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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Hey, thanks so much for listening to Sandals Church. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We hope you enjoy this message. Hi, guys. Welcome to Sandals Church, and we are in this series called Essentials. Can you just give me a shout if you've enjoyed this series? Okay, yes. Thank you, thank you. I even appreciate the claps from home from people who watch online. And so this has been an amazing series where we're really learning what the essentials of our Christian faith is. And these have been challenging. Some for some of us, these are going to be difficult. But today's message is really going to be the hardest part of what we talk about. Today, we're going to talk about supporting the mission God gave me so many of you are confused as Christians You're looking for the mission outside of the church the mission that God has for you is inside The church and so really the essentials are three things love God Love people live on mission And so if you're going to love God if you're going to love people and if you're going to live on mission mission, part of what you need to do at some point in your Christian faith is you need to come to grips with the reality that God wants you not only to love Him, not only to love people, not only to live on mission, but He wants you to actually support the mission. And we're going to talk about a passage in Scripture that's in all four Gospels. It's essential to our Christian faith. Even if it's your first time in church today, you probably heard this message. But here's the thing that you have in common with, you know, with the people who've heard this many times. They've probably missed the entire meaning of this passage, their entire Christian life. And so you as a new believer or a new Christian or a first timer, you're going to be just like them where they go, Oh, my gosh, I had no idea that that that's what this is about. We're going to talk about the most famous miracle Jesus does. It's the feeding of the 5,000. An incredible miracle. So incredible that all of the New Testament authors who wrote about Jesus included it in their gospel. Matthew included it. Mark included it. Luke included it. And John, who kind of does his own thing, even he includes it in his story. And so I'm going to read to you primarily from Luke 9. But I want you to know that this is in every gospel and it's in every gospel because every Christian who supports the gospel Needs to know about this story Guys, thank you so much for tuning in today before we continue on in the message I just want to take a moment to pause and say thank you For those of you that have given to Sandals Church before and for those of you that give regularly to this place Thank you so much for your generosity and your help in furthering the work of God in this place. If you want to give today, you can do so by going to donate.sc. For now, we're going to hop back into the message with Pastor Matt. Luke 9, verses 12 through 17. Late in the afternoon, the 12 disciples came to Jesus and said, send the crowds away to nearby villages and farms so that they can find food and lodging for the night. Listen, there's nothing to eat here in this remote place. Kind of like our grocery stores are in COVID. Amen. But Jesus said to them, you feed them. But but but but but but but we only have five loaves of bread and two fish. They answered. Are you expecting us to go and buy enough food for this whole crowd. For there were about five thousand, wait for it, men there. This is not counting the women and not counting the children. And we know children are present, we're going to get to that in the Gospel of John. For there were about five thousand men there. And Jesus replied, tell them to sit down. In groups of about fifty each. So all the people sat down and Jesus took the five loaves and he took the two fish and he looked up to heaven and he blessed them. And then breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread and the fish to the disciples so they could distribute it to all the people. Now this is what's amazing. Remember just a few fish and few loaves of bread. They all ate as much as they wanted. Right? Hometown buffet. Amen? They all ate as much as they wanted and afterward, this is so key, the disciples picked up 12 baskets of leftovers. Now, I'm not a big fan of leftovers, but it's the same story told from four different perspectives. You can look this up in Matthew 14, 13 through 21. You can look it up in Mark 6, 31 to 44 and John chapter six, verses one through 14. Here's what I want you to know today. Jesus wants me to help feed his crowds. So listen to this, if you invite me over to your house for a meal and then give me a bill, I'm probably not coming again. You're responsible for your house. You're responsible for the parties you throw. Here's what I want you to understand when it comes to Jesus. He wants you to feed his crowds. As Christians, we are responsible not for everyone everywhere, but we are especially responsible for the