Introduction:
How to Make Giving an Act of Worship (2 Corinthians 9:7):
- Give Intentionally . (2 Cor 9:7a)
Intentional Giving Means:
- When I'm paid, I give to God First - every time.
- I love God enough to put serious Thought into it.
- I give Proportionately to what God's given me.
- Give Willingly . (2 Cor 9:7b)
- Give Cheerfully . (2 Cor 9:7c)
John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that He Gave His Only Son!
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:50-01:04
When we were kids, we went to this little Methodist church near our home, and when the kids would go, when we would go into Sunday school, our parents would give us some quarters to put in the offering, because they always took an offering for the kids in the Sunday school.
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And I remember one particular Sunday, my younger brother was kind of new to the Sunday school thing.
01:13-01:33
Mom gave us our quarters, we went in, put our offering in, And the lady that ran the Sunday school got up and she said, "We're gonna start today by looking at some slides from vacation Bible school." And they put up like a screen and somebody might need to explain to our younger people what a slide projector is, but they showed slides.
01:34-01:52
You know, the kids, "Yeah, here we're blowing up balloons and eating crackers." And you know, all these just slide after slide after slide of vacation Bible school Until finally, my younger brother stood up and he hollered, "This movie stinks!
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"I want my money back!"
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(congregation laughing)
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Adorable.
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Do you know what's extra cute about that?
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That wasn't his money that he gave.
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And that money wasn't given as some sort of price of admission.
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That's a cute story, isn't it?
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But do you know what's not cute?
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Is some of us never grow out of that mentality.
02:29-02:32
Some of us never grow out of the mentality of, that's my money.
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It should be used to serve me.
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We are so squirrely when it comes to money.
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Been feeling that all month going through this series.
02:52-02:57
It's just a tension that comes when we talk about money.
02:57-02:57
Why is that?
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Why don't people cheerfully give?
03:04-03:14
Give. I suppose there's lots of reasons.
03:17-03:19
You see the money as yours.
03:21-04:20
You see supporting missions as other people's problem. You don't see money as a tool and as a gauge. But I think the biggest reason we get so squirrelly about money in the church is most people don't see it. Most people don't see giving as as worship. And that's what giving is. Giving is an act of worship. Like how do we get there? Let's bow our heads and I'm gonna ask that you would please pray for me and I will pray for you. And let's see what the Bible says about this stuff.
04:21-05:08
Let's pray. Father, we started this series with a message called "Money's Where I Need to Repent." And I'm sure, Father, there are people here that are like, "I need to do that, but I'm not sure how." And I just pray that your Word would equip us to truly repent and watch you be at work in our lives like never before. It's all yours, God, and you're testing us to see if we really get that.
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Father, I just pray as Taylor did earlier, I just pray against any defenses that are being put up, but there would just be an eagerness for your Word and responding to it.
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We pray in Jesus' name.
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And all of God's people said, "Amen." So where do we start?
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Let's start where God started.
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I wanna talk about the tithe.
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What is a tithe?
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A tithe is 10%.
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Today, we use the word generically.
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We use it as a term incorrectly slapped on all giving, no matter the amount.
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But the tithe is where God began historically.
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You see it actually before the law.
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Abraham tithed to Melchizedek, Genesis 14.
06:23-06:27
You see Jacob promising a tithe in Genesis 28.
06:27-06:35
But then when you get to the Old Testament law, that's when we start to understand this concept of the tithe a little more.
06:35-06:43
But the tithe for Old Testament Israel wasn't just 10%.
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Did you know that in Old Testament law, there were three tithes?
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One was for the Levites, numbers 18.
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One was for their festivals that the nation had, that's Deuteronomy 14.
06:58-07:05
But every three years, They had another tithe that went to the poor, Deuteronomy 26.
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That meant for Israel, their tithe was about 23 1/3%.
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And understand that for Old Testament Israel, tithing wasn't giving an offering.
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Tithing was obligated.
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They were obligated to tithe.
