SPEAKER_00 0:01

Um welcome. Again, if you're joining us tonight for the first time, I just want to say again what Nick said earlier. First of all, we're really glad you're here. We hope that you feel very welcomed here. We really are a family. And for those of you, I think everybody does know Nick, he's the lead pastor of Redemption City Church. So you might be saying, well, who is this guy up on the stage? My name is Matt Altman, and I'm an elder in our church here, one of three with Nick and Shane over here. And so without going into a lot of details, an elder is just a position of leadership here. And Nick had asked me a few months ago, hey, would you think about teaching one Sunday night? And I said, sure, because I'm a school teacher by trade and I teach eighth graders all day, and it'll probably be a lot like that, right? So it'll be just the same thing, except y'all are older than eighth graders. So I told Juwan if he would bring like 30 of his friends and get them in here, it might make me a little more comfortable. So but seriously, thank you guys. We're glad you're here, and uh I hope you leave tonight more than anything uh encouraged and with a greater desire and a greater love for who Jesus is and what he's done for us. So um we're talking about an issue that's kind of a controversial issue or kind of sometimes gets a bad rap in church, and so uh, but we believe that everything uh should be addressed at some point. So we're gonna talk about money tonight, all right? So if you are joining us for the first time, I'm not apologizing, but I say, hey, you're here to listen to something that I know that as a church we necessarily haven't done the greatest job with. So um as I thought about that and knowing that I've got this great task to talk about money and giving specifically, uh, I realized maybe I should preface it with a couple of things so you're very clear about what tonight is about and what it's not about. Okay? So I want to set your hearts at ease and tell you first and foremost that I'm not here tonight to ask you for your money. Okay? Um our church is not here tonight to ask you for your money. Okay, so truth number one, God does not need your money. All right, and as many churches as are out there that maybe they spend a lot of time talking about money, hey, it's an important thing that we need to address. So, I mean, we're gonna talk about it tonight, but I hope you leave here tonight with this idea that, hey, that wasn't so bad. Okay, like they talked about money, but for once I didn't feel like they were just asking me to give all of my money to them, okay? Because that's not what this is about tonight, okay? Um, and just as I said earlier, God doesn't need your money. Uh, He He's got more than we will ever have. And so and then we're also gonna just kind of discuss our relationship with the idea of giving money and and why that is important and how we should go about that. So um, if you have a Bible tonight, I want you to open it up to the book of 2 Corinthians. It's in the New Testament. And uh, I'm gonna apologize in advance. I'm gonna be reading from a different translation, um, but your blanks and your bulletin will will go along with the translation that I'm using. Um and if you don't own a Bible or you know someone that wants one or you'd like to take one home with you, there's some in the chairs in front of you. That's our gift to you. You can have it, take it home, read it. Uh, we believe it'll change your life. And uh before we jump into the text, if you have questions about how to read your Bible or you want to know a little bit more about that whole process, if you notice in your bulletin on uh the right side that says personal Bible reading plan, uh we as a church we try to go through kind of the same passages together, and so there's just kind of an outline of some things you can read this week. There's some resources if you have questions. Um I know uh we would love to help you with that. And uh so there's just some information there for you that if you're exploring the Bible for the first time or this is something kind of new to you, this is kind of a way that you can do that on your own, and uh and we hope that that that helps you. So also, we're doing something different tonight that we've never done before, and I'm really excited about it. We are uh going to be doing a little QA session at the end about money and giving. And so if you would like and you have a pen or a pencil to write down, write this number in your bulletin, 512-715-4893. And if a question comes to you in the middle of the service and you'd like to ask that question, you can send a text to that number. And at the end, Shane and myself and Nick are gonna be up here and we're gonna try to address a couple of those questions. Uh so hopefully that'll be of help to you as well. So um we probably won't be able to do all of them, but I do invite you to send whatever thoughts you have about this topic and we'll do what we can with that. So um, and the last thing before we get started with the actual reading. Normally we would start and we would read the whole passage and then we'd go back and