HEART FOR THE HOUSE: Out Of Order

Welcome to the Celebration Church of the Women Podcast.

We are so glad you joined us, and we hope you are encouraged by today's message.

Alright, alright, alright.

Church, you guys are doing good.

That was about a B plus.

Church, you guys are doing good.

There we go, there we go, there we go.

Man, thank you guys so much for coming to worship with us today, man.

We're so, so glad that you're here.

If there's anything that we can do as a church to serve you or your family, please don't hesitate to let us know, man.

We would be glad to walk alongside you and serve your family in any way that we can.

As we heard, man, we're we're in the middle of our Heart for the House series, man, and it's been really, really powerful.

We kind of concluded our Exodus series, kind of like leaving us some breadcrumbs about where we're going.

Um, last week we really talked about just kind of what does it mean to be a good steward?

And ultimately what we're talking about is like stewardship is simply answering the question, what are you doing with what God has given you?

That's what stewardship is.

It's really understanding and identifying what am I going to do with the things that God has given me?

If God has given you a gift to teach, what are you what are you doing with that in a way that it can advance the kingdom?

Maybe God has given you an ability to sing.

What are you doing with that that's helping us to advance the kingdom of God?

There's so many different gifts that God has given us.

Stewardship is what are you doing with it?

And part of that is your finances.

What are you doing with the resources that God has given you in an effort for us to advance the kingdom?

Our primary scripture is found in Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

And here's what I would encourage all of us to do.

Like please take some time to read verses 19 through 35 in its entirety because I believe you'll get some some context that we'll even hit on today.

But I want to zone in specifically looking at verses 21 through 24, as I think it will help us to frame up where we're going today.

Here's what it says, starting at verse 21.

It says, For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The eye is a lamp to the body, so if your eye is healthy, the whole body is full of light.

But if your eye is bad, the whole body is full of darkness.

If then light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?

Ultimately, what he's saying there, it's a matter of perspective.

If you don't look at things with a proper perspective, it has the ability of damaging your entire life.

Now looking at verse number 24, it says this No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other, or he'll be devoted to one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

So what we see here is is Jesus setting a tone and helping us to understand having proper context.

When you go beyond this, as I mentioned earlier, you begin to see some language about anxiety and stress, and then it leads you to a place where we've got our church mission statement, which ultimately is when you put God first, all these other things kind of find themselves in the proper order.

But this language here where it says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

It's helping us to understand this idea of like, okay, if you really want to see what's important to a person, if you really want to see what they're passionate about, if you really want to see the things that are that are that are burdens on their heart, look at where they spend things, look at where they spend their energy, look at where they spend their time, look at where they spend their resources.

A lot of time that's a reflection of an area that is incredibly important for them.

So we say that we have a heart for the house because the house has a heart for us, having a heart for what God is doing.

So last week we we talked about the Good Samaritan and really the way that he stepped into pain and the way that God used him to illustrate to us how we are called to step into messy situations, to identify what those problems are and use our unique gifts to help someone take their next step.

It's a powerful, it's a powerful thought.

But our the text I want to look at for us today is gonna be found in in Proverbs chapter 3.

Proverbs 3 · chapter mention

Now, this is the same passage that ordinarily during our giving moment in our in our services that we refer to.

I want to unpack a couple things there.

We're gonna read another verse, but then we're gonna pray and kind of see what God wants to do.

But but looking here, uh, there's a couple of words I want to highlight.

So Proverbs 3, looking at verse 9, it says this is honor the Lord God with your wealth and with the first fruits of all of your produce.

Then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.

Now, who among us doesn't want our vats bursting with wine?

That's a prayer that I pray daily.

Lord, let my vats be bursting with wine.

Oh, here's what it's saying.

So that there's an abundance, that there's a blessing, there's peace, there's all that.

You guys get that.

But but here's here's a word that really stands out when you look at this: the word honor.

Now, now let me give you what that root word is in the Hebrew.

That word honor is the word kavod.

It's the same word that we see when it refers to God and his glory, the the the weightiness of God.

So when you break it down and what it means in English, it just means weight.

So giving weight, giving, giving weight to it.

So let me put it in context that we understand.

Like when I'm with my wife and she tells me something, I give weight to her words.

Her words have weight in my life.

So when she tells me that something needs to be done, I put weight into that.

Okay, I'm I'm hearing what you're saying.

When my when my family tells me something that's going on, I I put weight into that.

I give weight to those words.

So when it's saying that you are to honor or give weight to God's words, it's saying, make sure that we allow God's word to have weight in our life.

Because if we don't, we're allowing the wrong things to have weight in our lives.

This is why Jesus used the language like, hey, take upon my burdens and my yoke.

It's easy and it's light.

Because somehow in God's economy, when his weight is something that we that we put into our lives, it actually alleviates pressure.

However, when we allow the world's weight, it actually weighs us down.

So here's a thought that I want you to walk away with.

Don't give negativity weight in your life because it will weigh you down.

This is this is why I distance myself from it.

It's not because I don't want to hear bad news, it's not because I'm this guy that only likes to hear positive stuff.

But a lot of times when I'm in meetings and when I'm having conversations and people tell me something, I'm like, man, I can't let that weigh on me.

That's my way of saying.

I hear what you're saying, but I'm processing it through the filter of God's word, so I'm not gonna let that weigh me down.

I'm not gonna let that slow me down.

I can't let that weigh on me.

That's just what God's saying.

Like, don't let these things be weight.

Let my words be the weight in which you measure your life with.

Now we're the last passage we're gonna look at um in this in this context is is found in Genesis chapter four.

Genesis chapter four, looking at verses one through seven real quick, it simply says this It said, Now Adam knew his wife, Eve, um, and she conceived a son, Cain, boring him, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.

And again she bore his brother Abel.

