SPEAKER_00: Hi, welcome to the Final Life Church podcast.
SPEAKER_00: And if we can help you in any way, reach out to it the finallife.com.
SPEAKER_00: For now, here's a short term for the last week in the final life.
SPEAKER_00: Again, thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_01: Let's welcome Bob.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Bob.
SPEAKER_01: Well, hey, good morning.
SPEAKER_01: What a morning.
SPEAKER_01: Are these kids beautiful?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what a harvest for us.
SPEAKER_01: It's our future.
SPEAKER_01: Have any of you seen the movie The Jesus Revolution?
SPEAKER_01: Well, this is the 21st century or 22nd century version of what happened in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.
SPEAKER_01: So if you haven't seen it, go see it.
SPEAKER_01: It's really awesome.
SPEAKER_01: So we got to go fast here.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to tell you a story, though.
SPEAKER_01: I heard this story the other day.
SPEAKER_01: It was about a guy who was taking a walk through a park.
SPEAKER_01: It was late in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_01: The park was kind of deserted.
SPEAKER_01: He was walking out there and he sat down on a park bench to rest.
SPEAKER_01: And as he was sitting there, he looked down at the foot of the bench, and there was a wad of crumpled bills.
SPEAKER_01: So the guy reached down and he picked up these bills and smoothed them out and he found out that it was about 40 bucks.
SPEAKER_01: He had about$40 there.
SPEAKER_01: And he looked around, by then the park was deserted, nobody there.
SPEAKER_01: So he didn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: So he was continued his walk, he was going home, and he was doing what all good believers do.
SPEAKER_01: He was thinking, what would Jesus do?
SPEAKER_01: What would Jesus do?
SPEAKER_01: And uh on his way home, he stopped in a liquor store and turned it into wine.
SPEAKER_01: So uh that has nothing to do with anything, but if you know me.
SPEAKER_01: Look, we're in a series about abundance, and we'll throw a slide up for the scripture that we began with, and that scripture is um 2 Corinthians uh chapter 9, verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: And you can see this, and it says, And God is able to make all grace abound to you.
SPEAKER_01: Say abound to you.
SPEAKER_01: Abound to you.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: And so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.
SPEAKER_01: All all, everything, abundance.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Graham opened this series, and I don't know about you, but I had some great takeaways from his message that he brought, which is about generosity, and it's about financial generosity.
SPEAKER_01: So don't panic, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Financial generosity.
SPEAKER_01: But a couple things jumped out to me.
SPEAKER_01: One was he said, generosity is part of discipleship.
SPEAKER_01: Another thing he said was it's a natural overflow of God's provision in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, it's an act of worship to the unlimited goodness of God.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: That's right, it is.
SPEAKER_01: Now look, we're gonna talk about generosity, we're gonna talk about money, and everybody in this room is in different places.
SPEAKER_01: We're all scattered out on a spectrum.
SPEAKER_01: So the things I'm gonna say, for some of us, is going to be remembrance.
SPEAKER_01: For some of us, it's gonna be confirmation, and for some of us, it's gonna be revelation.
SPEAKER_01: So can we just pray for a second?
SPEAKER_01: So come, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Come, Holy Spirit, right now.
SPEAKER_01: Engage each of us in a heart conversation.
SPEAKER_01: Show us where we are, show us where you are and where you're calling us to be.
SPEAKER_01: Let those words be the words we hear this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And we ask this in your name, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Now Luke came and he said, generosity, he said a lot of things, but he said, generosity is where God resources us that we might be a resource to the world.
SPEAKER_01: And he also said this anytime you're dealing with money, you are gonna be dealing with spirits.
SPEAKER_01: And he talked about the spirits of mammon.
SPEAKER_01: You remember that?
SPEAKER_01: The spirits of wealth.
SPEAKER_01: And he said a wonderful thing.
SPEAKER_01: He said, anytime you're dealing with money, you're gonna be dealing with spirits.
SPEAKER_01: What spirit do you want to listen to?
SPEAKER_01: You want to listen to the spirit of mammon?
SPEAKER_01: Or do you want to listen to the spirit of God?
SPEAKER_01: Today I want to talk about the overflow of abundance, and I'd like to talk a little bit about blessing.
SPEAKER_01: Because blessing and abundance and generosity all go together.
SPEAKER_01: They're all hooked together.
SPEAKER_01: It's like oxygen.
