The Extra
The Extra is a podcast hosted by Crosspoint Christian Church in Conyers, Georgia. Senior Minister, Curtis Zehner, and his friend, Ken Pierce, talk through each week's sermon unpacking the extra material that didn't make the cut for the weekend message. Curtis' and Ken's conversational and relaxed style lend itself to listeners of all ages and spiritual maturities.
The Extra
Contentment & Generosity | Give Thanks
Bringing it all together, we examine the practice of gratitude as a catalyst for cultivating generosity. Delve into the complexities of human nature's relentless quest for more, and learn how biblical insights can guide us from scarcity toward contentment. This episode encourages listeners to embrace gratitude and generosity as guiding principles in both personal and professional realms.
Check out more at www.CrosspointConyers.com
welcome back to the extra podcast, curtis. Oh sorry, I you know we need to. Like I just said, welcome. You would think that we would practice. No and. And after a certain amount of episodes we wouldn't talk over each other anymore. But I feel like I do that almost every episode. It doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2:That's nice to know, yeah, it doesn't bother me.
Speaker 1:I always feel like I'm cutting you off. No, welcome back to the. I'm here too. No, not yet, ken. Yeah, just wait your turn, you don't come in yet.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I'm in charge, yeah.
Speaker 1:That is definitely not what's happening here.
Speaker 2:We're a partnership, it's a partnership.
Speaker 1:Yes, a symbiotic relationship of a podcast. Yeah, ooh, that was like Lion King-esque. Yeah, that was good. Welcome back to another episode, ken how are you feeling today?
Speaker 2:I'm good, good, everything's good. The babies were sick this past week but they're getting better and sleeping all the way through the night. Mostly again, work's going good, nice, a really a good bit. This morning one uh, she didn't realize that you could like write down your schedule. It was something as simple as that. Like, oh yeah, I could actually just plan out my entire day and not be worried about it, right, wow? So I did that. I helped her with that.
Speaker 2:And then another one was uh, she, so she grew up in the country, moved to the city and wants to move back to the country, moved to the city and wants to move back to the country, like on a big plot of land. Okay, I said, hear me out here. What if you and she likes to write? I was like, what do you do for self-care if she likes to write? I said, what if you created a fictional character with that exact story but build it out to its ideal conclusion? And she, like you would have thought you would have thought I gave her a bar of gold and she's like, I'm going to do that, I'm going to start that today. Yeah, like she just felt really good about her whole life immediately and I said okay, today's done, yeah.
Speaker 1:What does that feel like for you? That's like the peak of counseling. Oh, yeah, like you give a nugget of advice and they take it and run with it.
Speaker 2:She came in tired and sort of downtrodden and then she left. She's like I'm okay, yeah, like she saw possibilities and a lot of times counseling is just generating possibilities. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? And realizing that people have more resources than they think? And she just had twins Wow, identical. And she just wants to move everybody to the country and she wants, like you know, she's got a good home life. She's got a stable, secure home life, which not a lot of people in addiction have. But she has the opportunity to actually make this happen and it's really good to see like just one idea like that people in addiction have. But she has the opportunity to actually make this happen and it's really good to see like just one idea like that. And she said are you going to be my co-author? We've got to have a co-author.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I was like no, I can't do that, there's something weird there.
Speaker 1:So no, I can't hey well, you're a published author, Ken. Yeah sure Book sales are going to skyrocket. Oh, they're through the roof. Today's episode is brought to you by my book. Do you have a title for your book?
Speaker 2:Well, the one I wrote is called being and Becoming.
Speaker 1:It's an autobiography, right.
Speaker 2:It's an autobiography. Yeah, I wish, yeah, I wish. It's about this guy that he it's so weird. Faith is laughing right now. I guarantee she's laughing at my voice right now. It's about this guy that he passes away but comes back to life in digital form, and it's the discovery of the possibility of that.
Speaker 1:It's about life, death and it's sort of mirrored with some biblical stories. Well, if you would like to read a copy of Ken's book. Send us a text message.
Speaker 2:Who knows, Ken might actually release it one day you never know, or you can come stay with us for about two and a half hours and I can either read it to you or you can read it in our living room.
Speaker 1:We should do that as a podcast or do like an audio book. We've got this set up Now.
Speaker 2:I told you it's not for children's ears. It's not for many adults' ears either, so I wish I could say it different.
