Thanks + Giving | Pastor Greg Ford Sermon | One Church Columbus

Month of November, we're going to uh be in uh basically not in a series of messages, but a bunch of individual messages.

I I generally will pick one theme and try to look at it from a few different angles, but with this series or this month, we're not doing a series.

We're just gonna take some different messages that the Lord's been speaking to me separately, and I just want to share them with you one at a time.

So we're gonna keep doing that today.

If you have your Bible, uh, we're in 2 Corinthians uh chapter 9, and I'm gonna read you two verses and then we'll we'll talk about it.

Uh 2 Corinthians 9, starting in verse 6, says this remember this.

Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

Each of you should give what you've decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion.

Some of your Bibles say, not out of manipulation or pressure.

For God loves a cheerful giver.

I want to title my message this weekend, Thanksgiving.

Right?

So we're heading into thanksgiving.

We're gonna spend time with uh you know family and friends, and um, I want to take that word and sort of take it apart and look at the relationship between thanks and giving.

Um I'll just say this up front.

Most of the time when you're in church and you hear a message about giving in church, it's usually aimed at you giving to church.

And um I want to be super clear, first of all, uh every time you give to this church, whether it's your time, your energy, or your money, it is very much appreciated.

Um, we are a community, and like any community, it doesn't work if people don't contribute and do their part of that.

And uh we have great ministry, great work we're doing.

It's it's a privilege to be a part of it.

I I don't take it for granted what I get to do and what I get to observe others doing.

And so when you help make that happen, uh it's it's it is a real blessing and it's never taken for granted.

Uh it's good work, the work is growing quickly, the needs are great, so we need all the help we can get.

So I want to just say thank you on behalf of myself and the person sitting next to you.

Thank you.

Um but this message is is not about simply you giving to the church.

I want to look at giving much more broadly than that.

Your life is about giving.

I mean, you're giving all the time.

In fact, some of you are sitting here, and when I said, when I read these verses, you're like, oh Lord, please, this guy's talking about giving, and I have nothing left to give.

Have you ever been in that position where you're like, I'm fried, I'm burnt out, I'm spent, I've got nothing left to give.

I've given.

Because you're you're you're giving all the time.

Giving all the time.

You're being asked for things all the time, whether it's whether it's by coworkers or or or your boss or whether uh the market demands something of you, whether it's your family is asking you for something, something.

You're just always being asked to do things.

You're always, you have responsibilities that require you to give.

And so time, energy, and money is coming out of you at all times.

And and and so that's really what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about how do we give not only uh the right thing, but do it in the right way.

And so this is a really important thing that I want to talk to you about.

Uh what I want to do is I'm gonna give two wrong reasons to give, and then I'm gonna give a third option, and uh and we'll think about that today.

Uh the first wrong reason to give is greed.

It's the wrong reason to give.

It's the wrong reason to give anything, even a compliment.

Have you ever had somebody buttering you up just so they could take a bite out of you?

Uh greed, I want something from you.

And and and so greed is something we know is gonna be a challenge as long as we have flesh.

We're gonna have to wrestle with greed because greed is the attempt to find fulfillment through indulgence.

And that's gonna be challenging because we have flesh, and in your flesh, your flesh is a bundle of appetites that are never completely satisfied.

They get hungry again, and there's a whole bunch of them.

So you're you and you have taste buds and nerves and senses, so you're gonna want to have a sensory experience, and and of course, in your you're also a collection of brain networks that essentially are, first of all, you're trying to keep yourself alive, and then two, uh, you want to feel good.

So, with all of that going on as a human being, there is a gravitational pull to self.

And part of it that is learning how to manage those things, and then to learn how to mature your way through that process.

That's why we start early with kids, trying to help them to develop um a better understanding of the world.

It goes something like this.

Grandma comes up and gives them a gift that they've been wanting.

And they've been they've been locked in on this toy or this thing, and they get it, and when they get it, they are now, ooh, my precious.

You know, they've got their they're they're locked in, it's all they can see and think, and and and they they just start playing with it, and and you're you and you do what we all do, which is this.

Hey, what do you say?

What do you say?

