Taking Ground Multiplies Opportunities

Amen. Would you help me welcome all of our campuses who are worshiping with us today? So great to worship with all of you. Just want to give my special word of thanks for all of you that prayed, participated in our Charlie Kirk Memorial that we did last Sunday at two o'clock. It was amazing. We had overflow, about a thousand people here in Inglewood at the academy. We had a full house in Westminster. We had tens of thousands of people watching online and it was incredible. We shared the gospel. We had hundreds of people stand across the campuses and then online people were saying, standing, standing, standing, they're typing that in. We saw scores of people meet Jesus last weekend. So we've got praise for that. He's doing an awesome work. And as we continue our service this morning, let's go before the Lord and pray. I believe every time that we hear God's word preached, you can hear Jesus talk directly to you. If you want to hear him today, let's pray that you would hear his voice. Would you pray with me? Lord, Father in heaven, we give you all the glory and honor and praise for who you are because you and you alone deserve our best. Lord, we're here today to worship you, to seek you in prayer and Lord, to hear your living and active word. And Lord, we're encouraged to hear your word because we as a people believe that every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed, that it is you who are speaking. So our prayer this morning is speak Lord, for we are ready to hear. So now for all those who have gathered, who desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to you, who will believe what he tells you and who will by faith put into practice what he shows you.

Will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the word, amen, amen. Our God is alive. Our God is in control and our God is good. If you were here this last week, if you've been watching the news, social media, anything, you realize the world has changed in a moment with the assassination and martyrdom of my friend Charlie Kirk. You know that everything's changed and for some people, they've gotten more hostile and for other people, I've seen reports of people saying, I need to go get a Bible. I need to go check out church again. I need to see what this whole thing is about and what's really going on is God is using a tragic circumstance to draw other people to himself. And we see this everywhere. We've been seeing it here with our young people in our church. We took over student ministry here a couple months ago. On Tuesday, we have over a couple hundred students on both our campus that are now coming and God is doing a great thing, which is my shameless plug. If you're seventh through 12th grade, you want to be here or in Westminster on Tuesday nights because God is doing something really special. It's not just here. He's doing it with young people all over the world. As a matter of fact, this week, I was talking to a friend who coaches at a local high school and talking to his son. They had their fifth quarter, which is their event they have after football games sometimes just to give testimonies and share what God is doing. They had a few hundred people that were there. Friends, they had over 50 kids that got baptized that night after the football game. It's cool. And in talking to them, they said it was more exciting for that than even the football game that we won. I mean, God's doing something special.

When we see this, for those of you that have been believers for a while like I have, these are things I've been praying for for years. I've been wanting God to touch our nation. I've been wanting God to touch people. I've been wanting God to draw hearts of people back towards him. He's doing that in massive numbers. The question becomes, how do we see more of this? How do we stand and live for the Lord to experience more? They say, and it's probably true, for every spiritual high, there's a spiritual low. But we don't want to go back down to the low. For every spiritual high, let's keep walking in the favor that the Lord would have for us. And how do we experience that individually? How do we experience that as a church? How do we experience that in our city? How can we see more people in Colorado know Jesus? Friends, I'm telling you, I want to see the state of Colorado turned red with the blood of Jesus. I want to take the state back for him. Amen? I do. So the question becomes, what can we do individually? What can we do as a church? And how can we make a difference so that we can align with what God's doing and we can see him at work? And if you've been asking that question, that's the question I want to answer today as we talk about taking ground, multiplying opportunities. Now for those of you that are new here for the first time, we're in the middle of a series called Taking Ground. We're doing a three-year capital campaign that actually kicks off next weekend.

We've been talking about how taking ground strengthens your faith. Strengthening ground fortifies the church. Today, we're going to talk about how taking ground multiplies opportunities. How can we experience more of the goodness of God in our lives and in the lives of all those around us? And to answer that question today, we're going to be in 2 Corinthians 9, verses 6-15. If you turn there, and I'll read that passage and then unpack it with you. And when Paul's writing this letter, to the Corinthians the second time. It's really his fourth letter he sent. We have two in our Bible, 1 and 2 Corinthians. And in this letter, he's really defending his apostleship. He's sharing why he's able to do what he's doing. And in chapters eight and nine, he really begins to talk about this word generosity. And in these two chapters, that's what he begins to spell out as the core foundation of some of the things that God blesses. And here's where it picks up in 2 Corinthians 9, verse six. He says, Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.

As it is written, he scattered seed abroad, he gave to the poor, his righteousness endures forever. Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing through many thanksgivings to God. Because of the proof given by this ministry, they will glorify God for your obedience to your confession of the gospel of Jesus Christ and for the liberality of your contribution to them and to all. While they also by prayer on your behalf, yearn for you because of the surpassing grace of God in you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. And here as the Apostle Paul under the supernatural inspiration of the Holy Spirit is writing to the church in Corinth, we're gonna see five truths here that I wanna highlight of how taking ground will multiply opportunities for us. How can you as an individual see more opportunities in your life for the gospel to expand? How can we as a church have more opportunities so that it becomes more of the norm for God to continue to grow what we're doing and press out his kingdom even further?

And so I'll give you five of those truths today. The first one is this, that taking ground multiplies opportunity for a greater harvest. Taking ground multiplies opportunities for a greater harvest. The whole reason we're doing this capital campaign is to reach more people and grow more people in the Lord Jesus Christ in these last days, amen. Notice what he says. He says, now I say this, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, but he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. It's a very self-evident truth. If there's a farmer and he has seeds in the barn and the farmer says, I only wanna take a handful of seeds and throw those seeds, that would be the size of his harvest. If the farmer on the other hand says, I have a barn full of seed, I wanna take all the seed and I wanna sow all the seed, his harvest is going to be greater. So what he's saying is if you sow generously, there's gonna be a greater harvest. If you sow not so much and you keep it to yourself, there's gonna be less of a harvest. Part of what God wants us to do is to be generous. Now there's a lot of words we can use to describe God and every one of them will fall insufficient because God is so much greater than all of us.

