Your Father Is Rich | Overflow Pt. 1

We live in one of the most affluent cultures in history — and one of the most anxious.

In week one of Overflow, we explore Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 and the deeper issue underneath our relationship with money: trust.

What if financial anxiety is not primarily a money problem, but a trust problem? What if generosity is more than obedience — what if it’s formation? Jesus teaches that where our treasure is, our hearts follow, and invites us to live not as orphans grasping for security, but as beloved sons and daughters trusting in a generous Father.

This message explores:
• Why Jesus spoke so often about money
• The “healthy eye” vs the “unhealthy eye”
• Anxiety, scarcity, and the fear of not having enough
• Generosity as a practice of trust
• Moving from belief into daily dependence on God

“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” — Matthew 6:33


This sermon was recorded at a Sunday morning gathering at Church of the Lookout in Longmont, Colorado.

Speaker: Luke Humbrecht 
Series: Overflow 
Scripture: Matthew 6
YouTube: https://youtu.be/b1ffAmVHFlo

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast. Church of the Lookout is an old of Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love. Visit us online at thelookout.church. We are going to jump into the sermon today. If you have your Bibles open up to Matthew chapter 6, that's where we're going to start. We are beginning a new series, and it's going to feel a little bit like a right turn from where we're where we've been at. And uh this new teaching series we're going to be at the n for the next four weeks, we're calling Overflow, and it's a series on money, formation, and living free. Money, formation, and living free. And I just want to say a couple things right up front. Not a lot of people go to church to talk about money, all right? But I want to assure you that this is not a fundraising campaign. This is not uh this is not a way to kind of kind of come in from the side and have some kind of shadow mission for something else. It's it's about this the journey of spiritual formation. And the big idea uh for the next several weeks is this what you think about money has everything to do with your view of God and the kind of person you are becoming. Okay? Um you may not know this, but over 25% of Jesus' teachings involved money. Scholars believe that most of his parables, so many of his teachings involve money. And why is that? Um it's again, it's not because he was getting rich or trying to raise funds. I'd but I want you to imagine what if every one of every four sermons was on money here at the church? Um this place would empty out real quick, all right? Um and we don't do that, but from time to time we do want to talk about money for the same reason that Jesus talks about money. Uh, and again, it's not about getting rich, it's because the goal, his goal was to establish the kingdom of God in the hearts of his people. And he knew that the fastest way to get to the very heart of a person, the fastest way to get to the heart of the person, the seat of our desires, our fears, our anxieties, our motivations, our loves, is to put a magnifying glass up to the way we think, the way we feel, and the way we handle wealth and possessions and the things that He's entrusted to us. You guys with me? So we're gonna start today, and in a few minutes we're gonna read from the Sermon on the Mount, but just to kind of illustrate the point of the importance of talking about this and the way we've been formed, in the way that we think. I remember growing up, we my family owns a lake cottage in northern Indiana at Clear Lake. And uh it was a it was a lake cottage that my grandfather had built with his own bare hands back in the 1940s, and he built it as a really a party shack to go up on the weekends and party with his friends, uh, than to return to work the whole week. So that was all they had in mind. But over the years around the lake, uh everybody had done essentially the same thing. But over years, as people were getting older, they started tearing down the old places and building new places, just mansions, just all over this lake. And so uh growing up, we had this kind of regular tradition. We get on our pontoon boat and we do kind of a just a stroll around the lake. We just kind of just slow ride all around the perimeter of like about a six-mile lake. And as we would do this, we would slowly just go and notice and appreciate every new structure, every new mansion that would just had popped up. And we we'd be going on the boat and we'd be looking like, wow, look at that one. Do you see the amount of windows on that one? Like, look how perfectly their lawn is manicured. I wonder what they have to do to afford that. They must be a dentist, right? They must, they know how to, you know, they've they look like they've got it made one day, you know. And so as soon as we we're kind of going slowly, and then we've that one's out of view now. Now we're at the next one. We're like, whoa, did you see that one? Look at that one. Two wave runners? Really? It looks like they barely even use them. Like everything is perfect. I wonder how many rooms they have in that house. I wonder what they do. I bet they're a dentist. I don't know why we always went to a dentist. We assumed that dentists were the one that amassed all the wealth in this world. And uh, we always guessed what they do and what kind of life they live. They must be so happy. This is the good life, this is what made it. And it's it's interesting because being in my adult life and looking back and what I learned about money from a very early