Power Hour | Ep. 16 | The Truth About Generosity Nobody Wants To Hear

In this episode of the Power Hour Podcast, Pastors Ty and Kyle dive into the truth about Biblical generosity, tithing, and what Jesus actually taught about money. Why did Jesus talk about finances so much? Is tithing still relevant today? And what does generosity reveal about our hearts?

This conversation goes far beyond giving money. Together, they unpack how generosity is connected to worship, trust, spiritual growth, and building the Kingdom of God. From cheerful giving to becoming Kingdom Builders instead of sideline Christians, this episode challenges believers to rethink what it truly means to live with open hands before God.

If you’ve ever wrestled with questions about tithing, generosity, faith, stewardship, or trusting God financially, this episode is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

What's up, everybody? We are back for another episode of Power Hour. My name is Pastor Kyle. I'm Pastor Ty. And we got a good one today because we are talking about money. How many people love some money up in here? Make it rain, baby.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

More money, more problems.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

That's right. That's why I went into ministry. So I had uh less money-related problems.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Come on. Oh man. Well, today we're talking about the truth about generosity. Um, and uh we're gonna jump right into it uh because this next week is going to be Kingdom Builders, and uh so we're super excited about that. And then we have actually a really specific focus for this month's Kingdom Builders. Pastor Ty, you want to share about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, we at Powerhouse are launching our second ever, so we did our first last year, VBS.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Man, when I came to the church, I knew the first thing that we want to do is be all about reaching kids with the power of God. And the VBS has been one of the ways that we've enacted to do so. Last year we did cowboys this year. I think we're doing space. Yep, astronauts. You know, uh, Pastor Kyle, some people do call me the space cowboy. There you go. But that has nothing to do with this. But no, we're pumped. For those that don't know, maybe you're not a part of Powerhouse. Um, Kingdom Builders is our missions initiative. So basically, it's our separate fund where we give to missions, movement, which is like doing big things, and ministry. And so those three M's are through our Kingdom Builders Fund. And so we are able to send out more missionaries, plant more churches, do more ministry, help people out. Man, it's just it's just a powerful, powerful thing that we do and take an offering for each month. And I always look forward to it. I always look forward to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yeah, no, I am too VBS is always exciting, it's always exhausting as well. But it's coming up June 15th through the 17th. So, like right around the corner, we're talking like barely more than a month away, and uh it's gonna be fun, but that will be our focus the next couple months with our Kingdom Builders is raising as much money as we can for BBS. Uh, because you know, obviously there's a lot of supplies that come into play. Uh, we have snacks and different meals at the at the last day as well for like the families. So we put a lot into BBS. We really try to go all out because we believe it's one of the best ways of reaching the families in our community every single year. So we just put a huge, huge priority on that. But we are going to jump into it, and uh, we decided because of that initiative, we want to talk about generosity. And obviously, generosity is one of the core values for Powerhouse. Uh, at Powerhouse, we have the four eyes. One of them is invest. We always want to invest in the kingdom, so we always try to talk about generosity as much as possible. And one of the main points we wanted to talk about today is that generosity is what truly builds the kingdom of heaven. Uh, you know, Matthew 28, 19 says, therefore go and make disciples of all nations. You know, obviously, we serve a God that, as the Bible says, has cattle on a thousand hills. We know the price of beef right now, so the stock's only going up as well, which is good. Uh, but we got some some main thoughts, and one of the main ones is that generosity is what fuels the mission of God, right, Pastor Ty?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah, it's it's interesting to me. You look at stories all over the Bible. One of my favorites is the building of the tabernacle. And Moses comes forward and says, Hey guys, we need to build this. We need all these, you know, all this treasure, these supplies, all these things. And it says that people kept giving and giving and giving, where finally the priest had to go forward and say, Stop giving. We have more than we need.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

That'd be nice.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Man, you look at the story of building the temple, and David comes and he, in front of everyone, gives a huge amount for the building of the temple. And it says the people around him were so inspired that all the leaders of the nation gave first, and then people were inspired and gave after that. You think of Jesus uh with his disciples watching the old widow give that, you know, that small coin, that penny, yeah, and ranting and raving. It means that Jesus and his disciples were paying attention to what people were giving. Man, you cannot make a difference in the kingdom without generosity. It's a huge, huge part.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