Really, the only word that we can use in our English language correctly to describe God may be the word awesome. We use it for everything, but it can really only be used of God. It's so beyond what words are. We could use the word glorious, that would define our God. We could use the word holiness, that would define our God. But one word that we could use to define God would be this word, generous. Before the world ever was, the Trinity was self-sustaining in all love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And in love, he created the world. In love, he created the heavens and the earth. In love, he created us as human beings. In love, he designed gender. In love, he created marriage. In love, he set up the whole world. I mean, everything God does is generous. Think about the most famous passage in the Bible, John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he gave. He's generous. He gave the greatest gift we could ever have. He gave the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ. And here's what he's saying. If we've been changed by Christ, if we believe the gospel that Christ died for my sins, and that I brought all my sin

and placed it on Jesus in exchange, he gave me all his life and all his righteousness, and his spirit lives in me. It's Christ in me, the hope of glory. One of the ways he's going to grow you is with a generous spirit. And the reality is, a generous spirit leads to multiplied opportunity. Which means this, when it comes to every facet of your Christian life, whether we're talking about your finances, or whether we're talking about how you're gifted, or we're talking about your time, or any other thing, how can you be the most generous in your response? to the Lord Jesus Christ for what he's given you. I mean, think about it in terms of relationships. If you wanna have strong relationships, you're gonna sow bountifully into those relationships. You're gonna invest time into those relationships. Your relationships will be stronger the more that you invest in them. If you don't invest in relationships, then, and you invest sparingly in those relationships, you wonder sometimes, how come it's not good anymore? Because you haven't made that generous investment. Or with evangelism, when it comes to sharing the gospel, the more people that you share the gospel with, the more fruitfulness you're gonna see with your witness than if you don't share it. And the same is true with your resources.

Now, when we talk about resources, people always say, why do you talk about resources? Why do you talk about money? Let me be clear. God does not need your money. This church does not need your money. When we talk about money, we're teaching the Bible, and here's why God wants your money. Because he said in Matthew chapter six, what? For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. If you look at your bank statement this month, and you look where you've given the majority of your resources, I promise you, you've been thinking about where you've been giving them. If you gave the majority of your resources into retirement, you're gonna watch and see how are those resources doing. If you've given those to your leisure activities, you're gonna watch those and see how you're doing. If you give them to sports teams, you're gonna journey, and you're gonna set your whole schedule around sports. Wherever you give the lion's share of your giving, you're gonna care about it. If you give it to your house, if you give it to your car, you're gonna care about those things. The reason God wants your money is not because he needs it, but because he wants your heart. And your money is tied to your heart, and so when you give of your first fruits to the Lord, and you give that to Jesus, and you're like,

I'm trusting you with that, guess where your heart goes? It goes to Jesus, because you start relying on him in ways you haven't relied on him before. That's why he tells us, if you sow generously, you're gonna see a more generous harvest. So sparingly, you're gonna see a more sparing harvest. And here's the reality, there's a lot of people that come to church, a lot of people that have been born again, that know the Lord Jesus Christ, that know him, that at some point in time, they get bored in their faith, or it gets stale, or it gets stagnant. Here's a way you can get over that. Ask the Lord this question, how can I be more generous with everything that you've given to me? How can I be more generous with my finances? How can I be more generous with the way that you've gifted me? How can I be more generous with my time? Lord, what would it look like for me to be truly generous to you? And here's the reality, only the Lord can tell you that, nobody else can. What is generous for you may not look like generosity for somebody else. Only you can do that. So at the end of the day, you're called by God to be generous, to reflect the life of his son in your life. And so here's the reality, this is not just a New Testament concept,

this is also an Old Testament concept. Think about the Proverbs chapter 11, verses 24 and 25. He says, there's one who scatters and yet increases all the more. And there is one who withholds what is justly due, and it results only in want. The generous man will be prosperous, and he who waters will himself be watered. Let me give you a truth up front, there's no way you can be more generous than our God. Said another way, there's no way you can outgive God. Like when you're generous to God, with the right heart, for the right reasons, there is more that gets added unto you. That's just a reality, it's a spiritual principle. But you know what it takes to be generous? Faith. I have to believe that what Jesus is telling me is true, and I need to act on it. And the more you take a baby step of faith, and then another baby step of faith, and then another baby step of faith, then you develop a walk, and you're walking with Jesus. So whatever aspect of the Christian faith we're talking about, God wants you to take a step deeper with him. No matter where you are, there's ways to grow, amen? And so when we talk about taking ground, multiplying opportunities, we wanna see more people meet Jesus.

Now I know, like, okay, let me just ask this question. If you'd like to see more people in Denver know Jesus, love him, and walk with him, can you just give God some praise this morning? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now I know that's true, but most of us would say, well, I'm not really an evangelist. That's just not my thing. You know, it's hard for me to talk about my faith, or I don't quite know what to say, or it's awkward, or it's, that's okay. But here's the reality. Every time you share who Christ is in your life, every time you share any truth of the scripture, God is sowing seeds, even if on this side of heaven you don't see the results. And what you need to realize is if you're in a place with somebody who God's gifted more on the harvesting side, and you see people come to Christ, say, I can never do that, what you have to realize is anybody that responds to the gospel, studies have shown it takes people about 25 times to hear the gospel before they'll even respond to it.

