Counter Cultural Generosity

Money is one of the fastest ways to reveal what we trust, what we fear, and what we truly worship. So we end our Counterculture series with a topic that makes a lot of people tense: generosity. We are not trying to twist arms or hype a offering. We want to let the Word of God set the tone and show why giving is not what God needs from us, but what God wants for us. 

We ask five practical questions Christians keep coming back to: When did God’s generosity toward us begin? How is it consistent? What is tithing really about? Where is God expanding our lives? Why is His generosity so extravagant? Along the way we connect the dots from Genesis and Romans to Luke and Malachi, showing that God’s giving starts with creation, becomes personal in daily mercy and provision, and reaches its peak at the cross where God “did not spare his own Son.” Biblical generosity flows from that kind of love. 

We also get concrete: consistent giving requires intentionality, money is a tool but a terrible master, and simple frameworks like the 10-10-80 principle can help Christians practice stewardship with clarity. The goal is not getting richer; it is seeing more people saved, more disciples made, and more joy unlocked as we trust God with what He already gave us. 

If you’re wondering what your next step is, this message is for you, whether you’re a beginning giver or someone ready to give in an expanding or even extravagant way. Listen, share with a friend, and then subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what generosity step you’re praying about next.

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Transcript

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God’s Greatness And Opening Praise

SPEAKER_00 1:00

God is great! The Bible says that God is greater than you could ever fathom. Which means that you could put in your mind more and more and more every day trying to imagine how great God is. Live a hundred years! You dedicate your life to try to fathom the greatness of God, and we still cannot even come close to his infinite greatness because we are his finite beings, but you put your hands together for our great God. He is great, he is great to you, and he deserves all the glory.

Welcome And Next Step Card

SPEAKER_00 1:48

You can have a seat this morning, First Baptist Church Powder Springs. What an honor it is to have everyone here with us this morning. Uh, if you're a first-time guest, it's an honor to have you here with us. If this is your if you're tuning in online, your first time online, we're honored to have you as well. Can we put our hands together one more time for all of our first time guests? Because we're so grateful for you. All the places that you could be, and God brought you here to worship Jesus with us today. We do not take that lightly together. There's the next step card in front of everyone, unless you're in the side seats and you'll see a QR code uh in the on the screen back behind me. And that is your opportunity, first time guest, just to let us know that you were here. We've got a gift for you right after the service, but ultimately, we're not here to hound you, just help you in your walk with Jesus. We believe there is nothing more important than all of life than walking with Jesus every day. If you believe that, say amen. And so we want you to know that. And also, our next step card is for everybody because you can always indicate on the card your next step in your spiritual journey, and we're just here to help you in that as you are following Jesus, as we are following Jesus together. As always, the large box at the bottom on the back is where you can write down your greatest prayer needs of this week. And it is our honor as your staff to go to Jesus on your behalf and to pray over that greatest prayer need, and we pray that God will answer it according to his glory and your good. I want to remind you as a church that we are a multi-generational church. We want to minister to every age and stage of all of life. We're a multi-ethnic church. We want to be a church for all people because God is a God who created all people. Jesus died for all people, and the Holy Spirit desires to save all people. Can I get an amen? And so that's what we believe the church we're called to be. We have two different services going on, and we pray that years to come that we will just be able to multiply and just to reach all the more people with the name of Jesus. All the ladies in the room, ladies in the room, raise your hand. It's great to see you this morning. We've got a special event for you tomorrow night, our Monday, our Mingo Monday Roundup. So dust off your boots and put them on tomorrow night. Come to church at 6:30, and we've got a great event for you. And men, you're gonna get to stay home and watch some football. Can I get an amen? And uh, so man, it works out for everybody. So we want y'all to come. Let's pray.

Prayer And Scripture Setup

SPEAKER_00 4:35

We'll dive into God's word together. Heavenly Father, we love you, and God, you are so good. Father, we give you all the glory because God, you're the only one worthy of the glory. God, you deserve it all. Lord God, we are your people. This is your church, this is your word. And so, God, we pray that your spirit would speak into our hearts this morning so that we can live for your son. Heavenly Father, that it would all be towards your honor. And so, God, we love you and we thank you for loving us, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, And all God's people said, All right, amen.