people who gather around to hear Jesus speak. And so many Christians miss this. And so many of you say, well, I just believe that we should be generous everywhere at all time. And what I found in my experience, that probably means you're not generous anytime. And Jesus says, look, I want you to feed them. I want you to care for these people who have come to me, who have been drawn to me. Because one of the ways that people are willing to hear the message of Jesus is when they see the generosity of his people. Jesus taught that giving was essential. Now we're all at different places in our faith. Some of us, this is our first time at church, and I'm so sorry that you came today. This message is not for you. Some of you are growing in your faith. You started out here, and you're like, OK, I like this church. I want to figure this out. And you're learning this, just like I had to learn it. I'm watching my kids as they move out of our house, and they're having to learn to trust God with their finances. At some point, if you're going to follow Jesus, you have to trust Him with your finances. Now here's the difference between God and government. Did you know that there were differences? Government is always arguing about what others should do. Have you noticed that? God never talks about others. He talks about what you should do. You see, we're all so generous with other people's money. Amen. The government is so generous with my money. So generous. I mean, it's like it's like they just think my money's unlimited. They just keep taking it and burning it. God cares about your money. And God cares about you. But how many of us are facing challenges when it comes to our money. Raise your hands. Anybody? Anybody been in the grocery store lately? Things are changing. Things are tightening. Things are getting difficult. And here's what I want you to understand. When you face economic crises in your home, I want you to know the church is not immune. The same things that you experience, we experience. So let me talk to you about some of the challenges that your church is facing. Number one, let's talk about the good stuff. We're growing. Man, we're growing. I just want you to tell, I want to tell you this. We're going to break our all-time record, all-time record for baptisms this year. It's incredible. Absolutely incredible. I think we're going to blow past our all-time record. And many of you have seen that. You've experienced that. So we're growing. Literally, we've had 7,000 new people attend a campus since Easter. Since Easter. Most churches don't have a thousand people ever. We've had 7,000 new people. They're coming. We just bought a campus in Menifee. It's already too small. They're going to have to go to four services. We've got to buy classroom space. You say, well, what about the space? They don't have it. Like it's not like we got to fix it up. It's like we got to create it. So the church is growing and that's a great thing. Tons and tons of new people are coming to Sandals Church. And if you're a guest here today, we love you. We want to connect with you. We don't care about your money. We care about your soul. And that's why I'm going to challenge the members of this church to start giving so we can feed your soul. But here's a challenge that we're facing as a church. Anybody have a family or a friend member that's moved out of California? 16% roughly of our givers, of our committed givers have moved out of state. That's over a million dollars. It's gone to Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Idaho. Okay? And that's no judgment. People got to do what they got to do. But I want you to know as family members, that's just something that we're facing. And so here's the thing you need to know. New people do not give at the same rate that people who've been here for a while give. You know how long it took you to give? It takes a while for you to be faithful. And listen, we don't want to pressure anybody or push anybody. And so we got all these new babies. I want you to imagine you bring a baby to your home. You're like, you got to pay the rent. It's not the children's responsibility to pay the rent. It's mom and dad's. So if you're a mature member, if you're a maturing Christian, this is something that you have to graduate to at some point in time. So we're growing, praise God. People are leaving, that's difficult. Lifelong friends, people that have served our church and given generously to our church have left the state. That's been hard. This next one is not your fault. This is on me as your leader. People have left our church for theological differences. I've recently led you through a series called She Her, where I shared with you my conviction that the way that I grew up and the theological understanding that I was taught is not consistent with what the Bible teaches and I changed and I believe and I am convinced that Not only can women preach and teach but that they did preach and teach in the early church Okay Some people have a difference of opinion. I'm not here to judge them. I always want you to follow your own conscience and your own conviction when it comes to scriptures. You're not going to stand before me. You're going to stand before God. So we've lost some people. And I don't want to beat a dead horse. I don't even know what that means. I don't want to beat a living horse. But but here's the thing. There are two verses in the Bible that seem to indicate in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2.12 that women cannot teach. I want you to hear me as your pastor. There are 20 verses, 20 that indicate they can. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I'm going to go with the 20 and I'm going to pray for grace and understanding with the two that I can't seem to me as a pastor to be correcting problems in the church. Problems in those specific churches with women who, by the way, were speaking. That was the issue. So the apostle Paul communicates to the church's emphasis in Corinth that, hey, that's not what I want you to be doing at this time. But women were speaking everywhere else and leading everywhere else. OK, next, I'm not responsible for this one. Inflation. I, the other day, had to go get some Tums at Rite Aid because I'm your pastor and you stressed me out. I got a box of Tums. Anybody want to guess how much that was? Somebody has some gas problems. Yes. He said $8. It was $7 and 89 cents. I literally looked at the guy right here. I was like, I only bought one. Just a couple of years ago, that was $1.89. $1.89. And I know the White House says inflation is like 4%. Not for Tums. It's like 4,000%. So inflation is brutal. And so here's the thing, your gas bill goes up, the church gas bill goes up. Your car insurance goes up, our insurance is going up. Look, our health insurance for our 220 employees went up 20% this year, 20%. And we're doing the best that we can. So here's the thing is, we've got to pay more money for things just like you do. I've got to increase wages at our church. And I just want you to hear me as your pastor. I haven't taken a raise for the last two years, and I will not take a raise this year. I don't need a raise. I don't want a raise, but some of our employees at the bottom end are struggling and they're not going to make it. And we're going to lose them. We're going to lose talented people to other places that pay more. And when we've been losing people and I can't do that, so I need to raise their wages, but I can only do that with what we all together give. And for those of you who are concerned, I want you to know, Sandals Church has a financial board that oversees everything we spend. This board is made up of members who are not paid. They're just like you that look at our finances. And then we hire an outside accounting firm. Every single year, we spend thousands of dollars for someone else to look at our finances because I want to be above reproach. I want to be accountable to you. And I can tell you this, when we do with banks, this is what they say. I've never seen a church that's as healthy as financially as Sandals Church. I hear it over and over again. All right, what's next challenge? Anybody knows the weather? Like it never rains in California. Like if you're watching online, like it never rains here. It rains like every other day. Do we do we feel like we're good? Feel like we're good. Like, I've never seen a mosquito at my house in Riverside. And now we have like they're getting saved. They're coming to my house. They want to hear about Jesus. But the weather this year has taken a toll on our facilities. All of our parking lots are a disaster. And here's the thing is, we can fix them now, and it's gonna cost us a little bit, or we can kick that can down the road, and it's gonna cost us millions. Okay, none of the things that I need to spend money on is sexy, right? It's like replacing a washer at your house. Nobody's like, yes! But we gotta do new work on roofs. We have some modular units in our church for our kids spaces that are 40 years old. They're crumbling. And we don't need to pray about it. We need to replace them. Okay, and every campus has its own challenges. So the church is growing. We have new Christians that are learning about giving. And here this year on our budget, we have 2.4 million dollars of extra costs this year. Extra, I know. You think you got challenges extra. Somebody this week said, pastor, you got the easiest job in the world. All you do is stand up there and talk for a couple of minutes. I wanted to punch him in the face. And some of you guys, you don't know what I do. This is the easiest part of what I do. The hardest part of what I do is managing money that people give when they pray about it. Everybody that owns a business. Can you imagine if you ran your business and you just said they said, how much is it? You said, pray about it. How many people would pray free? Same thing happens to me every week. I also have to manage 220 people. Every single problem we have 36,000 to 40,000 people that call Sandals Church home a week. And do you think there's some disgruntled people in that group of 36,000 or 40,000 people? I have to manage 220 staff. I have to hear from God, lead