00;00;02;16 - 00;00;22;16
Brenton
This is further a weekly show for the people of Harmony Bible Church, where we seek to revisit and expand on Sunday sermons with the goal of growing deeper in biblical truth that transforms our lives. Welcome back to Further and Brenton Graham. and I got Chris Carr with us here today. How's it going?

00;00;22;18 - 00;00;35;29
Chris
Going well. I finished second in our women's, basketball bracket here on Harmony staff. so. Okay, I'm pretty excited about feeling good. Yeah. Feeling good. How do you do?

00;00;36;01 - 00;00;44;18
Brenton
So when, Andrew sent out the email, I must have missed it until right after the thing closed. So I, did not do well.

00;00;44;21 - 00;00;50;26
Chris
Yeah, well, you didn't lose either, I guess so. You mean win, but you didn't lose. So.

00;00;50;29 - 00;00;57;13
Brenton
Yeah, I find it best just to not participate. Sometimes. No. But, did you have Iowa win in? Was that.

00;00;57;18 - 00;01;07;08
Chris
I did not. so I'm sorry. That probably is not winning me any fans, but, you know, you heard it here, but. Yeah.

00;01;07;10 - 00;01;50;15
Brenton
All right. Well, so we took last week off. but we're back as we start a new series. on generosity. So, you know, as we kind of kick this off, this is a topic that can be filled with guilt and shame and it's generally just an uncomfortable topic to talk about. in church circles, partly, you know, because it a lot of times comes it comes along with an ask, but, you know, as, as we go through this, I'm curious how you would kind of, advise people to have an, an open hand to this as, as they hear the truth.

00;01;50;15 - 00;02;00;20
Brenton
Of what? Of of you know, what Paul is arguing here and what he's commending us to do. How would you encourage people to to be open to it?

00;02;00;22 - 00;02;39;07
Chris
Well, there are a couple things I would say here. First, I just think we need to realize how much this is an issue that we just, you know, live with a in and day out and, and how much our, our view of money and, how we, we handle it and, and look at it just impacts our life and that if we, we are not open to the Lord and, and what the Bible has to say about this and the Bible has a lot to say about it, and then it's undoubtedly going to impact our life in a negative way.

00;02;39;10 - 00;03;08;19
Chris
And so just, yeah, it's hard to talk about, it's uncomfortable, but, it can be much more uncomfortable not to actually talk about it, or at least the consequences of not allowing it to be the case. And, you mentioned, you know, being open to it. I think we've got to, to view we've got to try to view our resources with an open hand, like, like that's, that's we've got to be open handed with it before the Lord.

00;03;08;22 - 00;03;30;13
Chris
and, and I think one of the ways that we can do this is that when we do feel guilt and shame, that we don't try to run from that, we we recognize that that is a reality. and that then we we take that and we go to the cross where Jesus took our guilt and, he, he paid for for it.

00;03;30;13 - 00;03;53;22
Chris
And because that is, is that we my our shame is is gone and our condemnation is gone. And so this really is another opportunity here when we do experience those things to experience the grace of God. So we don't experience the grace of God when we ignore what we're feeling or experiencing, or when we refuse to acknowledge our culpability.

00;03;53;24 - 00;04;13;03
Chris
we experience the grace of God. When we own up to it, we we recognize it. And then we run to to the cross then. And when we do, the great reality is, is that when we confess our sins and are open and that he's faithful and just, to to forgive our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

00;04;13;03 - 00;04;19;12
Chris
And so, yeah, I mean, there's a lot more that can be said there, but I think that's maybe sufficient for now.

00;04;19;12 - 00;04;45;28
Brenton
Why? Why do you think this is such a hard topic to talk about? And I guess, you know, is it affected by generation, like generational demographics? Is is one generation easier to talk to about about it than another? I mean, what is it just cultural here in America or is it, and what what kind of things affect the.

00;04;46;00 - 00;05;07;06
Chris
I think it's hard to talk to all generations about it. Yeah. I mean, my initial take on it is it's actually a little bit more difficult to talk to older generations about it because, it maybe I would include myself and I was we kind of just grew up and like, this is something that's, that's private. You don't you don't talk about this.