And so some of the things that you're doing when you don't see people come to Christ, you're sowing a seed. or you're watering a seed, and eventually that person comes to Christ, you're also responsible for that investment that you made because you've been generous. I mean, when Paul was talking to the Corinthians earlier in his first book, in 1 Corinthians 3, they had celebrity pastors back then too, and people were talking about who they're gonna follow, and some were saying, I follow Paul, and I follow Apollos, and I follow Peter, and here's what Paul said. Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter three, in verse six, he said, I planted, like I planted the church, Apollos watered, he was the one that came in and taught, but God was causing the growth. So who was doing all the work? God. Yeah, so then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. What's he saying? It didn't matter. I was just being faithful and planting the church. Apollos was just being faithful and teaching the church, but none of us are anything. God is the one who's everything. And when you take what God has given you and you sow it,

you use your influence for Jesus, God multiplies a harvest among us, amen? And that's what we wanna see more and more. If you wanna see a harvest tomorrow, you gotta start sowing seeds today, amen? I mean, I grew up, I'm one generation away from being a farmer, so I know a little bit about it, and here's what I know about farmers. They don't cram at the last minute. You know, you can't wait till August and start planting your crop. You plant it early, you tend it early, you pull weeds early, you fertilize early, you water early, you do all those things in hopes that the harvest comes. Same thing's true of evangelism. Same thing's true of the gospel. We continually share that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father and invite anybody, anywhere, at any time to repent of their sins and trust him, amen? And God uses that seed and uses other people that come along to water that seed, and God uses all that to draw to himself. And here's the reality, when we get to heaven, if you've just been faithful taking steps, you're gonna be blown away at the number of people that are in the kingdom because of your faithfulness. Well, all the time while you're on the earth, the devil's gonna tell you you're a failure,

you've never led anybody to Christ, and you have no idea. I've heard stories of people that have come to Christ over the years who would tell me the people who shared the gospel with me, I knew what they were telling me was true, but I was so mad at them, I just rejected them. They have no idea now that I'm a pastor and I have no way to tell them. And I'm like, hey, one day in the kingdom, they'll know. Right, I mean, you have no idea that when you live for the Lord, he always produces a harvest. The word never returns void. It always accomplishes everything he sets it out to do, amen? And so when we talk about taking ground, we're talking about the reason we're doing this for your capital campaign. Number one reason is to expand our reach and to see more people know Jesus, love Jesus, and grow in Jesus. That's our reason for doing it, amen? Let me give you a second reason. Taking ground multiplies opportunities for deeper joy. Taking ground multiplies opportunities for greater joy. I don't know about you, but who needs greater joy in their life? I'm not talking about just a good experience. I'm talking about an overflow of joy in your heart that you would say, man, I love my life

and I can't believe that Jesus is walking with me and he's in my heart. If you wanna have greater joy, deeper joy in your life, listen to what he says. He says this in verse seven. He says, after he says about sowing and reaping, he says, each one of you must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a what? Cheerful giver, which means this. When a pastor's teaching the word of God, there's nothing you have to do. Serving in the church is not a have to. Giving your money is not a have to. Finding a small group and being part of community, not a have to. It's an invitation for what's best in your life that you get to do. So when you do those things and you take a step of faith, you have to decide what that step of faith looks like for you in this season and what it looks like for you to be generous because nobody else can tell you that. And then when you do it, do it this way. Cheerfully. I mean, the word literally means hilariously. Prior to 2020, when we used to pass offering plates in our church and we'd take an offering during the prayer time,

for those of you that were here at our church during that, we would say, it's now time for the offering. And what we would do is everybody would start cheering wildly. And every guest would always ask, why are you doing that? Why are you clapping for the offering? Because God loves a cheerful giver. Amen? So when you give, it can't be like, well, I have to tie it because the pastor made me. Right? Or if you're gonna serve in our kids' ministry, don't serve with our four-year-olds with the attitude of, I'm doing it because they said they needed help, but I hate four-year-olds. I mean, don't do that. It won't be good for you or the four-year-olds. You decide what God wants. And then when you do it, you do it with great joy and thankfulness that the Lord is allowing you to serve this way. When the Lord saves you, that's a gift. When he saves you, he gifts you for the body of Christ to serve other people. Everything you have in your life, if you dial it all back, comes from him, so steward it well. And when you do, do it cheerfully, do it joyfully. And the more you take steps of faith,

no matter where you are in any area of your Christian life, and the more generous you are with those things, be it your time, your energy, your resources, your gifting, the greater joy you're gonna have in your heart when you do it with the right attitude. When you say, Lord, if that's what you want, that's what I wanna do, and I'm gonna do it cheerfully. I'm gonna do it to the glory of God. And I'm gonna give to the glory of God. And I'm gonna serve to the glory of God. And when you do that, there's overwhelming joy in your heart that you get the privilege of partnering with Almighty God to do this. And here's the reality. If you do something generous for the Lord, there will always be quote unquote spiritual people that will mock you if they see what you're doing for the amount of time you spend, or the amount of resources that you give, or all those different things. But it's always been this way. There's a couple stories in our Bible of people anointing Jesus' feet, and really the one towards the end of his ministry, about a week before he died, took place in a town called Bethany, just outside Jerusalem, where Jesus was there with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, three of his best friends. And I wanna read that story to you in John chapter 12.

It says, Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Jesus raised him from the dead. He was a great friend. So they made him a supper there, and Martha was serving. That's what she always did. She was always busy serving. But Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him. Mary, who's the sister, then took a pound of very costly perfume, a pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of perfume. Now, you're gonna discover that this perfume was worth about a year's wage. She takes the perfume, she anoints Jesus' feet, she has her hair down there, she's wiping it with her hair, and the whole house smells like perfume. So she's taken this very costly perfume and poured it on Jesus. Why? Because she loves Jesus. She wants to be around Jesus. She wants Jesus to know how much she loves him, because he knows, she knows how much he loves her. And so she does this incredibly great thing. And we would think, if the story ended there, wow, that was awesome.

She would spend that much money on this, and that was a great thing, but that's not how it was received. It says in verse four, but Judas Iscariot, do you remember him? The one who betrayed Jesus? The one who Jesus said, one of you is a devil? He was demon-possessed? But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples who was intending to betray him said, why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and given to poor people? You ever heard people say stuff like that in church? Why are we doing this capital campaign for this money? I mean, why can't we just give all the money to the poor? Right? That's what Judas was saying. Well, wasn't Judas right? Like, why should she be so wasteful? Why should she be so lavish? Why should she be doing this for Jesus? A denarii was a day's wage. 300 denarii would be 300 days worth of wages, so about 10 months. 10 months of earned income she spent just to pour perfume on Jesus. And Judas says, that could have been given to the poor. We could have used that money and stewarded it better. Verse six, now he said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief.

