Funny Math | Pastor Chris Kouba

Go ahead and grab your Bibles, open them up with me to Malachi chapter three.

Malachi chapter three is where we're going to be hanging out.

Let me also advise you and to invite you to go ahead and grab your journals.

Hopefully, you brought your journals from last week.

If you were here with us last week, we gave you these journals that we're hoping that you will use going forward over the course of this entire series to take notes.

If you do not have a journal, would you raise your hands, keep them up?

We're going to have some guys that are going to be walking around and going to be getting you those.

So just keep your hands up.

I promise you we will get to you.

The goal of you using these journals is that you would actually use them to take notes.

Some of you are like, well, I don't usually take notes.

Why would I do that?

You get a shortcut in heaven if you take notes on earth.

I wanted you to know that.

You may not have realized that, but it's in it's in the Bible.

I can show it to you after service and we can walk you through that.

It's actually not in the Bible, but you should take notes, okay?

You will remember things more if you take notes.

We're going to be on page nine today.

So if you would raise your hands, we'll make sure to get these to you.

Uh keep them up, keep them up.

I know we've got one in the corner there over there.

I think they're getting it to you right there.

Uh, we will get these to you in page nine is where we're gonna be spending a little bit of time today.

I do want to take this opportunity.

We got a ton of folks that are joining us on the Pando app, and a bunch of folks that check out our services online afterwards, kind of on demand or wherever you may be.

Let's give them a hand.

We've got a bunch of folks on the other side of that camera.

Really appreciate you and grateful for the chance to be able to bring this message to you today.

Um, keep your hands up.

We'll make sure to get these to you.

Page nine is where we're gonna be today as we begin to take some notes.

In Malachi chapter three, if you want to be prepared and ready for us to walk together through this passage.

Today I want to talk to you about something that frustrates me, something that confuses me, something that at times makes me feel like I am losing my mind.

If I had to guess based upon the reaction of the first service, I'm not the only one who feels this way.

I'm gonna talk to you today about math.

If you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about.

Kids come home, ask for some help with their math homework, you graduated high school, maybe you went to college, you know how to do math, and you help them.

And at the end of it, even though you have the right answer, they say that's not how you do it.

What do you mean it's not how you do it?

Why did you change math?

Like there's no reason to have to change math.

Math was fine.

Math works.

It's what's the outcome?

But no, what do they do?

They they changed math on us.

It's the weirdest thing ever.

Whenever you have a normal equation, 25 plus 37, they're no longer just adding it up, stack on top of each other.

They're decomposing numbers, they're doing 10 frames, they're doing all this crazy stuff to basically get this deal.

And so somehow you're all of a sudden act like you don't know what you're doing when it comes to math.

I watched a kid once, whenever he got asked the question, eight plus five, which is what?

13.

He answered it by taking the five, breaking it into three and a two.

He added two to the eight, then he added three to the ten, and he got thirteen.

Or you could use your hands, right?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

One, two, three, four, five.

Thirteen, right?

And that's what God made hands for.

Like math, it doesn't make any sense.

Why are you messing with math?

I don't get it at all.

Now, school's not the only place where there's some weird, funny math.

You ever heard of girl math?

Go to my house at any moment.

There's 14 packages at the front door.

Hillary, what are we doing?

What is this?

Girl math, if you've got a woman in the house, if you've got a daughter in the house, if you've got a wife in the house, if you've got a mother, whatever it is, and you look up and they walk in with all these packages, and you're like, what in the world did you buy?

And they give you this line.

It was all 50% off.

It was like it was free.

That's not how it works.

It doesn't add up that way.

Free means you don't spend the money.

That's what free means.

But it's girl math, right?

It's kind of how we argue it.

I right now am trying really hard to pull off some pretty good guy math with my wife.

You see, my son is getting into golf.

He enjoys playing golf because as much as his buddies play golf, and so he's outgrown his junior set of clubs so he can no longer use them.

So he needs some clubs that are gonna be a little bit bigger.

I've had my golf clubs for about 15 years.

They're great.

They're nothing wrong with them whatsoever.

But in my mind, I'm gonna have to spend money anyway so that he can have some a different set of clubs to be able to use them.

And I wanna be a good dad, right?