Now Abel was a keeper of the sheep, and Cain was a worker of the ground, and in the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought the firstborn of his flock, the fat of their portions, and the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.

So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.

The Lord said to Cain, Why are you so angry?

Why is your face fallen?

If you do well, will you not be accepted?

And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at your door.

Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.

He's saying, Man, like, hey, listen, like there's there's just there's an order to the way we want things to function.

You don't have to get upset about it, you don't have to be frustrated about it, but you have to be mindful of it.

Because the things that are crouching at your door, the temptation that is crouching at your door, the obstacles that are crouching at your door, God has given you the authority to rule over it, but you have to make that choice.

You truly do.

Today, if you're if you're taking notes tonight, and I encourage you to do that because I'm gonna give you a couple of passages of scripture that I want you to kind of write down, go back to and read as your time will allow.

But if you're writing this down, I want you to simply write down this message title, Out of Order.

Out of order.

Let's pray.

God, we we thank you so much, Lord, for your word.

And we thank you for what you're doing in this incredible church and in this amazing community.

Father, we we count it as an honor that we get an opportunity to partner with you and your vision for celebration, God, but more importantly, God, for the body of Christ.

So, Father, I pray over the next few moments that you give us open eyes that we can see you.

I pray for open ears that we can hear you, God, and I pray for open hearts that we can receive the truth of what it is that you want to speak.

We pray and declare all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, as many of you guys are aware, you you know that my wife and I, we just recently came back from um an amazing trip in in Zimbabwe.

And and again, there will be times where I'll unpack different stories and different things um about that trip.

But but one of the things that really stood out that I quite honestly didn't know what to expect was um was the food.

A lot of people say, Man, how was the food over there?

Obviously it's it's different, but it was absolutely amazing.

So we, you know, you think that you're gonna travel and and and lose weight and have to kind of compromise in certain things that you want.

No, we actually gained weight being over there because like everywhere we went the food was absolutely amazing.

So there were these different like little places that we would go to, and and they would have like good sandwiches, the burgers were the best, and all that.

So we went to this one spot specifically, um, and I was like, man, like it wasn't that expensive because over in Zimbabwe, like an um one American dollar is equivalent to like 20 Zimbabwe dollars.

Like, so their economy is is really in an upside down position.

So, you know, when we're over there and you're trying to do your best to like give tips and be generous, you had to be mindful of what the conversion rate is to make sure make sure that you're giving people um the adequate amount.

And so as we were over there, I'm thinking to myself, like, wow, if I give them$20 in American dollars, like that's a big deal in their economy.

So everywhere we went, that was like my goal.

I want to give them, I want to make sure I'm giving them at least$20 because that that has weight over here.

Well, there was this one moment where I didn't have any more cash on me.

And so when we were at this restaurant and the bill came to about like$15 in American dollars.

Cool.

So I'm like, okay, I want to give them a$20 tip.

That's like a big deal over here.

So I swiped my card and I put down the little the little$20 thing.

But here's the thing: it was, I I I looked at it and the receipt, it was like in Zimbabwe dollars.

So I was like, okay, well, I'm not gonna give them$20 Zimbabwe dollars, I'm gonna give them$20 American dollars, so that's gonna be about$200, but it'll be translated into$20 for them.

Wrote it all down, it was all good.

Go a little bit further into the day, and I look in my account just to make sure everything is good, and I look and I notice there's like there's like$250 gone.

Y'all are laughing now, but but what I thought was gonna be a$20 tip, I actually gave them a$225 tip because my calculations were off.

Don't y'all judge me and I'm gonna take up an offering to redeem my money.

No, but listen, like so it it seems funny to y'all because on that end, she was like, praise God, he showed up.

I was praying for this for me.

I'm like, hey bank, can I get that money back?

Like, I'm trying my best to figure it all out, all because I didn't have the proper conversion rate.

So I ended up giving a very generous tip: 200 bucks to something that only cost$15.

So now I'm I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna make this mistake again.

So going forward, I'm gonna have cash.

Because when you swipe your cards, you don't feel it, you write down numbers, you walk away, and next thing you know, you're out of your account for$250.

Never again.

So I said, I'm gonna go to the ATM, I'm gonna get the money out, and I'll know exactly what I'm giving out.

That way there's no room for confusion.

But the crazy thing happened is we go to the ATM, and in every ATM we went to, there was this huge sign on it that said out of order.

So I went to one and it said, it's out of order.

Okay, cool.

We went to another one, out of order.

We went to we went to a third one, big sign up, out of order.

So I I turned to the pastor that was with me, I said, man, like what's what's going on with with the banks over here?

Like, why can't I get any money out?

And so he goes and he checks, he's like, Oh man, like they're having they're having a cash flow problem.

I said, Well, like, what's what's wrong?

He said, It turns out that a hacker had got into the ATM system and they had rearranged the order in which the money was distributed.

So that means that ordinarily, whenever you put your card in, you put your PIN code in, you do all these things, and then you get your money out, they reverse the order so that when you put the money, when you put your code in, it just spit all the money out altogether.

So what some some poor slash lucky person was standing at the ATM at that divine moment, put their PIN number in, and then the the ATM spit out every single dollar that they had.

Now I've seen I've seen that on TV.

And and I like to believe that if I was in that position, that if that were to happen to me, that I would have the integrity and the character to say, God, this is not my money, I'm gonna take it right back into the bank.

But here's the thing about reading the word of God, that also could have been God's blessing, and I don't want to miss that.

So you gotta you know you're just trying to wrestle with it.

Like I don't, God, is this you?

Like I'll I'll take it home and pray and see if you stir my heart.

Like, just walking you through my journey, guys.

But but but here's the thing, here's the thing.

Because I I I I considered, I just kept thinking about man, it's out of order.

That means it wasn't functioning the way it was supposed to.