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Tithing was required giving and under Israel's economy, it was really to, you could say, support the government.
07:39-07:44
So for Old Testament Israel, tithing was a lot like paying your taxes.
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But the Old Testament didn't stop at the tithe, Old Testament giving, that's where it started.
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because freewill giving was on top of the tithe.
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You remember a couple of weeks ago, we looked at 1 Chronicles 29, that offering would have been on top of their tithe.
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You see other freewill offerings, Deuteronomy 16, Exodus 35, all through the Old Testament, freewill offerings.
08:18-08:20
But that's a little bit about the tithe.
08:21-08:27
But there's another concept in the Old Testament that I think is grossly lost on the church.
08:29-08:31
And that's the concept of first fruits.
08:34-08:35
That's all through the Old Testament.
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Exodus 23, Exodus 34, Leviticus 2, Leviticus 23, Numbers 18, over and over and over and over, you see about giving God the first fruits.
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What is that?
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That's exactly what it sounds like.
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It's giving God first and best.
08:55-09:00
For Israel, it would have been grain and wool and honey.
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You give God back first and best, but it was also money.
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And giving God the first and the best was Israel's way of communicating to God.
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God, everything is from you, and we're giving you back the very first and the very best as our way of saying, thank you.
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And we trust you that you're going to keep providing.
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We're showing that trust, God, by giving you the very first and the very best.
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Tithing and firstfruits are principles for giving that are lost on the church.
09:45-09:52
Because do you know how many Christians typically give, it looks something like this.
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We get paid.
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The first thing we do, we gotta pay the bills, right?
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We gotta pay the house payment, the car payment, the utilities, we gotta pay the bills, we gotta buy the groceries.
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Okay, so now we have some money left.
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And with that money, we get the things that we want, right?
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And then we have some money left after that.
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And we maybe, maybe give to God out of the leftovers.
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And there are people that will give God 10% of the leftovers and feel pretty proud of themselves saying that they're tithing.
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They're giving 10% of what's left.
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You gotta really manipulate the math on that one.
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That's not tithing.
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10% of the leftovers is not tithing.
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And listen, it's not worship.
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It is not worship to offer God out of what you have left over.
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It's not worship.
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Right now, I can feel it.
11:20-11:27
Right now, there are people that are like, "Oh, oh, Pastor Jeff, this is, "what you're talking about is so Old Testament.
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"I don't know if you've read the New Testament, Pastor Jeff, "but tithing isn't commanded in the New Testament." Pastor Jeff, you're being, right now, you're being so legalistic because tithing is not commanded in the New Testament.
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I've had people say that to me.
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Let me ask you this, when people have that objection, this is legalistic, it's not commanded in the New Testament.
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When people have that objection, are they wanting to justify giving God more than 10% or are they wanting to justify giving God less than 10%?
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Which is it?
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It's less.
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I've never had the guy, and I've been in ministry for a while, I've never had the guy that's like, "Tithing's legalistic, I wanna give way more than that.
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Is that okay?" I've never had that guy, but it's always a justification to give less than 10%.
12:32-12:42
You're like, "Well, is tithing for today?" Well, listen, I want you to hear me very closely because this is important.
12:44-12:50
You know, if you've been around at all, how much I despise legalism.
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I hate legalism.
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But every example of giving in the New Testament is beyond the tithe, every example.
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You know, what is the purpose of the Old Testament law?
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Well, the Bible tells us the Old Testament law is the tutor.
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The Old Testament law is to help us understand the New Testament and tithing and first fruits in the Old Testament.
13:23-13:30
Those were the tutors to teach us about the subject of giving to God.
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There's value in these principles.
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And I think a lot of Christians are throwing a lot of babies out with a lot of bathwater here.
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There's value in the principles.
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There's value in, okay, I'm going to give a measured portion back to God.
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And there's value in saying, I'm going to give to God first.
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There's values in the principles, right?
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Like the Sabbath.
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Is the Sabbath commanded in the New Testament?