Now, if they don't say it, and then they don't say it, you you're gonna go, hey, hey, call them by name, what do you say?

If they don't pay it, you just snatch the toy.

You take, you literally, I'm gonna remove the temptation.

You take the thing away, and then they and then you get now, you got their attention.

They're like, thank you.

Right?

Now, when they're little, when they're little, uh you're probably willing to get by with a half-hearted thank you because you're starting teaching them etiquette, but it's come on, we know it's way more than etiquette.

This is, I'm not just trying to get you to understand etiquette, I'm trying to form your heart.

You need to understand that that toy that you just received, that gift, okay, somebody paid for that.

In order to pay for that, somebody worked for that.

Somebody gave their blood, sweat, and tears to create the ability to purchase that.

And then of all people on planet Earth, they gave it to you.

And we don't want you taking that for granted.

And what we want you to do is understand the relationship between gifts and love instead of just getting caught up with the toy, otherwise, we'll snatch it away while you learn the lesson.

Now we know this, and we know that's an immature way uh to behave.

Over time as you mature, not only do you not just see Mama or Mima or whatever you call her, you you don't just see her as the person that I can manipulate and butter up so I can get what I want.

At some point you start wondering what does Mima want, and then you start going, you see something, and you're like, oh, she's gonna love that.

She loves these things.

You start looking for stuff.

In fact, if she never bought you another thing, you'd be fine with it because I'm already so grateful to you, okay, for this.

And so now you go from wanting to manipulate her to get you what you want and your parents won't get you, to now you start thinking about what are unique ways that will she will feel love from me that I can demonstrate to her.

That's the process of maturity.

It would be weird if you never grew out of that.

Unfortunately, I think some people in a relationship with God never quite grow out of it.

I'm gonna give God what I think he wants, so he'll give me what I really want.

Okay, and frankly, if you're not careful, you won't fully look into and think through and pray through verses like Malachi 3.10.

Malachi 3.10 says, Bring this is Old Testament verse, bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my temple.

And if you do, says the Lord of heaven's armies, I will open up the windows of heaven for you, and I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have room enough to take in.

Try it.

Put me to the test.

Now, you read a verse like that, if it excites you, fine.

Ask yourself why.

And if the reason you're excited about it, is because it sounds like that if I give God what I think he wants, then he's going to pour out this blessing that I won't have room enough to handle, and I'll be like Scrooge McDuck in uh uh ducktails, and he's backstroking through all his money.

And you're like, you know, what I really want is this.

Okay, if you have an issue of greed, you now have bought into the lie that you're going to be able to consume your way to happiness.

You you're already in bondage.

And if you're looking to God, okay, in an adolescent or even childish way, to then do that, you're you're you have a small view of God.

You're believing that God is so foolish to have you in bondage to greed, and now he's gonna feed your greed with more stuff.

You need to grow out of that.

That's not God wants you to be free.

Okay?

You know who wants you to stay greedy?

The gambling organizations want you to stay greedy.

Gambling organizations, whether it's a casino or or anybody who's uh profiting off of gambling, they know how this works.

It's very simple.

They're betting on two things.

One, they're betting on your greed, and two, they're betting on math.

So your greed, they they go this.

People know like this.

I've got, you know what's better than two?

Four.

You know, you know what's better than four?

Eight.

You know what's better than eight?

Sixteen.

We we could keep going.

But they know this.

When you had two, four was all you could think about.

And then you got four, and all eight's all you can think about.

And at some point, eight is just gonna be eight, and you're gonna start fantasizing about sixteen.

You're gonna go, I I've gotten it so far.

And at some point, your greed is gonna make you think about sixteen and not be thankful for eight.

And so you're gonna you're just gonna put it all in for sixteen, and at some point, math will kick in.

The law of averages is gonna catch up to you, and they're gonna get paid.

So the reason they keep perpetuating, and and gambling is so seductive and addictive, is because we have a greed issue.

So if you're treating God like a slot machine, or you're treating God like I'm a gambler, and I've, okay, if I put this in, I can't outgive God, and He's gonna open up the windows, and you have an issue with greed, and verses like that excite you because what you really want is more stuff, you you've got to hold uh Malachi 3.10 with one hand and with the other hand, Matthew 6.24.

