Am I Generous? | The Blessed Life: Week 5

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Hey, my name is Justin, and for the last several weeks

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we've been in a series called The Blessed Life.

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And for me, it's been all about gratitude.

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It's been a process of gratitude and reminded me

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of all the good things God has given me

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and that everything I have is His

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and every thing I do flows from a heart of gratitude.

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So that's where we're gonna start with a simple chorus to sing together of gratitude.

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So I invite you to stand.

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And if you're joining us online, sing with us.

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And here's the deal. I'll sing as loud as I possibly can

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so you can too. Deal?

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All right.

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So it goes like this:

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One more time.

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God, we thank you for sending Jesus.

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our living hope.

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He's snatched away the keys of death and hell and the grave

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and gave us a reason to hope and live.

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And for that I am forever thankful.

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We have an opportunity to worship, you God, for who You are,

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and that is good and we thank You and we praise You.

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In Your name we pray, Amen.

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Well, Crossroads, thank you.

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Thanks for singing with us.

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Hey, if you're watching at home, we appreciate you.

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Let's make this place a little bit smaller.

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Introduce yourself someone that you don't know

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and then you have a seat. We're so very glad you're here.

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- Well, happy Thanksgiving, almost.

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Thanksgiving is quickly approaching.

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And there are two family traditions that I had in the Tome family growing up

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and now being a Schuller, my family,

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my husband, my son, my future kids and I will have together.

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And I want you to get to experience some of the things

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that have made Thanksgiving really special for me over the years

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and have shaped who I am and how I interact with God

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in the midst of this holiday season.

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So the first one is the Thanksgiving Food Drive.

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And this is a way for us to say thank you to God

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by blessing other people in our city who might not have another experience

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for a Thanksgiving meal or an intimate conversation

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and good food around the table at Thanksgiving.

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There's over a 100,000 people who are going to get to experience

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a better Thanksgiving because of the Thanksgiving Food Drive.

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And so if you want to participate in that,

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you can do that from anywhere you might be.

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If you live near a Crossroads location,

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you can head to that location to get a box

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and fill it up and return the box.

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If you don't live near Crossroads location,

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then it is really simple to do this and we want to help you do it.

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So chat with us on the Crossroads Web site.

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We'd love to get you started and get you the things you need

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to be able to participate from whatever city that you're in right now.

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The second family tradition that we have is that

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we get together with the church on Thanksgiving eve.

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You know, we have a traditional Christmas Eve service.

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We also have a Thanksgiving Eve service, a Thanksgiving Eve experience,

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because this holiday is one that is core to our belief

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as followers of Jesus that we are to be expressing thankfulness

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and expressing gratitude to God on a regular basis.

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And so in this holiday weekend of Thanksgiving,

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we're reminded and we actually our permissioned by American culture

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to pause and be thankful.

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And we want to express that thankfulness to God together.

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And so if you want to experience Thanksgiving Eve,

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you can check out if that might be happening at a site near you.

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Or you could join us right here online

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for a special Crossroads Anywhere Thanksgiving experience.

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It's going to air at 7:00 p.m.

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So hopefully you'll join us for that.

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And one of the ways that I like to express thankfulness to God is through giving.

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If you want to do that, you can do that by heading to Crossroads.net/give.

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And we're going to continue on today with our series The Blessed Life.

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- Hey, welcome to week five of The Blessed Life.

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I'm pretty excited about next week, kind of do a traditional speaking role,

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but this week I got more good stuff because

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you got me and you've got Kyle coming up

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and you've got Robert Morris right here in the studio with me.

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I'm doing a podcast with him right now and we're going to clip some stuff out

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and he's gonna be talking to all of us as a church, as Crossroads

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about what it means to go to a new gear in giving.

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It's a huge, huge step when we give God the first 10% of everything He gives us.

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It's a whole new other frontier and a lot of fun

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to go beyond that with what's known as offerings

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or even being extravagant.

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So Robert's got some stuff to talk to us today about that.

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- All right. You said a lot of people shut you when you talk about generosity.

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I think what they shut down is when they hear a preacher

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talking about giving money because they think he has an ulterior motive.

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And many of them do. Many of them do.

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But when they talk about generosity,

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I think every person has something in his heart or her heart

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that would love to be generous.

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When we see these refugees, when we see people in trouble,

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when we see the homeless, when we see poverty,

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we want to do some to help.

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So I actually think we all would love to be generous.

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- If we just knew how to be generous.

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- It's the step, though, isn't it?

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That's what makes it so difficult.

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That is true.

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I think that's why we all believe that we're generous

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is because we all know in our minds and hearts

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we want to do something, but we're stuck.

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- So you say if we want to go beyond where we are,

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do your math. What else would you say?

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- The second thing is to obey the little prompting

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that you get on the inside of you.

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And you know, if you're a Christian, you can talk about it's the voice of God,

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if you're not a Christian we all have these little promptings

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to do something like to pay for the meal for a family

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that we see that they can't afford it and you know they can't afford it.

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Or if it's to just help pay for gas.

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- Did you always plan on being a pastor?

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Have you always been a pastor?

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- Yeah. No, I wasn't.

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And as I said, my dad owned a company,

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so I thought I would one day, you know, take over his company and do that.

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And after I gave my life to the Lord, I started speaking at youth events.

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And young, you know, all these things where churches would gather young people.

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And I just started sharing with them about how I gave my life the Lord.

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Pretty soon I start traveling around and speaking.

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And that's what I'm doing full-Time for a job all of a sudden.

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I'm traveling around doing youth revivals we used to call them.

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And but the Lord spoke to me very, very clearly and said,

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"I don't want you to -- you say from now on, when they say,

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'What are your financial requirements for coming?'

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you say, 'I have no financial requirements for coming.

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You don't even have to pay my expenses.'"

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And I remember this guy said when I said that to him,

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the pastor of a small church said, "Well, that's good,

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because I'm not even sure we could pay your gas."

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On the way up there, I stop and get gas.

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I walk in to pay for it and the lady said it's taken care of.

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And I said, 'What do you mean, it's taken care of?"