It's a catalyst, absolutely a pillar. Uh, you know, the other thing that we focus on is that kingdom builders they don't sit on the sidelines, they they get out and they give. And you know, God does uh not want us as his people to simply sit by and be like, hey, everybody else, you got this. I'm gonna be on the sidelines as a cheerleader. He wants everybody to use that that uh sports metaphor to be off the bench into the game as as much as possible. But the other thing that I think gets a lot of people tripped up is this difference between giving being an obligation versus being an opportunity. So let me ask you this, Pastor Ty, because I know you have the same heart as me. We love to give, and giving something that we don't see as an obligation, but as something that brings us true joy. Uh, what was that catalyst that changed your mindset from oh, I got to give to oh now I I have the opportunity to give?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah, I that's a great that's a great question. I would say I remember sitting in on a Sunday night service back in the day when churches would do Sunday night services. Shout out to old school Pentecostal.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

And we would have tons of missionary guests. And I remember there's one missionary that man, uh, she just really spoke with conviction. She was she was preaching about being in South America, and I just felt so impacted to give. The only issue was I had no money on me to give.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Uh and I remember in that moment that I decided that giving to God and giving to missions was going to be my first priority. And I can't explain it in that moment, but I just felt this deep conviction that man, I would rather go without going out to eat. I'd rather go without being able to buy a new movie or new CD at the time. And I'm a broke college student union. I was like, I would much rather be poor, be able to give more to the kingdom, send out missionaries than I would to enjoy whatever it is that I enjoy. And in that moment, it just really shaped to where uh, man, it it didn't become an obligation, it became an opportunity to me, and it became the most important opportunity. And even to this day, me and my wife, when we go to pay bills, when we get paid, the first thing we pay is our tithe and our kingdom builders. Like I I man, and we we give to other churches that people don't know, other ministries outside of our church that people don't know. And I laugh, one of the biggest um, I would say, motivations for me to grow financially, you know, get you know, have have some uh some some income coming in. And another another reason why I try to steward better is so that I can be more generous. And so, man, it's it's ever pretty close to after I got saved, it's been this huge transformation for me where even growing up poor, I was like, man, I just want to give more away.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

What about you, Pastor Kyle? Tell us a little bit about what happened with you.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Well, for me and my my wife, we went into our marriage very um, very serious about giving. And we said as as soon as we started talking that we would be a couple that that gave. And before that, I I would probably give 90% of the time. I wasn't perfect, but I was able to give as much as I um could or remembered to back then. But there was something that for Chelsea, it was so entrenched in who she was that it was like this is a non-negotiable. And uh love my wife for that, being a strong leader, um, and just being a woman of God in that way. And I said, I'm with you a thousand percent. So we went into our marriage with this um conviction that no matter what, we were gonna give. And I remember one of the first years, we were uh like I was a youth pastor, so I mostly got paid by having like a parsonage to live in next to the church. And she worked at Wells Fargo as a banker, so pretty much she was the full income uh of our entire house, and I just basically was able to provide the house and like the utilities, so we didn't have a lot of extra money back then. We both brought in debt, school debt, different things like that. And I remember there was one month that we we got to that point that like the we were about to get the second check, and we looked at our finances and we knew that our our check was gonna hit and then we had our bills to pay. And then obviously you have gas, food, all this stuff. We look at it and we realize we are about two to three hundred dollars short on our bills of what's going to be coming in for the rest of the month. And at that point, we're like, okay, well, we gotta we got a decision. Um, or what are we gonna cut? And a lot of people probably at that point would have said, Well, you cut the tithes, because the tithes is something like God's not coming back for the tithes, like he's not gonna shut off the uh the lights or anything like that if you don't pay your tithes. But we had a conviction that that was not going to happen. So we paid our tithes, and I remember as the month went on, uh bills would pop up that we knew about, we paid the bills, paid for gas, paid for food. Uh, like we were living frugally, honestly. And we got to the end of the month, and instead of us having bills still unpaid, like was the expectation, we had $200 still in the bank, and every single one of our bills was paid for. That's cool. In that moment, I had no idea how that happened, but God just like like the oil of the widow, he just expanded it and expanded it. And to this day, I had no idea how he did it. But somehow we went from not having enough to having more than what we needed. And to me, that was the conviction I needed from there that tithing was a must. Now, I will say I've been through me and my wife together through a bit of a renaissance the last year because even though we've been such faithful tithers for so long, we weren't always faithful in offering uh to missions or to as we do at Powerhouse to Kingdom Builders. And it's been incredible because me and my wife's felt this conviction recently to give more and more to uh the extra, to give above and beyond what what we give for our tithes to also give to kingdom builders. So we've been we've been doing uh that more and more over the last year, and it's been incredible what God has done when we go from paying what we what I would believe and am convicted by scripture is the minimum, which is 10%, to now we're trying to give you know 15, 20, 25 uh to God. He's just been so incredibly generous with us. Uh like uh some of uh the people listening know probably most don't, but I was at a conference recently and I won a 50% off master's degree out of the blue, and I do the math, and it's like a $10,000 blessing right there. And here next week I'm going on a trip that should have cost four times what I'm spending on it. But I have the opportunity to go with all these pastors to Southeast Asia on a fraction of the amount because I believe God is giving back and blessing me as me and my wife continue to bless. So it's been able to really connect us, which is something I believe generosity does to the ministry as far as locally and in the world itself. So it's been absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah, I think touching on something you mentioned just for a second that I think is really powerful is I hear this common misconception with modern Christians that the tithe was old testament, we don't have to do that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

