Speaker 1: Hey, what up?
Speaker 1: It's Mark Carter on, the Pastor of Fierce Church.
Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today.
Speaker 1: I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: There's certain conversations it's just easier to not talk about with people.
Speaker 1: Okay, so there's certain things you're probably not going to bring up most of the time.
Speaker 1: Your health is not something usually that that's the first thing you talk about with something you don't know very well.
Speaker 1: Right, you're not like at a dinner and you're like tell you about my big toe?
Speaker 1: There's some issues there Like you don't bring that up.
Speaker 1: You know, we often don't talk about particular failures in the past.
Speaker 1: We're not going to lead with that.
Speaker 1: We're not going to talk about hey, I got all this weird tension in my family.
Speaker 1: Who wants to talk about that?
Speaker 1: Like, we don't typically do that.
Speaker 1: We have those areas closed off a little bit.
Speaker 1: And money Money is not a thing that we talk about with people very often.
Speaker 1: Is it Like interpersonal?
Speaker 1: You don't talk about your money.
Speaker 1: To most people it's even like hey, man, back off.
Speaker 1: We don't want to talk about that.
Speaker 1: I went to the doctor this past week just for normal checkup and we were talking.
Speaker 1: You know he's looking at my stats, he's looking at the types of vitamins and things I take and talking about my blood pressure.
Speaker 1: But he's asking me questions.
Speaker 1: He's like hey, tell me about, like, what do you do for fun, and how much sleep do you get, and what do you do with your kids, and what is that like and what's your favorite version of that?
Speaker 1: And he's asking me all these questions.
Speaker 1: Now, what I didn't do is I didn't say hey, doc, back off.
Speaker 1: Man, stay in the health area.
Speaker 1: I ain't telling you about my life, okay.
Speaker 1: And the reason I didn't do that is because for him to have a real understanding of my health, he needs to know what else I'm doing when I'm not in that office or not getting the blood pressure thing on my arm.
Speaker 1: He needs to know the full picture.
Speaker 1: And here's the problem with us and money and God.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we're in this series called Trustonomics and sometimes we're like well, god, I want you to strengthen me, I want you to renew me, I want you to forgive me.
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about money.
Speaker 1: That's closed off.
Speaker 1: God Listen, doc, back off.
Speaker 1: You talk about the forgiveness stuff and God's like.
Speaker 1: The problem is, I'm the doctor of your whole life and I can't give you great advice if you won't open up this other chamber to me so that we can talk about it.
Speaker 1: Wanting God but not listening to his views on money just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Paul is talking to the Corinthians in our passage today and he's trying to motivate them, he's trying to convince them, he's trying to write a persuasive paper to them and he's trying to get them to understand God's paradigm of money.
Speaker 1: And God's paradigm of money includes some of the things that it includes in the world, but also includes some other stuff.
Speaker 1: So it includes savings, it does.
Speaker 1: It includes thrift, it includes being wise, but it also includes the strange thing of giving your money away, it multiplying back to you and then you giving more away, and then it multiplying back to you, and then you giving more away.
Speaker 1: Super weird, and it's not a scheme.
Speaker 1: And Paul is trying to help these Corinthians know, hey, this isn't a scheme.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to, like, stir you up to do this willingly, voluntarily, but God's not ashamed of his paradigm.
Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you, man, the longer I'm a pastor, the less I'm ashamed of it.
Speaker 1: Like when I, especially when I first started, I was like so nervous to talk to people about money, and you know what I see year after year, like people not walking in the joy and prosperity and freedom that they could be.
Speaker 1: And she was like, well gosh, why are we ignoring this so important issue?
Speaker 1: We don't talk about it all the time, but we talk about it occasionally, and this is one of those times.
Speaker 1: He's going to talk about the wisdom of sewing generously so you reap generously, so you can keep sewing generously.
Speaker 1: And you need to know it's not to appeal to our greed.
Speaker 1: He's not being like I'm going to stir these guys up just to be hungry for money, but it is an incentive.
Speaker 1: It's an incentive to do the right thing because it's the right thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, so my, many of my kids are at the age where they're getting they've either been to college or they're getting a lot of like advertisements from colleges and they're giving incentives.
