All right, here we go. Destination. We're in this message series called Foundations. Before I tell you a little bit about what this series is about, I'm going to start out with a really random question. You good with a random question.

Have you ever played musical chairs. You you know this like game from the '9s, right. Like it was at every birthday party where you'd circle and you'd have Hey, just in case you lived under a rock or if you're a middle school student.

So, , you have like 20 chairs, right. And 19 people. They circle the chairs while the music plays. It's kind of like what you did when you walked into church this morning. You're playing musical chairs.

And I I've never ever made it to the end of that game except for for one. Anybody else make it to the end of that game at any point. You guys probably were the like people that would hip check and throw people down on the floor, right.

So, typically speaking, I I I maybe don't look it, but I was a very small, scrawny little kid back in the day. And when I made it to the last round of musical chairs, I I would demonstrate for you up here how humorous it was, but I don't think I'm going to do that this morning. But here here's the point.

At the end of the game, I got one-on-one up against the biggest kid, the one that would hip check and kind of push everybody down, and he was going to win. I It was there was no competition. I knew that I was going to lose.

And so, in those instances, what do you do. You play smarter, right. So, , as we're walking around and the music stopped, instead of going to rush to sit down, I sweep the legs and grab the chair and pull it out from under him and then go and sit down. Teacher didn't like it. Kid didn't like it.

I didn't make a lot of friends that day. But the point is, I won. Now, why did I tell you that story. , I was just thinking of it this week and I really wanted to brag about it.

So, that's why I told No, I'm kidding. Can you imagine. I I told that story because I was thinking about it this week when we talk about all of these different things that compete for our time, our attention, our finances, all of the different things that circle our heart. And so you may be having your one heart be circled by many different things.

And the question that every single person, every single individual in this room has to answer is what sits on the throne of your heart. What is that thing that sits on the throne of your heart. And usually one of those things that is circling your heart is your money.

And so today we've been in this series called foundations. And the goal of this series is so that you and I can build a strong foundation in Christ in our relationships, in our habits, our spiritual rhythms, and really develop a good understanding of this abundant life that God has for each and every one of you. This full life that God has for each and every one of you, so that when bad days happen, which they will, or maybe they are, you'll be able to withstand some of some of the storm. So last week we talked about time and priorities and this week we're talking about building a foundation of generosity.

Now before you leave because they're like oh man I know what's going through your head cuz I I've been in your your chair before. Pastor's about to talk about giving like how can I go to the bathroom and then leave today. Like I'm going to notice. I got the bird's eye view.

I'm just kidding. This is not like a time share. This is not that's not what I've invited you into today. And it can be really really dangerous when we start talking about money as a church.

So I want to make a couple of things abundantly clear. And I need you to hear me on this is that number one, Jesus talks about money and generosity more than almost anybody else would on a Sunday morning. If you read through the gospels, Jesus talks more about possessions and money and generosity more than things like prayer, faith, or heaven and hell. And so Jesus is doing this, why.

Not because he's trying to fund raise for his ministry, right. He's doing this because he knows how much money and generosity is linked to what sits on the throne of our heart. Secondly, as a church, we've only taught on the subject of generosity once since we started. And I realize that for some of us, we maybe have a background of being a part of a church that maybe abused some of this. Maybe they talked about giving a lot or maybe it was one of those situations where it was just a very uncomfortable conversation from the front.

And I just want to say if you've experienced any of that in the church before or seen any of that in church news or anything before, I'm sorry, okay. This is not that church and this is not that sermon. That is not my goal.

It is not my intention. If there is some conviction that sits in your heart today, that's something you take up with the Holy Spirit, take up with God, and maybe he's trying to speak to you. So, so listen to to how God might be trying to speak to you in that.

So, before we get any further, just want to make my goal very very clear to everybody in this room so that you know how I was praying for you this week. My goal is that you would leave with a better understanding of biblical generosity and that we as a church would be excited to be generous. You with me on that.

Maybe I'm just preaching this message to myself. That's okay. I need it and I hope that you need it, too. So, let's open up the word of God. We're going to talk about why we should live generously.