we would talk about it. I'm gonna ask you to not read ahead. Okay? Because, I mean, it won't ruin everything and it won't spoil it, but we're gonna get to the very end of this passage, which is kind of this climax, if you will. And if you've already read ahead, then you're kind of gonna give away the end of the sermon, all right? So I want you to read with us verse by verse. And uh also this is gonna be kind of discussion-oriented. I teach eighth graders, and I don't know if you've met many eighth graders in your life, but they don't they don't sit there quietly uh very long. And so my kind of format in the classroom is to get some participation going back and forth. And so when I ask a question and I and I kind of stop and that awkward silence happens, you you can answer those questions, okay? I want to hear your feedback as we read through this text, all right? So, 2 Corinthians chapter 8, and we're gonna be reading 1 through 5, but only verse 1 for right now. Okay? Alright, I'm gonna read it for us. It says, Now, brothers, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia. Alright, so Paul is the writer of this letter, and uh we talked a lot about Paul when we went through the book of Acts, and Paul wrote most of the New Testament, and uh Paul started a lot of churches and he and he went on many missionary journeys, and and uh he's writing this letter to the Corinthians, and it's his second letter to them, so that's why it's 2nd Corinthians, and he's talking about this keeps coming off. Am I touching it too much? No, you're not gonna do that. Okay. Is that better there? Can y'all still hear me okay? Okay, good. So Paul is talking to the Corinthians about giving and generosity, and he's gonna use an example of these people in Macedonia. Macedonia was a place in ancient times where he had started a church, so he knew the people that were there. And uh he says, Hey, Corinthians, listen up. I want you to know about the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia. Okay? So, first discussion item. What does Paul say was given? The grace of God, right? Okay, good job. That's good. Not bad. We'll get better as the night goes on. Okay. Does he say lots of money? No. He doesn't say money. Does he say lots of stuff? No. He says the grace of God has been given in these churches. Okay? So you may say, well, what does that have to do with money, or what how do we know it's even about money? I'm gonna give a little bit of a way since I've already talked about it, but this entire chapter 8 and all of chapter 9 kind of goes on to discuss more about this gift that these Macedonians gave, and he talks specifically about how it was a monetary gift. Okay, so we know that from verses later on. But he he calls this act or this event, he says, listen, the grace of God has been given in the churches of Macedonia. So your first fill-in on your blanks and your bulletin there is giving is rooted in the grace of God. Okay? Giving is rooted in the grace of God. There's a verse in the Bible that says uh we love because God first loved us. Okay? So Paul is saying, look, there's something that takes place between people and God, and then somehow it fleshes itself outwardly, okay? And then he uses the example, uh, or we find the other example that God loved us first, and then we're able to love other people. And so uh this text here kind of hints at the idea that because God has given us so much, then we're able to give in return, okay? So that kind of sets the framework for these Macedonians. He's saying, look, these people, they've given something. This this grace of God has been given in these churches, alright? So uh let's move on to verse 2. That in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. Okay? So he's describing the Macedonians here, alright? I'm looking for four things. This is, it's not A, B, C, D, but it's four total things. You need to find them for me. They're in this verse, okay? So I want you to tell me how Paul describes, oh, sorry. How Paul describes these people, alright? Take a second. You can talk with a neighbor if you need to. Interaction, alright? We do pair partner pairs in school all the time. Talk with somebody. Tell me, see if you can find one of the things that he uses to describe these Macedonians. And when you're ready, you don't have to raise your hand. You can just tell me. Giving, okay? Your translation might say something about that they were richly generous. Okay, but they're giving, right? Okay, that's one, that's good. There's three more. Joyful. Okay, y'all found the two easy ones. They were poor. Oh, that's interesting. And afflicted. Okay, I'm gonna read it again for you. In a great ordeal of affliction. So there's the first thing he says. They're going through some kind of trial. We don't know from other texts like what that was, but something is happening. And I mean, it's pretty rough on these people, okay? But in that, they have what? Abundance of joy. Those two things don't really go together very often, do they? And I don't want to try to make light of recent situations, but when you think about afflictions, I mean, with all those tornadoes that have