I want to be able to release it to the world that is hungry, that is thirsty for love, the souls are looking for it.

I want to be able to offer that because of how much I've been given.

One of the names of God is Jehovah Jireh.

And Jehovah Jireh means the God who's more than enough, the God of plenty, the God who is generous.

How many of you love the fact that God has been generous with you?

Like just to be able to respond to that and to say, yes, thank you, God, that you've been generous to me.

You've been generous in my life, you've been, you've provided for my needs, you've you've taken care of me when I was down, you pulled me up.

This generous God who is generous in love, generous in forgiveness, generous in mercy, that that spirit that has been generous towards us, we need to now say thank you, God, and now be generous with others.

So I'm gonna talk to you today about this generous heart because he lavished generous he lavished uh his his his love, he lavished his riches of his grace on us.

We want to be able to give it to others.

So I'm gonna look today at a at a portion of scripture uh starting in Luke chapter 8.

Luke 8 · chapter mention

And I'd like to talk to you, share this story that's come from this book.

It's recorded in a number of other of the gospels, but I'm gonna read it uh a part of this scripture to you and just um teach from it today.

It says this after this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.

I love the fact that Jesus wasn't just stationary, he moved.

He was on tour, he was traveling.

I think it'd be so cool to be on tour.

It's like I'm I'm on tour, going from place to place to place to place.

And Jesus was like traveling from city to city to city to city.

And what was he doing?

He was sharing the good news.

He was on this good news tour.

I want I want to go from point to point to point, whoever's willing to listen, and I want to share with them this good news.

And so he said this.

He said, Um there were twelve.

The twelve were with him, and also some women, women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases.

Others were traveling along with Jesus, and these others were were following Jesus, and they were ones who had been cured of of evil spirits and disease.

They were ones who had become who had been set free.

We sang about that word today: freedom.

No one really knows freedom until you've been trapped.

And when you've been trapped, you know what freedom is.

And you're appreciative and you're thankful for it.

And so Jesus had this, his crew, he had his 12 disciples he moved with, but he had others who were following him as well, wherever he went.

And they list a number of them here that were followers of him.

One of them was Mary, not to be confused with his mother, but Mary called Magdalene, and Mary had seven demons who had come out of her.

Thank goodness they came out.

Amen?

Jesus didn't just let her live and it coexist with her pain, coexist with her trouble, but they had us, they had experienced freedom.

So Jesus, Jesus was walking with these women.

One of them, Mary Magdalene, had seven demons come out of her.

And Joanna, the wife of Chusa, the manager of Herod's household, Susanna, and many others.

And these women were helping to support them out of their own means.

And I remember what Jesus was doing.

Acts chapter 10, 38, one of the scriptures that really identifies his ministry, the Bible says that he went around the city on his good news to her, doing good, doing good, and healing all who were under the power of the devil because God was with him.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

Now I just want to comment today about Mary Magdalene.

Mary, the one who was uh was forgiven, the one who had seven evil spirits cast out of her, come out of her, the one who was free.

Mary Magdalene, the kind of pain she must have experienced.

Uh I was looking at what some scholars have said about Mary Magdalene and what the seven demons, and they said that that could be a like virtually, she was emotionally, physically, psychologically uh disturbed completely.

Seven means just fully, just in torment.

And Jesus set her free.

Amen.

There's this freedom that comes when when Jesus says, Hey, I want to set you free.

It doesn't matter if you come with a hundred.

A legion.

You come with your pain, you come with your history, you come dragging in all your baggage.

Jesus can set you free.

And that's so awesome about Mary Magdalene.

She came and she was fully restored, fully healed by Jesus.

In John, we read about how she gave thanks.

And I'm so grateful that she began to experience this thanksgiving back to God.

But then there was another, there was Joanna.

And Joanna, she came, she was serving in, she was a manager of Herod's household.

She was a wealthy woman.

She had means, she had education, she was born into a good financial space.

She followed Jesus and she had all these things.

She had all this reputation, this influence, and she knew what all that she had that was more, what it was for.

She had it.

She had a good resume, she had success.

And he, Jesus not only had Mary with him, but he also had Joanna, someone of influence.

So he had those who were high and those who were low.

Those who had a history, those who who came from a uh difficult past, those who were who grew up in the king uh in Herod's courts.

He had them all.

He had experience those who experienced any point between those two points, Jesus welcomed, come follow me.