Jesus says, no one can serve two masters.

Either you'll hate one and love the other, or you'll be devoted to one and you'll despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

If you're in the uh King James, it says both God and mammon, and what mammon means essentially net worth.

So so he's saying this inanimate object of money will animate on you, and not only will it, it not only will it animate, it will, it will torture you.

It will turn you into its slave, it will you will work for it, it won't work for you.

So if that's your mindset, okay, why would God feed into that because you tithe?

Why would God feed into that?

If you're buying into that, you you need to grow out of that.

That is, it doesn't even make sense, it's not right, and it's not it's not compatible with the weight of scripture.

And ultimately what Jesus is teaching is he wants you to have a free heart, not more bondage and greed.

In fact, giving is a really good way to, if you do it the right way, to start hammering away at your greed.

Because I know I have a tendency to selfishness, I want to have a discipline to do this so that I so that so that greed does not take over my life and get more of a foothold.

Okay, I'll keep moving.

The second uh is the second wrong reason to give is guilt.

To give out of guilt.

Um guilt is feeling bad for what I've done.

Shame is feeling bad about who I am.

And guilt and shame are powerful, and often if I feel bad about who I am, and I compound that with feeling bad about what I've done, sometimes people try to buy their way out of that.

Uh you might try to buy your way out of that in a relationship.

If you feel especially ashamed and guilty, uh in some ways, yes, maybe you're doing a gesture to try to demonstrate love, but in a lot of ways it may be to try to appease your guilt and shame.

Um, I preach to a diverse group of people in every way.

Uh there's uh the demographic diversity, there's the background diversity, but there's just a psychological diversity.

And what I've noticed as I listen to people, I've noticed that there are some people that are really good at giving themselves grace.

I mean, really good.

I mean, they give themselves a lot of grace for everything, actually.

And in fact, nothing's their fault.

Like, nothing's ever their fault.

Like it's always somebody else's fault.

And it's like those people, I'm like, okay, you don't need me to talk to you about grace because you you seem to have it down, you know, pretty good.

And then there are some other folks that will not give themselves grace for anything.

I mean, there's a self-hatred that they have and a sad but true relationship to their guilt and shame.

And I think if if you're operating in that, you are vulnerable.

I see people sometimes, and I'm not trying to throw shade on other preachers and pastors and whatever, but I do a lot of listening and watching and observing and thinking and praying.

And I feel like sometimes I see people who I think have self-hatred and shame and guilt almost look for preachers to inflame their shame and guilt.

They almost get something out of it.

Like, I think I'm dirty, I think I'm awful.

And if you tell me how awful I am, I almost feel like I deserve it.

And you oh you you set yourself up for a grifter, somebody that can come along, inflame your guilt, and then offer you an indulgence to buy your way out of it.

In the 1600s, okay, there was a reformation, and some of that was born out of in the medieval period, the church sold indulgences, which was this.

I am guilty and ashamed, and I don't want to feel this anymore, and I need something to make me feel better.

So they would come in and confess, and they would go, okay, in order for you to be forgiven, you need to give this amount of money.

And then people would give that.

Part of that's what Martin Luther reformed, that was part of his reformation, was this is absolutely wrong.

They've commercialized guilt and shame and monetized it, and and and that's and and there's a lot of money in it because there's a lot of guilt and shame out there.

Friend, please don't.

Please don't grow out of that.

If if if you are giving to God, if you're giving to anybody, but especially to God out of guilt and shame, the best you'll do is you'll you'll buy yourself a hit of uh that will numb you through the night and you'll wake up in the morning with the same guilt and shame you've always had.

The only solution is the gospel.

The gospel is not that you did some bad stuff and you hate yourself and now you know it and became aware of it, and then you bought your way out of it.

That is not the gospel.

The gospel is that God made Jesus, who had no sin, to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.

The gospel is that God demonstrated his love toward us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

The gospel is that it's by grace we've been saved through faith.

This is not of ourselves, it's not by work, so no one can boast.

The gospel is God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.

Okay, so if you're still trying to buy your way out of your guilt, it is the absolute it is gross, it's toxic, it's wrong, and what you need is a revelation of the gospel.

