Overflow Week 2

for tuning in here at Freelive Chapel, where we help you discover and live the Freelive in Christ. My name is Kadi, and I'm so glad that you're tuning in with us. If you ever find yourself in the central Florida area, come visit us. We wanna connect with you face to face. But until then, visit our website FreeliveChapel.org to find out more about what's happening at your church. There's a phenomenal message in store just for you. I hope you're encouraged. - KJ, are you here today? Come here, KJ, come up here real fast. Come up here real fast. I heard a cool story about KJ this week. Good look, KJ, you started attending church here when you were like this tall. Shorter than that? Yeah, I know, yeah, exactly, you're right. You're a full grown man right now. That's all I got. How old are you, KJ? - 12. - 12 years old. My brother, if I was playing football, I'd wanna be running the ball right behind you and let you clear the place out from me. KJ has been, and the family, the shorts have been a part of this family since the beginning of Freelive.

But we spoke last week on this message called overflow. And we talked about generosity and the importance of giving and the importance of considering others. And we gave homework out last week. Some of us took it serious. Thank you, KJ. Others just kinda want to, no, we gave homework out that we want you to be generous to somebody that you know and somebody that you don't know. And KJ, you hadn't experienced this week. I just want you to kinda share with your friends, school, kinda what went down, tell everybody kinda what happened. - So we had a field trip yesterday and we went to Florida Southern. And when we were eating, my friend wanted to get a milkshake and she didn't have all the money. And I paid for him and yeah, I... (audience applauds) - You bought her milkshake. (audience applauds) - Well, that don't mean anything to you unless you're at Florida Southern and you want a milkshake. And that's kinda serious. No, I love that. So it wasn't like a big thing, but you saw she wanted something, she couldn't afford it. And I guess you had enough that you could do it, right? And you bought her milkshake.

But then something happened after you bought her milkshake, then you wanted something, tell 'em about that. - I got a milkshake because the cashier said, if you give something, you should get something back. (audience applauds) - Sounds like generosity to me, I'm loving that. Made something happen for somebody else and it turned around and came right back to him and he got blessed as he met in need, a desire of his heart got blessed. KJ, I'm so proud of you. Thank you. (audience applauds) - I love seeing our young men and our young ladies living this thing out. He heard the message last week and was moved in his heart to go there. I wanna continue this message on overflow this week. You know, we're coming into Christmas and they're gonna have this thing at your office called Secret Santa. Sorry. You're gonna have to buy a gift for someone you don't even know very well. You're gonna draw a name and you're gonna go, oh my Lord, them, and they're gonna say the same about you. But anyway, they're gonna draw a name and they're gonna say keep the gift under $20. You're gonna say very easy, no problem. You're gonna go shopping at 7.11

and find something for them and you're gonna show up and you're gonna give the Secret Santa gift and they're gonna open and go, oh, thanks. And they're gonna re-gift it to somebody else. You know how that's gonna go down. And there's been another scenario that maybe you have encountered. I've encountered Secret Santa scenarios but I've also encountered where I was in a situation, a little bit like KJ. I saw, I saw a need. I saw someone was gonna, was going through some change one time to buy a coffee. And so I just kind of stepped up and said, "Wait, what, I'll take, I'll pay for that. I got that. I'll buy that coffee, my, oh my God, you can't do that. I'm doing that, please." And so, or meeting with a friend or you're sitting in a restaurant and you see somebody that you know or maybe you don't know. And, but you just, it's late on your heart, pay for their, pay for their lunch. Pay for their lunch. And you go ahead and you call the server over and you get, I'm gonna pay for that. And they leave, watch, Secret Santa is giving and buying milkshakes are giving.

But watch this. But they produce different things in us. One is transactional. The other is relational. This one, you gave and it left you empty. *laughs* This one over here, you bought dinner. 40 bucks gone. That one left me empty. This one left me full. There's a difference when you give from the heart instead of just giving from the head. Watch this, let me just kind of give you the big idea today. We can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. You can give without loving, Secret Santa, but you can't love without giving. You move by compassion to give to others. I want to talk to you about generosity in another layer than what we talked about last week. In fact, I would just call this generosity 101. 101 is a collegiate level of classes that is just foundational, is core, it's from the jump, you got to get it down. This is foundational. This is not 400 level classes, graduate level classes. This is the baseline right here, generosity. Culture tells us, culture tells us, get it, store it, protect it. Get all you can, can all you get, and sit on the can. Like, don't let it get out of your hand.

