The Blessed Test

All right, so part two of our series of living generously is a good one. And that might be why I don't see a lot of regulars here today. I kind of pitched it last week. We were going to talk about money.

Money is one of those scary things, you know, we don't want to hear the pastor talk about, but it is a must. And I'm excited because I think God has something for you. He doesn't want to get something from you. He wants something for you. We don't want something from you.

We want something for you. So I pray that you will open up your hearts to what God has to say. Because we believe in the whole account of the Word of God. We can't skip over things like this. And I promise you, if you listen today and kind of open your hearts and allow God to speak to you, I think He's going to do something marvelous in your life.

So how many of you want to be below average? Any hands raised? Any below average people in here today? I'm satisfied with being below average. Well, I don't think anybody raised their hand at that.

And there's good reason for that. So I got some good news and some bad news for you, okay? The good news is that you're blessed, that you're rich. The bad news is that you're blessed and you're rich. Because what we know about the bad news is the more blessed we are, the harder it is to be generous.

A book called Be Rich by Andy Stanley, Pastor Andy Stanley. We did a series the last few years on that. And some of this information comes from that. But it's kind of hard for us to see that we're rich. But let me show you.

When half of the world lives on $2 a day, you realize how blessed you are and how rich you are. And anybody who's had the ability to travel the world a bit or live in different places of the world, some of you have actually grown up in other places of the world. And you can easily say and easily understand how blessed we are. But let me just give you a few things that Andy kind of puts out in his book. If you make $33,000 or more, you're in the top 1% of wage earners in the world.

And that's combined income. $33,000. You might be rich, right? $80,000 or more. If you make $80,000 or more combined income, you're in the top one-tenth of 1% in the world.

But studies show this, that as income increases, the percentage of what people give decrease. In fact, look at this. This comes from a study a few years back. Average person that gives, they give about 3.1% to charity.

And those who make below $10,000 a year give about 5.2%. But get this. This is what's crazy. It's just unbelievable.

Those who earn over $200,000 or more a year give 0.07%. So the more blessed people are, it seems that the less people give. That's why I say that's bad news. Because it seems like the more we make, the more below average we are in our giving.

We are below average people in America. You know? We are below average in giving. On the other side, we're really good at certain things. I mean, we're really good.

We're really good at spending more than we take in. Man, we can shop. We are great consumers. In fact, 80% of Americans are in debt for that reason. And we don't really have a good mentor to follow as far as the government is concerned because they're deeply in debt.

So we are an in-debt society. But we're above average. We're below average givers. But we're above average spenders. Right?

And we spend and we spend and we spend. But we believe as believers. And if you're not a believer today and if you're a guest today, I just want to say, you know, come back next week. If you're like, oh man, this pastor talks about money. Yes, we do talk about money on occasions.

But we do have other subjects we talk on. So this may not be for you today. But this is for the believers here in the room. And this is for our church family. And some of you are going to say amen.

Even if you're visiting, some of you are probably like, I don't know if I'll be back. But just come back next week and we're going to talk about good deeds and, you know, doing things out in our community and things like that. But we believe that God has blessed us. And the reason he has blessed us is so that we can bless others. But the fact is, we don't trust God enough.

I mean, looking at the statistics, most of us here probably don't trust God enough. And we don't trust him mostly with our money. We can trust him with other things. But Jesus talks a lot about money. In fact, Paul talks about money as well or talks about being rich.

And there was this verse that he was in 1 Timothy where he's actually talking to the church. And he says this. He says, command those. He's telling Timothy to really command those people how to be rich with what they have. He says this.

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to be good, to be rich in good deeds, which we'll talk about more next week, in our generosity and willing to share. In this way, they will lay up treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age so that they may take hold. And I love this last part, the life that is truly life. What can we gather from this scripture that scripture that He's talking to a bunch of rich people, and I think based on the statistics that I just gave you, we can consider ourselves rich people.

He not only, he doesn't say, could y'all consider and could y'all think about, he said, command those who are rich in this present age to give, to be generous, to do their duty as a church. Now, I think it's important to understand that God gives us things for our enjoyment. In fact, Paul even says that. For our enjoyment. Okay, the devil's trying to fight us here.