00;05;07;06 - 00;05;24;26
Chris
You don't get in anybody's business. And it's it's a it's a no go zone. Yeah. and it was seem to be younger people are maybe more, more open to, to talking about it doesn't mean that they handle it necessarily better, but they're maybe more, more willing to, to have that discussion. Yeah.

00;05;24;26 - 00;05;50;11
Brenton
So no, I think that's true. I think that that that's experientially true, at least for me to kind of see a difference in generations. So okay, so generosity is a very broad term that could refer to giving to a wide range of recipients. it could be to a family member, a nonprofit, a cause that's important to you or to a local church, etc..

00;05;50;11 - 00;05;58;09
Brenton
But what would you say is included in the scope of the New Testament idea of generosity?

00;05;58;11 - 00;06;28;16
Chris
Well, we talking about the New Testament. We're talking about giving to the Lord and to the Lord's people and to the Lord's mission through a local church. That's that's it. There, there there is no other scope other than than that. Now, I want to be clear and and I think we actually need to work on this is a lot of times we say giving to the church.

00;06;28;23 - 00;07;08;14
Chris
And technically I guess that's true, but but but in reality we're giving to the Lord through the church and to the Lord's people, to the Lord's, mission. in, in in the world, whether it means to meet physical needs or spiritual needs, I think it's both and, are included in there. But all of the, you know, the giving in the New Testament, has to do with, with giving through the local church to, either physical needs of people or to seeing the gospel go, go forward.

00;07;08;16 - 00;07;18;24
Chris
in, in a, in a locality, you know, in the place where that church, you know, gathers or through that church, you know, to other parts of the world. yeah.

00;07;18;29 - 00;07;29;28
Brenton
So if somebody is kind of thinking through, you know, where to allocate money and thinking through priorities, you would you would start with the, the local church, right?

00;07;30;00 - 00;07;30;22
Chris
Absolutely.

00;07;30;22 - 00;07;44;09
Brenton
But outside of that, I mean, do you see a problem with, with going around the outside or the local church and giving directly to missions or giving directly to a nonprofit? Do you do you see any issues with that or.

00;07;44;12 - 00;08;14;24
Chris
I don't see an issue with it, as long as there's a priority on giving to, the local church and, I, I, and here's I think people miss this a lot of time because I know there there are quite a few people who would would prioritize giving to directly to missionaries or to nonprofits or to, you know, to a lot of whole host of of good endeavors and even kingdom endeavors.

00;08;14;26 - 00;08;40;29
Chris
And yet, God's plan for the world is the church that Jesus says, I will build my church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. and the way that God seeks to, you know, spread his the gospel and to advance the kingdom is it's meant to be through the the local church is very, very clear through the through acts and through the New Testament letters.

00;08;40;29 - 00;09;05;28
Chris
And Jesus even makes that, I think, clear in the Gospels. And so, if the church is not the ministry of the church is not being supported. I think ultimately the mission is going to, to, to fail. I mean, and even talk about missionaries is the local church has a responsibility to send out missionaries? and I'm not against mission agencies for sure.

00;09;06;04 - 00;09;37;14
Chris
We do a lot of work with with missionaries. He's a mission organizations and and various nonprofit and and, and, you know, organizations that are doing a lot of good, good work around the world. But, you know, as believers, we are a part of the church, which means that we should be a part of members of a local church and being a part of the the local church, we have a responsibility to support that, that that local church and the ministries of the local church and and all that.

00;09;37;14 - 00;10;18;14
Chris
And and when believers don't do that, or short circuit that, it, it, it ultimately becomes problematic. and so, you know, I'll just be personal here. I like, even I support missionaries that are not sent out by my Harmony Bible Church, but that's kind of a a side line, you know, a side thing that we do our first, and, and the, the wide, the majority of our giving and I guess I should say, goes to the Lord through Harmony Bible Church.

00;10;18;14 - 00;10;25;18
Chris
And then when there are is more, we can kind of left over, so to speak. That's when it goes to, other endeavors.

00;10;25;23 - 00;10;47;18
Brenton
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's kind of an interesting topic, especially the way that it's framed here because it's you know, it's it's really is a reflection or a response to, to the gospel. So there's that side of it. But then there's also the practical side of, okay, I've decided I'm going to be generous. How do I do that? Well, and so that's, that's good.

