Give Like You’ve Been Forgiven
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Summary
In this sermon, Pastor Ken teaches about the value of giving, why it's important, and what it means to be free from the dominion of money in our culture. (1) Jesus speaks about giving more than he does about faith and forgiveness. (2) A Christian who withholds his money from the church, from the poor, and from the other saints in his fellowship, it reveals a heart that depends more on wealth than it does on the Lord. (3) Money is the clearest indicator of your trust in God.
Transcript
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Amen. Well, if you want to have your Bible open today, you can, because we have lots of scripture
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to go through. You can follow along. You could also just listen along. Some people work better
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that way than others. The title of this sermon, it's a topical sermon. And you know, I'm an
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expository preacher, which means that I'm generally going verse by verse. But topical
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sermons are actually helpful at times. The title of this sermon is, Give Like You've
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Been Forgiven. And I've never actually preached a sermon on giving at Kingsway. In fact, I
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think I've only preached one other sermon in the eight years of ministry on the topic
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of giving. I haven't been intentionally avoiding that. I just really haven't had a passage
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of scripture that I was going through that hosted one of these particular verses on the
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topic of giving. So the question becomes, why are we talking about it now? Why are we having a
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conversation about giving? Well, I'm going to give you three reasons and two of them I'm going to
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give you now. And then one of them I'm going to give you at the very end of the sermon. Number
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one, Jesus spoke about giving more than he spoke about faith and love and forgiveness. Isn't that
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amazing? Jesus spoke about money, materialism, giving, these topics around finance, more than
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he talked about faith and forgiveness. It's always an astonishing reality to me. If I was just to
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preach on the Christological emphasis of his ministry, I should be preaching more about money,
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not less. And so it was actually a conviction of me that I thought, wow, it's amazing that Jesus
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speaks more about money and also things like hell. And we don't speak about those things enough
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in the American church. Number two is that generosity is perhaps the clearest indicator
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of your trust in God. It really is. When we get through the end of this sermon, I think you will
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agree with that, is that generosity with money is perhaps the clearest indicator of your trust
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in God. A Christian who withholds his money from the church, from the poor, from the other saints
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in his fellowship, it reveals a heart that depends more on wealth than it does on the Lord.
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In other words, where there is financial reservation, there is typically unbelief.
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typically unbelief financial habits don't lie they they reveal it's why jesus said where your
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treasure is your heart will be also it's that you can tell a lot about your heart by your treasures
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by what you value by what you work for by what is most prominent in your life
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Like Paul, who explained to the Corinthians that the reason he didn't take the offering that was given to him, though it was owed to him,
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I want to give a little bit of clarity just on the motive and the reason for this particular sermon.
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Since this church was planted, the elders have taken less than 10% of the total giving.
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And today, right now in particular, none of the pastors are being paid at all.
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I'm not saying that to boast about the pastors, and I'm not saying that to shame the congregation.
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I'm saying that to bring clarity, because we live in a culture with a lot of Christians
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who have come out of prosperity-preaching churches that have violated their congregations
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And what I'm saying about that is that that's not us.
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I think we've proved it so far over the last couple of years.
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Do I believe that elders should be compensated?
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Do I hope that our pastors can be paid and that one day our congregation has enough money
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that we can, you know, care for the elders of the church and for the work of the ministry
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and for a benevolence fund. Yes, I would love that. I would love that. But the motive for the
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sermon is not personal needs. That's not why we're having a conversation about giving.
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I want our church, I want you to be free from the love of money.
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i really want you to be free from the dominion of money
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now if you know me you know that does not mean don't make money um no i'm a big fan of
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the men in our congregation owning businesses for their families uh being multi-millionaires
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I'm fine with that. We know that the scripture says that it's not money that is evil, but the
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love of money. Thomas Watson said, riches are called thick clay in scripture because they stick
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so fast to a man's heart. They do. I'm standing up here before you saying, yes,
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I know from personal experience, they do. They do. And in times like these, when the economy is not
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great and you might have financial uncertainty, money can feel sticky. And you could find money
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in a place in your heart that has a dominion or an enthronement that ought not to be. And so
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So more than ever, a season like this, when things are tight, will expose more of your own heart.
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Now, you might be wondering, why did Jesus so frequently talk about money?
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That was the first question that I asked when I started preparing this sermon.
