The Heart of The Matter

This new series we're starting, I anticipate this every year around this time we always go into something about generosity because we're entering into Thanksgiving and Christmas and all of you are thinking about wonderful things, right? You're thinking about giving, you're thinking about being selfless, and it's important for us to always come back to these generosity principles and talk about these things. So live generously. We're going to talk about that today, and the title of this message is The Heart of the Matter.

The Heart of the Matter of Generosity. How many of you like to be blessed? Oh yeah, we love to be blessed. But the interesting thing is happiness seems to be, is one of those things that seems to be really hard to get, but when we have it, it's really hard to hold on to. And the more we have, it seems like the more we want, right?

The more we have, the more discontent we are. An example of that is our kids, right? I mean, we see that our kids are always one. Savannah's a fine example of that. Somebody's already laughing.

Y'all must hear it. Why is Savannah always a part of my examples? When she's a teenager, she's just going to, Dad, why did you use so many examples? But she's a fine example of that. I love my daughter, and we spend a lot of time together, Daddy and daughter.

And a lot of times after daycare, I'll take her out, you know, to McDonald's, get a Happy Meal, or Taco Bell, or she likes the cheesy roll-ups, you know. She's always like, Daddy, I want a cheesy roll-up. And she says, and every time she gets in the car after daycare, she says, Daddy, I want to go to the place. I want to go to the place. Meaning she doesn't want to go home.

She wants to go out and eat something and hang out, right? And, but one place isn't good enough, okay? I want to go to the place. And so, so, so she said, can we go to the McDonald's, and then we go to the Taco Bell, and then, no, no, you can only get one. I only get one.

Okay, so, so she gets one, and then we go and have, you know, our cheesy roll-up or whatever. And while she's there, she says, Daddy, I don't want to go home. I want to go to the place. I'm like, we are at the place. No, the other place.

So, and what she's doing, she's avoiding going home. She just wants to go to the place. She wants to have fun. And, you know, there's this discontentment. And, and we see it even in, in siblings, you know.

So, one gets one thing, and one wants the other. And the more they get, the more they want to get. And, and it just seems like, and as adults, we're the same way, right? I want to buy a house by the beach, right? Or, or, or biking distance from the beach.

And then, when we get the bike, the house biking distance from the beach, man, it sure would be nice to have a house closer to the water so I can walk to the beach because it takes me 10 minutes to ride my bike to the beach. So, we get that house, and then we're like, wow, it's, it would be really nice if I actually was on the beach. I could look outside my, my door or my window and, and, and see it. And how much further can we go, right? Do you want to be in the water?

And it just seems like, well, maybe a bigger house, you know, on the beach. And it seems like we're always discontent. I know that for a fact because, you know, I, I live very close to the beach. We're still grumbling and complaining about riding my bike, and it taking me seven minutes to get to the beach. Isn't that ridiculous?

And we're always, it seems like this line is always moving, always changing. Uh, what is the, the disc, the, the discontent content line? Where do we draw that? Well, we don't know because there seems to be this attitude that the more house I have, the more car I have, the more salary I have, the more pension I have, the, the, the, the line just, just always grows. The, the, the contentment is never met.

Uh, uh, we want a, a bigger, uh, closet for all of our shoes, right? Right? And then what do we do when we get a bigger closet? We get more shoes. And then we need a bigger closet, right?

Uh, it seems that, that, that's always the case. And, uh, today I kind of want to bring in something that's kind of counterintuitive, honestly. It's different because the society would tell you, you know, if, if you have more and you collect more and you build up more, then you should be happy and content. And life is wonderful and great, but we know that that's not true. But God tells us something completely different.

He goes a different direction. It's, it's very counterintuitive. And it's the reason that most people do not experience a blessed life. There's the blessed life that's waiting out there for us. But so many people miss it because they go with the world's philosophy, but God's philosophy is different.

And if you're a believer today, this message is specifically for you. Okay? So if you're, if you're not a follower of Christ, that's okay. Sit back, have coffee, but you can learn something from this because God's principles apply to everything. But for you that are believers, this is, this is specifically tailored.