SPEAKER_01: The element oxygen in nature is diatomic.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, you don't ever find one of those things alone.
SPEAKER_01: It's O2.
SPEAKER_01: There's always two, they're hooked together.
SPEAKER_01: And generosity and blessing in nature are hooked together for all of us.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to jump into the next verse of this scripture that we started with.
SPEAKER_01: And that's uh verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk 10 through 14.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul's writing, and he says this he says, Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed, and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: You'll be enriched in every way, so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul was talking about an offering they were gathering to take to Jerusalem from the Corinthian church.
SPEAKER_01: And then he goes on and he says, This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people, but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.
SPEAKER_01: Because of the service by which you've proved yourself, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.
SPEAKER_01: And in their prayers for you, their hearts will go out to you because of the surpassing grace God has given you.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I want to talk a little bit about what a blessing is because we use that.
SPEAKER_01: It's a very broad term, blessing.
SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes we use that in the sense we talk about somebody and say, Oh, bless her heart.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever heard that?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's an expression of well, well-meaning, you know, and I say, Mark, bless you, man.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's more formal.
SPEAKER_01: It's the kind of like the ironic blessing, the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you.
SPEAKER_01: We know this blessing, right?
SPEAKER_01: And even the Irish have a great blessing.
SPEAKER_01: Their blessing says, May the sun always be in your face and the wind at your back.
SPEAKER_01: May the road rise up to meet your feet, and may you be in heaven 20 minutes before the devil knows you're dead.
SPEAKER_01: That's a pretty good blessing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we say a blessing over a meal, right?
SPEAKER_01: But that's not what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm talking about in blessing is a supernatural release of power into your life to be released into the lives of others.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you think about Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham met the high the king of Salem, the high priest, Machelzedek, right?
SPEAKER_01: And Machelzadech brought wine and he brought bread, and he released a blessing to Abraham, and Abraham gave him a tenth.
SPEAKER_01: Think about Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: Here's Jacob wrestling with the angel all night, right?
SPEAKER_01: The sun's coming up.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob won't let go.
SPEAKER_01: Not till you bless me.
SPEAKER_01: Was he hoping for good luck?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: He was hoping for a release of supernatural power, and the angel said, What's your name?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, No, no, it's Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And I bless you.
SPEAKER_01: And he released to Jacob supernatural power.
SPEAKER_01: Even though Jacob was kind of a rascal, wasn't he?
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: That's what blessings do.
SPEAKER_01: Later on, that same Jacob was in Egypt, and he met his son Joseph, and he met two of Joseph's many sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, and what did he do?
SPEAKER_01: He blessed them.
SPEAKER_01: He blessed them by adopting them as his sons.
SPEAKER_01: Not as grandsons, but as his sons.
SPEAKER_01: And he gave them an inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: You want a blessing?
SPEAKER_01: You want an inheritance?
SPEAKER_01: You want a name change?
SPEAKER_01: Who wouldn't?
SPEAKER_01: You want a supernatural release of power in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I should tell you a little bit about where I came from so you'll have some context why I'm talking like this.
SPEAKER_01: So I grew up in a mainline denomination.
SPEAKER_01: It was wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: I was baptized when I was nine.
SPEAKER_01: I went on and lived my life.
SPEAKER_01: And the first big breakthrough in my life came in 1984.
SPEAKER_01: In 1984, I was at a business conference.
SPEAKER_01: Last day of the conference, I'm zoning out, I'm doodling, I'm not taking notes.
SPEAKER_01: And I hear the speaker say, I'm the child of the king.
SPEAKER_01: And I thought to myself, I wonder who this guy's related to.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: So I paid attention, and he went on to give the most compelling and convicting testimony about generosity, financial generosity.
SPEAKER_01: And I came home, and here's poor Betty, and I came home, and I said, honey, from this day forth, we're gonna give.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna tithe every week.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01: You know, she she hadn't been there, had no idea, and that's what we did, and that's what we've always done.
SPEAKER_01: And we have been blessed.
SPEAKER_01: So 1984 was a fabulous year because I began to trust God with what I thought was my money.
SPEAKER_01: At least a little bit, okay?
SPEAKER_01: A little bit.
SPEAKER_01: So time went on, and one thing I noticed that happened is this.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, at that time, I was sick.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was really sick.
SPEAKER_01: I was super stressed out.