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She said, "Well, I own the gas station

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and God told me to fill your car up with gas."

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And the guy said like we can't even afford the gas, you know?

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So anyway, I go to this small church to preach.

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And I tell him, you don't have to give me anything.

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But he gets up and says, "He told me this.

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Nobody's ever told me that.

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Let's give him an offering."

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And that was the only meeting I had for the whole month

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and we had no other income.

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If a church gave an offering or an honorarium, that's how we lived.

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And so I go, but I don't require anything.

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And so they bring him the amount.

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They bring him the check at the end of the service to give to me.

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And he says, "Look at this.

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Look at this.

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This is -- this is the most we've ever given."

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And I looked down and it's enough for our whole month.

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And it's the only meaning I have that month.

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So God is teaching me if you do it My way, I'll take care of it.

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So I look at it and I think, Lord, that's great.

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And while this pastor is talking to me, I look over his shoulder

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like I'm kind of looking over your shoulder now.

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And at the back of the church was this missionary

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that gave a report right before I spoke.

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And this voice said to me, give him the check.

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And I remember exactly what I thought, "Get me behind me, Satan.

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You know, that's the devil. That's not God.

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That's not you. God," you know.

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But I couldn't get away from it.

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So I endorsed the check, waited till everyone was gone.

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Went up, gave the missionary the check.

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Said, "Don't look at it until after you leave,"

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because a very large amount.

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And said, "But God told me to do this."

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We walk outside and there's this guy standing there

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and he said, "Hey, we're going to go get some pizza.

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Do ya'll want to come."

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And we said, yeah, because, you know, we were broke.

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So if someone's buying pizza, we're in.

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And so we go and we're sitting at the table and there's six guys, six ladies.

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All of a sudden, these four guys decide to start talking.

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The guy right across the table from me about this far

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says to me, "How much was the offering?"

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Just like that.

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And so I told him the amount.

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And then he said, "Where's the check?"

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And I know you're not supposed to lie,

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but I didn't want to say we gave it away, you know, and brag.

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So I said, "Debbie has it."

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And he said, "Go get it. I want to see it."

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So I went down to Debbie and I just bent down.

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I said, "How's your pizza? Is it good?"

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You know, because there's no check.

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So I go back to him and again, I lied again.

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I said, it's in the car.

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And the guy said, "It's not in the car."

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And so I said, "Well, where is it?

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Since you're so smart, you know."

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And he said, "You gave it away, didn't you?"

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And I said, "Did you see me give it away?"

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He said, "No." I said, "How do you know I gave it away?"

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He said, "God told me."

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And in the Bible there is a gift, seven spiritual gifts in Romans 12,

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seven what we call motivational gifts, they motivate us.

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One of them's giving.

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So probably one out of seven people listening right now

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have a gift of giving. They'd love to give.

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If someone would just teach them how to give.

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This was the first guy I ever met with the gift of giving.

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And so he reached in his pocket and pulled out a check

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made out to our ministry.

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He held it out.

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It was exactly ten times the amount of the check we just given away.

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And the check we had given away had dollars and cents.

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It was not around amount.

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And the check he had had dollars and cents, exactly 10 times the amount.

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- He had previously written it out?

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- He wrote it out before he came to church because God told him to.

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- So God, at that moment I remember God saying,

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"Son, you can never out give Me and you just obey Me,

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when I tell you to give you give.

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I'll take care of the rest."

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- Yeah, yeah, that's great.

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- The Blessed Life, by the way, is the zone where you and I

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can see and sense God's presence and power in our lives.

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And I want to be very clear from the beginning,

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The Blessed Life is not the problem-free life.

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It's not.

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Jesus actually said: in this world you will have trouble.

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But the question is, would you rather

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go through that trouble with the blessings of God

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or without the blessings of God?

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We're talking about The Blessed Life.

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Now, how do you get The Blessed Life?

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Well said very simply, God, when you give God your heart,

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He gives you The Blessed Life.

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It's kind of how it works.

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And if you want to know who has your heart,

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you look at who has your money.

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Jesus said this in Matthew 6:21, He said:

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It will be, not might be, but will be.

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That's why we're talking about money.

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And I'll just say up front, I know it's weird when a church talks about money.

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I know it's -- I know it's strange.

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I totally, totally get that.

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And if you feel that way, that is OK.

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I'm glad you're with us.

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Just hang just hang with me.

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But we know this.

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We're so convinced that this is true.

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This is the way that it works,

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that God will give you The Blessed Life

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that we've actually invented a money back guarantee of sorts.

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In week two of the series,

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we launched something called the 90 day tithe test.

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And we just said, "Hey, if you'll try tithing, the baseline of giving,

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if you'll do it will just try giving 10% of your gross income to your local church.

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If after 90 days you have not experienced the blessing of God,

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just tell us and we'll give all your money back.

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We'll give it back. It's amazing.

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By the way, if you want to sign up for that,

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if you feel small prompting like Robert Morris and Brian talked about,

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if you feel that today you can still do it.

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You can go to Crossroads.net/tithetest.

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So, you know, you'll be joining hundreds and hundreds

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and hundreds of other people who've already signed up

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and are experiencing amazing things.

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More things than I could ever share with you up here.

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But I do want to read just one story.

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I found this just incredible.

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This is from a guy who started the tithe test.

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He said, "My fiancee and I had been thinking about doing a tithe test.

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We did the math and figured it would cost us

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about $12,000 between now and when our wedding is next October,

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which will end up being close to that amount, $12000.

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I decided I would talk to Matt Castleman, West Side community pastor.

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Our meeting went really well and I came to the conclusion

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that God laid this on our heart for a reason

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and we should follow through.

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Literally, no sooner had I got up from the chair in Matt's office

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then my fiancee texted me and said,

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'Hey, I just want to let you know my work has decided

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to give me a $12000 bonus.'".

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He says, "Are you freaking kidding me?"

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That's his quote, not mine.

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"I was blown away. I know God was confirming our decision.

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To be clear, we weren't giving to receive,

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but God sure does seem to show up in ways we never expect when we do."

