Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, Journey.
[00:00:03] So a couple of days ago, I got to play golf at moonlight, and I coined a new scenery Gluttony.
[00:00:12] Just overwhelming. Like, every golf hole was beautiful. And I may, along with your executive pastor, have beaten your worship pastor and your drummer.
[00:00:25] But I don't play against the guys I play with. I play against the golf course. And that golf course can bite.
[00:00:31] There was a couple of times that I felt like a sapling getting raked by a bull elk in the rut.
[00:00:37] Just. Ow. Okay, let's just move on.
[00:00:40] New scenery, new hole.
[00:00:43] It was grace. It's what we're talking about in this series. Undeserved Kindness, Second Corinthians, Chapter 9. Today, if you've got your Bible with you, totally unrelated to playing golf at Moonlight. Four days ago, two guys from Minnesota got four to five years in prison and fined $2.5 million for stealing $7.3 million in Covid relief money intended to feed children through a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future.
[00:01:15] The mastermind of the whole scam got 42 years in prison.
[00:01:20] All told, it was a $250 million pandemic relief fraud.
[00:01:27] Now, when that stuff happens, there's collateral damage, a lot of it. And one of those is less generosity from normal people, just more skepticism and cynicism and reluctance.
[00:01:39] So that little credit card machine gives you the opportunity to round up one penny, you know, for something, and you're like, it's a scam.
[00:01:49] Take my Social Security number trying to give him a penny.
[00:01:54] You walk up to the hardware store and there's that table with the kids sitting there raising money for Travel Ball. You're looking at the mower.
[00:02:02] Don't make eye contact.
[00:02:06] Homeless person on the corner. You're praying for the light to turn green.
[00:02:14] Somebody sends you something on Kickstarter and you're like, I don't know.
[00:02:19] Just more reluctance because of parsimony.
[00:02:26] Being a victim of avarice produces parsimony. Couple of good words. Avarice means extreme greed. Parsimony means extreme unwillingness to be generous.
[00:02:37] The Apostle Paul is avoiding both of those extremes. He's taking pains to challenge both of those financial worldviews.
[00:02:45] And he starts by saying that authentic generosity inspires generosity. So this is verse 1 of 2 Corinthians 9. I really don't need to write to you about this. Ministry of giving for the believers in Jerusalem. Alright, recap of where we've been so far. This is week three of four in Second Corinthians eight. Nine. The series is called Unreasonable Grace because God's grace to us is unreasonable. It's nonsensical. It doesn't make sense that he would be that nice to us that he would give us his undeserved kindness.
[00:03:15] So we receive God's undeserved kindness and then we get to give that kind of kindness to other people. And in Second Corinthians 8, 9, it's inexorably linked to generosity.
[00:03:27] So there's poverty and persecution at the first church in the world in Jerusalem, there is a famine and they are marginalized people because they're followers of Jesus.
[00:03:40] Up In Macedonia, about 1,000 miles away, what used to be the center of the empire of Alexander the Great. It is now a dusty outpost, very impoverished Roman province. The extremely poverty stricken people are actually raising money to send over to the church in Jerusalem. Well, Macedonia, they got inspired by a place in Greece down in the south called Corinth. These are the guys that kind of got the whole thing started. Like, we should send some money to help those guys. So in week one, we talked about unreasonable grace under unreasonable circumstances inspires unreasonable generosity.
[00:04:20] Macedonia giving out of their poverty. Last week we talked about being a person of your word. We talked about what fairness is and we talked about integrity.
[00:04:31] Now one thing that hasn't been brought up yet is the racial component to all of this. Macedonia and Greece are Gentile, meaning non Jew.
[00:04:40] The church in Jerusalem almost completely Jewish. So these are Jesus following Jewish people. We call them Messianic Jews today.
[00:04:51] Well, the very religious Jews looked down on anybody who wasn't a Jew.
[00:04:57] And the non Jews, the Gentiles had hostility and envy toward the Jews. And so there was constant tension.
[00:05:04] But Paul argues that the gentiles should have respect and esteem for the Jews because God chose them first. First to reveal salvation to the world and then to produce Jesus the Messiah. Both things happened. But he also argues that the Jews should be loving and gracious towards all humans, for all humans are loved by God. But the racial and cultural overtones and undertones make all of that even that much harder.