So clearly, I'm just gonna give him my clubs, and I'm gonna get a brand new set of clubs.

Sky math.

I mean, it makes sense.

I've even told Hillary, I think we're gonna save money in this deal.

I don't know how, but we're gonna save money in this deal.

Sky math.

I want to talk to you today about some funny math.

Math it on the surface, you're gonna hear, and you're gonna be like, there's no way that adds up.

No way that makes sense.

And if your your tendency initially is gonna be to be like, that's not true.

But what I want to do is invite you into a relationship where you begin to see God's funny math always works.

Like it's one of those things that again, you're like, no way.

But I've seen it happen time after time after time after time again, not only in my life, but in so many other people that I've walked this Christian life with as well.

Here's the main principle that I want you to walk away with today from this message.

It's actually an equation, not even a statement, it's an equation.

90 is greater than a hundred.

You're like, no, that's not true.

Okay?

Look, I know schools changed enough, but that's still not true, all right?

It's true.

And what I want to teach you and show you today is something that you may initially be like, this just isn't true.

This doesn't make any sense.

Like, I know my situation, I know my life, I know what I've done, and this does not add up.

And I'm inviting you to go not into a math equation, but instead for you to begin to experience a relationship with the Lord where he begins to show you his math always adds up.

We're in the middle of a sermon series.

We started it last week called Blueprint, and what we're trying to do is to look and see if we're gonna build a life, if we're gonna build a family, if we're gonna build a church, what are we supposed to build it on so that it will last?

Last week we introduced the concept of the exchange zone.

And we talked about how those of us that are over 35, it is our desire and it is our goal as a church that we are passing something down to those that are under 35, where our ceiling becomes their floor.

So we're like wanting them to like stack the foundation higher and higher and higher so that that house is standing on something very, very firm.

We just had all these babies that were dedicated.

We don't just want to entertain them, we don't just want to watch over them.

Instead, we want to give them our faith.

We want to pass it down.

Today, what we're gonna talk through is the foundation of the house.

Because here's the thing if you've ever built something, if you've ever built a house or if you've ever built a business building or something like that, before you start picking out paint samples and before you start picking out the carpet samples, you gotta make sure that the foundation's right, because none of that stuff's gonna matter if you don't.

Like you can put up furniture or you can put up decorations rather all over the walls, but if your foundation isn't stable, it's not gonna matter.

On the other hand, what we know is that if you don't focus and make this a priority, it makes zero difference how nice the furniture is you put in the house.

All anybody's gonna see is the crack in the corner.

And too often we see people who are even in the church who build their lives on faulty foundations and all they're caring about is the furniture.

And so what we want to talk through is like, what's the meat and potato stuff that we've got to operate our lives on and build on something so that as we begin to put the layers on top, what are the blueprints that are necessary for us to be able to have a life that's gonna hold when it needs to?

I want to look at Matthew chapter six really quickly, verses 19 through 21.

It speaks to this.

It says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

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

This is a vitally important distinction for us to see.

It doesn't say that where your treasure is, or excuse me, it doesn't say that where your heart is, your money's gonna follow.

It says where your money is, your heart's gonna follow.

This isn't a campaign or a fundraising speech.

This is instead an invitation for you to deal with your heart.

And the Bible says if you're gonna deal with your heart, which is what God ultimately cares about, then you have to deal with this issue that nobody likes talking about, preachers included, which is money.

However, if we're gonna serve you well, then we've got to go there.

Because here's what the Bible seems to suggest that if you want to know about your relationship with God, the best place to look is your bank statement.

That says a lot about whether I believe God or whether I don't.

I want to you to pull out your journals.

I want to show you where we're going here in just a few weeks.

Let me show you.

Go to verse page 27.

Page 27.

This is where we're gonna end up.

Uh, I want you to notice, first of all, on page 25 and page 26, there's a bunch of resources that you can take advantage of.

It talks a lot about some different things as we go along in the midst of all of this series.

You may be thinking, man, I kind of want to double-click there.

I'm not really sure what he's talking about there.

Or, or man, I feel like I'm in debt.

I don't even know how to get out of this.

This sounds crazy.

How do I do that?

Financial Peace University is about to start right after this sermon series is over.

We've got our vision team.

That's a key thing for you to be able to join.

You can learn more about our vision team by looking there.