And it's so funny to me because they mentioned, well, yeah, but Jesus just said it's about your heart, you know what I mean? Your heart forgiving. And that's true, but when you really think when Jesus attached things to people's heart, he always took it further, not farther. When he talked about murder, he said, Hey, murdering, it's not just not murdering. If you have anger, it's you know what I mean, it's just as bad. When he talked about uh, you know, having an affair or being uh sexually promiscuous, he brought up uh lust in your heart. So Jesus, when he brought up the heart, was actually taking it further, not you know, regressing. And so it's funny to me when people talk about, yeah, he just says, give what's on your heart, and you don't have to tithe. And it's like, man, name another time where Jesus is like, let's make it less. When Jesus says, Man, give what's on your heart, he's encouraging you to give more. Yeah, and it's always funny to me, it's like me and my wife make this have made this deal ever since we've been married that we give more every single year. Yeah. Now, sometimes because of finances, it's a it's barely anymore, you know what I mean? Sometimes it's a lot more, but we have never moved backwards in giving, we always move forward. And I want every aspect of my faith to grow. And I've just I'll say it, man, I've seen so many Christians that go to church for a long time and never give and they're stingy, and it makes me sad for them because man, you're not I just don't know how you're fully trusting God and fully walking in his blessings. Yeah, there's so many, there's and it's not even so many. There are more scriptures attaching blessing and favor and promise to God with your generosity and giving than there are anything else.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

And so if you want the full blessing of God and you're not tithing, you're not giving offering as part of your normal worship and rhythm, then you are missing out. And a lot of people think, man, ties just after my money. I'm really not. Like, not to be weird. I we I don't need nobody's money, you know what I mean? God will take care of us. But what I am really passionate about is you walking in freedom, for one, and two, man, just being able to trust God on a new and more powerful level. Because I know what it's done for me personally. I I tithe, you know what I mean? I give to offering, and it's like I'm not asking anyone to do anything that I don't. In fact, uh Pastor Kyle, it's funny when we when we do off when we do the you know the generosity portion of our service, right? That's one of my rules is nobody that's not tithing and going beyond gets to do that because I never want anyone to feel guilty or ashamed that they're asking someone to do what they're not.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

And so, man, this isn't us asking you to do to do something we're not doing or to give to us, man. We're asking you to participate with us in an aspect of faith just like anything else, with the preaching and the and the worship and the serving and everything. This is a crucial part of your faith.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Well, it takes us to the next point. What we were are talking about is that generosity is also uh not only does it build the kingdom, but it's a heart issue as well. And I think about this this idea of relationships, because so often we we think as Christians that it's like, oh, it's a lifestyle that we chose, but it's a relationship, it truly is. And it's like someone coming and being like, Well, how much do I have to give? That's like a a young husband going up to his wife and being like, What's the bare minimum that I have to do for us to continue to be married? Yeah, like, bro, you're not gonna stay married very long if you're always doing the the bare minimum. Yeah, and it's a relationship that we're cultivating with our father.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, it's always interesting to me that people say, I've renewed heart from God, but they're like, But I want to be stingy. You know what I mean? It's like I want to spend money on everything else. And you know what's funny? It's never the people that actually have lack that have this issue. Yeah, and I've never had anyone say, I literally have to choose between tithes and offerings and my bills.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

