Recession Proof: Eternal Investment with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the Medicurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at Medicurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

115, it's so good to see you guys.

I'm glad that you've joined us in our newest service.

My name is Clayton.

If you're new with us, we're in the third week of our recession proof series.

This series has kind of been building on each other.

So if you missed any of the weeks, you can get caught up on our YouTube channel.

Go to youtube.com slash metachurch.

In week one, we learned that our core issues have to be addressed when it comes to our financial management.

At the core, we don't have a money problem, we have a desire problem.

Our desires are inflated, they're out of control.

We live in a culture that uses compare to drive fear, to drive insecurity, so we will seek our security in the goods and services that people are trying to sell us.

In week two, we learned how to balance our equity equation by minimizing our liabilities, getting out of debt, and maximizing our assets, learning how to live sacrificially, investing in ourselves and our future.

In the first two weeks, we really looked at a lot of what not to do.

Today we're gonna turn the corner and talk about what scripture calls us to do.

We're looking to recession proof our lives.

Yesterday, there were a bunch of you who showed up for our one-day financial workshop where we spent four hours going to a granular level of changing mindsets and building skill sets to help us steward well what God has given us.

I want to be up front about today's message.

MetaCurch is a place for all people.

We specialize in reaching people who are unchurched and de-churched.

I think the majority of us are de-churched, which means you were in church at one point or you grew up in the church, but then you left.

And most of us have some church hurt in our past.

And I recognize that today's topic might have played a role in that.

And so the way I like to preach is I like to build tension for like 30 or so minutes and then do the big reveal of what we're talking about that day.

It helps hold attention, and I like the big reveal.

But today I'm gonna give the spoiler up front to make sure there's no sucker punches, there's no bait and switch.

Today we're gonna talk about generosity and we're gonna talk about giving.

And I realize that in a lot of church environments, they have lever leveraged manipulation and they have leveraged fear in order to create an environment where you are incentivized to give.

And hopefully, I can shed some light today on why that happens so often in our churches.

I know that talking about generosity can feel really bad in a church context.

At the same time, the movement of Jesus has to talk about generosity because Jesus talked about it.

As a matter of fact, our finances and how generous we are with our resources is one of the things Jesus talked about most often.

And so we have to be able to dig in.

And so I've really been praying, I've prepared very hard to try and share this in a way that comes across with the heart that scripture presents it with.

And I would just encourage you to lean in today and see it, even if you have some hurt around this topic in the past, if God might have something to say to you today.

My message is eternal investments, eternal investments.

Would you pray with me?

Father, I just uh I pray that you would cover our time together.

Holy Spirit, we believe that you're here, you're active in the life of every believer, you are good.

And because of that, whatever you ask of us is good for us.

You've asked us to be generous.

And I pray that in your word we would see why.

We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

We've rooted this series in a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a young preacher named Timothy that he was mentoring.

In 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 17, these verses will be very familiar if you've been in the series.

1 Timothy 6:17

It says, Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God, who richly provides us with all things to enjoy.

Instruct them to do what is good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share.

We've hammered this all series long.

Our culture is obsessed with getting rich and appearing rich.

Our desires are inflated.

We are caught in what we called last week the treasure trap.

We're piling up debt.

We live in the most affluent culture of all time.

And we've acknowledged this.

We are wealthy compared to the standard of almost everyone on planet Earth.

If you make 40 grand a year, you're in the top 2.6% of wealth on the planet.

We are affluent.

Compared to everyone in human history, we have affluence.

We drive cars, we air condition our homes, we have in our pockets smartphones that have all of the information of all of human history right there for us to access.

At any given time, we are affluent and we don't really know it.

And we've also acknowledged all series long that big business has a vested interest in keeping you in a poverty mindset.

And the reason they need you in a poverty mindset is because if you feel like you don't have enough, then you might feel like you're not enough, and you'll seek security in the things they are trying to sell you.

So we're rich and we don't realize it.

We're wealthy and we don't acknowledge it.

Greed is the natural side effect of affluence.

And I want you to know what I believe about you and what I largely believe about myself.

I don't think that you are actively greedy.

Like I don't think you're going downtown in your spare time and robbing from homeless people.

I don't think you're doing things immoral, unethical, illegal.

I don't think that's that kind of greed.

I think that we live in a greedy culture.

And because without actively fighting that culture, we become swept along with it.

