God's Economics 101:
- The PRINCIPLE. (2 Cor 9:6)
- The PRACTICE. (2 Cor 9:7)
- The PROMISE. (2 Cor 9:8)
- The PRECEDENT. (2 Cor 9:9)
- The PROVISION. (2 Cor 9:10)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above with your cursor for answers!
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Turn in your Bibles with me to the book of 2 Corinthians.
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And we're going to be picking up in our series, "I Love to Give." Are you there yet?
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Are you there yet?
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Let me hear you say it.
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I want to hear you say, "I love to give." Let me hear it.
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It sounds like most of you are there.
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My goal by the end of this month is that we are all there.
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Let me hear it one more time.
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I love to give.
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Giving isn't a chore or an obligation or it's my bill that I have to pay to the church.
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For the Christian, giving is something that we love to do.
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And we've been going through 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, a key passage on giving.
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Understand it's not about percentage.
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And it's not about who gives the most.
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Giving is about the heart.
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We saw that in chapter 8, verse 7.
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Giving is worship.
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And if you want a key verse to kind of sum up everything that we're talking about, look again at chapter 8 and verse 3.
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In talking of the Macedonians, Paul said, "For they gave according to their means as I can testify, and beyond their means of their own accord." There are three things that you need to understand about New Testament biblical giving according to their means.
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God's not asking you to give according to what someone else makes.
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You give according to what God has entrusted you with.
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Then He says beyond their means.
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They were willing to give sacrificially.
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And there are times in our worship and giving, we give more than normally.
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We give sacrificially.
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We sell something so we have something to give for a ministry, or we're willing to give something up.
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Again, that's between you and the Lord.
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And then you see the third thing there - of their own accord.
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It wasn't Paul threatening them to say, look, we need to raise some money, and I'm sending Big Bruno by your house to shake you down to make sure that we have the money for the ministry that we need.
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He didn't try to give some kind of a guilt trip.
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show them some commercial of the church in Jerusalem with Sarah McLachlan music playing in the background.
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It's not about guilt trip or coercing or tricking people of your own accord.
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This is between you and the Lord.
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We're going to see that again in this passage that we're looking at today.
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In chapter 8, verse 16, down through chapter 9, verse 5.
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We're not going to be covering that in this series.
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You can read that.
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But basically in that passage, The Apostle Paul is giving a stamp of approval on Titus and the brothers that are going with him to receive the offering.
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Don't you want to know that the people that are handling the money are trustworthy?
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And you need to know that about Harvest Bible Chapel.
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The people that handle the money are the most trustworthy people that I know.
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I have never laid awake at night wondering if funds are being misappropriated.
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You have that going on in this passage here.
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I encourage you to read that.
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These are brothers with integrity.
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And they're coming to receive the offering.
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And four times in that passage, he tells them, "Be ready." Okay, be ready.
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We're going to be taking an offering.
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Are you ready for it?
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Be ready.
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Be ready.
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Be ready.
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But we're going to be jumping down to chapter 9 and verse 6.
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And today we're going to get to the key principle about giving.
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And we can't tune out at all.
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Because the subject that I'm going to cover today, there is so much bad teaching about what I'm about to show you from God's Word today.
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There is so much bad teaching on this subject.
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I think of that goofy guy on the Christian TV channel.
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Maybe you've seen him, that Dr. Murdoch.
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Have you ever seen that Dr. Murdoch?
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I don't know why there's times that I've stopped and watched him for a few minutes, because a few minutes is really all I can stomach.
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But his thing is, you plant an uncommon seed, and God will give you an uncommon harvest.
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And the Holy Spirit just told me there's a man out there right now who's watching this program, and your child is sitting by your side, and you're wondering whether or not you should be giving.
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I'm not talking to anybody else right now.
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I'm talking to you, sir.
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You plant that seed.
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And you have people duped into thinking this guy is some kind of prophet.
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And "Oh, he's talking to me." This qualifications that he just laid out probably covered thousands of people that might be watching.
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One time when I was watching, he said, "You know, I had a man come up to me and he said, 'What kind of car do you want?'" And he said, "I have cars.