Or somebody caused that to happen because maybe they're a little convicted, right? But, let's shake that a little bit. Let's shake the stage a little bit, right? For our enjoyment. He does give us all these things for our enjoyment.

He gives it to us because he wants to bless us and love us, but he also wants us to be generous. So, God actually tests us. And today's message is called the Bless Test. Okay? He's testing us with our blessings in order to bless us more.

So, how does he test us? Well, the first statement I want to make here, and if you're following your notes, will you love and trust money or will you love and trust God? Will you love and trust money or will you love and trust God? So, he puts us to the test. In fact, Jesus said this in the Gospel of Luke.

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So, if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, how can you be trusted with true riches? I love how he says that. He says true riches because apparently Jesus sees something that we don't see.

He sees true riches. In fact, he compares little to worldly wealth. So, actually what we have compared to what God has for us is just a little bit. So, in this particular period of time, are we really trusting God with what we have? Whether you make $10,000 a year or you make $200,000 a year.

In God's eyes, it's important that we are entrusted with those things. Now, why was Jesus so intentional about teaching on the handling of riches and wealth and money and material possessions? He goes on and on. He talks about those so much in Scripture. In fact, some commentators say that he talks more about those if we add up the Scriptures than heaven and hell combined.

He talks about wealth and he talks about material things. What Jesus knew was that money was going to be the number one competitors of our hearts. More than anything else in this world, money and material things would be the number one competitor of our hearts. And Jesus talked more about money than heaven and hell. Why not?

Because he was concerned with money. Because you're concerned with money. We are concerned with money. In reality, money is a counterfeit God. And we take money and we put it in the place of God and it steals our blessings.

And it steals our soul, really, in a lot of ways. Money promises only what God can provide. And let me hit on two things. There's a lot of reasons why. And I had a lot of them.

I have a lot of notes here. So I had like five things that money promises. But I decided to tailor it down to these two things. Money promises a false sense of happiness. A false sense of happiness.

If I have enough money, I will be happier. I will be more joyful. I will be able to have more. We always want that extra room. We always want that bigger backyard.

If only I had that car that actually runs, I would be better off. And then we get that car, we realize the payment we have on the car, right? And it's not... So we're always aiming for the best thing. If I get a better job, I will be happy.

I'm just kind of... We're always looking over the river to the grass over there saying that that's going to be better. And once we get there, we'll be happier. And the thing is, it's hard to find happiness and even harder to keep it when we look at happiness from the standpoint of money and things. And the other thing is, if we're following our notes, money promises a false sense of security.

A false sense of security. If I have enough money, I will be secure. I will be taken care of, right? But the truth is, if, God forbid, something happens to a loved one in your family. An illness that isn't curable or they're in a car accident or whatever.

We can put all... We can have all the money in the world. All the money in the world. And sometimes it will not mean anything because we place our security in money. There's greater things.

There's bigger things we need to be placing our security in. I think of Amber and Peter who just recently moved to Florida. They were part of our church for a few... Since the beginning, since we were in the living room. And they lost their son, their five-year-old son, Wesley.

Excuse me, three-year-old son. Was he four? Three-year-old son. I thought he was four. Are you sure?

Okay. Okay, he was three years old. Three-year-old son to cancer. And I remember walking that journey with him, with them, with the family. Being there.

And they fought till the very end. No amount of money mattered. No amount of money mattered to be able to cure their child. And in the end, the Lord ended up taking him. But I love their response.

Their response was, you know, I don't even begin to ask why. I just trust God. I trust God. Because their security was not in the money or in the things of this world. Their security was in God.

And they entrusted God with what happened. And I think of, I think of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. And the man had all the money in the world. All, I mean, top of the technology industry. Just everything.

And was diagnosed with cancer. And I remember seeing him, you know, at the Apple events. And how frail he was. And how sick he looked. And I was just thinking, this man has all of this money.

He can afford his own hospital if he wanted to. He probably had nurses and doctors at his home 24-7 taking care of him. He could afford the best medicine in the world. But in the end, he still passed from this earth. If we place our security in money, we have no hope.

But if we place our security in God. You know, it makes a world of difference. It makes a world of difference. There is hope beyond money. Do we put our trust in money?

Or do we put our trust in God? In fact, Jesus says this, no one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, and he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Well, people who love and trust money, first of all, let me just state a few things to kinda give you an idea.

