Purpose Driven Giving

So, we are in a season of generosity, and I am so thankful for everyone who brought out Operation Christmas Child Boxes. Thank you guys so much. Also, last week, I think our final count was 130 turkeys. And the last time I heard, there were a few more people that actually dropped some stuff off. So, we might have even gotten over that.

Not quite sure, that final total. But 130 turkeys, guys. That's amazing. We blew it out of the water from last year. Oh, wow.

And I want to thank Christina for heading that up. Why don't you stand up, Christina, real quick? See, I'm going to put her on the spot. Look at here. Look, it's Christmas time, guys.

All right. My goodness. I am so excited about the season. Here's what's going to happen next week, okay? Next week is going to be a nomination week.

So, I want everybody to be here next week to do this. We're going to nominate a family. I want you to be thinking and praying about a family this week, preferably in our church that might be going through some needs this season that we can bless. We can bless with a Christmas. We want to be a church that blesses a family this Christmas.

So, start thinking about that. Next week, we're going to give you the opportunity to, with that app I just showed you, or the website I just showed you with the Connect card, the electronic Connect card, we are going to nominate somebody through that. We'll have other options for you to do that as well if you're not technically savvy. But we want to bless a family this Christmas. So, we're excited about that.

We're going to do that. Also, I want to give you a little bit of the first announcement for Christmas. How many of you are ready for our Christmas service, right? We blow up our Christmas service every year, and I know this is a different type of year, and people are a little more cautious about coming to church, but we don't care. We're going to do Christmas anyway, and obviously, we're going to do it in a very touch-friendly way.

So, this year, we're going to do two services. We're going to do a 9-15 service for all you early birds that want to get in and get out and go Christmas shopping and do all that, and we're also going to do an 11 o'clock service. So, it'll be a 9-15 and an 11 o'clock service that we're going to have this coming Christmas. So, how many of you are excited about that? All right?

So, it's not what we just kind of give you a little peek. The kids are going to be doing something that day. So, that's a reason to be here and bring somebody, bring grandparents and family to see the kids. And we're also going to have something special for everybody. So, it's going to be something.

We're going to give you a little bit each week and let you know what's happening. But there's some really, really cool stuff we're going to do. And it's not just a Salt Church event. It's a community event. It's a community event, and we want everybody to come.

Community. MoCA is community. We want everybody. We want to bring everybody we can in. Amen?

So, we're going to open this house for two services. We'll open the back. Even with recording going on, we'll reposition our mics so that we can make plenty of room for everybody for social distancing and two services. So, how many of you are with me? All right.

So, we'll have some cards next week that you can grab at the Welcome Center. And we'll have some other things as the weeks come closer that you can do to invite somebody to church for Christmas. It's really easy to invite people to church on Christmas. Trust me. They'll more than likely say yes because they're looking for somewhere to attend on Christmas.

So, all right. We are in part two of a very short series called Thanks and Giving. And one of the greatest ways to fight what's going on right now in the world is generosity. One of the great responses is generosity. That's why we do what we do.

It's not what we do. It's who we are. And as believers, as Christians, we want to live out this thing called generosity. Generosity. Generosity.

So, that's what we're talking about as we head into this season and we do these things. It's not really just doing something. It's really about what it does for us. How it really, it does something inside of us. As I said last week, God even programmed us to be able to experience joy even chemically when we do things for others.

Amen. So, last week we talked about, you know, how we are to be, different types of givers. We looked at being joyful givers. We give selflessly, willingly, thankfully, and intentional givers, right? So, we talked about the how.

But this week, I want to get a little more practical and tell you exactly what to give, how, exactly what to give it to. So, what we're doing, we're wanting to invest into something more than just what's going on right now. And that's eternity. And Jesus actually talks about this in scripture. Today, I want to talk about eternal investments.

Eternal investments that we make. This is something that goes well beyond where we are. In Matthew 6, it says it like this. Jesus is teaching and talking, and this is Jesus' idea. This isn't Leon's idea.

This is Jesus' idea. This is God's idea. And he says, Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves, circle that, for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. So, don't ever depend on things that are eaten by moths that are destroyed or things that rust over time.