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It's an amazing, it's incredible

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Listen, I want you to know if you sign up,

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it doesn't always work that way.

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It's not always that fast.

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Sometimes it actually gets harder, I want to warn you.

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Sometimes it gets harder.

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But it is always, always worth it in the end.

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I promise it's worth it in the end.

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See, for me, this topic, this series, this message

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I'm about to share with you is deeply, deeply personal,

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because if you were to find me on the street and to say,

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"Hey, Kyle, why do you believe God is real?

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What's the foundational evidence of your life

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that leads you to believe He's actually real?"

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You know what I'd talk about?

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I'd talk about what I've experienced of Him,

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the ways He's blessed me when I've been generous.

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It's just my story.

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Today, we're gonna spend our time asking one question.

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I'm gonna make this assumption about you, by the way,

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that if you're listening, you'd like more of God.

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That if there's a thing called The Blessed Life, you would like it.

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You want more of Him.

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And if that's true, then there's one critical,

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simple but critical question you and I must ask ourselves.

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And the question is this: Am I generous?

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To start to answer that question, I just want to pray

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and invite God in the conversation.

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So would you pray with me?

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God, that's a big question and it's one we need Your help answering.

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I ask that you would open up all of our hearts,

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that we'd be open minded and open hearted today.

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That if there's more of You, we would get it,

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that you'd give us each The Blessed Life.

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Amen.

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Am I generous?

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Now, that is intentionally in the first person.

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It's not are you generous?

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It's am I generous?

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So that when I say it, I am asking myself.

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And when you say it, you are asking yourself.

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And I mean that I'm still asking myself this question: am I generous?

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Because the truth is, sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not.

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Just two days ago, I was out with some buddies.

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We were drinking beers and God gives me this small prompting.

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I go to get my second beer and my buddy's in line behind me.

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And I feel like this small little prompting in my head says buy his beer.

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Now, I know I'm about to talk to all of you people in two days about generosity.

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And, you know, I think in my head,

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"Like I don't want to buy his beer.

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That guy makes way more money than me.

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And God, he wants a $9 beer.

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That is sinful. It's ridiculous."

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I still battle this.

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A cool story by the way, the keg blew

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and so he got a $5 beer, which helped a lot.

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And, you know, helped in the decision making a little bit there if I'm honest.

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There's no question.

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Am I generous?

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Now to help us answer this we're going to spend a lot of time

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examining one particular powerful story in the Bible.

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I spent a lot of time on this in preparation for this message,

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maybe more than any other story in the whole Bible.

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It's an amazing story because I think I'm in the story.

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And I want to suggest something to you, I think you're in this story, too.

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Now, on the surface, there's only five characters in the story.

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It's a simple scene with five characters.

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There's Jesus, there's Judas.

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Yes, that Judas, the one who would betray Jesus.

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And then these three siblings.

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There's Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha.

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That's what's in this story.

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And you got to know, this happens exactly six days before Jesus is killed.

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It comes from John 12, it says this:

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It's like a perfume.

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That's a year's wages.

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You know, just why wasn't this sold and given to the poor?

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You knew Judas was bad.

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Did you know, he stole from the money box?

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He stole from the offering.

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Now there's two important questions to ask about the story.

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One, why would Mary give such an extravagant gift?

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And two, why did it make Judas so upset?

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We need the answers to those questions

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to answer our question: Am I generous?

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Now, I want you to notice there are two hearts on display here.

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There's the heart of generosity in Mary.

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And there's the heart of selfishness in Judas.

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And these hearts are opposed to each other.

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This is because generosity has an enemy.

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The enemy of generosity is selfishness.

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They're in conflict with each other.

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Now this question: Am I generous?

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I think everybody in here wants to be generous.

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Right?

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I want to be generous.

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I do. I want to be generous.

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Sometimes the moment comes and I, ugh, get a little bit.

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But overall, I want to be generous.

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I don't want to be a selfish person.

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I think you're the same.

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But the problem is we are each born selfish.

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We're not born generous, we're born selfish.

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Brian talked about this in week one.

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You know, a child's first word is mine, isn't it?

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You don't have to teach them how to be selfish, they just say mine, mine.

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And Brian said that like 100 times about that level.

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It was just it was awful.

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When he said it, I immediately flashed the scene in my house

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because I have small kids and I just went to this scene

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that happens all the time.

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I'll be sitting on my couch watching college football or whatever,

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and I'll hear that sound, "Mine."

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When it happens, it's like someone poured ice water straight down my spine.

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I'm just like (sound effect).

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And it gets me up and I have to go find that sound.

00:29:27

And when I do, usually what I find is this.

00:29:29

I find my five year old daughter, Gracie,

00:29:31

and she's holding a Lego that belongs to her older brother, Ben, who's 9.

00:29:35

And she's saying, "It's mine."

00:29:37

And he's saying, "No, it's mine."

00:29:39

And when I walk in the room, Ben's excited because he wants justice.

00:29:45

And here I come.

00:29:46

Unfortunately for him, I want quiet.

00:29:50

That's what I want.

00:29:51

So what I do is I just say, "I don't care who it was

00:29:54

because you know whose it is now? It's mine.

00:29:56

Bye bye. Have a good time.

00:29:57

Figure it out. See ya."

00:29:59

I don't know if that's good parenting advice, bad parenting advice.

00:30:02

I'm just telling you what I do there, just end it.

00:30:05

It's mine.

00:30:07

Now God says mine when he talks about the tithe.

00:30:13

He says, "It's mine," the first 10% of your income, He says, "It's mine."

00:30:18

Now, let me ask you a question.

00:30:20

This is never -- this is totally hypothetical, never happened before.

00:30:23

But imagine with me the glorious moment that would happen

00:30:26

if I went to my children and in this moment,

00:30:29

Gracie says, "It's mine." And Ben says, "No, it's mine."

00:30:31

And she goes, "(gafaws) Amazing, but dearest brother, I did not know.

00:30:36

Here have you Lego back."

00:30:39

Just imagine with me that happy moment, let's pretend that happened.