Why even do it in the first place. If you are new here, we pull out these blue Bibles every week. This week will be on page 997. It's in 2 Corinthians. And if you don't have a Bible, by the way, you can take this one home with you.

It is our gift to you. It is our prayer that you will open this. As of today, you ready.

We've given away60 of these Bibles since we started. , and that is something that we're proud of cuz it's giving people the word of God. It's unlocking these amazing stories that are happening in and through people's lives.

And , who we're going to look at today cuz context is so important. , we're going to be in this book called Second Corinthians. And this book was wrote by a guy named Paul. And Paul is a church planter. This is a church plant.

Paul is a church planter. And he writes these letters from inside of prison and writes to the early churches about how they should run their churches and how their churches can be God-honoring and god glorifying. And so here what Paul does is he dives into how to be a generous church.

And he starts with this in verse six. So, if you follow the numbers down to verse 6, what we're going to do this morning is usually I'll read through the scripture and then we'll just talk about it. Today, we're going to keep your Bibles open.

Keep your Bibles open cuz we're just going to do just a little section at a time and kind of come back to it. So, starting in verse six, Paul says this. Remember this.

Whoever stos sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sews generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under co compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. So this just right off the front end shows us one of the reasons why we should live generously is because generosity reveals something.

He reveals who you trust. See, Paul says the first thing that Paul says on the subject of generosity in this chapter is he says whatever God has given you, whatever God has placed in your hand, you get to decide how generous you are going to be with that. And he uses this idea of seeds.

Okay, we're going to talk about this in our next series that's coming up. But what Paul says is if you have picture this, if you have a handful of seeds and I am only putting one or two out there, I'm going to reap that kind of benefit of planting one to two seeds, right. But if I in contrast take a bunch of them and I plant them, Paul can take Paul is saying that those multiply, those come and they they provide a different kind of fruit.

What Paul is saying is don't be afraid to take what God has given you and be generous with it is really what he's saying here. And I I want to simplify it even more because the way that we say it around destination is like this. God doesn't want something from you. God wants something for you. God wants to develop in you outside of generosity just this morning in general.

He wants to develop a deeper level of trust with you and for you and for you in your relationship with him. And so generosity is one of the ways that we get to this deep level of trust. But I I don't know about you, sometimes I struggle with this cheerful giver part, right. And that really starts to test how I trust God.

Now look what Paul says in this verse. He says we need to we need to decide in our heart what to give to make sure that it's not reluctant or under a compulsion. And I think that what we need to do or what Paul is urging us to do is to take a self assessment of how we are living generously.

Man, it's so quiet in here this morning. I hope you guys are with me because this is like my favorite part of the message. I'm going to get very visual this morning because I want to talk about the different types of givers there are. And this does not just go to the subject of generosity.

This could be in your marriage, with your time, with your energy, with different things. And I'll kind of walk through each of them. So, first on this side is the close-handed giver. This is the well not even giver because they're not giving anything.

They are close-handed. This is the only one on the list that's not giving anything. It's the one that's saying about every resource they have, it's mine. Why would I give it.

And you want to know how I know that everybody including myself has had this in this room. Have you ever met a child before. Okay, they all do this.

They all have a problem with sharing, right. Why would I give this thing that is clearly mine to share with somebody else. It is a closehanded kind of giving.

Okay, the next one is the fearful giver. This is the giver that says, "I'll give, but I'm scared. " And friends, fearful is not cheerful. Okay, that's not what Paul's aim is for us.

And so the fearful giver is really just driven to get to give by guilt or shame or obligation or something like that. Like, oh, the pastor talked about giving, so that must mean it's my time to give. No, like that's that's fearbased giving. That's not cheerful.

The next one that I call the leftover giver, which is right there, I'll give whatever is left. I call this one the pizza crust person. They they give what's left over, right. And this is how I teach teenagers, by the way. It's like, no, you give God your first slice, your first and best slice, cuz he's the reason you have pizza in the first place.