Counterculture Series Wrap Up

SPEAKER_00 5:17

You can open up your Bibles to Genesis chapter one. Everybody can find that. The first page in your Bible. Uh, Genesis chapter one. And uh so we're we're gonna, man, I want to take you through the whole Bible this morning. I think we'll be out by Tuesday, so uh it'll be all good. Just kidding, normal length. Uh, we are continuing and today concluding our series, Counterculture. Everybody say counterculture. Uh man, I'm so thankful for all of the messages. Man, I've gotten text messages, I've gotten emails, I've gotten phone calls, I've gotten written letter, Morris code, and smoke signals. About how many people uh have just learned from this series, and uh this has not been from me, this has all been from God. And just remember if you ever feel like I'm stepping on your toes, I'm stomping on mine first. Uh, because we are all called to follow Jesus together. This series has all been about how we are not called to conform to this world. The world wants us to just simply conform. But that's not what God wants. The Bible says in Romans 12.2 that we are called to be not conformed, but to be transformed. Everybody say transformed. Transformed by the word of God, by the renewing of our minds. Romans 12.2. So we've talked about a lot of things together. Uh, we've talked about countercultural Christianity, in case you missed any of these or you need to send one to somebody else, countercultural Christianity, countercultural manhood, womanhood, marriage, parenting, singleness, serving, countercultural conversations by Pastor Patrick, and countercultural citizenship. Uh, we talked about last week. And this morning, the one that God has called me to preach, that he has laid deeply on my heart for you, is actually going to be a very controversial topic, uh, not only for the world, not only for non-Christians, but also Christians. And this is something that I believe that God desperately wants the church to understand so that we can understand his goodness and also his blessing in our life. This morning we're gonna talk about countercultural generosity. Everybody

Why Generosity Is Countercultural

SPEAKER_00 7:32

say generosity. Everybody put a smile on your face and say generosity. There you go. Yeah, it sounded a lot better. Um here's what's here's what's interesting is here's what the world says. The world says what is yours is yours and what somebody else's is yours too. Like, like if you want it, you go and take it. Uh but the word of God says, what is God's has become yours because God is a generous God and he loves to give. Can I get an amen? That what is God is yours, and therefore what is yours is God's because he's called us to be stewards of everything that he has given us. The world says, take, get, and keep what is yours. The world says, take what is yours, and the world, I'm sorry, the world wants to also take what is yours and to give it to others. But the word of God says that God wants to be generous to you. And he wants in his generosity, he wants us to work, he wants us to earn everything that we have so that we can be generous back to him and generous to others. Don't you know? The world preaches greed. Everybody say greed. Greed, but the word of God preaches generosity. In fact, I would tell you this morning that you are never more like Jesus than when you are generous, because Jesus is our generous God. So can I just be honest with you for a second? Um, to be to be real honest, like I get anxiety during the week whenever uh I know that a generosity sermon is coming, because I know for some reason uh it is it is the one sermon that Christians say that they enjoy hearing the least, the least, right? And and I get it because there have been a lot of preachers out in the world that you've seen on the internet or you've seen on TV or you've heard on the radio, and that they have ruined God's principles and God's truths and God's promises and God's blessings when it comes to generosity. I'm praying that this morning, here's all I'm asking you to do is to throw all of that out the window, to get all of that out of your mind, because this morning I am not going to ask you to give anything. This morning I am not gonna tell you what you should give. In fact, this morning, I want you to hear this differently than you've ever heard this, because I am not gonna give you any of my thoughts, I'm not gonna give you any of my opinions. I just want to give you the word of God because I believe this. It is not what God needs from you, it's what God wants for you. Can I get an amen? That God is a good dad and he loves his kids, and if I can be real honest for a second and to be real uh controversial, countercultural, I think the devil doesn't want Christians to hear this. Because God has such a blessing in store in your life that the devil knows that if you obey God's word in this way, that you're gonna see even more of God's goodness in your life, and you're gonna fall even more deeply in love with Him, and that's the last thing the devil wants. And so I if if I can just be honest with you this morning, here's the deal. I believe it takes the whole Bible to make a whole Christian. And I believe if you baby Christians, you get baby Christians. And so this morning, I don't want to be a pastor that even though that to be honest with you, I I think maybe even sinfully so that I get anxiety all week, like nervous all week, knowing that this is what God wants me to say, what God wants me to teach. I believe the apostle Paul felt the same way. The apostle Paul, not on the screen, but I'll read it to you, Philippians 4 17. Paul actually said, Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. So I want you to know I'm not asking for anything from you. In fact, I'm not asking you to give a penny. We don't force, we don't manipulate, we don't twist arms, we don't do any of that here. That this is between you and God. All my job is to give you the word of God and that it is your job to obey the word of God. Can I get an amen? All right, here we go. So I want