We are passively greedy.

And so we take up a lot of our mental space, and maybe even we lose sleep sometimes, thinking about the things that we don't have that others have that we so desperately want.

And maybe we swipe a card to impulse by something so that we can have a quick emotional high to disguise the deep insecurities that are driving those behaviors.

And we research and we ogle after the latest and greatest devices, and we take out debt, figure out how to finance it.

We buy things we can't afford with money that we don't have.

We end up piled up under that debt, barely able to breathe.

Our finances are a burden on us.

They're like a weighted vest we carry around.

They're not resourcing us and empowering us and pushing us towards our purpose.

Instead, they're like anchors around our feet holding us back.

We are swept up in this insatiable greed culture that has its clasp on us.

Verse 17 shows us this problem.

Instruct those who are rich to not set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth.

When our hope is in money and materials, that means that we have placed our peace, our identity, our hope, our future on material things that cannot hold the weight of our hope.

The things that we're buying and financing so that we can dress the right way and look the right way and drive the right car, those things don't care about your future.

They can't help you get to your future.

As a matter of fact, if you're buying them on debt, they're bankrupting your future self.

And yet we're so tempted in a culture of greed to set our hope on the things that we can get, the goods and services that we can purchase.

Paul not only points to this problem, he gives us the solution.

And if we read these verses carefully, he's actually detailing the instructions for how to deflate our desires, how to balance out our equity equation, escape the treasure trap.

He's showing us how to recession proof our life.

Verse 17 starts with instruct.

Instruct those who are rich to not set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth.

And look at verse 18.

It also starts with instruct.

These are literally the instructions for how to thrive with your finances.

Instruct them to do what is good, to be rich in good works, to be generous.

We live in a culture of greed.

And if we're not actively fighting against it, we will be swept along.

It doesn't mean you're actively, consciously a greedy person.

It means you live in a greedy culture and are falling into the status quo.

And generosity is so important.

I want to talk for it for just a minute on a very practical level.

Generosity is so important because generosity is the antidote to greed.

Generosity is the antidote to greed.

It is what saves you from the natural, almost gravitational pull in our culture towards leading a passively greedy life.

You know, we talked in our Easter series about what happens if you're bit by a poisonous snake.

In Texas, that would most likely be a rattlesnake.

And what you need to do is get to a clinic as quickly as possible that has the antidote.

And it's very interesting because you would think that the anti-venom, the antidote, would be like the opposite of the venom.

But in fact, the key ingredient in making anti-venom is the venom itself.

They start by milking the fangs whatever snake it is, a rattlesnake, and they get the poison, they inject it into a host animal.

The host animal creates antibodies to fight against it.

They harvest those out, and that's how they make the cure.

So when you have a poisonous problem, you actually need a poison antidote.

And the same is true with our money.

Greed is a money problem.

And greed requires a money solution.

Generosity is the ultimate way to fight against greed.

And here's what greed creates: it creates a scenario where you don't own your stuff, your stuff owns you.

You don't have your money, your money has you.

And whether or not you own something, the truest test of ownership is transferability.

If you own it, you can give it away.

If you can't give it away, you don't own it.

We are passively greedy.

And to get out of a culture of passive greed will take active generosity.

Consistent, intentional generosity.

And when you are generous, what it means by definition is you're taking some of your resources and you're giving it away.

And when you intentionally, consistently, actively exercise generosity, give things away, you are staking your claim that you own your resources.

You own them because you can give them away.

Generosity is the antidote to greed.

It's what's known psychologically as a keystone habit.

A keystone habit is one habit or one routine that has ripple effects and helps you in other habit areas.

One example is waking up early.

Waking up early is known as a keystone habit because just by doing that one thing, getting in that one routine, it influences you towards other better routines.

For example, if you wake up early, studies show that it will cause you to often go to sleep earlier, to get more done with your day, to be more productive, to make better eating decisions, especially at breakfast, your most important meal.

It also has a side effect of people end up drinking more water.

All of these things just from one habit.

Going to the gym is like the ultimate health keystone habit.

It's one habit that will help you eat better, sleep better, improve your mental health, be more social.

A keystone habit is one habit with ripple effects.

And when it comes to your finances, and especially when it comes to a culture of greed, generosity is a keystone habit.

It is one thing you do, staking your ownership.