And he had the money box he used to pilfer what was put into it. Let's give the money to the poor. We should be doing that. What was he really saying? I'm not giving any money to the poor. I don't care about the poor. I'm not gonna do anything for the poor, but I wanna act spiritual in front of Jesus. That's what he was saying. He was a thief. He used to take money for himself. That's all he cared about was money. When you're generous to the Lord, it doesn't make sense. Why would you be that lavish to Jesus? Because there's no way I could ever repay him for everything he's done for me. I mean, think about this. If you could contribute $1 billion a week to Jesus, if you're born again, that would pale in comparison to everything he's done for you. I mean, you can't repay him for all that he's done. And Judas says, this should have been given to the poor. He does it because he was a thief. Listen to what Jesus said. Let her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always. Have me.

Now the Bible tells us to take care of the poor. That's noble, that's good. But here's what Jesus was saying. Mary chose the right thing. You know why? Because she knows I'm not always gonna be here. And she wanted to do something generous for me. Leave her alone. Let her be as generous as she wants to me. You'll always have the opportunities you have to give to whoever you wanna give to. That's totally fine. But she's being generous to me, so leave her alone. And anytime you're generous to Jesus, you know what it's like? If you drive in from over an hour away to come to pray, people are like, why don't you go to a church closer to you? Why do you come serve all the time? Why do you come to church early? Why are you always there on first Tuesday too? Why do you do this? Why do you give your money there? Why do you do? Because it doesn't make sense to somebody that doesn't know Jesus. But when you know Jesus, you say, because I'm so filled with his spirit and I get to. And I wanna be around other people that love Jesus. And I wanna hear his word preached.

And I wanna be together to pray. And I wanna be part of a movement that's gonna take the gospel outside the walls. And we love Jesus and we love our world and we love his people. And we wanna see God do incredible things. I can't be too generous. I wish I could do more. That's what generosity looks like. Amen? It's kind of like this. It's kind of like when you have, some of you have little kids right now. I remember when my little kids were little, maybe they're like three or four years old and they make some artwork or they draw a picture and they excitedly bring it to you and hand it to you as if it's like the Mona Lisa or something. You're like, daddy, I made this for you. And what are they expecting? They're not asking you to grade their artwork. They're not saying, hey, you got the same skill I do. You wanna quit that right now. Don't ever do that again, you stink. That's not what they're looking for. What they're looking for is validation that they're thinking about you and they want you to be proud of them. And when you bring what is little to the Lord, that's how he responds to you.

It's telling that little kid, that is the best piece of artwork I've ever seen. Let me put that up on the fridge. Hey, let me show your mom. Hey, let me show your grandparents. Oh, that is incredible. Now you're not really saying the artwork's incredible. What you're saying is the heart of the one who designed it and created it and brought it because of their desire to please their mom or dad is incredible, amen? And that's what God does with us. When we're generous to the things of the Lord, we see multiplied opportunity for a greater harvest and we experience a deeper joy. When you choose to serve loved ones and your family with joy, there's deeper, deeper joy that transforms your home. When you serve that way, there's deeper joy than when you stand on the sidelines. When you pour out financially, it becomes a joy and not a burden when done cheerfully. We don't step into opportunity because we have to. We step into opportunity because we get to. It should always be a joy. It should always be a privilege. It should always be an opportunity that we look forward to, amen? Let me give you a third one. Not only does taking ground multiply opportunities

for a greater harvest and deeper joy, but taking ground multiplies opportunities to experience God's abundance. When you're generous to God, you will always experience an abundance from God because God is more generous than you. You're not more generous than him. You cannot outgive him in any way. You cannot give him with your time. You cannot give him with your finances. You cannot give him with your gifting. God is more generous than you. And when you're generous to the Lord, he's always generous in return. Notice what he says in verse eight. And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have abundance for every good deed. As it is written, he scattered abroad and he gave to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. So what's he saying? He says God is able. How many know that God is able? I mean, he's more than able to do more than you ever think he could. He's able to make what? All grace abound to you, so always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.

What does it mean? It means when you're generous to the Lord, you will always have the grace to accomplish and you'll always have everything you need to accomplish everything the Lord has put you on the earth to do. Always. You'll always have enough. I mean, that's what the Bible teaches. It's an Old Testament principle. It's a New Testament principle. When you're generous to the Lord, you will always have everything you need to serve the Lord greater. Why? Because God's a generous God. God's a prospering God. Now, some of you that are sniffing out, like, does Jeff believe in the prosperity gospel? What's he trying to say? Let me talk about that. The prosperity gospel and the prosperity gospel I reject is this idea. Give God $10, he'll give you 100. Give God 100, he'll give you 1,000. Give him 1,000, he'll give you 10,000. I mean, get 100 fold harvest. Sow your seed now, you're gonna get more money. The prosperity gospel fails because the prosperity gospel's about you.

You give to God so that God gives to you so you can have more. That's not the way God works. When you give generously to God, God gives you. more abundance so that you can do what? Steward more towards God. It's never about you. God doesn't gift you for you. He doesn't grace you for you. He doesn't give abundance to you for you. It's always about him and others. And here's the reality. You give to the Lord and you're generous with the Lord, you'll always have everything you need to accomplish everything the Lord put you on this earth to do. So notice what he goes on to say. He says, now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food. Now, who's the one who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food? If we're talking about finances and you're gonna give to the church, where did you get your money? Well, I earned it. Really? How'd you get your job? Well, I went to college. Well, how come you got to college?