00:30:41

OK?

00:30:42

My question for you is this, go with me here for a second.

00:30:46

If she were to do that, would Gracie be generous?

00:30:51

No, she wouldn't be.

00:30:53

For very simple reasons, see, you can't give what's not yours to begin with.

00:30:59

You can return it.

00:31:01

You know, she should give it back to Ben.

00:31:03

She could return it to him.

00:31:04

"Here's what's yours."

00:31:05

And Ben may even, go with me, bless her with a thank you.

00:31:09

But that's different than generosity.

00:31:13

Am I generous?

00:31:16

See, generosity is what I choose to do with what is truly mine.

00:31:23

Now in the story, Judas is holding the money box.

00:31:25

You know, he's holding the money box.

00:31:26

And what's amazing is that he actually attempts to appear generous.

00:31:33

Did you see it in the story? She pours out the oil.

00:31:36

She does this amazing thing of extravagance.

00:31:38

And Judas is standing there and he goes, "That's a waste.

00:31:42

What a waste, that should've been given to the poor.

00:31:44

It should've been given to the poor."

00:31:45

You've never said that?

00:31:49

You ever heard somebody say, you ever said it yourself?

00:31:51

I have. I actually said it the very first time I ever walked into Crossroads.

00:31:57

It was 2002.

00:31:59

My parents brought me.

00:32:00

And you've got to understand,

00:32:01

back then TVs were basically perfect cubes stuffed full of anvils.

00:32:05

They weighed like a thousand pounds.

00:32:07

They were awful to move.

00:32:08

But I walk in the Crossroads and I see something

00:32:11

I've only seen pictures of and never seen in real life,

00:32:14

flat screen TVs. There were six, I counted.

00:32:17

They are expensive.

00:32:19

And I said to my parents, "What a waste.

00:32:23

That money should've been given to the poor."

00:32:26

I did not know I was quoting Judas.

00:32:28

I didn't. But I was.

00:32:30

Now at that point in my life, do you know how much money I was giving?

00:32:37

None. Nothing.

00:32:39

But see, if you had to ask me this question, are you generous?

00:32:43

I would've said, "Yeah.

00:32:45

Yeah, I'm generous.

00:32:46

I think about generous things.

00:32:48

I do.

00:32:49

I think I'm a generous minded person."

00:32:52

The problem is when it comes this question, Am I generous?

00:32:55

We can't answer it for ourselves because our heart is deceitful.

00:33:00

Jeremiah 17:9, says:.

00:33:07

See our heart plays tricks on us.

00:33:09

It uses -- objections like that should have be sold and given to the poor

00:33:14

as smokescreens so we don't point the finger at ourselves.

00:33:16

You point the finger at other people and their extravagance.

00:33:19

Right?

00:33:20

And extravagance, by the way, is just the person who has more than me.

00:33:23

That's who's extravagant, because see I only have what I need.

00:33:26

That's all I keep, just what I need.

00:33:28

Them, they have more than me.

00:33:29

That's more than is necessary.

00:33:31

That's extravagant. Shame on them.

00:33:33

That's the way that this works.

00:33:35

Our hearts deceive us so we don't see our own selfishness.

00:33:40

Now I told you this, Judas is holding the moneybox, which is the offering box.

00:33:44

It's very clear from scripture that Jesus received offerings from people.

00:33:48

So people gave money to Jesus.

00:33:50

Jesus put it in a box.

00:33:52

And He handed the box to Judas.

00:33:55

You go, "Are you sure it was Jesus who handed the box to Judas?".

00:33:58

Well, yeah, he's in charge.

00:34:01

People gave him the money, so yeah, He handed it to Judas.

00:34:05

OK, but do you think Jesus knew that Judas was a thief?

00:34:12

Yeah, of course He did. It's actually recorded in the Bible.

00:34:15

Two years earlier Jesus says, "Did I not choose you twelve.

00:34:20

And one of you is a devil."

00:34:22

He knew. He knew.

00:34:25

So the question is: why would Jesus put his money

00:34:29

in the arms of a thief, who he knew to be a thief?

00:34:34

Well, listen, He was not trying to tempt him in hopes he would fail.

00:34:42

He was giving him a test in hopes he would pass.

00:34:47

See the Bible says God tempts no one.

00:34:49

James says that very clearly. God tempts no one.

00:34:51

But do you know He will test you and Jeremiah

00:34:55

right after he says your heart is deceitful, it can't give you the answer.

00:34:59

The very next verse, he says, I test the heart.

00:35:05

I test the heart.

00:35:06

See, God says He wants to test us.

00:35:08

He'll test us and our finances to get an answer to this question.

00:35:11

Now, I want you to think about this for a minute.

00:35:15

You and I are in this story.

00:35:18

Think about this.

00:35:19

Do you know Jesus, according to the Bible, has also given us His money box.

00:35:28

He's put it in our hands.

00:35:31

And similarly, I don't think it's because he's trying to tempt us

00:35:34

in hopes it will fail. I don't think so.

00:35:36

I think He's giving us a test and hopes we will pass.

00:35:41

That's His greatest, greatest hope.

00:35:43

He's put what's His in our hands and hopes that we will pass.

00:35:46

I'm going to read a scripture from Malachi.

00:35:49

And I want to warn you, this is gonna sting in the beginning.

00:35:51

It starts out very stingy, very stingy.

00:35:54

But hang with it. Don't give up on it because

00:35:56

you get the blessing, you get the heart of God at the end.

00:35:59

I want us to see this. This is Malachi 3, it says:.

00:36:21

Test me in this.

00:36:35

Hear me clearly in this message.

00:36:37

I'm not trying to condemn you.

00:36:38

I'm where you are.

00:36:39

I've been where you are and I am where you are.

00:36:41

I'm not trying to condemn you.

00:36:43

There's a difference between conviction and condemnation.

00:36:46

God will convict, but He doesn't condemn.

00:36:48

Even in this situation, see, He doesn't say,

00:36:52

"You are robbing me. Therefore, I condemn you.

00:36:53

You're done. Wham, gone."