Not that your stuff owns you, you own your stuff.

Not that your money has you, you have your money, and you're proving it by giving it away.

It's a keystone habit.

It forces the organization of your money so you know what an appropriate amount is to give away.

It broadens your financial perspective, it makes you more likely to save money for the future, and it is the antidote to greed, and greed is running and it's ruining our lives.

See, we talk about the spiritual things.

And the deepest spiritual truths always manifest themselves practically.

The deepest spiritual truths always show up in your life in practical, applicable ways.

And here's one reason that we know generosity is good for you.

Because God says to do it.

God has designed you, He knows every fiber of your being, He has designed the universe that you dwell in, and His design for your life is the way to live the best life possible.

And people have studied greed and they've studied generosity across all the different disciplines.

They've studied it socially, psychologically, neurologically, emotionally.

Here's what they find: when you live a greedy life, you see bad effects across every part of your life.

It hurts your relationships, it destroys your mental health, it obviously has devastating effects on you financially, and it causes your brain to release the chemicals that cause stress and anxiety inside of you.

And generosity is true in the opposite.

Socially, you flourish as a generous person.

Psychologically, you see improvement.

Your mental health improves.

Even your physiology, your mind releases the chemicals that bring joy and happiness and love and feelings of significance and impact.

The spiritual always shows up in the practical.

And generosity.

Look, Metachurch is a place for people in all different parts of their faith journey.

And so maybe you don't even believe in God.

Maybe you're not sure about any of this.

Living a generous life will make your life better, and it will make you better at life.

It's just how it works.

It is a keystone habit.

And following God's design for our life has a compounding effect on the quality of the life that we're living.

That's generosity at a high level.

That can apply to anyone.

And so, if you are a believer in Jesus, I want to talk for the rest of our time about Christian generosity.

What does it look like and what are we called to when it comes to giving to God through our local church?

Here's how I want to organize the rest of my message.

I want to talk about what we are called to give as believers.

I want to talk about how we are called to give, and finally, I want to talk about why we give as believers.

Let's start with the what.

And if you're somewhat new to Metachurch, where we land on this might surprise you a little bit.

Most churches in the West teach giving through the lens of the tithe.

The tithe just simply means 10.

And the way the tithe is taught in the church today is that any money that you have come in, your income, you give away 10% of that money to the church every time.

That's tithing.

That's tithing as taught in our churches today.

Usually they will use a verse like Malachi 3.

Malachi 3, 10 says, Bring the full tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house.

Test me in this way, says the Lord of armies.

See if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure.

It sounds pretty good.

You bring your 10%, and the floodgates of heaven itself will open and will flood your life with blessings that you cannot even imagine.

Malachi 3, verse 10 has to be one of the most misused verses in all of Scripture.

Malachi 3:10

Here's what we believe about the Bible at Medichurch: that the Bible is the inspired word of God, that it is useful, it is powerful, it is instructive.

Every single word of it, from Genesis all the way to Revelation, here's what else we believe about the Bible.

That it is divided into an Old Testament and a New Testament.

And it is a distinction with a difference.

And we have to allow the Bible to speak in its own context.

We cannot make our own context and set it on the Bible.

Malachi 3 was written to a specific people at a specific time.

And if we ignore the context and act like it was written to Metachurch in the year 2022, then we will be off base with what scripture is actually saying to us.

There's two primary ways that people use the tithe in order to get their giving up.

One is through manipulation, and the other is through fear.

And the manipulation comes out of verse 10.

And this is leveraged by a lot of prosperity gospel preachers, where they will say, if you give your 10%, your wildest dreams will come true.

You know the Rolex that you've always wanted to wear, but it costs like five years of your salary?

You will wear that Rolex.

All you gotta do is put a 10% payment down, and Jesus will take care of the rest.

You'll wear those brands, you'll drive those cars, you'll live in that house.

It's prosperity, guaranteed, material wealth.

It says it right here.

Test God.

See if He doesn't bless you.

So let's look at a little more of the context.

Instead of starting in verse 10, let's go back to verse 8.

Verse 8 asks, Will a man rob God?

Yet, God says, You are robbing me.

How do we rob you?

You ask?

By not making the payments of the tithe and the contributions.

And so you are suffering under a curse.

And yet you, the whole nation, are still robbing me.

Then we get to bring the full tithe into the storehouse so there may be food in my house.

