Giving Always Leads to More | Special Guest, Dan Dumas

It's my privilege to be with you and to teach this morning.

It's always a great opportunity to teach God's word when I have an opportunity like this.

And so I'm extremely grateful for even this series.

It's not lost on me that they've brought in a guest speaker to talk about money.

On spring break weekend, and then on my way over on the plane, I learned that we are on time change weekend.

It's like four things are against me, but I'm swimming upstream like a beast.

And I'm here, and I'm glad I'm here.

I'm glad you're here.

A lot going on in Houston.

And so let's get busy this morning as we look at part two in our series.

My title is God Loves a Cheerful Giver.

My responsibility is to answer the question why?

Why generosity?

Why give?

Pastor Chris dealt with the what.

I'll deal with the why, and Pastor Dave is gonna deal with the how next Sunday in this three-part uh mini-series.

I also am acutely aware that two topics strike fear in all of us when you're sitting in the congregation, and that's when the pastor talks either about prayer or money.

And so I'm gonna try to dissolve your fears.

I need you to lower your walls.

Don't put walls up and protect, lower those walls.

Let the Spirit of God uh speak into all of our hearts uh this morning.

My big idea is this giving leads to more.

Giving actually leads to more.

So this past week I'm prepping uh for you, and I had the privilege of listening to Pastor Chris's message.

I'm from California, so I was listening uh over and over one morning and just listening to what he said, and it dawned on me as he articulated so well the significance in the biblical view of tithing, and I was reminded of our parenting style.

We are raising two boys, and at some point in their lives they get bikes or they have to jump in the pool or whatever the practice is, and uh and we had to make a choice as parents.

Are we gonna go training wheels or no training wheels?

We're a no training wheels family.

I hope that you are too, because you're from Texas, like you're supposed to be tough.

And so I set out a course to teach my boys.

I got up on a high hill, I pushed them and hadn't not thought about teaching them how to stop the extreme, you know, uh the scale of the hill, everything.

And and my wife's just kind of looking at me like, what are you doing?

You stupid?

Like this is crazy.

And but we went no training wheels, and they picked up riding and a few crashes and a few bumps and bruises, but they were off to the races.

Same with swimming, you can, you know, put water wings on, get lessons, or you just throw them in the pool and stay close by and help and assist with the hook if you need to.

Uh, but you you learn like you have to make some choices.

And so last week it was really about tithing, and uh, and that that's kind of the training wheels of generosity.

This week we're gonna unbolt those training wheels and we're gonna take off the training wheels and look at generosity, which is in addition to your giving of 10%.

What does that look like?

Why?

Why should you even be in this space of generosity?

So make sure that you have your book.

You can turn to my section in there, uh, which is the cheerful giver section here.

Um, there's also tons of stuff you can look at.

Um, the resources in the back, like the treasure principles, the book I recommended.

I'll quote from that even this morning.

It's a pretty good book.

If you want the big book and you're a serious reader, then you read Money, Possessions, and Eternity.

The Cliff Notes are the treasure principle.

It's a little tiny book, kind of books I like to read.

It has lots of pictures and uh that kind of thing.

So those are some resources for you.

So we we developed this for you in mind, um, and it's a pretty big deal uh that we work together through this and talk about uh generosity and remove the training wheels.

Uh, my job is to convince you that generosity is a better way to live, it's a better way to live as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I believe generosity beats stinginess all day long.

That's my proposition for us uh this morning.

Now, I'm I'm not intending to guilt you.

This is not guilt you into giving Sunday.

That is not the purpose of this series.

You would miss the whole point, and you'd miss our hearts grievously if you think that is what we are about.

That's not what I'm doing.

Sometimes in preaching, you've sat under different teachers, and they can either be gospel loading or gospel lifting.

And you probably felt the loading before, like you leave service and you feel like a piece of dirt, and you feel like I can never, you know, uh I never can do enough, or it's kind of a do more message kind of thing.

That's not our heart.

Our heart is gospel lifting because we know and have experienced as lead givers in the church the joy, the unexpected joy that comes with generosity.