age, it was moments like this that actually formed my way of thinking into what I believed about money, about wealth, about what I had and what I did not have, and all kinds of thoughts, even from a young age, started forming on these little stroll around the lake, one summer at a time. Thoughts like this. Wealth is something that happens to lucky people. There's only a limited amount of it. Some people have it, some people don't. These people have it made, and they have found the good life, right? Rich people are the only ones who are happy. And this right here, this is the end game. Successful people have mansions on a lake, all right? And these are all these things. I would have never thought it, I would have never admitted to it, but subconsciously, these pontoon boat rides, I was actually being formed into a way of thinking, a view of money and provision and happiness and scarcity and how one gets it and how others don't. And I was absorbing this way of thinking without attending ever, you know, without having learned any of this in a single Sunday school lesson, right? And the same is true, listen, the same is true for all of us across the room. The person that you are is sitting in this room is because whoever you are right now, you have been formed into the kind of person you are on any manner of subject, but certainly as it relates to money, all of us grew up in certain environments that related to wealth and possessions and money in a certain way, and that's in that's informed the way that we live. All right. So maybe for you it was a house where money was always tight, tension was always there, and every time you checked the checking account, it felt like you were bracing yourself for bad news. So there is just like anytime you pull up the checking account, it's like you got to emotionally prepare for what you're about to experience. Or maybe, maybe growing up, it was the opposite. It was a house where money was the thing that solved all the all the problems, the thing that gave security, the thing that was never discussed because it was always fine. Just we have enough, and so we don't even have to talk about it. We just do whatever we want with it. Or maybe it was just invisible. You had no idea. Nobody ever talked about it because it was either confusing or it was full of shame, and so it just was a complete mystery. And so you stepped into adulthood having absolutely no idea what to do with the income you have. And so, but and and the truth is this for many of us, especially right now in the world, we have a uh a relationship with money is often full of more anxiety than not. And a recent survey uh from just a few weeks ago showed us this that 67% of Americans now say they are more afraid of running out of money than they are of dying. I just want you to think about that. 67% percentage of Americans are more afraid of running out of money than they are of dying. I just want you to let that sit for a second. And because what that tells us, this stat is not a financial statistic, this is a theological statistic. This is an i this is a spiritual statistic, this is an identity statistic. And we're kind of living in a time where everyone is on different parts of this thing. We see gasoline gasoline prices rising, we see investments falling, we see we see all kinds of things happening in the wrong direction that leaves us feeling this kind of perpetual sense of ah, what is going on, right? Which but what's really interesting, hang with me here, what's really interesting about this moment we're living in is we are still living in the map most affluent generation in human history. You guys know that? We're in the most affluent humor uh generation in human history. The standard of standard of living in the developed world, even for people who consider themselves uh average, would have looked like extraordinary wealth to most people who have who had ever lived. And yet, we're the most affluent, but we're also, listen, the most financially anxious generation in recorded history. Isn't that wild? We have the most, we have we have accumulated the most wealth, particularly in the United States, and even particularly in Colorado. And yet, where we actually inventory our hearts and lives, imagine this, we're still the most financially anxious generation in recorded history. So Coloradans know this. Um it's a place of high achievement and yet a low-grade financial fear that doesn't seem to go away no matter how much you save or how much you optimize, and and which tells us something that something is wrong with the formula. And so this is what Jesus diagnosed 2,000 years ago. But as we go into these scriptures, I want you to see something. His diagnosis isn't primarily a financial diagnosis, it's a spiritual diagnosis. And and we must, we've all been shaped and formed into a way of seeing the world into what to put our trust in and what to believe, what to put our trust in. Certainly with our well, every every single one of you deal with money every day, every day of your life. And the reason we have to talk about it is because this has to do with identifying who and what we put our deepest trust in. All right? Are you guys with me? Yes. Come on, are you guys with me? Say yes, Luke. All right, so Matthew chapter six, this is where Jesus says some of his most prolific work when it comes to talking about money. We're gonna start in verse 19. There's really four movements to this passage. It's kind of a long text. Um, there's four movements to this passage, and uh, and he hits different angles of this. And I just want you to pay attention. We're gonna read it first, and there's a couple parts we're gonna dive into. This is Matthew 6, starting in verse 19. Jesus says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be. The next movement. The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? Next movement. He says, No one can serve two masters. For he either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Okay. And then here's the fourth movement. This one's a little bit longer, but this gets to the core, the hard issue here. Jesus says, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat and what you will drink, not about your body and what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not more of value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? O you of little faith. Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all of those things. And your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. I imagine sitting with Jesus on this mountainside for the Sermon on the Mount, uh, first century Israel. And I imagine what it would be just to be before him. Um it seemed like simpler times. I don't know what you're laughing at. Imagine just sitting there, just receiving from Jesus. Be a first hearer of the sermon. When I think about these times though, it just seems like, man, I I'm having a hard time understanding what their financial challenges were. You know, it's like it didn't seem quite as complicated them. Um it seems like maybe it would have been an easier time to reconcile your relationship with money, wealth, and all these things. But we see that this has been a human problem from the beginning. This hasn't changed. This is a human, this is part of the human condition, is that we have to constantly come back to grips with how we think, how we're formed, and where our trust is. And in the movement we just read of scripture, you you saw that Jesus first talked about the treasure where our deepest treasure is. Then he talked about our eyes, which it's hard to see, and I'll explain this in a second. Our eyes, and it doesn't actually have to do with vision, it has to do with the way that our hearts view the world. Then he moves into talking about not being able to see two masters, and then essentially he gets to the heart of all of it, which is anxiety and living in the kingdom of a good father. But the common thread in all of this is this the source of our anxiety, this is what Jesus' central claim here in this last movement, the source of our anxiety is not a money issue, it's a trust issue. The source of our anxiety, it's not actually a money issue, it's a trust issue. We have trouble fooling trusting that we have a father who is rich. That's the heart of what he's saying. He he doesn't say stop worrying about money because money doesn't matter. He doesn't say that. He says, stop worrying because look at the birds, look at their look at the lilies. And as you do, remember this your heavenly father knows how to care for every one of your needs. He knows what your needs are, and he promises to care for them more than the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. And so, according to Jesus, even though we do sometimes have money problems, our chief issue is not so much about what's in our bank account. The question underneath it is, is there a father in the equation? And if so, what kind? Is there a father in my in your worldview? Is there a master in your worldview? And if so, what is the nature of your master? This is why Billy Graham said it like this. He says, Tell me what you think about money, and I will tell you what you think about God. This strikes at the very core. Money is not peripheral out here, it strikes at the very core of what we believe about reality, what we believe about ourselves. Are we beloved sons and daughters of a good father who is rich? And if so, what does that change about the lives that we live? And so God is generous. And this is what we read through the whole uh the whole council of scripture, biblical theology of generosity, it actually doesn't start with tithing. It doesn't even start with giving to the poor. It starts before time and space with who God is, the Father and the Son and the Spirit, in this overflow of self-giving love, this this beautiful Trinitarian dance that they, out of the overflow of their community, uh with joyful sacrificial love, they created the world. Um, God isn't generous in a way that a wealthy person chooses to be generous. God is generous in the way that the sun is bright. It's just who he is. It's not a decision he has to make. It's everything he does is marked by just out just abundance and provision and generosity. Colossians 1.16, Paul writes this, he says, For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, we just sang about this, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, listen, all things were created through him and for him. And there was an overflow of the heart of God, and creation is the first proof when you read in Genesis 1 about the creation of the world. God didn't have to make the colors beautiful, he didn't have to make food taste so good, and gosh, it tastes so good. He didn't have to give us music, he didn't have to make life enjoyable. You notice that? It didn't have to be enjoyable, but he wanted it to be because why? Because he's generous. He gave us color and texture and aromas. He gave us people, he gave us this beautiful view that nobody else has on a Sunday morning. He created everything out of extraordinary abundance because this is who he is. We never just start with money, we start with God. The nature of the one that we love. And we look into the face of the God, we look into the face of one who cannot stop giving. Again, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8, he