Test me and see if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure.

So we have the manipulation.

You just give, you give your 10%, and God will make all of your wildest dreams come true.

And we have the fear.

If you only give 9.99999% of your money, all of your money and your life is cursed.

And so you have fear and you have manipulation.

And there's a really prominent pastor in the West, and you can pay him lots of money.

And he'll come to your church and he'll be the bad guy, and he will preach a sermon out of Malachi chapter three.

And the point of the sermon is if you want your money blessed, and you want your life blessed, and you want your relationships blessed, and you want your children blessed, and you want your house blessed, you have to bring your 10%.

The storehouse is the church.

Where does he find that in the text?

Don't know.

But that's what he says.

And if you don't, if you only give 7% or 8 or 9.8, then the other 91% of your finances are cursed by God.

You will not get ahead, you will suffer in life.

That's the message.

And that is a bad biblical interpretation.

Let's go to the text.

It says, by not making the payments plural, payment of the tithe, plural.

It says in the next verse, you are suffering under a curse, yet you, not the whole world, not the whole church.

This was written before the church existed.

The whole nation.

Look, the Old Testament of the Bible, it is written primarily to the nation of Israel.

God, in the Old Testament times, he chose out of all of the nations, one nation for a specific time and a specific purpose, that through that nation, one day, the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, would come and open the door to all people in all places in all nations.

The church is not Israel, and Israel is not the church.

And Malachi is writing to the theocratic kingdom of Israel.

That means a government led by God Himself, implemented through the temple, which sat in the middle of society.

Notice it said the payments, plural.

If you read the Old Testament law, there is not one tithe.

There are three.

You gave one tithe in order to fund the national government.

You gave one tithe to fund the national holidays and celebrations.

And then every three years, you gave another tithe in order to help the poor and impoverished.

That means every year, as an Israelite living under the law, you gave 23 and one-third of your resources to the government of Israel through the temple.

23 and a third.

What does that sound like?

Taxes.

The tithe system was the tax system of ancient Israel.

It was not the offering system to make them right with God.

And when we try and pick and choose out of the Old Testament what is convenient for us in the church age, we take the Bible out of its context and we put a pretext in order to push our agendas forward.

And that is dangerous.

That is a dangerous misuse of scripture.

And we have to handle scripture correctly.

And here's what happens in churches where they push tithing, the budgets go up.

And a small percentage of people give, but they give a lot.

And everyone else who doesn't feel like they can get all the way to 10% just doesn't give at all.

And so we know some things because there's a lot of data about the church over the last 100 years.

And there are two surefire ways to increase your annual budget.

Number one is To teach the tithe out of Malachi 3, exactly how I just said they teach it.

Use fear and use manipulation, and your budget will grow.

The data is there.

The second way is to pass the offering plates.

You guys remember that?

Where they would pass the bucket around and everyone got to watch and judge how much money you put in it.

And some of y'all are new to church and you think it's leave a penny, take a penny, and you really are stealing from God.

Both of those things will grow your annual budget.

It's proven time and time and time again.

And so here's how we manage that at MetaCurch.

And this is your movement, so you, you know, you should know this.

We operate on about one-third of the budget of the average church our size.

We have a very small budget compared to most people with our attendance numbers.

And so the temptation, and boy, I've been consulted.

Clayton, look, look, I know the tithe isn't really in the church age, but it is in the Bible, you know, and your money would go.

We don't compromise truth for convenience.

And the moment that we start thinking we can get ahead of God and we can take his word out of context and we can handle it better than he can handle it, then maybe we would grow our budget.

Maybe we would double our budget, maybe we would triple our budget and catch up with the other churches.

But I choose to believe that God can do more with less money if we stand by his word and the truth it says than if we manipulate to try and get ahead of him.

And more than that, I believe with an appropriate view of giving and generosity that we can follow his word down to the letter, and we can have everything that we will need to have the impact God has called us to have.

And many of you go back all the way to the saloon.

I failed to mention this in the last two services, but Thursday, this Thursday, was one year to the day since we closed on this building.

And y'all know we were in a bar for years and years, and even this building we could not afford.

And God gave it to us.

And generosity works like that.

And please hear me.

10% isn't bad.

I'd love for you to give 10%.

Katie and I decided early in our marriage when we were very low income and very high debt that we would always strive to give at least 10%, but not because it was a demand from God.