Like, hold on to it, build it up, and then brag about what you got. Like, that is what culture tells us, but ladies and gentlemen, a life following Jesus operates on a completely different system than that. It's not on getting, it is focused on giving. You see, the very foundation of our faith is built on a gift that you and I received. I'm living a life better than what I deserve. I couldn't have afforded it, I couldn't paid for it. No, it was given to me. And I want you to understand that generosity, it isn't an optional upgrade for advanced Christians, it is a standard for every believer in their life. In other words, because you said yes to Jesus, generosity is the baseline standard we live our life by because since Jesus gave so generously, we respond. Look at what the Bible says in Acts chapter 15, verse 11. Read it with me. We are saved because the Master Jesus amazingly and out of sheer generosity moved to save us. Here's what I want you to understand. If my entire spiritual life started with an act of real, radical generosity from God, how can my response be anything less? How do I say I want your generosity, but I've got nothing to give you? How do I only receive and don't respond in the same way? I'll tell you what the challenge is

because I've done that with my relationship with God. And here's the challenge. We're not born generous. I'm born selfish. I'm born focused on me, what I want, what I like. I want it my way. The temperature needs to be changed. Just cold in here, change it from me. I don't care what everyone else thinks. They need to change the way they make those burgers. We've got all the stuff that we wanted to fit into our world. I'm the center of my universe. And that's exactly how we're built, how we're focused. The problem is that heart of selfishness, it creates a life of lack. It's crazy. And I don't just mean lack in the sense of what's in your hand. Oh, it will keep that. You will not gather as much as you could have or should have if you're living with selfishness. But beyond that, once you-- if you get some stuff in your hand, you can't even enjoy it. There's lack in so many other areas of my life that I can't write a check and fill those empty spots in my heart. This is our reality. You'll remember the movie "Scrooge." Of course you do. You've seen it more times than what you want to. And it's coming up again. That's going to show 119,000 times coming up this Christmas.

Scrooge is the guy, right? He's this wealthy guy, but he just hoards it all to himself. And then you've got the guy who is the banker, Mr. Fezwig. Mr. Fezwig is an interesting guy. He's a minor character, but he's seen as the banker, and he's just giving out generously to all of his employees and celebrating all of them. But Scrooge, no, he's the hoarder. He's holding everything. In fact, he's actually what's considered a miser. A miser is someone who is self-centered, self-focused, greedy, all about me and mine. And that's why it's no accident that the word miser is the root word for miserable. That's exactly where it comes from. A life focused on taking and keeping leads to emptiness. And even though I've got everything, getting, getting that I had to have my mind transformed. You see, here's how we have to transform it. Generosity is a spiritual discipline that we have to learn and practice until it becomes a natural instinct on the inside of us. Like, I want my natural, my knee jerk, my response before I fully think about it. I just want it to be generosity. Hey, cannot, sure. Hey, will you? Uh-huh. I want to have that. I don't want to walk around shutting everything down. No, no, no, no, no. Well, okay. I would rather with a yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and then learn how to mediate that as opposed to just shutting everything down and blocking everything out. Because when a need comes close to you, it's an opportunity to be the hand of Jesus extended to somebody else. That's what we're called to do. But this is an instant. It doesn't just happen. Having another clay did not wake up and decide on Monday that he wanted to play the piano this week. Now he put a little bit of time into that. He took a few lessons. He was, he was working on it privately. He was scheduled. He, he worked on that in order to get that level of play. How many are you glad that your airline pilot did not start on Saturday and say, I'm going to