00;10;47;18 - 00;11;05;06
Brenton
Just to think through it in, in priorities and make sure that we have our priorities straight. And, you know, I there's not maybe somewhere specific you would go in the New Testament to, to point to that. But I mean, I think your argument is that it's just kind of assumed that if people were giving money, it was going to go to the church at that point.

00;11;05;10 - 00;11;46;00
Chris
Yeah, right. And of course, there were no, you know, there's no nonprofits. There were no mission agencies. It was it was the local church. And, you know, one thing consider and I, I want to be gentle and careful here. because again, this is very sensitive. But, one thing I would challenge those who who maybe do not give through the local church, but or don't give significantly, but they give generously to, you know, missionaries outside of the church or, you know, so organizations it's like what would happen if everybody did that.

00;11;46;03 - 00;12;10;12
Chris
and like if everybody did that, then there, there wouldn't be able to be the, the church, at least as we know it. And then if that's the case, then where are the missionaries? Where are the missionaries coming from? and how is the mission going to going to go forward? Ultimately, you may say, well, there's mission agencies that are doing a lot of good work.

00;12;10;12 - 00;12;38;17
Chris
Yeah, but if if there's not a healthy church, I mean, that that, that ultimately, you know, those mission agencies and organizations, they have come out of, local churches and maybe they're maybe they're disconnected from it. but I even give an example and I'm not going to name any names here, but we have quite a few, you know, college ministries that, I'm concerned they become disconnected from the local church.

00;12;38;20 - 00;13;00;03
Chris
And so you and they're doing some really great things on college campuses, but then there's no connection. So college students get out of college and they're like the local church hasn't been a part of their experience. So there's there's no college ministry when you, you know, you become a young adult and you, you, you move away from home or college for the first time.

00;13;00;03 - 00;13;05;27
Chris
And so that ultimately I think is, is, is an unhealthy model.

00;13;06;03 - 00;13;31;23
Brenton
Well, I'm just thinking pragmatically there. I mean, the, the missions, the people that are doing missions overseas likely have churches that sponsor them. Right? So they have they have local churches that have needs. The college ministry is being sponsored or put on by a local church who has financial needs. Right. So, so much of this stuff is going to come back to the church being in a healthy spot anyway.

00;13;31;23 - 00;13;32;18
Brenton
So.

00;13;32;20 - 00;13;52;23
Chris
Well, which is I can just, say something about the Salt network that so many of our college students have been a part of. Where you part of the college? Yeah. and, and one of the real strengths and, and I have a lot of good things to say about the social network is that they're, they're connected to to a local church.

00;13;52;23 - 00;14;06;12
Chris
Yeah. Right. Is that they, they start a, a college ministry in conjunction with church plan and in that area. And I think that's a but I love that and I think it's, it's borne a lot of fruit.

00;14;06;15 - 00;14;32;01
Brenton
Absolutely. Yep. That's a good model for it okay. So walking back in, in the kind of process we laid out here, you mentioned on Sunday that a big driver of our lack of generosity is comparing ourselves to others. And so really comes down to, are we content or not? How do we how would you suggest we we find contentment with what we have?

00;14;32;01 - 00;14;35;28
Brenton
It's a it's a hard thing to do.

00;14;36;00 - 00;15;08;00
Chris
Yeah. if I could just refer to a couple passages, one we looked at on Sunday, first Timothy 618 through 20, Paul ends that by saying, you know, you need to tell the rich to be, generous so that they may take hold of that which is truly life, and reminding ourselves that what is truly life giving, is is not material possessions.

00;15;08;02 - 00;15;34;29
Chris
and that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with having them and enjoying them. And Paul in other ways says, God gives us every good thing to enjoy, but that ultimately they don't make, a life. They, another passage is Luke 12 or, Jesus is telling the parable of the the rich fool. And and in that, he says to his disciples, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness.

00;15;35;05 - 00;15;53;07
Chris
For one's life does not consists in the abundance of his possessions. He goes on and tells us the story of the guy who builds these. You know, he's he's really wealthy. He says, oh, I'm going to build tear down my barns. And I get a little bigger ones. And then Jesus says, well, you fool, tonight your life is, you know, required of you.