Anyways, so that's the leftover giver. They are just giving whatever they happen to have left, whether it be their finances, emotion, time, whatever. The next type of giver is the emotional giver. This is the giver that says, "I'll give if something moves me. " I almost think of it like this, like the emotional giver is almost like a mob boss.

Like, you tell me what I should give my money to. I don't do a good mom boss impression, but that's that's what I mean is it's kind of like they're driven by the emotion of the the moment or the emotion of whoever is pitching to them what they need, right. And so that's the emotional giver.

The strategic giver is the one that says I'll give sporadically so everything kind of adds up over time. And now this can be really good and and it can be done in a way that is correct. But often times what happens with the strategic giver is they fall into the emotional or the leftover giver because they fall out of rhythm and practice so easily that the foundation becomes exposed. And then there is this last type of giver. This is the cheerful and surrendered giver.

This is the one that lives open-handedly and says everything that I have is because of God. Everything that is in front of me, every breath that I breathe is because of him. And I can't take any of this with me. And so that's what this the the cheerful and surrendered giver see.

Now, I want you to look at this and think, have you struggled in any of these areas. Because here's the hard truth for this morning. If you're in any of those red categories, it means that you haven't really fully trusted God with part of your life.

And if you're like, gosh, most of it is red. Okay, but let me be very clear about this. This is not from a book.

This is not from a place of judgment. Do you know what this is from. This is from my own.

So I look at my generosity and I can say that through my walk with Jesus that I have been at every place in this. This is not meant to make you feel guilt or shame over what you are or aren't doing. It's meant to help you re reveal something in your heart that God wants you to speak.

That God wants you to trust him on a deeper level. And you might say, "Josh, I'm in debt. " Yeah, I know. Or, "Josh, I really have some financial troubles.

I've been there. " You might say, "Josh, you don't understand how hard this financial peace part is for me. " This whole idea of understanding finances.

You're right. I don't, but God does. And the question is, do you trust him. Do you trust him in this way.

And if you're having trouble trusting him in this way, it might be because of what you've been taught throughout your life about generosity, about money, and what you believe. And so generosity reveals what you believe. So look at your Bibles again.

2 Corinthians, we're in verse 8. It says this, "And God is able. " Man, it's so quiet.

Let me say that again. God is able. Okay, let's say it together. God is there we go. Why is this good news.

God is able to bless you abundantly. That means a lot. So that in some things in every once in a while circumstances having some things that you need. Is that what it says.

Look at how many times it says the word all. So in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in some good work. No, in every good work.

That is a good word. As it is written, they will freely scatter their gifts to the poor and their righteousness endures forever. Do you believe that the creator of everything of the universe is able is able to bless you abundantly is able to provide for your every need. Do you believe that. Because that is what the Jesus is that we talk about every single week here.

We've talked about it in all of these series that he has created all things. In him all things hold together. He is the reason why you have a house, clothes, food, breath in your lung. He is the reason why you have all of these things. And if we believe that to be true, then we believe that he is able, right.

That he is able to provide in every situation. But here's where it gets flipped in the world. We have an I've earned it mentality.

Not a he is able to provide for me. It is I am by my circumstances able to provide for myself. And so we say I went to college or I did this thing or I worked this ladder or I did this job for x amount of years. So I earned this. I am entitled to this thing.

And what's dangerous about that is that when that thing is taken away by the company, by technology, by a robot replacing you, right. What when that happens, all of a sudden it's what. Well, what the heck. I earned that.

This is mine. And the sad truth is we can have that mentality, but there's still some 12year-old YouTuber somewhere making more money than everybody in this room. And so we can have that.

But what Paul is trying to do is he's trying to reshape the way that Christians think about generosity and the way that we believe about money and how it needs to change a little bit. So let me just pause here for a second and talk about a little bit of the history of giving. Can I take the preacher hat off for a second.

Just teach for just a second here. I want you to see how giving has changed over time. So, in the Bible, in scripture, back in the Old Testament, we had something called the law.

The law was was oblig obl an obligation. Oh my gosh, if I can talk this morning, an obligation to do certain things in order to be a basically a good Christian. And so, , by law, you were kind of deemed by Mosaic law to give a tithe that was a 10% of your, , income. And some would argue that it's actually higher than 10% because of all of the offerings and first fruits and different things that would happen through the Old Testament.