People who love and trust money never have enough. We talked a little bit about that last week. We talked about the bag mentality, having the bag. We're always focused on the bag, right? Ecclesiastes says this, whoever loves money never has enough money enough.

Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income, right? Are you one of those people? Don't you, you can kinda go back in time, you're like, I remember when I made $25,000 a year or I made $15,000 a year. If only I could make $35,000 a year, I would be there. You know, I would have arrived.

I'd have plenty of money. And then when we get to $35,000, we're like, man, if only I can make $40,000 or if only I can make $50,000. And you get to $50,000. If only I can make six figures. And then people who are making six figures, you know, they're like, if only I can make this money.

And it just keeps going on and the rich line kinda moves, right? As we make more money because we're never satisfied. We never have enough. And this isn't about income. It's about being content, really.

And Paul even talks about, this isn't in your notes, but Paul talks about being content in all things. He learned to be content in all things. As people who love money, we never have enough. We never feel that we have enough. And another thing that people who have a hard time with money and who trust money say, I have money in, excuse me, I find it increasingly difficult to give big.

People who are obsessed with money find it increasingly difficult to give big, if you're following your notes. I think of the story where Jesus is watching the Pharisees dump all this money, the religious people dumping all this money into the tabernacle and they're just showing off, look how much money I have. They're probably putting hundreds of dollars in. And this older woman comes up. She's a widow.

They call it the widow's might story in the Bible. And she comes up and she drops these two little less than a penny drops in there. It's probably all that she has. And he calls out the Pharisees and he says, you know, she gave more than all of you gave because she wasn't giving out of pride. She wasn't giving out of look what I have or what I could do.

You're missing out on a lot of things because you're not even just to people. You're not even loving towards people. All you care about is yourself. You're not even giving. But if you really had the heart that she had, you would give that and much more.

You'd be willing to give everything. I love how Jesus elevates things, not just to tithe, but you would be willing to give your heart, your everything. If you knew how much the Father loves you and what blessings the Father has for you. If you just knew evil Pharisees. If you just knew what God had for you.

Paul exhorts a group of people into church in 2 Corinthians. And I love how he says this. In the midst of a very severe trial. Some of you are going through trials today, right? I bet there's, chances are, some of you are going through very difficult money situations.

And you've lost a lot of things. And maybe you've lost something financially or maybe you've lost a job. But you're going through a severe trial. He's exhorting severe trial here. He says their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.

So instead of counteract, reacting to what was going on, they counteracted and they had extreme generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own. Nobody convinced them. Nobody had to urge them.

No preacher had to get up and beg them or anything like that. Paul didn't even have to say anything to them. These people just love to give. And that's my desire for the church. That's our desire.

I can bet you every pastor in this city, their heart is the same as mine. Is that we want, we ask, you know, we want to see a church of generosity. I want to see Salt Church as a church of generosity. I want them to be people that other people say, man, you know what? I haven't been to Salt Church.

I don't know much about them. You know, I see their signs out on the road. And I see their website. And I see their social media. But man, I hear, but bigger than anything, I hear, there's some generous people.

Those are some people that love to give and love to serve and love to reach. And Paul's exhorting these people. And the third thing is, people who love money have money in the bank, but no peace in their heart. So you can be rich all day long, according to the world standards. You can have all the money, but if you don't have peace in your heart, what good is it?

Jim Carrey said this, the comedian and actor, I think everybody should be rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so that they can see that it's not the answer. Being rich is not the answer. And most of you would say, you know, I love God. God, I love, I know that the love of money is the root of all evil. But if we're honest with ourselves and just kind of assess ourselves, and me included, and we open up, many of us probably here have issues in some of these areas.

And we need to be open and honest with God. So here's what God does. God gives us the blessed test. The blessed test. He gives us, he's actually testing us.

He's testing us whether we love money or whether we love God. So what does he do? He actually puts this training wheel situation with giving together. And we see it all over scripture. And it's called the tithe.

The tithe. And that's like a bad word in our culture. When the church talks about tithing. But to God, this is a really good thing. Because he's putting us to the test.

He's sharing it with us. In fact, Leviticus says this. A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil and fruit from the fields, belongs to the Lord. It is holy to the Lord. What God is trying to tell us is that really it's his.