[00:05:32] So generosity is a really good way to be gracious and to chip away at or even obliterate the racial and cultural mud brick walls. So Paul says, I really don't need to write to you about the ministry of giving to the believers in Jerusalem. He's basically saying, I'm sure I don't need to remind you because he's been working this over with them.
[00:05:57] Have you ever had a conversation with somebody where they go now? I'm pretty sure that I've already told You.
[00:06:02] And then they start to tell you.
[00:06:04] It's usually an old person, by the way, that does this. Like, I'm sure I've already told you. And. And then they start. And, you know, if you've got, you know, a little leverage, you can go like, yep, yep, yep, mom, you've told me. Yeah, Yep. But this is kind of what Paul is doing. He's like, I'm sure I've already told you. But he kind of keeps telling them he can't help it. It's a reminder. And he talks about their service or their ministry, and he's saying that that is not just for ministers. All Christians are servers. All Christians are ministers. They're servants. Especially said because Jesus said that he didn't come into the world to be served, but to serv. To give his life a ransom for many. And so if we say that we follow Jesus and we do what Jesus does, which means we are a servant, too. One of the ways you do that is through generosity. Verse 2. For I know how eager you are to help. And I have been boasting to the churches in Macedonia that you in Greece were ready to send an offering a year ago.
[00:07:04] In fact, it was your enthusiasm that stirred up many of the Macedonian believers to begin with giving.
[00:07:12] So the need is there and people are suffering in Jerusalem. Corinth is the one who got this whole thing started. They led the way. Macedonia got lit up. They got inspired by Corinth.
[00:07:26] Now affluent Corinth is cooling off, but Macedonia is giving out of their poverty. And so Paul had used the zeal and the eagerness and the effort and the passion of the Corinthians to challenge the Macedonians. Now he's using the Macedonians to challenge the Corinthians.
[00:07:45] So what Paul's doing is casting Vision. We talked about this last week. Paul is inspiring, and inspiration is good unless you are parsimonious.
[00:08:00] So when.
[00:08:02] So just like you, Harvest Church met in a school before it moved into a building. So you're going to move into a building. You got to raise some money. And so we were in the process of raising money so that we could build a building. We had to do it.
[00:08:15] One of the things our consultant had us do was have a volunteer, somebody that's committed to the church, stand up in front of the church and talk about not only why they're giving, but what they're giving, like the dollar amount.
[00:08:32] And what that does is it kind of primes the pump for people. It challenges people. So a normal dude gets up and says, this is what I'm doing. Other people are like, okay, that's interesting. And it's helpful as we're thinking about what God wants us to do. So this guy stands up and he's normal guy, and goes, we're given $70,000 over the next three years.
[00:08:50] So it really, really helped people. We did this a few times. Like, guys were like, I'm shooting too low. It just helped people to kind of push their generosity. Well, after the service, there was a guy absolutely livid with me, just furious. I've never seen a guy so mad after a sermon. And so he's ripping me for allowing somebody to stand up in front and say how much they're going to give. Now, when guys get mad about that, they pull a verse from the Scripture and they rip it out of context. And it's where Jesus says, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And what they conclude is. And put on you is all you're giving is supposed to be in secret.
[00:09:31] But that's not what Jesus is saying at all. What he's doing is saying, check your motives.
[00:09:36] Make sure you're giving with a right motive. But this guy pulls this verse out and hits me with it. And it's supposed to be secret.
[00:09:43] So he wants a meeting with me. He's already ripped me. Now he wants a meeting.
[00:09:48] So I call our consultant.
[00:09:51] I'm like, robert, here's what happened. And I describe it to him. He goes, vern, here's what I want you to do. I want you to hang up, and I want you to check his giving records and then call me back. Just check his giving records. Ever since he's been coming to your church.
[00:10:04] Okay, but I didn't. I've never looked at the giving records. I didn't even know how to do it because it's just not something I do, you know, I don't need that persuading me.
[00:10:13] So I figure out how to get in there, and I pull it up and I'm like, huh? And I call him back. He doesn't say hello. All he says when he picks up the phone is, he gives nothing. Right? I'm like, yeah, how did you know? He goes, happens all the time.
[00:10:28] Like guys with parsimony, extreme greed and avarice, extreme unwillingness to be generous. It is because of conviction that it is happening to them. It is conviction of the Holy Spirit because of their greediness and their denial of God's grace in their life, that they are just going to take it out on Somebody else. It is how they express the anger that says a result of their soul being so disruptive.