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Why is there such a unique focus on this particular topic?
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Because money, like God, has the ability to give you what you want.
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Money, like God, has the ability to give you what you want.
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For he will either hate the one and love the other,
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or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
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Because Jesus is basically saying money is a rival master to him.
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And as we know, again, money is not evil in and of itself.
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the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
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It is through this craving, he says, that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
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Doug Wilson, this week in a sermon that I was listening to on the topic of giving, he said, quote,
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Having lots of money does not matter. What matters is that God has a lot of your heart, which is indicated by how you manage your money.
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God doesn't mind his people having money. He minds money having his people.
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And it's trickier than you suppose to keep your money from having you, end quote.
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I agree. It's not easy. Money is an effective rival. Money is an effective idol.
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dethroning money is hard this isn't just for the adults it's for the teens
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who are getting into the place of earning money when you don't have much it's hard to give what
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you have away dethroning money is hard and it's hard because in dethroning money what are you
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really dethroning? Security, control, comfort, pleasure. These are the things that are really
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behind that idol. You love security. You love control. You love the power. You love not to
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have to lean by faith on God. That's the flesh.
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This morning, my hope is to allow the scriptures to help you dethrone money. And I think I can say
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at almost any degree, every single one of us has struggled with this at some point and will
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struggle with it at some point in the future. We would, when I say we, I mean the elders of
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Kingsway want to see faithful stewards of all that the Lord has entrusted you. We want to see
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a commitment and conviction around giving that comes from joy. We don't want your unjoyous giving.
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We don't want your, you know, your reluctant checks. No, we want hearts that love the Lord,
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by canceling the record of debt that stood against us.
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with its legal demands. It's one of my favorite passages of Scripture.
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he reminds us, those who have been forgiven much
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must not withhold forgiveness from those who owe little.
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But the great message and lesson of the parable of the debtor
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is the incalculable, enormous debt that you have been forgiven.
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Now, God has not only forgiven a great debt, but he has also given us a great blessing.
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I want you to turn right now to Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 14.
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Turn to Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 14.
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inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things
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according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were first to hope in Christ might be to the
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praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of salvation,
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and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our
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inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
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2 Corinthians 8 verse 9 sums up what Paul just said in one verse.
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For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake
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he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich.
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For you know that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
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that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor
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how many millions of things has the Lord given you
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just ponder that for a moment how many millions of things has the Lord given you
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from the salvation of your soul to the peace you have in death from the breath every single breath
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you've taken, every heartbeat that's ever happened, to every bite of food you've ever
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had, every drink of a drink you've ever had, all of it is part of the millions of blessings
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God is infinitely generous, infinitely generous.
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to receive all that you have received in the gospel
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And perhaps it is the most wildly disproportionate
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God says, basically, I'm going to give you the universe, the kingdom of heaven, eternal life, grace, every spiritual blessing.
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And many of us go, I can't give up that grain of sand.
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1 Chronicles 29, 11 through 12, speaking of God says,
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For all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours.
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Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.
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Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all.
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He's saying, the silver is mine, the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts.
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Your houses, your children, your body, your jewelry.
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All of it comes from the hand of the Lord and is the Lord.
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Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.
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Now, according to Scripture, we are stewards, not owners of what we have.
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It doesn't mean that the things that we have don't matter.
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It doesn't mean that we don't pass down those things that have been stewarded to the parents down to the children.
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A wise man and a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.
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now there's not a rigid formula here and i don't want you to make a rigid formula but i've observed
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a pattern over the years and i've had several friends over the years who have been extremely
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generous and i've watched their lives and i've had other friends that i've watched that have
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struggled with generosity and i have made some observations christians who work hard
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who work hard. I'm talking, they have no complaints. They are, they are in it. They're
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not lazy. They're working hard. And those Christians who work hard and give generously
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often experience God's blessing. And I'm not saying just financially. I'm just saying their
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lives are wonderful. Their lives are put together. There's joy filling their home. They have
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beautiful and blessed children. Their needs are cared for. Some of them, yeah, are very well off
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financially. But there's actually a proverb that backs this up. It says in Proverbs 11, 24 through
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25, it says, one gives freely yet grows all the richer. Another withholds what he should give
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and only suffers want, end quote. There it is. It's a general principle. It's a proverb. It's
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proverbial. It's not a formula. I'm going to game the system. Let's just start giving to come become
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rich. That's not about that. That's not what God is talking about. When someone works hard,
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yet withholds the generosity. In my experience, they tend to remain financially stagnant.