And and when I thought about the ATM was having a cash flow problem because things were out of order.

There was this moment where somebody said, the first thing, we're gonna make that last, we're gonna make the last thing first, and the bank couldn't interpret it, so it just spit out and it caused a lot of emptiness.

You know what I what I think about that happens a lot of times in our lives?

There's moments in our lives where things are just out of order.

And when things get out of order, it can often leave us empty, it can leave us depleted, it can leave us not functioning the way that God had intended us to function.

You know, when I when I sit down and I talk with many people who are struggling in some area of their lives, it could be overwhelming, it could be exhausting, it could be quite fearful when you think about all the things that you need to get right, all the things that you need to do.

But the more and more that I do this, I realize that it's, yes, it's overwhelming.

Yes, there's a lot of work to be done, but it's just a matter of putting things back in their place.

It's just putting things back in order.

When I when I go into my son's room, you know what I do?

I say, man, like, man, there's a place for this.

Why is that here?

There's there's a place for this, why is that there?

It's it's simply recognizing that there's a place for everything in our lives, and when things are out of order, it creates chaos.

It creates a little bit of confusion.

And some of us have probably seen how that plays out in our very own lives, those moments when things seem as if they're out of order.

Do you do you know that God's redemptive plan was really about putting things back in order?

Because there was a moment when the enemy shows up, and as he shows up, he begins to speak to Eve and he says, Did God really say that?

Think about that for a moment.

Did God really say that you that you should wait until marriage to have sex?

Did he really say that?

Did God really say that you need to be connected to a body of believers?

Did he say that?

Or or or can you just kind of go do your own thing?

Like, did God really say, like, you see these moments where the enemy shows up and he begins to kind of whisper these seeds of doubt of, did God did God really say that?

Here's one that I've heard in my own life.

Did God really say that you need to tithe?

Isn't that like an old testament thing?

Didn't God do away with that?

Like, did God really say?

And and I've noticed more and more in these moments when I find these moments of tension, I often say to myself, is this the enemy trying to convince me out of doing something that God wants me to do?

How do I resolve and reconcile that?

You see, we see that God has always been a God of putting things back in order, putting things back in their rightful place.

We even see in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, where Paul says this.

1 Corinthians 14 · chapter mention

He said, God is not the author of confusion.

And that and often that's what I often have to come back to.

When I'm find myself in a situation, sometimes of my own doing, I have to pause and say, Man, there's a lot of confusion here.

This this can't be God.

Like, what how do we get things back in their proper order?

There's no way that God could have been the architect of this if there's so much confusion.

So, so how do we resolve this?

There's something that's out of order.

In the Corinthian church specifically, things were out of order.

They had all these different conflicting religious ideas.

So Paul came in and said, Man, we got to put things back in their proper order because this is not the way of God.

So we see this idea of God simply trying to lead us to a place of putting things back in order.

And for some of us in here right now, we may feel overwhelmed in some area of our lives.

We may not even know where to begin.

Just take the first step and just saying, Man, God, what do you want me to put back in order first?

It's all about reversing the chaos.

See, this is why I believe that this story of Cain and Abel is so powerful.

I've studied it exhaustively.

For my 20 years of walking with God, I've heard it preached in so many different ways as to why did God honor one sacrifice and not the other.

And there are entire books with different thought processes on all these things.

And unfortunately, there's this is what the Jewish people call arguing out of darkness.

There's certain things that we just don't have clarity on.

All we do have is just the words that are here in the scripture, and we do our best to measure it with the nature of God to try to pull some consistency out of it.

And what we see in the words here is it says this it says that that Cain, in a matter of time, brought an offering to God.

Sounds like a great idea.

But it says that Abel brought God his best.

And there's got to be something in that that we can see that God is showing us that Abel said that, God, I'm gonna give you my best.

I'm gonna give you my best.

I'm gonna give you my sacrificial best, versus Cain saying, God, I'm gonna give you what I have left.

There's a there's a huge difference between saying, God, I I trust you and I'm gonna give you what's best, versus I'm gonna give you a tip, God, with my spare chains that I have left in my ashtray.

There's a huge significance there, and I believe that that's exactly what God is showing us.

He wants us to have a heart where our mindset simply says, God, but am I am I giving your word weight?

Am I giving your presence weight?

I'm I'm giving your word weight, I'm giving your word weight in every area of my life.

Am I giving that same weight in my resources?

Am I am I doing that same thing?

Am I measuring it the same way?

So so let's so let me go ahead and be clear.

Yes, this is a financial message.

Lock the doors, no one's getting out.

And no, this is not just a financial message.

Because if we can catch a revelation on this, I believe that there's something in this that has the ability to radically change our entire lives.

Because here's the thing we are we are living in an epidemic in this country.

An epidemic of anxiety and fear and stress.

And do you know what the number one contributor of anxiety and stress and fear is in this country?

Money.

It's the number one thing that people are stressed about.

In fact, the primary thing that Americans are worried about are these three things in this order: personal finances, their job, and the economy.

Those three things are the things that cause people to lose sleep at night.

Those three things determine where people live in a country.

Those three things determine how people operate, whether it be with integrity or not.

Those three things are the things that can cause us to act out of character.

This is why I think that the scripture tells us that the love of money, not money, but the love of money is the root of all evil, because it can lead us into some very weird places.

It can lead us to do some things that we know that God does not have planned for us.

But the interesting thing is that's not God's view for it.

There are more than 800 verses in the Bible that all deal with money, and they all paint a very different picture than the reality of what we're talking about.

They all talk about the blessings, the freedom, the peace.

Even God's original narrative of the children of Israel of going to a land that's flowing with milk and honey, aka a land of being blessed, it was all associated with resources.