And technically, we're not giving. We're just returning. We're returning. To tithe is first. First and foremost, a return of what God has already given.

Let me give you an example of what God probably thinks about us when we kind of like hold back from him. It's like when I take my kids to McDonald's, and I buy them, you know, Happy Meals and French fries. Let me take it to Steak and Shake. Savannah loves Steak and Shake, and Max has, you know, he, it's the only fries that Max eats, because Max doesn't eat a whole lot of anything. He loves some grilled cheese and, and those little fries, and boy, if I can feed those fries to him all day long, as long as he's eating something, I'm glad he's eating those things.

But, but they have this plate of fries, and, and, you know, sometimes I'll finish my food before they do, and I'm still a little hungry, so I reach over and say, can I have a couple of those fries? And what's, what's their response? No, Daddy, that's my, those are my fries! You got your fries. Oh, you ate your fries.

Well, I bought those fries. In fact, if I wanted to, I could buy you another plate of fries. I could buy you a room full of fries if I wanted to. But no, Daddy, these are my fries. You're not going to have these fries.

No, those are my fries. And in the same way, God's kind of, I mean, from, I know that's kind of a silly example, but it's so true because our Father is giving us everything. He's blessing us with everything we have, with everything we need. And when he's only asking for a little bit back, he's only asking for two fries. But we have a problem giving him those fries back.

Because he wants to bless us. I have rooms full of fries for you. I have rooms full of riches for you. I have more than enough. I own everything.

The blessings come from me. As the scripture says, it all belongs to the Lord. So here's the point of tithing. Here's the blessings of the tithe, if you're following a note. Tithing provides for God's work through his church.

This is why we tithe. It provides for the work through God's church. Malachi says this, Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. What does that really mean, the storehouse? It means the church.

The church. The church that you're fed. The church that you're a part of. Many of you today are here because you're being spiritually fed. Many of you are part of salt groups because you're being spiritually fed.

You're a part of the church. You're doing things in the church because that spiritually feeds you. Right? Amen? When we're a part of doing the work of God, it spiritually feeds us.

And gifts in our gifts and working in the church and learning how and going through growth track and really discovering ourselves, it's all a part of being in the church. And when you are tithing to church, you are enabling the work of Christ to be accomplished through his church. Because the only way, and I don't know why, but God chose the church. God chose his people in this world to make a difference. And through the church, he does that.

You are allowing us, when you tithe, you are allowing Salt Church to reach 50 people this year already in this church. We've reached over 50 people for Christ this year. We've been able to provide food on Thanksgiving for Java's earth. Guess what? Because people tithe.

We're able to do more things generously the more we tithe and give. And we're enabling the work of God to go out through the church. We are able to tithe. We actually, the church as a whole, tithes back out. We believe in tithing so much that we tithe.

We tithe into organizations. We tithe into missions around the world to make differences in other parts of the world. We tithe into local missions. We tithe into whatever part, who we are able to partner with that is doing the job well. Local ministries, we do those things.

So we tithe ourselves. We, as a church, are able to do more together when we give together. But when you don't tithe, you disable the work to go out. You disable, you hinder the work from going forth. And I heard this.

The best thing about, I remember being in seminary. And my Old Testament professor, she was talking about tithing in the Old Testament. And tithing in the New Testament. Kind of going through that. And somebody in the class said, you know what?

What about if my tithe doesn't go to my church and it goes to some other organization? And because I felt led to go there. And she kind of answered it like this. I never, you know, she said, you know, if you get sick. And I think the specific situation was tithing to an organization that Third Day had started.

It was a missions organization. Very good organization, you know, to give to. And, you know, I encourage anybody to give to any organization. But she responded like this. Now, if you tithe that organization and not your local church, who's going to visit?

Is Third Day going to come to your hospital and visit you when you're sick? Is Third Day going to be there when you're going through the tough times to kind of pray for you and meet you for coffee? And support you in a group atmosphere when you're discouraged, when your marriage is falling apart? And I was like, wow, no. And that's why God kind of understands that you tithe to the storehouse.

You tithe to the church that is spiritually meeting your needs. So that's what Jesus, or God rather, talks about when he says the storehouse. Number two, tithing teaches us to put God first. Tithing teaches us to put God first. Deuteronomy says this.