We chose because we believed it was a good spiritual discipline for our family.

And there's a huge difference between you giving under duress out of fear that God will curse your life, and you giving out of a sense of opportunity that you could do something significant as a part of this movement.

So when it comes to the church age, there's very, very little motivation given out of what to give.

The focus is not on the amount, the focus is on how we give and why we give.

And so let's break that down.

How we give.

As we look through scripture, we see three clear patterns for how to give appropriately to God's work through the local church.

At Medicurch, we say it like this: we give first, we give sacrificially, and we give automatically.

Say those with me.

We give first, sacrificially, and automatically as you are seeking to escape the treasure trap and deflate your desires and use the resources that God has blessed you with to empower your life and your passions and your purpose.

These are the guardrails for what generosity should look like.

This is the how to give.

Let's break it down.

We give first.

Giving first is about the prioritization of your finances, and the prioritization of your finances is indicative of the prioritization of your life.

Jesus said, where your treasure is, that's where your heart is.

And what that means is we invest in what we believe in.

And if any of us had a time machine and we could jump back to 1986, we would find Steve Jobs and we'd give him every penny we own.

We know where it's headed.

Might as well invest.

We invest in what we believe in.

What that means is when God wants to know your priorities in your life, He's not looking at your wishes, He's looking at your wallet.

Where your treasure is, that's where your heart is.

And giving first, it's very simple what it means.

It means when money comes in, offering goes out, and it goes out first.

Remember, generosity is a keystone habit, but keystone habits have to come first.

They set the tempo, they set the parameters for your financial life, they make the statement that I own my stuff because I can give my stuff away.

We give first.

Before we've paid our bills, bought our groceries, gone to the movies, booked the vacation.

Before we do anything, when money comes in, we give our offerings out.

In the great book of wisdom, Proverbs, it says, Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first produce, the first produce of your entire harvest.

You don't gather all of your harvest and pick the best and put it in the pantry and give God the leftover.

You give it to him first.

We see this at the very beginning of scripture.

With the first siblings, Cain and Abel, in Genesis 4, it says, In the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.

The way that reads is it's kind of like the leftovers, an afterthought.

He gathered what he wanted and he gave God what was left.

He just gave him some.

In verse 4, Abel also brought an offering, but he brought the fat portions, those are the expensive, highest quality, and he brought it from some of the firstborn, the most precious of his flock.

His offering showed the priority that God held in his life, and God accepted Abel's offering and he rejected Cain's.

We give first.

Blessings come in, blessings go out.

This is so instructive for us.

And if nothing else gets added to your life today, this one thing will begin to transform you spiritually, putting God first in every area of your life, including in your finances, it's saying, I trust in you, I believe in you, my hope is in you, you are my fortress, you are my future, you're my hope for today and tomorrow.

You are my security, not the things of this world.

And so often we we want to give and we get paid on the first and we decide we'll give on the 11th.

And the problem is that$200 that you were gonna give for the offering, when it sits there in your bank, your bank calls out to you.

All you can eat shrimp at Outback Steakhouse, only$14.99.

It calls out to you.

It's like a siren song.

And you get paid on the first, and you were gonna give on the 10th, and you were gonna give 200, but you get there, and there's only 50 left.

And God's not focused on an amount, it's not about what, it's about how.

And God does not want our leftovers.

Scripture says he's a jealous God.

I always thought that was weird.

Like we're not supposed to be jealous, but God's a jealous God.

And you know, jealousy is uh it can be very wrong.

But you know, when you're for the for the married folks in the room, there's a form of jealousy like when a man comes up and he's very obviously hitting on your wife.

And we don't want to be jealous, but at the same time, it's also not okay to be indifferent.

It's not okay to just see your prized possession, your life partner, your 100%, and not care what happens.

God is a jealous God, He does not want second place, He wants time and energy and intimacy, He wants to be the priority of your life.

And one of the ways that we make sure that happens is we put him first in everything, including our finances.

We give first, we give sacrificially.

Jesus had an encounter during his time on earth that's so, so interesting.

And I get so excited about this one sacrificially, because it is so empowering to every single person in this room.

It's so empowering.

In Luke 21, Jesus looked up and he saw the rich dropping their offerings into the temple treasury, and he also saw a poor widow dropping in two tiny coins.