So there's this idea that God has with us having a sense of peace and not being stressed and filled with anxiety, but that's but that's vastly different than the world that we live in right now.

This world of anxiety and stress.

And I really truly believe that the difference between the two is not how much is in your account, it's how much faith is in your heart.

Here's what I truly believe.

I believe that all of the promises of God are hinged upon one single word, choice.

You have to make a choice.

You have to determine whether or not I'm going to give weight to what God's word says about this, or I'm going to give weight to my own views on it.

It really comes down to choice.

Even when we look at the Abrahamic covenant, many of us, and myself included, when I began to look at the Abrahamic covenant, I used to think that it was a covenant that didn't require choice.

That's just not true.

Even though God chose Abraham, there's this consistency of this one word that is so powerful.

If.

If you do this, then this is what I will do.

If you if you're obedient, then you're going to see these results.

Even the Abrahamic covenant was connected to this idea that I have to choose to obey it.

I have to choose to put it into practice.

Even when we look at the Exodus narrative, everything resolves around this idea of choice.

The children of Israel, they had to choose.

They had to choose to trust God.

They had to choose to trust that God was going to provide for them.

Imagine when they're out in the wilderness and they don't have any water.

They have to choose to trust and believe that God's going to deliver on his promise.

That's a choice.

They had to choose to believe that on on just before the Sabbath, that God was going to provide double what they needed so they didn't have to work on that on the Sabbath day.

They had to choose to believe that.

And those who didn't, they struggled, but for those they did, they survived.

It's something about this ability to choose what God says about us, to choose what God's word says and beginning to give it the adequate weight that we need.

Now, here's the thing Do we honestly believe that God needs our money?

Let's pause for a moment.

The creator of everything, the God who speaks things into existence, do we think he needs our money?

No.

It's not a matter of money, it's about trust.

He wants to make sure that when we're looking at him, that we understand that we're giving him the proper weight in our life.

In other words, we're trusting him.

Because think about this.

We trust God in so many areas of our lives, right?

We trust God with with our, we trust God with our marriages.

God, I'm trusting you.

We trust God with our walk.

God, I'm I'm gonna walk this thing out.

God, I'm trusting you with my family, I'm trusting you with all these areas of my life.

But the area that most believers struggle to trust God in or to activate it is when it comes to their resources.

That's the one area where we begin to distance ourselves.

Isn't it interesting that we can trust God in every area, but when it comes to our finances, that's the area that we want to have theological debates on it.

Is it possible that the enemy is whispering in our ear, did he really say that?

And when you measure it with his word, yes, he does.

Because if we are trying Truly trying to trust God in every area of our lives, there's an expression of it, isn't it?

There's a way that we put that into practice.

If we don't give, what's the expression of you trusting God with your resources?

There is none.

And it leaves us right back into the same spot of being at this place where we're giving the world more weight than we're giving God's word.

I remember this being very real to me when I got called into full-time ministry.

And for me, I used to work in the school system.

I was an administrator, I had worked in the school system for over a decade and kind of worked my way up the food chain.

And so I'm working at the district office, the highest floor on the level, and things were going good for me.

I loved God, I was very involved in ministry, but but I knew that God was calling me to get into ministry.

So there was this tension because with that I knew that there would be a dramatic pay cut.

I've invested, I went to school for what I was doing in the school system.

So there was a moment when I was wrestling with this.

My wife didn't work, everything was good.

But when I got invited to come into full-time ministry and I began to respond to that calling, can I be transparent?

I had to take a$40,000 pay cut.

Like I'm not sure where you're at in your finances, but I still think back to good Lord, that's a lot of money.

To say I'm going to leave that behind.

I'm just, I'm just not going to have that anymore.

It made no sense to me logically on how I was going to even be able to function walking away from that because we just didn't have the margin.

I don't have a$40,000 margin in my budget.

Like I lived up to every dollar I had.

But God was calling me into something greater, and I had to I had to trust that calling.

I had to reallocate some things in my life.

I had to make some decisions in my life, but I knew that I was responding to the call of God and I had to trust it.

But the interesting thing is, in my years following God before, I had seasons where I was strong in my giving.

I had seasons when I wasn't.

Much like some of us.

We have seasons where we're on fire for God.

We have other seasons where we kind of taper off.

We have seasons where we go to church every week.

We have seasons where so it was the same thing.

Like, man, I'm giving, I'm giving, I'm giving.

Oh, something came up.

Had a car repair.

Okay, I'm not gonna be able to give.

Like you just kind of adjust and and life was going normal.

But then this season, God said, and Keith, I need you to fully trust me.

I'm like, okay, I do.

He said, No, fully trust me.

That means even though you're gonna be making less money, I need you to give more than you ever have.

Okay, Lord, I'll just wander the streets then, I guess.

Okay, I'll just stand on the street corner and declare it like it literally made no sense to me.

But but I knew that God was going to do it.

And there were these moments where as we did it, I man, I would look at my accountant and say, God, like I could really, I could really use this money.

The next time I would get paid, I would, I would give, and God, I could, I could, I could really, I could really use that money.

Every time I gave, I would look at what I couldn't do because I was giving.

And I can't tell you when that shifted.

I can't tell you when that that chain broke, but there was a moment when I went from, God, I really could use that money to, God, look at what you're doing with that money.

There was a moment when it shifted from, man, I miss it to, man, thank God for what you're doing in it.

Here's what I'm saying.

There was a peace that began to begin to manifest itself in my life because I truly believe that God was in control.

I truly believe that God had my back and I didn't have to carry it on my own anymore.

Yes, I had to make some tough decisions.

Yes, I had to make some adjustments, but in every season I was in, I had a great sense of peace.

I stand before you right now, not because we've arrived financially as a family, but I can tell you I don't worry about money.

And I don't say that because we got it all together.