Now, this was something that they put in place in the Old Testament called the Mosaic law. But when Jesus came, people did not have to anymore be under the the curse or the shame or the guilt associated with breaking that Mosaic law. Because Jesus came to fulfill the law. And so he stood in the place of those who would fall short of this and say, "Hey, I'll take the penalty of that.

This is good news. So Jesus comes along and shows this idea of radical generosity because you might say, "Okay, well then we've heard the whole 10% thing and that's that's what we're supposed to give. " Or maybe you haven't heard it, but you know, that's the whole Old Testament thinking.

So New Testament, I can I can do whatever I want, right. Cuz this is what Jesus does. He takes the 10%. He takes the idea of a tithe and he turns it. He says that is no longer your ceiling.

That is your floor. That is your starting point. Because what Jesus teaches about is radical generosity.

You see it throughout the New Testament of how radically generous Jesus calls his followers to be. And then we see it unfold in the book of Acts. Think about this just later here as they're building the church, people are sacrificially giving. They're selling land.

They're selling their cars. Like I can't even have a garage sale and give to the church. Like that's But they are radically being generous with their income. And so our aim on this scale is to be in this place of building a radical generosity, a radically generous life with our time, with our talent, with our money. And if you say, "Josh, I don't I still don't understand how that's even possible with my situation.

" Okay, let me give you another scale. Okay, this is the scale that is the modern church. So, I just showed you it over biblical history. Let me show you it in the modern church.

In the modern church, there's two schools of thought of how how to sometimes view generosity. There's this idea of prosperity. Prosperity giving says that I give to get.

It almost treats God like a slot machine. If I put a quarter in, I should just pull the God lover and I should get, you know, that times two in return, right. But what Paul says in this passage is that generosity looks more like seed planting.

That you sew seeds and you are to wait to see how that seed becomes fruitful. And sometimes you're waiting a long time, sometimes it's a short time, sometimes the fruit is full, sometimes it isn't. And so prosperity is looks kind of like this.

But poverty on the other side of the scale is the kind of the the kind of opposite of this. This is the the type of believer who says, "Well, Jesus doesn't want us to have any material possessions. We're not supposed to love money at all.

But this is the believer who kind of misinterprets that verse in Timothy where it says the that money is the root all of of all evil. Is that what it says. It says the love of money.

And so what this believer kind of misses out on is that God speak to everybody at all different income levels through scripture, through church history, and even today. And so our view is to come in the middle of both of these to say I believe that God will provide that as I'm building the kingdom and as I am sewing seeds that he is going to make those seeds fruitful. But I also believe on the other side of things that I need to be really careful of how I view material possessions and different things that I can't take with me at the end.

And so our aim in what we believe should be that giving and generosity is not obligation. It's not obligation. And it's in this middle plate where we are able to be a blessing for others.

That's the goal that we that God would have our trust that we would believe that God wants to bless us and that God wants to use us to there therefore be a blessing. That's what Paul says in verse 10. He tells us how.

Look at verse 10. Says, "Now he who supplies the seed to the sewer and the bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge in the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

" So this is what Paul says in this in this verse. He shows us two different expressions of generosity and he says both lead to this result. When you and I are radically generous, okay.

It leads to God getting glorified and to people getting impact and to your life changing as well. And so generosity starts to reveal what you are building in your life. When you see somebody's bank account, you can see what they are building for. And what Paul gives us is a picture of two things of how to be generous. He says there's seed for sewers and bread for food.

Now, what does that mean. The seed for sers. Really, what Paul is talking about here, if you read through the letters and even through some of the gospel of Matthew, is a seed swer was kind of metaphorically used for somebody who was presenting the gospel. It was like this idea that we are to build up this house of faith or this church or whatever it is to be able to help more people find and follow Jesus. Because just like seeds produce fruit that provide for us and the next generation, when you guys when all of us do what we're doing here today, it is sewing seeds into our community into our world that needs Jesus, right.