Well, I did well in high school. How come you did well in high school? Because I've always been a pretty good student. Well, where'd you get your mind? For my parents. Well, where did you learn how to study? Where'd you learn? I mean, you dial all this back and it's God that gave you the brain and everything and provided all the different things that you had and every good and perfect gift comes from who? God. Every resource you have in your life belongs to who? God. He's the giver of the seed. He's the giver of bread. How did you eat? Well, I worked really hard. I went to King Soopers and I got a snack and no, no, no. Where did you get the resources to buy the food? Who prepared? It all goes back to God. Every good thing in your life, if you have a roof over your head, if you eat, if you have a car, it's all God's and the one who gives seed to the sower, the one who gives bread for food is God. What's it saying about this God? He will supply and what? Multiply your seed for sowing

and increase the harvest of your righteousness. Why will God prosper and multiply what you give to him? So that you can invest more in the kingdom. That's why God does it. God, you cannot out give him. Did you know that? He even tells us in the Old Testament, you can try me in this and it won't work out for you. I mean, think about this. In Malachi chapter three, in the book of Malachi, Israel was doing their own thing, which was not uncommon to them, but they were bringing God their scraps. When it came to their time, when it came to their energy, their resources, their gifts, I mean, they were just bringing God all the leftovers. It was kind of like, we're gonna do our own thing, God. We're gonna live our own life, but if there's anything leftover, we'll bring it to you. If we have an extra animal, we'll bring that. We're not gonna bring our best animal. We're not gonna bring our best money. We're gonna give you scraps. And God writes them in Malachi chapter three in verse eight. And he says, well, a man robbed God, yet you are robbing me. But you say, how have we robbed you, God? And here's his answer. In tithes and offerings. Now tithe simply means this, it means 10th.

That's what a tithe is. You can't tithe 2%, you can't tithe 22%. A tithe is a 10th. Offerings are anything that's over above and beyond that. And he says, you're cursed because you've robbed me in tithes and offerings. You're cursed with a curse for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Then he says this, here's what you can get right. Bring the whole tithe, the 10%, into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house and test me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Lord's like, test me in this. I mean, to me, when I read this, it sounds like the Sandlot triple dog dare. It's like, you know, listen, you don't believe I can do it but try me in this, like tithe, just see. Now, just so you know, for Israel, they were required to tithe and offerings. And if you add up all the feasts and festivals and do all the math, every Israeli household would give 23 and a third percent every single year. And you might say, well, thank goodness I don't live under the old covenant. I live under the new and in the new covenant, tithing is not required. To which I would say, okay, let's go down that road. But let's think about God's laws in the Old Testament.

Old Testament was what? Do not commit adultery. Did he change that or lessen that in the New Testament? No, Jesus said, you've heard it said, don't commit adultery. But I tell you, anyone who looks lustfully upon a woman has already committed adultery in his heart. So did Jesus say adultery is good now? No, adultery is still bad, but let me take it further. Don't even think about it. Or in the Old Testament, do not murder. In the New Testament, can we murder? No, but what Jesus said is, you've heard it say, do not murder. But I tell you, if you think your brother's an idiot, you've committed murder in your heart. So did he lower the standard or did he raise the standard? He raised it. How about the Old Testament? Tithes and offerings. What does he say in the New Testament? What belongs to him? 10%, 20%, how about this? Everything belongs to him. 100% of everything you have. Every account that you have financially, all your retirement, your house, your cars, your clothes, 100% of everything you have is his. And then here's what he says. Tithing was a good start, but just be generous to me.

Now I know, we gotta hear it. When people aren't generous, do you know what they are? They're calculated. You start calculating, well, what does generous really look like? That's not generous. Generous is when I willingly want to cheerfully give the best I can to God. So when people hear tithing, they're like, okay, that's where I'm gonna start. I remember when I first became a youth pastor, I was making about five times as much money when I was in the business world as when I started in ministry, and I remember when I started in ministry, they gave me a house which you wouldn't wanna live in that was about 300 square feet, and I had a car that was paid for, and they paid me $1,000 a month. And I remember thinking to the Lord, there's no way this is gonna work, and so I told the Lord, now, when I was in the business world, I didn't tithe at all, because I had to build up my future, but then I started hearing teaching on tithing. I'm like, all right, Lord, I'll put you to the test, because I don't know that I really wanna do this ministry thing anyway, and if I run out of money,

then that's gonna be my sign that your word's not true. So I would take my check every month. My accountant told me to take $200 and set it aside for taxes. Then I'd write a check to the church for $100. I'd live off $700. I never ran out of anything. As a matter of fact, after two years of living like that, I banked $13,000. You can't even do the math on that, and I paid for my whole first year of seminary. I mean, there were times where I would go to my mailbox, and I remember one time I went to my mailbox, and this check arrived from a great aunt that I had talked to about two or three times in my life, who had passed away at the age of 92, and she had put some money aside for my sister and I in a CD, and it had matured. She sent me a check for $3,000. Can I tell you, when you're making $1,000 a month, and you get a check for $3,000, that is a massive amount of money, right? And just banked it. I mean, I've seen the Lord do this over and over and over. When God called me to go get seminary training, I told the Lord the same thing. I'm not going into debt to go learn the Bible, so if you want me to go, you pay for me. And I remember I paid the whole first year, and it was coming to the second year,

and I didn't have any more money, and I'm like, hey, I don't know how this is gonna work out, but it's in your hands. I'm not going back. I'm not going into debt. I refuse to do it, because your word says it's not good. And a friend of mine that I had met a couple times called me to be a youth pastor in Dallas, and I talked to him on the phone, and they interviewed me, and I said, hey, listen, you gotta understand, I wanna go to seminary, but I'm just trying to figure out how to go. And they said, well, if you're our youth pastor, we'll pay for you to go to seminary. We'll pay the whole thing. I'm not a dummy. I said, okay. So, I mean, at the end of the day, I've just seen God do this over and over and over, even when Kim and I were moving out here, and we were trying to figure out, and we're having candid conversations, like, how's the Lord gonna provide? And I told her, the same way He's always provided for me. If we seek Him, He'll take care of us. He always does. Now, this is not to say that we haven't had times, or still don't go through times, where money's tight. It doesn't mean that when you give everything to the Lord,