It says the purpose of tithing is to teach you always to put God first in your lives. So, again, the training wheels of putting God first in our tithes. And when God's first in our lives, it makes all the difference inside and outside. Now, I don't know, you know, honestly, as a pastor, I don't know who tithes in here. I just look at the main number.

So, because, you know, I don't want to, it's just my opinion. Some people believe that the pastor should know exactly what everybody's giving. I really don't want to know because I don't want to form opinions about people and stuff because I'm flesh. I'm human, right? So I just care about, you know, the top number.

But it's still pretty easy to know as a general person who loves to give and who doesn't. Because the people who tend to give are the happier people. people. People who tend to give. You're preaching a message on giving, they're like, amen brother, hallelujah, right?

But the people who don't give, there's always a complaint about a sermon like this, right? I can't believe the pastor's talking about this, I can't believe, and there's always an issue with, I don't like the church because they talk about giving, you know, and they talk about that, this, and the tithe, and they're always the ones like, holy cow, 10%? I'd have to prioritize my entire life, exactly, you need to put God first, prioritize, yes you'd have to prioritize your entire life because that's the purpose of the tithe, is to teach us to put God first, and there's some practical things you can do, the tithe, and give, I just don't have enough money pastor, I don't have it, well maybe, maybe stop eating out as much, or stop eating as much, stop buying tickets, and this is going to hurt some people, stop buying season passes to your favorite ball team, maybe that would help because you're spending all your money on that, or maybe stop buying a surfboard every month, surfers, goodness gracious, some of you got surfboards wrapped around your room you never ride, you know? I mean, I gotta have that one, I gotta have this one, you know? It's always something that we have to have more, so sometimes we just have to, we have to prioritize, kind of put God instead of the surfboard, or instead of the favorite ball team, or, or I use food because everybody can kind of relate to that, I'm, I'm guilty as well, you know?

I put food as a God, I like my food, you know? When time, when fasting comes, the beginning of the year, we do corporate fast in our church, and boy, I don't like that, man, because I like that food, especially cold time of the year, you know? It's, it's cold outside, and I want to sit in a coffee shop, and, and, and, and drink, you know, lots of coffee, and I have to fast coffee, you know? And I have to fast donuts, and stuff like that, you know? That's not fun, that's not fun, but it, it really reprioritizes our life, it, it, it, it puts us in a place, instead we say, you are, you have given me so much, I'm returning back, I'm honored to give back to you, God, because you just give me, you love me so much, and you've given me so much, and, and you've honored me with so much, and tithing is the best way to teach us to give God what's first, and tithing also increases my faith in God, it increases my faith in God.

Those of you who are tithers know this, that 90% that God blesses goes much, much further than 10, than 100% without his blessing. I don't get it, I don't understand it. Pastor shared a story sometime, I thought it was an interesting story about a man who, who, who was significantly blessed in his church, he came to him, he says, man, I've just been so blessed this year, just radically blessed this year, I've, I've, I've been a double, triple, you know, blessed, I'm making seven figures now, and he's like, wow, that's great, that's great, man, I bet you are like one of the best tithers, and, and givers in the church, because you were just so blessed, and he just got really quiet. He said, he says, pastor, you know, I don't give as much as I used to, you know, when I was making 50,000 a year, I tithe, I tithe my 10% all over the place, but now it's just, it's just hard, I need you to pray for me, pastor, can you pray for me? He says, yes, certainly, I'll pray for you, and he just laid hands on him, he said, I pray that you would reduce his income so significantly that he could tithe the church again.

He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't do that. What are you doing? I can't, I can't wait for the day I'd be able to do that. The truth is, God is testing us, and he never tells us to test him whenever, when everywhere else expects us to do this, you know, he's a test, he says this, test me in this, in Malachi, test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven, I don't believe that, God, because I don't trust you, and pour out so much blessing that you will not have enough for it. We don't take his word at that.

Test me at this. There's a thing in theology called numerology, where you use a certain amount of numbers, you know, if you use numbers regularly in the Bible, that there's something significant, and there's a meaning behind it, and one of those is the number 10, where we get 10th, where we get tithing, and 10 is a very significant number. We had the 10 commandments. We have the 10 plagues of Pharaoh, right? We had, in the New Testament, we had the 10 virgins tested when waiting for the bridegroom.