with vision, and direct us through difficult times. We're heading into some difficult times. So what we're going to do is, I'm not just going to talk about this once, we're going to end the year with a series called Generous Like Jesus. And here's why. I don't want to borrow the $2.4 million to pay for these expenses. I want to raise it. Okay? I don't want to pay interest on that. I want to pay cash for these additional expenses. I realize that's a lot of money, but I've seen God do a whole lot more. I've seen God come through and I want you to know Tammy and I are going to be given over and above. We already tied. Some of you don't even know what to thing is. That's okay. We already ties. We're going to give over and above to help our church, fix some roofs, repair some buildings, and repair the parking lots, because we need to do this. And I would do it at my home, so I'm going to do it at his home. Next one, Jesus expects me to give generously from what I have. Here's what I don't want. I don't want Christians going in debt to fund the house of God. God never asks for what you don't have. Anybody that does is manipulative and probably getting rich off the generosity of people who are a little foolish. I'm not here. I'm not here to get rich. I'm here to serve Jesus. I'm never going to ask you for what you don't have. In John chapter six, verse five through eight, Jesus looked up and saw the great crowd coming. So this is the same story in the gospel of John. And then he said to Philip, poor Philip gets called out in the gospel of John. The other gospel is just a bunch of dudes and John. Hey, Phil, where should we buy bread for all these people to eat? You see, some of you as Christians, you're asking God, God, where's the church going to get the money? God's asking you, hey, where are we going to get this money? Listen to this. He asked him only to what? Test him. Here's the thing I've learned. If you're going through financial troubles, it's a test. It's a test. We had an executive council meeting this week and our executive pastor called me afterwards. He's like, and they, let's be honest. He called my wife before he called me because he was worried about me. You ever sat down with the finances and you just go, and I got to tell you at first I didn't handle it so good. I went to the gym and worked out, took a nice bath, had Tammy slap me around. And here's what I've learned. I have a good friend of mine that's on staff and a couple of weeks ago, I was going through a really hard thing. And in my home, this is what my friend, Pastor Eric said. He said, hard things are usually good things. He's right. Here's the beauty of challenges. It makes us grow in our faith. It makes us grow in our faith. And so here's the thing. Whenever we face a challenge, this is what we need to say as Christians. Good. Good. Look, if you're facing a challenge in your marriage, don't say, Oh, no, it's a good, it's just going to grow us. This is going to grow us. If you're facing challenges with your children, this is good. It's going to grow you. It's going to grow you when you're facing financial issues. This is going to grow you without challenges. Our faith never grows. It never grows. So here's what I want to challenge you to do as you all are facing the same economic situation that I am. That we are in order to give generously. We got to do a couple of things. Number one, we've got to get a personal vision for how I give. You don't tell me how to give. I don't tell you how to give. I want to challenge you as a married couple. I want you to sit down and talk to each other. What's our vision for giving? If you're single, you can talk to yourself. What is my vision for giving? Do you know why some of you don't give you don't have a vision? You don't have a vision. Isaiah, the prophet, says this, I love this verse is going to be our theme verse for the campaign in the end. But generous people listen, plan to do what is generous. This is God's word, and they stand firm. In their generosity That's a vision. That's a vision Men so many people are leaving the state of California. I feel God's called me to stay in the cow in California. I Don't want to leave the front lines. I want to fight and die on the front lines I got all eternity to be in heaven with Jesus Show on the breach show on the breach, sip an iced tea. I got one lifetime to win souls for eternity. And I want to do that in California. Because I think if we change this state, we can change anywhere. The greatest movements in our nation's history in the last hundred years have all started in California. Get a vision for giving, get a vision. This is what Paul says to the church in Corinth. Get a vision for giving. Get a vision. This is what Paul says to the church in Corinth. He says, you must each decide in your own heart how much to give. And don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure. But this isn't a timeshare presentation. And if you sell timeshares, I love you. I hate your presentations. At a timeshare presentation, all I'm thinking is, how do I get out of this? How do I get out of this? Look, nobody