Those are things that depreciate. Or those things that are stolen by others. So, that's what Jesus is telling us here. Things that are depleted. But we have a heavenly bank account that we invest into.

There's a heavenly currency that we place our investment in. And it goes well beyond today. It goes well beyond what we're putting it in today. So, there's two things I want to mention before we get started about this idea of investing eternally. First of all, I'll enjoy forever what I invest in heaven.

I'll enjoy forever and ever and ever and ever what I invest in heaven. And what I have now, what I invest now, I will enjoy forever. You've heard it said, I can't take, you can't take it with you. But you can send it ahead. And you can send it ahead to the people that are going to heaven with you.

It's about growing his kingdom. It's about growing his people, about growing his family. And we can invest it ahead. And a generous church is a beautiful thing. First of all, taking care of people in our church.

Generously giving within our church to people that we love and care for in our family as we grow. And externally as we grow. And externally as we grow. And externally as we grow. And externally as we grow.

And externally as we grow. And externally as we grow. And externally as we grow. And externally as we grow. And externally as we grow.

And externally as we grow. As we share the gospel globally, those who are not in our family as of yet. So, it's a beautiful thing when we become a generous church that does both and. Here's what 1 Timothy, I always go back to 1 Timothy every year, almost in every message that I talk about in generosity, because I think this is the like magnum opus of scripture when it talks about giving, it says, tell those who are rich not to be proud and not to trust in their money. Now, first of all, you're like, I'm not rich, so this, I'm exempt.

Well, if you're an American, you're probably rich, okay, because you are wealthier than 95% of the world. Some of you own cars that are bigger than most of the world's homes. Some of you got garages that are bigger than most of the world's homes, okay. You've got more, if you got money in your pocket, you are 95% richer than the world is, okay. Most people do not have anything, so what is he saying?

He's talking to you, he's talking to me, he's talking to us. Those who are rich, rich, you may not have a huge house or a really, really nice car, but you are rich. They're not trust money or not be proud of it, right, which will soon be gone, but their pride and trust should be in the living God who richly gives us what? All we need for our enjoyment, so he gives it to us for our enjoyment, but not only our enjoyment now, but an eternal, eternal investment into what is to come. Eternal investment, this is going to be something that goes beyond, so tell them to use their money to do good.

Use their money to do good, because you're making eternal investments. And we are to love people and use money, not love money and use people. That's what God calls us to. Secondly, I invest in heaven every time I use my money for good. I invest in heaven, I put into heaven, I have an eternal bank account every time I use my money for good.

But 1 Timothy 6, 18b to 19 says it like this in the Living Bible, they should be rich in good works and should give happily to those in need, always ready to share with others whatever God has given them. By doing this, they are storing up real treasure. Real treasure, because that treasure in heaven thing again, he uses it a lot in Scripture. He uses it approximately five times in Scripture, which means it's important. Storing up real treasure for themselves in heaven.

It is the only safe investment, it is the only safe investment, it is only the proven safe investment for eternity, and they will be living a fruitful Christian life down here as well, here, right here on earth, right? So there's an investment now, and there's investment into eternal things. So we store up treasures in heaven by doing good, right? By doing good. So I'm just going to tell you, everything I'm sharing today is not my own.

I decided to rip off Rick Warren today and give you five funds that you can invest in, and it goes along with probably the best seller since the Bible, The Purpose Driven Life. They give five different ways and values we should live out to be a healthy church, to be thriving, purpose-driven Christians, and a thriving, purpose-driven church. In fact, we've taken some of those values and repackaged them for our church because we believe in a lot of these things, that we are a church that is generous. So let's look at that. So any financial planner will tell you, if you talk to a financial planner, they tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket, to spread out your funds, to spread them in different investments, in different funds so that you don't lose everything on one fund.

And in the same way, it is spiritually. Eternal investing is done in many different ways. You use some of your money here, some of your money here, some of your money here, and some of your money here. And you place them out, and we're going to look at that. So The Purpose Driven Life gives you five things that are healthy as a believer to live out a purpose-driven life, to live out a life with purpose.