Five Questions About Christian Finances

SPEAKER_00 11:46

to I want to answer five questions that every Christian has about finances. Five questions that every Christian has about biblical countercultural generosity. Question number one is when did God's generosity toward you begin? When did God's generosity towards you begin? Everybody say, begin. Begin. When did when did God start being generous to you? Do you realize that God started being generous to you even before you were born? The Bible says in Genesis 1.1, says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So God actually created a world for you to live in it because God wanted to give you life, he wanted to give you existence, he wanted to give you a place to live so that you could live, so that God could save you, so that God could love you, so that God could have a relationship with you. But not only that, he says he created the heavens and the earth. God already created the place where he wants you to spend eternity. He created heaven, his home, so that you could come and spend eternity with him. That's how much God loves you. And by the way, that's this whole sermon. It's just how generous God is to you and how much God loves you. Acts 17, 25 says God gives him, God gives, God Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. Which means it doesn't matter how hard you worked, it doesn't matter all that you earned, it doesn't matter what you paid for, it doesn't matter what's been given to you, ultimately, everything that you have, God has orchestrated all of your resources and all of your assets and all of your possessions, because God is the one that has given you the very life that you have, the very breath in your lungs. The Bible says that he actually breathed his breath into your lungs. The very breath that you breathe is God's. And also everything you have, he has given to you. But that's not all. It gets better. Romans 8 32 says, God did not spare his own son, but gave him. That's Jesus. Everybody say Jesus, but gave Jesus up for us. How will he not also with Jesus graciously give you all things? In other words, God has already given you the most gracious, generous, valuable, precious gift to himself, his own son Jesus, sent Jesus in the form of a human being to live in your place, to die for your sin, to be buried for three days, to raise from the dead in order to become your Lord and Savior, that you can have life with him and spend eternity with him, that God has already done the most generous thing for you. So why would he not give you everything else that you need? That's our God. And so it's kind of like this past week for uh for fall break, uh, we got to go on fall break. We uh

God’s Generosity Begins Before Birth

SPEAKER_00 14:48

we went down to the beach. Now, to be honest, we we were not planning on going down to the beach because I like to call us the traveling circus without the traveling. We're just the circus and uh in our house. Uh four kids, we don't know what to do with ourselves. And uh, and so we had a family approach us and say, uh, hey, we would like for you uh to have our condo for the week. And we said, Well, that is so generous of you. They said, Well, that's not all. Not just the condo, but but also uh the condo is at the beach. We're like, oh my goodness, are you serious? That is thank you so much for that for that offer. And they said, Well, that's not all. It gets better. They said, and and it the all of the expenses the condo is paid for. We're like, oh my goodness, how is that even possible? And they said, and that's not all, it gets even better. And they said, we know that you're not able to just go on a trip by yourself and go down to the pool as a family because we got too many kids and not enough hands. And uh, and they said, So we are going to go down with you. And we're like, that is the best gift that you could ever give us. That you come with us, that you help us. And so we were at the beach. Here's a picture of Cruz up in the air. Uh, do we have that picture? Cruz up in the air. I was throwing him, I was throwing him in the pool, and apparently that wasn't high enough, so I had to throw him off the side of the pool. That's why he's like five stories up right there, uh, off the side of the pool. Uh, I was throwing Brooklyn in the pool as well. Brooklyn was loving it, and Eliana, and uh even Baby Blaze got a little air too, a little hang time. Uh, so it was great. And don't you know, like that is, and by the way, this is kind of all of us as a family, uh, but just hanging out together. We're just so grateful, so grateful for this family. And go back to Romans 8 32 for me, because here's what I want you to see. I want you to see that God has come to you. And God has said, Hey, um, I have a home in heaven for you. And you're like, oh my goodness, that's amazing. And God says, What that's not all. It gets better. And that home in heaven is for eternity. Oh my goodness. Well, that's not all, it gets better. And it's already paid for because Jesus paid for it on the cross for you. Oh my goodness, that's amazing. It gets even better. And God says, and not only that, but I am going to be with you. God says, I'm gonna be with you in this life, and I'm gonna be with you in eternity, and so that's what God promises us. So here's the point. If if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, here's what is welling up within you. God, you have been so generous to me. How could I ever repay you? You ever notice in scripture that God never asks us to repay him? All that God asks us to do is that we would worship him, we would live for him, and we would be generous back toward him. Let me show you. The principle is God began being generous to you so that you can begin being generous to him. Now, here's the beautiful part of it that I want to show you all throughout the Bible is that again, God doesn't need anything from you. Rather, God wants to take the generosity that he's already given to you, and you give it back to him so that it's used as God was generous to your salvation. Now you get to be generous so that other people can be saved. It's this glorious cycle of generosity over and over again. Let me show you where Jesus said it. Luke 6.38 says, give. Everybody say give. Jesus said, You give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, run it over. It'll be be put into your lap. For with the measure that you use it, the measure that you give it, that's what's going to be measured back to you. In other words, I love it. You can't outgive God. The more that you give God, all the more that God gives to you. You can't outgive him. Jesus is talking about it kind of like a bag of leaves. It's fall, right? It's October. Can you believe it? It's fall. Uh, Georgia Bama week this Saturday. Can you believe it? Uh a bunch of Georgia fans in here. I'm a Bama fan, and y'all just be kind to me next Sunday because we'll be licking our wounds and then trying to pick up the pieces. So uh we're about to run into the Georgia Bulldog buzzsaw. Uh, but all that to say, he he he pictures like a bag of leaves. What do you do with a bag of leaves? It says that that with that, when you give, it's like God's blessings are the leaves. You open up the bag and he gives you this good measure of blessing. And then what do you do with leaves in the bag? You press them down. And when you can't get more leaves in the bag, you gotta shake the bag, right? You shake the bag to get all the leaves packed down even more. And then what's happening? Now the leaves are running over the bag. That's what God wants to do for you. That's why so many people, churches, pastors get this wrong. Because we are not giving to just for people to get richer. We're giving so that people can get saved. Can I get an amen? That's why we're giving. And so I want to encourage you. Maybe you're here and maybe you're a brand new Christian, and maybe you have not taken the step, the opportunity to trust God in this way. I want you to know the first step in your generosity journey is just to give. Go and chill it on the screen for me. The generosity journey is just to become a beginning giver. Everybody say beginning. Maybe you've never trusted God in that way, and so you haven't experienced the blessing of God in that way. In fact, we want to celebrate you for all of our beginning givers. We've got a free gift for you, and it's just called it's a book. We'll send it to you for free in the mail. And it's called Our Generous God. And you just get to see all of the ways that God loves to be generous to you because he has blessings in store for you that he cannot wait to give you.