And so by being generous with those things, you are changing lives. Can you just sit with that for a moment. That is such a cool thing that God set up that everybody who has given here, whether it's been a penny or a million pennies, okay. I don't know how much that adds up to, but whatever you've given, whatever you've given, you've made it possible by that gift for 35 people to find Jesus.

You've made it possible by those giving by th by that giving for 12 people to get baptized for countless behind the scenes stories that you may never see of marriages being saved of people finding hope and healing and finding their relationship with Christ. All of that has happened because somebody said, "I want to stow some of what God has given me into making an impact from the for the kingdom. " It was his. Anyway, just think about this. You are sitting here in these spots today because of somebody else's generosity.

Our church was able to start because three churches paired together and they said, "We're going to give you resources, some people, but you know what. They gave the most of money. " They gave us money in order to start what you are sitting in today. And over time, we will taper off of those finances and we will be s we will be sustainable.

And guess what. We're going to do the same thing for another church. We're already putting money away to plant churches, okay. And I want to share with you where we're at financially as a church, but I'm not going to do it today. That's that's not I I see I led you on there for a second.

I'm going to plug something else so that way you know what to come to. I want you guys all to come to the future of the the church lunch that we're going to have. It's June 7th.

It's our first one in East Bethl Elementary. I don't care if you, by the way, get your phones out and register for this because we're trying to plan for food. So, feel free.

I won't take it offensively because I want you to be at this lunch cuz not only are we going to share where we're at financially, but we're going to share some really exciting plans for where we're going this next year with things like kids ministry and youth ministry and just some really exciting updates. So, please make sure you're at this. , but practically, let me just talk really quick and finish this point up.

Practically today, something that you can do, okay, that takes a lot of faith and takes a lot of trust is practically one thing you can do to bless your church is by setting up this thing called reoccurring giving. It's just where you set it up on our app and just the money just kind of comes out whenever you set it for however much amount that you set it to. Okay, I'm going to be honest here with you for a second.

This was really hard for me when I initially did the reoccurring giving. Okay, but I had a friend call me out on it and he said, "Josh, you you have you have taxes come out of your paycheck. " And I was like, "Doesn't everybody. " and he said, "Do you trust the government. " And I was like, "I'm going to let you answer that by yourself.

" , and and after the answer, he said, ", well, do you trust God like you trust the government. " And I I felt so convicted by that. And so, ever since then, I' I've set up reoccurring giving, not because I'm going to forget necessarily or I'm going to be irresponsible, but because I I I trust God with that. I trust God with that.

, Paul goes on to say though that these seeds, this idea of a tithe, of bringing a tithe to the church is not the only type of giving. He goes on to say that there is bread for food. This is a above and beyond type of giving. This is not the giving that you do at church. This is the giving that you do by buying somebody their food or sponsoring a compassion child or supporting some kind of nonprofit organization.

It's the It's not a tithe and it's a good thing and it's it might be a tax write off, but it's it's a little bit different than bringing a tithe or the seed, but it's still it's still something that God is calling us that God is calling us to this idea of planting seeds in our local church and being bred for food for people and providing in that Okay. And now what Paul goes on to say in this, are you guys still with me. Look at look at what Paul says right here. He says, "This will supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. " So what Paul is saying here is a somewhat prosperous company.

He's saying that as you supply, your storehouse will increase and your harvest will increase. Because God wants you to increase that righteous of building the kingdom. Think about this like that. Think about it like this.

I can't tell you how many times I've said this myself or I've heard this one before. I've I'd give more if I had more. And the sad reality of that is that's just not where Paul or Jesus teach.

The reality is that when we give the little that we can give that God honors that, right. It says he who is faithful with little will be faithful with what. And so God wants you to see that by supplying in these ways, by being radically generous, in your time, in your talent, in your finances, that he's going to take those things and he's going to build you and he's going to build the kingdom. That is ultimately what I want you to get out of this message.

That giving radical generosity is building the kingdom. It's building it here. It's building it outside of these walls and in the future, but it's also building you.