says, For you know by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich. So God, in his nature, he gave everything not out of obligation, but out of love. And the whole gospel is a story of a self-giving father who kept giving to the point where he gave his very only son. And so this is who Jesus says. He says, if you want to know who you're trusting, that's who you're trusting. If you want to know who your master is and who a master worth following is, this is a picture of a father you can actually entrust your life to, right? Now, that's not the first time that a lot of us have read these passages in Matthew 6. And so we we can we know these things. The trouble for us is that we know these things and yet can still live with this crippling anxiety of not having enough or this quiet struggle with greed. And what we know about God hasn't always quite changed how we feel on a day-to-day basis. So we have to reconcile those two things. How do we align what we know about God with the actual lives that we live? This is part of our work of growing into Christ's likeness, and we have to do that work because we because God has called us to be like Him in every manner, in every way. So, what needs to change in our thinking? What needs to change in our very being, and what must we be baptized in in order to live into the outrageous abundance and generosity of God? This is where Jesus, I think, names it in a very specific way. In the passage that we just read, the healthy eye and the unhealthy eye, he he says he says that the eye is the lamp of the body. And it's kind of a cryptic, you know, it feels like uh it feels like some kind of puzzle, it feels like some kind of riddle that has to be solved. But this is very first century language, this is very Hebrew language to talk about the the eyes. And actually, when you get into the language here, you have to understand that the Greek the Greek words used between healthy and unhealthy carry a meaning that it doesn't quite translate in English in first century usage. Healthy eye meant a generous eye, and an unhealthy eye meant a stingy eye. So Jesus is naming there's two ways of seeing the world. So a healthy eye looks out and sees a father who provides a world full of gifts, and life is something received with gratitude every day. We don't deserve anything, it's all a gift. Every little thing I have is a gift from God. And when we see with a healthy eye what it produces is in us, it produces generosity. That's what a healthy eye does. In the same way, there's another way to see. It's he calls it an unhealthy eye or a dark, dark eye, and it's it's an eye that looks out and doesn't see much. It sees scarcity, everything's a threat. And a world where you're on your own. And an unhealthy eye, what it does, what it produces in us is chronic fear and grasping, and just this always the sense, no matter what I do, however hard I work, I don't have enough to care for my needs. And so Jesus is saying, like, there's really two different ways of seeing this world. There's two different masters, there's two different kinds of treasures you can find. And what's wild is this you can have two people who have identical, identical incomes and identical responsibilities and see that see the world in radically different ways. You know that is why Steven Stephen DeSilva said it like this people can be rich and miserable just as they can be poor and miserable. Similarly, people can be rich and happy just as they can be poor and happy. There is a measure where when you're living below the poverty line, there is a measure when they say money doesn't buy happiness. Well, it kind of does. It can't it buys happiness. There is a magic where having having the needs, it actually goes happen, but what happens is studies have found that at a certain point, once your needs are met, as your income keeps going up, the happiness quotient drops off. It doesn't, in fact, there comes a certain point where happiness starts to decrease over time. So we're in an interesting thing as Americans because we've been discipled into a worldview of uh uh you know to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's one of the things we do. I pursue, I wake up and I pursue happiness. That's great, that's awesome. Be all American, I'm all American, right? But Jesus kind of pokes a hole in that. It's like if you're if you're gonna pursue happiness, you have to know where happiness is. It's not just in your banking account, there's a deeper reality that you have to be invited into if you want to live with well-being and vitality at the very core of who you are. So the whole question of money and comes down to listen, what kind of eye are we looking through? And the practice of generosity is how we retrain our eye. That's actually how you retrain the way that you see the world. You can't just think about it, you have to practice it. Jeanette talked about that this last week. So when Megan and I moved to Colorado and I was a young adult, and we were just trying to figure everything out, and I was trying to reconcile my relationship with money, wasn't making a whole lot of it, but had to start to figure out what was um what to do with it. Megan and I started meeting people who had wealth, um, but also surprise for me, I was surprised because I was starting to meet wealthy people who were also humble and generous. I was like, ah, I didn't think I grew up thinking that wealthy people were just way out there and just kind of to themselves. And you know, and I and one particular example, very early on in our marriage on one of our anniversaries, somebody, uh a couple from this church took us out to dinner and uh to a restaurant