Speaker 1: They're saying, hey, man, if you come with us, we're going to give you this extra money over here for a scholarship.
Speaker 1: If you come with us, we're going to let you into this program over here.
Speaker 1: Nobody else is doing that.
Speaker 1: We'll let you in Now.
Speaker 1: I got to tell you not one of my kids is going to college for the incentives.
Speaker 1: That's not why they're not going, for that reason they're going to get a tremendous education.
Speaker 1: But the incentives help.
Speaker 1: The incentives help them do the all important right thing.
Speaker 1: That's how God's way is, he says.
Speaker 1: I do no question, there's incentives here for doing things God's way, sharing like God shares, so really that you're conformed to the image of Christ and more people are helped.
Speaker 1: But here's our problem we resist.
Speaker 1: We resist trusting God in this most important of areas.
Speaker 1: We pull back, we're not convinced he's going to do it.
Speaker 1: And what I'm going to try to convince you of today is there comes a point where you can't keep growing spiritually.
Speaker 1: You can't if you don't put your money in God's hands.
Speaker 1: And here's the next one and your attitude about your money in God's hands.
Speaker 1: You can't, and we're going to see right in text there's a stopping place.
Speaker 1: It's like I can't pull you any further with regard to this area until you trust me with this.
Speaker 1: So Paul's talking about this idea.
Speaker 1: Hey, man, the more generous you are, the more generous God is going to be give you back.
Speaker 1: And here's four results of our message today.
Speaker 1: It's going to be here.
Speaker 1: It is multiplication better you people helped, god praised.
Speaker 1: Multiplication, better you people helped, god praised.
Speaker 1: We're going to get there together.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the text, verse six.
Speaker 1: Remember this a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop, but the one who plants generously will get a generous crop.
Speaker 1: You must each decide in your own heart how much to give, and don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure, for God loves a person who gives cheerfully, and God will generously provide all you need.
Speaker 1: Then you'll always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.
Speaker 1: As the scriptures say, jumping back to Psalm 112 and Hosea 10, nine, they share freely and give generously to the poor.
Speaker 1: This is the person who fears God.
Speaker 1: Their good deeds will be remembered forever, for God is the one who provides seed to the farmer and then bread to eat.
Speaker 1: That's how the bread gets there.
Speaker 1: He provides the seed and then it all flows into this bread that ultimately, god got them.
Speaker 1: And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God.
Speaker 1: So two good things will result from this ministry of giving the needs of believers in Jerusalem will be met.
Speaker 1: That's the church that's wrestling in poor financial times.
Speaker 1: This is Paul's appealing to them for a special offering, says we're going to send that money back.
Speaker 1: Not only will they be helped, but they will joyfully express their thanks to God.
Speaker 1: Four laws of the harvest.
Speaker 1: Here's number one the law of the harvest.
Speaker 1: The law of the harvest is God will give you back proportionally.
Speaker 1: God will give you back proportionally.
Speaker 1: A farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how it works.
Speaker 1: If you want a small crop, plant just a few amount of seeds.
Speaker 1: So let's pretend that you are given a football field's worth of area to plant your seed.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've got some seed, and so is your buddy, he or she.
Speaker 1: They've got a whole another football field and they're thinking man, I'm going to fill up as much of this football field with seed as I possibly can.
Speaker 1: I don't really want to let go of my seed, but I know that this is going to multiply when I put it in the ground.
Speaker 1: It's going to come up a better crop and you're a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, what if it doesn't?
Speaker 1: And then I only have this seed.
Speaker 1: I better just eat this really slowly, one seed at a time.
Speaker 1: And so you plant like just a fourth of the area.
Speaker 1: That's what you put your seed in.
Speaker 1: You hang on to the rest.
Speaker 1: Well, when harvest time comes around and it's going to, your friend's going to come up to you and he's got all these bushels of everything and he's looking at your stuff.
Speaker 1: He's like, wow, man, I'm trying to kick you when you're down.
Speaker 1: What were you doing?
Speaker 1: You see how much I've got here, and I've got it because I just planted.
Speaker 1: We both had the same amount of area and yet you held back.
Speaker 1: You had all this other land you could have used and all this other grain that you held back.
Speaker 1: And here I am with all this stuff now.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty stark example.