00:36:55

He doesn't say that.

00:36:57

He says, "You're stealing from me, therefore I'm going to entice you."

00:37:01

He says, "You know what? I'm giving you a test,

00:37:03

but I'm going to flip it around.

00:37:04

You test me and see if I don't throw open the floodgates of heaven,

00:37:09

throw down so much blessing. See if I don't give you The Blessed Life."

00:37:14

There was a moment in my life, see, I had to come to,

00:37:18

say I'm in this story and I'm Judas right now.

00:37:22

I'm holding the money box.

00:37:23

I'm refusing to let it go.

00:37:25

I'm taking what's not mined from it.

00:37:27

And I had to humbly say that's not who I want to be, and change.

00:37:31

And so I did. I started to give, started to tithe

00:37:35

for the very first time, 10% gross income to my local church.

00:37:38

And can I tell you, it was hard.

00:37:41

I didn't have the story

00:37:42

where I just started farting gold dust everywhere immediately.

00:37:45

Whoo, money.

00:37:46

That didn't happen to me.

00:37:49

I didn't get $12,000 out of the sky.

00:37:50

It was hard.

00:37:52

I had to live with my parents to do it, I was 24 years old.

00:37:55

But I did it anyway, and I've never, ever regretted it, ever.

00:38:00

This message is personal because the foundation of my faith

00:38:03

is what's happened to me since I've stepped out and tested God.

00:38:06

He's shown himself to be real, like, really real,

00:38:09

like practically real and helpful.

00:38:11

It's amazing. It's utterly amazing.

00:38:16

The decision wasn't -- It wasn't easy.

00:38:20

It was hard.

00:38:21

But listen, it was very, very simple.

00:38:24

See, I just decided I would rather pass the test

00:38:29

than I wanted anything else.

00:38:30

That's just the thing that I wanted the absolute most.

00:38:33

I didn't want to be Judas. I wanted to be Mary.

00:38:36

See, we're all born in the same condition, selfish heart of Judas.

00:38:39

But we have a choice to make. We don't have to stay there.

00:38:41

We can grow into a generous heart, the heart of Mary.

00:38:45

Because in this story there is the deceptive,

00:38:48

deceitful heart of selfishness in Judas.

00:38:50

And there's also the extravagant heart of generosity in Mary.

00:38:54

The extravagant heart, because a generous heart is an extravagant heart.

00:39:00

Always. A generous heart is always an extravagant heart,

00:39:03

because God is generous, extravagantly generous.

00:39:08

It says He gave extravagantly.

00:39:10

He gave His only Son.

00:39:13

That's extravagant.

00:39:14

The Bible is full of people who've responded to that in extravagance.

00:39:17

Old Testament, New Testament.

00:39:19

In the Old Testament, King David gives in today's terms

00:39:23

21 billion dollars, billion with a B,

00:39:27

to build the first temple, an extravagant gift.

00:39:30

Do you know there's an even more extravagant gift in the Bible?

00:39:34

There's a moment where Jesus sees a widow.

00:39:37

She gives two mites.

00:39:40

Her very last two pennies.

00:39:41

And He goes, "Whoa, everybody stop and look at that.

00:39:44

That is amazing."

00:39:47

Extravagance is not about the amount, see,

00:39:49

it's about the heart behind the amount.

00:39:51

That's what makes it extravagant.

00:39:54

That said, it's not about the money.

00:39:57

But that said, can we all look at Mary's generous gift,

00:40:00

a year's wages and say, that's extravagant.

00:40:02

If you gave a year's wages in a lump sum

00:40:05

would that feel extravagant to you?

00:40:06

Yeah, right.

00:40:08

That's what she gives. She gives an extravagant gift.

00:40:12

Now it's Christmas time, I don't know if you noticed that yet.

00:40:15

It is Christmas time. I know it's not Thanksgiving yet.

00:40:18

But listen, Target already mailed their stupid Christmas catalogue

00:40:21

to my house and my kids found it.

00:40:23

It is Christmas time. OK?

00:40:24

And my kids, prior to this year,

00:40:27

they didn't know about extravagant gifts.

00:40:29

And it was awesome.

00:40:31

Awesome.

00:40:32

If you have small kids, don't buy them anything more than $10.

00:40:35

You are wasting your money.

00:40:37

Like you could literally just give them an empty cardboard box.

00:40:40

Wrap it in wrapping paper, they'll open it.

00:40:41

They'll be thrilled.

00:40:42

They'l color on it. They'll sit in.

00:40:44

Pretend it's a race car.

00:40:45

You know, stand on top of it.

00:40:46

Hit the brother with it, whatever.

00:40:48

It will be great.

00:40:50

It doesn't last forever thought.

00:40:52

No one told me.

00:40:53

Because this year the dark cloud of the knowledge

00:40:58

of extravagant gifts has descended on my house.

00:41:03

And my kids want expensive crap and it sucks.

00:41:07

They want this thing, it's called a Nintendo Switch.

00:41:10

Anybody every heard of this thing?

00:41:11

Ever heard of it?

00:41:12

It does apparently all kinds of cool stuff.

00:41:14

I don't know all of what it does,

00:41:15

but I know it does this one amazing thing:

00:41:17

It is a vacuum cleaner for money.

00:41:20

Like just (sound effect)

00:41:22

If you have money, it will find it and suck it straight up.

00:41:25

It's three hundred bucks.

00:41:26

It doesn't come with enough controllers, so you've got to buy more.

00:41:28

That's another hundred bucks.

00:41:29

It's got a million games that are sixty dollars a piece.

00:41:32

It's awful. It's terrible.

00:41:34

When my kids open on Christmas morning and they go, "Look what Santa brought us."

00:41:39

I'm going to be like, "Santa didn't buy you that.

00:41:41

That old geezer's cheap.

00:41:43

Dear old dad bought you that.

00:41:44

You better thank me, put me in a good home when I'm old, you know?"

00:41:49

But here's the thing, I'm going to buy that for them.

00:41:52

I will. Please don't tell them.

00:41:55

Do you know why, by the way?