But look at page 27, okay?

On March 1st, we're gonna have a commitment Sunday.

And what I'm asking you to do is to identify now where you are on the pathway of giving, and for you on March 1st to actually make a commitment.

Some of you are like, make a note, don't be here March 1st, okay?

That's fine, we'll get it from you March 8th.

That's no big deal, all right?

Don't push back on this.

Like, this is one of those areas like fasting where the flesh is like, this is dumb.

Don't do it.

This is also an area like fasting where if you do it, it will change your life.

You'll change everything about your family.

Like there's radical differences.

Let me walk you this through.

Okay, here's the pathway of giving.

One, you got the spontaneous giving.

This means you're at an event, this means you're at a church, this means you're at something that you're at, and all of a sudden you're kind of like, Oh, I'll give to that.

And you just kind of like whip out your wallet, or you whip out your checkbook, or you whip out your phone, and you kind of give just sporadically, kind of spontaneously.

Oh, I'll give to that real quick.

Okay, maybe that's you.

Maybe the next one is continuous giving.

This doesn't mean you have any kind of like method to it, you don't have any percentage to it, you don't have any kind of strategy to it.

You just basically you just kind of when you're there more often, you tend to just kind of empty the wallet or empty what's going on there.

And so, like, it's just kind of like a random, but it is something that is at least more than just once every blue moon.

Okay.

The next one is priority giving.

This is when you give a specific percentage, maybe you give a tithe, you give 10%.

Maybe it's something that is so uh much of a priority in your life that even if you're not there, you're also giving.

You may do it online, you set it up that way.

I would call this the training wheels of giving.

I want everybody to get training wheels, but it's not meant for you to like stop there.

So priority giving is like, yeah, I give 10% or I give a certain amount of money percentage every time, and it's true, it's it's an ongoing thing that's set up in my life.

The next one is strategic giving.

This is somebody who gives not only their tithe, but they give above and beyond their tithe.

Maybe they give a certain percentage that they're trying to kind of reach.

They're trying to kind of think through what that looks like.

Maybe they give to other things, they give to adoptions, they give to mission trips, they give to things above and beyond.

Maybe they're giving to the United building.

We talked about that last week.

This is the category that Hillary and I are in.

We actually this year are pushing ourselves really, really hard.

Our goal is to move from 13 to 15% of our income we're just giving away.

Like just right up front.

Okay.

10% to the church, we give 1% to the vision team, and then we put money aside for what we call the God Fund, which is basically something that we've been blessed by other people along the way.

We just put aside so that basically if anybody says, hey, we've got this need, we're just like, yes, we can do it.

We don't want to have to pray about it.

We're like, yes, we can go ahead and do that.

And then we give to a couple of other outside groups and outside things that we want to help support.

So this is strategic giving.

I want to just tell you, I just can from experience, this is what I would call cheerful giving.

Like, I just described you something that's not a burden, like we love it.

We love it.

Like it is so much fun to be in a place of that, okay?

And that's where we we're where we're where we're gonna need to move to for us is to start thinking through legacy giving.

Like, I don't want to have to think about the end of my life or anything like that, but I do need to start kind of thinking through my future in such a way where it's not just like I give my kids a bunch of stuff they're gonna fight over.

But instead, I want to strategize in my estate and everything else a way in such that my giving outlasts me.

That I can put myself in a place to where it's not just giving in my lifetime, it's giving in even after my lifetime is over.

These are the pathways towards giving.

Of course, learning the vision team is also one of those.

You can find more information about that on page 25.

This is where we're going, and this is where we're heading.

And so I want to invite you to walk in that journey.

Now, before we jump into this text, I want to just walk through a little bit of idea of 90 is greater than 100 and the principle that is found throughout the scriptures.

God consistently shows that he can do more with less.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

The story of Gideon, one of my favorite stories in all of the Bible, it says that Gideon ended up going with the Israelites up against 135,000 Midianites, and that God kept whittling down his army till he got to 300 men who didn't have plowshares or didn't have swords.

And with 300 men, he took out 135,000 Midianites.

What does that show you?

God can do more with less.

Okay.

How about the story uh when you see in the Bible, whenever you see the feeding of the 5,000, that's 5,000 men.