00;15;53;07 - 00;16;14;25
Chris
And so it's, you know, like that those things are, can be enjoyable and can be good and can be used for a lot of good purposes. But they're not the end all, be all, and they're not going to ultimately make you happy. And, and, and there's lots of testimonies and lots of stories of people who have everything the world has to offer them.

00;16;14;25 - 00;16;36;08
Chris
And they are oftentimes the most miserable people that that there is. And we go to Ecclesiastes or Solomon, who literally maybe the wealthiest man ever. And yet he goes, you know, what's the theme of the book of Ecclesiastes? It's all vanity. It's chasing after the wind. and he literally had everything that he, he could possibly not one desire.

00;16;36;08 - 00;17;07;01
Chris
So I think we just got to, just kind of continually remind ourselves of those things and, and then to, to also recognize that what we're looking for is peace. We want we want peace. And, and that no amount of money and amount of possessions is going to give us peace. and where does where does peace come from?

00;17;07;01 - 00;17;21;26
Chris
And peace. And we could do a deep dive into that. That's a big topic. But ultimately it comes with from knowing that you have peace with God and then experiencing the fruit of the spirit that flows out of that. And yeah, and prioritizing that. Yeah.

00;17;21;28 - 00;17;47;06
Brenton
Yeah. And I mean, go along with that is agreed. and I think they're, they're related. But you know what, what do you think the largest contributors are to that? And like, I know, you know, things like status come into this a lot. And, I think it can be insecurity. You know, what kind of what kind of things are you do you think contribute to that the most?

00;17;47;08 - 00;18;13;12
Chris
yeah, I think all of those things when you say security. So there's fear. Yeah, yeah, that's what we're talking about. There is fear that I'm not going to have enough or I'm going to, like I mentioned on Sunday, I'm going to miss out on something. fear that. Yeah, I'm going to, you know, be without something that is absolutely critical to my happiness or even survival.

00;18;13;15 - 00;18;41;28
Chris
I think you you mentioned, like, discontentment and one of the biggest contributors is just like, we just see all of. Yeah. So often, you know, people who seemingly have more than we do or have these things that we would like to have. Now a lot of times today that that's actually not true. Well, that because it's, it's, it's, you know, it's just buying things that you can't afford and going in great debt.

00;18;42;01 - 00;19;00;09
Chris
so, I mean, there's, there's so many different things that we can talk about here, but I think we should recognize that the whole purpose of marketing is to make us discontent. Like, you're not going to be happy, you're not going to really be living unless you have this and your life is going to be miserable. How miserable are you?

00;19;00;09 - 00;19;10;12
Chris
You know, if you don't have the latest, you know, iPhone or, the latest. But when I was growing up, it was sneakers, you know, you know how many.

00;19;10;12 - 00;19;10;25
Brenton
Air Jordans.

00;19;10;25 - 00;19;30;11
Chris
Did you have? so. True story. I had an original version. The first version? No, I still actually have them. And but what's interesting is they were not Air Jordans. They're called Sky Jordans because I was too small to have the Air Jordans. So it was like these for for little kids. I had toddler one. Yes. no.

00;19;30;17 - 00;20;13;15
Chris
They were little bigger than toddlers, but, I don't know. I thought about actually putting them on eBay and seeing how much I could get, but they're literally the original. The original version. Jcpenney's. so did you feel complete? Well, I do remember I had to have a pair because that's what everybody, wanted in 1986, I think it was so anyway, but I do think that this is, you know, one of the solutions to, to this issue of greed is, is to, to think about, look at, consider how, how much we're exposing ourselves to all of this, you know, online advertising.

00;20;13;22 - 00;20;37;12
Chris
And I'm not on social media very much at all anymore. But that's the you know, that's how, you know, Mark Zuckerberg and they're making so much money is is on the advertising and you're just inundated with, okay, this product and this product and this product and this product. And this is maybe another reasons why we need to look at our social media habits and our media intake is like is, is.

00;20;37;12 - 00;20;58;26
Chris
And we could talk about formation here, which, you know, I know I beat this drum all the time, but those things are the it's forming us and and it's making it's driving our discontentment. so it used to be, you know, keeping up with the Joneses. It's an old saying there. And that had more to do with your neighbors or friends.

00;20;58;26 - 00;21;03;28
Chris
Now, it it's it's it's more in in regards to what we're seeing online.