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And I've been there. I've been there. Now, why? Because God doesn't entrust more to those who
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are faithful who are not faithful what they already have. There is another principle in
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scripture that we see this. Jesus says one who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much
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and one who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much. If you can't give 10 percent
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of your five thousand dollar salary then why would we ever expect you to give 10 percent of
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your $20,000 salary. And that's a really good ethic to think about when you're young. You're
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a teenager. You're just getting into money. If you can't give the $28 of your 280 bucks,
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then the Lord doesn't trust you with money. And as you grow and more, you're going to be just
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as stingy as you were with 28 bucks that you would be with 28,000.
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Giving must start at the very bottom and actually as you watch the Lord scale that because you
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have been faithful with little, you will be trusted with much.
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God is watching not just what he gives you, but how your heart handles what he gives you.
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And I'm talking specifically about giving to the church.
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Now, many Christians hesitate to give to the church or to a particular gospel ministry or maybe even to the poor
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because they're unsure whether how or when or how wisely that money might be used.
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that's not the framework that the scriptures give us when it comes to this type of giving
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for example in the case of the widow's might that's in luke 21 1 through 4 jesus doesn't
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commend her for being a discerning giver a discerning investor he he praised her for her
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faith. She gives all that she had, trusting God, not the temple system, not the priests on how
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they're going to deal with the money. She's trusting the Lord with the outcome.
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Giving to the church isn't primarily about trusting the pastors. What are they going to
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do with it? It's about trusting the Lord to multiply what we offer because we've been faithful
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to him. It doesn't remove the responsibility to be faithful as pastors of a congregation and to
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spend that money according to the will of God. But that is a different concern to worry from
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the clergy, not from the laity. Men are often focused on strategic return, and I think it's
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actually a good thing. Men should be caring about where you put your money that it might actually
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multiply. Honestly, I have a serious question. Honestly, what better investment can be made
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Truly, what better investment can be made than investing into the kingdom of God?
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what could matter and affect and impact your family more
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than the health of your local church i mean there's not many things
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sure your your house needs to be in order sure you need to have a place to sleep and you need
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to have clothes on your back and you need to have food to eat but i'm talking outside of the
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necessities of life, what better investment could there be that's outside of the local church?
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Think about how much it impacts your home. Think about how much it impacts your family.
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Think about how much it impacts your children over the decades.
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I don't know if you've forgotten, but what life is like without a great local church,
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It leads to so many of the problems that happen later in life.
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America's churches used to be thriving communities
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with beautiful buildings and lots of resources.
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This is something that was very true about a hundred years ago.
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If you're not that, you're often a church that's in some sort of strip mall
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with underpaid pastors that are barely getting by.
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In fact, there's actually a conversation on the internet right now.
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There's not enough young men that want to be pastors
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because it's just basically an opportunity to be poor
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and not even be able to cover the needs of your family.
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There's a call for young men to come into the pastorate.
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There is a drought of young men willing to come into the pastorate.
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We go downtown and we see these beautiful buildings, beautiful, and they're either empty or they're owned by the gays.
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Why can't we walk by almost every beautiful building
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And these faithful churches are now stuck in these tiny cinder block buildings
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I could do a whole sermon on it, but I'm going to give you at least one answer.
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It's multifaceted, but one of the central reasons to keep the focus on giving is America's transient Christianity.
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I think the information age has been part of this.
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Now everybody thinks they're a theologian and is willing to divide over the smallest doctrine
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because I know my Bible now, and I can divide on the most ridiculous thing.
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I heard last night a young man who was trying to date a woman on a Christian dating app,
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but she wouldn't date him because she is a KJV-only proponent.
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So she's now forsaking marriage because she thinks that the KJV-only is the only translation.