happened lately, like there's been a lot of affliction, right? There's been a lot of people, at least publicly in those settings, they've suffered a lot of things, right? And these people have gone through something we don't know the details of, but they have an abundance of joy, and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. And I think the other translation says something about it overflowed in their rich generosity. Okay, so affliction and joy not really compatible very often, right? We don't typically think of those two things going together. But even more so, deep poverty and rich generosity. Are those a match? Do you know many people that are deeply impoverished and richly generous? I mean, I maybe I know one or two, I don't know, but like that's not the norm, is it? So my question to you, and you don't answer this one. This is just a freebie, but think about it. How is that possible? I mean, these people sound right now a little crazy to me. All right? They've been through a great trial, but they're joyful. And we're not talking about like fake joy where they're just like, oh, everything's great and we're wonderful, and everything's fine. No, no, like this is real joy. Like these people have the real thing, and they're deeply poor, which by the way, that word doesn't just mean things are kind of tight. All right? It's not like the budget's been stretched a little bit. These people don't have a budget. Okay, these people have nothing. The literal word means they are at rock bottom. Okay, and yet they have some kind of wealth and rich generosity. So the question I want you to be thinking about tonight is how is that even possible? Because again, we don't see that every day, if very often. Alright? We're gonna answer that question towards the end, but I want you to be pondering that idea of how how can people who are who are poor and afflicted be joyful and generous? We'll move on to verse 3. Oh, wait, wait, no, hang on. I have something here. Um, we need to get your second fill-in, I guess, right? Uh second fill-in is this our circumstances do not determine our ability to give generously. Alright? We've proven that. If we believe the Bible is true, and we're gonna say, hey, we can read this and say, you know what, that's right, then there's some people here in this passage that are poor and generous. So we can't say, well, you know what, I just don't have anything to give, so therefore I can't give. Or I've been through some rough times and it's been really hard, so I can't. No, no, no, no. Makes it very clear our circumstances don't define that, okay? So I want to I want to give you an example of that. Um what better time, even though it's not Christmas, to think about giving than the Christmas season, right? Doesn't everything change around Christmas time? People start acting differently. There's there's just more uh more joy and peace for most of us, right? We kind of just walk a little bit differently, and and uh I you know, there's just kind of a, it's kind of corny to say this, but like a magical season there, right? I mean, we love Christmas, okay? And we give a lot of gifts and we get gifts and and we say things like, you know, it really is better to give than it is to receive, and and oh, it's the thought that counts, and oh man, they've just got such a big heart, you know. Like we we tend to focus on that aspect a lot during Christmas time, and then like New Year's hits, and all of a sudden it's all about us again, and like I got my resolutions and I gotta make this happen, and we kind of lose that whole like other's minded giving, right? So last Christmas, um we're at my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's house, and my wife and I uh are sitting there and we're opening gifts with our niece and nephews, and and uh, you know, we've given them some things, and and we're kind of getting towards the end of the time, and uh my nephew Caleb, who was five at the time, uh he comes running up to me and he says, Uncle Matt, Uncle Matt. He goes, I have something for you. All right, he's got this black trash bag here, and he says, I mean, his smile is just like huge, right? And his eyes are this big around, and he's just elated, and I don't even know what's in here yet. Okay, he had just started kindergarten earlier in the year, and um, I knew he was learning his letters and learning how to write them, and like, you know, I mean, but he's just so excited. And I don't know, you know, I know we do know a lot of five-year-olds because most of you have one or you've had one, but do they have a lot of stuff other than like the things you've given them? Like, they maybe have a lot of toys, but like do they have a lot of money or a lot of things that we could say, wow, look at the gift that they gave that person. That was incredible. Not most five-year-olds that I know, right? But yet, like, he's just jumping up and down, Uncle Matt, I got you this gift. And and I want you to know, like, I I made this for you, and and and so I'm like, I better get this out of the bag, or he's gonna tell me what it is before I even see it. And so I reach in, make sure I don't uh kind of