SPEAKER_01: I was drinking a bottle of Mylanta a day.
SPEAKER_01: I was taking Xantac, Probantham.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know those names?
SPEAKER_01: You bet.
SPEAKER_01: I had ulcers.
SPEAKER_01: I had an epigastric hernia.
SPEAKER_01: I was a wreck.
SPEAKER_01: I was being devoured.
SPEAKER_01: And when I made that decision, I began to heal.
SPEAKER_01: I began to heal.
SPEAKER_01: And that all passed away from me because I trusted God just in that little thing.
SPEAKER_01: Just in that little thing.
SPEAKER_01: Now, fast forward to 1992, that was an amazing time as well.
SPEAKER_01: 1992 is when I showed up here.
SPEAKER_01: Betty and I came here.
SPEAKER_01: We sat right up, right up there, third row back.
SPEAKER_01: And I'd always been involved in my church, but my church wasn't a spirit-filled church.
SPEAKER_01: So when I came here, I'd never seen anything like this.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I was totally freaked out.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, God said, go to the vineyard.
SPEAKER_01: This was the vineyard at that time.
SPEAKER_01: We've had a lot of names, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Because God's moved us along.
SPEAKER_01: And I'd never seen anything like this.
SPEAKER_01: Guy went down in a spirit right here.
SPEAKER_01: I was going to call 911.
SPEAKER_01: I thought he had an epileptic seizure or something, okay?
SPEAKER_01: That was not the case at all.
SPEAKER_01: But I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01: I was clueless.
SPEAKER_01: So God held me for seven years right over there.
SPEAKER_01: I sat right there, I brought my gift.
SPEAKER_01: I'd always been involved in my church, and I had no release to get involved.
SPEAKER_01: I just sat there and I learned.
SPEAKER_01: The next big time that happened was in 1998.
SPEAKER_01: And in 1998, Pastor James was up on his platform and he said, it's going to be Halloween shortly.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want our kids out trick-or-treating.
SPEAKER_01: And so as a result, we need to raise some money to buy a rear projection screen.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to do something here at the church on Halloween night.
SPEAKER_01: So I felt the release.
SPEAKER_01: And after the service, I came down here.
SPEAKER_01: We preached over here in those days.
SPEAKER_01: I came down and I walked up and I introduced myself because he would have no idea who I am, for sure.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Pastor James, whatever you don't raise for that, I'll do it.
SPEAKER_01: I'll cover it.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever doesn't happen, I'll cover it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what it is.
SPEAKER_01: And that was a huge breakthrough for me.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, it put me on the map.
SPEAKER_01: And y'all know John Fitch?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, John's dad, Greg, was pastor here.
SPEAKER_01: And Greg engaged me in 1999 because I was willing to be generous.
SPEAKER_01: You know what happened?
SPEAKER_01: Pastor James left.
SPEAKER_01: He commissioned Pastor Walt.
SPEAKER_01: In 2000, Pastor Walt came to me and said, I want you to be on the board.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Why in the world would you want to do that?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know anybody.
SPEAKER_01: I've been sitting up there seven years.
SPEAKER_01: I'm clueless.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, that all may be true, but I want you to be on the board.
SPEAKER_01: So I went on the board.
SPEAKER_01: In 2000, I went on the board.
SPEAKER_01: 2005, the man who was executive pastor here, Bob Baker, you know Bob?
SPEAKER_01: Amazing guy, huh?
SPEAKER_01: Well, Bob had had uh bypass surgery.
SPEAKER_01: And so Bob couldn't be the executive pastor anymore, and Walt was really struggling.
SPEAKER_01: But what happened is during this time, God had prospered me.
SPEAKER_01: I will tell you that when I was 37 years old, I decided to trust God a little bit with my money, and I didn't financially benefit at all.
SPEAKER_01: When we showed up here, I had$144 in the bank.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_01: 45 years old.
SPEAKER_01: I've been working all these years.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to think that I'm good looking and intelligent and all of that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And I had 144 bucks after all of that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, but God was building me to a point that I could come to Pastor Walt and say, I'll tell you, here's what I feel God is saying.
SPEAKER_01: I will come and I will serve in Bob's place.
SPEAKER_01: I will serve for three months, three days, every week.
SPEAKER_01: I will volunteer and let's see what God does.
SPEAKER_01: And after, because I might I may not like it.
SPEAKER_01: God may not like it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: And I became the executive pastor here as a result.