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No, but isn't it a good idea to take a day away from working?
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Yeah, it is.
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But let me ask you this, for those you're still digging your heels in saying, we don't live under the law, Pastor Jeff, we don't live under the law, we live under grace.
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And I would ask you this, does grace require less than the law required?
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or does grace require more?
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According to our Lord, grace requires much more, right?
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Like we're gonna be talking about the Sermon on the Mount, we're gonna be going through that next year.
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And spoiler alert, Jesus talks about murder.
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Now in the Old Testament law, you were forbidden to murder, all in favor.
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But nobody's like, "I live under the new covenant, Pastor Jeff.
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I'm allowed to murder." What did Jesus say?
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Jesus said, "No, I require more.
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If you hate, that's murder." The Old Testament says don't commit adultery.
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You're like, "Yeah, but I live under the new covenant." What did Jesus say?
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Does the new covenant require more or less?
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It requires more.
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Jesus said adultery is looking at a woman lustfully.
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Jesus always took it more.
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You see, grace allows us to jump higher than the law demanded we jump.
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And when Jesus says to go the second mile, he assumes you already went the first.
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So I gotta tell you, church, when it comes to giving and some Christians' poor habits of giving, I don't think fear of legalism is really the problem.
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I wanna share some stats with you I read this past week.
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About 5% of churchgoers tithe regularly, 5%.
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And somewhere between 50 and 80%, somewhere in that range of those who give to the church, give about 2% of their income.
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I want you to think about that.
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Somewhere between 50 to 80% of people who give, give 2% of their income.
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What did we just say under the law?
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How much did the Old Testament Israelites give?
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They give 23 and a third percent.
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Do you know what that means?
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That means the law was over 10 times more effective than grace.
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Is that how that works?
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Or if we're like just doing a single tie, that we're like, let's just talk about a 10% tithe.
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Okay, that means the law is still five times more than the 2% that people are giving today.
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It's a sad reality, my friends, that we who live under grace are giving embarrassingly less than those who lived under the law.
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So here's a really good question I want you to ask yourself.
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If everyone in this church gave the way you give, how would we be doing as a church?
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So I encourage you to take some notes because we're gonna see what the New Testament teaches about how to give.
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If everyone in the church gave like you do, how would Harvest be doing?
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Well, if your answer is, if everyone gave like I give, we'd have to meet in the parking lot.
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That's not good.
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If your answer is, well, if everyone in the church gave like I do, we'd have to support missions with Arby's coupons.
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That's not good.
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So what does the Bible say?
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1 Corinthians 16, verses one through four, just giving you a bit of an on-ramp here, Paul was taking a collection for the poor Christians in Jerusalem.
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And when we get to 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, he revisits the subject, and he encourages the Corinthians to give by highlighting the Macedonians example.
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And there's one verse we're gonna look at today, because this one verse captures the heart of how to make your giving an act of worship.
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All right?
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So how to make giving an act of worship.
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Let's look at the verse, then we're gonna break it down.
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1 Corinthians, I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians 9, verse seven.
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Says, "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, "not reluctantly or under compulsion, "for God loves a cheerful giver." That one verse tells us how to make giving an act of worship.
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So let's break it down.
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First thing you need to do is give intentionally.
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Give intentionally.
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Look at the first part of verse seven.
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It says, "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart." Paul says, "Each one must give." That's assuming that everyone's on board with giving.
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Each one must give.
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Sadly though, the reality is not everyone is on board with giving.
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I also read this past week, the average amount given per churchgoer, The average amount given is about $17 a week.
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Ouch, right?
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Doing the math on that, it's about $74 a month.
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That breaks down to $884 a year given.
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Each one must give, he says, as he has decided.
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Do you know what those numbers tell me?
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Do you know what it tells me when somebody is giving $17 a week?
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That tells me that there's no real thought behind giving.
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Giving must be intentional.
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It must be intentional.
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Like, well, what does that mean?
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What does it mean to give intentional?
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Well, it means a lot of things.