God’s Ongoing Provision And Giving Rhythm

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Number two. Number two, the first question was about when did God's generosity begin? The second question is, how is God's generosity towards you consistent? In other words, how does God regularly continue to give to you? What does the Bible say? Lamentations 3 22 says the steadfast love, everybody say love. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness that God loves you day after day after day. He gives you mercy day after day after day. He's faithful to you day after day after day. Philippians 4 19 says, My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. If you don't have it, you don't need it. And if you need it, God's still gonna give it to you. We believe that. Because he's a good dad and he loves his kids, that God has promised to supply every need for you. Ephesians 2.4. Remember, this is not about money. This is ultimately about the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This all comes back to the cross, Ephesians 2.4. But God being rich in mercy, everybody say mercy because of the great love which He loved us, even when we were dead. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, but God made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised up with him and seated us, he seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Jesus Christ. Here's the point. Why is God generous to you? God is generous to you because he just loves you. He can't help it. He just loves you. Because he's your heavenly father. He's your creator. It's like my wife that just walked out of the room, right? And so uh she walked, she she's always taking Brooklyn to go to the bathroom or something. So um, so my wife, I get to talk about her now because she's not in the room. Uh, when I met her, I remember thinking after our first couple of dates, oh, this woman right here, she can have whatever she wants. You know what I'm saying? Like, like I just I just want to be generous to her. And after all these years of marriage, she has Taken me up on that, you know, and uh, which I'm so great, grateful for because I still just love to give to her because I love her. My kids, every time one of them's born, all four of them. Man, I've said out loud to them, uh, you can have whatever you want when they were a baby because they didn't understand it, so they can't hold me to it later. And so you can have whatever you want. And Brooklyn has taken me up on that. She's my daddy-daughter date girl. Like she loves daddy to take her on daddy-daughter dates, and I love it too because we love to eat. Can I get an amen? And so the other day she said, Dad, I want you to take me to sushi. I want sushi for the first time. I said, Great. We went to sushi, and man, she told me, you know, kind of what she wanted me to order. So I got the sushi, I got the seaweed, she wanted to try it all. And then the chef said to her, Okay, what would you like? She said, Uh, I'll have the chicken, nuggets, and fries, please. Uh so, you know, you can't win. Uh, Cruz, he just turned forward. By the way, thank you for your prayers for Cruz. Went through his triple scrope procedure, didn't find anything major, a couple minor things that we'll get all figured out, all in God's hands. Thank you for your prayers. God is good. Um, Cruz, he loves anything. Trains, dinosaurs, paw patrol. Girls are more expensive, but boys' toys cost more because they all need like 17 batteries. It's ridiculous. And so, um, so Cruz, uh, Eliana, she is our shoes girl. Pray for me. She loves shoes. She wants shoes on all the time, and she always says that they're so sparkly. Sparkly is what she says. Uh, Blaze, he just wants mommy milk all the time. Five months old, mommy milk. Here's the point is that you can't help to be generous to who you love. That's why God loves it. To be generous to you. God loves it. And that's why we love to be generous to God because we love him. God is consistently generous to you so that you can be consistently generous to him. Jesus said you can't love both serve both God and money. Jesus said where your treasure is is where you know that your heart is also. So God is a generous God, and he is, hear me, he is good with you having money. He's good with you having wealth. He's just not good with money having you. Because he wants you and he wants to have us. So here's what we see, what the church would do, the early church, even thousands of years ago. Uh, 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verse 2 says, on the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper. In other words, on the Lord's day is when we give to God. And it may not be the first of the week. For you, it might be the first of every month, it might be the quarter, it might be, you might save up for the whole year. All I would encourage you to do is what the word of God says to do. Not on the screen, but I will never tell you what to give. Because it's not about me. It's all about God. And it all goes to his ministry and his mission in some way, shape, or form. But here's what I would encourage you to do is to understand that we are called to give God the first day of every week. That's Sunday, that's the Lord's day. To give God the first hour of every day. That's just our time and our devotion, spending time with him, and to give God the first dime in every dollar that he gives to us. Because the Bible says each one must give as he has decided in his heart. Consistency requires intentionality. So you decide today. And here's what you're deciding. God, what are you calling me to give? God, what that's the question. God, what are you calling me to give? And God will tell you, and you give whatever God tells you to give, because then God will be able to bless you with the way in which that God wants to bless you. It says this, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Everybody say cheerful. Do you know the word cheerful means hilarious? It means hilarious. It means that the world thinks we are crazy. The world thinks we're laughing at us. Are you kidding me? You work hard and you earn that and you save that and you can spend that and you can have more money if you wanted to, but yet you are giving your money back to a God you have never physically seen with your eyes, and they don't understand we don't need to see God physically with our eyes. We see Him more clearly with our hearts. We see God spiritually. Man, we see God with the eyes of our heart, the word of God says. So I want to encourage you that your your generosity journey, as you'll see here on the screen, maybe you've given to God before, and maybe God is calling you to your next step to become more of a consistent giver to Him, to think about intentionality, to think about rhythm, to say, God, what is it that you would like for me to give regularly to you? Why? Can I share with you the promise? Deuteronomy chapter 15, verse 10. And remember, these are promises of God in his word. And so you know if it's in God's word, God recorded it to know that he's gonna back it up. You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be begud begrudging when you give to him. Because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all of your work and in all that you undertake. You realize that God wants to bless your work, God wants to bless your efforts, God wants to bless your finances, God wants to bless you spiritually, God wants to bless you holistically. God just loves you and he wants to bless you. And by the way, the apostle Paul, he would often write to churches and he would either commend them or he would warn them. Commend them for obedience or warn them for disobedience. This morning I'm coming to you as your pastor, and I'm commending you.