00:41:57

Because it's fun to give gifts that impress our kids, isn't it?

00:42:01

It's just fun to give gifts that are impressive.

00:42:05

So what about God?

00:42:08

Could you ever give God a gift that would impress Him?

00:42:14

I'm talking about God, by the way, the God who says,

00:42:16

"The earth and all of its fullness, that's mine.".

00:42:20

The God who said, "The cattle on a thousand hills, I own them.

00:42:23

I'm the world's best rancher."

00:42:25

The God who says, "In my city where I live, heaven,

00:42:27

I paved the streets with gold.

00:42:29

I just have so much of it.

00:42:30

I know what to do with it. Just pave the streets, I guess."

00:42:33

The Bible actually says underneath those streets, by the way,

00:42:36

the gravel that the street sits on, it's 12 layers of precious gems.

00:42:42

It also says it's 1280 miles deep of precious gems.

00:42:47

So what about Him? Could you give God a gift that would impress Him?

00:42:54

The answer is yes, absolutely you can.

00:42:57

You can give them yourself.2

00:42:59

2 Corinthians says:

00:43:04

Scripture says: God jumps up and twirls around when you give yourself to Him.

00:43:08

He's so excited when he has your heart.

00:43:10

He's so excited.

00:43:12

But listen. Listen, I just want to tell you.

00:43:16

Don't try to tell Him He has your heart if He doesn't have your treasure.

00:43:22

Don't try and tell Him that, because He said

00:43:23

where your treasurer is, that's where your heart is.

00:43:27

See, God doesn't need your treasurer.

00:43:29

He's doing fine. He's good.

00:43:32

He can pay the light bill in heaven.

00:43:33

It's amazing. He's fine.

00:43:34

He doesn't need your treasurer.

00:43:36

He wants your heart.

00:43:37

And He knows when you give Him your treasure, He gets your heart.

00:43:42

He gets your heart. It's the thing He wants the absolute most.

00:43:46

It's the power of giving.

00:43:48

Now, there are three levels of giving in scripture.

00:43:52

I want you to see this, Malakai hints at this,

00:43:55

talks about tithes, plural, and offerings, plural.

00:43:58

The first level of giving is tithing.

00:44:00

It's the place to start and it's plural, tithes,

00:44:03

because it's something you do again and again.

00:44:05

Every time you get paid, you give God the first 10% of it.

00:44:09

That's what He says is mine.

00:44:11

And then there's offerings.

00:44:12

Offerings are also plural.

00:44:13

The easiest way to think about this is

00:44:15

that there's kind of two levels of offerings.

00:44:17

There's normal offerings and there's extravagant offerings.

00:44:21

Normal offerings are things you might do on a continual basis.

00:44:24

An extravagant offering is something that

00:44:26

God might call you to do a few times in your life.

00:44:29

I actually believe it's something He calls

00:44:31

everybody whose heart He has to a few times in their life.

00:44:35

See, when God gets your heart, when you get to that first level of giving,

00:44:39

you get to the second and the third

00:44:40

because He breaks the curse over your finances.

00:44:43

He blesses you.

00:44:44

What happens when that happens is that you want to be so grateful

00:44:46

that you'll actually return to Him and go above and beyond.

00:44:50

See, for my wife and I offerings that look like many different things.

00:44:53

One of the things it's looked like is not stopping at 10%.

00:44:57

We've gone above and beyond 10% for years now.

00:45:00

We regularly increase the total percent of our income that we give away.

00:45:04

And here's the thing I want you to know.

00:45:06

We don't do that because God asked us.

00:45:09

We never heard a small prompt to say do that.

00:45:13

In the story there's no record that Jesus ever said,

00:45:16

"Hey, Mary. I'd like that perfume."

00:45:20

She just gave it out of a heart of gratitude.

00:45:23

She just gave it.

00:45:25

We've done that.

00:45:26

Now God has asked us, prompted us a few times in our lives

00:45:29

for extravagant offerings.

00:45:31

Again, it's not about the amount, it's about does it feel extravagant?

00:45:34

Which is another way to say, "Does it feel painful?"

00:45:37

When God asks you for it does it feel like,

00:45:39

oh, jeez, I don't want to do that?

00:45:42

That's an extravagant offering.

00:45:44

The first one was years and years ago.

00:45:47

We felt like God prompted us to give $500

00:45:50

to friends of ours who were getting married.

00:45:51

They we're paying for their entire wedding themselves

00:45:54

and couldn't afford invitations.

00:45:55

So we thought God said, "Hey, I want you to give them $500.

00:45:57

That'll cover their invitations."

00:45:59

Now, these were friends we met at Crossroads.

00:46:01

They weren't great friends.

00:46:02

We didn't even go to the wedding, by the way.

00:46:05

But could I tell you something amazing?

00:46:07

Those friends almost 15 years later

00:46:10

are some of our very best friends in the entire world.

00:46:13

We are so close with them our kids call them aunt and uncle.

00:46:18

Amazing. See God got rewarded $500 with 15 years of friendship.

00:46:26

That's incredible.

00:46:28

Another time God asks for an extravagant offering was 2015.

00:46:32

And He upped the stakes on us a little bit,

00:46:34

extravagant was a different thing for us at this point.

00:46:37

And we felt like he said,

00:46:39

"I would like you to give Me the majority of a year's salary."

00:46:43

We're a single income family, by the way.

00:46:46

And I'd love to tell you that we felt that from God

00:46:49

and Sarah and I went, "Yes, God.

00:46:51

Cool, we're in.

00:46:52

All right. Where do we cut the check?"

00:46:53

You know? That's not what happened.

00:46:56

Instead it was like, "Oh, jeez, man, we probably heard that wrong."

00:47:03

So we sat on it for days, days and days.

00:47:08

We finally came to this conclusion, we just said,

00:47:10

"You know, God has been so good to us.

00:47:13

Every time we've stepped out, He has met us.

00:47:16

He's given us far more than we've given away, far more."

00:47:20

So we said, "Of course, God, yes.

00:47:23

If that's what You want from us, our answer is yes."