Speaker 1: But it's really what God is saying here.
Speaker 1: You're saying, hey, man, if you sow a little, you're going to get a little.
Speaker 1: If you sow a lot, you're going to get a lot.
Speaker 1: That's just a rule, and it's really to determine trust.
Speaker 1: This is what John Bunyan said.
Speaker 1: He said this is the guy who wrote Pilgrim's Progress.
Speaker 1: He says things in a witty way sometimes.
Speaker 1: A man there was, and they called him mad.
Speaker 1: The more he gave, the more he had.
Speaker 1: That's how it works with God.
Speaker 1: Martin Luther said it a little bit differently.
Speaker 1: He said I have many things in my hands that I lost.
Speaker 1: I've had many things in my hands that I lost.
Speaker 1: The things I placed in the hands of God, I still possess.
Speaker 1: What is Paul trying to do?
Speaker 1: He's trying to create this incentive, not just so really they'll have more money, or even that they can just give to more people, though that is part of his plan.
Speaker 1: He's trying to disciple them.
Speaker 1: He's trying to like guys.
Speaker 1: This is what you do If you're a Christ follower.
Speaker 1: Like Jesus became poor so others could become rich, you give away some of your seed, you plant it in the ground so that it produces more and more and more, and then there's plenty for everybody.
Speaker 1: Now, this message I just want to tell you is especially great for younger people.
Speaker 1: The younger you are, the sooner you start putting this into practice.
Speaker 1: Just the longer time you have to practice this discipline of not just giving but being a giver.
Speaker 1: Being a giver, and it's a whole different life.
Speaker 1: When you're just becoming a giver, you're thinking about yourself as a giver, because what happens is, as you keep giving and the years keep going by, dude, it just gets easier and greed has less of a hold on your heart.
Speaker 1: Kenzie and I started man.
Speaker 1: I was 18 years old and I'm so glad we didn't have barely anything to give.
Speaker 1: But we started right then and it was just never really hard because we didn't have much at first and then by the time that started to accrue and God did open up new doors and different stuff, we were already like our hearts were used to it.
Speaker 1: It was just normative.
Speaker 1: Some of you are familiar with the movie the Princess Bride.
Speaker 1: You know about Wesley when he was going up against the smart guy.
Speaker 1: What's that guy's name?
Speaker 1: Was it Lozino or something Vizino, something like that?
Speaker 1: Somebody put it in the chat.
Speaker 1: Wherever you are, he's Wesley's.
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen it, sorry spoiler.
Speaker 1: Wesley has developed an immunity to Iocane powder, which is a fictitious poison, but he's built this up slowly.
Speaker 1: They can instantly kill anybody, but his whole life he's been building up a tolerance for it so that when finally, he goes toe to toe with this really smart guy who tries to poison him, it doesn't matter if he drinks the poison, because he's gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: Greed is a little bit like Iocane powder, and the more that we give away our stuff.
Speaker 1: We're just impervious to that greed.
Speaker 1: We're just like I'm not gonna give away my food.
Speaker 1: We're just impervious to that greed.
Speaker 1: It just can't get in us quite as much Not that it won't ever, but it can't get in quite as much God wants us to give deliberately.
Speaker 1: Each of you must decide in your heart, decide, decide.
Speaker 1: This is a little bit obscured in the thought for thought translation that we're using, which is the NLT, but in a more literal translation, like the NES, he says each one must do just as he has purposed in her heart, that in his heart, that Greek word is pro-yo-reo, and this is literally what it means to choose deliberately, to make up one's mind about something.
Speaker 1: So Paul's saying guys, all right, don't like waffle back and forth, don't think about this way, one way and this way, another way.
Speaker 1: Like you get with God and you just decide in your heart, between you and God.
Speaker 1: You don't have to have like a town meeting about it.
Speaker 1: Decide in your heart and decide, commit to it, be deliberate about it.
Speaker 1: Don't be like falling into guilt and manipulation, like just decide.
Speaker 1: This is what we've decided to do, and do it because you've thought through the kindness of God shown to you in Christ.
Speaker 1: That's why, deliberately do it, because of who God has been to you if you've trusted him, and act because Jesus is a giver.