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We have gotten down to such precise doctrine that we're willing to divide
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You add that many believers are so easily offended
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they leave. The average church goer right now in America is less than two years. You stay at a
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church for about 18 months to two years, you get offended, you get frustrated, you get wanting,
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you know, something different, you can't stay, you feel stagnant, you move on. And that pattern
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happens over and over and over and over again. Years ago, churches had graveyards connected to
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them. Do you understand what that means? We had graveyards in the back. It's because grandma and
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grandpa were buried there and this is our church and mom and dad will be buried there because this
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is your church and you will be buried there because this is your church. And do you not think
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that they had problems? Do you not think that they bumped and had conflict with people? Do you not
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think that they had friction? Do you not think that they
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The first year, they're sitting there trying to decide if they can even, this is going to be their church.
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And if they decide if they even trust the pastors because they've been so wounded by other churches
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and they're so, you know, hesitant for whatever reason to give their money.
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And then the second year, once they kind of start to settle in,
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they still hold back because deep down they suspect that they're not going to stay once they get offended in a few months.
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They never developed that historic, long-term, deep investment mindset that was happening in America a hundred years ago.
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Do you know how much money, even in a better economy, those buildings cost to build?
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They didn't develop that historic mindset, the kind where you plan to leave part of your estate to the church.
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The kind where you pull your investments out just so you can give to the church.
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The kind where you cut expenses and you work extra hours just so you can give to the church.
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I will say we had a family here for a period of time that has moved on, unfortunately.
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But there was a short season where they were retired and they picked up extra jobs just so they could give more to the church.
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It is an amazing perspective to have that has been so lost on a generation.
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that kind of giving where you're going i'm going to give for this to this church for the next
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several decades i'm going to invest in this place this is part of my financial legacy
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the kingdom of god in this local church again think about this for a second
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it's hard to think that way if you think you might leave in a few years
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but if you go i'm going to stay outside of absolute flat-out heresy being preached from
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the pulpit that has been discussed and still not repented of i'm going to stay i'm going to stay
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long term i'm going to anchor in settle in those churches again if you go back and you look across
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the west is a really bad example but you go to the east coast and you're seeing these beautiful
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churches, they were filled with hundreds of families that put in thousands upon thousands
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of dollars through faithful giving to build a multi-generational legacy.
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That's how a church is built. I don't care if it takes 50 years. I just want it to start
00:32:12.060
happening. I want us to have that perspective. I want us to anchor in, settle in, lock in.
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Do you want to know how you got all the money you have
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give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over
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will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it, it will be measured back to you.
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Deuteronomy 6.16 says, the Lord commands, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test
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as you tested him at Massah. Jesus actually talks about this passage again in Matthew 4.7,
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saying that testing God is essentially, typically, normatively forbidden.
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But then you have in Malachi, and I did a pretty extensive study on this,
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but I can't share everything with you, but Malachi 3, when speaking about giving,
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It's the only time in the entire Bible that God says that you can test Him.
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He says, bring the full tithe into the storehouse,
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and thereby put me to the test if I will not open the windows of heaven for you
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and pour down a blessing until there is no more need.
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Now, with an American, Baptistic, individualistic mindset,
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we think, oh, that's just talking about the Old Testament.
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But with the Presbyterian understanding of the covenant of grace,
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you realize that this is just earlier church history.
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The church began with Adam and Eve being redeemed in Genesis chapter 4.
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And that all of the members of the church are added to the church through the covenant of grace.
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And they were looking forward, pointing forward and preparing for the cross.
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And we are over here looking backward and looking back at the cross and what Jesus came.
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And we're all in one people of God, one covenant of grace.
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All of us being saved by grace through faith in Christ.
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And we're looking about how the people of God related to giving in the old covenant.
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and how the new covenant people of God should be relating to God through our giving.
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Whether you want to call it principle, whether you want to call it command, I don't care.
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What I'm saying is that there is a principle in the Old Testament that God says,
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This is the only place in Scripture where God invites us to test him.
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It's not like some sort of cause and effect mechanism.
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You know, it's more like the principle of the harvest.
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What you sow into God's kingdom will bear fruit.
00:36:00.080
It says, whoever sows sparingly, this is talking about giving to support pastors, by the way, this passage of Scripture.
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It says, but whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.
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And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
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Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion.
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This is a remarkable text of scripture because there are very few investments that come with guaranteed returns.
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God says, you invest into this kingdom, there will be a return.
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In fact, if you just invest a little, you'll have a little return.
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If you invest a lot, there will be a lot of return.
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And again, it's not talking just about financials.