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I have every car that I could use." And this man says, "Well, there's this new BMW coming out.
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Do you have that?" And he said, "No, I don't even have that.
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It hasn't been released." And this man says, "I can get you that car.
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You tell me what color you want." And I told him, "Black exterior, black interior." The next morning, that car was sitting in my driveway.
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And then this man looks into the camera, and he has the audacity to say, "And God wants to do the same thing in your life." It's sad that people fall for it.
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It's sad that there are people that eat that garbage up.
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That's what God's like.
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You know, I'm living paycheck to paycheck and I'm having a hard time making ends meet.
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And my children have needs and I'm having a hard time meeting their basic needs.
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But this guy on TV just got done telling me because his faith is so great, God's given him more cars than he knows how to drive.
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And the Lord will deal with him.
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But because we see and hear some of this crazy teaching like that, when we get to this passage that we're going to be looking at today, people like us will either avoid it, and some of us will just flat out deny what it says.
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Some of the things I'm going to share with you, there are some people here today that are like, "I'm not really sure that that's true," and you have to take that up with the Lord, but I want you to see what the Bible actually says. Not what you think it says.
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Not what you've heard somebody else say that it says. I want you, Bible open, to look and see what it actually says. Are you ready?
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I hope you take notes on your outline. This is God's economics 101. Okay, what we're going to do, because this is so important, this This is so important, that's why it gets so messed up so often.
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That's why Satan would twist this so often.
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What we're going to see here is so important, and it's so misimplied.
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What we're going to do is we're going to take one verse at a time so that we really understand how God's economics really happens.
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How God's economics, how that really works.
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So, number one, jot this down, the principle.
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The principle.
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Look at chapter 9, verse 6.
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Paul says, "The point is this.
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Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.
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And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." Now you understand when you read the Bible, you need to read it in context, okay?
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It wasn't like Paul in chapter eight was like talking about money, money, money, money, money.
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Now he gets to chapter nine.
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He's like, here's a little proverb about agriculture for all you farmers out there.
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Okay, now let's get back to talking about money.
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He's obviously talking about money, right?
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Sowing and reaping, that's an agricultural term, but it applies to biblical giving.
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This principle - it's in the Old Testament, first of all.
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Our kids in the Harvest Kids ministry learned a verse last month.
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Proverbs 19:17 How many parents learned that with your kids?
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"Whoever is generous to the poor..." What?
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"...lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his deed." This is an Old Testament concept.
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It's in Proverbs 11:24-25.
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Some people want to leave this teaching in the Old Testament.
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But Jesus taught this.
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Luke 6:38.
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Jesus taught this same thing in here.
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This passage that we're looking at.
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Paul revisits the principle.
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Again, all of them are the same.
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Proverbs, Luke 6, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9.
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All teaching the same thing.
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You give to God, and He gives to you.
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First of all, we're going to break it down here.
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Paul says the point is this, whoever - that's an important word, right?
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Whoever.
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So you're like, Pastor Jeff, I don't make very much money.
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Does this principle apply to you?
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Here's a real easy way to find out.
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Are you under the category of whoever?
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Are you a whoever?
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If you're a whoever, this applies to you.
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But you're like, man, I really messed up my finances.
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I went into debt.
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having a hard time.
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Does this apply to me?
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Yes or no?
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Yes.
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I make a lot of money, and I give a lot of money.
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Does that apply to you?
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Yes.
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I'm just learning how to give biblically, and I'm still trying to figure some things out.
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I'm not quite there, but I'm learning.
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Does this apply to you?
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Yes. This applies to anyone.
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No matter what you do, no matter where you work, no matter how much you make, Whoever applies to every single one of us.
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Whoever.
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This is for you.
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Whoever what?
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He says whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.
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Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
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So what Paul is saying is what is true in agriculture is true with money.
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Entire books have been written about this subject.
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I just want to share three things under this subheading, the principle.
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Three things you need to know about this principle of sowing and reaping.
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It's true in agriculture. It's true with money.
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The first one is this. Write this down.
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Number one, let go.
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Let go. That's the first thing, right?
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Now think of the farmer with a bag of seed.