We think it's probably closer to 15 to 20,000, whenever you consider the women and the children.

And the disciples are like, these people are hungry.

We got to feed them.

And Jesus says, What do you have?

And they said, We have five loaves and two fish.

Jesus takes five loaves and two fish, he blesses it, and it says that they all ate so full they had leftovers.

Jesus can do more with less.

How about the idea of the Sabbath?

The Sabbath is built into not only the Israelite culture, it should be built into us as believers.

This idea that we give one day a week where we don't work, but we instead devote those things to the Lord.

There's 168 hours in a week.

If you give 10% away but you don't work, then basically what it's trying to say is this it's a principle that says that God can do more in six days with one day given to him than you could ever do in seven days, grinding it out.

God can do more with less.

You just gotta know that.

So let's look at the passage, Malachi chapter three.

Would you stand in honor of the reading of God's word as we look at the clearest passage possible about this principle of 90 being greater than a hundred?

Malachi chapter three, I'm gonna begin reading in verse six.

It says, 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 statutes and have not kept them.

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

But you say, How shall we return?

Will man rob God?

Yet you are robbing me.

But you say, How can we rob you how we've robbed you in your tithes and contributions?

You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you.

Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you, and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

You may be seated.

The word tithe that is mentioned here in this passage, particularly in verse 8 and in verse 10, literally means tenth, like literally 10%.

This is God's baseline.

What's fascinating is how different we perceive the number 10%.

For example, if the boss came and had a staff meeting tomorrow and he took everybody, told everybody down, and he said, Here's the deal, things are not going well, we're cutting everybody's salary by 10%.

There would be anarchy.

You'd be furious.

10% if you got a notice from whoever does your water, which is way more expensive than it should be in our area, right?

And they said, due to some regulations, we are now increasing everybody's water bill at a minimum 10%, you'd be furious.

We'd all be marching down to whoever we can march down to to have an issue with that.

On the other hand, if you are on Black Friday and the deal is only 10%, is that even worth it?

10%?

Are you kidding me?

It's Black Friday.

This thing needs to be half off or girl math free, you know?

Like, what's the deal?

How about the fact that if you go to a waiter or a waitress this afternoon and you go eat and you were to only tip 10%, you know what you'd be seen as?

Cheap.

It's all about perspective.

Some of you, when you hear me say 10%, are like, oh my goodness.

That is crazy.

What I'm inviting you to do is to see it from God's perspective, which says this.

Hey, this is gonna be hard, but I'm about to do some stuff.

I'm about to show you some stuff.

And it's not nearly as hard as you think it is.

So come into this relationship where I can walk with you.

Look at what it says at verse 8.

This is don't miss this.

This language is pretty, pretty shocking.

He says there, what happens if you don't tithe?

Now, first of all, I know some of you are asking this question.

Okay, wait a second, is this like tithing off the gross or is this tithing off the net?

Well, first of all, I'm not positive that whenever you're supposed to tithe and give to the Lord, you have to like pay the government first and then give him whatever's left over.

But I'd ask you this question in response: Do you want a gross blessing or do you want a net blessing?

It's up to you.

I kind of want a gross blessing.

As opposed to a net.

I don't think it's a matter of being legalistic.

I think that's the wrong question.

But he says here, if you don't give it, he calls it robbing.

How many of you have ever been robbed before?

Did you raise your hands?

You've been robbed before, raise your hands?

Okay, gotcha.

Not nearly as many in this service as last service.

Quite a few have been robbed.

Uh, I was robbed a few years ago.

Hillary and I were with our family about an hour and a half away.

I can't even remember what we were doing exactly.

And all of a sudden I got a notice on my phone that said glass break alarm.

And then after that, a couple seconds later, said back door open alarm.

And then after a few minutes, it said garage door alarm.

And then it just kept flashing, basically saying that my alarm was going off.

I'm an hour and a half away.

I called my neighbor and I was like, hey man, can you look at this?

And he's like, Man, I just heard something over at your house.

And I was like, Well, man, don't go over there right away.

I don't know what you're walking into, but would you just wait a few minutes and would you call me?

So he calls and FaceTime me and he basically goes, Man, you got to get home right away.

So remember driving that hour and a half, one of the weirdest feelings I've ever had.