SPEAKER_01: Now I wasn't thinking executive pastor, I was thinking like business guy or something.
SPEAKER_01: But the problem I ran into is I was another Bob.
SPEAKER_01: And the last Bob was Pastor Bob.
SPEAKER_01: So people kept saying, Pastor Bob to me.
SPEAKER_01: And I kept saying, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of the business guy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sort of the corporate affairs kind of person.
SPEAKER_01: But they weren't having it.
SPEAKER_01: Because they were seeing something God was doing in me that I wasn't able to see.
SPEAKER_01: Think about that for yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: God's doing things in you, you may not be able to see.
SPEAKER_01: So from there, off to the races.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: I came on staff in 2005.
SPEAKER_01: I was the executive pastor.
SPEAKER_01: 2010, I became the president of the board of directors of the church.
SPEAKER_01: 2012, I became an elder.
SPEAKER_01: 2014, I became the lead pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Now this is a huge shock.
SPEAKER_01: You guys have no idea.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, my siblings, I have five brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: They're like, what?
unknown: What?
SPEAKER_01: We know you, you know.
SPEAKER_01: This can't be.
SPEAKER_01: But that's what God did.
SPEAKER_01: He moved me on, and in 2021, I went off staff because God said, You're done.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you've you've done that.
SPEAKER_01: There's leaders coming in.
SPEAKER_01: You need to move on, get out of the way.
SPEAKER_01: I have other assignments for you.
SPEAKER_01: So I say all this, not to say I'm a big deal, because I'm not.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying that when you become generous, unlikely things might happen in your life.
SPEAKER_01: You see what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is unthinkable.
SPEAKER_01: Just imagine.
SPEAKER_01: Take yourself sitting right there right now.
SPEAKER_01: This is your journey.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine it?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not your journey, which is mine.
SPEAKER_01: We're unique, okay?
SPEAKER_01: You have a different journey, but one just as amazing and just as fabulous.
SPEAKER_01: So let me ask this question.
SPEAKER_01: Um, how many of you know that dealing with money is a matter of spiritual warfare?
SPEAKER_01: Is it not?
SPEAKER_01: You know, in God's word, it is said there are about 500 verses that deal with prayer, there are about 500 verses that deal with faith, and there are about 2,000 that deal with money.
SPEAKER_01: Money's a tough place.
SPEAKER_01: You know it, you know it in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: And we get into a few things.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about them real quick.
SPEAKER_01: One's comparison.
SPEAKER_01: You know what we tend to do, we tend to compare.
SPEAKER_01: We're taught to compare.
SPEAKER_01: You know, think about Sesame Street, which one's different, right?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're taught to compare.
SPEAKER_01: But what we compare is unhealthy at times because what we do is we compare our perceived weaknesses to someone else's strengths.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: That's what we do.
SPEAKER_01: And comparison, comparison is an attack, it's self-induced on our own identity.
SPEAKER_01: What is it you don't like about you that God made you into?
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: So when we make that kind of comparison, we discount ourselves and we say, well, I'm really not worthy.
SPEAKER_01: That person's better looking, they smell better, they have more money, whatever it is, okay?
SPEAKER_01: That's what we do when we do that kind of comparison.
SPEAKER_01: And that invites us to be discontented.
SPEAKER_01: I could sit in this room with my 144 bucks in a sea of people that knew how to pray.
SPEAKER_01: They spoke in tongues.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I still don't speak in tongues.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to speak in tongues, but that just ain't happening.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I hope the Lord hurries up.
SPEAKER_01: I'm running out of time here.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't even buy green bananas, you know.
SPEAKER_01: You can't you can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: So I've disabled myself here.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so it's easy to be inferior.
SPEAKER_01: And I could look around the room in those days with my 144 bucks and say, oh, everybody else can give.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard for me.
SPEAKER_01: What about I'm gonna give in all these years, I got 144 bucks.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's it.
SPEAKER_01: You know, they don't have my problems.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if they had my problems, they wouldn't be able to give.
SPEAKER_01: Or uh like Luke said, I'll give when I can afford it.
SPEAKER_01: I'll give when I can afford it.
SPEAKER_01: Someday I'll.
SPEAKER_01: The 12th.
SPEAKER_01: 12th of never.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: That's what happens.
SPEAKER_01: So you totally don't don't compare.
SPEAKER_01: We're unique creations.