wrap it up a little bit. I wrapped it really good. There it is, okay. So I reach in and I pull out this. Okay. And his eyes just light. All right, and he says, It's a letter A for Altman, that's our last name. He says, I know you needed something to hang your your grill tools on. I got a barbecue grill, and he's like, I I remember you saying one time you needed something to put your tools on, he said, and so so I made you this A, and I was thinking you could put it on your back porch and you could hang your tools on it. Okay, and I mean I I I looked at him and I said, Okay, the it's perfect. And I looked at him again, I said, I'm not telling you this, this isn't a lie. I said, I this is my favorite gift this year. Like, this is awesome, I love it. And I mean, he was so happy, so excited. It's three pieces of wood and four rusty nails. Did he have anything to give physically? I mean, you I wouldn't call him poor, but I mean he doesn't have anything, and yet he clearly is what? Joyful and generous. Okay? And I love this letter A. And when I see it, I think, man, I could learn a lesson or two from a five-year-old who taught me what the heart of giving really looks like. Alright? So his circumstances didn't determine his ability to be generous, and ours can't determine our ability to be generous. And you may have been thinking, wow, that's pretty, you know, that's pretty good. These people are inspiring me, you know, and and it's really, it's really great to see such a cool story about these people, but it gets better, alright? So let's move on to verse 3. Verse 3 says, For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord. Okay. What uh nobody really asks this question very often. What do you not like about that verse? You can answer that. The word beyond. Okay. Yeah, that's where we're gonna focus. Beyond their ability. I'd kind of like to take that little section there, and if we took that out, then I can read this verse and kind of be okay with it, right? For they gave, I testify that according to their ability, they gave of their own accord. Hey, that's pretty easy. I can do that, right? I can I can give of my ability on my own accord, right? I can I can decide what I do with my stuff and my money. Okay, and I can still have money left over to go get my coffee in the morning, right? Like, okay, this isn't so bad, but Paul doesn't say that, does he? He doesn't say that it was comfortable for them. We already know what kind of people are these: poor, afflicted, joyful, and generous. Okay? So they already have nothing to give, and they're giving beyond their ability. That that kind of that kind of unsettles me a little bit because I don't have that within myself to be that way. I'm not that kind of person. I can't just kind of you know make myself better and all of a sudden be uh be like that. I I don't like to give beyond my ability. That's uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, if it's beyond my ability, then that means it must require something else, right? Otherwise, I could do it. Okay? So how are these people able to give in their circumstances that they're in? And how are they able to give not just what they can, but more than what they can? Because that's what he's telling us here. They're giving above and beyond their ability. Alright? The other part about this verse that that kind of strikes me is that last part where it says they gave of their own accord. Alright? So here's your fill in for number three Giving is a personal act between the giver and God. Nobody told them to do this. Alright? They initiated this giving on their own. And uh I don't know about you, but if you have to tell someone to do something, especially when it's something like this, like giving, like, that doesn't really motivate me, does it? I mean, and again, I'm not trying to apologize too much for the church, but for so long we've kind of said you have to give your money, right? And that's burned a lot of people. I said, man, all they want's my money. Like, look, if if we can't say, you know what, this is something I need to do because it's personal, because it's between me and God, and and I'm gonna need to look at that before any of this other stuff, like that that's what we need to be saying, is that this is about something bigger than just dollars and cents. Okay, this is a heart issue. And as I'm reading these verses, these people that are poor, afflicted, joyful, and generous, man, they're showing me up. Because I can't, I can't do that. And I'm not poor and afflicted right now. I'm a school teacher and I don't make a ton of money, but I'm not poor. I'm not afflicted. I'm not going through any kind of big trials right now. I haven't hit rock bottom, and I struggle with this. And these people have nothing, and yet they're kind of crazy in the way they're approaching this issue. So that beyond their ability part means it's gonna require more than what I've got. Okay. And we'll answer at the end of this what it is that it does require. Um, did I already give you a fill-in, the third one? Are we done with that one? Help me out. Okay, personal. Okay, all right. Um, all right, it gets even