Speaker 1: So act like Jesus and deliberately give, just like he chose to deliberately give away everything for you.
Speaker 1: Cheerfully give, and do it, by the way, because in God's mind I know that in our day and age, in our mind, we look at our money and we're like but I earned that, dude, I worked hard for that, that was mine.
Speaker 1: And God says did you, though?
Speaker 1: Like, I'm the one who gave you life, I'm the one who gave you all those abilities, I'm the one who gave you that know-how, I'm the one who opened those doors, I'm the one who put you here alive in this generation, rather than a thousand years ago, when you couldn't have done anything close to that.
Speaker 1: So God's like yeah, it's yours, but it's mine even more.
Speaker 1: I heard a preacher explain it like this let's pretend I got a lot of friends in this friend illustrations, in this message.
Speaker 1: Let's pretend that you've got a friend and they gift you.
Speaker 1: They gift you a house with 10 bedrooms.
Speaker 1: Like you should have this for free.
Speaker 1: This is yours.
Speaker 1: Then they come to you and they're like, by the way, just I don't want to impose, but it would really help me if I could just stay in one of these rooms, just one out of the 10 bedrooms.
Speaker 1: Can I just stay in this one?
Speaker 1: Now, if you said, you idiot sucker, you gave me this man, you can't stay in my house.
Speaker 1: No, probably every one of us with a brain ticking in our head would say it's your house.
Speaker 1: You can stay in any of the rooms that you want.
Speaker 1: You gave it to me, but it's from you.
Speaker 1: Yes, you can stay in the one room in your house.
Speaker 1: And God says it's my house.
Speaker 1: I gave you all the stuff that you have.
Speaker 1: Can I?
Speaker 1: Would it be okay with you if I had one room out of that?
Speaker 1: By the way, it's all mine, it's all God's.
Speaker 1: So he says cheerfully, give, because it's all mine.
Speaker 1: Do it cheerfully, do it with a spirit of joy and don't give reluctantly or under pressure.
Speaker 1: Which means you know, guys, every time, like if we could do anything, that is kind of like a payoff to God, I was like, oh gosh, I've been pretty bad lately.
Speaker 1: I better do something, better go to church today.
Speaker 1: Geez, maybe I'll crack up in the bottle for 10 minutes, or maybe I'll give today.
Speaker 1: Just be really like.
Speaker 1: This has got to make up for something.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make up for anything and it's not supposed to.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ and his blood shed for you is the thing that brings you into relationship, which is what God wants.
Speaker 1: But your giving doesn't pay off anything, so that's a wrong reason.
Speaker 1: So don't do it because of pressure about that.
Speaker 1: Do it because I want to do what Jesus would have me do.
Speaker 1: That's a good reason.
Speaker 1: Don't do it impulsively.
Speaker 1: Don't do it just so you can brag to somebody, or even brag to yourself.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we're just like proud in that way.
Speaker 1: And don't do it reluctantly.
Speaker 1: Now some of us say, well, I feel a little reluctant, which means I shouldn't give yet, right, carter?
Speaker 1: Well, I suppose there's a sense you could say that.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 1: But here's what I would push you beyond that there's times when I don't feel like doing a lot of things that are noble and right and just okay.
Speaker 1: Like right, it is God's, it's just for him to have it.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like turning away from this particular evil or that particular evil.
Speaker 1: And when that happens, not only should I do it, but I should pray something like this and say, god, my heart isn't right.
Speaker 1: Would you give me a new heart, make my heart right?
Speaker 1: And, by the way, if one of the ways you want to make my heart right is get me to do the thing, I'll just do it so my heart gets right, so my heart catches up.
Speaker 1: That's really how most sanctification works.
Speaker 1: You guys know this.
Speaker 1: You've been walking for a while.
Speaker 1: You start to do and then you feel like that's how that gets in.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I mean, be honest, be truthful.
Speaker 1: You should never respond to pressure.
Speaker 1: But if you're just like I don't feel like it, deal with that feeling.
Speaker 1: Don't just like, oh, free, I'm out.
Speaker 1: When should you do it?
Speaker 1: Do it anytime you see.
Speaker 1: The opportunity in the spirit of God is moving on you.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's when you're doing the money during the week.