And there's grateful, I'm grateful today that God has allowed me to follow him.

I'm grateful today that I've been welcomed to be one of his disciples, to be one of his followers.

And then there's Susanna and the third woman, and she she was just that's just one word, just Susanna.

There's a description about Mary.

She had seven evil spirits.

There's a description about Joanna, but then there's just Susanna.

She doesn't really have a history, uh, a past.

She doesn't really have a present, she doesn't have a future, it's not indicated.

But she's not even mentioned any other place in the Bible.

But Susanna is important.

Susanna is there.

You know, how many of you remember being in high school and you know, there was the the popular crew, there was the talented crew, there was the maybe the media, the tech crews, there were the you know, the the prep crew, there were those who were athletic, and there were those who were like academic, you know, those who who who graduated summa cumulate, those who just graduated, thank you, Lottie.

You know, they're just they're just people in life that that just are just normal, average people, and God Jesus defines here, I'm gonna use them all.

And I'm so grateful for that fact because the one thing that that uh everyone had in common is the cross.

Everyone who had in common at that point was Jesus.

Everyone who had in common at that point was an experience with grace.

They had all come to Jesus and they had all been set free.

So these women, and what's so exciting is that the very last line in this verse it says this these women were helping to support them out of their own means.

This is something I'd never seen before.

They were supporting Jesus, them.

They were supporting Jesus and his disciples out of their own means.

They were contributing to the resourcing and supporting Jesus and the disciples.

They were giving from their excess, they were giving uh because they had received so much.

Mary was giving, Joanna was giving, Susannah was giving.

They were all giving because they had been given so much.

And Jesus, Jesus knew and recognized this.

And we look at how Mary showed her appreciation in John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

She's she's there with Jesus, six days before he's going to be buried.

And the Bible says that Martha, her sister, was serving in the kitchen, and and Mary comes into the room when Jesus was having a Meal in his honor.

And Lazarus, Mary's brother, is leaning on Jesus' side, sitting at that table.

You remember the story of Lazarus, right?

Dead in the grave.

And Jesus comes by and says, Come out.

And brings him from what would have been a death, like a point of death, and brings him back to life.

And so Lazarus is there.

And so Mary not only has had her brother saved, but her own life saved.

And she's there and she sees Jesus.

And she goes into the room and she goes right to his feet.

And she, the Bible says she breaks a bottle of perfume over his feet, and with her tears in her hair, she wipes his feet and cleans his feet.

There's an appreciation not for forgiveness, not because there was anything that she had uh she needed from him.

She was just doing it because she was grateful.

She had looked back at her life and she was so keenly aware of the fact that look what I've been saved from.

Look what I've experienced.

My own brother come out of the grave.

And now look who I get to show my appreciation to.

And so she threw herself at his feet and broke the alabaster bottle.

Like this was a year's worth of salary for one bottle.

She was radical in her giving.

She was excessive in her generosity.

She said, You've given me so much, I'm just gonna give so much back to you.

What can I do to show you how much I love you?

What can I do to show you how much I'm thankful for you?

She poured her life, she poured her heart, she poured herself, she was reckless in her generosity towards him, of her love for him.

Do you understand the heart of Mary?

Magdalene, she was one of the first, was so incredible about Mary.

She was saved, came from like demon torment, to being walking with Jesus and resourcing his ministry, supporting him on the go.

To the fact that she was there, we read about it in the very end.

When the grave, she goes to the grave and she's the first to hear that Jesus is no longer here, but he's alive.

Go tell the disciples.

She became the first messenger to the disciples to announce Jesus is alive.

Jesus used someone who was like, I don't know if anyone in this room could compare it to Mary's position, where she had gone from, what she had come from and come into.

But we see one thing in her life.

She was thankful.

She was grateful.

She was generous in her gratitude.

And so when I watch this, I think about it, and immediately the disciples say, Oh, Jesus, you know, we could have used that money.

We could have broken, you know, that money, that that perfume could have been used to be sold, and we could have given the money to the poor.

And and Jesus, you know what he said?

He said, Be quiet, leave her alone.

What she's doing is good.

Are you saying that it's okay to be generous in our appreciation, generous in our thankfulness?

Amen.

It's okay to be generous in our saying thank you to God, like not just thank you, God, but thank you, God.

The Bible says, sing praise to the Lord, give thanks to the Lord.

Say it with a loud shout.

Say it with uh say it with clapping your hands and dancing, like show God how thankful you come into his presence with thanksgiving in your heart, giving him praise.