When I say I don't worry about money, I mean I don't worry about money because I know that God has given me peace when it comes to my money.

So no matter what season I'm in, I have a sense of peace.

The economy's failing, but I have a sense of peace because God never fails.

I've learned in my life that I can trust God in every season because I've invited him and I've given him the proper weight in every area of my life.

And this is not so much about trying to get resources, it's more about trying to get us freed up so that we're not carrying the stress and anxiety that the world puts on our shoulders when we don't invite God to have his proper place in our life.

God wants us to have a peace that surpasses all understanding.

So give me a couple of minutes, I want to talk to us specifically about this idea of what the tithe is.

Because I realize that there's maybe different interpretations of what it is.

So here's what the tithe is: the tithe is that the 10%, the first 10%.

Now we see this specifically mentioned for the first time in Genesis 14, pre-law.

We see it all throughout the Old Testament, but then it's even the idea of the principle of the first which predates that.

It's the idea simply that we see with Cain of giving, giving God the best, giving God the fatty portion, not giving God the leftover or the scraps, but it's it's making up in your mind that I'm going to prioritize God.

Listen to me.

That never has gone away in Scripture.

You never see that go away.

In fact, even when you look in in Matthew 23, when Jesus is condemning and judging the Pharisees, he says, like, yeah, it's good that you tithe.

You should, but you should also do these other things.

Even Jesus doesn't say it's a bad idea to tithe.

He just says that you can't lose sight of the other things.

So the idea of prioritizing God in our resources, that has never expired.

So we have to make sure that we have it with the proper mindset.

I believe that Malachi 3 is one that we all know.

It's almost like the 1 Corinthians 13 in weddings.

At some point, if you're talking about marriage, you're going to get into defining love.

And if we're talking about money, we're going to talk about Malachi 3.

They explain it really well.

So let's look at Malachi 3 real quick, just so that we can have context of what I believe God's word is showing us here.

Here's what it says, starting at verse number 6.

For I, the Lord, do not change, therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statues and you have not kept them.

Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.

But you shall say, How shall we return?

Will a man rob God?

Yet you are robbing me.

But you say, How have we robbed you?

In your tithes and contributions.

You are cursed with a curse, and you are being robbed of the whole nation among you.

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house and thereby put to me to the test, says the Lord of hosts.

I will not open the, will I not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing on you that there is not room enough to receive it.

This is one of those scriptures that every preacher that's ever talking about tithe is going to refer to.

Will a man rob God?

Well, of course I'm not going to rob God.

How have I robbed you, God?

With a tithe and offering.

Okay, well, Lord, I'm not going to do it like it.

We see it.

But I want to unpack a couple of things in here that can give us some clarity and to give us some perspective and even some freedom as it relates to some of this.

So here's the first thought on tithing that we see here in Scripture.

Tithing is giving back to God what already belongs to Him.

It's giving back to God what already belongs to Him.

Here's why we see the word return is mentioned three times in the scripture.

The tithe is never viewed as giving, it is viewed as returning.

You're simply returning what God has already given to you.

And it says here that will you rob God?

No.

But you've been robbing me.

But return to me, return to me the tithe.

And of course it says, and if you don't, there's a curse.

So please hear me.

Let me free you, let me free us up.

Because I've sat in your seat, I've listened to these messages, and here's what I've heard.

If you are not tithing, that you're under a curse.

Let me shut that down right now.

Jesus became the curse so that we don't have to carry it.

So we don't have to carry that free, that burden of feeling like, man, like if I if I don't tithe, am I missing heaven?

No, you're not.

So let me let me free us up.

You are not missing God if you don't decide to tithe.

You're not going to go to hell.

None of that stuff is even with the context of this passage is, particularly when we look at the redemptive sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

He became the curse so that we don't have to carry it.

However, what I can tell you is when we don't trust God, when we don't give God his proper weight in our lives, in this area of our lives, we're not under the umbrella of his covering.

In other words, we're just kind of doing things on our own.

We're making things happen in our own strength, and that is not what God's view is for us.

Here's another thing that I want us to remember.

God has given us everything we need so that we can give it back to him.

There is nothing that God is requesting that we return to him that he has not already provided to us.

It's a critical point.

Everywhere where we see that God gives us the command, it's because first he gave us the resources to even activate that command.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

But then God breathed on Adam and He became a living soul.

So Adam is not necessarily worshiping God with his own breath.

He's worshiping God with the breath that God has already given him.

So when we come into environments like this and it says, Let us lift up our hands, well, God created hands so that we can lift them up.

Let us walk with God while God has given us legs so that we can walk with him.

Let us worship God with our mind and our strength.

He's given us mind so we can do that.

God has given us everything that we need so that we can worship him.

This is why for the children of Israel, as soon as they left, as soon as they left Egypt, the first thing that God does is he teaches them about the Sabbath.

The second thing he does is he teaches them about how to give and put him first.

Why would he do that?

Because he was dealing with a bunch of people who had been slaves and he wanted to make sure that they knew how to prioritize him in the rhythm of their of the rhythm of their giving.

He's given us everything we need because you know the only way that they could give is because God gave them favor while they were in Egypt.

It's such a powerful thought when we understand that God has truly given us everything that we need as it relates to life and godliness.

God will not require you to give him something that he's not already given you.

It's already in your possession.

You just have to learn how to give it its proper weight.

Here's the other thing that we can see about the tithe.

The tithe enables your church to thrive.

Now let me let me unpack that for a moment because here's what I know.

Coming from DC more recently, and even being here in the Orlando area, the tithe has a the tithe, as it relates to the church, it has like this stickiness to it.

Because unfortunately, we have seen and heard, and you don't have to go far in your Google search to see instances of mismanagement and churches and money and resources.

And so there's a lot of places that we can that we can certainly give our money to.

You can check out at the local publics and you can find ways to give your money to that and do all that.