One of them is worship, worship, to know him and love him, to love God and know God, that we worship God. The fellowship is the second one, to love his family, that we love his family, that we grow and love his family. Discipleship is to grow his family, that we grow in Christ, that our family grows together and grows out and deep. And ministry, to serve him, to be like him and serve others outside externally in ministry. And then there's evangelism, that's to share the hope that we have, the hope that is in us.

And in the same way, we need to invest in these five areas in our money. So unlike the world, though, these investments are proven, these investments are protected, these investments are risk-free, and they produce returns. They produce returns into eternity. And the Bible says that money is a tool. It is.

It's something that God gives us as a tool, and that he gives you these tools to grow his kingdom. So we're going to look at these five things. So God's first purpose for your life is this, it's worship. It is worship. What is worship?

It's learning to love him. Love him with all your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength. We see that in Scripture, to love him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, because you were made for God's pleasure. Get that. You were actually designed for God's pleasure.

He unconditionally loves us with everything that's in him, and he wants us to return that love. He created us for love, to love him and serve him and worship him. And he wants you to know and love him back, and that's called worship. That's what we do is worship. So the first investment is God's treasury fund.

God's treasury fund. I invest in eternity by using money to worship God. It's the highest investment we can make is to worship God, that we simply give, simply so that we can worship God. It's an act of worship to him. Proverbs 3.

9 says it like this in the Living Bible, honor the Lord by giving him the first part of your income. See, this is worship. And he will fill your barns and overflow your barrels. So we call this the 10%, the tithing, right? The first fruits.

You hear me use first fruits. We bring the first and the best in. This right here is for nothing else but to worship God. We do it out of worship. It predates the law, by the way.

Some of you are like, well, isn't that an Old Testament principle? Well, it predates the law because we see what Cain and Abel, we see Abraham, we see this happening. I think this is it. It's an act of worship to God. I love you so much, God.

I appreciate what you've done for me. I want to know you more, so I give my first. And it's not an old, it's an Old Testament law, but it is a New Testament attitude. Attitude of worship. So we worship God through our giving.

Now, remember when you were young and you wanted to get a gift for your parents, and it probably was a little cheesy gift, you know, that you couldn't really, it was, let me, a 25-cent gadget or something. You thought it would be so cool to your parents. Your parents probably looked at it and said, oh, this is ridiculous. You know, I don't really need anything like this, but probably in the back of their thoughts and their mind, but they love it so much because you gave it to them. I think about my daughter who, um, she loves it around my birthday or some days just to do it.

She'll, she'll take out a little piece of paper and she'll write me a little card and draw me a little stick person and do the scribblies and, and, and then she'll, she'll work out the best she's able to do as a six-year-old child and put, I love you so much, Daddy. You know, but it says, I, L-U-V, you know, you, so, and so, you know, it's, it's not spelled well. The stick figures are kind of all over the place. Sometimes you don't even know what the picture is and you have to ask her, you know, but, but she put thought into it and although that piece of paper is worth, you know, five cents and those crayons are worth, you know, maybe a dollar, there's something special about that. When I receive that, it just warms my heart and I don't want to throw it away.

I don't want, it may be worthless, but to, to me per se, as far as a financial concern or whatever, but it's so much more valuable because she thought of me and she wanted to do that for me and that's my Christmas gift or that's my birthday gift and, and, and it's just a beautiful thing. That's how God feels about you when you give your first, when you give your 10%. It's not much to God because God owns it all anyway. He just, it just makes him excited and I love how in the back part of that verse he says, he will fill your barns and over, uh, fill your barns and overflow your barrels. He, see, there's a promise there, yes, but more than anything, I believe that God does this because it stirs his spirit up.

He gets so excited. I just want to go out when Savannah does that. Let me take you out for ice cream or something, you know, let's have a little daddy daughter time because I'm just loving this so much. I want to spend. So God does that too.

When you do that, it warms his heart. He sees that you really love him and you really want to know him and you really want to worship him. So you worship him with your money. That's the first act of worship. Matthew 6 21 says it like this, wherever your treasure is there, your heart is also.

So my question is, where's your heart? And how can you determine where your heart is? I love, uh, I was reading something about this one time. I can't remember exactly where it came from, but I've used it in a past sermon. And that is, if you really want to know where your heart is, and this isn't my stuff, this is somebody else.