And we were driving there, I went all the way to the house, and I go in there, and man, sure enough, my back door is just totally shattered.

I walk inside, there's glass everywhere.

My TV had been taken off the mantle.

I go into my bedroom, they'd ransacked our room, they'd stolen a bunch of jewelry of Hillary's, they'd gone through my bedside table, they'd stolen some personal things that honestly I wasn't ever really able to get back.

And it was just a really weird feeling.

I remember cleaning it all up, and I'll be honest with you, we replaced eventually all the stuff that was stolen.

It wasn't like it was that big of a deal.

But it took us a long time before we felt right in the house.

Like we've been violated.

Like I remember just this eeriness, like I couldn't sleep for a couple of nights because I was just kind of wondering like what's gonna happen, or what could happen again, or I mean, just all the things that go along with it.

I need you to understand something.

That's how God feels when we rob Him.

I'm not trying to say that to guilt you, but I am trying to be honest with you.

It's not like God's up in heaven being like, Man, I do not know how I'm gonna pay the bills this month.

I need these people to tithe.

I think instead his heart is just grief.

Why are you doing this?

Why don't you trust me?

Like you you do know this not only hurts me, but you do know it it hurts you.

Like it's not in your best interest to do this.

So he's inviting us to do it differently, but don't miss the language.

You're robbing him.

I want to give you, I want you to write this down in your notes there on page nine.

I want to give you why you should build your financial life on this principle of 90 versus 90 is greater than 100.

Two reasons from this passage and others.

Number one, giving puts God first.

Giving puts God first.

I want you to act like for a moment.

I've got 10 basically dollars here.

I've got 10 dollars of cash, 10$1 bills.

By the way, some of you, this is what cash looks like.

You haven't carried it in years, okay?

This is what it looks like.

All right.

I didn't actually have it.

I had to borrow it from the business office because I don't have cash myself.

Uh let's just act like for the sake of conversation here that everything is cheap.

We know that nothing is cheap, but let's act like everything is cheap and everything costs a dollar, okay?

For the sake of this illustration, okay?

What I want you to visualize is I got$10 bills, okay?

First thing I need to do is I need to pay my rent, I need to pay my mortgage.

Okay.

So I'm gonna pay that, boom, I'm good to go.

Okay.

Then I gotta pay for my car, I gotta pay for my insurance, all right?

Pay that, good to go.

Now I gotta go get something to eat, so I'm gonna go to Chick-fil-a and I'm gonna eat God's chicken that has been given to us.

Give me some extra Chick-fil-a sauce for the glory of God and my pleasure, right there, right?

Now I'm sorry you're gonna want Chick-fil-A today and it's closed today.

I apologize for that, but still, got Chick-fil-A going, okay?

Then I'm gonna go to the grocery store, I'm gonna buy my staples.

I'm gonna buy the cheap food if you will.

I'm gonna buy the stuff that I gotta have just to be able to make anything else of the house, okay?

Then I'm gonna go to Trader Joe's and I'm gonna buy some healthy food.

I probably should use a couple of dollars on this one, but we'll just use one dollar, okay?

I'm gonna go try to buy some some better food, all right?

I'm gonna try to put some healthier food, whatever it may be.

I'm gonna use that for that.

Then I'm gonna go make a Starbucks run.

Stephen Siever, my buddy, he calls it the six bucks, not Starbucks, because you can't get away with going there without spending at least six bucks every time you go.

But either way, uh Starbucks, I want to get my drink.

I want to make sure I got my whatever, whatever, whatever that you've ordered.

And so I go by Starbucks and I buy something there, okay?

I've got four dollars left.

Okay.

Then after that, I go and I pay for my gym membership.

All right, haven't used it in a few months, but that's not important.

All that matters is one day I will.

And so I got my gym membership going on there.

Then I have my Netflix streaming channels, which is interesting because originally when I went and did all of this, I did it because I was trying to save money on cable.

Now somehow I spend twice as much money that I used to spend on cable, but that doesn't make any difference whatsoever.

I've got all the streaming packages.

Here I go.

I'm gonna spend it with my dollar.

I'm now exhausted from all the living that I've had to do, and I want to go out to eat, but I don't want to have to cook something and also don't want to have to go drive somewhere.

So what do I do?

I do DoorDash and I bring them to me, right?