00;21;03;28 - 00;21;11;03
Brenton
Yeah. Well it's not only everyone, you know, but it's also everybody that you have no idea who they are. But.

00;21;11;05 - 00;21;39;07
Chris
Yeah. And and you talk about I mean it's it's related to the you mentioned status. and yeah, I mean the in this ties into our identity, you know, we, we wrap our identity around our status and, and that's tied to, to our money and our achievement and those kind of things as we think, you know, that we want to look big, look wealthy, looks successful in people's eyes.

00;21;39;07 - 00;22;22;02
Chris
And so we've got to, we got to, you know, whether it's work too much or, or again, go in to debt and buy things that we can't afford. And, or am I hear me put it this way, we can afford them, but we can't afford them. And be generous at the same time. and and so we have them, you know, there's enough money coming in, but we make the choice to spend that money on things that are going to maybe pump or set us up or to feed our discontentment or, you know, or whatever, rather than actually using it to be be generous.

00;22;22;04 - 00;22;22;23
Chris


00;22;22;25 - 00;22;42;01
Brenton
Yeah. The and I think these things can be sneaky too, right? Maybe, maybe it's something that you don't even realize in yourself. And it's it's easy with these kind of things to compare yourself to, to other people that are worse than you. Right. I'm not I'm not that bad. And I think we do that with a lot of us.

00;22;42;01 - 00;23;06;29
Brenton
And but this is so much in our face from from the internet, from social media, the greed of, of, people in our culture. And so it's, it's really easy to downplay our own sin. How would you kind of advise someone to reflect on this and see, you know, if they're if they are struggling with this more than they realize?

00;23;07;01 - 00;23;37;10
Chris
well, one thing I would say is it's almost, assuredly true that we're struggling with it more than we think that we are. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about why Jesus talks about it so much, why the Bible talks about it so much. you know, and Tim Keller has pointed this out, but, he says, you know, if you're committing adultery, you know, that you're committing adultery.

00;23;37;12 - 00;24;01;14
Chris
You know, and the Bible actually doesn't talk about adultery all that much. It does certainly address it. It's very clear that it's wrong in the, the, we see it in Ten Commandments. Jesus talks about it, Paul talks about I mean, it's so, so it's definitely there. But but it's not there nearly as much is is this issue of greed, or are you talking about lying?

00;24;01;16 - 00;24;24;20
Chris
If you if you're lying in to pretty much know that you're lying. if you have an anger problem, you very well may know that you have an anger problem. if you're greedy, you probably don't. And one of the reasons, it's kind of subjective. It's more subjective than adultery, lying, anger. It can be a little bit harder to detect because it's it's.

00;24;24;20 - 00;24;45;23
Chris
And we're going to talk about this more. It's coming soon. It's a matter all of these things are the matter of the heart, but but it can often be invisible to others. Are hard to to discern, especially in the day and time that we live in where we're so private about it. Like nobody. It's nobody's business what I'm doing, with my money.

00;24;45;23 - 00;25;01;05
Chris
And so, I and I'm sure that there are other reasons, obviously, that the Bible talks about it, which we will address and already have in this series. But I, I do think that that's that's a big part of it.

00;25;01;07 - 00;25;25;09
Brenton
Yeah. it's good. I think, again, you know, we're at the beginning of this series and I think we'll get into a lot more of this. So, you also talked about living for this life, as being a large factor. So, I don't think that generosity is the only thing that's affected by our love of this life and perhaps disregard for the next.

00;25;25;09 - 00;25;35;06
Brenton
But how do we shift our focus to eternity and not live for for our treasures now?

00;25;35;09 - 00;26;01;03
Chris
Yeah, that's a great question. I do think, and and somebody may say, well, hey, this is that's a pretty simple answer. Duh. Everybody knows this, especially since you talk about it all the time. But this is why we again, have to remind ourselves, of the gospel. And we need to have a full, a full understanding.

00;26;01;03 - 00;26;35;24
Chris
We need to fully we remind ourselves of the full gospel. And not just like Jesus died for my sins and and rose again. And I'm going to go to heaven one day. True. Good. That's, you know, the gospel in a in a nutshell, so to speak. But, understanding, diving into, something I want to do someday is do soul series on heaven, on the new heavens and a new earth and and just really understanding what's coming, what's coming for us.