just fly you next week. I'm just going to be jumping in. I just, I slept at a holiday in last night. So I'm going to go ahead and just, I'm going to do that. How about your surgeon? Aren't you glad they're not walking in going, oh, pick me. I want to do a surgery and they walk in and they practice on you? I don't think so. All these, all these people, they have a discipline. They practice. They have worked in order to build that capacity to do something. Well, ladies and gentlemen, a heart and an attitude of generosity has to be built. It's not normal because the selfish, the self-focused nature that we all live with, it's there and it's got to be replaced. It's got to be renewed. It's got to be transformed. That's exactly what the spiritual discipline is all about. The more mature, the more mature that my faith is in Jesus, the more that my faith grows in Jesus. I've noticed the more generous I live. The more I love him, the more I give. I've noticed this in me. I've noticed this in me because this ongoing journey of opening my heart up to loving what he loves is really important. Tomorrow, I'm really excited. I've got a chiropractor appointment. I've been, I've been working on my class and doing a lot of typing and I've got that, what they call tech neck where you get your neck in a certain position and you're doing that. And man, it is just like screaming. It locks up and all of a sudden I kind of get one of these going on right here and I'm going to go see the chiropractor and he's going to pop me in ways that you should never be popped in your entire life. And I cannot wait to hear the snap crackle prop everywhere like pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. I mean, my toes go out and then all of a sudden I can breathe. I can breathe. It's amazing. When it happens and here's one of the results. Once he gets me realigned and he gets the pressure off, I get full range of motion back to my neck. I'm like, I can look up. I can look down. I can look sideways and not have to turn my shoulder. I can do all of it again. It's amazing. I want you to understand this. I want you to understand. We need our generosity realigned. We need an adjustment so that we watch so that there's a full range of motion in our life so that God is not limited in what he can do through you and through me. I don't want God stuck with me. I don't want God good. Scott, your generosity is all jacked up. I need to pop something. No, no, no, just leave it alone. I'm fine. I'm fine. And God has to skip me to go to somebody else and use them because he knows he has a full range of yes from them where I'm still holding tight to me, me, me, me, my, my, my. It's a spiritual discipline that we've got to work through. Matthew chapter 13 tells us this way. He says, "The seed sown among

thorns is the person who hears the word, but worldly cares and the seductiveness of wealth choke the word." Read this so it produces nothing. People so caught up in circumstances and I need money. I need wealth. I need it. It chokes out God's word so it produces nothing. But as for the seed sown on good soil, this is the person who hears the word and understands. He bears fruit yielding 160 or 30 times what was sown. Would anybody settle for just 10 times more than what you sow. Okay. He's saying 30, 60, 100 times like the ratio. I like God's ratios. This is what the word is telling us. When we follow God's word on generosity, it impacts multiple areas of our life. And I want to tell you very quickly about four areas that you can expect that when you engage generosity, BAM, here's the takeaway. BAM, y'all remember Emeril? Then Michael. (audience laughs) Y'all know what BAM stands for? Blessings are mandatory. BAM! Here we go, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. The first area that is impacted by your generosity, by my generosity, is it makes us more like God. (audience laughs) Thank you. Like, would you turn to someone, tell them I'm tired of you being you. Just tell them, I'm tired of you being like, I guess some work to do. What else is, I need more of his mind. I need more of his heart. The more of Scott I am, the more of my,

I get in my own way. I need his thoughts. I need his ways. I need his attitude. Jesus said this, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. That's what the word says. We've got to embrace, we've got to embrace a new mind. Romans chapter 12 talks about the renewing of our mind. I need a renovation. Some of y'all still got shag carpet and paneling on the walls of your mind. It's time to go in there and put something new in the place and bring it, but I know shag carpet's coming back. I know, I'm just saying, I'm just saying. Psalm chapter 37 verse 21, I love this. The wicked borrow and never repay, but the godly are generous givers. Here's what's gonna shock some of y'all. The Bible talks more about your giving and generosity than what you even give it credit for. Now why don't you watch, watch, watch. The word believe, how do you know believe is kind of an important word in the Bible? Okay, seven of you, that's so good. So believe is kind of an important word in the Bible because I can't even know Jesus if I don't believe. That's kind of an important word. Do you know that in your Bible, believe appears about 140 times.