Think about this psychologically. When you are generous, it's going to rewire your brain. This is proven that people who are generous on a on a normal basis on that you know that green section of the pie when they are normally generous they are typically less worried less anxious about money because it causes you to be less jealous less envious and less materialistic that's how God has designed our brain to be generous in a way where it actually brings us hope and freedom because generosity reveals who you worship.

It reveals it. It reveals who sit on that seat in your heart. I want to just close with a story about this. And I'm going to be honest with you.

This is a really really tough one for me. , but I used to be a part of a ministry that was a young adults ministry and we called it the church for people who don't like church. Okay, I want you to do the math on this one.

A young adults ministry for non-churched people, it's not a good business plan. I'm just going to tell you that, okay. Because it's not it wasn't financially sustainable in the least bit. And I was you know a part of of leading this endeavor and it came to be that there was about 5 months in we were doing a really good work. We were seeing people coming to Jesus.

We got to baptize a few of them and then a couple months in I I got a call from my finance person and she said, " Josh, I I have bad news. I'm looking at our bank numbers and we're not going to have enough to pay you or to pay rent or any of our bills this month unless something. And she told me the exact amount that it would take for us to be there. Now, in this moment, I could have been anxious, worried, all of the things.

And believe me, sometimes that's my initial reaction. Hey, you're not alone in that. But I decided to just keep going.

I'm going to keep praying. I'm going to keep hoping. I'm going to keep knowing that if God provided before for me, which he did, that he will do it for this ministry and he will do it again.

And so, I kept believing in that way. And everything needed to be in by Wednesday for me to make those bills. Want to know what happened on Monday. Want to know what happened on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, we got a check that came in for the exact amount that at the exact time that and that was a miracle to experience that to know that God was there that he saw me. But the miracle wasn't that just God provided in that instant. The miracle was that for how difficult it was.

And look, I like I said before, I'm not perfect at this, but part of the miracle was that I didn't stop following Jesus. I didn't stop giving during that time. I didn't start stop serving at that time.

I didn't give up because I knew that God would provide. The question you need to answer in your heart is, do you believe that he will that he is able to provide in all things. Because what I've experienced in my own life and in the lives of others is that Christians will follow Jesus with everything except for their wallet.

And that's why Jesus is so after that part of your life is because he wants you to see how much freedom you can have if you just trust him. And so I want to do something just a little out of comfort just to end here today. And I just see a a just a moment of vulnerability.

If you at any point in time in your life have experienced God providing for you in any kind of way. Maybe you prayed and a random check came in the mail or maybe like you needed your car fixed and somebody just, you know, fixed it all and did all the labor and parts for nothing. If that has ever happened to you, will you just raise your hand right now. Look around the room. God provides.

This is what I want you to remember and not forget. Every time that you doubt, because I've been there, every time that you doubt that God doesn't see your situation, he sees it. He knows it.

And he's provided for most everybody in this room. And he's going to do it again. We have a great provider and a great giver and he loved us so much that he gave his only son. God knows what giving is because God made the ultimate sacrifice when he gave for you and I.

And I want you to reflect on that this morning. So just take a moment to bow your head and close your eyes. This is something that we do at destination just as a moment of reflection of how God might be calling us into a deeper sense of following him. I want to invite the worship team up and I just want to invite you to just think about this.

Pray about this. Don't forget as you look around the room, how many people have had stories of just radical generosity happen in their life, just like the story I just told. Okay, I want you to think about that.

And wherever you're at in your situation, whatever kind of anxiety finances are bringing you, whatever kind of debt you're looking at, I know it can be hard hearing a message about generosity. So, I just want to give you some comfort this morning that Jesus sees you in that Jesus wants to meet you in that place and that he wants to lead you to a full life. A full life in his name. So, I want to pray for you really quick. God, I thank you for everybody in this room.

I thank you for being the provider. I thank you for giving us this amazing life, breath in our lung. But God, help us to go through our week and just be grateful and thankful for all of the ways that you have provided simple things like the food that we're going to eat for lunch or the air in our lung. God, help us to walk not in fear of money, but in faith. God, help us to just keep our eyes focused on you and trust you in all things in Jesus name.