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If that farmer has that bag of seed, and he's just walking up and down his field thinking, I need to plant this.
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But if I plant this, I'm not going to have any seed anymore.
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And since I'm a farmer, I should have seed, but if I stick it in the ground, I'm not going to have seed.
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That's a silly dilemma, isn't it?
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The truth is, he's not going to be able to have a harvest at all unless he's willing to let go of the seed.
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He has to be willing to let it go.
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He has to be willing to say I'm going to throw it out.
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I'm not going to go back and collect it later thinking I changed my mind, maybe I shouldn't have done that.
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He has to be willing to let it go.
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And that's how it is with money.
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Like the farmer with the seed, we have to be willing to say, you know what, I have this.
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And if I give it to advance the kingdom, it's no longer going to be in my hand.
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You have to be willing to let it go.
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But that leads us to the second thing.
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The principle of sowing and reaping.
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What's true with agriculture is true with money.
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Let it go.
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The second thing is it requires faith.
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It requires faith.
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See, the reason that farmer is willing to throw the seed out is because he knows When that seed takes root, it's going to grow.
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Now can he prove that?
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Ish?
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If you ask a farmer, "Well, how do you know what your plant's going to grow?" What's he going to say?
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He's going to say, "Well, it just kind of does." You know, that's how it always happens.
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That's how it's happened before.
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And I have some farmer friends, and that's how it's happened to them.
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So, I know that if I'm going to grow anything, I have to be willing to let it go, and I'm going to have to trust that laws of science that God created are going to work, and this is going to grow.
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It takes some trust on the farmer's part.
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And so it is with money.
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You have to be willing to let it go.
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But this promise that we're going to look at today, you have to exercise faith to say, is God really going to keep His Word as it pertains to money?
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We're going to get to that.
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So you have to let it go.
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It requires faith.
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The third thing is very simply, it's proportionate.
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You sow a little, you reap a little.
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You sow much, you reap much.
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It's proportionate.
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It's true with agriculture.
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It's true with money.
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Listen, this is a biblical truth.
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What is true with agriculture is true with money.
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If you sow a little, you're going to reap a little.
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If you sow a lot, going to reap a lot.
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OK, now we got the farmer with the bag of seed, and he's walking out in the field.
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And he says, you know what?
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I understand I need to let it go.
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I understand I'm going to have to trust the laws of nature to work.
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I'm still hesitant about not having some seed for myself.
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So here's what I'm going to do.
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I'm just going to plant one seed.
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Could he do that?
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Well, sure he could.
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And what's going to happen when it's harvest time?
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He's going to have one plant.
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He sowed a little.
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He's going to reap a little.
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But the Bible says that's also true about money.
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If you are willing to let go by faith and give God a little, He's going to return to you a little.
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But if you're willing to let go by faith, give to God, give Him much, He is going to return to you much.
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If that farmer says, "You know what, I'm going to let go.
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I'm believing this is going to work." And he throws all the seed out, he's going to have a huge harvest as compared to throwing one seed out and just getting one plant.
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I mean, it's easy to understand with the farmer.
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The problem is when we start talking about money, And all of a sudden we think, is that really true?
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This is what the Word of God says.
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Okay?
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This truth is based on God's integrity.
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This is God keeping His Word.
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It's proportionate.
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The more you give, the more God's going to give back to you.
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And we've seen it throughout this passage.
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We've talked about it all month.
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Giving is a measure of your faith.
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Jesus said where your treasure is there, "Your heart will be also." And here it is again.
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Giving is a measure of your faith.
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How much faith do you have?
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It's going to show up on how much you give.
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And if you don't give because you're afraid to lose it, you're saying, "I'm willing to forfeit the gain that God would have returned to me." So again, you're going to fall into one of two camps when it comes to your money.
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you're going to say, "Well, if I give it, I won't have it." Or, you're going to say, "If I give it, I'll get more later." And the level of your faith determines which of those camps you're going to be in.
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But the principle of sowing and reaping - you see, the Lord says it's true with agriculture, and it's true with your wallet.
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It's true with your purse.
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If you sow a little, you're going to reap a little.
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If you sow a lot, you're going to reap a lot.
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So that's the principle.