The series is specifically tailored for those who, who follow Christ's way because we believe that Christ's way is better. So we're going to go through the series. This week I'm going to kind of give you an introduction, but next week we're actually going to dig into finances. And half the room's going to be missing next week because anytime you talk about money, it seems like that's a scary thing. But it's not to, to, to, we're, we don't want something from you.

We want something for you. God doesn't want something from you. He wants something for you. So we're going to talk about that next week. And a couple of weeks we're going to talk about generosity, good deeds, loving people, you know, just going out of our way to, to, to make a difference in this world.

And I believe God's got some incredible things in store for us. So, so keep your hearts open during this series and let's get busy doing God's work. Look at the seat beside you. Look at the other seat. We've got some empty seats in here.

There's somebody out there that needs a generous person to grab them and take them and hold them in and bring them to church and take them out to eat. Right? So we're going to talk a lot about that kind of stuff today, uh, with the season here. People need the Lord. There's old, uh, uh, Michael W.

Smith song says, people need the Lord. That just popped in my head. But, but, uh, that, that people really do need God. They need God. And we know, and we can share, uh, the goodness in God.

So the, the, the message or the scripture I want to share today is out of Acts 20, 35. It's a very simple scripture to count. That answers this question of being blessed. It says, it's, it is more blessed to give, than to receive. It is more blessed to give, than it is to receive.

So if you're following your notes, the secret to a blessed life, is a heart of generosity. The real blessing comes, and this just doesn't make a lot of sense. Because we're, our hearts say, oh, it's about what I get. If I have a bundle, if I have things in store, if I store away things, it should, it should bless me. But God tells us, the secret to a blessed life, is a heart of generosity.

So let's look at what the Bible says about that. Proverbs 11, it says this, verse 24 through 25. One man gives freely, yet gains even more. Another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. So common sense would say, if I hold on to what I have, I would have more.

But scripture says, it comes to poverty. Well, that doesn't make a lot of sense. That's why it's so counterintuitive. And it says, a generous man, circle that, a generous man will prosper. A generous man will prosper.

He who refreshes others will refresh himself. So we look at verse 25, and there's the key to prosperity right there. A generous man, a generous woman, a generous family, a generous church will prosper. We will prosper. Paul speaks to this in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 9, 6, and 8, and 11.

It says, remember this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. But whoever sows generously will also reap generously. This is the Bible. This isn't Leon. This is the Bible.

This is what God is telling us here. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart. Not reluctant, not under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. I love that word cheerful, because the original meaning of that word is, it literally means hilarious. I think of Santa Claus.

Ho, ho, ho, you know, just laughing and giggling and just having a party with generosity. You know, let's give toys to kids. Ho, ho, ho, you know, that's how we need to be as people of God. But generous people. I get to give.

I'm excited about it. And a lot of people actually use this verse as an excuse not to give. Well, if I feel like I'm giving reluctantly or under compulsion, then I shouldn't give. But that's not what God's saying here. If you read the context, he's trying to lead us from that attitude into a joyful partying, you know, because you can have fun following Jesus.

And he wants you to be joyful. He wants you to enjoy the things that he has for you. So he tells us these things. So he enjoys, he loves a happy, joyful partying giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things, and sometimes, no, that's not right.

In all times, having all that you need, all that you need, you will abound in every good work. And you will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous in every occasion. And through us, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. It says, I want us to focus on that word, every way. You be made rich.

Just circle that. Every way. You will be made rich in every way. And you're limiting yourself when that's just financial. He wants you to be rich in every way, whether that's your friendships, that's your family, that's your health and your well-being.

That can go for years and years into the future through generosity. And on every occasion, it results in thanksgiving to God. When you bless others, it's like a cycle effect. There's this ongoing secular effect that takes place. You bless somebody, then they bless others, and then you see the blessings come, and then ultimately you bless more people, and then you receive blessings, and then you praise God, and then ultimately people are all praising God because it grows from there.