Speaker 1: If you've got a money time that you do it.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a time that you're talking to your spouse.
Speaker 1: Now, I know for some you're going to say, well, my spouse won't let me give, and I get that like people come to me and we talk about that and that's a real thing.
Speaker 1: I want to give you just a tip, if that's okay.
Speaker 1: One if they're a person who attends fierce.
Speaker 1: One of the things that you could do is just say hey, can we pray together?
Speaker 1: Let's pray into agreement.
Speaker 1: That's what couples should always do Anytime.
Speaker 1: You're not quite on the same page, couples.
Speaker 1: If you're both Christians, pray into surrender Like both of you.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it'll always work, but 99% of the time that'll get you past it because you're both listening to God and he just has a way of synchronizing people.
Speaker 1: But sometimes a wife will say she'll boldly go to her husband and say, hey, I know you don't want me to give, but I've got this side hustle, this other job that I do, and so I'm going to obey the Lord and give him a tithe of that and I'm asking for you to bless it.
Speaker 1: I'm asking for you to agree with me, I'm asking for you to be okay with that.
Speaker 1: I had one lady say that's what I asked for for my birthday.
Speaker 1: Let me tithe.
Speaker 1: It's pretty amazing, it's pretty committed.
Speaker 1: The law of the harvest, the promise of the harvest, and God will generously provide all of you need.
Speaker 1: Here's another.
Speaker 1: The word is a little obscured.
Speaker 1: It means God's able.
Speaker 1: God is able, god can do it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes we're like, oh no, god could do it.
Speaker 1: No, god can, can do it.
Speaker 1: Years ago, my family and I, we lived in this little townhouse and there's seven of us now, okay.
Speaker 1: So we continued to multiply and now there were seven and we were just, man, it's getting cramped in there and, you know, my wife and I were like we talked to the kids off, someday, you know well, have a new house and that'll be great.
Speaker 1: And at the same time we didn't want to like you know how you do with kids you don't want to like get their hopes up.
Speaker 1: They're like, really Now, no, not now.
Speaker 1: So we didn't want to like speak committedly to it.
Speaker 1: And so one night we're just all we'd sometimes pray together.
Speaker 1: You know, as bedtime rolls around and my son, who was probably three years old, guys, he starts to say, jesus, thank you for the new house.
Speaker 1: He just started to speak it, he just started to believe it.
Speaker 1: And then we're like, oh, he's believing it.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should believe it.
Speaker 1: And so we, finally, we knew he was able.
Speaker 1: But then we're like, no, he's able for us, he's able in our situation and, my friends, he's able in your situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: You know, probably just a year or two later we had that new house that he was believing for that.
Speaker 1: He's the one who, two or three years old, started us praying for him, because he believed that God was able the greater the giving, the greater the resources to give, and he'll do it so that we share it with others.
Speaker 1: That's his why Verse nine they share freely and give generously to the poor, quoting Psalm 112.
Speaker 1: Their good deeds will be remembered forever and God wants all of us to know man, hey, I'm not gonna forget.
Speaker 1: You might have forgotten even things that you've been generous about in the past.
Speaker 1: God says I didn't forget.
Speaker 1: You can count on this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make sure that that ultimately comes back to you.
Speaker 1: Press down, shaking together to make room for more and running over.
Speaker 1: In fact, let's read that text right here.
Speaker 1: You don't have it, but Luke 638,.
Speaker 1: This is Jesus talking.
Speaker 1: So this promise is all throughout the Bible Give and you will receive.
Speaker 1: Your gift will return to you full.
Speaker 1: Press down, shaking together to make room for more, running over and poured into your lap.
Speaker 1: The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.
Speaker 1: Now, we don't often you don't carry around a sack of grain.
Speaker 1: You're like press it down so we can get more in there.
Speaker 1: You don't usually do that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you don't have a robe that you put extra grain in and carry around, but I'll bet you you've been at some place like Chipotle and you've had your little fountain drink and you pushed it in, and maybe you pushed it in a little too hard or maybe you pushed it in a little too long, but that thing bubbled right over.
Speaker 1: That's a little bit what it's like.
Speaker 1: Only it's a positive thing in Jesus' mind.
Speaker 1: Dude, I will make that thing bubble over, as you give.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make it bubble over into your life.