I pay for that there.

I've got one dollar left.

This is 10%.

The assumption is this is the tithe.

Please hear me.

This is not the tithe.

You want to know why?

Because it's the last dollar.

The tithe is not left over.

The tithe is instead taking all of my ten dollars, and the very first thing that I do is I give to the Lord.

Proverbs chapter 9, verses, or excuse me, Proverbs chapter 3, verse 9 and 10, it says like this honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce.

Proverbs 9 · chapter mention Proverbs 3:9

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

What does this show us?

This shows us that the principle in the Bible is of the first fruits, not the last fruits.

It's the first 10%, not the if I've got enough at the end of the month, then I'll use it for God at the very end.

It's a radical reorientation of our lives.

It's putting God first in our lives.

I know what some of you are thinking.

If I was serious about giving God the very first 10% of all of my money, I'm gonna have to rearrange some things in my life around God.

Yeah, that's the point.

That's the whole point.

Like if you're serious about this, it's gonna require action, not just in what you give to first, but how you spend the rest of your life.

That's the whole point of doing this because we want God wants your heart.

He doesn't just want your money.

It's not about your money.

It's instead about how do I orient my life around a Godward idea that says this, God, I trust you in this area, and everything else is gonna fall in line in light of that.

This is what it's gonna begin to look like in my life.

Here's what's crazy most of us would say that we're generous already.

Like I've never met anybody who says, you know, I'm pretty stingy and I rob God pretty regularly.

No one's ever admitted that.

Most of us would say that we're generous, but here's the tension: generosity is not measured by good intentions, it's revealed by priority.

Business office told me this this past week that of all the people who gave to United City Church last year, okay?

So not everybody gave, but every people that did give, 61% of the people who gave to United City Church last year gave an average of$45 a month.

So$45 a month as a tie, that means that they live off of$450 a month.

There ain't no way.

There ain't no way.

I think what does that tell us?

That tells us that we have a tendency in this area to grade up on our paper, and you can't address something that you don't own.

We gotta ask, are we acting like we're following God?

Or are we actually following God?

This isn't about money.

This is instead more about like, God, am I gonna like be serious with you or am I gonna play house with you?

Like, am I just gonna act the part?

Or am I gonna trust you and believe that what you say is true?

I realize that there's a lot of different situations and a lot of different circumstances to that number.

I'm not trying to get legalistic about it.

I think my point, though, is invites us to ask an honest question, not just about our hearts, but about our habits that flow from that.

Spiritual growth must always begin with the decision.

And at some point, what I'm hoping to lead us into in this series is to plant a flag and say, God, you're first.

Like, God, I believe you.

Like I trust you.

It's gonna be uncomfortable, but I'm this is what you say, I'm gonna do it.

Not begrudgingly, but instead, God, I'm gonna I'm gonna trust you with this area of my life, this area with my business, this area of all that you have given to me.

Let me show you a second reason that 90 is greater than 100 from this text.

Number two, write this down, page nine or beyond.

Giving creates space for God to move.

Giving creates space for God to move.

For most people, the reason that they don't tithe is because they're fearful.

What if I can't pay my bills?

What if something unexpected comes up?

What if I need that money?

And I get it.

Fear feels reasonable.

Like fear feels wise, fear feels safe.

I was meeting with my my leadership coach this past week, and I talked to him about, man, one of the things that God revealed to me in the fast, and what God revealed to me at the end of last year is that I let fear drive too many of my decisions.

And we had to talk through how fear can be a helpful thing because it can maybe stop you from being impulsive, but you can't live like that.

And I think a lot of times when it comes to money, we live in just what if, what if, what if, what if.

Let me show you what the contrast, though, is whenever you begin to think about this differently, whenever you don't live in fear, but instead you live in a place of faith.

Let me just backtrack for a second, though, before I go there.

Let me think about this Matthew chapter 25.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

What do you see?

You see the parable of talents.

You see three different people, they were given three different amounts of money: one, two, and five talents.

It says the one with the two and the five talents, they invested their talents, a risky move, and they ended up doubling their money.

The one with the one talent was fearful of the master, and so he did not do anything with it.

He buried it in the ground.

The master comes up, he begins to ask them for an account, and then he says, I didn't do anything with your money because I was fearful, and he calls them a wicked and lazy servant.