It's an important word. Well, here's another important word in our faith. How about pray? You got to pray just to make it today. That's an important word too. Do you know that pray? It appears over 300 times in your Bible. A little bit more. What about this one? Love, love. Love appears right at just over 600 times in your Bible. Well, what about heaven? Surely we're gonna be talking about heaven. Oh yeah, yeah, heaven appears almost 700 times in your Bible. What about give? Give appears over 2100 times in your Bible. In other words, he talks about give three times more than he talks about heaven. The Bible is not, it's a message that's trying to move us and you can't give if you're so consumed with you. Scott can't give if it's all about me and my interest and my desire, no, I've got to consider somebody else's. How can I help? My heart being moved by compassion for someone. What can I do to give and be, I can't fix it all, but I can do something. And that's the amazing thing about God. He's not asking us to go and rock somebody's world. Just be a hand, just be a help.

Just do something to encourage. This is what God's word is saying. In other words, giving is essential to the Christian life. 2100 times, what did you do with that? If you're going to go scratch that out of your Bible, you may as well throw that one away and go buy a new Bible. It's there. Here's another area that generosity impacts all of us. Generosity stretches our faith. Oh, yes it do. Yes, absolutely. How do you know it's easy to say, "I believe in God." And how do you know the Bible says, "So does Satan." "Belief in God." Here's the, "I trust God." This becomes the next level is, "I'm putting my full weight on him." "No longer on me and my ability." "No, I'm going to put my weight on what he said." "I'm going to trust what he said." You see, it's your generosity. It's my generosity that actually makes faith tangible. When I bring my gift, it didn't just appear. It appeared in that generosity because my heart and my mind decided we will set our intention and our focus on God. And so this is the expression of my heart. Your gift that you bring to God, It's out there, it's working. It proves that you trust God. Second Corinthians chapter nine, verse 13, check what the Bible says.

Your very giving proves the reality of your faith. This guy that wrote two thirds of the New Testament, his name is Paul. And Paul traveled and he spoke in a lot of churches. Well, Paul was out in foreign land away from Jerusalem and he's telling the Corinthian church and Corinth. He's talking about this church called the Macedonians. The Macedonian church was this mixed church. In fact, if I'm gonna be real, the Macedonian church looked like free life. It had every nationality, background, culture, it was pagan, Jew, you name it, every mix is what made up, watch this, the Macedonian church. And Jesus was the uniter of everybody. And Paul is out talking about this crazy need, a financial need in the church in Jerusalem. You can read this in 2nd Corinthians chapter eight. Don't take my word for it, read it for yourself. He's talking about this crazy need that is in Jerusalem and Jerusalem was an all Jewish church. All Jewish believers, they love Jesus, but it was all Jewish. That one was mixed, this was all Jewish. It was this church, Paul says, when the Macedonians heard about the need in Jerusalem, they went like, anybody remember the TV show, welcome back, Kata, y'all remember the horse shack? Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me. Okay, seven of you enjoyed that.

Well, that's it, so hit, but the Macedonian church are going, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, let us give. We wanna give Paul, Paul, Paul, hey, we're giving, we're giving, and Paul's like, y'all are broke. Y'all ain't got Jack, you ain't got a pot. (congregation laughing) The Bible says they were so financially empty, but they rallied and brought everything they could, and they gave it to the Jerusalem church. And Paul said, y'all don't understand the sacrifice they made, it was outrageous, they begged us for the opportunity, and here they're giving, it was this declaration that they trusted God, not their circumstances. If God has a need, I'll meet it. If God is doing something out of where we are, we might not be able to do it all, but we can do something to contribute, and they all sacrificed. This is what Paul is telling us. We've gotta live with this mindset, this heart, this desire to keep moving our life forward in Christ, and let generosity stretch our faith. It's beyond what circumstances say I should do, but I know that it's the heart of God, so I'm gonna defy the circumstances and do something for what God loves and build God's kingdom, God's agenda. This is what they jumped into. Paul said it needs to be celebrated