that would have cost an arm and a leg. You know, we'd have to take out a second mortgage to go to this restaurant at the point. But they treated us to dinner, and it wasn't even just the cost of dinner, like it was a long relational time, and they just poured themselves into us and asked questions and lingered with us. And and I remember walking away from that feeling like, oh my gosh, they their eyes, like these people are are incredibly generous, like they they're not withholding anything. I remember walking away from that feeling like that's what I want. I want to be the kind of person ultimately who is able to just find ways. I just want to overflow my life, whatever God's given to me. I want to be able to overflow that into the people that God's given us. And so that we so they had a healthy eye. Now, some of you might still say, well, yeah, it's well, it's easy when you're wealthy to have a healthy eye. Like I would be generous too if I was wealthy. But listen, this goes both ways because even two weeks ago, Meg and I were in the airport on the way for a vacation for our 20th anniversary. And in the airport, we ran into a couple that we know. They're actually church planters out in the Erie. And uh, and I don't know if you know anything about church planting. There's not a lot of money there, all right? Not not deep wells of cash, all right? When you get into church planting and you're like gonna plant a new church in the city. That's like that's a calling, dude. That's like that's like going on a mission with God. And uh and we were talking to them, and we had mentioned they're asking us what we're gonna do on vacation. We mentioned, oh, there's this excursion that we're wanting to do, but I'm not sure if it's gonna be worth it. We're not sure if we want to spend the money and do it. And so we got on the plane, and uh and then when we landed at our connecting flight, Megan got a notification from our friends. They said, Hey, we just Venmoed you all the cash you need for this excursion. We just we want to bless you. We felt like the Holy Spirit told us to do this. So go have fun, have an incredible uh anniversary vacation. And we were like, oh my gosh. And it was one of those moments where, like, man, we know that they probably didn't have it, but there was something in them, they had a healthy eye. And they there was something that overflowed from them that it wasn't just a drag, it was a joy to be led by the Spirit and to move out and to do something spontaneously and say, I'm gonna give to this because God is moving me towards that, and I want to be like Him to respond to the needs He puts in front of me. Are you guys with me? And so it has to do with the way that we see, and so an unhealthy high, um, you know, these these little moments, I have a gazillion stories like this, and we'll share some more over the next few weeks, but it when when you experience moments like that, it causes to go back to God, not asking how little can I get away giving, but genuinely asking, Jesus, what have you called me to avail myself to the way that you've availed yourself to me? And our lives are full of these stories. Um, I do have to be honest though, it's amazing when I look back over our history, we have so many little miracle stories like that. God showing up when we needed it most, and even for us, God asking us to take a risk when we didn't feel like we could take a risk. And I will say this that though I have been shaped and I have these testimonies to pull from, and I know that God is abundant and my provider, sometimes I still fall for the trap of believing that it's all on me. And sometimes I still have to fight the ability to close my eyes. Um Megan and I we since the beginning of our marriage have not missed a single chance to tithe every week. We try to be generous with what we have. We've never been regretful about what we've given, and yet for me, there's still sometimes I lay awake at night and I'll have anxious thoughts. I'll think about retirement. Will I have enough? I'll think about savings. That's going down. I I wish I could feel more financially settled. I still get afraid from time to time. Can we just be honest about that? And I think probably a lot of us in the room knows what that feels like. And what I I mentioned that to you to just to double down on this trusting the Father is not about a set it and forget it kind of thing, it's a lifelong decision to show up. It's a lifetime exact activity, it's it's a it's a lifetime of resisting the spirit of fear and the spirit of mammon and entering into the spirit of God because the spirit of fear and the spirit of mammon is destroying lives all around the world and always has been. But the spirit of God, the spirit of belovedness, for knowing what it looks like to know that we have a rich father, we have to permeate our thinking on a daily basis by entering into the life flow of the kingdom of God. Are you guys breathing? Okay. I can't hear you. So the diagnostic to uh for us here today, here's just a quick diagnostic tool, really simple exercise, not to shame anybody, because there's so much shame wrapped around all this. This is not, we're not talking about this. This is a no-shame zone. We're talking about who we are in Christ and who we are to the Father. But to locate ourselves honestly, when you check your bank account today, tomorrow, the next time, notice what rises inside of you. What emotion rises inside of you? And maybe you don't do that in your house, maybe some of you, maybe your spouse does that in your house, whatever. Maybe you feel a little disconnected. I don't know, I haven't checked the bank account in years, whatever. That's fine. But