You bless someone, it blesses you. You want to bless more. Those people are blessed. They end up blessing in return. And what happens?

People praise God. So guess what? You're extending the kingdom of God through your giving and your generosity and your thanksgiving. When we are able to provide 125 turkeys to families, guess what those 125 families are going to be doing? They're going to be praising God.

And us as a church, people who are Christ followers, we are God's, Jesus' church, our lead pastor. What do we want to happen? We want people to be praising God. We want people to be praising Jesus. We want a city that loves the Lord.

So that's why we act in generosity towards others. And next week, we're going to have some cards. We do this random act of kindness campaign every year. And we'll be handing out cards next week. And on one side of the card, it says, just a little something to show that God loves you.

I'm paraphrasing that. We have it simpler than that. And on the back, it has a little information about, you know, the church and just a little tagline from the church. But what I want you to do during this season as a church, and I'm commissioning you, I'm giving you an opportunity to do this, is to practice generosity. And I want you to take these cards.

And I want you to go trim somebody's hedges, cut somebody's grass, and hand them a card and say, just wanted to bless you today. Or buy somebody's coffee in line. Or buy somebody's fast food in the fast food restaurant, the person that's behind you. Don't tell them you did it. Just leave them a little card just to tell them that God loves you today.

And that's all you have to do. And these are ways that we can be a presence in the community as followers of Christ. And I can't tell you story after story. I'm not going to share those stories with you today because I've got a lot of stories I want to share with you and other teachings. But these are just ways that we can demonstrate the love of God so ultimately people will praise our God and our Lord.

But here's the question. If we know that we are more blessed when we are more generous, why aren't people generous? Why aren't people generous? Another way of saying it, why aren't people generous? People more or more people experiencing blessing in their lives.

Why aren't people doing that? It's not how much we make. It's how we think. It's not how much money we have. It's a heart thing.

It's the heart of the matter. I'm going to share with you a few mindsets that people typically have and reasons why we don't experience a blessed life and we choose not to go that route. This counterintuitive idea that God has set for us because of certain mindsets. This material comes from Jensen Franklin, one of my favorite preachers. I listen to him quite a bit.

He has a lot of good stuff on giving and generosity and fasting and prayer and all these real cool spiritual things that we as a church often ignore. He's just really good at them. And he shows us a few mentalities. And I want to share three of these mentalities that people tend to have, even Christians tend to have. The first mindset is the bag.

The bag mindset. It's the idea that there's not enough. There's just not enough. There's not enough. And sadly, most people fall into this area.

Sadly, most people are in the bag mentality. There's not enough. I'm looking at the bag. I've made my paycheck and I put it all in here and it just doesn't seem enough and we focus on the bag. We've got the bag there.

Haggai 1.6 says this, If you have sown much, you have sown, excuse me, you have sown much and bring in little. You eat but do not have enough. You drink but you're not filled with drink. You clothe yourself but no one is warm.

And he who earns wages, earns wages to put into the bag, to a bag with holes. A bag with holes. So what we have is a bag with holes. It's interesting. You sow but you're not reaping a whole lot.

You're drinking but you're not feeling content. It goes back to that content principle because we have the bag mentality. We're looking at our bag. Think about it. You've got a bag of a monthly income.

And you look at that bag. And at the end of the month, you're like, how? Where's the money, right? A lot of us are like that, right? Where's the money?

I mean, I believe I make enough to live on. And then when it comes to the end of the month, there's not enough. And then there's always something else. When you think you're getting ahead and you're finally breaking, you know, into that black area, there's always a car breaking down. There's always the AC unit breaking.

There's how Christmas is around the corner. I've got to save for the kids at college. I've got to do all this. And you look at your bank account and you're like, wow, I just don't have enough. And ideally, we think that way because that's kind of how we're conditioned to think that way.

If I don't have enough, there's no way I can be generous. There's no way I can give my time, my treasure, my talent, all the things that I have because I'm looking at the bag. We're so focused on the bag and we fill up the bag so much that it begins to break in the bottom. We start losing things out of the bag without even knowing it. And this is a spiritual problem, actually, because we're focused on the bag.