Speaker 1: What we need to do is we need to believe.
Speaker 1: That's our part.
Speaker 1: Is we believe?
Speaker 1: See, the question is not just can we clarify?
Speaker 1: The question is not will God do it?
Speaker 1: Can God do it?
Speaker 1: That's already super clear.
Speaker 1: The question is will we believe it?
Speaker 1: That's the question.
Speaker 1: Will we believe it?
Speaker 1: And believing is the way.
Speaker 1: That's the way.
Speaker 1: What's the way?
Speaker 1: This is the way.
Speaker 1: Believing God, that's the way.
Speaker 1: So the law of the harvest, the promise to harvest, the secret of the harvest, the secret is God does things in secret that we can't see or understand.
Speaker 1: Yet God still does it and he does amazing, powerful things the seed for the farmer and then the bread to eat.
Speaker 1: He will provide and increase your resources.
Speaker 1: God will do it.
Speaker 1: Now, you and I can't do this.
Speaker 1: I can't go up to like a little seed, no matter what kind of seed it is, I can't like tap it and out comes a tree.
Speaker 1: Like that doesn't work for me.
Speaker 1: I don't have any kind of power like that.
Speaker 1: The only way I can get something out of that is if I cooperate with God.
Speaker 1: If I sow it, god says now, while you're not paying attention, while you're doing other things, while that thing is in secret under the earth dying and coming back to life, I'm gonna give you more than you put in there.
Speaker 1: See, it's in secret when we try to figure out.
Speaker 1: Well, I wonder how God's gonna do this though.
Speaker 1: Okay, like I did this and I'm looking for it next weekend.
Speaker 1: I'm like God, come on, you didn't do it and I said no, I did it in secret, you're not gonna know when I do it.
Speaker 1: It's like the farmer.
Speaker 1: He looked like a moron every day.
Speaker 1: If he's running out to the seeds again, did you come up yet?
Speaker 1: No, he knows, dude, I gotta wait.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be a while.
Speaker 1: I trust God to work his process in my seed and it's gonna come up at the right time.
Speaker 1: Come on, thank you, kenzie, for having my back.
Speaker 1: Thank you, and here we go.
Speaker 1: He will provide and increase your resources and he will produce a great harvest of generosity in you here.
Speaker 1: It is A great harvest of generosity in you.
Speaker 1: He didn't say just generosity of great harvest for you, he didn't even just say through you, he said in you, meaning there's something here that God wants to happen, there's something that must change and it only happens when we give ourselves to regular sowing.
Speaker 1: God says now I'm released, now I can do it, there's a version of you you cannot become.
Speaker 1: Unless you deliberately give that work of God growing generosity in us, it just won't happen.
Speaker 1: It's only when we cooperate and we become not people that give but givers and dude.
Speaker 1: This is why it's like it's such a tragedy.
Speaker 1: I know people have different places and we have different problems and there's different hardships and everybody's got stuff, man, and I know that it's all hard.
Speaker 1: I get that for sure.
Speaker 1: But the longer we postpone this obedience of sowing, so God can multiply it as the longer life goes on and we're just missing.
Speaker 1: Who would you have been If it was you?
Speaker 1: But then generous times 10, what else would be happening right now, like, what kind of revelation would you have in different areas?
Speaker 1: What kind of doors might God have opened in different ways?
Speaker 1: Because he was like, oh dude, I know they're just gonna keep on sowing and keep on reaping, but we can't become that.
Speaker 1: Not only does it, people might get helped, not only are we kind of like resisting God, but we don't become everything that Jesus wants us to be.
Speaker 1: And, dude, I already know like I got so much sin, I got so much baggage, sometimes with some of the stuff that I've given myself to in the past.
Speaker 1: I know what it's like to be grieved that I'm not all that.
Speaker 1: I feel like Jesus wishes I was.
Speaker 1: I don't wanna cooperate with the enemy to keep me from any more of that than my flesh will just do on its own.
Speaker 1: Now, of course, jesus knows exactly who you'll be and Jesus loves you exactly the way you are.
Speaker 1: But I think you take my point that there's something about when we're aware we're living below our potential.
Speaker 1: Ah, it's grievous.