SPEAKER_01: Look at your fingertips.
SPEAKER_01: There's 10 of them right there.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody else in the world, and that little patch of skin, nobody else in the world's got.
SPEAKER_01: We've never found two people who got the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: I can't, I can't imagine that.
SPEAKER_01: But we're unique.
SPEAKER_01: We're unique in our DNA, we're unique in our creation.
SPEAKER_01: Don't compare.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the other side of this is that we can compare, this one's a good one.
SPEAKER_01: We can compare our imagined strengths to other people's weaknesses.
SPEAKER_01: It's like you see a guy flying a sign on a traffic median.
SPEAKER_01: And and what do you think?
SPEAKER_01: What is wrong with that guy?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, first of all, I'm not gonna give him any money because he'll probably use it on drugs or alcohol, right?
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's one thing, and everybody's hiring, go to McDonald's.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's got a sign, we're hiring hiring, go get a job.
SPEAKER_01: And those are the kinds of things we tell ourselves, and that's called judgment.
SPEAKER_01: We judge others, and we have no idea, we don't know their story, we don't know their challenges at all.
SPEAKER_01: Another thing that we do is we substitute.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we want to substitute sometimes, and we say, um, I want to be a good steward, my financial security is in my bank account, my 401k, which now is a 201k, right?
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's where that's where my security is, and and we want to substitute in the practical sense.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, we know in our head our security is in God, but in our heart it's in the bank, it's in the stock market.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is crazy, you know, but we do that.
SPEAKER_01: We kind of think that way, and we want, we have a new idol.
SPEAKER_01: We get a new idol.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and this is an attack on God's identity.
SPEAKER_01: Comparison's an attack on our identity.
SPEAKER_01: Substitution is an attack on God's identity.
SPEAKER_01: Pride comes along and it says things like, Hey, you earned this money, right?
SPEAKER_01: You worked for this money.
SPEAKER_01: Think of all the work.
SPEAKER_01: Spiritual judo, you prayed for all this money, right?
SPEAKER_01: Spiritual judo.
SPEAKER_01: You struggle to have this money that you have.
SPEAKER_01: You need this money in case something goes wrong.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what what if you get sick?
SPEAKER_01: What if you get fired?
SPEAKER_01: What's gonna happen then?
SPEAKER_01: Don't be foolish.
SPEAKER_01: Don't take a chance.
SPEAKER_01: Trust me.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Don't do it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, poverty comes at us from a different angle, and poverty says stuff like, you ought to be ashamed for what you have.
SPEAKER_01: Look at you! You never deserve this.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody in your family ever had this kind of money.
SPEAKER_01: Sound?
SPEAKER_01: You ever had that?
SPEAKER_01: That kind of self-talk?
SPEAKER_01: You're just lucky.
SPEAKER_01: You know what's going to happen?
SPEAKER_01: You're going to mess it up.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to lose it.
SPEAKER_01: And then what's God going to think?
SPEAKER_01: Huh?
SPEAKER_01: How's that going to feel then?
SPEAKER_01: We have that kind of self-talk because that's an attack from the enemy coming with a spirit of poverty from a different angle.
SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
SPEAKER_01: How could we ever be ashamed of something God gave us?
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_01: It's like saying, isn't it funny how when I've lost something and I find it, I always find it at the last place I looked?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Does that make any sense at all?
SPEAKER_01: But that's the kind of thing we go through.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a reason for that.
SPEAKER_01: The reason for that is because we're thinking in the old man way.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we're at.
SPEAKER_01: We're thinking in the old man.
SPEAKER_01: See, the enemy's stuck.
SPEAKER_01: If we let him talk to us in old man language and come into an agreement with that, then we're resurrecting the old man.
SPEAKER_01: God's word says this.
SPEAKER_01: It's in Colossians 2, verses 14 and 15.
SPEAKER_01: It says, He canceled the record of charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities.
SPEAKER_01: Hear that?
SPEAKER_01: They're disarmed.
SPEAKER_01: They don't have power over you unless you help them out.
SPEAKER_01: People think like the old man, resurrect that corpse.
SPEAKER_01: And when Paul writes to the church in Corinth, he says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.
SPEAKER_01: The old has passed away.
SPEAKER_01: And the new is coming.
SPEAKER_01: We're a new creation, aren't we?
SPEAKER_01: So we don't want to get the old man out of the grave.