Judas, the 12 disciples, and Judas was the one that betrayed Jesus. Everybody looks at Judas as that awful person. Well, you know, Judas was the bag carrier, you know that? He was actually the most well-trusted disciple of them all because he handled the money, right? But Judas had a bag mentality.

He held the bags. And there was this point where this woman came in the Gospels. This woman comes with this alabaster jar. And if you know anything about alabasters, it's a very expensive perfume. And that day would have been a year's wages.

I mean, that's a lot of money. And this woman comes and breaks the jar of alabaster and pours it on Jesus. And who's the first one to say, no, don't do that. It's Judas. Do you realize what we could do with that?

Because he had a bag mentality. A bag mentality. The same thing happened with 30 pieces of silver. When Judas betrayed Jesus for what? 30 pieces of silver.

A bag mentality. A bag of silver. A bag of silver. People have a bag mentality. We are so concerned about the bag.

But the bag has holes in it. I would love to give, but I'm focused on my bag. It's all I have. But God wants to take us to the next level of giving. The next level of giving.

We call this the basket. If you're following, you know it's the basket. Meaning there's more than enough. A lot of people don't make it to the basket because they're concerned about the bag. But the basket is waiting for us when we start to think like God tells us to think.

This is where I have more than enough. If we look at Deuteronomy 28, it says, The first of your womb will be blessed. And the crops of your land and the young of your livestock. Your basket and your needing trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and you will be blessed when you go out.

The Gospels talk about this. It says, Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing. Now that doesn't mean a lot to us in our current context, does it? I mean we hear that a lot when we hear about finances particularly, you know.

Somebody used that phrase when they're doing an offering collection. But it's good to understand what that really means. In these days, in the context of when this was happening, when Jesus was teaching this, it was very well understood what he was talking about. There were field workers, two types of people that worked in grain fields. The master would have paid laborers.

So the paid laborers would go out in the field and they'd have these baskets and they'd fill them up about three fourths of the way because if you get them too full, you know, you're kind of heavy and they were kind of lazy in some ways. And they would take them in and put away the grain, you know. But because of the generosity of the master, he would invite people who were poor to come in the fields and collect grain on their own. And they would... They would, the grain that would be left on the edges of the fields.

And these poor people, it's probably their only meal for the next few weeks. What would they do? They would bring their baskets in, and they wouldn't just fill them three-fourths of the way full. They would fill them as tight as they could. They would put the grain in there, and they would shake it, shake it down, get that grain, fill in those air pockets, fill in those slots, put more in there, more in there, until it was overflowing.

So they're walking out of there with plenty of grain. Plenty of grain. And it shows the heart of the Master. The heart of God is that He wants us to have baskets full, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing. He desires that for us, guys.

He desires that for us, church. He wants that for us. I'm reminded in the Gospel of the feeding of the 5,000. Most of you have heard, probably, of the miracle of the 5,000, being fed with the fish and bread. There was this young, there was this kid, and this is an example of a child, who understood generosity, understood what it meant.

And you've got to think of it this way. These fishes, there were five loaves of bread and two fish, right? These weren't big bass fish, okay? These aren't the big honkers that you get. These were two little, this was a child's lunch.

Two small fish. And these breads were probably, this bread was probably the size of biscuits, you know? It wasn't very much. It was just a child's meal. But this child takes this basket of food to Jesus and says, here, I'll give it.

So many. I'm sure the adults were sitting around like, don't do that. That's your only meal. You're a child, you know? And Jesus, don't take that away from him.

And what does Jesus do? He takes it, he blesses it, and he begins to break it. He breaks it. He breaks the bread. He breaks the fish.

And they start distributing it to the 5,000. This was 5,000 men. There were probably more like 10,000 people in all in this place because they didn't count women and children in their numbers. And everybody was fed. Everyone was fed.