00:47:28

So we did it, it took us a few years to pay off, by the way.

00:47:31

In those few years some incredible things happened.

00:47:33

See, when we gave that money away, we thought we were giving up on some things.

00:47:37

One of the things we thought were giving up was a vacation to Hawaii.

00:47:40

We had always wanted to go.

00:47:41

We hoped to go for our honeymoon, we couldn't afford.

00:47:43

Went somewhere else, and we thought this is the time we're going to go.

00:47:45

Then we give this money away, gone.

00:47:48

Do you know in the time we were paying that off,

00:47:50

somebody offered us a free trip to Hawaii?

00:47:54

They didn't -- we hadn't told anybody this was a dream of ours.

00:47:56

They just came up out of the blue and said,

00:47:57

"Would you like to go to Hawaii? I'll pay for it."

00:47:59

We're like, "Yes, yes, we would.

00:48:02

Whenever, we're in."

00:48:04

It's amazing the blessing of God.

00:48:07

Could I tell you one of the reasons it was so painful

00:48:09

is because we have three kids

00:48:11

and we hoped to be able to help them with college.

00:48:13

We may never be able to pay for all their tuition.

00:48:15

We just hope to be able to help.

00:48:17

And we -- when this started,

00:48:19

we had zero dollars in college savings for our kids.

00:48:22

Right?

00:48:23

And so giving this money away was like, "Oh, God.

00:48:25

OK.

00:48:26

Are you sure? OK, we're gonna trust you."

00:48:29

Can I tell you, by the end of the time we were done paying that off,

00:48:32

by that time, we paid it off we had a year's tuition in the bank.

00:48:38

I can't explain how that happened other than God blessed us, He blessed us.

00:48:44

See if God's prompting you to give extravagantly just to say yes.

00:48:50

You'll be so grateful you did.

00:48:52

You'll be so grateful.

00:48:53

You will never regret it.

00:48:54

You'll look back on that for the rest of your life

00:48:57

in thankfulness and gratitude that God gave you that opportunity

00:49:01

because you know Him better. You know Him better.

00:49:03

Your faith will be stronger.

00:49:05

He will absolutely show up, bless you and reward you.

00:49:09

That's what He does.

00:49:11

Now let's talk about Mary.

00:49:14

Why would Mary give her extravagant gift?

00:49:18

Why would she do that?

00:49:20

Well, the answer is pretty simple.

00:49:23

See two months before this scene,

00:49:26

Jesus raise her brother Lazarus from the dead.

00:49:32

Raised him from the dead.

00:49:34

And so she is grateful to Him, she is grateful to Him.

00:49:38

The story actually says that, this is John 11, one chapter before.

00:49:43

It says, Jesus, He was out of town when Lazarus died, by the way.

00:49:46

And so Lazarus was dead for four days when Jesus showed up.

00:49:49

He was dead for four days, dead, dead.

00:49:51

And Jesus starts walking up and Mary goes out

00:49:53

and she meets Him on the road.

00:49:55

And it says that she fell at His feet and just started weeping.

00:50:00

She just covers His feet and tears, just everywhere.

00:50:05

It says Jesus had compassion on her,

00:50:09

went and raised her brother from the dead.

00:50:12

So it's logical, two months later, the next time she sees Jesus,

00:50:18

she does the same thing. She gets down.

00:50:20

And rather than covering his feet in tears of grief,

00:50:24

she covers them in an amazing act of generosity,

00:50:28

out of a heart of gratitude.

00:50:30

See, a generous heart is always a grateful heart.

00:50:34

It always is. Always.

00:50:37

I want to ask you if one of your family members was raised from the dead,

00:50:43

would that change how you thought about giving the God?

00:50:46

Would it change it?

00:50:49

I just want to remind you, for all of you who believe in Jesus,

00:50:53

He's raised you from the dead.

00:50:55

Ephisians 2:1 says it this way, it says:

00:51:04

You were dead, He raised you to life.

00:51:06

Now I have this theory I can't prove.

00:51:10

I've just been thinking about

00:51:11

why did Mary have such an expensive jar of perfume?

00:51:16

Why did she have this in the first place?

00:51:18

Why would she have bought it?

00:51:19

What we know about this is that it was used for burial.

00:51:22

It's very clear in scripture.

00:51:23

This was something you would put onto a dead body

00:51:25

so it didn't stink so much.

00:51:27

We also know about Mary is that two months earlier,

00:51:30

her brother Lazarus had died.

00:51:34

And see I think in those four days, she and her grief,

00:51:37

she was so sad in her grief, she went out

00:51:40

and spent a year's salary on perfume to pour on her dead brother.

00:51:46

Think about this now.

00:51:48

Literally, she was going to pour it on a body

00:51:51

that was going to decay and turn into dust.

00:51:55

And instead, two months later, she takes that same year's salary

00:52:00

and she pours it on the feet of Jesus.

00:52:04

The only thing on earth that was full of life.

00:52:11

The only thing, the only thing that would ever beat death,

00:52:15

the feet of Jesus.

00:52:16

Now I've poured plenty of things, within a year's salary,\

00:52:21

on plenty of things that are gonna turn into dust.

00:52:23

I have. You have. There's nothing wrong with that.

00:52:25

Sometimes you have to, you've got to buy a house, right?

00:52:28

Things like that.

00:52:29

What about pouring a year's salary on something

00:52:33

that will last forever, not perish, like your house,

00:52:37

turn and dust rots someday, last forever.

00:52:39

It's extravagant.

00:52:40

And again, it's not about the amount.

00:52:42

It's about the heart behind it.

00:52:45

See, when when Jesus -- Mary does this for Jesus.

00:52:47

He's so excited because He knows He has her heart.

00:52:53

And then guess what he does? He rewards her.

00:52:57

See God always rewards generosity.

00:53:00

Did you know that?

00:53:01

Selfishness is when you give to get.

00:53:03

I'm not talking about that.

00:53:04

I'm talking about generosity.

00:53:05

When you give out of a heart of gratitude

00:53:07

to get nothing in return, God always rewards that.