everything's paid. That's not what it means. It means that I know no matter what I go through, that God is for me, and therefore, who can be against me. Amen? And He's able to get me through it all, all the time, because He gets my first fruits. And I've done this for, like, 30-some years, and I see the fruitfulness of it. So here's what I would say. If you attend Brave, and you've never taken a step of faith to tithe, perhaps this is something that you pray about. I don't look at your giving. I don't know what you give. I don't wanna know what you give, because that's between you and the Lord. And oh, by the way, let me just tell you this. One of the most significant gifts in the entire Bible, in the New Testament, came in Mark chapter 12, verses 41 to 44, where there's a widow. Means she didn't have a husband. Means she didn't have a man in her life, bringing her money. She had no earned income. She had no way of earning a living. And Jesus is watching all these people put money into the offering. All the rich people are putting their money in. He's not saying a word, but when this widow,

she put in two small copper coins worth less than a penny, it caught Jesus' attention. He said, that one there put in more than all the others combined, because she, out of her poverty, put in everything, all she had to live on. What was He saying? That's generous. He wasn't all that impressed with the amounts. He was impressed with the heart of generosity. So again, as we talk about a capital campaign, it's not for you to go home and stress. What do I do? What do I gotta do? It's not about stressing. It's about you asking the Lord, what would it look like for me to be generous? Teenagers, what does it look like for you to be generous? Well, my money doesn't mean that much. I might only be able to put in $5. God wants your heart. He doesn't need your money. What does it look like for you to be generous to the Lord? Right? So somebody might not be able to put in $5. Somebody might be able to put in seven, eight, or nine figure checks. It doesn't matter. It's what does it look like for you to be generous? Because at the end of the day, I'm not judging your gift.

I'm not even gonna see your gift. It's you get to stand before the Lord and say, Lord, I was generous with what you had entrusted me to. Amen? And this is true in the New Testament, that God will meet all of your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. That's Philippians 4.19. I mean, and then there's so many stories in church history of this. There's a guy named J. Hudson Taylor. He was a missionary. But before he went on the mission field, he knew God was gonna have to provide for him because he didn't speak the language as to where he was going. And he knew he needed to get resources. So he said, Before I move overseas, I'm gonna move into the inner city because God, I need to know that you can provide for me here because if you can provide for me here, then I know you can provide for me there. And his book, The Spiritual Secret, you can read about all the different stories and all the different ways where God brought him the resources at just the right time for everything he needed to be able to live and survive, which gave him the confidence to go on the mission field and lead many, many people to Jesus Christ. Or how about George Mueller?

Maybe you've heard of George Mueller. George Mueller had an orphanage of about 100,000 kids. He started 117 schools with 120,000 kids. And he was known to trust God in prayer for everything they ever needed without putting out their needs so that people would know. And he would just spend hours in prayer. And there was one morning where he brought all the kids in for breakfast and sat them around the table to get them ready to eat, knowing full well they didn't have anything to drink or anything to eat. And one of his assistants was like, what are you doing? He goes, we're getting ready for breakfast. He goes, we don't have anything. He goes, we will. And he sat them all around the table. And when everybody sat down, there was a knock on the door. And guess who it was? It was the baker and the milkman that had been prompted by the Lord to bring them all sorts of food and drink. And they ate, right? God always provides our needs. He always meets everything over, above, and beyond. It's the reason the story, the feeding of the 5,000 is so important. If you've been in church for more than a year, you probably heard the story multiple times.

Even if you don't come to church, you've heard that story. But here's what that story was about. Jesus, when he was prompted by his disciples who said, Lord, it's late in the day. Give these people something to eat. They're hungry. They didn't care about those people. They didn't care about them at all. They just wanted to get Jesus to themselves. He was like, send them away. Let them go buy something. And Jesus said, what? You give them something to eat. They said that would take eight months salary to feed those people. We don't have anything. What did Jesus say? Well, go see what you have. So they went searching around. There's 5,000 men there, plus women and children, probably about 20,000 people. And out of the 20,000 people, they found a kid with a sack of lunch that had what? Five loaves, two fish, that's it. But what did they do? They brought what was insufficient, what was more than not enough, what was just what they had, and they brought it all to Jesus. What you don't read about in the story

is that they brought him four loaves and a fish, and you see Simon and Andrew over there eating a fish sandwich first, right? They bring what they have right now, like, okay, Jesus, this is all we have, and we'll give it to you. And what does Jesus do when he receives it? He doesn't blame them. He doesn't say, what are you thinking? What am I supposed to do with this? He takes it and what? Blesses it. Thanks, you gave me all you have. I can do something with that. Then what's he do? Breaks it. Because in order to be multiplied, you have to be broken. That's why if God's gonna use you, he's always gonna bruise you. That's why you go through difficult times, right? So he blesses what you bring him. He breaks what you bring him. And then who does the miracle? Jesus. Jesus does the miracle. The disciples do nothing. Jesus multiplied all the food. The disciples didn't do it. The only thing they did is exactly what Jesus told them to do.

Jesus said, have them sit in groups because we need pathways to get to everybody. Now, you just take what I give you and distribute it. That's all they did, which is all ministry is anyway. You take what you get from Jesus and give it to other people. So they were taking the food from Jesus, and they were grabbing it, and then they were taking it out to other people, and then guess what happened? They ran out. So what did they have to do? They had to go back to Jesus. How many times do you think they would have had to do that to feed 20,000 people? A lot. What was Jesus teaching them? He was teaching them this principle that I'm the God of generosity and overabundance, and when you come to me, I will always have everything and more than you need to fulfill everything I have for you in your life. So he gave it and gave it and gave it. And it says this in the Bible that all ate and were satisfied. Now, you got 5,000 men together. It means there were some seconds and thirds going on in that crowd, right? I mean, everybody ate, and then when he's done and everybody's eating, what's he say?