Truly I tell you, he said, This poor widow has put in more than all of them.

Notice what he doesn't say.

He didn't say she gave with more heart.

He doesn't even say she gave more of a sacrifice.

He actually says, she with two coins put in more.

What that tells us is heaven's economy does not function exactly like our economy functions.

Jesus explains in verse 4.

For all these people have put in gifts out of their surplus.

It's not a sacrifice, it's a surplus.

They're not gonna miss it.

It's the leftovers, it's convenient.

But she, out of her poverty, has put in all that she had to live on.

Heavenly economics are just different.

And you guys know this, but at MetaCurch, we're not a wealthy congregation.

We don't have millionaires and billionaires sitting in every other aisle.

Like, God is using us as ordinary, jacked up people to do an incredible work in this city and beyond this city, but it requires all of us.

And the idea that he's not calling for an amount.

The standard for generosity is not an amount, it's not even a percentage, it's not a tithe.

He could have set the standard at a thousand dollars.

Once you give a thousand dollars a month, congratulations, you're finally generous.

He didn't set it at an amount, he said it at an attitude, and that is so encouraging, and it's so empowering because sacrifice is scalable.

And what that means is everyone can give a sacrifice.

It doesn't matter where you're at in life, it doesn't matter what income you're making, it doesn't matter what age you are, everyone can give a sacrifice.

That's how I define it.

A sacrifice is giving what you're comfortable giving, and then giving a little bit more.

And if you can comfortably give$200 a month, right?

That's what we pay for cell phones and gym plans.

If you can pay comfortably$200 a month, then give$250.

Give$300.

Sacrifice means it costs you something.

Give it away where you're gonna have to cook a few extra meals at the house, where you're gonna have to hit the matinee instead of the premiere.

Given away, it's hard to believe, where you're gonna have to make Keurig coffee like a peasant.

Some of us are giving a whole tithe and a half to Starbucks every month.

Investing in our caffeinated anxiety.

Starbucks does not need your money, and we invest in what we believe in, and we invest with a sacrifice, and sacrifice means something different to everyone.

And so here's what I suggest, and just to be clear, this isn't scripture, this is suggestion to help you organize your sacrifice.

My suggestion is that if you make a salary, you become a percentage giver, and you decide out of your salary what percentage would be a sacrifice to you that would cost you something, that makes sense for you and where you're at in life.

And maybe that is 10%.

Maybe you can do that.

It's so interesting.

I I've taught on the tithe a few times, and a couple of those times, I've had wealthy people come up to me afterwards and say the same thing.

I've been tithing for decades, and it's not a sacrifice.

Isn't it interesting that we're supposed to teach the tithe to bring the money up, but for some people it was actually limiting their generosity.

Maybe for you it's 4% of your salary right now.

You know, the average salary in San Antonio is gonna be about$2,000 a paycheck,$48,000 a year.

$2,000 a paycheck, 10% is$200,$2 is$100.

What does a sacrifice mean to you?

Pick a percentage and give it and give it consistently.

And when God brings blessing and when God brings increase, then you increase as well.

You expand your generosity.

But start with a sacrifice.

I know many of us we live off commission or we live off of tips, and so your salary is irregular.

Pick an amount, an amount that you can stand with, that you can give, and you can give it first.

Everyone can sacrifice because sacrifice is scalable.

And we're sitting in it.

We're sitting in the evidence of what happens when a movement of people decide to give sacrificially.

And maybe we don't have enough.

We fell half a million dollars short of buying this building.

But you better believe our name's on it today.

Because when the people of God give their sacrifice and they give it first, when we all do, and it takes all of us when we all do what we can do, God will do the rest.

We give first, sacrificially, and automatically.

In Matthew 6, Jesus said, So whenever you give to the poor, don't sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be applauded by people.

Truly, I tell you, they have their reward.

And look, I don't know exactly what the 2022 version of this is, because I've never seen any of y'all bring trumpets to church with you, but maybe it's like, and when you give, don't Instagram live it, okay?

It's about our motives.

And you can give first and you can give sacrificially, but at the end of it, if your motive is to be rewarded by the applause of the people around you, then your heart is not one for generosity.

You're just exercising a different form of greed.

Don't give like the hypocrites do.

Instead, when you give to the poor, don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.

And your father, who sees in secret, will reward you.

We give automatically.