Celebrating Churchwide Generosity

SPEAKER_00 28:56

You, First Baptist Church, Powder Springs, are a generous church. We are a 184-year-old church. Everything that we have, all of this land, all of these buildings, air conditioning, plumbing, electricity, all of these type things that we are able to enjoy on Sunday and all throughout the week are because of the sacrifice that people have made, every single person, for 144 years. And today we're experiencing it because of the way that you are giving today. Put your hands together just for one another and the way that God is using you. You realize over the past 12 months, 189 people have become beginning givers here. 189 people have given for their first time here, and 699 people have given to First Baptist Church Powder Springs over a year. And here's the beautiful part. And I don't know who it is. I don't know who gives, and I don't know what you give besides one person, that's me. Because I believe that God calls me not just to teach the way, I believe that God calls me as the pastor of this church to lead the way. I am not here for what I get, I am here for what God can give. So here's what we want to do. We just want to thank you. So we're gonna have a generosity dinner, a generosity celebration. Here's who it's for it's for anybody that is given. If you've given a penny here, man, we believe that God can use that penny to save somebody for all of eternity. Can I get an amen? And so, November 1, we're gonna have a generosity celebration. That's a Sunday night in here, 5 to 7 p.m. It's a free dinner, and you're just gonna hear stories that I don't I don't get to tell on Sunday mornings of all that God is doing throughout our church. I'm gonna give you some vision things that other people have not heard yet. And I want just to, we want to celebrate and we want to appreciate you and the way that you give to God. All right, here