[00:10:56] When you discipline yourself to not compare or compete in an unhealthy way, when you deny the temptation to parsimony and greed, then you can actually get inspired to be better at generosity.
[00:11:10] My son in law works for, so he's. He does protection for, so he's kind of like a bodyguard for a very wealthy, powerful guy who people want to kill.
[00:11:26] So his job is to keep him alive.
[00:11:30] And at the Christmas party this year, my pregnant daughter's at this Christmas party, and this guy comes up to my daughter, you know, and her husband Kyle's right there, and he comes up to her and he puts his hand on her shoulder and goes, I love your husband. I love this guy. And then he looks at her and goes, cause people want to kill me, so I love him. So he keeps him alive. All right? So they were at a national championship thing in Florida. They wanted to get some food afterwards, so they're going out to find some place to eat. They go to an ihop and it's closed. So they find a Waffle House. It's three in the morning, all right, in Miami. And they roll into this Waffle House. Just this kind of little small group of, of powerful people protecting one really powerful guy, okay? And so they roll in there and they sit down and rich, powerful guy who people want to kill goes, I'd like an Oreo milkshake. And this server, who's just kind of haggard, okay? It's night shift, 3am you could tell this guy had been rode hard, put away wet, like, this guy's rough.
[00:12:42] He goes, we ran out.
[00:12:45] And so rich guy goes over to reaches into the backpack. So he always has this backpack with him. It's full of cash. He reaches into the backpack and he pulls out a thousand bucks. And he slides it across the table and goes, yeah, I'd like an Oreo milkshake.
[00:13:01] And the guy gets emotional. He's like, sir, I'm so sorry I lied to you.
[00:13:09] The ice cream machine, I just cleaned it and I just didn't want to do another milkshake. I'm really sorry. You know, he goes and makes him a milkshake. Well, this guy starts talking to him as he's serving. And he starts learning his story.
[00:13:24] And he starts learning how this guy's a tweaker, he struggles with meth, he's trying to get right. He's in recovery, he's working his night shift. He's not living In a good place. The temptation is significant.
[00:13:38] And he's being in encouragement to him, like, you can do this, man. And when the whole thing's over, he reaches back into the backpack, pulls out $5,000 and slides it over to this guy. And then he just pep talks him, like, you can break free from this thing. You can be free from these addictions. You can get into a better place now. And this guy broke down crying, so overwhelmed with generosity that came from a pure heart. In a good place now, you might go like, okay, well, that's, you know, kind of extreme. All right, so several years ago, I was in Africa with Compassion International, visiting. Some kids walked into this village. There's some rules around what you can do in there as far as generosity and stuff. But we had these little Chiclets things, you know, there's five little pieces of gum, you know, in a cellophane wrapper. And this big white guy pulls out this Chiclet thing and hands it to this little kid. This little kid's pumped hot chicklets. And he pulls the cellophane and he grabs one of the pieces of gum and he goes hands it back to the guy.
[00:14:40] That's 20%, by the way.
[00:14:43] And it's generosity. It's just generosity. Producing generosity. It inspires people. Macedonia inspires Corinth. Corinth inspires Macedonia. Both inspire, be inspired and be inspiring in your unreasonable grace and your generosity. Just make sure that you are following through. Because follow through turns vision into reality. Remember last week we talked about how vision is easy? You just got to see it. It's the follow through to make it happen, which gets hard. So verse three. But I'm sending these brothers to you.
[00:15:18] But I'm sending these brothers to be sure you really are ready, as I have been telling them, and that your money is all collected. I don't want to be ready in my boasting about you. So the brothers. Remember the brothers we talked about last week? So there's Titus, Peter, Paul's friend, Titus. There's the famous Bible teacher guy, and then there's the zealous, eager guy. And this is the delegation they are to package up the gift with scrutiny and accountability and haul it all the way back over to Jerusalem. That's a thousand miles. Six weeks of travel, walking and sailing. Very dangerous.
[00:15:52] So the guys are coming in to pick up the money that Corinth has generously set aside. And so he is saying, be ready for them. Be organized.
[00:16:00] Organize this.
[00:16:02] Last winter, I was playing golf in Arizona, this really cool course there's four of us. Each guy has a caddy. We're gonna just do this right, you know, pretty special deal. Some unreasonable, undeserved kindness again, of God standing on the first tee box. And my buddy asks my caddy just a couple of the basic questions. Yeah, what are you doing? He goes, yeah, I'm going to seminary.