I understand that.

But the passage here talks about it talks about so that you can have meat or that there's things in my house.

This is what God's trying to communicate.

That the house of God is the storehouse of God.

And unfortunately, we've seen instances where that has been manipulated and used wrong.

And as a pastor who has seen that happen, I want to genuinely apologize from the depths of my soul if you have seen that, if you have walked through that, and if you experienced that, that is not a representation of what the kingdom is supposed to be about.

Here's what I can also tell you Celebration Church as a church has existed for more than two decades.

We have never had a scandal.

You can go to our website right now, celebration.org, write that down, click on the giving tab, scroll down about halfway through the screen, and you'll find our audits.

So what that means is we submit all of our financial records to a third-party audit so that they can exhaustively go through every single dollar we spend to ensure not only that we operate according to the law, but to also make sure that we're operating according to biblical character and standards.

Because we don't play when it comes to this stuff.

We look at these things and we recognize that there's people like yourselves that are sitting in the seats right now and you wrestle with this sometimes.

You're wondering, man, like when I when I give, is it really making a difference?

What are they what are they doing with the money?

We want to make sure that we don't create the space where the enemy can even come in your ear and whisper the suggestive language that we're somehow mismanaging your money.

So we have all of that stuff set.

All of our salaries are set outside of anybody in our organization, so we don't get a chance to just write our own checks.

We have external resources that ensure that we operate according and above the highest standards because we want you to know that as your church, we take it seriously.

We take your giving seriously.

We take that when you decide to trust us with your resources seriously.

But for me specifically, when I when I look at the tithe and I understand the origins of it in the Old Testament, and I recognize that when God had instructed the Israelites to give a tithe and how that was considered God's portion, it was considered sacred.

Hear my heart when I say this.

So that is sacred money.

That is literally God's money.

So when I every time I get paid, I look at it like I'm being paid with God's money.

This is sacred.

Whenever I look at our staff, I'm like, you're being paid with sacred dollars.

Whenever we make a decision that impacts our finances, this is sacred money.

This is money that people that are sitting in our seats are praying and processing and trusting God with and believing that we're going to make a difference in it.

We are not going to mismanage it because you know why?

We don't have a dollar to waste.

As long as there are still people out there that are struggling with anxiety and stress, we don't have a dollar to waste.

As long as we still see marriages falling apart, we don't have a dollar to waste.

As long as we see students that are still committing suicide, we don't have a dollar to waste.

I want you to understand that this is sacred money.

This is God's house, and we're going to view everything we do through the lens of how does this advance the kingdom of God?

Because we will not allow the enemy to continue to have a foothold in our church, in our homes, and in our community because we do not have any dollars or time to waste.

We just don't have it to waste.

So here's the thing when you when you when you partner with us, do you realize that when we celebrate the things that God is doing through our community, it's because of you.

There is no third party that that gives us an infusion of cash that allows us to operate.

When you look to your left and your right, it's because of your faithful given that we're able to do what we do.

Do you know that because of your faithful given that we're able to feed 60,000 kids in Zimbabwe?

It's because of your faithful giving that we're able to plant churches, it's because of your faithful giving that whenever there's a tragedy, whether it be local or global, we're able to respond and mobilize and be able to send resources.

It's because there's a storehouse here, and as God leads us to step into the pain and help people, it's only because of your faithful given.

Please understand that whenever you make a decision to invest and partner with what God is doing here at Celebration Church, not only is it above board, but we're praying and processing through how can we make a difference in advancing the kingdom.

We don't have any dollars to waste and we take that very seriously.

Here's the fourth thing that happens when you begin to trust God in this area.

Tithing is an act of faith and it's a commitment.

It's an act of faith.

It really is.

And for the longest time, I don't know why I never really reconciled that in my mind.

I don't I don't know why I didn't I didn't see it that way.

Because everything we do is an expression of faith.

And that means that our faith grows.

There's moments when our faith is tested, there's moments when we face opposition and challenge.

It's it's truly an expression of faith.

So when we when we give, of course, it's a it's an expression of faith.

And here's how we know it's faith.

There are times when you don't feel like it, and there's times when you don't see it.

But you still push through it.

That's that's why it's faith.

Many times when I sit across from couples and they're talking about the dynamics of their marriage, and I'm like, well, man, you know, like your marriage requires faith.

Like, what do you mean?

Like it's faith, like it takes faith to believe the best.

It takes it takes faith to push through how you feel, it takes faith to get up and do it when you don't feel like it.

That's faith.

That's that's what it means to walk with God.

That's what it means to do all this.

So, so our finances are part of that.

It's a it's an expression of faith.

Like, God, I don't see how I can do it, but it's a it's an expression of faith.

And this is why we see the Hebrew writer tells us that, and without faith, it's impossible to please God.

That's in every area of our lives, not just not just in our walk with God, but it's also in the way that we trust God with our resources.

I truly believe that when we can we can resolve that, we can get healing and freedom from it.

But here's the thing: just like the way that our faith can be tested, there are moments that we need to grow in our faith.

And and I remember earlier seasons of my life when I began to understand the importance of tithing, the way that my resources were set up, I just I didn't have the margin to do it.

Like, I mean, because here's the thing the tithe is is 10%, the first 10%.

The first, like, depending on where you're at, that's a lot of money.

Depending on where you're at, that could seem like that.

I I don't have the margin in my budget to give 10%.

So you know what ends up happening in those moments?

We don't do anything.

I I I don't have it because it's it's in it's an expression of faith.

But in the same way as when we first start going to church and we show up and and there's there's people that are singing, and and and why is it dark in here, and and why is there fog?

And all like it can seem overwhelming.

Like, why am I why am I doing this?

Look, what's going on in here?