should be manipulated, nobody should feel guilty. Get a vision, get a number and start giving. Why? Because God loves a person who gives cheerfully. Cheerfully. There's some of you like pastor, I can't give. Our finances are a wreck. Okay, I want to challenge you. Go to sandalschurch.com backslash thrive. It's a free class. It's a free class to help you get better at your money. Because let me tell you something, you're not going to magically get better with your money. And by the way, we live in a culture that's not even honest about money. That's why we keep printing it. We just keep printing it. And a lot of young people believe this, this should be free. Nothing's free. Nothing's free. There's always a cost. Someone has to pay. And we got a lot of people as Christians that are living their financial lives more like Americans than they are like believers. And we need to be like believers. Next, I want to challenge you. I don't know how you were raised. I don't know how you grew up But I want to challenge you to work through your scarcity mentality. I Got to work through my own scarcity mentality. I'm preaching this message this week this week on giving this week this message and I'm preaching on this issue Some of you grew up with a single mom too many mouths to feed not enough money Some of you lost your jobs before you've lost your home before you went through 2008 now you're like, oh this might be this again And so what you're doing is you're hoarding and you're like, oh, this might be this again. And so what you're doing is you're hoarding and you're pulling it all together. That's a scarcity mentality. It's not a kingdom mentality. Because my king, he has a sheep on a thousand hills. All the money's already his. And he knows what I need. And he's promised that if I ask, he'll give to me. Okay. But some of us have a scarcity mentality. I finished this message, this message that you're hearing. I went out to the parking lot. Somebody hit my car in the church parking lot. Didn't even leave a note. I know, maybe it was you. Pray about. And I said, Babe, what happened to your car? She said, What? I said this. And I went, there we go. More money. Does anybody like spending money on repairs? Oh my gosh. But what I have to challenge myself is my scarcity mentality. We got in the car and we're driving and she's damn just looking at me. I'm like, what? She's like, you're not even that mad. I said, well, I'm convicted by my own message that I haven't preached yet. Here's the thing, I have the money to fix it. I don't want to do it, but I have the money. And who am I to get mad at God when he's blessed me with the money to fix the things that are broken? Because there's a lot of people that don't have the money. They can't fix it. We're just going to have this dent. It's now a part of our family. John, chapter six, verse seven, Philip replied, Listen, even if we worked for months, we wouldn't have enough money to feed them. Do you know what the enemy of faith is? It's always enough. Some of you, you lie to yourself. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to start tithing. I'm going to start giving when I get enough. The problem with is that that touchdown just keeps moving. It never ends. I know millionaires in our church who don't think they have enough. They just don't have enough. Years ago, we were trying to raise, I think it was a $10 million for a campaign. I'd get a friend of mine in our church. And the 10 million then was, it'd be like 25 million for us as a church now It was a lot of money But we needed to buy our woodcrest campus. We needed to do some upgrades here We had a lot of things we had to do and this guy told me he said you're never gonna get enough to do that How much money you think he gave to the church He's a millionaire zero millionaire. Zero. We're not friends anymore. I lost my mind. Not only are you not giving, I told him, but you're making me feel like we're not going to make it because you think everyone gives like you. I'm praying that people will give like me. And you know what? We got that money. And the Lord did provide. So enough is always the enemy of my faith. Stop looking at your bank account and start looking at his. They got so much gold in heaven, Revelation says they use it for asphalt. Have you ever read that verse? Where do we put the gold? Right there. We'll walk on it. Some of you, you're going to get to heaven. You're going to be uncomfortable because you're going to be hoarding asphalt. Nobody in America ever robs a paver. Give me your asphalt. Next, I want to challenge you to do this. We got to celebrate generosity. We got to celebrate it. Man, when people give, we got to celebrate that in John chapter 6 verses 8 through 9 then Andrew Simon Peter's brother he spoke up he said hey there's a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish now what good is that with a huge crowd like this we have to celebrate generosity I I've read this story a thousand times in my life. And I'm a question asker, I'm a noticer. Let me just ask you this. What do you think the chances are in a crowd