00:53:11

It's amazing. This story also appears in Matthew and Mark.

00:53:14

And Mark adds this one detail, after she pours the oil on Jesus's feet,

00:53:18

Jesus says:

00:53:26

Like right here, right now.

00:53:35

He rewards her.

00:53:37

He rewards her.

00:53:38

She didn't come to get rewarded, but he rewards her.

00:53:41

Think about this, in this one scene are

00:53:44

the most infamously selfish person in human history, Judas,

00:53:47

who sells his friend Jesus for 30 pieces of silver

00:53:50

and Mary, the only person God's ever said,

00:53:54

"You, I'm going to make you world famous for generosity."

00:53:59

Judas and Mary.

00:54:00

Am I generous?

00:54:04

Am I generous?

00:54:05

She was rewarded.

00:54:08

That might seem like a strange thing to you.

00:54:09

But here's the deal, God is a rewarder.

00:54:12

Hebrews 11:6 says it this way:

00:54:15

"But without faith" -- that stepping into the test --

00:54:28

He is a rewarder, see being a rewarder,

00:54:32

it's not an option for God because it's something He is.

00:54:36

It's just like God can't lie because He is truth.

00:54:40

God can't ignore generosity because He is a rewarder, He always rewards it.

00:54:46

But here's the deal.

00:54:47

The best rewards that God gives aren't financial.

00:54:51

They are true riches.

00:54:54

I told you a couple of the things that God rewarded us with

00:54:57

when we gave the last time extravagantly, a trip to Hawaii, money.

00:55:01

It was amazing.

00:55:02

Can I tell you, those weren't the reward for me.

00:55:06

See, true riches are is a true reward because

00:55:08

true riches are things you could never buy

00:55:10

no matter how much money you have, it's things that only God can do.

00:55:15

Like heal and save your friends and family who are lost.

00:55:19

Only God can do that.

00:55:20

When we were paying off that extravagant gift,

00:55:24

both my boys came to me separately on their own and said,

00:55:28

"Daddy, we want to get baptized."

00:55:31

Now, I know I'm a pastor, but you gotta believe me,

00:55:34

I did not make that happen.

00:55:36

That was not my doing.

00:55:37

I wasn't some amazing father who led to that.

00:55:39

No. God did that.

00:55:42

And when they came to me, I didn't lower the bar.

00:55:45

I actually raised the bar.

00:55:46

When my son Ben came, he said that, "Daddy, I want to get baptized."

00:55:50

And I said, "OK, son. That's great.

00:55:52

Do you know that means that you will give God your whole heart?"

00:55:56

"Yes, Daddy, I do."

00:55:58

"Do you know that that means you'll do whatever He says?"

00:56:00

"Yes, Daddy."

00:56:02

"OK. Let me just make this a little more tactile for you, Ben.

00:56:05

If God says He wants you to give away all your toys, would you do it?"

00:56:10

"Yes, Daddy, I would.

00:56:12

I want to follow him forever.

00:56:13

I want him to have my whole heart."

00:56:16

And on November 19th, 2017, I got to baptize both my boys.

00:56:22

They gave their whole hearts to God.

00:56:25

Amazing?

00:56:27

That's the reward. [applause] That's a reward.

00:56:32

I was preparing for this message

00:56:34

and I knew I wanted a box to hold and something to pour in.

00:56:40

I remembered, see I had made boxes for my kids.

00:56:43

This one belongs to Ben.

00:56:44

And I said a couple of years ago, "Here's a box.

00:56:47

You can put your special things in here.

00:56:49

Put the most special things in this box."

00:56:51

And so I just needed a box to hold as a prop.

00:56:54

And so I went to Ben's closet, I found this on the shelf.

00:56:56

I opened it up.

00:56:58

And this was the only thing inside.

00:57:01

Do you know what this is? This is baptism water.

00:57:05

And he walked in the room and there I am holding his box

00:57:07

and I said, "Buddy, this is the only thing in here.

00:57:11

What is this?"

00:57:13

He said, "That's special.

00:57:17

That's from my baptism when I gave God my whole life."

00:57:21

That's a reward. That's a reward.

00:57:24

God can't wait to reward you.

00:57:28

He can't wait.

00:57:31

I want you to take a moment with me here as we wrap up

00:57:35

before you get up, before you run out.

00:57:36

Just take a moment.

00:57:37

Just still with me. I want you to sit.

00:57:41

We're gonna do a little exercise.

00:57:42

I want you to listen for a small prompt from God.

00:57:47

Just see if there's anything He wants you to do.

00:57:51

See if there's anything He might ask of you.

00:57:55

If there is, I want to encourage you to say yes.

00:57:58

Maybe it's start the tithe test.

00:58:02

Maybe it's an idea of an extravagant offering.

00:58:06

I know it's going to feel scary, I know it.

00:58:10

I'm telling you, you will never regret it.

00:58:13

Say yes.

00:58:14

Just take a moment.

00:58:16

Let's see if God says something to us.

00:58:31

Now, you don't have to stop asking that question right now.

00:58:35

I want to encourage you, if God said something, say yes.

00:58:39

And if He didn't, I want to offer an idea to you.

00:58:44

Maybe God didn't prompt you, if He didn't,

00:58:47

because He wants to give you an opportunity to just be generous like Mary.

00:58:52

He never asked for it. She just gave.

00:58:55

Maybe God's giving you an opportunity to step in the generosity that way

00:59:01

I do want to pray for you before you go, so let me do that.

00:59:03

Father, I thank You for everyone here.

00:59:06

Thank You for their willingness to listen.

00:59:08

Thank You for their willingness to engage.

00:59:10

I ask that You give us all the courage to do what You've asked us to do

00:59:16

and to step into generosity with You.

00:59:19

That You'd have our whole heart, God, and You reward us, You bless us, Amen.

00:59:28

Well, hey, listen, next week this series wraps up.

00:59:31

Brian will be back.

00:59:33

I happen to know what he's going to talk about

00:59:36

and you're not gonna want to miss it.

00:59:38

We'll see you then. Have a great weekend.

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