And so you pick your percentage, or you pick your amount, and you give, and you always give it first.

As soon as it comes in, your offering goes out.

God, you are first, and my life, my treasure put you first, my life, my heart, my emotions, my relationships.

You are first.

We pick our amount and we give it, and it's a sacrifice, and we do it every time.

And here's what that verse is teaching us we don't give to do something generous.

We do, we give because we are becoming generous people.

And it's so interesting.

Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

We've all probably played a sport at some level.

And remember the first time you shot a basket?

Remember the first time you swung a bat or served a tennis ball?

Oh man, you had to think about every single step of that motion, everything that both hands, what are my feet doing, my hips, my shoulders, both my hands, my fingers, all the way through the release.

Everything was conscious.

But the more you practice, and the more you practice, and the more you practice, you you quit being someone who's playing basketball and you become a basketball player.

It becomes automatic.

And what we need to do is be consistent enough that we quit being a person doing a generous thing.

And over time, if you're consistent, you're automatic.

You will become a generous person.

When you become a generous person, your life will improve dramatically.

Your life will be better, and you, as an individual, will be better at navigating this life.

And so we've talked about what and we've talked about how, and in our remaining time, I want to talk about why we give.

Here's the bottom line: you give because this is your movement, and your movement matters.

The foundation of MetaCurch was a correct understanding of what church is.

And it's not this Sunday service, and it's not this building, it's not an organization, it's not the leaders on staff.

You are the church.

Ecclesia, the called out people of God.

This is your movement, and your movement matters when you're giving, you are funding yourself.

And so, where does it go?

You guys know some of this because you look around.

You know these lights cost money, the air that's in here costs money.

There are practical, tangible needs, and you need to know this.

As the staff helping organize the movement, we know how to stretch a dollar.

We are frugal and prudent and creative.

We're operating on about a third the budget as most churches our size, and our output, in my opinion, is at least as high as any of them, if not more.

Our money is being stretched.

Your generosity matters, and so, yes, it's going to mortgages and utilities and salaries, and it's going to marketing so people know we're here, and it's going to signs on the road so people can find us, and it's going to back-end databases, and it's going to the Sunday service and creating elements that make this an inviting place, engaging where anyone can come from, any walk of life and be inspired and enlightened.

And it's going to fund our life teams where people are getting in community outside of Sunday morning and they're taking the power of God and they're turning it into this application, this force of nature to be reckoned with, and it's going to fund our programs and our classes that are helping people get healthy and move out there in the real world.

And look, I get it, like buying chairs and paying utilities, that's not sexy.

I understand that, okay?

But we are not four years old yet.

In a metachurch, we've baptized over 300 people.

God is using all of these things, the very basic nuts and bolts of what it takes, and he's using them as tools to reach our city.

And I also want you to know we practice what we preach.

And that passive greed, it can get caught up even at the organizational level.

And so we're finding ways to be generous.

And over the last three years, we've averaged giving away about$100,000 a year, helping to fund and fuel other ministries and other people who are making significant differences in our world.

So I want you to know the effect that your generosity is having.

And I've asked our social action coordinator, Katie, to let you know about some of those opportunities.

As a social action coordinator, I get an incredible first-hand view of just how far your generosity goes when you give through MetaChurch.

We are truly doing far more together than any one of us could do on our own.

Here are just a few ways your giving is having an impact in our city and around the world.

Meta has two strategic partners, one local and one international.

Our local partner is Vault Fostering Community.

You may not know this, but Bear County is in one of the worst foster care crises in the nation.

So many parents are interested in fostering but don't feel like they have enough resources.

This is where Vault comes in.

They resource everything a family needs to foster children of all ages: clothes, cribs, backpacks, car seats, you name it, and they have it.

And they give it to foster families for free.

MetaCurch has been the single largest donor to the vault for the last few years.

The vault serves over 200 foster families per month.

Our funds will have directly helped 360 kids in 2022 alone.

That's 360 kids who are now in loving families.

Families who could say yes because the vault had what they needed.

Our international partner is Together for Haiti.

They build schools, raise up churches, and help Haitians start self-sustaining businesses.

There is no public education in Haiti.

It costs for every single child to go to school.

In 2022, Your Giving has helped 57 students get the education and a hot meal every single day.

It's supporting the salaries of two teachers and a portion of our funds have gone to build a school with 12 new classrooms.