What The Bible Says About Tithing

SPEAKER_00 30:52

we go. Number three, you're not listening fast enough. Uh the first one was about our beginning generosity. The second one was about how God consistently gives to us. The third one, the number one question that Christians ask today what is this deal about tithing? What is this deal about tithing? Um, I just want to make it clear before I dive into this for a second. You don't have a to give a penny to God in order for Him to love you. You don't have to give a penny to God in order to be saved. You don't have to give a penny to this church in order to come here and in order for us to love you. We don't treat anybody differently by the way that they give because we don't know. And so you just get to obey God's word and however God calls you to do that. So, what is the truth? What does God really say about tithing? Well, some people say, well, tithing's not for today because it was just in the Old Testament law. We're not people of the law, we are people of the gospel. Now that is true. We are not people of the law, we are people of the gospel. But here's what I want to show you. Tithing actually existed before the Old Testament law, and Jesus even affirmed tithing after the Old Testament law. Let me show you. And so we see here on the screen, we see uh some verses up here. Genesis 14, 20. It says, Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. Everybody say tenth. Genesis 28, and all that you give me, I will give a full tenth. Everybody say tenth to you. Leviticus 27, 30. This is in the law. Every tithe that's a tenth, everybody say tenth of the land is the Lord's, it is holy set apart for the Lord. Deuteronomy 14, 22 and 23, you shall tithe. Everybody say tenth. Shall tithe that you may learn to fear the Lord. Now, what does a tithe mean? A tithe means giving the first tenth of one hundred of the one hundred percent that God has given to you. Let me show you what I mean just very quickly. Let's just say that God gave you ten dollars. That God gave you ten dollars. Here is the beauty of God. God gives you ten dollars. Here's all that God says. You can keep the nine, I just want you to give me back the one so I can use it to save somebody else. Y'all just missed that. Let me show you one more time, okay? Maybe you didn't get it. Maybe you didn't get it. God gives you $10. He says, I want you to keep the nine, and I just want you to give one back so that somebody can get saved. Can I get an amen? Man, that is our generous, that is our good God. So here's what I want you to see here in his word when it comes to this. That Jesus actually said, because people are wondering, like, do we still tithe today? Here's what I see in the Word of God. This is not me saying this, this is what the Word of God says. I believe that we are not held to the tithe, that God is a God of grace, but what we see throughout the Bible is the tithe now. In the law, it was the ceiling. This is how much that you should give. Today it is our floor. Because God not only calls us to be tithers, he calls us to be generous. Let me show you. Here's what Jesus said. Matthew 23, 23. He said, You should tithe, yes. In a longer portion of scripture, you can look it up for yourself. Jesus was affirming the tithe. Now, here's what happens. Here's what Jesus is calling us to do. Here's a little uh personal finance wisdom for you. It's called the 10, 10, 80 principle. Uh we are called to give 10%. I would encourage you to save 10% and to spend or to live on 80%. So notice the first 10 you give to God, the second 10 you save yourself, and then the the remaining 80 is that you live. The problem is here's what the world does: they give zero, they save zero, they spend 120. That's why they're in the financial uh situation that they are in. And so here's what we see in the Bible, and here's where I want to put you at ease. We are not all giving equal gifts. We are making an equal sacrifice. God is not concerned of the size of your gift, he's concerned with the sacrifice that you make before him. Why is it a tenth? Ten in the Bible, the number 10 is symbolically representing a test. And God is saying in our life that he is testing us how much we trust him with the generosity that he is giving to us. Let me show you. We'll say it this way. Go to the next slide for me. We'll say it this way. God gave you 100. Everybody say 100. God gave you 100% to steward, God gave you 10%, everybody say 10, 10% to tithe, and God gave you 90. Everybody say 90, 90% to live on. So check it out. Here, here's the promise of God's word. Here's what I didn't understand. Because to be honest with you, this is kind of a life message for me because I did not understand it for so long. And when I started to obey this command in scripture, this is when I started to see these additional blessings of God in my life, and not just financially, not just in terms of money, but just holistically in my life. So here's what we see that God gives you 100% of what you have. That's how good God is. He gives you with his generosity the very generosity that you're called to give back to God. But here's the problem. The problem is, statistically, the poorer someone is, the more proportionately they give. The richer someone is, the less proportionately they give. Let me show you. Uh the tithe pyramid. If you make $10, how much do we give? $1. If you make $100, how much do you give? If you get $1,000, how much do you give? If you make $10,000, how much do you give? If you make $100,000, how much do you give? If you make a million dollars, how much do you give? If you make $10 million, how much do you give? And if you think we can't use a million dollars here, come up and talk to me. I will show you. I will show you what God wants to do. What God wants to do with anything that God lays on your heart to give. Hear me. Your church is not money hungry. We are not here to raise money, we are here to raise disciples. The reason we're here is because money can become such an idolatry to us that look, when you hold on to your idol, when you grasp and you grip your idol, your hands cannot be open to receive the blessings of God. So here's what God says in Malachi chapter 3. God