But the miracle of the story is this. When they went around, I mean, yeah, it's a miracle that 5,000 plus people were fed from two little fish and five loaves of bread. But the real miracle was when they collected the stuff back up and counted 12 whole baskets full of food, of bread. A miracle. And God wants to share that basket mentality with us.

Basket. If we have a basket mentality, you know, God gives. If we are blessed to give, it's more blessed to give than receive. He who sows sparingly reaps sparingly. This is what happens in a basket mentality.

And when we are experiencing the abundance of God, guess what happens? You do more. You tithe more. You give to others. You give your time.

You give your treasure. You give your talent. You give your resources. And it becomes contagious and others do it. And it changes an environment.

It changes the world when we are all engaged in what God teaches us and shows us and tells us. You can help someone on a missions trip, you know, when they ask for it. You don't have the bag mentality. Well, I don't really have enough. Well, I'm heading to Africa or to Central America.

And you can say, well, I really want to support that person. Or you can serve in something else when you have that time because you're not so focused on your basket or your bag. But you have the basket because it's overflowing. Because your mentality is changing. But I don't want to trust what's in the bag.

I want to trust what's in the basket and have a basket mindset. And then the third one, this is one that most people never, ever, ever, ever make it to. But this is what God really wants to. It's a whole new level of generosity. And it's called the barn.

The barn. And this is where there's infinitely more than enough. Infinitely more than enough. Infinitely and abundantly more than enough. And I pray that some of you arrive here because we need infinitely more than enough people to change our world, to change our city, to make a difference.

But Deuteronomy 8.8 says, The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. Everything you put your hand to. God wants to bless. Bless so abundantly.

Faithful. If you're faithful with the bag. If you're faithful with the basket. Then God gives barns that overflow. A great example of that was Joseph in the Old Testament.

He was in the pit. And God took him to the palace. Because he was faithful where he was. Joseph in the pit was faithful to God. Right?

When you're in the bag, you've got to be faithful to God. Right? There's not a lot there. But let's be faithful to God with this. So that he can bless us with more.

What happens from the pit? He goes into the home and into prison. Woo! It seems like a little bit of a drop. Right?

But he's faithful to God in the prison. And then ultimately, God blesses him because he's faithful. To the point where he is second in command of all Egypt. And he blesses him with barns overflowing. God wants to do that for us.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that God wants to do that for you? We have to be faithful in the pit and the prison to get to the palace. Maybe this means for you, you can be a twyther instead of a tither. You know?

You can go 20% instead of 10%. A great example of people that are extremely blessed is Rick Warren. He does the flip-flop tithing effect. He does 90%. He gives everything.

He makes 90% to the church, to ministry, to mission, everything. And he lives off to 10%. Perhaps God is carrying us from that place. From the bag to the basket to the barns. Barns overflowing.

So how much does God really want to bless us? That's the question, right? Does he really want to bless us? And how much does he really want to bless us? Does he really want to knock our socks off?

I can tell you this. He wants to do more than you think. If you think he's going to be above and beyond, what you can think, he can do more than you think. You know that? He can do beyond what you can think.

Luke 16 says this, whoever can be trusted with very little, bag, can also be trusted with much, barn. And whoever is dishonest with very little will be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? Proverbs 3 says this, honor the Lord with your wealth and with your first fruits for all your crops, then your barns will be filled to overflowing. And what this does, here's the thing about, just a quick thing on tithing.

Tithing is just a training wheels of giving. It's a test, is to test us with just 10% of the 100% that he gives us, to show us and teach us and to have us trust him with our bags, right? And in return, God does more with that 90% that you could do with 100% when you give, when you give financially. It breaks the grip of materialism because that's probably the the hardest thing to overcome in our society is materialism. And it helps us be content.

It sets us in a path of contentment. And in Luke 12, 16, it says this, and he told them this parable, the ground for a certain rich man can produce a good crop. He thought to himself, what shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. And then he said, this is what I'll do.

I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. And then, then he says this, and you want to underline this if you can. Take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry.

And then on to, to, to verse 20. It doesn't end there. But God said to him, you fool. This very night, your life will be demanded of you. This is some hard stuff.