and use them as an example for you and I today. The third area that generosity is going to radically impact you is this, generosity is going to bless us back in this life. Why do I put in this life on there? Because I was raised in the church all my life, and I grew up as a smart church kid. I was a PK, and I heard my daddy preach these messages and about the blessing, and I said yeah, when we get to heaven, what about some ham where I am? No, I don't eat ham, I don't eat ham, but how about some blessing right here right now? What's it always gotta be out there? I want you to understand God's word. God's word says, we'll get to that, but right here God wants to bless you right here right now. In other words, God, this idea of generosity is not a give to get gimmick. I'm not working God, I'm not buying a blessing from God. I'm gonna give, God's gotta give back. I'm not playing a game. This is not secret Santa with Jesus. This is my heart is compelled to do something for him, and I don't know what the other side of the return looks like, but I do have on good faith in his word that he is a giver, he's not a taker, so it's gonna come back into this world, and God says, I'll make people bring it back into your life. This is the Bible for you and I. In other words, God is blessing us to become a bank

where we just hold it. No, he's blessing us to become a pipeline that it can run through, He didn't save me and welcome me into the kingdom to set me in the corner and just live for me. He saved me when I said yes to Jesus so that all that I am would be a part of his kingdom identity and his full agenda that I could participate in that. It's not my life, it belongs to him. Second Corinthians nine says this, God will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. Read this, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. Do you know what the most powerful two words in that phrase are? So that, is it on the screen? Yeah, leave it right there. You'll be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. It gives you perspective and purpose to prosperity. God doesn't bless me so I can just keep building it. Now listen, have your 401(k) and keep your investments. And I pray you own a couple Airbnbs and you make millions so that you've got more to give. No, no, it's a mind shift. I'm not living for my glory, I'm living for his. And so whatever he can get to me, he can also get through me. God, use my life for your glory. I'm here, I'm yours. Bless this business so I can be more. He blesses us so that we can live with generosity.

There's been all kinds of hate and slaps fooling around on social media about the prosperity gospel. I'm here to tell you, I believe it because I don't think we serve a God who's broke. And the God who tells me in Deuteronomy chapter 28, I give you the power to get wealth. If he gave me the power to get something, that means he must not have a problem with me owning wealth in my hands. It's not just that, yeah, here's what makes wealth bad when I make wealth all about me. And I turn, I shut my eyes to what's going on around me. And God can't even do anything in my life because I'm so meeting my needs that I don't even think about his desire. Here's the issue, ladies and gentlemen, we gotta take this to heart. If God can't move my wallet, he'll never move my life. I want God to use my life. I want him to have full range of motion in me. But if God starts asking, I go, "Wait a minute, that belongs to me." Oh, oh, so when you gave me your life, you had an asterisk and you had at the bottom of it, everything but your finances and everything but your commitment. And everything except for my agenda got saved. Okay. And God hits a wall in being able to use our lives for his glory.

And so he has to step over us and find somebody else that he has full range of motion with, that he can leverage who they are and then bring it back into their life. God's a giver, not a taker. He doesn't deplete you, he resources you, but anytime God shares with you a need, gives you an opportunity to be a part of something. It's not just an opportunity to give, it's an opportunity to receive. That's why the Macedonia Church went, oh, oh, let us give because they know it's coming back because anything you do for God will always return better than the way it left your life. That's what God's word is promising us. Here's the final one. Generosity is gonna bless you in eternity. Now, it's hard for us to think about a eternity when you're living in Polk County. (congregation laughs) I just wanna make sure I get ice cream today. I need my Starbucks and an ice cream and a recent cup on the side. I'm good, we kinda live in that zone. No, we gotta change our mind. Here's what, sugar, you made me cuss in church, sugar. I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you the reality of this. Every life in this room, under the sound of my voice, all my brothers at Polk CI, everybody watching online today,

you listen to my podcast, Air Body. Can I tell you something? Your life has an expiration date on it. I know we fighting it. We having surgery to pump stuff up and push stuff out and do all kinds of stuff. We living in the gym, trying to act like, it don't bother me. I couldn't do this thing. I'm here to tell you right now, I love the gym, but I ain't as fast as I used to be when I get in that gym. I promise you right now, things start popping and creaking. I get up in the morning and go, which joint is gonna hurt today? How are we doing this? (congregation laughs) Hebrews tells us, the book of Hebrews, it's appointed under everybody, wants to die. Shoot. I've tried to scratch that verse out. The truth is, it's coming for all of us. We don't even know when it will be. and the time my life with Jesus is eternal, why would I put all of my resource and focus into temporary when it's on a massive exit instead of looking and saying, I need to invest there and get something laid up there? This is what God's Word is challenging us in. Listen to what the Bible says. Matthew chapter 6, "Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, but store up for yourselves treasure in heaven for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Next month, this day, next month, one month of the day, we're taking 45 people to Israel with us. 45, we're going to Israel. We're so pumped, man, we're having Zoom calls and the buy-in,

the excitement's going crazy. People are practicing Hebrew. Polk County Hebrew is horrible. It is horrible. No one's ever doing a part of that. People are saving their money and spending money and going to buy this and buy that and they're asking about the weather and how should I dress, what kind of shoes do I need and all that. It's exciting and chattering. We're building and I'm so excited to get over there. We're going to hang out and have a party. It's going to be amazing. But here's the deal. When they start packing for this trip, they're not packing based on what the weather is in Polk County that day. They're packing for where they're going, not where they are. And since they signed up for the trip and they invested in the trip, they started watching the news about Israel different than they've ever watched before. They had a new interest in it. Why? Where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be also. Now they're praying for Israel differently. They're engaged. They're apart. Here's what I'm telling you. The reason that we take a heavenly view while living in this earthly world is we realize that this life you and our living is only an opening stage. It's not the main act. You're not supposed to live your best life right now. Your best life is on the way. Your best life one day will be no more pain, no more tears, no more separation from eternity with Christ. And no, you're not going to be bumping into clouds and fluttering with your wings. It's not coming like that. It's going to be a full life that you can't even wrap your mind around how amazing that is. That's on the way. Why would I not now start prioritizing that from my life and realize that what I do here in working with God, becoming a full motion, full range believer where he can move my heart, why would I not want to invest in his kingdom, in his plans, in his desires, what he's doing to see people's lives radically changed. Why would I not invest there? Knowing that when my day comes and I check out of here, I can't take that big screen TV with me or that extra house. And there's nothing wrong with the investment of those things. There's nothing wrong with having nice things to have the nice things. Just don't let the nice things have you. It's a heart issue. Everyone say it's a heart issue. It's a heart issue. Giving shifts your heart. Giving is one of the tools that God gave us. It's a hack to connect your heart back to God. If there's a part of your heart that you don't feel as spiritual as others, I don't feel connected to the worship as others. I'm not really excited about the ministries, the outreaches. They talk about Polk CI and that's cool, but it just doesn't really get me like that. My question is, I wonder if you're living in generosity. Because the Bible says

where your treasure is, your heart will be. I found out years ago that I needed to become generous so that my spiritual life could grow. And I would start loving what he loves and care about what he cares about. So whenever I became generous, church meant more to me. When I became generous, worship meant more to me. When I would become generous, when you and I become generous, we care about the outreaches. We care about the blend. We care about serving in the industries around here. Because whatever he loves, I love. I gave him my generosity. My heart got connected to it. And now, I'm in it, just like all the travelers from Israel are ready to go. And they're all locked in because they invested. And now they're making plans. When we take that mindset about who God is, his king, he's my king. He's building a kingdom. I get to be a part of it. that is giving radically. This is not secret Santa. I'm living wide open, seeing how I can invest knowing that's going to come back and fill my life full and give me purpose to the prosperity that God wants to pour into my life. Listen, gentlemen, we do it his way. We get his results. That's what he said, and I believe it. Would you please stand to your feet? Here it is, we're wrapping this up. You can let go of your purse. Some of you have a squeeze of your purse so hard like I'm taking an offering right now. I'm not, y'all can relax. Oh, my God, don't worry, I got to stop. Four things radically change because of our generosity based on your Bible, not my opinion. Here they are. Read them with me. Number one, draws us closer to God.