Don't be stuck in it.

You got to grow out of this if this is how you're still thinking.

Let's go back to the verse that we started with uh in 2 Corinthians 9 and 7.

It says, each of you should give what you've decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or from compulsion, not out of manipulation, not out of pressure, not out of guilt.

For God loves a cheerful giver.

If you're not careful, that verse can almost create guilt.

You know, God loves a cheerful giver, then you feel bad if you give and you're not cheerful enough.

One of the things about this verse that's misunderstood is when it says God loves a cheerful giver, it almost sounds like Paul is claiming that there are people who don't give cheerfully, and then there are people who do give cheerfully, and God loves the ones who give cheerfully, and the ones that don't, God doesn't love or he doesn't love as much.

That's not what Paul's saying here.

What Paul is saying is that when people give cheerfully, God loves it.

So actually, the word uh for cheerful here is the same word that actually eventually morphed into the word hilarious.

It comes from the same Latin-Greek origin, and then and it turned into like meaning super funny, but when it was first uh the word was first created in English, it it meant cheerful, joyful.

So when it says God loves a cheerful giver, think like, think about people you love.

Uh if you're a parent or or an aunt or uncle or whatever, if you hear them laughing in another room, what that does to you.

My my wife and I will hear our kids playing in another room and they and we can hear them laughing.

We have no idea what's going on, but we're it just does something to you.

You're like, oh man, that's awesome.

Think of how you feel when you see uh your child or or someone you love and care about doing something they love with passion, how that affects you.

So if you have one sad child and one happy child, it's not that you love the happy child more than the sad child.

It's I love that the child's happy.

Does that make sense?

So when it says God loves a cheerful giver, you don't have to take that as guilt and shame that, man, I gotta somehow, you know, get happier about it.

What it's saying is that this cheerful giver is part of a downline of a sequence of events that brought something that's supposed to be that's in them, so it's supposed to come out of them, it came out, and when God saw it, he loved it.

He loves it.

Okay, so let's get deeper into this text because this is 2 Corinthians, and let me talk to you about what's going on.

The apostle Paul has gone to all of his relationships and the churches that have been uh established, and he's going to them on behalf of the Jerusalem church who is in a serious need.

And he goes, uh he knows about the need and he says to the Jerusalem church, I'll take care of it.

You don't have to go ask for anything, I'll go ask for for this for you.

And so he goes to these other churches and he's he's collecting resources to bring back to help meet this need.

And um it's kind of it's kind of like uh uh my wife Shayla and I have uh friends that got married this year, and they did a destination wedding.

And um, a few months before the destination wedding, one of the groomsmen um lost his job and he wasn't gonna be able to go.

So he calls the groom.

He's like, Man, I have bad news.

I'm very sorry, but I I'm not I cannot afford to go on this trip.

Um, and I want you to know I love you, I'll be there with you in spirit, but I will not be there with you in body.

I can't I can't do it.

And the groom said, Hold on, let me call you right back, gets off the phone.

All the groomsmen had grown up together, they were friends together, they were super tight.

He starts calling them one at a time.

Here's the here's here's what's going on.

Our friend lost his job, and it's like, I can do 100, I can do 300, I can do 250.

None of them had all the money.

It wasn't like you got this rich person could do it and not feel it.

They all felt it, but none of them flinched, none of them hesitated.

Hey, no, this is gonna be there.

We gotta have what are you talking about?

Here's what I can do, and within a few minutes, done.

Picks it back up, pack your bags, you're coming.

There is no way we're doing this without you.

This is what Paul is doing on behalf of the church in Jerusalem.

So when he goes to the Corinthians, I hear the dynamics.

The Corinthians of the churches that Paul has planted, they they have money.

They have good jobs, they have a strong economy.

These people had money.

And they had said they were going to do something and they weren't doing it.

In fact, he actually uses not to guilt them, but to give them an example.

He actually references the Macedonians.

The Macedonians did not have money, they they were impoverished people, but he says to them in one chapter before in 2 Corinthians 8, Paul says to the to the wealthy Corinthians, I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, what God in his kindness has done through the churches in Macedonia.