[00:16:29] He says, like, oh, going to graduate school for the Bible, right? Like pastoral preparation.
[00:16:36] And my buddy goes, what are you studying? He goes, well, I don't believe in organized religion, so I'm going to learn what the seminary teaches that the Bible says about organized religion so I can argue against organized religion.
[00:16:52] Now I'm staring down the first fairway like, you've got to be kidding me.
[00:16:59] I'm like, I just want to play golf. But now my caddy, I'm going to have to teach him while I'm playing golf to get his brain rewired on such an inane idea.
[00:17:13] Because the New Testament, most of it, is written to organize the religion of Christianity. When somebody goes, you know, I don't really like organized religion, well, then you throw out most of the New Testament because the New Testament is organizing the religion of Christianity. I'm thinking this through as I'm gonna have to go down the fairway with this guy. And so then I'm just apoplectic. I tee my golf ball up, and my buddies can just see the tension. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. And then all of a sudden, they all start laughing because it was a setup. When my buddy met the caddy on the green, he asked this kid, like, what do you do? He's like, I'm going to seminary to be a pastor. He goes, oh, that guy over there, yellow bag, yellow shoes. He is a pastor. Here's what we're gonna do.
[00:18:00] He got me. So that kid got an extra $100 tip, by the way, from my buddy.
[00:18:06] I was better. I was okay after that. I didn't have to talk this kid into some biblical knowledge.
[00:18:12] When the church is organized, like yours is, by the way, Journey.
[00:18:18] And when we are all organized in our finances, generosity gets maximized and nobody gets embarrassed. Verse 4. We would be embarrassed, not to mention your own embarrassment, if some Macedonian believers came with me and found that you weren't ready after all that I had told them. So Paul, his couriers, and the impoverished friends that he's bringing with him from Macedonia to Corinth would be embarrassed if the Corinthians were not ready or, you know, irresponsibly delinquent and distracted.
[00:18:51] So what Paul has been doing, you heard him say it, has been building the Corinthians up to the Macedonians.
[00:18:57] He's been telling the Macedonians, like those guys in Corinth, they've got money and they're generous with it.
[00:19:03] So if they were to roll into Corinth and the Corinthians were like, wait, what?
[00:19:09] You want money? What is this money you speak of?
[00:19:11] Well, Paul's going, that would be really embarrassing for me and for the leaders.
[00:19:16] And it would be embarrassing to Corinth because you're the guys who started this in the first place.
[00:19:22] They were the first ones to commit. So throwing something together or worse, backing out would be embarrassing. It means to be put to shame, to be disgraced and humiliated. So Paul is basically saying, you know, you don't want to be known as a pledge dodger, do you?
[00:19:40] Now, that pledge dodger insight comes from a New Testament scholar named Hans Dieter Betz, who notes that in Greece and Macedonia, generosity, commitments, honor and shame were very closely connected. And evidence from the region suggests that people who defaulted on their financial obligations, which includes their pledges of generosity, they could have their names displayed in the public square. Now, there's no video wall. There's no bulletin boards. This would be actually etched into stone.
[00:20:12] So failure to fulfill a commitment wasn't merely a private disappointment, and it wasn't just between you and the church.
[00:20:19] It became a matter of public disgrace.
[00:20:23] Your name is on the board for everybody to see. You would be put to shame, disgraced, humiliated, and embarrassed because you would be known as amongst the community as a pledge dodger.
[00:20:35] Well, Corinth made a financial commitment to help the poor in Jerusalem. Paul tells the Macedonian Christians about the zeal and the enthusiasm of the Corinthian Christians. And Macedonia, basically as poor as the Jerusalem Christians, they get lit up and inspired, and so they raise money for the poverty and the church in Jerusalem.
[00:20:56] So Paul is boasting about how the Corinthians had inspired the Macedonians, and he's been talking about it for a year.
[00:21:06] So if the Macedonians then join Paul and his famous friends and they roll into Corinth and the money isn't there. They are unprepared.
[00:21:13] Well, talk is cheap. Paul looks dumb, so does the security team. And the Macedonia delegation is wondering if they've.
[00:21:22] They're wondering if they've just gotten extorted.
[00:21:26] It would be a very shameful moment. And Paul himself might hammer and chisel their names in the walls of the Agora. Himself.