when you have the financial conversation, what rises up inside of you? Is it fear? Is it relief? Is it numbness? Is it pride? Is it shame? That feeling, when you locate what comes up for you the next time you have a budgeting conversation, the next time money comes up, you locate what emotion is attached to that, that's going to be the first indication of where God wants to bring breakthrough in your life. Because God wants to, he wants to get our attention to love us in the places, love us in a way that we can learn to trust Him again and to live with wide eyes in the world that He's given to us. All right? So I want you to try that out today, tomorrow, the next day, the next time you have a financial conversation. Pay attention of how you were affected and what's coming up, and then turn that into a prayer. Oh God, I am feeling tense. I'm feeling regretful. I'm feeling ashamed. I'm feeling super disappointed. Turn that into a prayer. God, I'm feeling this. Is there anything that you want to show me about what I believe in my head and my heart? What would you like me to do? Growing in Christ's likeness is about moving from fear to trust, from the orphan to a beloved child. A couple years ago, my daughter, my little daughter, she was trying to help us out. Megan and she caught Megan and I in a conversation. We were kind of dreaming during the day about, oh, it'd be awesome to have you know this house on the other side of the neighborhood that had like one more bedroom at the time, because we're just trying to find where all our kids were gonna be. And so we're just kind of thinking, oh, what would it take to get into that house? And we're kind of doing the math and everything. And and Amelie at the time, she's she knew, she's like, Is it gonna take all of your money to get into that house? And I said, uh yes. Um, nothing short of a miracle. And she said, She's like, Well, you can have all of my money, you know. And I I remember, you know, like she just volunteered it just without even thinking. She's like, Well, it's okay, you can have all of my money. And you know, and it was just like this beautiful moment of like she wasn't thinking about, you know, she's not carrying any, she's she's her life at this moment is like she just lives knowing that her needs are gonna get met. So whatever she does have, which is very little, she's willing to offer all of it because she's living in kind of the safety and security in her own belovedness. What if we lived like that? When God brings us the need, we say, hey God, whatever you've given me, it's yours anyways. I want to live like that with you because I know that you're gonna take care of my needs as well. All of this, though, so just for this week one here, the theme here that Jesus is getting at, and we're gonna come into clothes here in a second, the theme that Jesus is getting at is moving from belief to trust, moving from belief to trust. I think in this stream, it's not that you don't believe that God is rich, but do you trust that God is rich towards you? Do you trust that he knows your needs? Like I love this story I heard about this acrobat who was tightrope walking over the Niagara Falls, which sounds lovely. He was tightrope walking over the Niagara Falls, a crowd was showing up. The first time he did it was just him and the sick. The second time he was in a wheelbarrow, or he had a wheelbarrow that he took across the Niagara Falls. And he came back and a crowd had gathered, and he looked at one of the reporters over on the side and said, Hey, do you want to get in the wheelbarrow? And the reporter said, No, sir. And the acrobat was kind of confused. He said, But do you believe that I can do this? And the reporter said, Oh, I believe you can do it. I just don't trust you. You know, because there's a difference between knowing that the guy can make it back and forth in the wheelbarrow and then getting in the wheelbarrow. And this is the this is life in the kingdom of God. This is life with God, with walking with Jesus. We can believe all kinds of things about God. The demons even believe in God. But trusting our life to God requires a daily act of getting into the wheelbarrow. Some of us just need to get into the wheelbarrow. If you want to break fear in your life, you've got to get in the wheelbarrow. If you want to break the grip of mammon, we'll talk about that next week. If you want to break the grip of greed and mammon and security that has plagued your life, you got to get in the wheelbarrow. There's no other way than to entrust your life to God. And how do we get in the wheelbarrow? Getting in the wheelbarrow looks a lot like generosity. Generosity, the practice, the daily practice of generosity is how we grow to trust that we have a father who is rich. We can say it all day, we can sing it all day, we can read it all day, we can tell people about it, we can take photos about it, we can blog about it, you can do YouTube videos about it, but the only way to actually grow in trust. If trust is something that we are to grow in, the only way to do it is the practice of steadily being generous to others the way that God is generous with us. Generosity is how we get into the wheelbarrow. Now, listen, when we talk about generosity, there's a lot of kinds of generosity. There's relational generosity, there's generosity of time, of presence, of gifting, of power. You can give power and authority to others. There's lots of ways of being generous, but for this time, there's something particular, and Jesus even gets at this, there's something specific about generosity with the things that we've been given, particular possessions and our money and our wealth, that has access