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I'm gonna give you three.
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Intentional giving means this, first of all, letter A, when I'm paid, I give to God first every time.
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I had to get back to that first fruits thing, right?
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That's intentional.
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When I'm paid, the first thing that I do is give to God.
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Many people give sporadically, like here and there, when I think about it, when I'm feeling it, when I maybe have a couple of extra bucks, when I remember, when I remember I give.
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Do you know God doesn't give to you like that?
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Does he?
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Is that how God provides for you?
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Oh, when I think about it, when I remember, some people don't give if they don't attend.
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as if, getting back to little brother at Sunday school, as if their offering's the admission fee, as if the offering was a tip for a good service.
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But some people don't give if they don't attend, if they're on vacation, they have the flu, if they're out of town.
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You don't do that with your house payment, I hope.
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I was on vacation two weeks last month, So I don't need to pay a house payment.
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How would that fly with the bank?
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Probably not well.
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But for some reason we're okay with doing that with God?
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Really?
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So intentional giving means this, when I'm paid, I give to God first every time.
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So look, it's real easy, my friends.
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When you receive money, direct deposit, a paycheck, When you receive money, the first thing you do is give.
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That's the concept of firstfruits.
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Thank you, God.
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Thank you for providing for me, God, and as a way of worshiping you and saying thank you, I'm going to give back.
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Giving shouldn't be an afterthought.
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Intentional giving, giving is worship, means giving is the first thought that you have when God gives to you.
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So intentional giving means when I'm paid, I give to God first every time.
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Let it be, it means I love God enough to put serious thought into it.
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That's why Paul says, "As he has decided in his heart." Listen, this is between you and God.
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This is between you and God.
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I don't know, I've told you this, I don't know who gives what at this church.
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I have no idea.
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I know that giving is good overall at our church.
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That's what finance tells me.
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I don't know numbers and family, I don't know.
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I don't know who gives what.
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I just get a bottom line of the numbers, but I don't have the names attached to them, all right?
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And this is why, as he's decided in his heart, this is between you and God.
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But giving shouldn't be impulsive.
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And it shouldn't be, you know, spur of the moment thought, deciding when you get here, on your way out the door.
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No, no, giving should be predetermined.
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You should put prayerful thought into it, to say, God, this is how you're giving to me, God, this is how you're blessing me.
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God, what do you want me to give back to you?
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There should be prayerful thought put into your giving.
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And letter C, I give proportionate to what God's given me.
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Hang on, is it proportionate or proportionately?
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Which one?
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Was proportionately?
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You know what, I have that in my notes, like a question mark.
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I probably should have looked that up before I got up here, thank you.
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Proportionately, I give proportionately to what God's given me.
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I communicate for a living.
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Can you believe that?
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I give proportionately to what God's given me.
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That's intentional giving.
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And see, that's for the people that like, wanna poo-poo tithing.
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That's one of the things I love about the concept of tithing because tithing is a principle that we can all apply.
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Because it's just 10% of whatever you make.
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It's not like your offering has to be a set amount, like you have to give $1,000 a week or whatever.
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It's proportionate.
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Can you give God a percentage of what he's given you?
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Anybody can do that.
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That's what I like about tithing.
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The only way you can't give 10 % is if you make zero.
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Is there anybody here that gets a paycheck that says zero on it?
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Please see me after service, we want to help you.
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But if your paycheck has anything north of zero, look, my wife's in finance, so I know these things.
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If your paycheck is anything north of zero, mathematically, you can give 10% of that.
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That's intentional.
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You can fact check me on that.
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Intentional.
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That's where it has to start.
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It has to be intentional.
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Because there's a truth that works for both money and for time.
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And that truth is this.
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If you're not intentional about how you spend them, they will be gone and you will wonder where they went.
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That's true about time.
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Have you ever had a day where you're like, what did I do all day?
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It's like nine o'clock, where did the day go?
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If you're not intentional about how you spend your time, it's gonna be gone and you're gonna wonder where it went.