You really want to know where your heart is, go look at your bank account and see what you're spending your money most on. Then you could determine where your heart is. And when you invest in something, you're, you're concerned about that thing. You're, you're interested in that thing. If I put stock in AT&T, there's a lot of commotion going on, man.

That really stirred up some people, right? All right. So when you're, yeah, there's some conviction in the house. That, that's, that's good. That's good.

If I go to my bank account and I see that I'm, I'm investing in, in surfboards. I can say that because I'm a surfer. I would, I would spend all my money on surfboards if I could. All right. Maybe I've got a heart issue there.

If I'm spending more there than I am on what the Lord has for me. Or if I'm a, I spending on my boat or on my house or, or, or my car or whatever it might be, you might have a heart issue. Now, if I invest in something, let me just say it like this. If I have a stock that I invest in, say I'm, I'm, I'm investing in AT&T or I'm investing in a Mac or I'm investing in something like that. I become interested in that thing.

I'm really concerned about that thing. I'm interested in it. So I become interested in it. But if I'm not invested in it, I'm not concerned about it in the same way it is with God. If I'm not investing into my relationship with God, if I'm not concerned about, you know, my worship towards God and connecting with God, then I have to ask myself where my heart is.

So where is your heart? Where do you want your heart to be? That's, that's the next question. Where do you want your heart to be? Where do you want to place your, if you're, if you assess yourself and see that your heart is in the wrong place, where do you want your heart to be?

Because whenever I feel like my heart is far away from God, you know what I do? I give to him. I give to him. I give to him financially. I tithe him.

I, I, with my time as well and my, my talent as well. This is not just a money thing. It's something that we need to do. When our heart feels far from God, it's, we go to the treasure fund. Look at how Job says it in, in chapter 22, verse 24 through 25 in the New Living Translation.

He says, give up your lust for money, then the Almighty himself will be your treasure. Give up your love and lust and hunger for money, and then you will truly learn who is your treasure. And tithe, the tithe, I tithe as an act of worship at my place of worship. I tithe. See, here's the thing about the tithe.

A lot of people, well, you know, what if I tithe to this and this and this, this place? No, what we see in the Bible is it's an act of worship, which we tithe in our place of worship. There's other funds here I'm getting ready to talk about, okay? But, but here, as far as the tithe, the first fruits is always to your place of worship. Many years ago, I remember a professor in seminary, somebody asked that, well, Third Day started this fund somewhere, and I like to tithe to that fund to help victims in other countries and this and that.

That's my tithe. And my professor responded by saying, well, that's actually not your tithe. That's your offering, and that's your missions. He's like, what are you talking about? I tithe.

I give my 10% to that. No, your tithe goes to your place of worship. Because here's the thing, if you're sick, if you're hungry, if you're helpless, who are you going to call on? Are you going to call Third Day, the rock band Third Day? Are they going to be coming to the hospital for you?

Are they going to be showing up to your house with meals? Are they going to be doing this? No, they're not going to be there for you. Your family's going to be there for you, and you worship together, and you serve each other together. I thought that really punched home for me when I was in seminary.

And I hope that makes sense to you, that we tithe to the place of worship. The second one is God's mutual fund, that we mutually feed each other. God's mutual fund. We are not just to love God, but we are to learn to love each other. We are called to fellowship.

This is extremely important. We fellowship. So I am... Invest in eternity by using money, or my money, to encourage fellowship. Look what Romans 12.

10 says, Love one another with mutual affection, right? Verse 13, it says, Share what you have with God's people who are in need and show hospitality. Hebrews 10.24 says, Let us think of ways to encourage one another with outbursts of love and good deeds. So be spontaneous, just outbursting, doing good deeds, and think of others.

Think of how you use your time and your money to bless your fellowship. People right here in your church. Maybe you want to buy them a gift card, and just blow their mind with a nice gift card at this Christmas. Maybe you want to take them out to eat after church, or bless them with a meal. Whatever it might be, help somebody with a medical bill, maybe, that you heard about.

You just want to serve. It's a mutual fund that we invest into each other. So we don't take all of our money, but we take some of our money and give it to the mutual fund. We give it to the treasury fund, then we give it to the mutual fund, and we bless people. Sometimes it's not even about the need.