00:37:00.220
We're trying to give so that we might receive, so that we might give again.
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the reality is this people who love generosity and truly get to the heart of generosity
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they learn the gift of blessings that come in generosity so they will actually make money
00:37:27.660
giving is an opportunity to follow christ god is generous and giving allows us to be like god
00:37:43.400
you want to be like christ you cannot be stingy you want to be like christ you cannot
00:37:50.960
Not trust in the Father's will and provision for your life.
00:38:12.040
which is a little bit longer than normal, but bear with me.
00:38:20.960
under the old testament we were commanded and i say we because i'm talking about god's people
00:38:28.460
old covenant new covenant together god's people were commanded to give a tithe we know that's a
00:38:35.840
ten percent there's so many arguments around this but under the lord's leviticus 27 30 talks about
00:38:42.740
this and this is a type of kingdom tax it was a type of tax on the kingdom of israel
00:38:49.460
And that tax would go to support the temple, the priests, and the poor.
00:39:02.040
Now, I want to make one point very clear, because a lot of people don't know this,
00:39:32.920
Now, a couple years ago, I held this same position
00:39:43.400
you're going to find a thousand internet pastors giving sermons or giving lessons about why tithing is not a new covenant practice.
00:39:56.640
I found two people who did not teach that way, and it was Doug Wilson and Dave Ramsey.
00:40:05.740
And it was really shocking to me because I searched church history.
00:40:11.400
I have a lot of resources that I use as I prepare sermons, and I have access to a lot of content and documentations and libraries that I have found over the years so I can quickly find information when I'm preparing a sermon.
00:40:23.380
Now, I went through church history, and for thousands of years, I'm talking, well, I guess it's if you count the Old Testament, but even about 1900 years, the church practiced tithing.
00:40:38.140
they did not reduce it to this circumstance of well tithing was an old testament practice under
00:40:47.720
the law of israel but new testament realities is just giving in fact you should give more
00:40:52.940
you should give more than than 10 that is always the argument that you'll find on the internet
00:40:58.440
but the reality is this is what happens tithing was the church practice for 1800 years giving
00:41:04.960
has now been replaced in the last 80 years this conversation really in the last 30 years that we
00:41:10.600
just give instead of tithe and instead of giving 10 really it turns into something if we're being
00:41:15.920
honest about two percent that's really what's happening so i saw the works of irenaeus i saw
00:41:24.640
cyprian i saw jerome by the 8th and 9th century fascinating by the 8th and 9th centuries under
00:41:30.600
Charlemagne, tithing was law under most Christian nations. You had to tithe. In fact, it was part
00:41:37.920
of your tax system because the churches were actually connected to the state. So you had
00:41:43.160
state churches and state churches were actually, the state would give the churches land and they
00:41:48.340
would help build those buildings. And the taxes from the people giving 10% of their money would
00:41:54.080
actually go specifically to the church we think democracy is good in fact in this area it's not
00:42:01.060
it's really not and again even in the words of uh the national documents under charlemagne
00:42:11.980
a third was for the poor a third was for the clergy and a third was for temp or a building
00:42:47.020
not because it was wrong to have necessarily a state church or a church that was supported by
00:42:53.000
the state but it was wrong in the sense that they had violated their spheres of sovereignty
00:42:57.940
and as a result the puritans came over to america and what do we do we're going to have a separation
00:43:03.120
of church and state and now our duty as the church is to disciple the state to support the
00:43:08.560
church but what has happened does the does the state support the church at all not really we do
00:43:14.180
get a tax break and that's about it. But when you look back through church history and you start
00:43:18.960
seeing that nations used to give 20 acres to a church and give tons of money to build these
00:43:24.940
great churches, you go, wow. You start evaluating the system that we play in today and if it's
00:43:33.580
actually effective. Now, 1 Corinthians 9, 13 through 14 says to new covenant Christians,
00:43:43.480
He's talking to New Covenant Christians about giving.
00:43:48.940
He says, do you not know that those who minister the holy things eat of the things of the temple?
00:43:53.880
And those who serve at the altar partake of the offerings of the altar?
00:43:58.340
Verse 14, he says, even so, the Lord commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.
00:44:12.340
Even so, the Lord has commanded those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.
00:44:19.140
That's basically the ethic that's being taught there.