Go see what you have left over. Gave everyone a basket, and what did they pick up? 12 basketfuls, right, of bread and fish. Everyone had this divine doggy bag to take home with them that night, which tells me this. Jesus was showing them, my leftovers are always better than what you even start with if you come to me. That's how it works in the kingdom, amen? You cannot outgive God at all. You just can't. And you don't give to get. You give out of generosity. And when you give out of generosity, he will give you more, not for the purpose of storing stuff for yourself, but continuing to invest in the kingdom. And that's what you'd have for your life. And that's what we see here. We see God's abundance. Most people hear about it. Most people hear stories about it. Most people in the body of Christ haven't experienced it. And a lot of people that haven't experienced it say, well, that's just prosperity gospel. No, it's how God works. He's generous. You cannot outgive him in anything that you do when you come. come to God with a cheerful heart.

Let me talk about a couple final ones. Taking ground also multiplies opportunities for gratitude and worship. Taking ground multiplies opportunities for gratitude and worship. He just gets done telling him you're gonna be enriched in everything, in all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God. Why? For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing through many thanksgivings to God. Because of the proof given by this ministry, they will glorify God for your obedience to your confession of the gospel of Christ and for the liberality of your contribution to them and to all, while they also by prayer on your behalf yearn for you because of the surpassing grace of Christ in you. What's he saying? He's saying when you give and you're generous with what you have and what you've been entrusted with, God does amazing things and people respond with gratitude and worship. What do they do? I'm so grateful for the people who spent time with me when I was younger that invested the gospel in me when I wasn't very likable, took me to camp, shared Jesus with me

until I was converted and then helped me get started in my Christian, I mean, I'm always grateful for that. And when they did it, it wasn't just like I was thanking them, I was thanking God for them. When somebody comes to Christ, they're not just thanking you, they're thanking God for you. They're praising God because of you. They're thankful that your ministry and your generosity, God used that. Now who's getting all the credit? God is, it's Christ in you, the hope of glory. God does all the work. God is the one that gets all the glory. God's the one that gets all the praise. But when you're doing this with the right heart, what happens? More people know Jesus, more people grow in Jesus, more marriages are healed, different things are going on where people aren't just like, oh, thank you. They're praising God because their lives have been changed. Friends, let me tell you something. The purpose of taking ground in this capital campaign is not about getting new seats. We'll get some new seats, that's okay. That's not the thrust. The thrust is let's get more campuses. Let's get into more prisons. Let's build more schools. Let's build the next generation.

Let's have a way for young people to respond to the gospel. Let's see more people grow up that wanna pastor churches. Let's have the gospel spread. Let's have more people on the radio listen to a pastor that's bold so they say I can be bold in my church too and have more boldness in the pulpits in America. And friends, let's continue to partner with people like my friend, Paul Simpson, who has now planted over 1,200 churches all in Africa and in Asia and all over the Middle East. I mean, just that last time, I don't know if I shared this in the second service or first service, but I mean, after I'd shared, I think in the first service, I think I shared it in the second service, that he just got back from Pakistan. He thought he had a few churches there. He's got over 50, right, he's got 20,000 Pakistanis that are going to church now because of his ministry. That's amazing, right? And here's the reality. There's gonna be people that you see in heaven because of your generosity are gonna say thank you for making a sacrifice and giving to the Lord. You don't know me. I grew up in this nation. I didn't have a chance, but because you gave, it allowed this ministry to take place

and I know Jesus because of you. How awesome is that? That's what it looks like to be generous because when you do things to steward towards the Lord and God does the work, people get excited and they begin to give praise and worship to Jesus. You remember in Luke chapter 17, Jesus healed 10 lepers, he didn't heal 10 leopards, he healed 10, it wasn't Ringley and Barnum and Bailey, it was a leper, sorry, and he healed 10 lepers and as they were walking away, they got healed and there was only one that turned around and he turned around and came to Jesus and he began to give Jesus thanks and he said, were there not nine others with you? Where are they? And he didn't know because this one wasn't just physically healed, this one was spiritually healed and this one turned around and said, thank you, Jesus. When we're generous to the things of God, there's more people that are saying thank you, Jesus. When evangelism is done rightly, we get more worshipers of the Lord Jesus Christ and all of us get to participate and isn't it great news to know it's not how much you give, it's that God has your whole heart, right? You decide what to give, you decide what it looks like, not under compulsion, no arm twisting, none of that.

It's you before the Lord saying, Lord, what does it look like for me? What does it look like for our family? I'll just share this. I taught this when we bought our building next door because we had six days to raise $1.73 million and our annual budget at the time was about 800,000 and I remember teaching on this and I taught our congregation that people were asking me, like, well, what happens if we're praying as a couple and my spouse's number is higher than mine? What do we do? And I said, well, if you're the man and your number's higher, you need to be the spiritual leader of your family and give that and teach your wife how to. Follow and trust you. But if your wife's number is higher, then you have to realize God gave her to you as a gift and trust that she's hearing the Lord and put that number in, all right? And everybody laughed like you did. And then we were getting ready to give and Kim and I were praying about what we were gonna give to that campaign and I came up with a number I thought was really, really big and gonna sacrifice and I sat down with her and I knew I had it. I knew I had the number and I sat down with her and I said, okay, tell me your number. And it was double my number.