So I'm not trying to guilt you.

I'm gonna give you every compelling reason I've got in my tool belt to help you appreciate why generosity is so significant to the Christian life.

So no loading, only lifting.

Now let's dive into the deep end to use Chris's uh analogy last week.

And let me just start by stating some obvious things about generosity.

You saw the video if you were here last week.

Um, it was pretty funny.

These are just the kind of the fundamentals.

They're just real quick, real pithy, and I'll just make a few comments about them.

And it's like getting on the porch to this house of generosity.

First, you need to spend less uh than you have.

Um, that's just pretty obvious, I think, but sometimes we need to be reminded that we spend less than we have, especially I'm raising uh teenagers and have to constantly teach that.

Second, I hope you recognize that the culture around us is really trying to bombard us with the pursuit of more.

And you're you may be tempted to keep up with the Joneses and you finally catch up to them and you got what they got and then they refi.

You know, it drives you nuts.

You're like, hey, that's not fair.

You know, there's all these things that happen to us.

Um third, I would say leverage is not real wealth.

Leverage is not real wealth.

And what do I mean by that?

A book came out in 1996, and it was entitled The Millionaire Next Door by Stanley and Danco.

I don't know if you've read that book.

It's a pretty awesome little book, but it just says there's a lot of millionaires that live next door, but you'd never know it.

Why?

Because they have certain disciplines and practices.

So I thought I'd run through those disciplines and practices in an attempt to poke leverage and debt in the eye this morning.

Okay, first, uh, most millionaires do actually live frugally.

Uh, they're not playing an external game.

They actually do live within their means and they live frugally.

Number two, uh, they live below their means.

So they don't try to run up as close as they can get to emptying their account every month.

They they actually live below their means and will pay cash.

Uh, if they don't have enough cash to pay for something, they won't probably charge it on credit cards.

As a matter of fact, they don't like credit cards, they disdain credit cards.

Um, and it's kind of hard in this current culture uh to live with just cash, but a lot of them do.

Um, they also avoid debt and leverage at all cost.

The millionaires next door.

Here's the big thing: they they are not into building wealth.

Uh they're not into building status, they're into building true wealth.

So they're not about imaging and driving the right car.

As a matter of fact, the number one car of millionaires in the West is a Ford F-150 truck.

That's the number one car of a millionaire in the West.

They're intentional about the next generation, they're they're financial, raising financial, savvy kids, so they pass on these principles and they try to keep their kids out of debt and leverage.

So a lot of times you can see somebody in the image is, man, they've got a ton of cash.

Not necessarily so based on this book and based on a study of 500 billion years, there's certain practices and disciplines that they have and they don't appreciate debt, and they don't appreciate leverage because they know uh what it does to uh the person that has it.

So, a couple more just uh that you should note of that Jesus said we're not to brag about our generosity.

So he said, listen, when we give, we don't let our right hand know what our left hand is doing, right?

So we don't brag about that.

And one final comment: giving is always proportionate to your your income, to your means, right?

So when we talk about generous giving to a body of people, it's equal sacrifice.

It isn't always equal dollars.

Some people can give more, some give a little less.

And I know some of you are on the journey of generosity, and some of you are just starting.

Last week's response was magnanimous.

People started giving uh for the first time.

That's wonderful.

Uh some are tipping and not tithing, some are now jumping into tithing, some are going beyond into the grace gift, into generosity, which is our topic here this morning.

So you're on the continuum somewhere, and we would encourage that.

And this is why.

That's my job is to tell you why this is so important.

So let me open the front door with a quote to this home of generosity, and it is this from C.S.

Lewis, who died in 1968.

I love this quote.

It just is piercing for me.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud plies, mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what it's meant by the offer of a vacation or holiday at the sea.

How many times do we frolic around in a mud puddle and we never go to the coast?

We never go to the ocean, we never put our feet in the sand and in the cool waters.

We never do that kind of stuff.

We're crazy.

Well, what we really want for you is to experience a vacation at the sea of generosity.

That's the whole goal this morning.

We want you to see it and feel it and go, wow, that's something.