We have 10 lepers tested to see if they would give God the glory when they were healed, and God uses 10. It's a very significant number, so 10, that's why we say the blessed test. He's testing us with the 10, just the 10, and a lot of people say this, you know, pastor, isn't that an Old Testament law? Do I really have to follow the Old Testament law? I get that a lot.

Yes, that's true. It's an Old Testament law, and Jesus has fulfilled a lot of those Old Testament laws, but it's important to know that the tithe has always been. Even before it was a law, Abraham tithed, Melchizedek, he tithed Melchizedek, and in the New Testament, Jesus even confirmed the tithe after he aggregated all of those laws. Matthew 23, he says this, for you are careful to tithe even the teeniest income. He's talking to the, to the, you know, they were just kind of learning, trying to skip the system a little bit here, but they were still giving a lot, and they wanted to show everybody, and the teeniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the most important aspects of law, justice, mercy, and faith.

You should tithe, yes. You know, Jesus said that. This is after, this is when he came. You should tithe, yes. It's important to tithe, but not, do not neglect the more important things, because, you know, when you tithe, you need to do it with a sense of justice.

You need to do it with a sense of mercy. You need to do it with a sense of faith. Faith. Do we trust God? Do we trust God?

So what do we do? We give God our first. If you're following your notes, here's a good, good sense to use. I will give God my first and my best so that he can bless the rest. If you're following the screams, why don't you all say that with me?

I will give God my first and my best so he can bless the rest. Because 90% blessed goes much farther than 100% not blessed by God, and I truly believe this. I know Miranda and I believe this. We've chose to be faithful with our tithes. There's times when we've hardly had anything because, you know, sometimes you're like, well, God understands, you know, I'm really going through struggles and times, and I get that too.

I mean, it's really hard sometimes to tithe. It's hard to give financially at times, but we've always, since we were married, we've never backed down from tithing. Tithing has always been a part of our life. It's a priority in our life, no matter if we have anything. When we started Salt Church, we pretty much both lost our jobs.

We were going through a time where we didn't have anything. We had a new baby. We had two babies. A new baby, the youngest, and a two-year-old baby at the time. But you know what we did?

With the little we had, with the little odd jobs we were doing, what did we do? We tithed. And guess what happened? We get checks in the mail and explained from people from churches or people that were friends of the family or sometimes people that I didn't really know. So what did we do with those things?

We tithed. And we kept tithing. And then Miranda ended up getting a job that was probably better than her former job. And what did we do? We tithed.

And then the board locked me down here at the church and said, you need to take some money, Leon. So they started paying me $800 a month. Some of you are like, that's nothing. But what did I do with that? I tithed.

I tithed. We tithed. And then the board locked me down again and says, Leon, you need to make more money. You need to make enough to make a living. And I said, no, we're not ready yet.

They said, yes, we are. We're going to do it. And God will bless us because we feel the same way about tithing. So they started paying me. Well, guess what I did?

I tithed. I tithed. And there was a time, I mean, there was, it was, it was actually earlier this year. I have my tithes kind of automatically come out as a check that goes. And, and, and a lot of times I don't, I don't check up.

I just assume it goes. And there was, there was about two or three months ago where I felt like, you know, things, you know, the income was still coming and stuff, but things just weren't quite right. I was like, what's going on here? It just doesn't, something doesn't feel right. Something doesn't feel right.

And I went to check my, my look over my bank account information. And somehow I'd missed that my tithe had not come out for three months, three months. And I was like, oh my gosh, my tithe has not come out for three months. How did that happen? You know what I did?

Well, first of all, I was like, God, you understand. It wasn't my fault, right? I mean, it was the bank bank's fault. They, they, they messed up on whatever was supposed to happen and it didn't go out. You know, it was their fault.

So, you know, he understands. So I would just begin tithing and I could just hear the voice of the Lord. Just tell me, no, you need to tithe what's belongs to me because it all belongs to me, right? So what did I do? I cut that fat check, sent it in.

And the result was God has continued to cover us, to bless us. Now I'm not, I'm not down with the prosperity gospel. I'm not promising you that you're going to be rich and wealthy if you give and this and that, you're going to have everything that you want, but I will promise you this. You will have everything you need and more because he's giving us the blessed test. And he has, he has showed that to me over and over again.