better. Verse four. It says, begging us with much entreaty for the favor of participation in the support of the saints. Nick gives me a hard time because the translation I use is kind of wordy and it doesn't really flow all that well. So I'm gonna give you kind of a picture example of this to help it maybe make a little bit more sense, okay? Um you ever have someone come up to you? I mean, this doesn't happen very often in my life, but it's happened once or twice. And they say, hey, let me help you with that. And they're just like kind of over the top, you know, oh, I can do that. I want to help you with that. And I kind of go, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. Like, hold on a second, you're kind of crowding my space a little bit. Well, I keep going back to the four things that these people are, okay? They're poor and afflicted and joyful and generous, and they're saying, Paul, Paul, please let us give something to these people who need it. And Paul's like, you don't have anything to give. No, no, no, Paul, Paul, we're begging you, let us give something to help these people. And we don't know all the details in this, but I mean, Paul's a pretty big deal in the church at this point. And, you know, if I'm Paul, I'm like, wait a minute, like, you can't afford to do that. Like, hold on a second. Like, you don't have anything, you need to keep what you've got because you're barely making it. Last time I checked, you're not even making it. So what are you doing trying to give that stuff away? Like, you need some of that. They're saying, no, no, no, Paul, let us give this gift, okay? This doesn't quite equate, but just again, to kind of give you the mentality of where maybe they were coming from. I uh we bought our house about a year and a half ago, and I decided to save money and paint the inside of it myself. And uh the first room didn't look so great, uh especially at the top around the ceiling. I mean, I couldn't get that part right, so I think I'm gonna go back and try to fix that later on. But I kind of got better as the as the house went on from room to room, and and uh by the time I got to the last room, I was feeling pretty good. Like, hey, I I got a little bit of talent here in this. I think I can do this. Well, we met Nick and Jada as they were coming down and and they they moved into their house, and one of the first things I said was, they said, Hey, we'd like to do some painting. I said, Nick, let me help you paint your house. And he kind of stopped and went, what? And then Tracy comes flying in and goes, Nick, he loves to paint. And he's pretty good at it. You should let him do it. And Nick was still kind of hesitant, even, right? I mean, because that's weird. People don't beg to do something for you, right? Beggars are takers. Beggars want something. They want something for themselves, not something that they can do for someone else. And so I'm like, dude, let me help you paint your house. Like, come to my house and I'll show you the so I'll show him the good room, you know. Like, check out the work that I've done. Like, I can I can do this. And so Nick finally agrees. He's like, all right, you know, here's what we want to do, and and uh we're gonna paint this wall blue and paint this thing blue, you know. And I know now all of you are gonna go into his house have this and go, oh, you know, he didn't do a very good job right there. And and uh, oh, that's not so bad. So anyway, I helped him paint this room, and I guess I passed the test uh because Harley, who's not here right now, uh calls me up the next week and is like, dude, come over and help me paint my house. Right? So that's kind of the idea is that were maybe I didn't have a lot to give, but I had something, and I really, really, really wanted to give it. I was begging them to let me do that for them. I want to give you one more example, too, that maybe takes us to the next level. Um we we live in Austin, Texas. And you're saying, yes, that's true. Um you can't drive down the road at any major intersection without seeing someone standing there with a sign, right? And I'm not trying to make light of those situations. I don't I don't know those people personally, and I don't know where they've been, and and I don't know their circumstances. Um but we know that most of their signs usually say like, hey, you know, anything helps, or or what can you give, or you know, like they they need something, right? And when we think about this idea of begging, like we kind of have this mental picture of what someone who begs, maybe what they look like and what they do. And so I want to kind of flip that upside down and see what you think about this. Let's say you're driving down the road and you're you stop at slaughter and 35, and uh someone's standing there with a sign, and they walk up to you, and their sign says, What can I give to you? You would probably go, wait a minute. I've never seen a sign like that before. You might even roll down your window and say, Hey, you're the first person I've seen standing at an intersection with a sign that says, What can you give to me? And what if that person looked at you and said, You