We want you to appreciate having more opportunity and more joy and more blessing to give, more freedom to give than you've ever had.

To me, generosity is a big deal.

It really changes everything.

The big irony is this, though.

Look up.

We're not after your money.

We're not asking you for your money.

God's not broke, he's not, he owns everything.

What we're really after is you having a deeper relationship to God as manifested in generosity.

Okay?

So we're after your heart, not your wallet.

Please hear us.

We don't want your wallet.

We want your heart.

It's your heart that's in preview before us.

We want you to never miss out on this grace gift, and that's exactly what 2 Corinthians 8, where we're going to look at in a minute, it tells us it's a grace gift.

It's it's uniquely attached to grace.

And so it's not about your wallet, it is about your heart.

And so by the end of the morning, I hope that you get clearer in your purpose.

I hope you will embrace greater freedom, unexpected joy, and deep blessing.

That's the point of this series.

If you leave from here saying United City is all about money, you are loco.

You're crazy.

That's not what this is about.

That's not what our heart is at all, right?

So I hope you'll hang in there with me and walk with me as we walk through a couple of passages of scripture.

Now, I want to deal with one passage that I think is kind of misquoted and misused.

And it's 1 Timothy 6 10.

You don't need to go there, just listen.

You know it well.

The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

That gets translated as money's evil.

That's not what the text says.

It's the love of, the craving of, the passion for money is what gets us in trouble, right?

The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

And you listen to what he says.

For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

1 Timothy 6 10.

Why we care about that and why we want to correct that is because it can be treacherous to set a course in your life and in your marriage to make copious, unending mounts of money.

And not understand generosity and not attach your wealth to generosity as the scripture so keenly and carefully does, right?

It's treacherous.

People walk away from the faith.

The money has the ability to control you and have power over you.

And there's some things we've got to put into our thinking and into our lives.

That's my goal.

That's what we're gonna do here this morning.

So it's not money is not evil.

It's the crazy heart, right?

It's the heart unchecked, it's pursuing the idol of money that can get us into trouble.

So what if?

What if we changed our views?

What if we changed our thinking about money?

What might happen?

Well, let me quote Randy Alcorn.

He said, Is it possible that when God prospers us to change our standard of, he prospers us to change our standard of giving and not our standard of living?

That's in the treasure principle.

So when God blesses you, you get a bonus or you get a bump or whatever that is, and you're very talented people, you're gonna have that through the course of your career.

Is the first question, what do we need to get?

Do we need to get a jet ski?

Lake Houston, little mud puddle.

Like I'm sorry, that was offensive.

But you know, you want to get a jet ski employer.

I don't know, right?

I don't know, you know, but maybe he's saying you ought to consider changing your standard of giving, not your standard of living.

But I think all of us, our first gut response is, man, what do we got to get?

Should we level up?

Should we get a new house?

Whatever that is.

We all struggle with that, and that sometimes is our first question.

I'm proposing it ought to be a second or third question.

The first question is this Is he calling us, is he blessing us to raise our standard of giving?

What if you changed your habit of giving, sir, ma'am?

What if?

What would that do?

I'm telling you to change your habits and to make a decision in the back of this book.

There's a decision for you to make, a next step to do that will be to change your life.

It is so awesome at sea generosity, when you go to the sea of generosity, it's so awesome that we want to promote it and extend it and explain it the best we possibly can to convince you to even create a little FOMO, fear of missing out, if you're not in the generosity atmosphere and space that we're calling you to live in.

Well, I want to begin by introducing you to some friends.

They're in the scriptures, as a matter of fact.

So take your copy of God's word and join me in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9.

They are the Macedonians.

I love introducing people, I love networking, I'm I'm curious, and so I love to find out about people.

So let me introduce you to the Macedonians in Scripture.

Chapter 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 is probably two of the most significant passages, so much so that both myself and Pastor Dave are gonna work this thing like a Kentucky fiddle.

Like we're going after.

So we want to get in here and kind of roll up our sleeves, get dirty, throw a little mud around, like look in there and say, who are these crazy people?

Because they were epic.

They were rock stars in the category of generosity.