SPEAKER_01: Now, because we open up that grave and we resurrect that old sad corpse that we used to be, we run into some things.
SPEAKER_01: For example, now Benny and I have three kids, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And we learned something.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe others among you who are parents have learned, and that is we didn't have to teach them to be selfish.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it just came out that way.
SPEAKER_01: They were just selfish.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that is am I is that not true?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they just come out that way.
SPEAKER_01: And we were in a contest because we were hoping each one of them with their first word would be daddy, mommy.
SPEAKER_01: No, it was mine, mine, this is mine.
SPEAKER_01: As soon as they could talk, that's all we heard about was mine.
SPEAKER_01: No, you have to share.
SPEAKER_01: Don't throw it at them, just give it to them.
SPEAKER_01: You know, we went through all of this because our default setting in the old man is selfishness.
SPEAKER_01: And selfishness locks the door to the blessings God has intended for you and for me.
SPEAKER_01: Another thing that shows up around that whole idea is not having enough.
SPEAKER_01: How about FOMO?
SPEAKER_01: Are you familiar with FOMO?
SPEAKER_01: Fear of missing out?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we don't have enough.
SPEAKER_01: It's the great what ifs.
SPEAKER_01: What ifs?
SPEAKER_01: Because if things go wrong and I give this money to the church, they're not going to give it back to me.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can't go and say, wait a minute, I need to go to the grocery store.
SPEAKER_01: No, that door, no, that's what the devil says to you.
SPEAKER_01: So the old man language comes along and it says, think of your family, think of your college fund, think of your hard work.
SPEAKER_01: God gave you that money, enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01: You can wait till you afford it, and then you can really be generous.
SPEAKER_01: And a new man answers and says, This my gifts worship a God of limitless generosity and goodness.
SPEAKER_01: He knows exactly what I need.
SPEAKER_01: I trust his faithfulness, I trust his kind intentions towards me.
SPEAKER_01: He is all I need.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to be selfish.
SPEAKER_01: It's a lie.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's the guilt and shame card.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now the guilt and shame card, it kind of works this way.
SPEAKER_01: See, when you feel prompted to be generous and prompted to give, the enemy comes to you, and what he wants to do is he wants to talk you out of doing it.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to decide not to do it.
SPEAKER_01: Because he doesn't have the power to stop you.
SPEAKER_01: See?
SPEAKER_01: So he wants to talk you out of it.
SPEAKER_01: And he says things like, uh, you're gonna fail, man.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't gonna work.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna give that money and sure as shooting.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna need it right away again.
SPEAKER_01: And what are you gonna do then?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna go talk to your family?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna ask your mom and dad for some help?
SPEAKER_01: Huh?
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you're like me, and you say, Oh, you're gonna ask your kids for some help.
SPEAKER_01: May help me out, bail me out, I'm in trouble financially.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's a lie.
SPEAKER_01: And when he can't talk you out of it, then you give.
SPEAKER_01: You give.
SPEAKER_01: And here he comes.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Wait a minute, wait a minute, you're not being a good steward.
SPEAKER_01: You're being irresponsible with this money.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what little bit you can give?
SPEAKER_01: What's that gonna do?
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean anything, it's not gonna change the world, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I get along without you.
SPEAKER_01: What about your family?
SPEAKER_01: What if you lose your job?
SPEAKER_01: Get somebody sick, heard that earlier, right?
SPEAKER_01: And you're not gonna get the money back.
SPEAKER_01: But the new man says this my eyes are on my father.
SPEAKER_01: He's first in everything.
SPEAKER_01: I am being a good steward.
SPEAKER_01: What I give has been given to me for that very reason.
SPEAKER_01: Is it too little?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: I know how God uses the power of multiplication, to use the power to multiply what I give.
SPEAKER_01: When I give, when I give, I tell the enemy, beat it.
SPEAKER_01: It's a lie.
SPEAKER_01: It's deception.
SPEAKER_01: I give it freely.
SPEAKER_01: I clean myself when I give it.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see what I mean?
SPEAKER_01: See, all these accusations are based on one big old lie, and that is that what you have is yours.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01: It's not.
SPEAKER_01: It's not yours.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: You're a steward of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's not yours.
SPEAKER_01: Me, mine.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: You are stewarding what God has given to you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what that's really about.