This is the spirit that we carry.

That same spirit, Joanna, she gave because of how great her life was.

She's like, Thank you, God, for a good life, for providing for my needs and taking care of me and putting me in a safe place and giving me a good job.

Thank you.

Susanna just gave because she now has an opportunity to make a difference in someone else's life.

I love the fact that that this was so alive in their heart, that this message was so alive in their heart.

Jesus, Jesus was welcome to use anyone.

He was Jesus was a giver.

Like we know that.

He gave of his life and his ministry and his his himself.

And but Jesus was also a borrower.

I like that too.

He borrowed like a boat to speak from, he borrowed some kids' lunch to share with uh 5,000.

He borrowed a tomb, just like an Airbnb.

I'm gonna use it for three days, I'm out.

You know, I'm it's just like he borrowed a lot of stuff, but what I've never noticed is that Jesus is also a receiver.

He was a giver, he was a borrower, but he was also a receiver.

You see, Jesus didn't need, he didn't need anyone to finance his ministry.

He didn't need anyone to, he could snap his fingers and be in a city and do his own tour, but he invited people to give themselves, to give back, to participate with him.

And so what I love right now is this crew of women, these entrepreneurs, these girl bosses, these women who resource Jesus' ministry.

What do you need, Jesus?

I'm gonna set your agenda, I'm gonna pay the bills, I'm gonna take care of this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna I'm gonna provide for you your ministry admin, I'm gonna take care of it, okay?

And Jesus walked with them.

He honored them.

This message today, they gave out of their means, they gave out of their resource, they gave out of their service and their time, they just gave with their whole heart.

That's if we could walk away with anything today, it's Lord, help us to be able to give the way in such a way that honors you for what you've done in our life.

To say thank you to God, to say, thank you, God, for what you've done in our life.

Would you just bow your heads with me this morning and just take a moment with me?

I I know that there's such a there's such a a large group of people here today who come from all different backgrounds and different places.

And maybe you can identify today with Mary Magdalene, and maybe you identify with Joanna.

So I've been given so much right now.

Maybe you can identify with Susanna, and you just say, thank you for just giving me opportunity to serve, giving me opportunity to make a difference.

I just want to say today that God's got you.

God's got you on his on his heart, God's got you on his on his plan, he's welcomed you into the the ministry, he's welcomed you to carry the mission forward.

And today, if you're uh if you're just processing right now and you're you're just it's between you and God, not between you and the people you're sitting beside, but you're saying, God, I'm thankful.

I'm thankful today.

And this the sacrifice of thanksgiving is what you're wanting from me.

But Father, I want I want to do more.

I want to do, I want to do something excessive.

I want to do something radical.

I want to do something that's going to match what Mary did.

I want to break an alabaster bottle.

I want to, I want to give of my life.

I want to be reckless in my generosity and my love towards you.

Uh and you're moving that in your spirit and you're saying, there's a challenge there today.

I just want you to take a moment and respond to that challenge.

Say, Lord, I want you want more.

You want more, you want more.

Then respond to that challenge today.

And if you're here today and you're saying, I want to get to know this God who loves, this God who forgives, I want to know this Jesus who includes all sorts of people from all different backgrounds, then I'd like to walk you through a prayer today.

And it's an invitational prayer where you're welcome to start fresh, to have a fresh start and a new beginning.

And uh, if with everyone's heads bowed, if that's you today, would you just take a moment and just identify with me?

Just raise your hand and say, That's me.

I want that fresh start, I want that new beginning today.

I want to start fresh with Jesus.

Is there anyone in this room today who's in that space?

If there is, I want to pray with you today.

Amen.

Amen.

So let's pray today.

Father, we thank you that you love us, we thank you that you care for us.

We thank you that uh we've been called and you've welcomed us into a a place of of uh worship where we can actually we get to worship you, we get to spend time with you, we get to serve you, we get to give of ourselves and resources towards to to move the mission forward, to be a part of the good news tour.

We thank you, Lord, that you're constantly doing something real and something amazing in the lives of the people that are here.

And Lord, we thank you that you're move helping us move the needle to a greater heart of thanksgiving and a greater heart of generosity.

And so, Lord, we appreciate you today and we love you.

In Jesus' name.

Everyone agrees, you say amen.

Amen.

God bless you.

Thank you for listening.

For more information on KCC and how to connect, visit us at KCC.net