00:44:21.660
God's kingdom, by the way, cannot function on 2%.
00:44:47.060
It's hard to tell because you've kind of grown up in a really terrible generation of the church.
00:44:58.160
Almost all of these beautiful buildings that you see, they're like 100 years old or more.
00:45:03.360
We're looking at the decaying remnant of a society that understood generosity to the church.
00:45:20.920
Our school that we want to build can't work on 2%.
00:45:26.220
malachi 3 8 through 10 it says will man rob god
00:45:35.040
yet you are robbing me but you say how have we robbed you in your tithes and offerings
00:45:44.400
you are cursed with a curse for you are robbing me the whole nation of you
00:45:50.760
bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house
0.98
00:46:31.120
And I have to say no to them almost every single time.
00:46:46.800
we need to get to a place where we are faithful with our finances.
00:47:18.720
At first, the offering box in the back felt like this kind of humble, low-pressure approach.
00:47:27.280
But when you look at it, it's actually quite modern.
00:47:32.880
Over time, I think unintentionally, this whole movement of putting the offering box in the back, we're not the only people to do that.
00:47:41.080
It's turned giving into this kind of private, optional transaction that's just spirit-led,
00:47:49.060
if I can possibly do it at this particular time.
00:47:54.340
And the problem is that Scripture doesn't present giving that way.
00:48:00.000
Scripture presents giving in a corporate, joyful, public act of worship.
00:48:07.740
you might be thinking but hey doesn't scripture say shouldn't let your left hand know what your
00:48:13.340
right hand is doing it does say that jesus warns against this showy self-glorifying giving
00:48:23.060
but he's talking about those passages he's talking about giving to the poor
00:48:27.860
this is a very important distinction hang with me
00:48:41.400
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets,
0.96
00:48:46.040
Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.
00:48:50.900
do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
00:48:56.300
And your Father who sees you in secret will give you your reward.
00:49:12.240
it's a warning against boasting and self-aggrandizement
00:49:23.340
how many of you have been in a church that passed the plague
00:49:42.420
collection for the saints as I directed the churches
00:49:47.220
it's a command he's like I'm not even giving you an option
00:49:50.400
he's like I've commanded the churches of Galatia
00:49:55.540
he says in the first day of each week we're on the first
00:49:58.420
day of each week, right? Or on the Lord's day. Each of you is to put something aside
00:50:02.500
and to store it up. He's using that storehouse language again.
00:50:09.720
moment, a corporate command and a corporate setting. It wasn't some
00:50:26.400
to give to the local church, especially if you're a member of a particular church.
00:50:33.720
Even in the New Testament, Jesus pointed to the widow's mite.
00:50:41.600
You could see that she's giving there, right in front of everybody.
00:50:49.540
And so today, many Christians have come to see giving as a private expression of generosity
00:51:18.680
so you're going to see in a moment that we have added these two plates here
00:51:29.020
and we are going to have an offeratory and many of you give online many of you give in the giving
00:51:39.580
box our hope is that we could make giving a little bit more public and our hope is that
00:51:48.500
we can offer alternative ways to giving and so joseph did you have it on the back of the seats
00:51:54.720
so we have also in the back of the seats if you don't have cash with you i would actually
00:51:59.060
encourage you to bring cash one is that it saves us actually a good amount of money when it's done
00:52:04.680
in cash versus the three percent or whatever they take on the digital but on the backs of the chairs
00:52:13.620
you can actually put your phone up boom and it brings up our giving page and you can give right
00:52:19.960
offeratory. We're going to sing. We're going to praise
00:52:47.780
Father, we thank you, Lord, for all that you have given us.
00:52:57.420
Lord, we ask that you would help us to dethrone money.
00:53:13.900
Lord, we ask that you'd help us to be wise with our finances.
00:53:17.780
that we would understand biblical principles around money.
00:53:23.760
Father, we ask that you would help money to not become an idol for our church.
00:53:36.680
Lord, that we would be a generous body of believers.
00:53:41.540
And Lord, that you would do that work silently and sanctifyingly and quietly.
00:53:45.680
in each of us, Lord, that you might do a great work here in this town.
00:53:52.400
Father, we repent also of anything that we've withheld.
00:53:58.240
We repent of anything that we have selfishly kept that is yours.
00:54:08.340
We ask that you would give us an increase in faith