00;26;35;26 - 00;27;20;27
Chris
because the more that we we recognize that, understand that, and the more we remind ourselves of that, the, the I think that the more that money will lose its grip on our, on on our, on our hearts. and, I think that, being in, and I don't want to say accountability so much, but just being around other believers that can encourage us and can continue to help us to point our, our eyes toward, the future and what the Lord has for us and the great treasures that we, we are really have, and are going to experience.

00;27;20;27 - 00;27;42;06
Chris
And we have them now we're going to experience some more fully, in eternity. I think it's really, really important to to be in this together. I think one of the the reasons that we can struggle so much money, get so much a grip on us is because we have made this so private. and I think that's actually a tactic of the evil one.

00;27;42;06 - 00;28;14;06
Chris
And so I want to say this, the Bible's clear that that what we do with our money is personal, but it's not it's not private. And, the story of engineers, and Sapphira in the book of acts makes that really, really clear. It was a, a personal choice of what they did with their money. and, and you talk about that story, Peter actually makes it clear, like they could have done they could have sold and done whatever they wanted to, like, like they were free to do that.

00;28;14;08 - 00;28;39;16
Chris
But what they did was not it wasn't private. And, and I think this, this idea that what we do with our money is private is, is, is actually pretty dangerous to us because sin likes to grow in the dark. and when we expose when it, when, when it's exposed to the light, that's when healing and truth, is is going to, to, to take place.

00;28;39;18 - 00;29;03;27
Chris
and so, I'm kind of going all around the here. but to get back to your question, I think keeping our focus on eternity and not looking for treasures now we the money is so, so powerful. And if if we don't have other people to help us. So to to fight this battle and to walk this path together, I think we're, we're going to be in trouble.

00;29;04;02 - 00;29;26;01
Brenton
Yeah. Well, and this I mean, this isn't the only thing that that affects to of of not being forward looking, we're in, a group I meet with this morning. We were talking about Matthew 13, and there's the parable of the hidden treasure. it's Matthew 1344. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up.

00;29;26;04 - 00;29;49;18
Brenton
Then in his joy, he goes out and sells all that he has and buys that field. there's the one about the the Pearl of great value after that. And I think, you know, if we have Jesus's view of, of his kingdom, I think that would change a lot of, of what we do with our lives. Yeah, it would change our priorities in so many things.

00;29;49;19 - 00;29;54;18
Brenton
Not only generosity, but. Yeah, I just thought that was that was kind of timely for him.

00;29;54;25 - 00;29;55;07
Chris


00;29;55;10 - 00;30;13;23
Brenton
That's given the other thing you'd brought up is accountability. You know that's it's probably not something we think about you know there are the topics that we as Christians like push for accountability on things. Money doesn't usually come up in those conversations. Is that something that you would suggest for people?

00;30;13;26 - 00;30;19;20
Chris
Well, I'm first going to say, why do you think that that is?

00;30;19;22 - 00;30;21;06
Brenton
That rhetorical?

00;30;21;09 - 00;30;53;26
Chris
Well, I mean, it can be rhetorical, but yeah. I think that. Yeah. You know, what's so interesting is we're actually more willing to be open about our, our struggles with sex than we are about money. and, it, I think it it would be an obvious answer for many of us. What's the number one thing that American Christians struggle with is we would be sexual sin.

00;30;53;28 - 00;31;25;25
Chris
And, the Bible does talk about sexual sin and, quite a bit, but not nearly as much as the talks about greed. and, I think the reason that we resist that is because it has to do with shame and guilt and, and we don't want to feel that conviction, but we also, I think, resist what we think that might lead us to and that might lead us to tempted to change and to do things differently.

00;31;25;27 - 00;31;27;06
Chris
So.

00;31;27;08 - 00;31;27;29
Brenton
Yeah.

00;31;28;01 - 00;32;03;15
Chris
And, and, and and I get it. I mean, it's, I, I am not immune from, from this, at all. And I it every time I preach on this topic, it's, it's like, okay, I yeah, I really need to study this on my own more or, than than I, than I do not just to study it because I hey, we're going to be preaching through it, but like, I need these things because, you know, like those first Timothy six passages that we looked at are just so, so convicting.