Speaker 1:but it's not. Well, you've written something, so that's cool. I've written something, right? Yeah, man, we got way off track there. Yeah, I'm on. Welcome to the podcast. I'm on my third cup of coffee. Yeah, actually, it's my fourth today, Okay, but I brought a cup of coffee with me this afternoon because I know that the day is waning for me right now yeah. We record in the afternoons on Tuesdays, wednesdays, if you want to come watch, oh that would be riveting A studio audience.
Speaker 1:I can picture all one of you sitting on this one couch that's next to us.
Speaker 2:There's one, two, three, four, five seats, if we can make it happen.
Speaker 1:Well, if you'd like to be an in-studio guest, why don't you send us a text message I don't know For a Patreon listener? I think we have successfully filled the five minutes of intro. Yeah, does that sound good? Mm-hmm, all right, let's do some podcasting.
Speaker 2:Okay. So question number one about the sermon of the past week. You spoke about professional and personal lives giving way to generosity, and who do you think is the most generous person you've ever met, and what are they like? Do we know them? Oh, wow, has anybody else ever met?
Speaker 1:them? Yeah, absolutely, there's a lot of people that come to mind. Maybe the most generous person I've ever known was probably my grandfather, my mom's dad, His name was David I just he was incredibly generous with his time and his money, his resources. He and my grandmother both I mean good grief, they don't do it like they did it together, Like their generosity was a tandem effort years ago came back from a missions trip to India and was so compelled by a young man that she met who was her waiter in the hotel restaurant in India and his name was Rajan, and she just felt, compelled through the Holy Spirit, that Rajan had much bigger things for his life and the story is much deeper than the way I'm saying it. But just for the sake of right now, long story short, my grandfather just said, well, bring him over and he can live with us. Wow, Right, and he was generous with his home and with his money and Rajan did. He came over and he ended up going to Bible college and went back to India. And now I'm off the topic of generosity, but Rajan's planted over 30 churches and I don't know how many hospitals, but hospitals and girls homes, and there's even a mission. There's a church in New York. That's his relative who came from India to plant a church for Indians who are living in New York.
Speaker 1:So you know, talk about an extremely generous person. People, my two grandparents, you know there's stories of my grandfather that he would, you know, somebody was broken down on the side of the road and you know, help them out, not just help them get to their next destination, but like pay for their meal and, you know, pay for the work that needed to be done to fix the tire. That had been, you know, and that was just who he was. He was just extremely generous. He was with all the grandkids. He was always generous, you know, giving us little chores to do, way overpaying us for those chores, yeah, let's see what I got in my pocket.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah Like, pick up some sticks for me, boys. Pick up some sticks for me, boys, here's a 40 bucks for you. He was trying to teach us how to work hard.
Speaker 1:He was also trying to teach us, you know, but he was just an extremely generous man, yeah, and, but he's not the only person that I think of. You know, there's people in our church who, if I start naming people, then I'll get myself in trouble. But there's been people in our church who have been so generous to me and my family, but I also, because of my position at the church, I know about when they're generous for other people, and so I'm not at liberty to share those things, because a lot of times people don't want their generous acts to be known. You know, and that's biblical for sure.
Speaker 1:It's embarrassing. And I think that there's a really important principle that Jesus teaches us in Matthew 5 and 6, where he says don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. If you seek the approval of men, then that's all you're going to get. You've got your reward. But if you are seeking the approval of your Father in heaven, well then great is your reward in the kingdom of heaven. And so I think that people who keep their generous acts to themselves are not only generous, but they're also Christ-like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the entire Parnell family is generous. Yeah, in my experience they really are. Mac and Joy, glenn and Faith are four of the most generous set of siblings that I've ever come across, and Ron and Virginia are extremely generous and, like you know Mac very well, and so I don't have to explain his generosity. Faith will, she will say. I feel like we need to go take food over here. For this reason, I feel like we need to do something for them. For this reason, I'll go. Do we have time to?
Speaker 2:do that do. We have space yeah to do that.
Speaker 2:I will think about it, she, she will think about it and it's already thought about like let's just go do it and I'm like, okay, yeah, we can do that. So thank you, faith, for making me seem generous when it's really just her and she's not dragging me along. But she's like we need to do this for this reason and she's very good at she says rallying the troops. She's good, says, rallying the troops. She's good at rallying the troops for a good cause. Yeah, that's really she'd be. She would be an amazing, uh, charity organizer, charity event organizer she'd be amazing at that.