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Number two, the practice.
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Look at verse 7.
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Paul says, "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart." Do you notice that keeps coming up?
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"Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." Again, this is free will giving.
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I don't know what anyone in this church gives.
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I don't want to know what anyone in this church gives.
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This is between you and God.
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You determine this in your hearts.
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See, giving biblically shouldn't be done impulsively.
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It shouldn't be.
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You shouldn't say, well, I'll wait until the offering bags come by in church, and then I'll kind of make a snap judgment on how much I want to give.
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It shouldn't be impulsive.
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It should be voluntary.
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But notice here, it should be predetermined.
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Do you see that?
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You have to decide in your heart.
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You should prayerfully think about how much you want to give to the church.
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How much you want to give to missions.
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You should prayerfully think about that.
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You should be talking, married people, you should be talking to your husband or wife about that.
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How much do you think we should give for this ministry to advance the Kingdom of God?
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Prayerful thoughts.
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notice in verse 7 there are two negatives. He says, first of all, not reluctantly. Not reluctantly. Literally. Not regretfully.
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You shouldn't give regretfully. You shouldn't be like, you know what, I hear what Pastor Jeff is saying, and next week I'm going to give a lot. Sowing and reaping baby, I'm going to give a lot. And you come and you're like, God, I'm going to give this to you. And then you give and then it's sermon time and then When you're in the car driving home, and you're like, "Oh, what have I done?
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Why did I give all that money to the church?
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I shouldn't have done that!
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That was stupid of me!" Regretfully, if you are going to regret what you give to the Lord, you shouldn't give it to the Lord.
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It's not worshipful.
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That is not worship.
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To say I'm going to give this to you, God, but I wish that I didn't have to.
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I wish that I didn't have to give you anything.
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I wish I could just feel better about giving you less.
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If that's the attitude, you completely misunderstood what it means to give worshipfully.
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That's why Paul says, "not reluctantly." And then he says, "not under compulsion." See, reluctance is like the internal thing.
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You're under compulsion is the external thing, meaning peer pressure.
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Or maybe somebody gives bad teaching about giving, like the knucklehead on the Christian channel that I mentioned.
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And maybe you've heard some bad teaching, and you feel this guilt trip, and you feel like you're under compulsion.
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Like if I don't give, God's going to burn my house down.
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Or God's going to take stuff from me because I haven't given.
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under compulsion.
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You see that? It's right there in the text.
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Don't give reluctantly.
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Don't give under compulsion.
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Look at this last phrase.
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"For God loves a cheerful giver." This word "cheerful" in the Greek is where we get the English word "hilarious." God loves a hilarious giver.
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It's the kind of giver that God gets fired up about.
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A hilarious giver.
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You're like, "What does that mean?" When I think of hilarious giver, Aaron and I have these friends, and they visit here from time to time.
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They don't know Kurt and Pam aren't here today, or they're like, "Okay, I'm going to talk about them because they're not here." We have these friends named Kurt and Pam, and don't tell them I said this, okay, because it would embarrass them.
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They are hilarious givers.
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Kurt owned a auto glass place up north.
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And years back, remember the Jeep, the driver's side window, one day I went to roll the window down, and instead of like,
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[HONKING]
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I hit the button, and it was like, Carl, thunk.
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The whole pane of glass went into the door, and one fell, thunk.
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And Aaron and I were like, oh, man.
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So I took it there, because I'm friends with Kurt.
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And I said, hey, I know you usually deal with brakes and stuff, but could you take a look at this?
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And he says, yeah, I'll take a look at it.
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I went to pick it up a few days later.
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He said, yeah, why don't you-- he just called.
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He said, why don't you stop by?
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I'd like to explain to you what happened.
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So I stopped by and went into his place.
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And Kurt had all the internal pieces and the door laid out.
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He goes, these are parts of the motor that work the window.
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And I want you to see something.
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This part of the window here, it gets kind of complicated but this part broke and when that breaks it's it's a lot of work and it's usually pretty expensive to get this stuff replaced and I'm not sure I know it's an older vehicle that you have and I wasn't sure I wasn't sure what you wanted to do but it can be pretty expensive and I'm looking at this I'm like we didn't have a lot of money at the moment and I'm just like well driving around with your without a window in Pennsylvania isn't an option but we just didn't have the money." Well the whole time he's explaining this to me, his wife is standing beside him. She is ready to explode. She's like, she's on the inside of this joke. She's just sitting there like, and I keep looking at her and she's like, she's like trying so hard not to laugh. She's like, and so anyways, I'm like, you know, black cloud of doom. I'm just like, oh man. I said, well "Kurt, thank you so much." I said, "What do you think I should do?" Then finally, Pam goes, "We fixed it!"
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(laughing)
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And she starts laughing.
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And then Kurt starts laughing.
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And I'm like, "Oh, you fixed it." I'm like, "Well, what are you?" And they're like, "Nothing!" And they start laughing hysterically.
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Like, they got me with the world's greatest practical joke.
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But you see, They love giving so much.
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And I've seen them over the years with missions and missionaries and outreach things.
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Anytime I talk to them about giving, they light up.
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They're like, "We love!
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We love to give!" And they're not giving trillions of dollars.
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It's just they're giving according to what they have.
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But so joyfully.
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So when I think of hilarious giver, I think of my friends Kurt and Pam.
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It's hilarious to them.
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They think it's the greatest thing in the world to be able to give to help somebody, to be able to give for ministry.
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They think it's hilarious.
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This is exactly what God's talking about.
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God loves a cheerful giver.
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And you're like, "Well, hang on a second here.
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What does it mean that God loves a cheerful giver?
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Because I'm not quite there yet.
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Does that mean that God doesn't love me?" Well, the Bible says that God loves the world, right?
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The Bible says God loves His people.
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What this verse is saying is there is something special about the affection that God has for people that give joyfully.
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This is the only verse like this in the Bible by the way, where it singles out a certain demographic that God has a special affection for like this.
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This is the only verse that says this.
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God has a special affection for people that give, like Paul's talking about here.
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To illustrate, I don't want you to get tripped up on this phrase.
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What does it mean God loves a cheerful giver?
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I'm not cheerful. God doesn't love me.
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That's not what that means at all.
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I want you to think about it this way.
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If you brought a friend to me and you said this friend of mine, this friend of mine works with special needs kids.
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And I've had this conversation with some of you that field. What have I said? I love people that work with special needs kids. You heard me say that? I love people that work with special needs kids. Does that mean I don't love you if you don't work with special needs kids? Like do you work with special? Well no, I don't work with special needs kids. I work down at the mill. Well I don't love you as much as I love those other people. Of course it doesn't mean that.
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I love you all. But you understand for me, because of having kids with some developmental issues of my own. Because of that, I have a special place in my heart for people that would voluntarily work with special needs kids. I love people that do that. Not exclusively, but there's something different. Does that make sense?
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There's something different in my heart about that.
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So understand God. What's God's favorite thing to do? Give. Right? For God so loved the world that He what? He gave. God loves to give. He gave His Son and He gives us His Holy Spirit. He gives us blessing on top of blessing. Giving lavishly and joyfully is God's favorite thing. So when one of us, by faith, gets it and says, "I love to give too. I love to give the way God loves to give." God says, "I love people like that.
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I love people that get it." In the same way that I would say, "I love people that work with special needs kids." There's something special there.
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You can't deny it from God's Word.
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He has a special place in His heart for people.
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To put giving into practice.
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God loves a cheerful giver.
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That's the principle in the practice.
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Look at verse 8.
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"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work." This is one of the most over-the-top verses in the Bible.
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Do you notice?
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Five times in this one verse, He uses "all" and "every." I think it's four "alls" and one "every." So over the top.
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Paul didn't say, "Well, you know what?
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If you give to God, if you're willing to give to God, then maybe God might possibly take care of you too." There's no "might, maybe, or possibly" in here.
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He says, "Listen, this is a promise that you can take to the bank.
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God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency - like sufficiency in what?
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In all things.
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When does that happen?
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At all times, You may abound in every good work.
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I love that first phrase, "God is able." As I mentioned before, I promise we get back to this.
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God is able. This is a faith issue.
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This is a faith issue.
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Money is a faith issue.
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Giving is a faith issue.
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You know, your Bible is full of promises that by God's grace we have embraced.
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God has promised that those who believe Jesus Christ have the promise of eternal life.
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On the cross, God has promised that our sins are forgiven.
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Through the resurrection, God has promised that we too will have a resurrection.
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God has promised His Holy Spirit to everyone who believes in Him.
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God has promised to hear and answer our prayers.
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There are promises attached to applying God's Word, whether it's in a marriage or in your parenting to your co-workers, or to people that hate you.
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Everything in the Christian life is by faith.
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Everything.
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See, the thing is, when we get to talking about money, this is a more, I guess you could say, concrete or visible thing than, for example, prayer.
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Here's what I mean by that.
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I believe that God answers every prayer.
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Sometimes we don't know right away how He's going to answer it.
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But I believe He hears every prayer and He answers accordingly.
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But that's something that's hard to quantify.
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Like is God answering my prayer?
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Well, I think that He is, or maybe the answer's coming tomorrow.
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I know an answer's coming, but I'm not quite sure exactly what God's doing.
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Do you see there's a little bit of a mystery when it comes to prayer?
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But money's a little bit different.
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Because the promise is very concrete.
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To say, "You give it out, and God says I'm going to give it back more than you gave out." That's something that you can put on the sheet.
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Right, Ken?
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You put that on your credits and debits.
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Right?
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And that's what makes - you understand what I mean?
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That's what makes it a little bit different than prayer.
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Because you can objectively and clinically evaluate this.
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I gave to God, trusting that He was going to give back to me.
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So here's how much I gave, and here's how much God returned to me.
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And that's why this takes so much faith.
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This is a real chance to apply.
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Whether you really believe what God's Word says.
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You know, we're going to give you an opportunity to really evaluate for yourself if you really believe this.
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Through Harvest Bible Fellowship, they are building a training center for pastors over in Romania so they can train pastors to plant churches all over Europe.
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It's going to be like the one that I attended in Chicago.
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But obviously it'd be a lot easier to train people over there than shipping everybody from Romania over to Chicago for trainings.
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So the fellowship has reached out to us to ask if we can partner in getting this training center going.
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And you're going to be hearing more about that.
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One of our elders next week is going to get up and speak a little more about this opportunity.
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I'm just giving you the heads up, because this is going to be an opportunity for you to evaluate whether you really believe God's Word is true.
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Do you believe that if you by faith give to get this ministry going, do you believe that God's going to return it back to you?
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Do you believe that?
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Because that's what it says.
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It's pretty clear that's what it says.
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But you're going to get to see whether you really believe what it says.
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There's more information on that coming.
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Because at the end of the day, like every other promise of God, we're either going to trust Him, or we're going to choose not to trust Him.
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That's why I have no problem saying, you know, I'm not going to coerce you.
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I could get up and give you some impassioned speech.
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We could play sad music, I can tell you about the poor people in Romania that I've seen when I was over there.
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I can tell you my time over there about all the orphans living in the sewers.
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True.
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And I can kind of guilt you and kind of twist your arm a little bit to give.
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But understand, that would be a disservice to you if I did that.
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Because now you're not giving with a cheerful heart.
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You're not giving voluntarily.
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You're not giving as an act of worship.
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You're giving because Jeff said that you should.
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And Jeff's going to make me feel guilty if I don't.
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And that's why I don't want to coerce you.
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Between you and God.
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So should I inform you?
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Should I make a plea?
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Yes.
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Should I send you down a guilt trip if you don't give?
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Absolutely not.
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Because when you give by faith, you're going to get a chance to experience the truth that God laid out here.
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You're going to get a chance to experience that.
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If you give by faith, you're going to be looking back and saying, you know what?
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I have found God's Word to be true.
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Number four, the precedent.
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The precedent.
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Look at v. 9.
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Paul says, "As it is written, He has distributed freely.
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He has given to the poor His righteousness endures forever.
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When I first read that, I thought, well, he's talking about God, right?
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He's not.
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I want you to turn really quick.
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Turn back to Psalm 112.
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I want you to see this.
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I know we don't often flip pages in our Bible.
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We try to stay in one passage.
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But I want you to see this, ok?
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He's not talking about God there.
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God is not the "He." And then you're like, well, who's the he?
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And the good thing is the he can be you.
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Look at Psalm 112.
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Look at verse 1.
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It says, "Praise the Lord.
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Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments.
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His offspring will be mighty in the land." Now, it's obvious, who's he talking about?
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He's talking about somebody that fears the Lord.
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He's talking about somebody that loves God.
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Okay?
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Now, go down to verse 5.
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It says, "It is well with the man who deals generously and lends, who conducts his affairs with justice." Jump down to verse 9.
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"He is distributed freely, he is given to the poor, his righteousness endures forever." Does that sound familiar?
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That's the verse that Paul was quoting in 2 Corinthians 9.
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He's talking about a person who fears the Lord.
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Paul's reminding him.
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Do you know what Psalm 112 says?
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Why is he reminding them?
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Because there's a precedent here.
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Paul's saying this isn't a new thing.
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This isn't just an Old Testament concept.
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God always works this way.
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He says God always works this way.
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No one has ever truly given to the Lord and regretted it.
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I've heard a lot of testimonies when it comes to giving.
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I've heard a ton of testimonies over the years.
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You know, I've never, ever, ever, not one time, have I ever heard a negative testimony when it came to giving.
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I've never heard it.
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I've never heard somebody say, "You know what, Pastor Jeff?
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I tried to do what the Bible said I gave, and you know what happened?
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I ran out.
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I didn't have money for groceries next month because I gave to that missionary.
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I ran out." I have never heard that.
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I've never heard somebody say, "You know what?
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I gave to that ministry.
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What a waste.
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What a stupid decision that was." I've never heard that.
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I've never heard somebody say, you know what, I really felt like God wanted me to give to this ministry so I gave, and I felt so unfulfilled afterwards.
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I felt so unfulfilled.
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I felt this emptiness in my heart like, wow, maybe I didn't hear God correctly.
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I've never heard any of that stuff.
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I could fill books with the testimonies that I've heard the opposite.
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Oh, you know what, pastors, I was so excited that I gave that ministry and to see what happened.
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To see how people were coming to Christ.
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It thrilled me to death to hear the update about that ministry that I gave to.
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It was just so exciting for me.
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And I'm so glad.
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I wish I could have given more.
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How fired up were you when we raised money last February for Moldova and then we sent Darla over and we saw those before pictures of the crumbling house and then we had these after pictures of a restored house.
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The people that gave were ecstatic.
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They said, look, I was able to affect the kingdom on the other side of the world.
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And I didn't even have to go.
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And that was such a privilege to be able to give.
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Paul's like, yeah, that's kind of how it always is.
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That's how it was in the Old Testament.
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That's how it is today.
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What a beautiful promise.
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Do you see that there?
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He says, "His righteousness endures forever." I spent a lot of time talking about that phrase, but here's what that boils down to.
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What he's saying is God never forgets.
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God never forgets.
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When you give generously to the Lord, and God uses what you give to advance His kingdom, God never forgets.
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God always has that look towards you to say, "That guy's generous.
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That guy gets it.
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That guy used what I entrusted to him.
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He never forgets.
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That's the precedent.
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And then finally, the provision.
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The provision - look at verse 10.
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It says, "He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness." The provision.
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Do you notice verse 8 says He is able?
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Verse 10 says He does.
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Do you see that?
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He keeps the promise.
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He's able.
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Verse 10, He does.
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God can do it, and God does do it.
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God has the power to back up the promises.
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God has the power to back up the promises.
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We had a saying - it was a little crude.
39:58-40:00
I'll give you the nicer version.
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I had this saying.
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Maybe you've heard it.
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Don't be writing checks with your mouth.
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Have you heard this?
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Don't be writing checks with your mouth that your backside can't cash.
40:08-40:09
Have you heard that?
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What that means is, don't be saying something up here that you can't deliver.
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He's saying that's not God.
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When God says something, He has the power to see it through.
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And He does see it through.
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It's been happening that way since creation.
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and said, "He supplies seeds to the sower." This blew my mind.
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Maybe it will yours.
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Do you understand that they're not making any new seeds?
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Did you know that?
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The seeds that God created at creation have been multiplying through generations up until our day.
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There's not some factory in Cleveland where people are assembling seeds with little tiny seed assembly tools.
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you know, "Oh, you know what? Let's make a new kind of tree and we'll build a seed that'll make..." We can't make a seed.
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All the seeds that we have come from the ones that God's already created.
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That's Paul's point here. God has this track record.
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But you can't miss this. Please don't miss this.
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I know we're coming down to the home stretch here.
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But if you miss this, it's going to cause you a lot of problems.
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The question is why does God provide more?
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All through this we've seen that we sow a little, we reap a little, we sow more, we reap more.
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God gives us more proportionately to what we sow.
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So why does God provide more?
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You have to see this.
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At the end of verse 8, He says, "You may abound in every good work." God's going to make sure you have everything that you need for what?
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That you may abound in every good work.
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And then look at verse 10 again.
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He says that God will supply and multiply your seed look at the next two words - for sowing.
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So why does God provide more?
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God provides more so that you give more.
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Understand that.
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Like, I need a new car.
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Bad example.
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I need a new something, so I'm going to show up at the church and give this big one-time gift so I can cash in on God giving me one proportionately big one-time gift, and then I can buy my new whatever.
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That's not it at all.
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God gives you more so that you give more.
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You see, when God keeps shoveling it back to you, He wants you to use that to continue to meet more needs and to advance His Kingdom even more.
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In other words, I wrote this saying down, God gives you more to meet a need, not to feed your greed.
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Understand that.
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God's not like, well, they're really generous and they're greedy.
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I can use both of those things.
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It's not about your greed.
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God's not trying to feed some sinful, greedy inclination of yours.
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God wants you to continue to give out what He's entrusting you with.
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In other words, God's looking down from heaven saying look at her.
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She keeps giving it away.
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The more stuff I send her way, she loves people and she cares about people.
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She gets it.
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She's faithful with money.
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Send more her way.
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God's like just keep shuffling it her way.
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Because it seems like the more we give her, the more she's distributing it When we meet needs, God says that's the person I want to keep sending stuff to.
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As our worship team comes up, we say I love to give because God loves to give.
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And not only does God love to give, God has a special affection for His children who get it, for His children who practice it.
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Father in Heaven, we realize there's been a lot of bad teaching concerning giving.
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There's so many people that would make others poor just so they could lie in their pockets.
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There's so many people who teach wrongly that You want to just satisfy us with stuff.
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So we should give so that You just give us more stuff that we can put in our garage.
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He wants us to be satisfied in You.
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He wants us to find our fulfillment in You.
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And You give to us so that we can use the stuff of the earth to fulfill Your purposes.
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God, I pray for a maturing for all of us.
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And I pray, God, that for some here, this would be a time of testing of their faith.
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Your Word says that when we hand over to You, You give us back even more than we give.
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And the more that we're willing to do that, the more that You're willing to give to us.
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And God, if there's someone here right now who says, "I'm just not sure if that's true," I pray by the power of Your Spirit that You would have them step out in faith because God, I know You will prove Yourself faithful to Your Word.
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As we gather around Your table, Father, we're always reminded that this is the motivation.
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We give because You're a giver.
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We give because as You're conforming us to the image of Your Son, we're reminded that Your Son gave all.
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He willingly came to this earth to humble Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, so that He might give us eternal life.
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Father, we thank You for Your Word.
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We praise You for how clear Your Word is.
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And I pray that we would not just be hearers, but that we would be doers.
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And that we would believe the promise of Jesus when He said, "If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read 2 Corinthians 9:6-10
How do people misapply this teaching? (think of the TV preachers!) What does the Bible actually teach about sowing and reaping when it comes to giving?
Why does Paul quote Psalm 112:9 in 2 Corinthians 9:9?
Explain "God loves a cheerful giver". What does that mean? Why does God give more to cheerful givers (hint: verses 8 and 10)?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another! Specifically to grow in generosity that trusts God to keep His Word about giving.