Then you will get what you have prepared yourself. This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself, but is not rich towards God. So eat, drink, and be merry. Is that, is that the end of life? Is that, is that it?

Is that, is that the blessing? God says differently. A bigger house, a car, a better piece of land, whatever that might be. Is that, is that what we want to do? Lay up and build up.

God says, yeah, don't be foolish. Don't be foolish. If you're taken from this world this very day, what does that count to you, right? When you're, are you storing in eternity? Are you storing what, in the material things of life?

God was not angry at the man because he was blessed. Please don't get me wrong about that. I want you to be blessed. I want you to have it. God wants you to have things and wants you to have a good life, well life, but he, he has a better way.

He was angry because he didn't know how to be blessed. The man didn't know how to be blessed. That's what he was frustrated about. You're messing out on so much more. Yeah, you've got barns full of things.

You got plenty of land. You got plenty of house. You got plenty of things stored up, but you're foolish because you're messing out on so much more. Barns, barn blessings with a bag mindset. We have people with barn blessings and a bag mindset that are, they're messing out on so much more.

And when you look at people compared to the rest of the world, we have barns. We have barns, but we act like we have bags. We act like we have bags. I'm not blessed. You have a barn.

You have a car. Guess what? How many people in the world have a car? Less than 1% of people have cars in the world? You have clothes.

There's people that don't have clothes. I mean, you're blessed. You're blessed. Your closet's bigger than people's houses. You know?

I mean, I took a mission trip to Africa a while back and, gosh, it's just, it's amazing. If you ever get a chance to go on a short-term mission trip or do anything, you need to do it because it will change your world. It'll change your life. It'll make you look at your life and, ah, it's so, it'll just wreck you. It'll wreck you.

And I remember visiting this village and what's cool about the church and these villages is the church is just not like a subcultural group, kind of like it is here. We kind of go to church and then the real world's out there. These people integrate church in everything. Church is what they get to every week. I mean, they were aligning people up on their little, we were in this little hut, little place that we actually built for them.

The church had actually built for them. And it was dirt floors and they had instruments. Instruments weren't tuned or anything. They were just, ah, just going all over the place. They were having a good time, clapping, all that stuff.

I mean, just celebrating, having a great time. I mean, church was fun to them, you know? And church should be fun to us, but church was fun to them and they didn't have any of the stuff that we have. They didn't have any technology or anything. And they would line their people up and they would say, this is the director of men's ministry.

This is the assistant director of men's ministry. This is the assistant to the assistant director of men's ministry. And then they had all these different people and they lined up another group. Here's our Christian education director and here's our Christian, you know, assistant Christian education director. I mean, they were all like, we're in, we're all in, right?

And they're just excited about life and they're excited about things and they experienced joy and, and they were the most generous, generous, generous people. And, and, and we, we went to, to the pastor's home and it was a little cinder block home, very stuffy. They didn't have like a lot of airflow through there. We stayed there that night and, and they fed us, they just fed us this, this, this, this great food, you know, a good old Kenya type mountain food, if you want to call it that. Cause this was up in the mountains around tea and coffee plantations and stuff like that.

And, and they were, they were, they were, they shared with us. Somebody kind of, one of the missionaries pulled, pulled us to the side and says, I just want y'all to know that this is not the norm. These people have given months of wages to collect, to be able to feed you, to be able to house you, to be able to give you this. Why are they experiencing so much blessing? Because it's the heart of the matter.

They have a heart for generosity. They have little, but they have much. They have little, but they have much. It is better to give than to receive. They understand that.

Our family, my family, Miranda and I, we don't have the bag mindset. We have the basket mindset. We don't have a lot of money, but we always have enough. And I'll share some stories with that as we go along this series. How we've just, God has just done abundantly more than we could think.

Because we have a basket mindset. And we're praying for a barn mindset. Praying for that God would just overflow us. We truly believe that it is more blessed to give, receive. A heart of generosity is more blessed to give than receive.