know, I realized for the first time, I've been standing here and people have been giving me stuff, and I've been given so much, and even though I don't have a lot right now, I just felt like maybe I should be generous. And maybe I should give something back. And what if they said, here's a hundred bucks, it's yours? You might be hesitant and be like, well, you need that, like, keep it. But what if they started begging you, let me give you this money? It'd be an insult not to take it, right? I mean, I've never had that happen to me personally. Okay? And I I mean, maybe that's happened somewhere, but I just want you to see how this story here in the Bible, like, stories in the Bible aren't always just normal stories, okay? Like, things happen and we kind of go, whoa, wait a minute. All right? These people are poor, afflicted, generous, and joyful. And now we just find out that they're they're beggars as well, but not beggars in the typical sense. Okay, they're begging to give something, not begging to get something. Um we should seek opportunities to be generous givers. Verse three told us that they gave of their own accord, you know, that it was initiated by them. It's kind of like when you you hear about something and you go, you know what, I've heard about this need and I'm gonna do something about it. And like nobody has to come and tell you to do it. Um these people were seeking that opportunity and they were begging Paul, please let us help these people. Okay. Um I don't know about you, but like I said earlier, I I don't have that. In and of myself, I can't do that. I can't give like that. I can't make my heart like that. I don't, I don't want to beg someone else so that I can give them money. I mean, I just don't operate that way. And yet, here's this church in Macedonia that that's their mindset. So you might be sitting here tonight saying, okay, I'm maybe you've been inspired by this. And I want to be real clear before we move on to verse 5, which are all waiting for. That tonight's not about how to make you a better person. Like, I don't want you to leave here and say, you know, that was a really great story. I want to be like them and just try to go out and do that on your own. Okay, because you're gonna find out here in a minute that these people didn't do it on their own. And one of the worst things we can do as Christians, as believers in Jesus, is to try to go out and do things on our own without God. Okay? So let's find out. I think I gave it away, but we're gonna read it anyway. Let's find out how this is even possible. Okay, how did these people, how were they able to do this in the circumstances that they're in, how were they able to be so generous? Verse 5. And this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God. What's the order here? This is, I know I told you you were going to answer questions, and then I kind of did all the talking for a while there. What's the order in that verse? Gave themselves to the Lord, and then what happened after that? You can look at it. It says they gave themselves to who? To us. Okay? Paul's kind of speaking in the I'm not an English teacher, I'm a math teacher. Is that the the first person us when it includes you? I don't know. First person plural. Thank you, Renee. I appreciate that. So Paul's talking about the Macedonians, and kind of on behalf of the Corinthians, who he's talking to as he's writing this letter, he says, look, here's how they did it. They gave themselves to the Lord first, and then to us. Okay? So if you're sitting here tonight going, How is this possible? How are these people able to give like that? Well, the answer is in verse 5. They gave themselves first to the Lord before they were able to give anything else. Your fifth fill-in there is this. Giving starts with our hearts before God. This is a great story. And I love this example. I still remember the first time I read this passage, and the first time I heard somebody teach about it. I mean, it was just, I was like, wow, that's amazing. But I still had questions about what it meant to give myself to God in that way, and like, how what are you talking about there? And, you know, these are just people, and I know we don't worship people, and as great a story as this is, guess what? There's an even greater one. All right, there's an even better example of sacrificial, generous giving. All right? And that's the example of Jesus Christ Himself. In a couple of weeks, we're gonna kind of continue this series on stewardship and on giving. And hopefully, maybe uh I won't spoil what Nick's gonna be teaching on, but later on in some of these other verses, it tells us very clearly that Jesus Christ was rich, but he became poor so that we could become rich. And he's not talking about financially or physically with a lot of stuff. He's saying Jesus Christ Himself, who was in heaven with God, he left perfection, and he left the greatest place ever to come to earth, and he put on human skin, human flesh, he became like us, he became poor like we are, because without God, we are poor, I believe. He became like us, and he did something that no one else in history could have done