What does that show us?

That shows us that fear is not a strategy that leads to success.

Fear is a strategy that leads to stagnation.

And we're invited into a step of faith.

And here's what the Bible says in Malachi chapter 3, verse 10.

Malachi 3:10

If we express faith instead of fear, bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house, and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts.

If I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

What does this tell us?

This is the only time in scripture where God says, try me.

Test me.

Just see if it works.

And I will pour, it's almost like I can't wait for you to try it out.

And I will pour out my blessing upon you.

Folks, it's such an important thing for us to realize and to accept in all of this because living on 90% with God's blessing is greater than us living on 100% without it.

And here's the problem prosperity preachers, which are all over our area and city, have tried to hijack this verse.

They've told you that if you believe and have enough faith, then you're gonna be blessed, and you're gonna have this, and you're gonna have prosperity, and you're gonna have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, on and on and on.

And that's a heresy from the pit of hell.

That is not at all what the scripture teaches.

You are not saved by the amount of faith that you have and the blessings that you receive.

You are saved by the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, his death, his burial, his resurrection, and that is all any of us need.

That being said, prosperity preachers can't take away the promise of that verse.

And that verse is super clear.

If you are obedient, then God will respond with blessings.

Here's what so often happens: if I give 10% of my money, then I am literally laying this stuff down.

I'm opening myself up, I'm giving this back to the Lord, and I put myself in a position where now I can receive, it says the open the windows of heaven and pour out blessing upon you.

I can receive those things as opposed to if I instead of trying to hoard my money, control my money, keep my money, I'm trying to make sure I don't lose my money, then I am not in a position to receive anything from the Lord.

So instead, I want to live like this.

I don't want to live like this.

What does this look like?

Well, I think you can look one by financial blessings.

I'm not saying if you give, you're gonna get a bunch of money, but I am telling you this: I've given and I've gotten an anonymous thing of cash in my mailbox.

I've actually got that story happen to me at a moment when we needed it.

I've had a promotion or I've had a raise at a time I did not expect to ever get it at the exact time that I was crying out to the Lord that He would provide for me.

I've had situations where unexpected bills and unexpected uh expenses have all of a sudden been reduced, and I did nothing to initiate that.

I'm not trying to tell you that that's gonna be your experience, but I am telling you this: you should try it and see.

I can tell you story after story after story where God's done that.

Maybe for some of you it's not financial provision.

Maybe for some of you, it's experiential blessing, where all of a sudden you go from a place to where giving is like a duty to where all of a sudden giving becomes a joy.

Where all of a sudden you begin to find yourself or you and your spouse suddenly you're on the same page in a way like you've never been before.

And guess what?

Your financial situation didn't change at all.

God gave you that.

I've experienced it with relational blessings where all of a sudden God has aligned a couple to be more in sync than they've ever been, and it started because the first domino was how they're going to handle their finances.

A place of contention ended up becoming a place of unity.

Or relational blessing where you begin to have a relationship with the people of the church.

Why?

Because you're by giving to the church, your heart begins to follow and fall in love with those people that are there.

You get into a small group, and then all of a sudden your whole life's different.

I've seen generational blessing where people have flipped the switch and gotten this and began to live in such a way where it was legacy giving, and it went from them just making a lot of money, giving their kids a bunch of toys they're gonna fight over, and instead being in a place where they can begin to bless generations in the future.

And their kids begin to see what's most the priority to their parents instead of just fighting over their stuff.

Folks, Acts chapter 20, verse 35.

Acts 20:35

It's so true, it says this it is more blessed to give than it is to receive.

There is something happens in your soul when you get this that you can never replicate.

Hillary and I are not wealthy by any means in the world standards.

That being said, we feel like we are loaded in the things that matter.

With our family, with our church, our unity together, our ability to be a blessing to other people.

My my point to you is this is that God isn't necessarily gonna you give money and he's gonna make you rich.

I'm saying this: if you give money, what you're gonna experience is God is gonna make you rich in ways you could have never dreamed.

He's gonna bless you in areas that even when you struggle, even when you have trials, they don't overtake you like they used to.

They instead you know, God, you're using even these things to do something in and through me.