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like you just volunteered faith for leading something at the church so I you know I would concur about your experience with Mr Parnell, because I was best friends with Mac growing up.
Speaker 1:We went to high school together. Basically from 10th grade through senior year we spent our group of friends. We spent a lot of time together and more often than not we were going places and we wouldn't have to worry about how to pay for dinner Right, or like the coffee we got at Starbucks or you know whose house we were going to, because Mac's dad usually picked up the tab for those things. For us boys, I mean like stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, that's extremely generous yeah, and my brother and, but it wasn't just money by the way, is what I'm saying Time and. The time and driving us around. Mr Parnell would drive us around all the time as well.
Speaker 2:He's very generous with wisdom. He will always sit and listen to something that you're going through and he's really good about giving some of the best advice I've ever been given about husbandry, parenthood, things like that, and he's a really. Obviously he's a great guy, but he's great in ways that, like we said, maybe aren't seen by everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, those are the type of people that I want to be around, or that I want around me, you know, because you don't always know that they're doing those generous things Right. So I guess the question is how do you know when a person is being generous? We're kind of going off topic now.
Speaker 2:I was going to mention my brother and my dad. My brother and my dad were very similar. My dad, my brother and my dad were very similar and they enjoyed being called upon when needed.
Speaker 1:They enjoyed being needed.
Speaker 2:And my brother would talk to young umpires. He was an umpire supervisor for the minor leagues and he worked for Major League Baseball. But he would answer the phone all hours of the night because umpires are a little brotherhood, because nobody likes them right, they're like the baseball police. So you go to a city in Tennessee, the game gets over at 1 o'clock. It was extra innings. It's in the middle of the night. Hey, jay, I got this issue. I had to run four guys. I got a lot of paperwork to do. Can you help me out with what I'm thinking? Oh, yeah, sure he would just wake up and just talk for the next two hours. Yeah, he was great for them.
Speaker 2:Dad was the same way. When he knew somebody was in need, he would arrange things from his office. He was a magistrate judge in Monroe, in Walton County, wow, and he would arrange things from his office. He would make sure people got what they needed. People got what they wanted. You know he would cook for the entire jail staff. He would cater a meal for them, cater for the county employees, things like that. And you can tell when somebody's being generous in general, when people want to be around them.
Speaker 1:Ooh, that's good yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when people want to be around them.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:They can. The generosity is reflected.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's the type of people, yeah, and the amount of people, but the quality of people that want to constantly be around. Hey, let's invite. I'm big on being invited to the table. Yeah, okay, figuratively, if you keep getting invited back to play the game, back to the table, to join in getting invited into somebody else's family by marrying into it, that means you're generous.
Speaker 2:Yeah to somebody else's family by marrying into it. That means you're generous. Yeah, it might not be outright financial, outright time resources, but you're a generous person. Yep, okay, and I think if you keep getting invited back, that's a big tell.
Speaker 1:Definitely. That's a really good insight. The quality of being desired to be around. Yes, yeah, that was a really convoluted way of saying that, but that's a really good way to put that. There are lots of people that I'm thinking of now, people that I just want to be around.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's really good, this whole topic of generosity. Every Thanksgiving I tend to do a series toward gratitude, generosity, joy, contentment and that's part of what last Sunday's message was about was that generosity is born out of contentment. You know, when you learn to be content in the things that you have, in the life situations that you're in.
Speaker 2:generally, the people who are content are generous with the extra that they have and people want to be around that. They want to be around that energy Right.
Speaker 1:You don't? Oh man, I don't want to get too much off on next week's sermon because I am going to talk a little bit about the difference. Like, the anti-generous person is a complainer, a person who's always seeing the negative. Yeah yeah, those are tough people to be around. Yeah Right, I have a little bit of that in me.
Speaker 2:Everybody does.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it depends on what you use to combat it. There are ways you can combat it.
Speaker 1:And that's just it. There was a recent study I was reading about. This may or may not make it into a sermon this month, so we'll see if anybody's really listening A recent study by a researcher out of Northwestern University, and she found, along with some other researchers, that generosity is linked with gratitude. Yes, or the other way around. Gratitude is linked with generosity, yes, or the other way around. Gratitude is linked with generosity. They're linked the more grateful you can be about your life situation, your financial status, you know the things that you have, the more generous you will become.