And I remember swallowing my tongue. I'm like, I told our congregation, so we did that. And I remember doing that thinking, I don't know how we're gonna even do this and we did that and God was gracious. Friends, listen, you just need to hear his voice. This is not a stressful situation. Next week when we come, part of our service is gonna be taking our pledge cards. For those of you to go to Brave, there's zero arm twisting here by the way. But when you're here, you'll take a pledge card. You can fill out what you wanna do in addition to your regular giving. This is what I normally give to Brave every year. In addition to that, this is what I'd like to do over the next three years. This is what I'm committing to as a family. Now, if you make $30,000 a year, don't commit to a million dollars. By faith, I'm trusting. Don't do that, okay? You give before the Lord and you say, here's what it looks like for me and you do this and then you say, Lord, by your grace, this is what we're gonna do. We'll seal that, we'll put it together. When you bring that forward, we're gonna give you a commemorative coin that you can look at, pray about this campaign

over the next three years as God does this in your life and we're gonna trust the Lord. Now listen, we're trying to raise $35 million. That's our goal. If we count the money and we have 15 million pledged, we're gonna praise God for that. We're gonna steward that well to the glory of the Lord and we'll trust over the next three years he's gonna help us fulfill our commitment. If we count the money and we have $45 million counted, it doesn't mean, oh good, now I don't have to give. I guess, you know, they have more than they need. That's not what it means. It means we're gonna steward that to the glory of the Lord because we're not gonna stop the ministry. We're gonna continue to grow everything God has. So I would encourage you, if you wanna be a part of this and there's no arm-twisting, you don't have to be, but if you wanna be a part of this and you wanna say, God, I wanna be generous, just get before the Lord this week. Some of you have been doing this for the last couple already and say, Lord, what does it look like for me or what does it look like for our family or how can we best honor you and then listen to what he says and do what he says? And if you'll do that, I believe, if God gets all of our hearts, he'll make up all the difference

and we'll get to see God do incredible things. Friends, I think that three years from now, we could have multiple campuses all over our city where people can drive from 15 minutes away and be part of it, not only in their city on the weekend, but midweek stuff on Tuesdays for what they're doing and Cadres in their community. I think we'll be in many, many, many more prisons. Please pray for us this Saturday. I'm gonna get to preach to a thousand inmates at Buena Vista. We're hoping to see the church grow there, just so you know, and meet a lot of people for Jesus. We wanna be in prisons all over our state. I mean, what would it be like if there were four or five or 6,000 prisoners that were worshiping every weekend with us that know Jesus Christ? I mean, wouldn't that be worth it? Wouldn't it be awesome? We're trying to raise the next generation through Brave Academy. Wouldn't it be cool if we could put a campus, everywhere we put a campus, we could put a school and three years from now, we have hundreds more people attending Brave Academy and we're planning for a high school. I mean, those are the kind of things we wanna see. But all of this comes down to my final point, which is taking ground multiplies opportunities

to respond to the gospel. To respond to the gospel. Like, where are you gonna get your motivation to do all this? It's the gospel. God so loved the world that he gave. And what did he give? He gave the greatest gift the world ever had, his only begotten son. I mean, if you just take different things that we've received from Christ, such as his death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, him taking all of our sin for all eternity, past, present and future, him securing our eternity completely, giving us a world that we're gonna live in where there's no crying, no pain, no tears. And we don't have to do anything but repent of our sin and believe and trust in him. Or how about the fact that he regenerates you and takes you from being dead and makes you alive. He indwells you with his spirit. He baptizes you in the family of God. He marks you for eternity. He fills you with his spirit. He walks with you every single day. I mean, if we had to take an itemized list of everything God's done for me, he gives you oxygen, he gives you life,

he gives you health, he gives you everything. And you ask, well, what's that worth? And what's that worth? And what's that? You could never repay it. God's not asking you to repay it. He paid it all. It's paid in full. He's saying, can you respond to that? How grateful are you for that? That becomes your motivation. Church is not your motivation. Your pastor's not your motivation. God and all he's done through his son is your motivation. So my encouragement this week is for you to consider what would that look like for you? What would that look like for your family? I'm getting ready to have that conversation with my wife. We've been praying individually now for about four months. Kind of curious to see what her number is this time. And we're gonna trust the Lord. We're gonna receive pledges next week as part of our service, which is awesome, because there's so many places in the Bible where people have come forward and done that collectively as a church. We did that when we collected money for our building we got next door, and kids were coming and dumping babysitting money and all sorts of stuff, it was really cool.

But these are pledges. If you're not gonna be here and you wanna send yours in, that's totally fine, or you can send it in the next week, we'll take it whenever. If you're new to Brave, like I'm not ready to do this yet, that's totally fine, there's no arm twist. It's just we would love you to be a part of this as the Lord would lead you. And we're gonna trust that He's gonna do some great things. Because I'm telling you this, when we meet Jesus face to face, I not only wanna personally hear, well done, good and faithful servant, like every single one of you that's born again is going to hear, what I wanna hear is what He says about Brave Church, and what we were able to do in time and space, and what we were able to see Him accomplish. And I'll tell you this, if we're generous with everything God's given to us, He will do supernaturally far more abundantly than all that we could ask or think. That's why I'm not saying it's two campuses, it's three, maybe it's 22 campuses, I don't know what He's gonna have. I know this, if we're generous, He'll blow us away. And here's what we can know, we'll see more people walking in the kingdom, we'll see more thanks and praise to God,

you'll have deeper joy in your life, we'll see a greater harvest, and God will be the one that gets all the glory and does all the work, amen? Amen, would you stand with me? Father, we give you all the praise and glory for who you are, we love you so much, and we thank you for who you are. Lord, the gospel simply states that you sent Jesus to die on a cross for all our sins, that before He died, He said, it is finished. He took all of our sin and He died, and then He rose from the dead, and He began to offer life to anyone who would wanna turn from their sin and turn to Christ. If that's you here today, and you want Jesus to be the Lord of your life, here's how you can pray really simply, Jesus, save me. I give you all my sin in exchange for all of your righteousness in life. Come into my life and be my Lord. And Father, for all of us, we just wanna speak your name over this church, over this city, over this state, and over this nation, and all around the world, may you be high and lifted up. Lord, would you show each of us individually that's going to participate what generosity looks like for us?

Make it crystal clear in our service, in our time, and in our giving, would you be high and lifted up and glorified? We give you all the praise and honor, and it's in Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen and amen. Can we give God praise for His word?