and has ever done. He lived a perfect life. He was in complete submission to God the Father and obedience to him. He did everything that God asked him to do, and he did the hardest thing that God asked him to do. At the end of his life, God said, You know, you're here to pay for the sins of the world. You're a perfect sacrifice. The Son of God, sometimes called the Lamb of God. They used to sacrifice lambs back in the Old Testament. And so Jesus said, you know what, this is hard, but you know what? I'm gonna do that too. And he did it so that poor people like us, poor people spiritually, could be rich spiritually. Um there's another great verse that I'm gonna mention that kind of helps tie this together. It says, He became sin on our behalf, so that we could become the righteousness of God in him. So I said this earlier. I don't want you to leave here tonight and say, I just need to be a better person and a better giver, and I need to donate more money to a good cause, or maybe I need to be a better parent or a better coworker or a better neighbor. Like, that's not why we're here. Nick said earlier with our mission statement, we're a family of Jesus followers, pointing people to life in him. So it's not about just becoming a better person. God's after one thing. He's after our hearts. And he's been after the hearts of people from the very beginning. He's always wanted this relationship with people. And when we sinned and we broke that relationship and we messed it up, we became spiritually poor, spiritually dead, spiritually, we hit rock bottom. There's only one way to come out of that. And it's not by climbing a rung of the ladder of self-performance and becoming a better person. That just makes you a better person. It's about trusting in the work of Jesus Christ. Who, like I was telling you earlier, left heaven, lived that perfect life, and when it came time to die on the cross for us, he said, It's hard, God, but I'll do it. That's what you sent me here to do, I'll do it. And if we put our faith in him, guess what? We can go from spiritually poor to spiritually rich. We can enjoy every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, the Bible tells us. We'll be given an inheritance that can never be taken away, an inheritance that's imperishable. It's guaranteed. I don't know about you, but wise people in my life have told me there's no such thing as a guarantee. Well, guess what? Jesus Christ is a guarantee. Alright? And I don't know where you are personally. I don't know what you're dealing with. Maybe you have questions about who Jesus is, and maybe you want to know more about what that would look like. Uh here in a little bit we'll have some time. If you want to visit with myself or Nick or Shane, we invite you to do that. But I want to just make it very clear without God, without Jesus Christ, none of this is possible. So your last fill-in at the very bottom is kind of the big idea. Because I know you said, well, we're talking about money and giving, and then I kind of got off on let's talk about Christ Himself. That last fill-in is this giving is a response to God's grace in our lives. So it's not about I owe God money. It's not about, you know, if I give more money, God will be happier with me. It's not about if I give more, I'll feel better about myself. Something has to happen vertically, okay? Between you and God. There's got to be a heart connection here that has to take place before anything horizontally, whether it's giving or parenting or working or neighboring or any of that kind of stuff. Like, none of that gets better without this part first. Does that make sense? Okay, I want to make sure that I was I was clear on that. Um if you have questions about what it looks like, read your Bible some this week. Go look at some of the things that Jesus did. Look at the way uh he treated people, the way he loved people, and and read the last chapters of any of those first four books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read those last chapters where it talks about how Jesus Christ finished the work that God had sent him to do, which was ultimately about the redemption of mankind. That's why our church is named Redemption City Church. We believe God wants to redeem people and bring people back to himself, to that relationship that we were meant to have with him. So, final thing that I'll say is this, and I've kind of said it already. I don't know where you are, um, but I know one thing. We all need Jesus. If we already know him, we need more of him. And if we don't know him at all, we we need him, period. Um so here in a moment, after we're gonna do the Q ⁇ A in a second. I'm gonna pray for us here in just a second, and then uh we'll have some more instructions about what we're gonna do after that. But I really want to encourage you, if if you're dealing with some things right now, or you're trying to get some stuff figured out between you and God, like this is a great place to do that. This is a safe place to do that, and you're not alone. We all we all need uh we all need help from him. So let me pray for us real quick and then we'll get to the the QA afterwards.