It's about just being loved by a family. You know, somebody might not even need it, but you just feel the Lord is telling you to bless that person, and it may have been the best thing that they've gotten in a long time, because maybe they're feeling unloved. So we need to invest in a mutual fund, because it does this. First of all, it proves I'm in God's family. I'm a part of this family.

2 Corinthians 9 says it like this. This service is of giving not only helps the needs of God's people, it also brings many more thanks to God, and it is a proof of your faith. Many people will praise God because you obey the good news of Christ and the gospel you say you believe, and because you freely share with them. So you can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. God is love because he gave, right?

He gave his son. So it proves I'm in the family, and it creates unity. It creates unity. How good and pleasant it is when we come together in unity and bless the Lord. How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity.

And thirdly, it's a witness to unbelievers. It really is. When we take care of each other, why in the world are these people acting like this? Why are these people so happy? Why are these people doing so good to each other?

Wow, I'm not sure about this Jesus thing, but I want what they have. So maybe I'll give it a shot. Maybe I'll discover a little more. Maybe I'll ask a few questions. Third John says it like this.

When you extend hospitality to Christian brothers and sisters, even when they are strangers, you make the faith visible. You put legs and arms on it. You make faith visible. Number three is God's growth fund. God's growth fund.

You were created to become like Christ and to grow up. You weren't created to just sit and be babies your entire life. We have to grow ourselves. So I'll invest in eternity with my money to help grow my character. I need to grow my character.

How do you grow your character? By investing in you, your family, investing in your spiritual growth. That might, maybe that's a book you need to buy. Maybe that's a class you need to attend. Maybe that's whatever that might be.

Maybe there's something that you can do that you can invest to help you grow closer to Christ. That's your growth fund, to grow closer to Christ. Proverbs says it like this. The earnings of the godly enhance their lives, but evil people squander their money on sin. Squandering your money in general is sinful.

Did you know that? But when you invest it in yourself to help you grow, not only in others, but even in yourself to grow, it goes a long way. We like to spend our money on comfort, but God would have us to spend our money on things that help us grow. And sometimes that might not be the most comfortable thing at the time. So we grow.

We need to grow in God. But Proverbs 23, 23 says, invest in truth and wisdom, discipline and good sense, and don't part with them. When you invest in these things, you get wisdom. You grow. You honor God because you're making that a priority in your life.

16, 16 in Proverbs says it. It is better, much better to have wisdom and knowledge than gold and silver. Isaiah 55, 2. I got a lot of scripture today. I know y'all got like, wow, is he blowing me up with scripture?

Because, you know, it's just, it's what we got to do. I just want to prove to you that this is what it is. Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? And does, yeah, and does you no good? Listen, y'all are like, what, what, hey, what, what, what?

It doesn't give you strength? We're talking about junk food here, guys. Listen, I will tell you where to get good food that is good for your what? Soul. So, you're going to invest in junk food?

Going to eat junk food that doesn't give you strength? Or are you going to invest in your soul? We need to invest in our souls. Number four, God's service fund is the fourth thing we invest in. God's service fund.

We serve God by serving others, right? You were created to serve him and to be like him. So, we live to serve others. You don't take all of your money, but you take some of your money and put into this. I invest in attorney by using money to serve others.

See, God wants you to take some of that money, and we call it ministry money. It could be for financial things. It could be for emotional things that people are going through. Maybe it's physical things. We feed the hungry.

We help the poor. We clothe the people. We look for the homeless. We work, people that are out of work. We help them.

And we've been, see, we do all of these things as a church, guys. We do all of them. We go all the way back to the treasury. You know, when we go to the treasury, we put out 10%, and we put it back into church. And then we take a part of that, and we put it into all these different funds.

Well, we do it with the service fund, too. We put, we make it possible to help people, to serve people outside of our church, not only in our church, but outside our church. This is why I have these kindness, acts of kindness cards. There's a basket right there in the back of the room, and I want you guys to... Roll through there and just grab a bunch of them, and I want you to bless people because this is what, it's about just blessing people, reaching people, ministry, a random acts of kindness, pay for somebody's meal.