So, 2 Corinthians 8, are you there?

Are you hanging with me?

You okay?

Do you want you to slow down?

You okay?

All right.

2 Corinthians 8, 1 to 5.

Let's check it out together.

I'm gonna read it for you out of the ESV.

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia.

That's the financial offering to Jerusalem, the grace of God.

For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.

For they gave according to the uh to their means, so I can testify, and even beyond their means, of their own free will.

Of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.

And this was not as we expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and then by and then by the will of God to us.

Did you notice that last verse?

Self-giving precedes financial giving.

That's why we're after your heart.

When you surrender yourself, the wallet just kind of comes with the package of surrender, right?

If you're all in Jesus, then it's gonna it's gonna affect us and how we live if we think through this and apply this to our lives.

I want to draw out a couple of principles because we're introducing them to you and it's significant.

Notice that they are in extreme poverty and severe testing due to battles and wars.

Um, it has really been a very difficult season on this region in particular where the Macedonians live.

So they have extreme deprivation.

But notice it didn't slow down their generosity, it didn't shut down their giving.

They actually upped the ante.

They actually got better and stronger and more to the point they started begging, hey man, the the church is saying, hey, slow down, you're in an extreme situation, save some back.

And they're like, no, no, we just want to give it away.

We have plenty.

We're okay.

God's taking care of us, God's providing, right?

And they were.

They were providing for the Jerusalem church.

They helped the apostle Paul, which we're gonna look at in a second, Philippians 4.

He's in a Roman prison and they're totally funding his deputization of help, like he needs some cash, he needs some flow, he doesn't have anything.

They're giving out of their weakness.

And the important principle is this circumstances, life circumstances, did not shut down their giving.

And that's a lot what PC said last week, right?

You know, you that's why you do reoccurring giving.

So you don't let circumstances, you know, it's the first decision on the first day of the week, not the last decision as you run out of money or don't have any money in the accounts, right?

It's just a commitment, a deliberate commitment.

They didn't let circumstances steal their joy of giving.

And notice what he calls it a grace gift, and it's bringing extreme joy.

That's what we want.

If you've not been giving, we want you to put your toe in the water or jump into the deep end with us, take off your water wings, and frolic around a little bit and experience what generosity, the blessing that generosity brings.

And the joy rose above their pain.

It was an act of grace.

It's the right thinking about giving.

You don't have to give, you get to give.

It's a privilege, it's for your blessing.

And as we saw on Haggai last week, you can't even outgive God.

I we dare you.

I double dog dare you to jump in the deep end and give and see if it doesn't result in more.

Next week, Pastor Dave's gonna triple dog dare you, right?

It's gonna be the ultimate dare for you to step into this space and try it out and see what it's like.

It's an honor and privilege, it's a willingness of a gift because they first gave themselves.

Why?

Because you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.

Grace and generosity, they're connected.

And the more you understand grace and the deeper you go with grace, the more impact it will have on your generosity as a family, as an individual, right?

You can't outgive God.

He was poor so that you could become rich.

How could you not want to give?

How could you not want to participate in that?

So God ends up blessing our lives so that we can share with others, not just for ourselves, not for a bigger, better, or bigger barns, not for all that.

That could be a part of it.

There's no shame in that.

But is your first question really is he raising my standard of giving or my standard of living?

We would propose it's a possibility that he's asking you to raise your standard of giving.

Well, let's jump into the deep end.

I have five reasons why generosity is significant to the Christian experience.

I got five compelling reasons, right?

My goal again is to entice you to move deeper into the waters of generosity, into this universe of generosity.

So these five are significant.

Take them in your notes, write them down, work through them in your small groups, uh, work through them with your spouse, go to a date night this week, you're still dating your wife.

Right?

I'm 33 years in, still dating my wife.

So you go on date night and say, hey, Turbo, what are we doing about this?

What are we gonna do?

Like, are we gonna step up or not step up?

What are we doing?

So, kind of mutual accountability between you and the Lord and you as a couple.

But let me give you five reasons why I believe this is so significant, and why I'm kind of want to give us all a little bit of a spiritual shove towards generosity.