It requires faith to give first. It requires faith to give first. If you give last, it doesn't require faith. So I, I challenge you to, to, that when you set your budgets at the beginning of the month is to go ahead and budget out what you're giving and then work with the rest. I'm putting, I'm, God's put you to the test and I'll stand with God on that.

Give it a shot. Proverbs 3, 9, and 10 says, honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all of your crops. Then your barns will be filled to overflowing. What, what, what does that do? It teaches us to let go of the grip of the love and the love of money because money is the number one competitor of our hearts.

And God understand that. Jesus understood that. And this is what God did for us. You know that? As the band comes up, this is what God did for us.

That while we were yet sinners, God demonstrated his own love for us in this day, that while we were yet sinners, while we, he gave, he gave the greatest gift. We didn't deserve it. We didn't want it. We didn't, we didn't, we don't even, but yet while we were sinners, while we were far from him, he gave it. Now let me, let me just end with, with this.

I get, I get it. I know. I know how hard it is. I know how hard it is to write, write a check or, or, or give money or whatever. I know, especially when you're going through hard times.

So I'm, I'm, I'm just asking you to start off with something small. And I was, we were meeting with our, our lead team. Um, and we were all kind of talking about tithing and stuff like that. And even the difficulties for most people to tithe and, and, and that we, we, you know, we probably don't have, you know, a lot of tithers in our church because we're a new church. And a lot of people are just coming, coming back to Christ or, or, you know, rededicating a lot to Christ, or maybe some of you have never had been a part of a church before.

So we understand that, but we also know that we need to disciple people to know the blessings that God had for them. So we all around that table decided, and, uh, uh, one of the guys in there says, well, why don't we do this? Why don't we all commit ourselves? Cause we all, I, but that we would do 2% more this year, that we would jump our tithing from 10% to 12% and we'd all start 12% tithing. And if some of us did 12%, we would start doing 14%.

And we all like around that table said, we trust God that much. And this is what we're going to start doing. So. We want to like offer this opportunity, and I say this is an opportunity for you, that if you tithe 10%, try to give 12% this year and see what God does. Test God a little more.

If you are somebody who does not tithe at all, everybody can do something. So I'm asking you to challenge God this year with your tithes, and you just go up 2%. If you're doing nothing, go up 2%. If you're doing 5%, do 7%. If you're doing 10%, do 12%.

Let's give God a chance and see what He does this year. So I'm challenging you. I'm challenging you today. Let's give God. Let's make it happen.

Let's bow our heads and we're going to pray us out for a minute, but I want to offer this opportunity, before we end, that God did give Himself on the cross for us, His Son, Jesus, on the cross. The greatest gift, greater than the tithe. And some of you here today, you've walked into church and you haven't been a part of, maybe you haven't been a part of church for a while, or, you know, this is why we do. This is why people tithe. This is why we give.

Because we are hungry for these moments. Because we are actually excited for these moments. The reason we do what we do is because we want people to know Jesus. So today, I'm putting this out there. I said, if you don't know Jesus Christ, if you want to know Him, I'm not going to embarrass you.

I'm not going to have you come up. We're not going to, you know, make a... Yeah, we love to celebrate because that's what we're excited about, but because we honor you. We're just, we're just, if you're here today, with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, the Spirit of the Lord is here in this place. If that's you today, and you're like, Pastor, I need to know the Lord.

I need a relationship with God. Maybe I, you know, I thought, you know, I knew Him, you know, could I kind of walk away from Him, or I've just never really, I've tried everything else. But you know, this is my last straw. I just want to know. I just want to know Jesus.

I can tell you today, He's the answer. If that's you today, if you would just gently lift your hand. I'm not going to embarrass you. I just want to pray for you. If that's you today, ready to give your heart to Christ, amen.

Thank you. Is there anybody else? Is there anyone? Make today your day where you come into a relationship with Him. If you'd pray this with me, amen.

If you'd pray this with me. If you'd pray this with me. Just, just, dear Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God. That you gave your life the greatest gift, the greatest tithe. Today, come into my life, come into my heart.

I walk with you from this day forth, in Jesus' name. It's the prayer thing. Why am would your body that has to be reassessed to you? Today, come into my heart. To your place of death.

Before you ask, come into my heart to ask yourself. Thank you.