Number two, builds our faith. Number three, blesses our lives here. Number four, preps us for eternity. Which of those do you not need? I need all of those in my life all over again. And you know what I've found out? Let me just talk to my fellow believers that have been in this for a minute. And you've, yeah, you're a tither and you're a giver. And you have participated in generosity. Can I tell you something? You and I can become very comfortable in our level of generosity. I'm here to tell you right now that generosity should put a level of discomfort inside of us as we reach for him because it puts me more into God. I'm trusting you right now. I have noticed, as Cindy and I have walked this out, that he continues to dial it up and whoo. Okay, here we go. Years ago, Cindy and I, we were engaged. Just got engaged, excited. She finally said yes. And we were saving money to fly home on to tell my parents little celebration for the engagement. We had saved up about $300, $320. It was somewhere in there, if I remember correctly. And we're in a service on a Sunday morning sitting together

'cause that's what engaged people do. And while we're there, this guest speaker got up and he was speaking. And that day, he said some things that really challenged my heart. And we hadn't saved enough to buy two plane tickets to go, 320 was not gonna do that. And so we had this in the back. But as soon as he was talking, man, it hit my heart and I heard this give it all. I said, the devil is a liar. Boy, he is in this place today. It is not God. I knew, I knew it was him. So I checked God's ID to make sure it was really him, not like a fake God. It's him. And man, I'm just, it's just wrestling aside. Like, oh, how do I tell my fiancee that I really feel like we need to give this away. And I'll never forget this. I said, hey, Cindy, I really feel like, and she said, we need to give it, don't we? (audience laughing) You talk to her, too? (audience laughing) Like, I'm getting ganged up on here. Like, there's what in the world? That morning in agreement, no one knew about it. We gave the 300, 320, whatever it was.

We just, we wrote the check. We emptied the account. It's gone. There it went. No celebration for me. Gone. That afternoon, we were at lunch. We were invited to go to lunch and help host the guest speaker. So we're there with a couple of staff members, the pastor, where they were just talking around the table. And it comes up, the subject comes up. Oh, Scott said he just got engaged. Like, oh, that's cool. That's so good. Congratulations. Then all the talk, what have your parents thought? Well, we told him on the phone, we're gonna be going home and we're gonna go see them and have a party and a little celebration. He said, that's, that's so good. And then he stopped and he said, I wanna buy you two plane tickets to go see your parents. (audience applauding) I see what you did there. I see what you did there. 320 was not gonna get, at that time, one of us there. And because we made it a seed and a sacrifice in less than three hours, and we're long services, in less than five hours, it came back to us and multiplied

and provided what we didn't have because we trusted God with what we did have. Ladies and gentlemen, here's what I'm telling you, you can't outgive God. And when you learn to just trust him and walk in generosity, 'cause $300 was generosity for us. I don't know about you, for us, that was like, whoa, that was massive for us. Over the years, it's increased. Then $1,000 became a generous gift for us. And then 5,000 became a generous gift for us. We plan, we work towards our giving. Did you God hear another level? We always keep stretching. I'm excited to see what he's gonna do this year. God's faithful to his word. I just want you to understand generosity is beautiful. It's the heart of God. Get full range of motion for him to use our lives. And since God is a giver and not a taker, it's all coming back. Somebody shout it's coming back. our hearts such a tangible reality. We want to live with the spirit of generosity, yes, serving in our community and helping friends and loved ones with compliments, bringing joy to everywhere we go. We want to live with a generous spirit, but that also includes our giving. It includes our resources. Like K.J. when he gave, he didn't give expecting something to come back, but it did because you're faithful. People see, know, and you said in this life we would also receive in the life to come

for sure, but right here, right now, stretching our faith, making this more like you, God, this is our heart. So thank you for the opportunity of bringing something from our hand and our heart to grow and to touch you, God, I didn't want you to just save my heart, I want you to save everything that pertains to me. That includes every account that I've got, every talent and ability that I have, every relationship I want it all to serve you, today, God is a house. I pray you would challenge us and speak to us as you move us forward in all this. In Jesus' name, amen, amen, amen. Did I or did I not say you were going to be encouraged? Yeah. Feel free to check out our website, freelifechappled.org for more encouraging messages. Until then, I hope you have a great day. [MUSIC] [MUSIC PLAYING]