Okay?

Number one, you're in 2 Corinthians 8.

Flip over a chapter, go right to 2 Corinthians 9.

Number one is this God loves a cheerful giver.

It's my title, it's my proposition, it's the big idea.

2 Corinthians 9, take a gander at verses 6 and we'll just go all the way to the end of 9.

6 to 9, chapter 9.

It is here that Paul writes, the point is this.

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

Well, stop there.

They're an agrarian culture, right?

So they're used to sowing seed.

And it's pretty obvious the more seed you sow, the more harvest you get, right?

You want a bumper crop, you gotta sow tons of seed, right?

It's it's almost blatantly obvious.

It's all over the scriptures, Galatians 6, 7.

You reap what you sow, and sometimes more than you sow, which is my proposition here in giving, that it's it's it results in actually more.

Let's continue on.

Each one must give as he has made up in his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion.

Stop there.

We're not we're not we're not trying to manipulate you into giving.

God doesn't need your money.

We we're after your heart.

And we assume that when your heart's right with the Lord, you're gonna be generous because it's hard to be lavished with grace and be stingy.

It's tough.

It's really hard.

I mean, believe me, I've tried.

And it it doesn't work, right?

Let's keep going.

For God loves a cheerful giver.

Amazing, our title.

And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times you may abound in every good work.

Listen, the all is repeated.

It's comprehensive, it's linked to your relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, this is a significant place in Scripture.

There's another one that's very similar to that, and it's in Isaiah 66 2.

And it's a reference to the kind of person that gets God's attention.

And God in Isaiah 66 2 says, To this person will I look.

Answer, he who is contrite and humble and trembles at my word.

So you want to get God's attention, you walk in humility.

Humility is to be prized in God's economy and in God's kingdom.

So you walk with humility, you love his scriptures.

That's a significant text, one you should note.

Hey, if I'm, you know, if I'm I'm wanting God's undivided attention, I need to walk in humility and I need to love his word.

Here's another one in 2 Corinthians 9, verse 7.

2 Corinthians 9:7

It says, God loves a cheerful giver.

He loves a cheerful giver.

Not compulsory, but willing.

And it's a reference to his special, unique love when he sees a generous couple, he sees a generous family.

You want to get God's attention, you get engaged as a cheerful giver.

You remember the movie Chariots of Fire?

It's about Eric Liddell, 1926 Olympics.

He stated this statement in the movie and in the book, and he says, When I run, I feel his pleasure.

Remember that?

Well, I'm here to purport when I give, I feel his pleasure.

Because God really genuinely loves a cheerful giver.

He really does.

And that is compulsory.

That is like, that's compelling for me as a case, as I'm trying to convince you of how significant this is.

God's special love is experienced when we are generous.

Look, the tithe is taxation, it's a part of it.

It's the commitment to the local church.

We first give to the local church.

But I'm talking about beyond that.

And if you were to take all of 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, you would learn quickly that it's a reference to being sacrificial in your giving, being voluntary and clearly here.

Being cheerful.

It's unexpected joy.

You should have a blast when you're giving.

When our boys gather at the end of the year and we close out the end of the year in giving on December 31st, we get, and we have them input.

We have them do all the online giving, and they're young enough where they're still equating dollars to Xboxes.

So you're like, we're giving them five X boxes?

Like, why would we give them five Xbox?

That's too much money.

What are they doing with that money?

You know, we we want to overwhelm them so they learn generosity as we're doing here before you.

Wasn't that cool?

And by the way, you were being fruitful and multiplying, which is how you push back the darkness.

So I want to say thank you.

That was a bunch of kids.

So you guys are prolific.

I'm grateful for you.

So, but look at these boxes.

We're training up the next generation to be generous.

Why?

Because God loves a cheerful giver.

He wants us to be sacrificial, he wants us to be cheerful.

Why?

Because of his amazing grace.

I can't state it any better than that.

It is his amazing grace that makes me generous as a family and as a couple.

And if you've been graced and lavished with grace, surely that's gonna spill over to that leather thing in your back pocket, right?