They're being tested by many troubles, they're going through a hard time, and they're very poor, they don't have much, but they're also filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed into rich generosity.

For I can testify that they've not given from what they could afford, but far more.

They did it out of their own free will.

They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in Jerusalem.

They even did more than we had hoped.

So what he's showing here is the the the progression into generosity, and he's using the Macedonians as an example.

Uh as he's talking to the Corinthians.

But he wants to be careful to not push them into guilt, you know, but at the same time, he's giving them perspective.

What are we doing here?

You have these resources, they don't, okay?

Uh we want to meet this need, and he's trying to lead them in this right way, which is why he said, I don't want you to do it out of manipulation.

I want you to settle in your heart what is yours to do, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Um when he's saying that, he uses in chapter 8, he uses the example of the Macedonians.

In chapter 9, in verse 10, uh, I'm sorry, in verse uh 11, he says to them, When we take your gifts to those who are in need, they will thank God.

So two things will result from this ministry of giving.

The need of the believers in Jerusalem will be met, and that'll be good all by itself, but then they will joyfully express their thanks to God.

Um greed is the wrong reason to give, guilt's the wrong reason to give, the right reason to give is gratitude.

Gratitude.

Um if you go back to that Malachi 3 verse that we looked at that talked about, hey, if test me in this and see if I won't pour out a blessing, if you go and you read that in its context, it's in the post-exilic Second Temple period.

So they the nation of Israel had gone into bondage and captivity again.

They had just gotten out, they'd come back, and now they're they're trying to rebuild their lives, and so they're going back to the law.

The ceremonial law of tithing or giving wasn't designed uh simply to fuel fund the temple.

That was part of it.

A big part of it, though, was the formation of the heart of gratitude.

So the tithe is a 10%.

So what they would do is they would take a tenth of what they had and they would give that.

So I got 100%, I give a tenth, and when you give that tenth, it's not legalistic.

It's not I'm just doing this because I'm afraid of what'll happen if I don't.

It's it's formational to their heart so that when I'm giving, I'm being reminded everything I have, 100% of this is God's.

I'm giving the 10% as a statement of gratitude, and that gratitude now will come back and affect me.

Paul says to the Corinthians, when you give, it's going to set off gratitude in them, but it will also affect you.

Now, let's do this for a second.

Let's let's set the Bible aside, we'll come back to it, I promise.

But let's think for a second about gratitude.

Gratitude literally dramatically affects your brain, like how you think.

So when you are in a state of gratitude, there are three profound things that happen to your brain.

The first one is moral cognition.

In other words, your moral compass gets calibrated.

You are more likely to make highly moral decisions when you're grateful, and the inverse is also true.

When you are ungrateful, you are much more likely to be immoral.

For example, if you hate your job, you're much more likely to steal company time.

If you are ungrateful for your spouse, you are much more likely to misbehave in that relationship.

If you are ungrateful for your community, your city, your state, or your country, you're more likely to commit a crime in those communities.

If you are ungrateful in your relationship with God, I'm giving more than I'm getting, I've been faithful, you've been unfaithful, you are more likely to sin against God.

What's interesting about this is as leaders and parents, often we feel a tremendous responsibility to lead them into morality, and sometimes the methods that we use to try to lead kids into morality is guilt, shame, and fear, consequences and repercussions.

You might want to try a more effective strategy, which is gratitude.

If you teach them gratitude, the morality will often take care of itself.

So if you even look at your own life, the times that you have violated your own conscience, if you look back and get back in that headspace, you'd probably notice I was in a larger state of being ungrateful.

The second, uh, after moral cognition is emotional regulation.

In other words, I have big feelings.

And I'm having a hard time controlling it.

My internal environment's like a hurricane, and I don't feel like I'm losing, I'm losing self-control.

I don't feel like I can control myself.

All right, you go to a therapist, often they'll take you through a process of uh exercises to create gratitude.

Because when you do that, all of a sudden the emotions start to come down and it's a lot more controllable.

The third one is empathy.

When you're in a state of gratitude, it's not hard to see through other people's lens.

When you're in a state of gratitude, it's not hard to give other people grace.