It can seem overwhelming, but you show up next week, and then you show up the next week, and God continues to stir you, and you know what happens?

Your faith begins to increase.

And now you're no longer watching around wondering what's happening, but now you've actually gone and made the bold step of lifting up one hand, and then you know that God is moving when you got two hands up.

I'm talking like partial, we're not gonna get crazy now.

Just just just this, looking around, and then we got the full like half mass, and then you finally get to a place where your hands are lifted up and you're fully in it.

But you know what?

You grew in that.

You had to begin to trust God in that, you had to begin to step out in that and say, man, but I I see God's moving in this.

It's the same thing with our finances.

So often when we talk about it in church, it's like, okay, I'm talking to you guys about it.

When you walk out, give your 10%.

We give you room to grow in every area of your life, but we expect you to figure this out overnight.

And when you feel overwhelmed, we end up not doing anything.

So here's what I want to do.

I want to encourage you.

Maybe 10% is really beyond the realm of what you really can do.

Yes, it's an act of obedience.

Yes, you have to trust God.

But here's the thing start somewhere.

Maybe, maybe 10% you can't do that, but can you do two?

Can you can you do three?

What can you do that puts you in a spot where you're beginning to activate and walk in the thing that you know that God's word says?

Because here's what I believe.

Week one, ah, I can give one percent.

Maybe the next month, man, I'm up to three percent.

Man, man, Keith, man, I I gave five percent.

Three months later, you're gonna see me in the lobby, like, hey bro, I'm up to 10 now.

Like that, I'm just telling you, like it, but you grow in it.

It's one of those things that you can slowly grow in, but let's start somewhere.

So here's a thing that you need to resolve.

You need to resolve this.

I'm going to honor God with my finances.

Resolve that.

I'm gonna honor God, and here's the other thing you need to do.

What's the amount?

Because if you don't set the amount, there's not faith there.

That's exactly what Cain does.

He just kind of was like, hey man, like um, hey, this is what I got left.

No, the faith part is starting this week, I can't do, I can't do 10%.

But starting this week, I'm gonna give God$20 every time I get paid.

Where do you start?

Starting next week, I'm gonna start, you know what?

I'm gonna bump that up to like 30.

I'm I'm seeing God move, I'm gonna stretch myself a little bit more.

Before long, when you really begin to stretch your faith in that, you'll arrive there and don't even know how you got there.

I promise you, this is exactly how it is.

But here's the third part it's a frequency.

You resolve in your mind that every time I get paid, this is what I'm going to do.

No matter what happens, I'm going to resolve this, I'm going to do this.

You just you just make it up in your mind.

You know, because here's the thing that's where the favor of God to bless your life is.

I remember when my daughter caught on to this revelation.

She was working at a at a church in Atlanta.

And she would, she would, she would constantly, constantly like have these moments where she was like running a little bit low.

And you know, you know how it is when you got more months than you got money, right?

Like when you're like, okay, I just got paid and I'm already running short.

So there would be these moments where I would look into her account and and and I would see like, okay, like she managed her money appropriately.

But when I would look in and see, the very first transaction I would see is that she would give to the church.

Like the very first, without fail.

So initially, when I would go to look in her account and prepare to critique her and tell her to stop eating the Chick-fil-A so much, the first thing I would see is that she is that she was honoring God.

So as her father, when I would see that, even though there were some areas that I said, hey, you know, quit spending your money on that nonsense, but there were other areas where I was like, but she's honoring God.

And so as her father, I would just, let me just go ahead and transfer her$50 real quick.

Let me just go ahead and slide a couple extra dollars in her account.

I wouldn't even tell her I was doing it.

To this day, she probably doesn't even know.

But I would just, I would just do it.

But watch this.

Because as her father, I would look and see that she was prioritizing God and it made me want to be a blessing to her.

Do you not believe that when God sees that you're trusting him with your finances and that you're putting him first, that he's not looking in the account of your life and saying, Man, how can I be a blessing to them?

Because I see that they're trusting me in this.

God is not gonna leave you hanging out dry.

The Bible says, I have been young and I have been old, but I have never seen the righteous forsaken.

God will not leave you out in the lurch, but if you trust him, I promise you the blessing and favor of God is going to go with it.

Can we give God a hand for that?

And here's the final thing.

I want to invite the worship team to come back out.

Tithing, it's not a money issue, it's a trust issue.

It's a freedom issue.

All the anxiety, all the stress, all the stuff that we see that's attached to money, the corrupt decisions that we see that's attached to money, it's not about the money.

It's about getting free from the anxiety and stress that the world wants to put onto our shoulders.

So here's the question Who are you trusting for your provision?

Because when we say that we can't afford to tithe, it's not true.

Somebody's getting it.

Who are you trusting as your provider?

Is it your job?

Is it is it your spouse?

Maybe it's the government.

Maybe, maybe that's the ones that you're trusting.

Maybe you're trusting that they're gonna be the ones that are gonna provide for you.

Listen to me, it's not about the money, it's about trusting and recognizing who your source truly is.

Yes, you partner with the kingdom of God.

Yes, you advance God's agenda here on earth.

But the big picture is I'm free from the anxiety and stress because I've resolved that God is my source and there's a peace that goes along with that.

I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have to go many, many steps into the aisles if we began to ask people who got a revelation of this and have seen the transformative work of God in this.

There's many faces that I know that have caught a revelation of this, and I've had conversations with where they're like, Keith, when I got a hold of this, it wasn't so much like, man, and now my bank account is stacked.

Yeah, maybe that's a little bit of it.

But there's a peace, there's a freedom, there's a joy when I've reconciled that God is my source, not to mention knowing that I'm walking alongside God's vision and mission here at this church.

But there's one testimony in particular that the team shared with me.

That I wanted to read to you guys.

It says this.

It says, as a single mother, I have always clung really close to my finances with tithing.