of 5,000 people, 5,000 men? Some have said this crowd was up to somewhere around 20,000 total. Some have gone as high as 50,000. But we know there were 5,000 men there with their wives and we know because this little boy there, there was children present. What do you think the chances are this little boy is the only one with the sack lunch? You know what I think most people did? Not me. Not me. And let me tell you why. Here's why what you do with your money is so important. Let me ask you a question. Is it easier to say I love you or I trust you. How many of you love someone you don't trust? I love you, but I'm locking my door. The essentials aren't just to love God, love people and live on mission. It's to trust Jesus. Amen. Philip says, man, even if we all worked, there's 12 of us, even if we all worked for a year, think about that, we wouldn't have enough money to feed these people. Remember what John says? He told this to Philip to test him. Do you love me? You know how you've really graduated from liking Jesus to loving Jesus when you start trusting Him with your money? I've raised my kids to love Jesus. They live out of our home. And I tell them all the time, Are you trusting God with your finances? I can't make them tithe now. They're adults. But here's the thing is, Do you know how much better life is? Do you know how much less anxious you are when you're living your life trusting God? You see, here's the thing. You know what anxiety is? I can't feed these people. You know what peace is? He can. He can and he will. But here's the thing. So many of you are missing out when you don't give. And this breaks my heart for you. My wife and I were in bed last night and we were praying together in preparation for this message. And I just started thanking God for all he's done for us. Some of you, you've been at Sandals a while and you know that when I proposed to Tammy, I said, are you ready to be poor for your whole life? And do you know why that is? Because I had a poverty mentality. I had a scarcity mentality. I was looking at life based upon what I thought I could earn. I wasn't looking at life with what he could earn. And I just started telling her as we were praying together, thank you, God, that we have the money to pay for this dent. And then I said, and Lord, bless whoever hit us, because they might not have the money. Bless them. And I said, thank you for this house and thank you for all the things that you've done for us. And I could hear my wife and she's not a big amener when I pray. You know, you can pray for her for that. She needs to amen more when I'm praying. But I could hear her. Mm hmm. Amen. Because the Lord has blessed us. And do you know why he's blessed me? Last point. When I bless Jesus, he will bless me with more than enough. If there's not enough cup, there's not enough liquid in your cup, the Lord promises to make that overflow. He doesn't promise that you're going to be rich. Some of you would get more stupid if you were rich. You know, you're like, Lord, let me win the lottery. He's like, no. He loves you too much to put that on you. I mean, think about it. Most of you can't even be faithful with the money that you have. And you live this lie. If I had more, I would be more faithful. I have never seen that to be the case. This church is not led by uber wealthy people. This church is led financially by normal people with everyday bills and everyday problems who trust God with their wealth. That's how we build our church. That's how we grow our church. But here's the thing. When I bless Jesus, he will always bless me. Listen to me, not just with enough, with more than enough. Amen. Always. In Luke 9, 16 through 17, Jesus and the two fish. And he looked up. You know what our financial problem is? We're looking down. He looked up. And breaking the loaves into pieces. Remember we're talking about you giving something. He kept what? Giving. He kept giving the bread and the fish to the disciples so they could distribute to the people. Five thousand men, a total congregation somewhere between 20 and 50 thousand. You know what that means? Sandals size. But can you imagine? Can you imagine this week if the Lord just took some 12 year old boy's offering and he paid all our bills? Here's the thing, and they all ate as much as they wanted. And then, hey, Philip, hey, Phil, Philly Phil, the disciples picked up 12 baskets of leftovers. Now, you may not know this if you're a new Christian. But how many disciples were there? Twelve. Here's what they said, we don't have enough. To feed these people. With one small boy's offering, Jesus not only fed somewhere between 20 and 50,000 people, the disciples went home with a sack lunch. With a sack lunch. So I want to end with this challenge to you. And again, if you're not a part of Sandals Church, this is not for you. But if Sandals Church is your home, I want you to start thinking about that. When you go to your home, wherever it is, you don't expect your neighbor to pay the bills. You don't expect, you know, someone down the street to pay the bills. You expect to pay the bills. I want you