SPEAKER_01: Robert Morris in his book, A Blessed Life, tells this wonderful story about one morning he's preaching on giving, and at the very beginning of his message, he says, Would somebody here give me$100?
SPEAKER_01: And a guy jumped up, ran up, and handed him a$100 bill.
SPEAKER_01: And he went on with his message, and everybody's uh that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01: What's that about?
SPEAKER_01: And later on he circles back around to it and he says, The reason I did that is this.
SPEAKER_01: Did you see how fast that man ran up here?
SPEAKER_01: Do you see how fast he gave me that hundred dollars?
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because before the service, I gave it to him.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I gave it to him before the service, and I said, when I asked for it, you come back and give it to me.
SPEAKER_01: See, that man could give with freedom and boldness because it was never his.
SPEAKER_01: It was never his.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: Are you seeing what I'm saying here?
SPEAKER_01: It was never yours.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: Hold it, be a steward, and be generous.
SPEAKER_01: Be generous with it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I want to talk, how are we doing on time?
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk a little bit about motives.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so God's word in Proverbs 16, 2, says, all the person's ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says in Matthew 5, 8, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason I'm telling you that is this God cares a lot more about your motives than he does your outcomes.
SPEAKER_01: You don't control the outcomes.
SPEAKER_01: There's all kinds of variables that can happen.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to tell you a quick story.
SPEAKER_01: I'm running out of time, but this is important.
SPEAKER_01: So I told you I was a tither, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And I had my 144 bucks in the bank.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: And I had one client, and I was doing a golf course project, and this client paid me on the 18th of the month, every month, TikTok, they sent a check from Texas.
SPEAKER_01: And one month on the 18th, no check.
SPEAKER_01: No check the 19th.
SPEAKER_01: No check the 20th, 21st.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you don't want to call.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, hey, where's my money?
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's not good for relationships.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sitting at my desk and I'm racking my brain and I'm saying, what is this?
SPEAKER_01: And I looked down, and on the corner of my desk was my tie check.
SPEAKER_01: And what I had done, I gave the money to God, right?
SPEAKER_01: I wrote the check.
SPEAKER_01: I just didn't turn it in, okay?
SPEAKER_01: It was still sitting there.
SPEAKER_01: And I was pierced.
SPEAKER_01: I realized it was a Friday.
SPEAKER_01: And I jumped up and I told Betty, I gotta go, and I grabbed that check and I drove down here and I ran into the office over there and I gave Jan Durham the check.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want anything to do with that thing.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Saturday morning I got my check in the mail.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: It had a postage stamp, it didn't arrive supernaturally.
SPEAKER_01: God knew what was gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: He knew that.
SPEAKER_01: And you know what he did?
SPEAKER_01: He took money out of my life for two years.
SPEAKER_01: For two years, he took money out of my life to prove to me that he would be trustworthy, that he would be faithful.
SPEAKER_01: Every time we had a crisis, and I don't have time to elaborate on all of those, but every time I did, God showed up.
SPEAKER_01: God showed up and he blessed me.
SPEAKER_01: And he blessed me.
SPEAKER_01: And for my 144 bucks, things have changed.
SPEAKER_01: And we're in a different place now because of his graciousness.
SPEAKER_01: So, very quickly, there's a few things I learned along the way.
SPEAKER_01: I'll call them principles.
SPEAKER_01: There are things that uh stick in my heart.
SPEAKER_01: The first one is this put God first.
SPEAKER_01: Put God first in your life.
SPEAKER_01: We know this, right?
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't God's word say that?
SPEAKER_01: And all else will follow?
SPEAKER_01: All else.
SPEAKER_01: But it's the principle of sowing and reaping.
SPEAKER_01: You have to put God first.
SPEAKER_01: And when I did that, when my motives were pure, I always received blessings.
SPEAKER_01: A second thing that I learned along the way is God does not need my money.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: He owns a cattle and a thousand hills.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: So God doesn't need that from me.
SPEAKER_01: I need his blessing.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: But you've got to be careful about something, and that's this idea of the prosperity gospel, that somehow me and God, we're gonna have a contract, Malachi 3.10, right?
SPEAKER_01: So God says, test me in this.
SPEAKER_01: Give me this money, fill my house and see if I don't bless you 30, 60, 100fold, right?
SPEAKER_01: That does not mean if you give God$100, you're gonna get$3,000 back.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: That isn't it at all.
SPEAKER_01: So God does not need your money.