I was uh speaking at an event a couple of months ago, and I got stuck in Dallas.

There was bad weather in Dallas, and I literally was in Dallas at the airport all day long.

I was from, I mean, it was 12 hours, fift four fifty fifteen hours, something like that.

I was in the Dallas airport.

I'm never on social media a ton, but I I jumped on there and I was like, hey, I'm gonna do some QA today while I'm sitting here killing some time at the airport.

And so I had a bunch of folks on staff kind of jump on there and some other people that kind of follow me that kind of asked me some various questions.

And then I had a question from somebody who goes to our church.

Her name's Crystal.

And her question was, We are in debt.

Should we tithe while we're in debt or should we get out of debt and then start tithing?

That was her question.

And it's one of those things like everybody that's following me gets a chance to see.

So I responded to her question and I said, Hey, I think that you should tithe while you're trying to get out of debt, because the last thing that you want to do is somehow ask God to help you get out of debt while you're robbing him at the very same time.

Just know this, I know it's super hard.

I'm gonna be praying for you.

Let me know how I can help.

That was my response.

She then reaches out to me a little while later and says, It's kind of what we were thinking, it's kind of what we thought, so we're gonna go ahead and do it.

A few months after that, I get an email from her.

And she says, Hey, I just want to give you an update to that question that I asked.

And she said, I just want you to know we're still chipping away at the debt, but here's all the things that's happened in our life and in our family ever since.

Take a look at the screens, we put them on camera.

Okay.

Okay, sorry.

I'm Crystal.

I'm James Kimball.

I think we were still we were still trying to find, right?

Find find we were still looking for answers.

Trying to find, I think we were in that transition phase, you know, lukewarm, yeah, baby Christians in a in a sense, right?

Um, so I I think when she answered that question, I think it was the Holy Spirit nudging us, right?

You know, supporting us in in trying to find that answer, right?

You know, I prayed about it and again, you know, when I went to that sign when I was like, wow, you know, I've heard it preached so many different ways, and and you know, how you delivered the message really set with me, right?

It really set with me, and it allowed me to to to look at our our our finances different, right?

You know, I don't know that what we expected by doing this, but it was just something we wanted to do regardless.

Um but it was more of him, it was more of his presence, it was more of him working on our hearts, um, him working in our marriage, him working in our kids' hearts.

Um and every everything that happened, I just knew it was him.

It's led us up to to be supportive of each other in our marriage.

Uh, I think, you know, the relationship that we have with our kids are a lot different.

Um, I also think the people that he's put in our life, you know, this amazing church that we that that we attend, the people that he's put in our lives, right?

So I think, you know, just all of the things that he's done, right?

You know, just just by his grace and being able to have a church family that supports us.

I think week after week, right?

You don't just talk it, but you know, we walk around and we see the type of impact finances can make.

Right, right, with the with the church.

Um just just seeing what it does, yeah, you know, with the kids, uh, just seeing the mission trips that it takes and what it's doing uh for his first glory and his kingdom.

God just saying I'm just gonna you know.

I've never seen a bricks truck are you all behind hearse, right?

You you can't take this with you, so why not invest in in God's kingdom and build your treasures up?

Right?

Uh a lot of times I know it's easier said than die, but you know, you have to take that leap of faith.

So good.

I know some of you are thinking, maybe you're guests today, and you're like, seriously, one day I come to church?

It's by giving.

Have you invited someone?

You're like, oh, the giving talk, can't believe this.

You want to know when James and Crystal's very first Sunday in United City was?

The Giving Talk one year ago.

James now serves in our parking lot team.

Crystal now serves in our youth area.

Lives are totally different.

If you're a guest today, I don't apologize for anything.

Instead, I want to invite you to have your life change too.

This is a step, it's a first step, but I'm just telling you, it won't be the last one.

God will just continually compound and He will allow you to experience His blessings in your life, and you'll be able to have a testimony just like that one.

You know, it's important, I can think the question is where are you on your giving journey?

Let me just tell you something.

If you have this desire to do something different and you take no steps to make a change, all you've done is been entertained.

We don't want to entertain you.

We want to lead you to bold, radical faith.

So, what is it that you need to do today?

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

We can't wait to see you next week for any of our services at 8 30, 10, 11 30, or Espanol at 1 o'clock.