to commit to three things. Number one, to be praying for our church's finances. So we're going to wrap up essentials. We're going to go into a series called oblivious. And then and you're like, why? Because people are oblivious. And then and then we're going to go into generous like Jesus to finish out the year. And I'm trusting God and I'm believing God that we're going to raise an additional two point four million dollars to pay for these expenses that we didn't plan on. Now, who knew these expenses were going to come? He did. He did. If we trust him, he's going to help us meet this need. Next, I want to challenge you to seek God's will for your personal giving. Do not seek God's will for someone else's giving. Look, I truly believe that your money is your privacy, that that's your issue. I don't want to know how much money you make. I don't like to know how much money you give because I probably judge you. And then we both be sinning, amen. So I want you to decide what should we give? If you're single, what should I give? Man, if you're married and your spouse doesn't come here, you need to go to your spouse. We want to honor your nonbelieving spouse. So I would like to give something to the church. What could I give? This is the place that feeds me spiritually. Talk to them. Talk to them. And if they say zero, it's zero. That's between you and the Lord. Number three, I want you to pray for the end of the year giving campaign. I want you to be praying. Sandals Church is one of the most generous churches you will ever go to. When the Ukraine war started we gave $300,000 out of our missions budget because that's what Jesus would do. When the earthquake happened in Turkey we gave almost that again because that's what Jesus would do. Sandals is known as one of the most generous churches in our region and people know they can count on us. So we don't just raise money for ourselves. We raise money for whatever God has called us to raise money for. And that's what we do. I want you to know as your pastor, I will never ask you to do something that I am not going to do myself. Tammy and I, we already give 10% of our monies to the church that for us is the basement of our giving. It's not the ceiling, it's the basement. And God has blessed us, blessed us more than I ever thought we would be blessed. I want God to bless you. And the way he's gonna bless you is when you decide to bring whatever your fish is, whatever your loaves are, and you say, here, Lord. And God is gonna multiply that. He's gonna multiply that. So if you came to church or you listen online for the first time, I know a lot of people feel like churches always want their money. And I'm sorry that you had to hear this message. But Jesus talked about money more than anything else. It's the only thing other than his father in the Gospels that he calls a God. It's the only time. He said, you cannot worship both money and God, because in the end, you will serve one and hate the other. Those are the words, Lord Jesus, would you just join me in prayer as we pray over this week's offering? And let me say this, if you're watching online. Man, if this is your church home, don't just be a consumer, become a contributor and write there with your screen. Say, Lord, what should I do? Have I been a generous Christian? And ask him and then whatever he says to give, give. And and that's different for all of us. But let me pray over our church. I'm going to pray. And I tell us all. I tell people this all the time. No, he's going to pray for your money more than me, because you know what you can't give what you don't have. So I want the Lord to bless you. So let's ask that the Lord blesses us in these tough economic times. And let's ask the Lord to bless our offering. OK, and even if you're at a campus and the and the blue bucket goes by, you know, Tim and I give online, we don't give when the blue pocket comes by. Would you just touch it as it comes by and say, Lord, bless us. Just just just you know, don't hold it. Freak out security. But just Lord bless us and pass it to the person next to you. So let me just pray. Just a second. The ushers will come forward and they'll get the offering. Let me pray over this. Father, would you just bless what we give? And I know Lord, when I look at the bills of the church, I look at the needs of the church what I give feels so small and so insignificant But I know Lord That you're gonna bless it I know Lord that you're gonna multiply it and I know Lord you're going to use it to feed the thousands of people that call sandals church their home and We all know somebody whose life has been changed because the ministry of sandals church and we're grateful for that We're grateful and humbled Lord that you've decided to use sandals in such a way Lord. Would you just bless? The offering we're about to take would you multiply it and God I pray The offering we're about to take would you multiply it and God I pray That at the end of the year when we calculate the numbers we would have more than enough. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen
Transcribed with Cockatoo