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That's true with money.
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If you're not intentional about how you spend money, it's gonna be gone.
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Where did all my money go?
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You gotta be intentional.
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And when you are, it's an act of worship.
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Secondly, write this down, number two, give willingly.
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willingly. Right? Willingly is right, isn't it? Not give willing.
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Are we going with willingly?
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I communicate for a living, can you believe that?
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Give willingly.
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Look at the middle of verse seven.
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Not reluctantly.
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Or under compulsion.
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Okay, so here's how not to give.
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Here's how not to give.
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He gives two negatives.
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First of all, he says, "Not reluctantly." Literally, that means with regret.
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Don't give with regret.
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No grief or sorrow or remorse when you give.
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And what he's talking about here, just write this down in your notes, inside pressure, inside pressure.
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Don't give with inside pressure, meaning this, you give, oh, but it's painful to you to give, that you're like, I know I should give, but I don't really want to.
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Then don't, that's not worship.
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Or if you're like, man, you know what?
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Oh, I got all excited over this money series, so I gave a lot.
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I gave a lot to this building fund and stuff, "You know what, now I kinda regret doing that." Eee.
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Kinda regret that.
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That's not worship.
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If it's painful for you to give, don't give.
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I'll never know.
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Like I said, I only see bottom line.
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But if you're feeling this reluctance, don't give.
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Just don't, don't partner with God.
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Don't invest in eternity.
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Don't worship.
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But I can tell you, it's your loss.
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Because reluctant giving worship is as exciting to God as reluctant singing worship.
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Right?
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Just had this music time and you're standing there and you're just like, ♪ How great is our God How much longer is this song?
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♪ How great is our God What's for lunch?
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♪ How great Okay.
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Do you think God's in heaven like fired up over that?
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Like, oh, that's, oh, I'm feeling the praise.
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That doesn't excite God.
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Neither does your, okay, I guess I'll give.
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That's not exciting to God.
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It's not worship.
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So not reluctantly, that's the inside pressure.
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Secondly, and not under compulsion, that's, write this down, outside pressure.
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Not under compulsion.
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Outside pressure, what's that?
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Guilt trip.
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Peer pressure.
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Bad pastor trying to squeeze you.
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By the way, that's why you need discernment.
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I think we talked a lot about that recently.
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But please hear me, do not give a dime if you feel like you're being manipulated in any way.
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Do not give a dime.
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Because coerced giving worship is as exciting to God as coerced singing worship.
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Like if I get done with the sermon and I just say, Ashley, you know what, just stay seated.
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And I grab you and pull you up on stage and say, you're gonna lead the final song.
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Oh, you might do it because of the peer pressure, but your heart's not gonna be in it.
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That's not exciting to God.
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Oh, he gave because he felt pressured to give.
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That's not exciting to God.
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Just don't do it.
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Because real worship only comes from the heart that wants to worship.
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You realize that.
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God wants your heart.
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So worship comes from a heart that wants to worship, and that includes worship in giving.
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So give willingly.
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That's what it's worship.
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Give willingly.
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And finally, give cheerfully.
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Give cheerfully.
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Look at the last phrase.
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It says, "For God loves a cheerful giver." For, look at that first word, for.
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For, that means because, right?
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Like, why should I worship in giving?
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He's saying because, because God loves a cheerful giver.
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That word for cheerful in the Greek is the same word from which we get the word hilarious. And I've known people like this. There's people like this in this church. That they're like, "I love giving! This is awesome! You mean I have a chance to give and advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ? I have a chance to give so that this church can reach people with the gospel? That's amazing! I love that!" That's a hilarious giver.
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And what does it say about hilarious givers?
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It says, "God loves them." God loves, God loves, God loves, God, God loves, God loves the world, right?
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God loves his children.
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But this, this is something special.
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You know, there's not another verse in the Bible like this one.
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Did you know that?
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There is not another verse in the Bible where it says that God has a special kind of love for people based on something that they do.