Speaker 1:It's like a loop, it's a mind loop, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's feedback.
Speaker 1:If you're grateful, you're generous, and the more generous you are, the more grateful you become.
Speaker 1:And even the way that you are grateful for people's generosity. It spurs you on to be generous back to them or to other people, because it feels good that you're receiving those things. And so you have to start the loop. There has to be a beginning, and the suggestions are things like you know, wake up in the morning or end your evening with a list of gratitudes, as simple as three things that you're grateful for. List them, and the more specific you can be, the better off the exercise is going to be for you. So you know, you wake up in the morning and, well, I'm thankful that. I'm thankful that I can do a podcast today. That's kind of general, you know. What would be more specific is I'm thankful that I have a friend like Ken, that we can sit across the table and have a discussion. That may or may not benefit people out there, but at least you know what it's benefiting me and that's what I'm grateful for yeah.
Speaker 1:And me, and to write those things down and be specific. Yeah, that would be a really good exercise for any of us that are listening. Wake up in the morning or end your day with three things that you're grateful for, and the more you get into this habit you start to live in that it changes your perspective, right? I mean, sometimes we just need that, we need to work on changing our perspective, not waiting for our perspective to change, right. And so if we're stuck in this loop of complaining and, you know, always being negative, maybe, maybe this is what you need and insert some gratitude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I learned this fascinating thing there is a, there's a, a bridge. I forget where it is. I used this in a sermon illustration years ago and it has always stuck in my brain. So, a suspension bridge. The physics or the, not the physics, the engineering behind it is that the suspension part, the cabling that holds the bridge up, is actually made up of many cables that are just clumped together and then wrapped in an outer coating to try and keep it from corroding. So there's like, let's just say, 100 cables that make up the large cable that's holding up the whole bridge.
Speaker 1:The problem is air and moisture can still get into the cable at large, because there's cylinders right and cylinders when they're clumped together there's still gaps right, it's not a perfect seal, so there's space for air and moisture, which means these steel cables are going to rust over time, unless you figure out a way to pump in fresh air, and so what engineers have created is these air pumps with generators that are beneath the bridge that pump in fresh, dry air into the cables and then it comes out the other side, so it pushes the moisture out of the cable to produce longevity, so it doesn't rust and corrode and the bridge collapse and catastrophe happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but without the intentionality of pumping in fresh air into the cable. You know the bridge isn't lasting that long, and so the analogy is that that's what we have to do, thankful for even the small things. Then we are running the risk of the corrosiveness, the corrosion of ingratitude, complaining and a sour attitude. You know what I mean, and so you got to be intentional.
Speaker 2:Yes, One of the operative words in mine and Faith's relationship is gratitude and I've questioned myself about how I used to not be generous and now I feel like I'm being more generous since I met Faith, and I wonder where that came from. And it's from the gratitude that her and I practice and we say I am grateful for this, I'm grateful for that, we're grateful for the kids, we're grateful for each other, we're grateful for our house and our cars and our jobs and things like that, and out of that overflows generosity, right, and it makes us the grateful. Generous person is the person that keeps getting invited back. Yeah, that keeps getting asked to play the game the next time. We want him on the team, we want to sit down with him and talk. We want him in the group we're trying to form or the band we're trying to form or whatever.
Speaker 2:And there was a podcast called I don't know if it's out anymore it's called the Hired Gun and Hired Gun is music slang for somebody that's hired to go out on a tour for one tour and they're hired for that tour and that's it. Hired guns are either interested in the music, the money, or they're interested in the people. They're going to be around people. They're going to be around and if you ask every single person on that podcast that's ever been on that podcast, they'll say I'm more interested in the people because you've got to be on a tour bus with them. Yeah, you've got to arrange songs, you've got to be on the stage with them, you've got to hang out with them. The money and the music should be there, but the question is the people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I took that to heart because it's saying just be nice to be around.
Speaker 2:Just be nice to be around Me and Faith were talking the other day and I said I really am more interested in Vivian and the boys being nice to be around rather than rich or famous or anything like that. Yeah, if she works at McDonald's and is a nice person, we are a success. Yeah, If she works like a quote, normal work-a-day job, air quotes for folks listening, a shift job A shift job, then, is nice to be around. After that, that means the world to me, because I couldn't. There was a point in my life where I couldn't do that. I would work a shift job and not be nice to be around, and I wasn't generous, I wasn't getting invited places.