Maybe you're in line and you hear somebody can't pay their medical bill in Walgreens, and you slip up to the counter and you pay that off, you know? Maybe you've heard that your neighbor needs this or that, and maybe you can do that, and you can take one of those kindness cards and say, God just loves you. I want to do it because God loves you, because I want to be like Christ, and I want to extend the love that Christ has and love you as well. And so we want to do that. Ecclesiastes 11, 1 and 2 says it like this.

Be generous. Invest in acts of charity. Charity yields high returns. Don't hoard your goods. Spread them around.

Be a blessing to others. Be a blessing to others. Don't hoard. Bless others. That's why God gives us what we are.

That's why we're rich, so that we can bless others. Proverbs 19, 17 says it like this. When you give to the poor, it is like lending to the Lord. Isn't that something? And He will pay you back.

So He actually pays you back. He gives it back to you. When you give to people in need, it's like making a loan to the Lord. It really is. He blesses us with all of it anyway, right?

And number five is God's global fund. God's global fund. I invest in eternity by using money to bring others to Jesus. See, all of this is really, it really does come down to this, because our main concern is Jesus. Our main concern is the gospel.

That's why we're a gospel-centered church. That's why you hear salvation messages come from this pulpit every Sunday, because this is why we do what we do. This is why we invest. And we are concerned not only for who's coming to Christ in our church and in our community and around our city, but we are concerned about who comes to Christ around the world. We want to be globally minded, and we give internationally, and we give missionally, and we are mission-minded.

We are building a family of those who will be in heaven with us one day, and we want to grow this family and extend this family. Here's what Luke 16 says. It says, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Now, some of you are like, oh, so I got to buy my friends? I got to pay for my friends?

No, that's not what that means. It means that you're growing the kingdom of heaven, that you're investing in friendships that will last through eternity and in the family of God. So we're building the family of God. It's okay to clap. That's fine.

Yeah. We're clapping church. It's okay to clap. We invest into getting people into heaven. We invest into getting people into our family.

We do what we can with everything we can to get people to know God. And when you get to heaven, it's going to be amazing when you walk in there and somebody comes up to you that you've never met and says, you're Kelly. I got you, Kelly. You're standing up, moving out. And I remember you.

And here's what you did. You invested into Salt Church. And you invested into that thing, that building, that project, that ministry. And that changed my life. And I'm in heaven because of you.

I'm in heaven because of you. Because you invested. Because I got to hear the good news. Because you invested into that sound system. You invested into that rent for that mocha situation that you guys used to be in.

You invested into that. That song touched my heart. It led me to Christ. Because you invested into that. You invested into a ministry that went out to Africa and South America and Central America and Asia.

You invested in that. And now I'm here because of what you gave. You gave to the global fund. And isn't that worth it? Isn't that worth the investment?

You made a real sacrifice. You decided not to buy a TV. You decided not to buy the latest car. You decided not to have the biggest house and all the things because you decided that you were going to take a part of your money and give it to the global fund. And there is no higher use of your money.

Salt Church does this. First of all, we invest in church planning and international missions work. We do that. We take a portion of our money as a church. So I'm not asking you to do anything that we don't do as a church as a whole.

And we give it. Look at this. Third John, it says, for they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore, we ought to support people like these that we may be fellow workers for the truth. We support Jamie and Jessica Dunning in Kenya who are doing efforts to get sustainable businesses and preach the gospels in little places in the world that aren't preached yet.

They're doing good. And we invest in these people and we're sending them out so that people can. We are globally, global minded. We have a global fund. Second Corinthians says it like this.

You honor God through this genuine act of service in your commitment to spread the good news of Christ through your generosity and sharing. Let's be a part of giving to the global fund. investing in the gospel going out, not only in our church, not only in our city, but through Jerusalem, Judea, and to the ends of the earth. This is missions minded. We are missional.

We are a missional church. Our hope doesn't stay here. It goes out. That's what we invest in. So what if we received an announcement at the end of February, just to kind of close this out, it says, all the money that we have is going to be converted to the Japanese yen.