Malachi’s Test And Open Windows

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says this, return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, What how God, how are we supposed to return to you? And God says, Well, will man rob God? And everybody's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, God, why'd you go there? He said, You are robbing me. But you say, How have we robbed you? And here's what God says, in your tithes and contributions. You're cursed with a curse, for you're robbing me. The whole nation of you. So bring the full tithe into the storehouse. What does that mean, the storehouse? That is into the local church. And that's not like designated, oh, I want to go to this, I wanted to go to that. No, the storehouse is like the like like the general fund. And you give over and you and above, you can give to designated, you can give to, you know, different funds or whatever, but we bring our tithe into the storehouse, the designated fund of the local church, that there may be food. That's the way that they would do ministry. That's the way that we do ministry, food in my house, and thereby put me to the test. Notice this is the only time in the entire Bible that God says to test him. The tithe is a test, not just God testing you, but the tithe is you testing God. God, will you come through? God will you bless me? And God says, test me. And this is the only time he says it, watch it. Says the Lord of hosts, I will I not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need in your life, and I will even rebuke the devourer for me. So I would encourage you, wherever you are on your generosity journey, if you can show the map for me on the screen, that maybe you have begun your generosity journey, maybe you've become more consistent your generosity journey. It may be the next step in your life that you're saying, God, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna trust you. God, I'm gonna trust you with my tithe. Because, God, I believe you say that you can use this for your glory, for the God, for the spread of the gospel, but God, you can also use it for my good. And God, I need you to bless me. I need your blessing in my life. God, I need you. And so, God, I'm gonna trust you with this. And I want you to know that uh we are even going to offer a class uh for anybody that you're like, man, I just feel like I need to get my finances in order. I've heard this said before, so I'll say it to you. I think it makes total sense. Uh, you will never afford to tithe until you just tithe. Because what God does is when you tithe, that's when He He begins to bless you in that way so that you are able to do so. But sometimes we just need to talk to somebody to get our finances in order. If you are interested in a one-time class, 90 minutes called Mastering Your Money, that's going to happen in the next few weeks. Take a next step card. Put your information on it right on the back, finance class, and we will tell you exactly when and where it is. Number four, very quickly. Where

Expanding Giving And Kingdom Impact

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is God's generosity expanding in your life? Four and five, and I'm done. Let me read this quickly. I want to show you how God's generosity is continuing to expand your life. First Chronicles 4 10. Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my border, that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm, so that it might not bring me pain. And God granted what he asked. God enlarged Jabez's border when he prayed that. God wants to continue to expand your life. Second Corinthians 9. God, who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and the increase of harvest of righteousness, and you will be enriched in every way, so that you can be generous in every way. God is enriching you in order to be generous back to Him, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. Second Chronicles 31. And they brought in abundantly the tithe of everything, since they began to bring the contributions into the house of the Lord, the local church. We have eaten and had enough and had plenty, for the Lord has blessed his people so that we have this huge amount left. Here's the deal praise God, we get to be this kind of church. And we have we all have the opportunity to be this kind of Christian. That God has been so generous that we can be generous back to him. And I've heard it said before, we don't give to get. I disagree with that. I believe what the scripture is calling you to do is for you to give to God, and then God continues to give back to you, not so you can keep what he gives back to you, so that you can continue to give to him, so that he can continue to give to you, so can you keep giving to him, so you can he can keep giving to you, so that why? Because you can't out give God, because God's generosity and his generous heart is even bigger than yours. Can I get an amen? And so it is this beautiful cycle that God is doing. So the point is that God generously expands your life so that you can expand his kingdom. And praise God, his church here is expanding. Praise God, people are getting saved. Praise God, people are getting baptized. Praise God, families are coming and they're bringing their kids. Praise God, we're about to have fall kickback for our youth, and we're praying for a hundred youth over fall kickback weekend. Man, praise God that we're going on mission trips, taking the gospel around the world. Praise God that we are involved in church planting and reaching and seeing people safe throughout our country. Praise God that we're making a difference in Patter Springs. Praise God that we're seeing ministry in our senior adults, in our women's ministry, in our men's ministry. Man, it's like everything that we're doing, God's just blessing it because he's the one doing it. So we're just thankful that we get to be a part of expanding the kingdom of God because Proverbs 11 says, the one who gives freely yet grows all the richer, but another withholds what he should give and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and the one who just who waters will himself be watered. I want to encourage you. Maybe your next step in your generosity journey, maybe you've been a tither, and God is just encouraging you now. He's calling you now to be an expanding giver, just to give over and above the tithe. I don't know. All I know is I'm called to, just like you're called to, that we just give cheerfully, hilariously, however it is that God is calling us to give. By the way, for those of you that um maybe you're looking for uh will in a state planning, just because we are a church and we just love to be generous, um uh, such as um not only do we believe that Christians are called to tithe, we believe that churches are called to tithe. You realize that 10% of all that you give here to the church, we give it away in mission to someone else. Because we believe if God blesses a Christian who tithes, then we believe that God blesses churches who tithe. So our church, we want to give over and above everything that is given over and above 10% to other ministries and other organizations in other places and other churches so that people can be saved all around the world. But maybe you're looking for uh will and estate. You know, these things cost like $3,000, thousands of dollars to be a part of. Our Georgia Baptist Foundation has agreed to come in for free, to give you free uh counsel. You don't have to even do it, but you can come to the lunch for free if you want to on November the 22nd. And they're gonna share with you how they can set up your will and estate, what costs thousands of dollars. I think it's gonna cost $400 for an individual or $450 for a couple. But you don't even have to do it. You can just come to the lunch for free and just listen to what they have to say. Why? Because we just want to be a blessing to you. And fifth, and I'm done.