When you're ungrateful, you don't care as much about other people.

I don't what do I care about that?

We we tend to just judge people or write them off or not do the work.

It's even hard to be able to see through their perspective.

And so, gratitude, that process of gratitude, um, it no wonder in the Old Testament, God made that a part of their worship so that I do this, so it puts me in the state of mind, not only uh what that does for my relationship with God, but my relationship with everybody else.

Um I when I was working on this sermon, I was working on this with my cousin, and we we were we were looking at this brain science, and and we were like, we were like, you know what, let's do this, let's let's practice this ourselves.

And so we we started doing it.

So I went and and and I did the like count your blessings thing, you know.

So I just start naming things.

I'm thankful, God, I'm thankful for my car, and I'm thankful for my food, and I'm thankful for my wife, and I'm thankful for my house, and thankful for my kids, and I'm thankful for the buckeyes, I'm thankful for specific buckeyes, I'm thankful for Jeremiah Smith, and God, thank you for Caleb Downs, and thank you for Sonny Styles and Lorenzo Styles Jr.

And for the Styles parents, God, thank you.

Help them to maybe have a few more kids, Lord, and uh God, I thank you, and I'm just going, you know, Lord, thank you for Matt Patricia, God.

That was an answer to prayer.

Lord, thank you.

You know, and next thing I know, I've got this bullet-pointed list, and it was kind of helpful, but it was a good step, but it really didn't do much.

So then we flipped it and we're like, you know what, let's instead of thinking about 10 things we're thankful for for one minute, let's think of one thing we're thankful for for 10 minutes.

Let's think deeply about what we're thankful for.

So I so I choose my wife.

And I'm like, I start, I start thinking about my wife, and I'm like, yeah, I thought back on the first time I saw her and what went through my mind.

And I remember uh our first conversation, and and then I remember our first deep conversation.

And I just it the when I started telling that story, I hadn't really thought back on that in a while, but when I did, I started to kind of get some feelings back.

I started something freshened up, and and so then I thought back on all that.

I thought about our wedding, and our wedding, I remember when she started coming down the aisle.

I didn't even cross my mind I might cry, but you would think that she would cry and I would be smiling, but she was smiling and I'm sobbing up there.

I'm like, what is going on?

And she comes down and I'm just overwhelmed that she is committing to me, of all the people in the world.

I cannot believe this.

And I'm and I'm I'm this is it.

And then we get married, and then you know, we move different places.

God's kind of changed our assignment at different points.

She's always, she's always been right there.

She's never flinched, never complained, has been a part of it every time.

She's believed in me more than I believed in myself.

She's seen things in me I didn't see in myself.

And so I'm sitting there and I'm talking all this macro stuff, and then I started thinking of stuff that had just happened.

I was like, you know, you know, we what the way we do it at our house, we have our our winter clothes are in the basement in the summer, and vice versa.

So it starts getting cold.

We go get all our winter clothes and we bring it up, and they smell like the basement.

And so Shaylin's like, you know, just throw it in the laundry room, I'll wash it all.

It's like a whole wardrobe, dude.

And it's heavy stuff.

This is sweaters, sweatshirts, heavy pants.

It's it's it's it's big clothes.

She's like, I'll wash it all.

I'm like, you don't have to do that.

I was like, it is a lot of stuff.

I was like, you don't need to do that.

I'll just, you know, I mean, we'll figure it out.

And she's like, no, no, no, no, just do it.

I'll wash it all.

So we, I mean, it was a mountain, a mountain of laundry.

And amidst all the other things she's doing, she's haggling with the insurance company.

She's getting, you know, taking care of the family, she's running errands, she's taking care of our kids, she had all of her other responsibilities.

In the middle of that, she plows her way through this mountain of laundry.

And within a few days, I walk in, it's gone.

And I'm just like, and so I'm sitting there now, I'm thinking deeply about one thing, not a list of bullet points, I'm thinking deeply about some things I had sort of forgotten about, some things that that were kind of deep in my memory now became fresh to me, and something that was right in front of me that I had kind of walked past and not given it its just due.

And by the end of it, I kid you not, I physically felt a desire to get up and do something for her.