That that it's actually true. One, usually it's a bad stewardship issue. Right. And two, it's usually people that have less are usually more generous. It's the people that have a lot that are stingy and have a hard time trusting God and their giving. I remember one person saying, Hey, if I I can't I can't tithe because my tithe would be too much for the church and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, bro, I need to pray a worse job in your life then because you're not being faithful. And if you're not faithful with that, I'd rather have you be poor and have a soul, you know what I mean, headed towards Jesus than I would have you be rich and missing out. And I think of like even that warning that Jesus gives with the rich young ruler. And he's like, Man, it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than it is for Kim to pass through the eye of a needle. And everyone tried to come up with this historical thing where it is, no, it's poetic. Yes. What he's saying is it is hard, it is challenging. And man, it is so important. A lot of people like to say money is the root of all evil. That's not what Jesus says. He says the love of money is the root of all evil. And so, man, God wants to bless you, he wants to give you more, but he doesn't want to give you something that's gonna turn you against him. He's not setting you up to fail. Right. And man, if you want to be trusted with more, you gotta live open-handed. You gotta, you gotta give and you've gotta, you, you, you've gotta receive. And so I just encourage anyone, man, have this heart. It's so crucial, it's so important.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Yeah, it it there is nothing like living a generous life and having that relationship with God where you are being generous and he in turn is being generous with you. And I know some people would be like, Well, why isn't he being generous with those who who aren't generous? Like, does he have is he after the money? No, he's after the heart. Like, he's already given us without you giving anything, everything. He gave Jesus his only son, so he could come die on a cross for our sins. Romans 5 8 says it, but God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Yep, God already gave us everything we ever needed. Now, with our generosity, he uses his blessings to encourage us and to push us towards generosity. I could not imagine a life at this point where I am no longer generous with my money, either to other people or to God, which is pretty much the same thing when you think about it.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah, yeah. And it's been a conviction up to me that even when there's been seasons where I've been out of ministry and out of the church, Rachel and I still find a local church to give to, a local church to participate in. And so, Pastor Carl, as we get ready to wrap up, I just wanted to ask you maybe one last question.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

And that's this why is generosity tied to our spiritual maturity and what could happen if we as people, if we as the church embrace this radical generosity.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

I think for one, it is the most tangible uh example that we have. Like obviously, as as pastors, um, I I cannot follow you around and watch your life and you know have a clipboard and be like, yes, he's doing good. Oh, he missed here, and come to the end of the day and have some kind of tally to decide if you're being mature or not. Uh, maturity is is something that for a lot of people in the church, uh, we look at generosity because they're usually tied so closely together, and it's something that honestly is very, very easily um calculated in that way, not to make it sound like some business term or something like that. But with generosity, as you are pursuing God more and more, generosity becomes a trust uh gauge in your life. Uh, you know, the saying goes, Um, put your money where your mouth is. But God would say, out of your mouth, the heart speaks. Yep. So I would always take take finances as one of the easiest gauges in your life as to where your heart is. Because when you are trusting God, when you are trusting the Father, financially, you are giving up something that is one of the most important things you have. It it is your security blanket, it is your house, it is your food, it is everything about you that keeps you going from day to day. It is the number one survival tool that we have as Christians today, is we have our money. And when we give that to God, we are able to take what the world says hold on to because you need it to survive. And we are then giving it to God and saying, we are putting our trust in you that you're going to take care of us and you are going to provide for us, versus us relying on our ourselves to do it. It there is something freeing when you are able to just put yourself, put yourself. Your family in the arms of God and truly say, I give them to you, I trust you. Whatever happens is your will, and I desire your will more than anything else.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

That's so good. So good.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

You know, generosity to us is so important. That's why we wanted to take some time to talk about it today, to put that focus on kingdom builders and VBS that's coming up. You guys can uh give through our website powerhouse uh-church.com. If you click on give, you can give under the kingdom builders right there. But just remember, guys, generosity mirrors us with our heavenly father, and God is generosity. The characters are synonymous with who he is, and just remember that John generosity is is a hard issue. Generosity builds the kingdom, and we give because God first gave to us and he gave his only son. So hopefully that's a blessing. Hopefully, that's uh a challenge to those who maybe have been on the fence and maybe they've given a few times, and but you you might not be consistent, or maybe you've never given. I would challenge you if you want to see your life absolutely rocked and transformed in a way that'll happen faster than anything else will. I guarantee you, choosing to give to God, it is the fastest and the most important catalyst that can shift your entire life, your entire mindset. So just take it as a challenge if you if you haven't given before, give it a shot. As the Bible says, test me is what the Lord says, and see if I am not faithful. But we love you guys. We hope this message blessed you, and we will talk to you guys next week.