to our hearts in ways that nothing else does. And the generosity has a way of freeing us in a way that other kinds of generosity don't have. It's just true. So we want to find all kinds of ways to be generous, just not in this one area. I'm just telling you. This is about living free. It's about freedom. It's not just about the other person who's receiving a gift, it's about what's happening in our hearts every time we say, Yes, Holy Spirit. Amen. So here's here's kind of the the challenge for this week, or the invitation, I should say. It's not a commitment. I'm not, we're not doing commitment cards around the thing. We're not, you know, here's here's the here's the invitation just this week to start growing in trust. It's spontaneous hidden generosity. Here's what I want to ask you to do. This week, pay attention. Somewhere in the next several days, you're gonna feel a nudge. I pray that you feel a nudge towards a person, a moment, a need, an opportunity. Maybe it's picking up someone's tab, maybe it's paying for a kid to go to camp, maybe it's buying a cup of coffee for somebody you need, for somebody in your life. Maybe it's just noticing something that you haven't noticed before. I just I want you to pay attention the next seven days. The nudge that comes up, and the invitation is to respond in spontaneous financial generosity, preferably in secret, so they can't pay you back. Because that's a whole other fun, a whole other amount of fun when you do it in the in the secret place. And here's here's my invitation to you: don't overthink it, don't wait for a big moment, don't ask, don't ask them to prove it that they need it, just respond to one nudge. And when you do, I want you to pay attention to what happens inside of you. What does it feel like? What does it actually feel like inside of you? Uh, in the same way you look at your checking account and you pay attention to what comes up, when you are generous towards a need or somebody in your life, I want you to pay attention to what is there fear underneath it? Is there a reluctance? Is it like, oh my gosh, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can make it. Is it scarcity or is it abundance? Because I'm telling you, then as you start to notice what happens as you give, this has everything to do with the kind of person you are becoming on this earth. This is about the work of God inside of you. It's not just about them receiving a gift, it's about you living free because you have a father who is good and who is rich, and you can trust. Amen. Come on. Some of you, this is your lifestyle. I know that. I know the people in this room. This is just every day of life. But I'm telling you, never take it for granted. We have to break the power of pride, we have to break break the power of insecurity and fear every day of our lives so that we can continue to become the people that God has called us to be, living as sons and daughters. So this morning, here's what we'll do just around the room this morning. We're just gonna end with a prayer today, and we're gonna be out of here shortly. Just close your eyes around the room. And I just want to pray a prayer of identity. It's not really about money, it's about our belovedness as sons and daughters. And I'm just praying that even right now, even today, that God would encounter us with the Father's heart. And maybe you need time to go before the Father. You've been told that you can trust Him, but that has not been your life experience. And so, God, today though, we ask that you would reveal your love once again. I thank you in this community that you're after our freedom. And I just thank you, God, for your perfect love to wash over us, removing fear and anxiety. I thank you this afternoon that we can listen to the birds of the air and the way they sing such beautiful songs, and they chirp and they whistle. And they are so cared for and loved. How much more the sons and daughters of God? So, God, I pray over our community that Father Provider, you hold all things in endless, fearless supply. Help us to live in that trust, in the rest and extravagance of knowing we can freely give in the manner that we've received. Selflessly, daringly, and lovingly.

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And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.

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So my prayer is that we take that with us, spontaneous generosity. And as we end here today, I will we're gonna have a ministry team forward. And if some of something came up in your heart, and maybe you need breakthrough in your life as it relates to finances, but maybe along with that breakthrough, you need trust to know that the Father is good towards you. And if you are in that kind of place, you'll see people around the room with badges. Just get a quick prayer before you go and let them agree with you in prayer. That's how we move forward together as a family. So the rest of us, let's stand together. Let's stand together. This week we get to get in the wheelbarrow. We're gonna go across the Niagara Falls. All right? It's gonna be exhilarating. It's gonna be exciting. I just want to bless you as we go. We're going not empty-handed, we're going with the gift of God and the word of God. And it is Mother's Day, so we want to bless you, mothers, you can get your gifts on your way out. And if you're new here, we'd love to meet you in the back and connect with this sign. I just pray one last prayer over us. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make his face to shine upon you. May He be gracious to you and give you peace. Go in the peace of the Father. We love you guys. Happy Mother's Day.