Speaker 1: I'm not who.
Speaker 1: I wanna be man.
Speaker 1: So you can always be generous.
Speaker 1: You'll be rich in every way, so that you will always be generous.
Speaker 1: You know the Bible says that both riches and poverty are from the Lord man.
Speaker 1: I've lived that Poverty.
Speaker 1: I know what that is, and I also know what it's like to see that through out of faith and say this is God.
Speaker 1: God is bringing my wife and I low, so we learn to depend on Him and to pray when we're in trouble instead of just try to solve it some other way.
Speaker 1: I know what that's like.
Speaker 1: But here's what I found out when you sow when you're poor, the poor part lasts less long.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to say that, man.
Speaker 1: And when you sow when you have stuff, that time is just richer, it's just better, because you have the joy of knowing God is pleased and I'm seeing the Bible live out before me and the world can't explain that.
Speaker 1: The world can't understand how that seed goes on the ground and it comes up more back to you so you can sow again and again and again and again.
Speaker 1: Multiplication better.
Speaker 1: You People helped.
Speaker 1: God praised here.
Speaker 1: It is the law of the harvest, the promise of the harvest, the secret of the harvest and now the rewards of the harvest.
Speaker 1: So two good things will result from this ministry of giving the believers in Jerusalem will be met and they will joyful express their thanks to God.
Speaker 1: People are gonna get helped and God's gonna be praised.
Speaker 1: And, like Paul is all about, he's like no, and God should be praised.
Speaker 1: In fact, jesus himself said this.
Speaker 1: Remember Matthew 5, 16,.
Speaker 1: In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
Speaker 1: God's praise should be one of our agenda items and he says when you give and it multiplies and the harvest goes and people are helped, they will praise God, just like the church in Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: They received that gift man, and they were praising and they sent those praises every which way.
Speaker 1: They shared it and God was praised and they were joyfully expressing their thanks to God.
Speaker 1: So I wanna thank you for those of you who have given, because we often don't have time to say it or it doesn't happen in a way that you could see it publicly.
Speaker 1: But every time someone gives their heart to Jesus Christ and we all clap, that's God's praise.
Speaker 1: But don't miss that.
Speaker 1: It started with sowing, and not just relational seeds, financial seeds, like somebody paid for all that, someone paid for the stage to be here, someone paid for those cameras right there they were sowing, believing.
Speaker 1: Ultimately God would be praised and people would clap when someone comes and gets baptized.
Speaker 1: I need you to hear, because they're not gonna say it probably.
Speaker 1: I need you to hear thank you, thank you, god, be praised.
Speaker 1: You helped that happen with your sowing.
Speaker 1: That's our privilege.
Speaker 1: So oftentimes it's easy to kind of like beat people up, but here's all the church could do and there really are statistics of like it's like $165 billion a year If the church would tie.
Speaker 1: That's how much more money we would have.
Speaker 1: Like everyone who claims to be a Christian, if they would tie to their local church, the church would have that much more money to help.
Speaker 1: You think that could help some people around the world Every year.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna beat you up about that, though that's the wrong way.
Speaker 1: Carter, turn around.
Speaker 1: I wanna inspire you instead, which something that our forebears, our Christian ancestors, did.
Speaker 1: This was in the second century and they had so turned the world upside down that people were asking excuse me, how did they do this?
Speaker 1: How did this come about?
Speaker 1: And we find part of the answer in something called the Epistle of Diagnetus.
Speaker 1: This is a real thing you can go find.
Speaker 1: I'm particularly referencing chapter five if you wanna go look it up, but it's an early letter that scholars and archeologists have discovered and studied and in it it's an explanation of Christians to a non-Christian.
Speaker 1: So the writer is saying hey, I know that you don't understand really what the deal with Christians are and why they're this way and how they're different from Jews and how they're different from pagans.
Speaker 1: But here this letter is to explain what that is, and I'm just gonna give you a little bit of a summary of some of the things that it says, saying why Christians are unique in this time.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you why Christianity is spreading so fast.
Speaker 1: Christians busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.
Speaker 1: They live in their own native lands, but they endure disadvantages of foreigners, for every foreign country is to them as their native land and every native land is as their foreign country.