Haiti as a country has been hit with one devastating event after another.

However, Together for Haiti has not lost hope.

We believe in the work they are doing, and through your generosity, we have become a key partner with them in the work they are doing.

Earlier this year, we had a chance to step up for our brothers and sisters in Uvaldi.

God provided us with a contact on the ground who was organizing therapy and relief for the families directly affected by the tragedy.

On one Sunday, you gave$17,000 to meet the needs we were called to as a church.

MetaCurch, I believe that someday in eternity, each of you will see the true scope of the impact you have had.

Y'all have watched as God's been growing us post-pandemic, and we just opened this service, I mean, a few weeks ago.

We have room to grow, we have a beautiful space that over time we are customizing to meet the needs of our ministry.

But I do not believe that this is our last stop.

At the beginning of 2020, we opened a second location, a video venue where we had a live pastor, we had live music, and then we all saw the same sermon.

It was efficient and it was effective.

It also opened about eight weeks before the entire world shut down.

What you may not know is to this day, we still hold our lease on Sunday mornings in Helotus.

In faith, we believe that God has not done growing us.

Katie and I just celebrated an anniversary and we went out for dinner Thursday night, and we always play this game, you know.

What surprised you about the last 10 years?

Where do you think we'll be five years from now?

And when she asked me, I shared something I've been hesitant to share.

I believe in five years we will have a meta church within 20 minutes of everyone who lives in San Antonio.

This culture matters.

This message matters.

And look, I've cast vision on this stage for things before that didn't happen.

Y'all remember the Kmart.

God's plans are bigger than our plans, but I refuse to stop dreaming.

I refuse to stop believing.

We've averaged giving away about$100,000 a year to people in need in our city and around the world.

I believe in a day where Metachurch will give away$100,000 a month to people in our city and around the world.

I know what God has called us to do.

I don't know where he's gonna take us.

I don't know how he's gonna grow us, but I know he told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel.

And I know that God looks at our city and he sees people who are living without hope, separated from their heavenly father.

And I know that we will do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

And people have been hesitant to give to church, and I understand it because in a lot of churches you feel like you're investing in a country club for people to get dressed up and check a box in their social life.

And I'm not interested in that.

And look, you can call me crazy.

It will not be the first time.

I believe where we're at right now, this is like 1986.

Opportunity to invest in Apple computers.

I believe that there is unimaginable impact ahead of us.

And I know this wherever God wants to take us and however he wants to use us, it will require all of us.

And you must begin to own that you are a significant part of the vision of Metachurch.

This is your movement, and your movement matters.

Ten years ago, I felt like God gave me an idea for a leadership pipeline and quite a bit of detail that would allow us to take leaders through young leaders, older leaders, retired leaders, doesn't matter.

They don't need theological degrees or church backgrounds, just people who are passionate to build the church and spread the movement, and we could take them through a pipeline and then open up different venues anywhere that there were people.

We know how to do that.

We know how to have church in a bar.

We can have church anywhere.

We know how to do that.

And my prayer for the last two years has been God, bring the leaders and make it obvious.

Bring the leaders and make it obvious.

We've been in this building almost a year.

And there has not been a month go by where a powerful, purposeful leader has not come out of the woodworks, come up to me, and said in no uncertain terms, I'm here and I'm ready to help build this movement.

God's answering these prayers in real time.

We don't have the money for a leadership pipeline right now.

We don't.

But if God's in it, it will come.

We didn't have the money for this building, and here we sit.

And I know, because I've seen it time and time and time again, that if we, as this movement, the ambassadors of God, the hands and feet of Jesus, if we will commit to doing everything we can, giving first, giving a sacrifice, doing it automatically, if we do what we can, God will do the rest.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you and we trust you.

And you see my heart, you see my nerves getting up and casting a big vision that there's no way to back up.

But God, you also know I've never I've never been able to front.

God, I believe in this movement.

I believe in every person in this room, every person watching online.

They are yours.

They were created on purpose and with purpose.

They are made to move.

So, God, I pray we would do just that.

That we would meet together, we would move together, we would spread this movement through our city and beyond.

And every step of the way, God, we will give you all the glory in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast.

You can rate and review or share it with your friends.

If you want to get connected further with what MetaCurch is doing, you can go online to metachurch.tv.

There you can learn how to take next steps.

You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit, and you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.