Surely it's gonna spill over to our checkbook.

Surely it's gonna spill over to caring for other people.

And here's the crazy thing: when you give generously, you get more.

You can't outgive God.

That's what Hag I said last week.

Hey, test him.

We double dog dare you.

Come on into the waters, swim a little bit.

You can't believe what happens when you are generous.

Plus, God owns everything, does he not?

Psalm 24, 1.

God, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, including your next breath.

Right?

Your next breath is determined by Him.

So all of our assets really belong to God.

And when you can begin to shift in your brain and think, oh, I'm just a money manager.

I don't own anything.

I'm not from these parts.

You're not from Houston.

Your citizenship's in heaven.

This isn't it.

This is just the dot.

We're living for the line of eternity, the long line of eternity.

You store up your treasures in heaven, Matthew chapter 6, right?

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

It's the best investment advice I can give you.

You guys say, Uncle Dan, where do I put my money?

Hey, I'd say you put it not in Schwab, you put it in heaven.

Why are you so quiet?

It's true.

It's really true, right?

God loves a cheerful giver.

Number two, I really believe for me, this is a lesson that generosity dislodges us from the materialism grip.

Can you turn over with me to Philippians?

Go right into Philippians 4, verse 13.

Philippians 4:13

I'll read verse 11.

Philippians 4, verse 11 says, Not that I'm speaking of being in need, for I've learned in whatever situation I'm in to be content.

Philippians 4:11

I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound.

In any and every circumstance, I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger and abundance and need.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Now surely you know that verse, Philippians 4.13.

It was when my wife and I we first got married 33 years ago, like cross-stitch, cross-stitch was in.

It's abysmal, but the first thing she cross-stitched for me for my office was that verse.

I thought it was like a superhuman verse, like I can do all things.

No, you can't.

You really can't.

You can't jump off the highest building in Houston and survive.

You can't do that.

That's crazy, right?

Remember, Philippians 4 is about money.

And there are Macedonians offering to Paul, who's in a Roman prison.

And he says, Listen, I've had a ton of cash and I've been broke as dirt, but you know what?

I've learned to be content.

Contentment is the aim.

How much is enough to live content?

And he says, I can I can abound and I can abase on this deal.

I can go either direction.

But I'm telling you, through Christ's strength, I can do all things.

I can survive this.

I can have enough to eat, a roof over my head, some clothes on my back, right?

That's the content of Philippians 4.

But we usually take the verse out and we deport it, you know, into something that means something different.

It's about money, it's about contentment, right?

Stinginess is not next to godliness.

Stinginess actually ushers in anxiety in your marriage.

And so you have to learn to hold things loosely.

The basic principle is this: love people, use things.

Don't use people and love things.

You gotta get your head on straight, right?

You gotta think clearly on these kinds of issues.

We all need this, right?

Leverage and debt, they strangle generosity.

There's so much freedom when you've you're no longer strapped in debt and and trying to compete and and and trying to keep up with the Joneses and kind of keep up with everybody's image bearing going on.

We're to store our treasures in heaven.

I believe that giving breaks the power of money that controls us, right?

Materialism grips us, the culture, you know, promotes it, and so it grabs us.

And I I've it's grabbed me, I'm sure it's grabbed you at times, but but generosity is how you break the power of it.

You shift from being an owner and everything in this life to a steward and a money manager in this life.

It's a better way to think, it's a better way to live, right?

No one ever regrets generosity.

I've never met somebody that gave, even out of their pain, where they went, man, that I really didn't enjoy that.

No, they don't.

It's deferred gratification.

You get to give, you send it forward.

And you've heard this before, but you've never seen a hearse towing a U-Haul.

You can't take it with you, sir.

You can't take it with you, man.

It's just not gonna happen.

Right?

So send it ahead.

Invest in eternity.

Give it away.

If you have two of anything, give one away.

Just give it away.

It will release that grip.

We don't hold things like this.

It's not an ironclad death grip.

We hold things loosely.

This comes, it goes.

Ask Job.

Right?

Comes and goes.

Came into this world with nothing, I leave with nothing.

Number three.

Third compelling reason giving is way better than getting.

Giving is way better than getting.

Jesus said in Acts 20, 35, it's more blessed to give than it is to receive.

If you're a true gospel-centered leader, you are a giver, not a taker.

The Apostle Paul was writing to the Thessalonian church, he loved this church, chapter 2, verse 10.

He says, Not only did we give you the word of God, but we gave you our whole lives.

We were all in.

Matthew 6, 33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be added to you.

The irony is this, giving always leads to more, right?

There's joy in giving.

It's it's it's what I see in my boys.

It's mind-bending to them to see their mom and dad just give generously.

It's mind-bending because it's sacrificial, it's sending it ahead.

And I know, you know this, your hearts go where your money goes.

We could put up your account, any one of our accounts, you can put up mine, and you'd see what I'm passionate about, right?

You you'd see what I care about.

You'd see what we invest in, what what matters the most to the doomest household, right?

Our hearts follow the cash.

They follow the money.

We say that in business all the time.

Follow the money.

You'll find out who's leading.

Well, the same is true with our hearts.

Our hearts are like mirrors.

They're like mirrors and they expose us.

So that leads me to number four.

Fourth compelling reason, write it down.

Giving is a heart issue.

Matthew 6, 21, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

It's a heart issue, not a wallet issue.

We've said it multiple times.

I think our hearts are like mirrors.

They they kind of expose us.

They see what we're passionate about.

Right?

You follow the money, you'll find your heart.

Just that's how you do it as a practice, as a couple.

Our wallets are mirrors on this deal.

We should have this volitional decision on behalf of the giver to give our funds away.

And you can fill it out in your book.

You can say, I need to start tithing, or I need to start giving, period.

Or we know there's a journey here.

We know that there's a large group of people.

You just have to seek the Lord and He will direct your steps.

But it's predetermined, it's very intentional.

You'll hear more on this from Dave next week.

But it's, I mean, the devil literally wants to rob you and distort your heart and get you chasing idols and things that disrupt the heart.

We're saying as a church, we want your heart.

That's what this is about.

It's not about a series about money, it's a series about the heart because we know there's so much pleasure and so much joy in giving.

And I'm hoping to create FOMO in you.

They're like, I'm missing out.

I'm stingy, I squeak when I walk, I'm so tight.

Like that can change through the grace of God, right?

He'll help you, right?

And again, self-giving always precedes financial giving.

Last, number five.

And probably the Mount Everest of our generosity series.

God gave first.

God gave first.

Listen, He's the consummate giver.

John 3 16, for God so loved the world, he gave.

Not only did he give, he crushed his one and only son.

I don't even have a category for that.

I don't have a category for me giving one of my sons for you.

I don't have a category as a dad.

Do you?

God crushed his one and only son.

He's the consummate giving.

You can't outgive God.

This is why we call it grace.

When you've been graced and you have been forgiven of all your sins, and you're gonna be squeaky with your wallet?

Romans 5.8.

God demonstrates his love towards us and that while we're yet sinners, Christ died for us.

The incarnation is mind-bending also.

He left heaven.

Came to the slums of this earth, laid aside his independent exercise of his divine prerogative.

He became a man, he died a common criminal.

Are we really going to talk about money?

No.

We're talking about your heart.

We're talking about you're giving your heart to Christ, right?

And it's a part of the abundant life.

Abundant life includes generosity.

So give to the glory of God.

And because he gave the most.

That is the compelling, the penultimate reason for you to be generous.

It's because you've been blessed and you've been lavished with his grace.

Now we all have a next step.

Right?

That's what our book says.

We're making room for you.

We're giving you space to pray about this, to think about it.

We're giving you multiple weeks.

The what, the why, the how next week.

And all of that's crescendoing to action and to a decision.

But we also have an invitation to you this morning.

Our team's coming now, and they're gonna lead us in some singing to close down our service.

But by way of application or by way of action, I want to go two-directional.

First direction is this I want you to stroll down memory lane with me.