Speaker 1: They marry and have children, but they do not kill unwanted babies.
Speaker 1: They share their table with everyone, but they don't share their bed with everyone.
Speaker 1: And as we look at this Epistle of Diagnetus, there's four things that stick out as qualities of Christians.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna bullet point them real quick.
Speaker 1: The first is they didn't have any racism that you.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter who you were, where you were from, everybody was equal at the foot of the cross.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter if you were rich, it didn't matter if you were a slave, it didn't matter where you came from.
Speaker 1: These Christians are like hey man, everybody's equal before God.
Speaker 1: Everybody needs Jesus the same amount, everybody.
Speaker 1: They valued life.
Speaker 1: So in Roman times they would take babies that they didn't want and they just take them out the woods.
Speaker 1: You guys know this.
Speaker 1: They take them out the woods, whip them in a pile of leaves, walk back and not even feel bad about it.
Speaker 1: Christians would go into the woods and grab those babies and say we'll raise them.
Speaker 1: These are made in God's image, they're made for the praise of God.
Speaker 1: That unique view of sex In Roman times sex was guys.
Speaker 1: In a lot of ways it was like little more than an appetite, and it's kind of becoming that way around us now.
Speaker 1: It's like food.
Speaker 1: So hey man, feed the thing, just give it what it wants.
Speaker 1: And Christians came along and said no, this is to represent marriage, which is a committed, permanent, exclusive, one only person that you're gonna interact with in this way about.
Speaker 1: And then the final one was can you guess?
Speaker 1: It was their extreme generosity.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter who you were.
Speaker 1: There was a place at the table.
Speaker 1: They'd give away their money.
Speaker 1: This is why Christianity was growing so much.
Speaker 1: People couldn't believe how quick they were to give away their money.
Speaker 1: Can you believe that that was their reputation?
Speaker 1: I mean, no church has done a lot wrong since then, but that's a pretty dope reality.
Speaker 1: They were so known by those four things.
Speaker 1: But I wanna prophesy to you that we can do it again.
Speaker 1: I wanna prophesy to you, hey, man, our worst days I'm believing our behind us and our best days are before us.
Speaker 1: We can do this.
Speaker 1: They did it.
Speaker 1: They had less and they did it.
Speaker 1: We can do this.
Speaker 1: So I don't know where the challenge is for you today.
Speaker 1: I think for some of us it's just.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just put not only your money, but maybe just your attitude about money, put it on the altar and say God.
Speaker 1: I think maybe we need to have some conversations about that and I need to get this idea of not just giving here, there and everywhere, becoming a giver, because that's what God is.
Speaker 1: Amen, let's pray God.
Speaker 1: There's no one like you and you deserve all the praise, and we can never give you enough praise.
Speaker 1: We could, never we can.
Speaker 1: If we started right now, for the rest of forever, you would not be praised enough.
Speaker 1: And so we just glorify you right now and say God, you are the one and only, and you're the one and only one who takes seed and multiplies it so that we can share it and become more like you.
Speaker 1: And then so again and multiply and share it again.
Speaker 1: God, we just want to ask for your forgiveness for the places that probably you were giving us an impulse for some of us at some point to give, and we just said no, god, can we just recognize before you.
Speaker 1: We just want to admit it in front of you, in front of all the angels God, it's your house, it's your house.
Speaker 1: You let us live here, you let us have all these things, and you are the owner of it all.
Speaker 1: And so we just invite you.
Speaker 1: God, would you make us not just people that are kind of generous, make us givers in our identity?
Speaker 1: Thank you, jesus, it's in your name.
Speaker 1: We pray Amen.
Speaker 1: Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being his witness in our generation.
Speaker 1: Check out FierceChurch.
Speaker 1: We'd love for you to join us, either digitally or in person.
Speaker 1: Also, if you're looking for leadership development related content, don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry.
Speaker 1: It's because of you that this is possible.
Speaker 1: You can click on the link in the description to give now or visit Fierce Church for more information.
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Speaker 1: Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it.
Speaker 1: Don't give up.
Speaker 1: Hang on to Jesus.
Speaker 1: He won't let go of you.
Speaker 1: Jesus loves you so much and we love you.
Speaker 1: I hope someday we get to meet in person.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening.