A Whoville Christmas || Part 3

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

Today we are wrapping up our series “A Who-Ville Christmas,” The Heart of the Gospel. According to Dr. Seuss. I hope you’ve enjoyed the series, and it’s been a lot of fun for me as we’ve been looking at one of the most famous stories that Dr. Seuss ever told. It’s the story of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. And you know, Dr. Seuss, he told us why the Grinch was, you know, such a great that his heart was two sizes too small.

And so we’ve been talking about how to grow our hearts together this Christmas series. We’ve been asking the Holy Spirit to perform some spiritual heart surgery on all of us, that we can grow healthy and stronger hearts that love God, that love other people. And here’s the theme verse for this series.

It’s in Proverbs 27:19, and it says this As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.

19
“As in water face reflects face,
So a man’s heart reveals the man.”
Proverbs 27:19

In other words, the Bible teaches us that our life, how we live, our life is a reflection of what’s going on in our heart because what’s in our heart eventually shows up in our life. What’s on the inside of us eventually shows up. It manifests on the outside of us.

So we’ve been talking about how we can grow healthier, stronger, more loving, faith-filled hearts around here. Week one, we talked about how to grow more grace-filled heart dealing with difficult people. And in week two, we talked about how to grow more forgiving hearts, to be able to forgive those that have hurt us. And if you’ve missed either of those messages, you can go back and watch it online on demand. And today, I want to talk to you about how to grow a more generous heart. How can we grow more generous hearts?

And with only one week to go now until Christmas, there’s one word that will be spoken more than any other word this week all across the U.S., And that word is gift. That’s what the word is. More people are thinking about gifts right now. And if you’re a typical man like myself, you still have some gifts to buy because you’ve waited until the very last minute and you are stressed out like Man; I got to pick up some more gifts, then this is the time of the year where everybody, you know, we forget about the past, we forget about the future, and we only focus on the present. Like, what’s that present? What’s that gift I still have to buy?

Now, a lot of people believe that the reason that we give gifts at Christmas time to one another, to friends, to family, to those that we love, is because the wise men gave the very first gifts when they visited the Baby Jesus in the manger. But actually, the very first gift given at Christmas was given by God. And it was really the gift was God himself that God came to Earth in the form of a newborn baby whose name was Jesus and Jesus. He gave himself to you. He gave himself to me. He gave himself to all of humanity to die on a cross. Jesus gave his life so that we could experience true life.

The Bible says this in the book of Galatians 1:3.

The Lord Jesus Christ, he gave himself say that with me. He gave himself for our sins to rescue us. That is the gift. The best gift, the most extravagant, outrageous gift ever given, that God gave Himself for our sins to rescue us.

3 “Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ”
Galatians 1:3

The Bible says in regards to this gift in 2 Corinthians 9:15.

15 “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”
2 Corinthians 9:15

Is anybody thankful this Christmas? Come off with the gift of Jesus and his love and his forgiveness. I mean, you think about it. If it weren’t for God’s generosity, we would have nothing. I mean, if it wasn’t for God’s generosity, none of us would have anything in this life. You think about it. The air that you breathe. Is God’s generous gift to you. The heart inside of your body. The blood that is coursing through your veins today is God’s generous gift to you. The very life that you have today is God’s generous gift to you. If God wasn’t a generous God, then we wouldn’t even exist. We wouldn’t even be here. Everything come. All we have is a gift that comes for our generous. Come on. We give a brave face that.

The Bible says this in John 1:16.

16 “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.”
John 1:16

We all live off of his generous abundance, gift after gift after gift. God has a generous heart towards you. God has a generous heart towards all of humanity. And here’s the key with God. God wants to grow a generous heart inside of you. God is generous, and he wants us to become generous like him.

You know, just think about it. If you’re a parent. I mean, do you want your kids? To learn how to be generous. Of course, you do. And it’s the same thing with our Heavenly Father, that he is generous himself, and he wants us to learn how to be generous, too. So God says, Listen, I want your generosity to be a lifestyle, not just a seasonal event. But here’s the problem. It’s not easy to be generous in the culture. The world that we live in is it just not easy. We live in a world that is so materialistic. It is so consumerist. It’s such a self-centered world. And that gravitational pull of our culture is always, you know, pulling us towards, you know, just being selfish and thinking just about, you know, ourselves instead of others.

Generosity, though, the good news. It is a skill that you can learn. Now, most people aren’t really good at it, to be honest, but it is a skill that you can be learned so that you can learn how to grow a generous heart. You know, whether that’s, you know, giving compliments or whether that’s, you know, giving your resources, you can learn the skill.

You know, here’s what I’ve learned. There are basically two kinds of people in this world. There are givers. And there are takers. Right. And then here’s the deal. You get to decide which one you’re going to be. You get to choose. Am I going to be a giver, or am I going to be a taker? The choice is up to you.

And you know, it’s not, it’s not, it is, it’s not a misnomer, or it’s not a coincidence. I should say that. The word miser. And the word miserable comes from the same root word. That the most miserable people I know. The biggest Grinches and the biggest scrooges that. Are also the most miserable people. The most. They’re the takers of the world. And that’s not what I want for you as your pastor. I want you to have what we sang earlier. The joy of the Lord. That will be your strength. Come on. And then we’re going to have some joy. I want to teach you how to live with joy today, peace and happiness.

That the Bible says this in Proverbs 11:24.

24
“There is one who scatters, yet increases more;
And there is one who withholds more than is right,
But it leads to poverty.”
Proverbs 11:24

The world of the generous, the world of the who the generous, gets larger and larger. But the world of the stingy. Gets smaller and smaller. So you get to choose, Do you want a large life or do you want a small life? The world of the generous, it just gets larger and larger. I mean, it just grows exponentially. And that’s my prayer and my hope for you as your pastor, that your world would just be bigger and bigger and bigger, that you’ll have more, more influence, more opportunity, more love, more hope, more joy, more peace, more open doors, more relationships. That’s what I pray for you. That your world just gets larger and larger and larger. And the key to that living a larger life is generosity.

So let me just give you a few reasons why to live a generous life. And then I want to just teach you real quick before you go. How? How to grow a generous heart.
So here’s one. If you’re taking notes, you can write this down. Number one. Here’s why we want to grow a generous heart. Because generosity. It makes me more like God. It’s true. Generosity will make you more like God.

Here’s what the Bible says in Psalm 37:21.

21
“The wicked borrows and does not repay,
But the righteous shows mercy and gives.”
Psalm 37:21

The Godly are generous givers; who are generous givers? Godly. So here’s the deal. You cannot be godly and not be generous at the same time. So if you want to be more godly, then be more generous. Because godly people are generous people, and generosity makes you more like God. So every time you give a compliment, every time you give your time to somebody, every time you give your energy to something, every time you give help to someone else, you know what it does. When you’re being generous like that, it just makes you more like God. It makes you more like him. And you can’t be godly without being more generous. For god So loved the world, What did you do? He gave his one and only son.

You know, the Bible is a book about generosity. I did some research on that recently. Listen to this. It talks more about generosity than anything else. You know, when you study different words, and I’m a word guy, and I love words, you know, the word believe. And that’s really important to believe. That word is used 232 times and all the way. The word pray. That’s really important to pray, right? That word is used 371 times. All of the Bible, the word love. And what’s more important than love, that word love is you 741 times in the Bible, But the word gives you how many times that word is used. 2162 times. I think God is trying to tell us something, right? He’s trying to teach us something. He’s trying to help us become more like him. And one of the ways that we do that is by living a generous life by growing a generous heart.

Here’s the second thing. Why should we grow our generous hearts? Because generosity. It strengthens my faith. Did you know that generosity actually builds it strengthens your faith?
Generosity? It’s like a muscle. You know, when you go to the gym and work, and we’re all going to be there in January, we’re all going to throw it on. But, you know, when you go to the gym, and you work out. Right. I see my buddy. He loves to work out. You start lifting those weights, and what happens? You’re stretching your muscles, and when you begin to stretch your muscles, it begins to strengthen them, and then they grow. But what happens if you don’t stretch your muscles? What happens is atrophy sets in. And then, instead of growing your muscles. You shrink? Your muscles. So stretching muscles just in your physical body, it strengthens your muscles. But when you don’t use those muscles, they begin to shrink. But if you stretch it. it grows.

And, if you could take one guess, what do you think that one thing that God uses more than anything else? To grow our faith. It’s over and over again. We see in Scripture it’s our finances God uses and our finances to help strengthen our faith in him. And I know many of you have been tested time and time and time again in your finances. And I know, Peers, what goes through your mind because I’ve been tested the same way. Here’s what goes through my mind. Am I going to trust God’s promises, or am I going to worry? Am I really going to believe that God can do what he says He can do? Or am I going to live in fear and anxiety?

You see, that’s why the Bible says this in 2 Corinthians 9:13.

13 “while, through the proof of this ministry, they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal sharing with them and all men”
2 Corinthians 9:13

You’re giving proves. What does it do? It proves the reality of your faith. See, God uses generosity in giving to strengthen and to grow and to bolster our faith.

YOu know, I’ve told this story before, but I really first learned this principle on teaching you in the magnitude on a very large scale. For the first time really in my life, as about 14, 16 years ago, we had started the church. We were a portable church for six years. We ended up meeting over at the West High School. We had many other different facilities met in, but that’s where we really landed, and we would just set this whole thing up and tear it down every weekend. And then finally we decided, Hey, look, we need a home, we need a place to call home. And so we found this piece of property, and then we purchased the property and, you know, we didn’t have a ton of members or a lot of money, so we needed to do our very first ever capital campaign.

And so I got up from the church, and I had never done a capital campaign, never led anything like that to raise those kinds of funds. It was, you know, millions of dollars to purchase this property and to also to build this facility. And so I got up and cast vision and challenged the people to give over and above their tithe for three years. It was a three-year capital fund campaign, I think I think we called it “it’s about time”. It’s about time to grow. It’s about time we did this whole thing, and it was great. And I just asked people just to pray, to see God, and to ask him what he would do through them. The faith that they could have to to make this three-year commitment to have this facility and this property that we have today.

And so I always believe leaders go first. And so back in, I went out to dinner one night and I said, you know, we have been praying, you know, individually about it and said, hey, let’s pray together and let’s talk through what we feel. God is speaking to us now. We had just bought our first and only home that we’ve ever lived. We’ve been in for 16 years and I never forget right before we bought the house, I went over to another friend’s house. They had just bought a house and you know, they had this beautiful house and I’m so happy for them.

But we went over there and there was like there was no, you know, landscaping that walked into the house to show me all these rooms empty, no furniture. I’m thinking, who buys this beautiful house? Has like no landscaping, doesn’t even have furniture to put in the rooms. And then I bought a house. Then I realized, Oh. It takes, like, everything you have just to get the house, let alone some bushes or a sidewalk or furniture who need furniture. You at least got the house, right?

So it was a key learning. And so we get to this house, took everything we could, and the church has been so generous with us through the years. And we get the house. And we had though we had no yard, we had no sidewalks, we had no shrubbery, had little furniture. We empty rooms, no furniture.

And my second child, my first born son was was just born. I’m like, I need a yard. And we live up here in Mount Pocono about a mile from here. And in order to build the house, they had to use dynamite to blast in. I mean, there’s a lot of rocks up here and you’re trying to start a mini garden up here or plan anything. There’s just, you know, pocono potatoes. They’re just everywhere. But these rocks were like the size of cars they literally had to drill into. This is my house is not only built on Jesus and a firm foundation, it is built on top of this mountain and there is a firm foundation because they had to blow. And there were massive boulders, just massive. And they pulled them all out and the piled them up in the front yard. It was a spec house is big. And so when I first saw it, there was a pile of these massive boulders that were higher than the actual house. And. And so when we decided to buy the house, I was like to the builder, What are you going to do with the rocks? He’s like, Oh, I’m going to spread them all out, make a nice yard, put some dirt on it. And so I said, okay.

So he did that and he put some dirt on it. And then we had like a 100 year rainstorm event and it washed all of the little bit of dirt that was on top of those rocks. And I had just had the I’ve been up the big boulder field. Yeah. That’s what my yard looked like. And I’m thinking, man, my kids sidewalk, shrubs. I don’t have any, you know, grass. I just got these big rocks. And at the same time, we bought this property and we wanted to build this building. And I’m asking everybody to, you know, to be generous and to sacrifice and to commit over the next three years. And I felt like, you know, hey, we got to lead the way in this.

And so we began to pray. And I went out to dinner and I said, well, honey, you know, I’m praying. I feel like, hey, if, you know, we don’t do the yard and we don’t get furniture, and if we don’t do the thing and we defrayed different expenses, here’s what I think we can do above and beyond our tithe. We can give an extra $5,000 a year, and so we’ll get $15,000 a year. And she looks at me and she’s just kind of, you know, just cocked her head a little bit. And as soon as she did that.

I felt like the Holy Spirit said to me, Well, if you can do this without me, what do you need me for? Holy Spirit or anybody like that. And so I got snarky with the Holy Spirit. I got a little attitude when I wasn’t like an audible voice, but it was like I knew, like he was like, Dave, if you can do this on your own, what do you need me for? And I ask, this is what I said in my head. What do you want me? As I’m looking at my wife, it all happened like this. I’m like, What do you want me to do? I got snarky, got a little, little attitude, and this is what I heard.

Well, that’s good, for starters. I felt so convicted. I looked at back, start trying to look. I don’t know. But I feel like the Holy Spirit said. You know, if we can do this on our own, what do we need him for? What are we going to BP for? We can just defray expenses and sacrifice and. Where’s the faith in all of that? I feel like he’s telling us to double.

She starts with 30,000. And that’s a lot of what I was making, you know, an annual salary at the time. And so we prayed, we committed, I felt, let to get up and tell the church. And that’s what David did when he built the temple and raised the money for his son to build the temple. And he told everybody and I told our church and I didn’t want to come off like he was show off or anything like that, but just wanted to stop what God wants to do. And so as soon as we made that commitment, also, my phone started ringing. He gave me, Hey, Dave, can you come? I’ll be an adjunct professor at the seminary and can you teach this class if you write this article, can you do this? And can you coach these group of pastors all of a sudden? Just exponentially. My income began to grow and I committed. I’ll kick out whatever extra funds. I’m just going to give it to that. And over the course of the next. Three years, we didn’t give $30,000 over and above our giving. We ended up being able to give over $50,000. Above and beyond our giving all to the glory of god.

But here’s the cool thing. One day I walk outside my front porch and I’m looking at my shoulders and this guy in a red truck pulls up and I didn’t know him. So I went down and he didn’t even like it, really introduce himself. First thing he said to me was, Hey, do you need a yard? And I said to him, I can’t afford a yard. He said, I didn’t ask you if you can afford a yard. Do you need it? I was like, Yeah, you know, I got two kids and just all these rocks out here and I don’t have money for their you know, they do all this stuff and he goes, well, listen. I need those rocks. And if you give me those rocks, I’ll give you a yard. And I said, what are you gonna do with those rocks?

This guy owned a crane. One of those big crane companies. And he had a job that the crane needed to be situated in such a way as stable. And the end he heard from another builder that we had all these rocks. And so you give me those rocks, I’m going to use it on this job and I’ll make a lot of money and then I’m going to give you a yard. I was like on a handshake.

I was like, okay, next morning, like 6:30 in the morning, I wake up to these big equipment, just starts pulling into my my my front yard in my house and they start lifting all these rocks, big old machinery, all the stuff, Bulldozers. For three days. It took them three days all around my house and the foundation was exposed because they just laid these rocks up and it was terrible, what they had done, The original builder, how he handled it. But I didn’t even know, you know.

And so for three days, solid, they take these rocks out. Then I wake up on the fourth day. Truck, one dump truck. After 17 dump trucks full of topsoil, they started dumping all this dirt. Then the next thing that took a few days. And then the next day he comes and all this other crews are smoothing it out. And he made this beautiful yard. Then the next day, another big old tanker truck shows up and starts big hose. And the guy who starts spraying like he’s like painting my now dirt beautiful topsoil green like a super seeder. That’s what it was called a super. It’s really fun to watch. And he gives me this beautiful yard, puts in a sidewalk. I got all these shrubs now and it’s all said and done.

And now the campaign’s over. This took time. It didn’t happen overnight, but it took time. And so I asked the gentleman, I said, you know, if I would have had to pay for all of this. About how much would this have cost me? He does some quick math as I get. About $50,000. And that’s where I learned the lesson. Consider you take care of my house. I’ll take care of your house.
And I could tell you dozens and dozens and dozens of stories like that in my life, how God taught me how to be generous, you know, and I really feel sorry for stingy people, for the Grinches and the scrooges in this world because people say, I can’t afford to give because they are missing out on God’s outrageous blessings in life.

You know, it’s always funny to me, like people like that. They can have the faith. They can have enough faith to believe that God can forgive them of their sins. They have enough faith to believe that Jesus is now gone before them to prepare a home for them in heaven where they’ll spend eternity. But somehow they don’t have enough space for them to believe that God will take care of them. Right here, right now on Earth today.

you see, generosity, you need to understand this. It’s built on the law of the harvest. You see, there’s a farmer. He owns the fields. And in the winter time, he takes all of the seed that he’s collected and he puts it in his farm. He wouldn’t go and say, Well, when spring comes, I can’t take that seed and give it away because it’s all I have. And if I give it away, I’ll have nothing. That’s not how farmers think. In the springtime, the farmer goes to the barn and they know they’ve got the seed. And if they plant the seed, if they sow the seed, they will reap that a harvest of a crop. That’s the law of the harvest. And the farmer, if they decide to sow a few acres enough, just a little seed, they’ll get a little harvest. But if they sell a lot of seed, if they give if they plant that seed into the ground, they will reap a large harvest a lot in return.

Here’s the thing. With the law of the harvest, you always reap what you sow and more than you sow. And this principle is true in every area of your life. Just try it. Trust me. Start selling some compliments. Start being generous with the words. Start speaking life to those that are around you. And if you so you speak life and compliments and you live with this gratitude. You know what you’re going to get in return? Compliments and gratitude and people that are grateful for you and start speaking life into you because a man reached what he sows.

Now try this. Start being really critical of others. Just pick it all apart. Pick them apart and, you know, criticize them. You know what you’re going to receive in return. Criticism people will. A person always reaps what they saw. Not only just what they saw, but more than they saw. You know, if you take a kernel of corn and you planted. Do you get one kernel back in return? No. You get a whole stock of corn with multiple ears on that stock of corn. You plant one kernel and you get thousands back in return because you don’t just reap what, but more than you sow. So whatever you need in your life, just give it away. That’s the principle of the harvest.

Whatever. Wherever there is need in your life. Just give some away. If you need more time, give it away. If you need more energy, give it away. It’ll come back to you. More Will come back to you than you gave away. It’s like you go to the gym, you get your energy, you work out. Guess what’s going to happen? You’re going to sleep better. Guess what happens when you sleep better and you work out your muscles, grow while you’re sleeping and it eats the fat away off of your body. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Right. And then guess what happens when you so energy. You work out, you sleep better, your muscles grow, and then you get up and guess what happens? You have more energy. Whatever you. So whatever you give away, it comes back to you. It’s built into our very bodies. This principle of the harvest of you need more love. Give some away if you need more time. Give some away. If you need more finances, give some more, sow it generously and watch God bring a harvest into your life.

Here with me, number three generosity. It also brings me God’s blessings. I firmly believe that God wants to bless your life. And God is a guy who enjoys this kind of activity.

Look at the Bible says Deuteronomy 15:10.

10 “You shall surely give to him, and your heart should not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your works and in all to which you put your hand.”
Deuteronomy 15:10

give generously, so be generous to others and speaking specifically about the poor and do so without a drudging heart that we nasty bad. Oh, pastor, said friend. No, no, don’t do it that way. Be generous, help the poor then as a result, because of this, here’s what the Lord will do. The Lord will bless you in oh nine some not just the important part in all of your words and in everything you put your hand to. Now, how many would like God come on to bless all of your words, to bless everything you put your hands to, whether that’s raising kids at home and that’s important work, or whether you run a company.

And that’s important work. I don’t know what 2023 is going to bring, but I do know this if you will grow a more generous heart, God promises. Come on, wouldn’t you, love? Come on. His blessing to pour over all of your life, everything that you put your hand to and 2023.

The Bible says this in Psalm 1 12:5.

5
“For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy,
Now I will arise,” says the Lord;
“I will set him in the safety for which he yearns.”
Psalm 12:5

Good will come. What will come good will come to those who are what generous. I mean, these are the promises of God. Do you believe I want good to come to your life?

It even says this in Proverbs 11:26.

26
“The people will curse him who withholds grain,
But blessing will be on the head of him who sells it.”
Proverbs 11:26

A generous man will what prosper and he refreshes. Others will himself be refreshed. So when you speak those life-giving refreshing words that water somebody. So then what happens is it comes back you yourself will be refreshed.

So here’s the question. Do you really believe the promises of God for not. Do you really believe what he’s saying is true or is God a liar? He’s not a man that he should lie, the Bible says. And if these are the promises of God, and if there’s more of his promises regarding generosity and giving than any other thing, I think it’s because God is trying to teach us something to help us become more like Him.

I’ve learned over 30 years and my generosity during. But you simply cannot. God, I have been trying for 30 years. And you cannot give God. Now. There’s a whole lot more I could say about this, but I can’t. I could do a whole series on this, but it’s Christmas and it’s not a time to go. Almost. So here’s what I decided to do. I decided. In 2023. To be more serious than I’ve ever been before about helping you win. And your finances. And here’s why. I know all the headlines and I know what’s going on in the economy. I know the number one stress right now in the home is money. I also know in America, the number one leading cause of divorce in America is money fighting over money. People need more help when it comes to this one issue than anything else right now in their homes. So I want to see you win. I want to see you crush all of your financial goals in 2023. I know some of you are so tired, you’re just exhausted from all of the worry and the anxiety that comes from living from paycheck to paycheck to paycheck. And others of you want to know how to better manage and steward your money, but you just don’t know where to start. So no matter where you might land in between those two camps, I want to give you a Christmas gift.

This year, and it’s the gift of financial peace. We have gone into a partnership with Dave Ramsey. Many of you know, Dave Ramsey, he’s the leading guru on he’s a godly man and he teaches godly principles. You see them on CNN and Fox. If I’m on social media here, I’m on a syndicated radio broadcast. And we have partnered with Dave Ramsey and his ministry called Financial Peace University.

And as a church, we want to help you win at money so that you can live with financial peace. So if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, if you’ve ever felt like just you’re never going to get out of debt and these credit card, you know, just it just the anxiety from all of it, the financial stress, if you’ve ever just felt lost and you have no plan for your future, I want to help you.

So this Christmas, we are, as a church, giving you the gift of financial peace university and every single family in our church will have a free membership for one year to Financial Peace University. And we’re going to offer these seminars right here at Community Church. You can come and take it with the financial coaches here in our church, or you have access to binge watch it online and take the class at home.
And we’re also going to be able to extend to you access to a premium version of the Every Dollar app from Dave Ramsey. It’s an app that Becky and I have used for years, and it’s done tremendous good in our life, in the life of our family as we have been able to manage and steward God’s principles well. And so between the financial seminar and the Every Dollar app, your yearly subscription, that’s an over $300 value to you and to your family. That’s how committed we are to you and to help you win so that you can live a generous life, so that you can create margin and be generous any time. Wouldn’t that be great? You know, wouldn’t it be great to be able to live that way? So we take stewarding money seriously here at our church, and we want you to live with margin so that you can be generous on every occasion.
So let me just close with this. Here’s quickly here’s how it’s just one verse. Here’s how to grow a generous heart. When it comes to you specifically now giving number one. You need to give thoughtfully.

Here’s what the Bible says. 2 Corinthians 9:7-8.

7 “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of [a]necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.”
2 Corinthians 9:7-8

You must make up your own minds as to how much you should give. So make up your mind. Use your noggin. Think about it. Pray about. Don’t just give spontaneously. Spontaneous giving is okay. But there’s a better way to give than just spontaneously. It’s with a plan. It’s to give thoughtfully. It’s to sit down and pray and say, okay, God. What do you want to do in and through me in this next year? Got. What do you think I should give? Where should I start? Or if you’re already hitting God, should I do more? And pray about it? Asked God. Put some thought into it. Put a plan together. And if you don’t know how to put a plan together, I want to help you.
This week, I’m going to send you an invitation to join the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University and also be able to download the every dollar app so that you can set up your budget. And in January, we’re going to kick all of that off. So when you get that email from me this week, make sure you click and you sign up for it’s all free and. All you got to do is put a little bit of work into it. And God bless you and we’ll help you put a plan together. But when it comes to your giving, you got to make up your own mind as to how much. So just make a plan, whatever that might look like. God wants you to plan your generosity.

Here’s the second thing. When it comes to giving. You need to give voluntarily. Don’t miss this. Make up your mind as to how much. Make a plan. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure you need to give voluntarily. But you should never give under pressure. You should never give to anyone who’s, like, trying to guilt you into giving. You should never give when somebody is trying to twist your arm. You should never give when there’s pressure or somebody is trying to force you or guilt you into giving.

Here’s why. Because when you give out of guilt or pressure or force or whatever, that giving doesn’t count. You know why it doesn’t count? Because that kind of giving won’t grow your heart. And this is all about growing your heart and what God cares more about than anything else. And what I care about is your pastor, more than anything else, is your heart. To grow your heart. And when it comes to generosity, give when you give voluntarily, when you give freely, that’s what grows your heart. That’s where God begins to work. Exponential ways inside your heart.

So if anyone ever tries to pressure you. Guilt you into giving you just tell. Nope. My pastor said, I can’t give that way. Just tell him where you are. So my pastor said, No, I just can’t do that. So give thoughtfully, give voluntarily. Here’s the last thing. Get your food. Here’s what it says. Make up your mind. Give thoughtfully. Don’t give it reluctantly or under pressure. For God loves the person who gives with him. Got a lot. Do with a smile on your. There was just such gratefulness in your heart. God, you’ve been so good to me. And it’s my pleasure. It’s my honor. To be able to get back to you. So get your. Give with that attitude, that spirit of joy.

You know why this is such a happy life giving church? Because it’s a generous church. It’s a generous church. And when you give that way, when you give with that authentic, generous heart, here’s what’s going to happen. And God will then generously so when you give thoughtfully, voluntarily, cheerfully, here’s what God do. He will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. What a great way to end it.

So when you honor God, when you’re faithful to him, he will be faith. He’s putting his name. His reputation on the line. This is. Come on. Trust me in this. And God will provide. I want all of your needs to be met. Matter of fact, I want God to bless you so much that you have more than you need. You know why? So that you can be generous to help others in need. I got to. Text. There was like something on social media, a friend of mine and three kids, and they’re all going on a business trip next year. And they’re trying to raise money for it.

And so I clicked on it. And I just love these guys in their family. I just believe in their kids. And I was able to, you know, give a significant gift to each of them in addition to everything I do around here and other organizations. But you know what? When you can live with that kind of margin, it’s so much fun. To be able to bless others, to go to a restaurant and just give $100 tip on a $50 meal. That’s funny. If you’re not doing that, you’re not in a position to do that. I want to be able to help you so that you can bless others.

God says, I want to bless you so that not just that you can do it on yourself so that you can be a blessing to others. Listen, I don’t know what’s going to happen in 2023. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the economy. I don’t know what’s going to happen on the geopolitical global scale. I don’t know what’s going to happen, you know, in your life or my life and the life of this church or our community. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I do know this if I grow a generous heart and if I give cheerfully, voluntarily and thoughtfully. God’s going to take care of me.

Listen. My trust is not in the economy. The economy does not determine the blessing over my life. My God determines the blessings of my life. And Fran, if there was ever a time. To live your life this way. Now is the time. Now is the time. Put your trust in him. So here’s my homework assignment.

I’ll finish with this. Here it is real quick. That’s a pastor who loves you. I want you over this next Christmas and New Year weeks. I want you to practice generosity in every area of your life. All right? Every area of your life. I want you to be generous with your compliments and praise of other people. Just tell them how amazing they are. Just tell them how proud you are of them. But your kids, if you have people that work for you, if you, your coworkers or people that report up to you, just be generous and with your compliments to others that they’re doing and encourage them in every area. Is that a deal? Can you guys do that for me this week?
Come on, do it for yourself to do for others in the shower that come on with praise and compromise. Be generous. Also be generous with your gratitude. You know, just be overly thankful. This Christmas season. You are a restaurant and somebody waits on you. You know, they mess up the order. Forget something that’ll just. Just be. Over the top. Just grateful that they’re there. That they’re working. They’re serving you. Thank them. Thank them. Thank them. Thank them. Be generous with your gratitude. Here’s the other thing. Be generous with your service, how you serve others.

Guys, let me just. Can I just encourage all the men in here? Just do something over the top, generous in how you serve your family or those around you this Christmas. Just go over the top of it. I don’t know what that might look like at your house, but you’ll know what to do. I’ll tell you what to do. Whether that’s, you know, helping with, you know, food or preparations or cleaning the house, the family’s coming over to clean it up after whatever it might be. But just do something, especially for your wife and over the top, just serve her this Christmas like you’ve never served her or your kids before.

And I mean just college kids that are here. You be generous in your service, too, to your mom and your dad. They serve you all the time. Right, mom? Right. That’s your kids. Come off, you’re going to be off for 11 days. 11 days. Your mom and dad are dreading this. But how cool would it be over those 11 days every day? You just did something to serve your mom. Pick up after yourself, do some dishes, take out trash, clean up your room. Instead of just ripping all those packages open and going to play with your toys, how about you actually put them into the trash bag and you help mom and dad clean up, but you help them. You have that. Come on, kids, serve your mom, serve your dad. Be generous in your service and also be generous. And I want you guys to bless each other, give each other presents and gifts, and be generous with those that you love. And here’s last of all.

Be generous with God this Christmas. Be generous with God. You know, it’s so interesting to me how the fact that Christmas is really Jesus’s birthday. And in America, we will spend billions and billions of dollars on gifts. For all of our loved ones and family and friends. But so few of us actually give a gift to the actual birthday boy himself. Could you imagine going to a birthday party and you show up with gifts for everybody except persons with potatoes? How awkward and how weird would that be? Let’s not let that be said of us this Christmas. And so my question would be, what are you going to give to Jesus? It’s his birthday. What do you give the guy that has everything? Well, you could start with your heart if you haven’t given. I want to give you an opportunity to do that. But it could be with your time. Start serving around here in this community. It could be with your energy. It could be with your talents, the gifts that God could be with you, with your actual finances.

But if you’re not getting around here, you could start be part of our Legacy Builder Initiative and. Step into the generosity and begin that journey to be increasing your debt. I don’t know what it is. It could be a year end gift that God has blessed you and you could give your. I don’t know what God would lead you to do. All I can encourage you as to be generous. With your Heavenly Father because he has been generous with you.