As the band comes up, I want to share with you the most important point of this message. All these points are great. These mindsets that... And I just want to kind of introduce you to these things as we talk through this series. And you don't want to miss next week because we've got some really good stuff about how you can enter into this basket mindset.

And do some things with your money. You can do some things with your generosity the week that follows. But the greatest, greatest generosity came from God Himself. The ultimate reason we should be generous is because of an audaciously generous God. God.

An audaciously generous God who gave His Son. He looked at a people. He says, I want to be generous. And there's one way. And this was a time where there were multiple, multiple gods in the world.

And through one God, one man, He offered the greatest gift. The greatest gift, the most generous gift we could possibly have. And that was through His Son, Jesus Christ. He said, the Bible says, when we were yet sinners, He gave His life for us. When we were yet sinners.

When we were far from Him. When we wanted nothing to do with Him. He said, I'm going to be generous to these people. I'm going to be generous to this world. And I'm going to give my Son, my one and only Son.

Because this, this is the only way. This is the only way. This is the truth. There is one truth. And there He gave His Son on the cross.

He gave, He even turned it, the Bible says, He cried out, Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why are you forsaking me? And the Father had to turn away from Him for that moment. Because of generosity. The greatest generosity. Christ.

And with all heads bowed and all eyes closed. There are some of you here today who haven't received that, that gift. That generous gift of everlasting life, of hope. You've walked in here hopeless. You've walked in here in some ways lifeless.

Missing something. But today I want to offer you the opportunity. This is why we're here of this moment. And I want to take this very seriously. This is the moment that God has brought you to.

Whatever your situation was. Whatever redirected you to be here today. When you could be a million different places today. Maybe that day. This divine appointment where God introduces Himself to you.

And says, I've got this amazing, generous gift I want to give to you today. And that's me. And it's not religion. It's a relationship that you can have with Him. There are some of you today that feel drawn to Him at this moment.

And if that's you today, I want you to just, I want to pray for you. I want to pray for you. And if you would just be bold enough to slip up your hand and say, look, look pastor, I'm in. I'm ready. I'm ready.

I'm ready to give my heart. I want to receive that gift, that generosity. If you would do that. If you would do that today. Just make that decision.

Make that decision. Don't be like the foolish man. The foolish man who stored up all the things here in this world. If you would just give your life to Him today. Just make that decision for Him today.

At this very moment. Moment. Is that you? Is that you? Amen.

Is that you? Thank you. Come into my heart. Come into my life. I admit that I'm a sinner.

I know that you are the Son of God. That you died and rose again. I believe and I confess that you are Lord. And I take a 180 degree turn away from the way I've always done it. And I'm running to you, God.

I'm making that decision for you. I do that today, Lord. I walk with you. Same spirit of prayer. If there's others of you that might just need a touch from the Lord in your finances and your generosity.

We have people who can pray for you. If we have some people that can step up and we have a prayer team. If you need prayer. I mean, if you need prayer for finances. If you need prayer for a better heart for generosity.

If you just need healing. Do you need healing today? We've got people. And during the worship. As we end in the worship.

You can come up after this. Or during the worship. Or whenever. We want to pray for you. We really want to pray for you today.

We believe that God wants to heal you. If that's you today. We've got those people available for you. But if it's you. And just out here in the general congregation.

If you would just slip up your hand and say. Lord. Pastor. Pray for me. I need a touch from the Lord.

I need something new. I need something. Amen. Amen. I just need.

I need direction. I need peace. I need hope. I need. I need all those things.

Amen. Lord. I pray for the people who raised their hands. And those who haven't raised their hands. Lord.

That you would begin to touch them. That you would begin to show them. That you would give them a clear picture. Lord. Of what your plan and vision for them.

Is for their life. Lord Jesus. Because you have great. And mighty. All right.

And you. He plans in store for your children, God, and we are just hopeful, God. So I pray for those people that you would just, whether it's physical healing, spiritual healing, Lord, emotional, Lord, whatever that is, just, just, just, just pray. We pray for the people here today. In your name.

Amen.