Like I wanted to just stop talking to him and go do something for her.

I I I wanted to, not out of guilt, not out of greed, not because I wanted something from her for what she's already done.

And you know what I did?

None of your business.

None of your business.

Like, calm down, bro.

We didn't even ask.

So think about this now.

Deep gratitude, okay, deep gratitude opens up a heart of generosity.

And that heart of generosity opens up a question.

And the question is, what should I do?

Your first clue is that you want to do something.

And it starts with gratitude.

Let's, okay, God loves a cheerful giver.

Let's not beat each other up for not being cheerful enough.

Let's not beat ourselves up for not being cheerful enough.

How do you get cheerful in a way that God goes, I love that?

It's it's a sequence and it starts with gratitude.

Think deeply about some things you've forgotten.

Think deeply about some things you just walk right through the laundry room.

You walk right past it.

Think deeply, not just obsessed with the toy, but somebody did something to pay for this.

Somebody acquired a skill so I could have this.

Somebody went to work and punched a clock so I could have it.

Put it down.

Look, think about it.

Don't just have etiquette, have a heart of gratitude.

So we're not supposed to operate out of greed.

Giving is not a get rich strategy, it is a love language.

If you're giving out of greed, cut it out.

Grow out of it.

If you're giving out of guilt, the gospel is the answer.

My guilt and shame are paid for by what Jesus did.

Which give what does that produce?

Gratitude.

What does that produce?

A generous heart.

What is a generous heart?

Open a question.

And the answer to that question is my act of generosity.

Now, when Paul is talking to the Corinthians who have the means, but they don't have the heart, he talks to them about the Macedonians who have the heart, but they don't have a whole lot of means.

And what he's trying to do is give them a picture, set something in motion, because think of it, he's going, look at the Macedonians as an example.

Let that create an example to you of gratitude that turns into generosity, opens up a question, and then do that.

He goes, When you do that, I'm gonna take it to Jerusalem.

And what do you think is gonna happen when I show up with this gift in Jerusalem?

Look what he says in verse 10.

He says, For God's the one who provides a seed for the farmer and bread to eat.

In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you.

So if you remember in verses uh 12 and 13, he says, When I take that gift, two things are gonna happen.

One, the needs can be met, but two, they will then open up a heart of gratitude that will open up generosity and the loop will start back over.

And so now we're developing a kingdom ethos.

We're developing a kingdom ecosystem.

We're not just giving, we're doing the right thing for the right reason.

So he said, be reminded that God provides the seed, it's all his.

Don't think like a gambler, think like a farmer.

And he said, it will produce a great harvest of generosity in you.

Verse 11, yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous.

In other words, you're not giving so that you can get what you really want to possess it.

No, it will it will create a whole new transformational belief in you that when you give and God gives back, this is the kingdom principle.

When he pours out a blessing on you, what will excite you about that is not that you can be Scrooge McDuck swimming through all your money, and now you can finally prove to the world how valuable you are.

No, you will have moved through that.

You have matured past that.

And now when you see those resources, you go, now is an opportunity for more generosity.

So now I have greater gratitude.

Gratitude swells, it opens up a question, it opens up a generous heart, which opens up a question, which opens up an answer and a response.

So he says, this what this will do is this will produce something that you'll just keep doing.

And your quality of life, right, will drastically change, not because you have more stuff, but because you've become a generous person.

Amen.

So here's how I want to end our time.

I asked our team here to sing a song here at the end, but I want you to take a moment and I want you to be introspective and think about a couple things.

First of all, think about this.

Is there anything in your relationships, in your relationship with God or people in your life where you're giving, you're buttering up, or you're giving out of greed?

Is there anywhere in your life you're giving out of guilt to others or God?

And and and allow the Lord to show you that and and to help you see what you're supposed to see.

And then for maybe some of you, you go, I get all that, I don't even think I need to kind of spend too much time there.

For you, it may be to do, start to do what I did with my wife, which is think about some things you've forgotten.

Or maybe think more deeply about things that you just walked right past.

And in that process, allow the Lord to start to develop within you a heart of gratitude that sets a sequence that that will end up in generosity.

Let's take a moment.