What would you do? So you take all of your dollars, right? And you'd pull out up until the end of February, you know, or around February, you would take just enough to live on, right? And then you would take and invest all that other money or put all that other money into a, and transfer it to yen because it would be useless, you know, in the future, right? Well, in an eternal perspective, that's how we should think.

Like the money that we have now, if we pull out what we have, what we need in this life, but we take and we forward it and we bless into the future because we are concerned about eternal things. We're investing. It's a real proven investment that we place it into in eternity. And that's how we are to view our treasure. If your treasure's here on earth, it takes you further from God.

But if you invest in God, it leads you closer to Him. It leads you closer to... So, That's why we do the Treasury Fund as an act of worship, or the Mutual Fund, building the fellowship of the church. And by the way, that even counts for you who are Salt Group leaders. You're investing, you're feeding people every week, you're opening up your home, you're offering things, you're mutually, you got the Mutual Fund going on.

The Growth Fund, helping my family and myself grow spiritually, or the Service Fund, money to meet others' needs outside of my church, and projects and outreach. And in the Global Fund, using my money to share the good news. I love how Jim Elliott puts it, he says, He is no fool that gives you what you cannot keep, for that which he cannot lose. By investing in these five funds, it will change your life. It will change everything.

You will be more joyful on this earth, and you will be more blessed in eternity. Amen. So let's invest, let's give to eternity. With all heads bowed and all eyes closed, just for a minute as we close. I just want to pray over our church right now, that we would be eternally minded, and that we would be eternally generous in what we have.

And for some of you today, that might just be your call to action today. That I really want to do, I really want to grow closer to Christ, I want to experience more, I want to do more. So I challenge you today, if that's a place where you, if there's one of those mutual funds that, or one of those investment funds that you're struggling with right now, maybe that's something you need to consider. And I just want to pray over this place. I want to pray over every single person in here.

God, in the name of Jesus, I pray that we would be an absolute, uber generous people. Because eternity does matter. And we know that we are investing in eternity. Because you first loved us, what more can we do? But as an act of worship, and an act of love, and an act of obedience, and just an act of pleasure.

And just what, in the very, in our very beings, Lord, we want to be, it's not what we do, it's who we are. It's who we are. We are Christ-like. We want to be like you, Jesus. So God, help us, Lord.

Stir our hearts to challenge us in these areas this week, Lord, and these coming days, and into this Christmas season. As we grab those random acts of kindness cards, and we start going out, and we start pouring our love and our life into our community, in our city. And as we think about Christmas, and the opportunity to share the gospel of Christ, that we would do it in a way that would just blow people's minds. Because we are such generous people. We want to be generous.

Let's love. Let's love, Lord, like you love. Help us love and stir our hearts, God, for more of you. And in that same spirit of worship today, with all heads bowed and all eyes closed still, cannot close this day without you knowing Jesus. What is this thing called knowing Jesus?

What is this thing called worship? Maybe you're here today. Maybe you walked in the door, just happened to be, maybe you were invited by a friend, or you just stumbled in, you saw us on the street as you were riding your bike, or whatever it might be. Maybe you're here today, and you're here today. It's no, there's no, there's no, there's no coincidence.

But this thing we call eternity, this thing we call hope, this thing we call faith, it has a name. And it's a he, and his name is Jesus. Jesus, and he loves you so much, that he was so generous, that he died for you, that he gave his life to you. On a cross, he shed, but the thing that you could not, there was a chasm between you and God the Father, that separated you because of sin. Because of the sin of one man, we were separated from God.

But because of one man who gave his life, the Son of God, we can have eternal life today. And the Bible says, if I confess with my mouth, and I believe with my heart, I will be saved. He will listen to me, and he will call, and he's pursuing you right now. Maybe you're stirred in your spirit. Maybe you're stirred in your heart right now.

Maybe this is the time to, I want you just to make that commitment today to him by just saying this with me. There's nothing magic in the words. It's just you and your heart wide open, crying out to God, saying, come to me. Come into my heart, Lord, because he is here, ready to receive you with open arms. Just pray this with me.

Father, I believe that you are the Son of God, and you died on the cross for my sin. I call on you for help. Save me, Lord. Come into my life. Come into my heart.

Make me new. I give my life to you. No turning back. I'm walking towards you. That everlasting life.

In Jesus' name.