Extravagant Love And Next Step Challenge

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Why is God's generosity extravagant towards you? Can I tell you? Because he just loves you. Just receive that. Let that soak in for just for a minute. God loves you extravagantly. He could not love you any more than he possibly already does. He will, it's impossible for anyone else to love you more than God loves you. He couldn't love you any more because he loves you infinitely, and he could never love you any less because he's God. 2 Corinthians 8 says, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich, speaking eternally. Ephesians 1 7, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he has lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight. What does lavish mean? It means to pour water in a cup, like through a hose, to where it just keeps overflowing and overflowing and overflowing. That is God's generous love to you. That he is he loves to continue to lavish his love on you. And how does he do it? Throughout all of eternity. He just continues to generously love you. And our favorite verse in the whole Bible, John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave, everybody say, gave. That whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. You know, God's generosity is extravagant to you, so that your generosity can be extravagant to him. There every once in a while, and God has done this to me, and maybe God has done this to you. Every once in a while, God calls us to give extravagantly to him. To be honest with you, and I never want to overshare. God called my family to do this recently. That it just didn't make sense, but God just called us to give in an extravagant way, and that he just promised, hey, just trust me, and I'll bless you. And that's I believe he's called us to be like that hilarious giver, like that we give. There are times that he calls us to give hilariously, like it just doesn't make sense. Because watch what God does. Proverbs 3 when you honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce, your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. So this generosity journey that God has us on in our map, a beginning giver, a consistent giver, a tithing giver, an expanding giver, an extravagant giver. The question is, I'm not twisting any arms. The question is, who has God called you to be? What's your next step? Decide in your heart what he's calling you to do, and just trust him with it. And here's what it does: it brings you joy. You ever notice the most generous people out there are the most joyful people there are? Chronicles 29:9. Then the people rejoiced because they had given willingly. For with a whole heart they had offered freely to the Lord, and David the king also rejoiced greatly. Jesus is our king. He is not pleased with you because of how much you give. Jesus is pleased in you and with you because of what he has given for you, his own life, his own righteousness into you. That's where his pleasing is, his pleasure. But there is a sense in which Jesus rejoices when you trust him and you are generous with what he has given you, because he knows he can use your generosity so that other people can be saved like he has saved you.

Prayer To Obey And Trust Jesus

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Can I ask us all to bow our heads and close our eyes? And here's here's all that I encourage you to do is you just pray and you just say, God, you just call me to do whatever you want me to do. And God, I'll do it. That's it. God, you call me to do whatever you want me to do, and God, I'll obey it, and God, I will do it. And maybe you're here and you haven't given Jesus your life. Maybe here you're not saved. I want you to know that Jesus doesn't want your money, he wants your heart. He wants you. He wants to have you and he wants you to have him. That's why Jesus gave his life for you so that you could give your life for him. So if you're here this morning and you've never given your life to Jesus, then right here, right now, I can't do it for you, but I can help you. Right here, right now, you can pray to Jesus and you can just in your own heart, in your own words, you can tell Jesus right now, Jesus, I need you. Tell him right now, Jesus, I believe in you. Tell him, Jesus, I believe that you died for my sin. Jesus, I believe that you were buried for three days. Jesus, I believe that you rose from the dead. And so, Jesus, I'm asking you to become the Lord of my life because Romans 10, 9 says that if you call on Jesus to be the Lord of your life and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's forever and all eternity. And so if you prayed that this morning, we celebrate that with you in Jesus' name. We pray. And all guys, people said, would you put your hands together for anybody that gave their heart, gave their life to Jesus? That

Closing Praise And Final Encouragement

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is what the word of God is all about. He just wants you, he wants your heart, he wants your life. So, right here, right now, I just want to encourage you that we, as we celebrate together, that we continue to give God all the glory.