Speaker 2:It's a miracle that I met Faith. I mean, I've told her that I was like it's a miracle, it's a miracle. You asked me back for a second date, right, and a third and a fourth, you know, and so on and so on, and it is all about that overflow of I'm grateful that I met her. Now I'm generous. Yeah, I'm generous, now I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I met her. Now I'm generous. Yeah, I'm generous, now I'm grateful. I'm grateful, now I'm generous. And it's the feedback loop that you were talking about. So how do we?
Speaker 1:teach our kids to be generous people, no matter what they do, because, honestly, it would be really nice if my girls would grow up and be super rich and then be generous with their money to their dear old dad and take care of me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah, that'd be nice, you know right? Yeah, every parent's dream is to be taken care of like they have been taking care of the kids. The way I would. If somebody said, can you teach my kid to be generous? I would honestly say, like we've said, think about what you have and think about not having it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And now imagine not having it. Okay, well, it's easy to give it away now.
Speaker 1:All right. So here's what we're going to do, because I think we need to come back to the scripture and we're going to let the we're going to Luke, chapter three. Talk about what you just said. Okay, right, think about what you don't have and let that kind of fuel that generosity in you. So let's think about it. Luke, chapter three, beginning in verse 10. What should we do then? How do I live a life that's in the family of God and deny the life of the snake? What shall we do then? The crowd asked, and John the Baptist answered anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same. Contentment is certainly in here, that if you have excess in your life, you need to be content to just live on what you need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, so that you can be generous with that excess that you have. So, so if I walked in and you know, was able to share, then I should and be generous in that way. But also there's in this passage, like you have to put yourself in the other person's shoes. There's empathy that's involved. Yes, you have to remember what it's like to not have what you need and anytime you lose touch. With what am I trying to say, ken, and with what?
Speaker 2:am I trying to say, ken? I think anytime you lose touch with where you came from, it is hard to get back to that place. Yeah, it's hard, because everybody is really good about experiencing their. Now, you know, and people are very quick to turn the wants into needs, and it's called the hedonic treadmill in psychology If you want $2, you want $3. If you have $3, you want $4. If you have $4, you want $5. So on and so on all the way up to you know, it would be really nice to make $1.25 million a year, because I now have this and you always want what you have plus a little, because human beings, we come about in a resource-scarce environment. We will never have enough because that's just how it is environment. We will never have enough because that's just how it is. And that leads back. That ties into the next part that we're going to talk about with the fall and the garden, and it's about recognizing what you have and realizing that you could easily not have that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And what Jesus gets at in Matthew 6 is the trust factor between you and God, that when you don't have, you must trust that God has it. He's talking about you know. Look at the birds of the sky, look at the lilies of the field. Look how beautifully they are clothed, even clothed with more splendor than Solomon himself. But they're beautiful one moment, and then they're picked up and thrown into the fire in the next. Don't you think that you have more value to God than the lilies and the birds of the air? Of course he's going to take care of you. And so there's this mindset change where we're living in scarcity but instead of seeking out more and more for ourselves, being content. That scarcity is just where we are for the moment, but God provides all of my needs, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, scarcity drives everything, and the fear of not having drives everything, and the finitude of life and the fragility of life and the fragility of human beings. We can't do everything, we can't know everything. We're going to live a certain amount of time. It drives all of our actions because we're worried. It's that anxiety, it's called death anxiety, and we're worried that it's going to all end. Except for the people that have that hope in Jesus, that hope in heaven and Christ and God, they say, well, yeah, it's all going to end, but it's going to be even better when it does. Yeah, that the end is really the beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the end is not the end Like we're looking forward to it. We want to live what we've been given and thank God that we have it Right. But we have a reward waiting on us.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what is it about the garden narrative, then? About the fall of man? Because there was no end? Because there was no end From what we see in Scripture. Like those people, adam and Eve who were living in the garden, they, as far as we know, were living an eternal life before the fall of mankind before that sin.
Speaker 2:So was it a scarcity that drove them to the sin or was it something different? That's a good, that's an excellent question. I wish, obviously I wish I knew, because it would answer a lot more questions. But the fall and the garden picture and the story is so interesting to me right now and because I have to deal with human depravity and I have to deal with loss and addiction.