00;32;03;17 - 00;32;14;11
Chris
and, it's easy, just like, okay. Yeah. and move on. And that's not, you know, I don't really struggle with that. And but the reality is, is I do. Yeah.

00;32;14;13 - 00;32;37;17
Brenton
Well, to to wrap this up, I, but we don't need to spend a lot of time on it, cause I think we'll go more in depth on it later, but I, I think there's probably a burning question that always comes up every time. Every time that this conversation's talked about. So, how much should people give? How do you how do you even begin to advise people on that?

00;32;37;21 - 00;33;04;23
Chris
Yeah. Well, thanks for, you know, asking this question as I'm supposed to be closing out. It's a big, long 30s that we're going to to spend quite a bit of time talking about, later on in this series. what I will say right now, Paul, in Second Corinthians nine says that each one should decide in his heart, his own heart what he should give.

00;33;04;26 - 00;33;34;03
Chris
you know, that we're not to give in or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. and and so I think the, the guidance there is that, this is again, it's personal. and it's something that we need to decide in our heart which which shows us that giving here is not ultimately about a command or it's not about a number, it's about what's going on in our heart.

00;33;34;03 - 00;34;01;15
Chris
And we're going to see this week in so great things that the, Paul commends the Macedonian Christians, for, giving themselves first to the Lord, and then when he gets off to the Lord, then they get themselves to giving, to earth to the Lord through the church. And, and so, the question I don't think we should we should ever start with the home.

00;34;01;15 - 00;34;36;20
Chris
How much I should give. I think we should actually start with how much did God give? He gave it all. and realizing that we are the recipients of, of of really the riches, of heaven then then we can when we get that when our heart is there, then we can begin to, to think about this discussion about how much I should give, and then how much I should give will, be dependent upon our situation with, our income, where we are in, the time and place.

00;34;36;20 - 00;35;05;01
Chris
And it it may also depend upon, you know, where our practice current practices in, in giving. So if someone is giving little to nothing, you know, starting to give ten, 15, 20%, it's going to be it's going to be, you know, something probably gonna have to, to work towards if somebody is already giving substantially, then it, it may be a matter of like, hey, we want to consistently give, give more.

00;35;05;03 - 00;35;44;14
Chris
and we'll talk about the tithe in this series. And, I'm probably going to surprise people when I say about the tithe, but at this point, I think it's a, it's a good, it's good training wheels. so it's a good place to it's a good place to start. and yet, I don't think that's a, I don't think you can find in the, the New Testament and, and actually, it's not, it's not that I don't think I know you can't find a New Testament where it's going to tell you exactly how much, to give, which in some ways it would make us simpler if the New Testament did say

00;35;44;14 - 00;36;10;28
Chris
that. But I think it that gets, that gets away from the, the heart. and it, it easily moves us into legalism. And it also, inhibits, in my opinion, generosity. Because if it's like you, you must give 10%, then people will stop giving it. a lot of times will say, I've done my duty and you lose, generosity.

00;36;10;28 - 00;36;35;12
Chris
And you also lose the joy that comes with it. And and I'll just finish this. The last thing I'll say, today, unless you have another question. But what what I want to experience myself and what I want the people from a Bible church to experience is joyful generosity. I'm not going to tell anybody in the church how much they how much they should give.

00;36;35;14 - 00;36;53;14
Chris
I just don't think I can do that, because I don't think the New Testament does that. What I think the Lord is after. And so therefore, what I'm after is that we'll all experience the joy of being generous, regardless of how much that might be, that we give at any one time.

00;36;53;17 - 00;36;59;11
Brenton
Yeah, well, you brought up a lot of questions for me, but I think we'll save that for saving for later, probably.

00;36;59;11 - 00;37;01;24
Chris
For a lot of other people too. But we'll get to them.

00;37;01;26 - 00;37;24;23
Brenton
Yeah, yeah, I, I think that, you know, if, if we as the church, we'll, we'll really dig into the series and take it seriously and, really examine ourselves. I think this is going to be really good for us as a church. and so, encourage you guys to do that. one way you can do that is send us an email with a question.

00;37;24;23 - 00;37;32;19
Brenton
So ask it further. podcast.com. and we'll wrap it up there. So thanks, Chris. we will talk to you guys next week.