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But there's a special kind of love that God has for people who love to give.
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You're like, well, how in the world does that work, Jeff?
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I thought God loved, I thought God loved everybody.
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So what does this mean?
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What do you mean special kind of love?
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It's like this.
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It would be like if somebody rightly said this.
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You know, Pastor Jeff loves people who work with special needs kids.
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I love everyone, all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons.
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But I gotta tell you, I have a special kind of love.
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I have a special kind of appreciation and admiration for people who dedicate their lives to working with special needs kids.
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And I've told you before, if I was in charge, we would swap professional athletes salaries with special needs teacher salaries.
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That's how it would go under my economy.
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I love people that work with special needs kids.
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Does that mean I don't love other people?
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Or does that mean there's some kind of just special affection that I have for people that do a certain thing?
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And see, that's that sense that Paul's talking about here regarding God.
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When there's people that lavishly give of worship, God's like, "I love that. I love people that do that." God sees when you give, when you know everything comes from Him, and you trust that He will provide for your needs, and you thank Him by giving back to Him first in order to advance his kingdom and you worship him because you're giving with a heart that's happy to do it.
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God sees that happening and he's saying, "Man, I love people that do that." Can you think of a greater motivation to turn your giving into worship than to fire up the love of God in such a way.
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Well, giving is worship, okay?
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Giving is worship.
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Well, the bottom line is this, it's because of a biblical truth that's even recognized by non -biblical people.
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is because love gives.
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When you love someone, you are moved to express that love through giving.
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I love my wife more than anybody on this planet, so giving to her is a joy for me.
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I love to give to her because I love her, and giving is an expression of how much I love her.
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You know, the most famous verse in the Bible?
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Play a little game here, see how well you know the most famous verse in the Bible.
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Can we get that on the screen here, the first part of it?
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This is a fill in the blank question.
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See how we do.
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For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
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Now we're stopping with gave, but you're right.
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You're right.
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God so loved the world.
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How much did he love?
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That it moved him to give.
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And as Cade rightly said, what he gave was his only son, who came and died as a sacrifice, taking our place on the cross, bearing the wrath of God so that we wouldn't have to, so that we could be guiltless in the presence of God when we stand before him.
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But what you have to see there is God loved, so God gave.
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God's giving doesn't stop there, does it?
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What else has God given?
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His Holy Spirit, the promise of heaven, the fellowship of believers, your paycheck.
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God continually gives and gives and gives and gives to you because he loves you.
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And the reality is this, my friends, if you love God, You'll give to him, because giving is love.
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And love expressed to God is just another way of saying worship.
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So our worship team would make their way back up front.
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You know, over this past month, we've examined the reality that maybe money's to repent. Because it's a foundational truth that the people of God give to the work of God. It's an eternal ROI later, but it's an act of worship right now. And if that's your approach to all this, then I would say, under the authority of God's word, you're right on the money. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we want to be people who worship. Your Son told us that you are seeking worshippers, and yes, that is in music, yes, that is in service, yes, that is in all these other things, but It's also in money.
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And your word is so crystal clear on that, Father.
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So often we wanna sort of compartmentalize that aspect of our lives and tuck it away from you.
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That's not worship.
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It's all yours.
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Father, I pray that we would examine our hearts for you, Examine, first of all, the love that you've shown us that resulted in you giving, to move us to express love to you by the way that we give back.
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What's already yours in the first place, really?
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Father, as we, in a moment, are gonna stand and sing, as we walk out the door, I pray that we would have a fresh perspective of money, a perspective that comes from your word.
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We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read (2 Corinthians 9:7)
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Explain the principle of “firstfruits”. How does that principle apply to financially giving to the church? Why is it important?
Should Christians tithe, if tithing isn’t explicitly commanded in the New Testament? Why or why not?
How do you know that you are giving from the heart, and not merely giving to avoid feeling guilty for not giving?
What does it mean that “God loves a cheerful giver”? What IS a cheerful giver?
Breakout
Pray for one another.