SPEAKER_01: Uh third thing I figured out is the old man is dead.
SPEAKER_01: Do not dig him up.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: The old man is dead.
SPEAKER_01: Leave him dead.
SPEAKER_01: This morning I got up, you know our furnace was off.
SPEAKER_01: House was cold.
SPEAKER_01: Man, it was really cold.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, I gotta talk this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I need to shave.
SPEAKER_01: I got no hot water, I got no heat.
SPEAKER_01: And then I said, wait a minute, that's old man thinking.
SPEAKER_01: That's old man thinking.
SPEAKER_01: That's the enemy trying to derail me for what we're talking about right now.
SPEAKER_01: Because this may be the most important thing you'll ever hear.
SPEAKER_01: I will tell you that.
SPEAKER_01: It may well be.
SPEAKER_01: That's between you and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: But keep that old man in the grave and stop striving.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: This is simple.
SPEAKER_01: It is.
SPEAKER_01: God loves you.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to give us these things.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just open our hands and receive them.
SPEAKER_01: That's all we have to do.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you gotta understand this.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the seed and the fruit don't look alike, right?
SPEAKER_01: So when you you you put a ear, a kernel of corn in the ground, you'll get an ear with all kinds of them on it, right?
SPEAKER_01: They look just alike.
SPEAKER_01: But an oak tree doesn't look like an acorn.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when you sow in one fashion, the fruit that is born out of that doesn't look like what you're sowing.
SPEAKER_01: It does not.
SPEAKER_01: But it all has the same identity.
SPEAKER_01: It is blessing.
SPEAKER_01: And lastly, you gotta understand your blessings start right now.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the rich ruler came to Jesus, said, I did all these things.
SPEAKER_01: What else do I need to do?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, Give away all your money.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I can't.
SPEAKER_01: Remember that?
SPEAKER_01: And then right after that, Peter says, Lord, what about us?
SPEAKER_01: We gave all this stuff up.
SPEAKER_01: What are we gonna get?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said, Verily, verily, I tell you that anyone who has given up these things, your family, your home, your fishing boat, whatever it may be, will be blessed in this age and beyond.
SPEAKER_01: Blessing is for us now, not just when we're dead.
SPEAKER_01: We're on a spiritual journey.
SPEAKER_01: We are, all of us.
SPEAKER_01: We're pilgrims on this journey, and part of the journey is internal.
SPEAKER_01: And that internal part of the journey is for us to know our true self.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the uh theologian Augustine wrote, and he said, the heart is a metaphor for our true self.
SPEAKER_01: And so part of our journey is internal to know our true self and to know God.
SPEAKER_01: And part of our journey is external, and that is to share the love of God with others by being generous with what he gives us.
SPEAKER_01: Graham said it last week, he said, or two weeks ago, he said, we don't have we don't have a money problem, we got a heart problem, right?
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I'm after today.
SPEAKER_01: That's what God's after, that's what the Holy Spirit's after in all of us today, is to cure that heart problem.
SPEAKER_01: That's what that's all about.
SPEAKER_01: Generosity sets us free.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because we see what the Father does and we do the same.
SPEAKER_01: Is that not so?
SPEAKER_01: God invites us all to plant a garden.
SPEAKER_01: Every garden is unique.
SPEAKER_01: He'll always provide us with bread.
SPEAKER_01: Seed grows by the supernatural power of multiplication.
SPEAKER_01: You know, an apple has got five seed pods in it, and somewhere around ten seeds.
SPEAKER_01: That's how many seeds are in an apple.
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you this: how many apples are in a seed?
SPEAKER_01: You can release the power of multiplication in this world if your motives are pure, if you hold these things loosely, if you don't strive, you can do this.
SPEAKER_01: You can change the world.
SPEAKER_01: You can lift people up, you can make a difference.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 3, 20, 21, and we're done, says this.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: It says this never doubt God's mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this.
SPEAKER_01: He'll achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceeds your wildest imagination.
SPEAKER_01: He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you.
SPEAKER_01: Now we offer up to God all the glorious praise that rises from every church and every generation through Jesus Christ, and all that will yet be manifest throughout all time and eternity.
SPEAKER_01: Can I have an Amen?
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: That's what is coming.
SPEAKER_01: So I bless you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I bless you to find your destiny, to open your hands, to be generous, and see what God will do.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor Luke, could you close this out, please?