Just quietly in your seat, close your eyes, breathe in the air of generosity, and think back about all the times God has taken care of you, He's provided the ram in the thicket.

All the times He's blessed you.

I can go back through my uh life.

Here's a couple examples.

I am in seminary, I don't have any money.

I want to marry my wife to be, I didn't have any money for a ring.

I said, Oh God, would you provide?

I don't know what to do.

I can't afford, you know, they didn't have these silicone rings back then.

You get five for 20 bucks or something.

You know, they didn't have that.

And so it was kind of part of the deal to honor my wife.

Literally that Sunday, I go to church, a couple who've been married 50 years walks up and says, Hey, the Lord laid on our heart this morning that we're to give you our diamond.

You put it in your own setting, but we're giving you our rock so you can honor your wife.

We've made it 50.

We're all in to the end.

We'll get something else.

I just pray, God, I don't know how that's gonna happen.

He provides.

I mean, I got out of debt.

We were in debt from college debt and living in Los Angeles, and it's expensive, and we got crazy in debt.

And through seminary, we get out of debt.

We don't carry debt.

I mean, how is that even possible, right?

There's so much liberty and generosity, so much freedom.

Both our sons are adopted.

We couldn't afford that.

Someone comes and says, on both of them, both occasions, hey, we'd like to cover your adoption.

You have a thousand more stories.

That's just a sampling of one sinner on the stage.

You've got tons.

Think about those.

Go stroll down memory lane.

If you're in Christ and you've embraced the gospel and lavish by grace, I want you to scroll down memory lane.

A second direction I'd like to bring this is this.

If you're here and you've never embraced Jesus Christ, you've come to church, you've been around the faith, you've been around the gospel, but you're not all in.

We have these counselors, men and women down here, they would love to talk with you.

They know Jesus and they can introduce you to him.

And furthermore, they they can help you, they can pray with your next step about finance, whatever you want.

They're here just to serve you.

They're in the center and they're here.

And when we start singing, what I want to do is invite you to come down.

If you've never trusted Christ, you've never fallen on the mercies of Christ, today is the day.

Don't put it off.

Today is the day.

You come and grab one of these leaders, and they'll be glad to spend copious amounts of time sharing with you the gospel.

So, two-directional.

As we stand to sing, I invite you to come if you don't know Christ or you want to be baptized or you are pursuing a calling to ministry.

If not, I want you to just sit there and reflect on how awesome God has provided for you and how that informs your generosity moving forward.

Okay?

Let me pray for us.

You stand, they'll sing, you come.

Father, thank you for this morning.

Thank you for the scriptures, thank you for 2 Corinthians 8 9, Philippians 4 13, a ton of them.

We are so grateful.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let's stand, and you come as the Lord lays on your heart to make a decision.

It's awesome, man.

We love you.

Hey, y'all be seated just for a quick moment.

I've got I've got a couple quick things that I just want to go over.

One, um, if you're new to this church, or maybe it's your first time here in a while, and you would like to ask some questions about what we believe as a church, how to get involved, anything like that, uh, then the growth track would be the best place for you to do that.

We do the growth track so that you can learn about us, what we believe, what we teach, how we develop this whole thing, but we also do it so that we can get to know you.

Uh, we believe in making big church small, and the best way to do that is by uh us having the opportunity to meet you and your family in Growth Track every Sunday at 10 a.m.

You can join any week of the month.

It doesn't matter which week you start on, but we would love to meet you guys uh there.

Also, church, I just want us to take a moment.

All of these boxes on this stage, that's a big deal.

I mean, it's a big deal what God is doing in the hearts of the children that are here.

And sometimes we can come into this room and lose sight of all that God is doing in the other rooms of our church.

And I'm thankful to be a part of a church that is so invested in training up the next generation through a biblical lens that this is the response.

I will trust in Jesus.

And the the great thing is, is it happens every single week.

I never want you to lose sight of that.

John, our kids pastor.

Man, I just want to thank you for your leadership.

I'm so grateful for how the Lord is using you.

You're the man.

I love you.

I love you.

Church, thanks so much for being here.

God bless.

We will see you next week.

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 105.