With tithing, I usually like to tithe in whom I felt was the best to receive it.

Whether it was giving to a missions trip or go fund me or someone's random aunt or funding someone's baby shower.

However, recently, I felt the Holy Spirit convict me that I should trust him with giving the full tithe to his church.

So I decided from that week that I would faithfully tithe for the next three months.

The very next day, I was laid off.

It seems as if God has a sense of humor.

However, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace over the entire situation because I invited God into it and I knew that I would be taken care of.

So I continued to faithfully tithe in whatever income that I had coming in.

Well, this month has turned into my most profitable month in my career.

Four jobs are on the table with all in salary ranges that are beyond anything that I've ever made.

And I am certain that this leap with deciding to trust God with my finances has been the best next step that I've ever made in my entire life.

Listen to me, church.

I've had countless conversations with people who've grabbed a hold of this.

Understanding that the freedom from anxiety, recognizing what God is doing, and knowing that I'm partnering with the activity of God in the local church context, man, there's a joy that goes with it.

But what I'm aware of is that many of us are in different places.

But when I read testimonies like this, and the countless ones that we have in, and maybe some of the ones that are even sitting in the seats, you know this to be true.

But we don't share these to kind of twist arms because, like I said, it's a choice.

You're not going to miss heaven.

But here's what I want to caution you with don't allow the mismanagement of man to cause you to miss what God is doing.

Make sure that we look at what God was speaking with the children of Israel.

Why is it that the first thing that Pharaoh tried to convince the children of Israel to do was to leave their resources in Egypt?

Like we have to look at these patterns and believe that maybe God is showing us something.

That maybe the enemy knows that if we can leave our resources in Egypt, if we can leave that in the world, if we don't invite God into that situation, that we will live a life of partial freedom.

And you guys know this.

Partial freedom is still total bondage.

You're still gonna struggle with being stress-free.

You're gonna still struggle with anxiety.

And and I'm not sure about you, but but aren't you tired of having some areas of your life where you feel peace but you're still stressed about money?

Aren't you tired of aren't you tired of living a life where anxiety and and the concerns about what happens at your job literally has the ability to determine whether or not you have joy that week?

But when you've resolved it, I've invited God to get involved.

I've invited God to take control.

So no matter what circumstances I may find myself in, I can find myself having a sense of peace.

That is what God wants for us.

So all of this is not about the money, it's about trusting God.

God wants to make sure that you invite him in so that you can experience the peace that surpasses all understanding.

With every head bowed and with every eye closed, I want to I want to ask you this question.

Maybe there's some areas of your life right now that you would say, Keith, man, there there are some things that's not in order in my life.

Maybe maybe it's not finances, but maybe it's just some other areas where you realize that, man, there are some things that's a little out of order.

Man, I feel like my I feel like my relationships, they're out of order.

I feel like my I feel like some areas of my family, man, are they out of order.

I've I prioritize things and I feel like I'm not functioning the way that God had intended me to.

Sometimes we get overwhelmed because we think we have to make a million different decisions when actually we just need to invite God in and to put some things into order.

So if that's you, I want to pray for you right where you are.

We're gonna kind of keep it where we are.

But if that's you and you just want to simply invite God to put some things in order in your life, I want you to boldly lift your hands up on a count of three.

One, two, three.

Amen.

Hands up everywhere.

God bless you.

Amen.

Amen.

You can go ahead and put those hands down.

I'm gonna pray for us in just a moment.

But but there's another group of people that I'm sure that's in here today.

And and if you were to evaluate the condition of your soul and talking about not functioning and not having things in order for you, the thing that's out of order for you is your relationship with God.

Here's what that means, simply put.

That right now you're away from God.

You don't have a relationship with God.

Maybe you did in the past, but right now you're away from God.

And you know that today is the day to commit or recommit your life.

In other words, put God back in his proper place, give him the proper weight in your life.

If that's you, and you simply want to say yes to Jesus, it doesn't mean you have it all figured out, but you're gonna show up and continue to grow in your faith.

We want to walk that out with you.

But if that's you, on account of three, I want you to boldly lift your hands up saying yes to Jesus, to commit or recommit your life to Christ.

One, two, three, hands up.

Amen.

God bless you.

Hands up everywhere.

God bless you.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Church, can we continue to give God some praise as we stand on our feet and prepare to go back into worship?

Can we celebrate with those who have said yes to Jesus and to say yes to putting God at his rightful place in their lives?

We don't take that lightly.

We're gonna go back into worship in just a few moments, and Pastor Justin's gonna come out and give us some instructions on what you need to do, especially for those who are deciding to make Jesus their Lord and Savior.

But for the rest of us, I want to pray for us as we go back into worship, believing that the power and freedom of God is gonna meet us right where we are.

Heavenly Father, God, I thank you so much.

I thank you for this incredible community that we're all a part of, Father.

Allow us to have a space that many have contributed to so we can experience the love and the joy and the peace that you have for us.

So, Father, I pray for every one of us, God, who recognizes that there's some things that are not in order.

Father, I pray that you begin to put things in the rightful place, God.

Any area where there's confusion, I pray that you begin to make those lines and those paths straight.

Give us the boldness to cut off the things we need to cut off.

Give us the boldness to walk in the paths that you have for us, Father.

In the name of Jesus, order our marriages, order our finances, order our minds, order our strength, God, so that we can honor you with all that we have, God.

And even for those of us that are saying yes to you for the first time, God, I pray that you allow us to surround ourselves with strong believers that can strengthen us as we're on this walk.

So we'll forever give you the glory, we'll forever give you the honor and give you the praise in Jesus' name.

Amen, churchless worship.

Thank you for tuning in to today's podcast.

For more information about Celebration Orlando or to get in touch with us, please visit celebrationorlando.org.