[00:21:34] So Paul is saying you don't want to be known as a pledge dodger. Follow through and fulfill this vision is a desired.
[00:21:45] Is a picture of a desired future.
[00:21:48] You can see it.
[00:21:50] That becomes reality when it gets organized. You aren't going to pray your way into it. It's going to take planning an organization. And that's really important because preparing and organizing for generosity prevents arm twisting. Anybody had their arm twisted behind their backs.
[00:22:09] Two times I've been handcuffed by the police and in both cases they, they wrenched my, they twisted my arm behind my back. And then you know, you're laying on the hood of the car and it's an uncomfortable experience. Just a few weeks ago, okay, it was long BC time ago when I was getting arrested for stuff, verse five.
[00:22:33] So I thought, I mean none of this charges stuck, okay.
[00:22:38] It's just different sermon stories. I've said too much verse five. So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised.
[00:22:51] Then it will be ready as a generous gift, not as one grudgingly given.
[00:22:58] Generosity should be a blessing, should be a happy event for everybody. But not. There's that word grudgingly.
[00:23:08] Paul's delegation is helping to preserve a blessing and to avoid criticism and complaint.
[00:23:16] He is avoiding even giving or the pressure of giving spontaneously and maybe stupidly and then regretting it. Paul is wanting them to avoid making a smaller grand commitment and then not following through. He is protecting the their reputation and others and protecting their relationship with God. Who says it is better to say nothing than to make a promise and not keep it.
[00:23:41] This is that follow through piece. Being a person of your word, having an integrity.
[00:23:47] Which brings me to a quick word on the tithe.
[00:23:51] If you've been around church, you've heard this word tithe.
[00:23:54] TiThe just means 10th.
[00:23:57] It's 10%.
[00:24:00] So when you hear somebody say something like I tithe 5%, that's a nonsensical statement. I 10% 5%.
[00:24:07] So a tithe, God commanded a basic tithe and then some more actually depending on the situation. This is Old Testament.
[00:24:16] Then there were free will offerings above that.
[00:24:19] Second Corinthians, 8, 9. What we're looking at together over these four weeks is describing an offering, not a tithe. This isn't a 10% thing. It's not what he's working on here.
[00:24:31] Now you and I are not Israel and we are not under the authority of the Old Testament law. Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament law. So you're not under a tithe command. But tithe predates the law of Moses.
[00:24:47] Goes all the way back to Abram. Even before Abram was Abraham as a model Jesus in the New Testament of.
[00:24:54] He basically says, you should do that, but then heart check, like, make sure you got right motives about all this. The apostle Paul probably assumed the tithe as a Jewish man. He just never commanded it.
[00:25:08] Now, that means that the tithe is just a really good place to start in your generosity, 10% to your church, because the people have replaced the temple. That's pulling from the book of Malachi, last book in the Old Testament, where God says, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, a reference to the temple. So that ministry gets done with that. The church has replaced the temple. And so now the church is the new iteration of bringing the tithe to the storehouse. So then that's leveraged for ministry. It's worship that comes from you to God that then gets leveraged for ministry and kingdom advancement in the world.
[00:25:46] The tithe is also the one place in the Bible, just one place, where God says, test me.
[00:25:54] Sometimes you hear people say that God says, don't test him. No. In Malachi, he goes, let's go test me.
[00:26:01] Bring the whole tithe in and see if I don't open floodgates of blessing. See if I don't just honor you and bless you for that.
[00:26:07] So tithe, you're not under it as an injunction or a law, but tithe, If I were you, I'd go like, well, that's a nice baseline. And start there.
[00:26:17] It's a floor, not a ceiling, so just get started.
[00:26:22] Now, sometimes people go like, hey, Vern, I'd love to tithe, but it just doesn't pencil.
[00:26:27] And I go, yeah, that's why you should tithe. And they go, no, what I'm saying is, like, there's no margin. Like, you look at my budget.
[00:26:37] I. I can't tithe. And then I just kind of obnoxiously go, I know. That's why you should tithe. And then they think I'm not hearing them. You know, I'm like, I can't afford it. I'm like, yep, that's why you should tithe. Like, you need God's blessing more than ever, so you should test him and give it a shot.
[00:26:57] Now, the tithe is 10% of your increase.
[00:27:00] So Remy and I, we tithe on our paychecks, but also on gifts and windfalls and people who resent or resist the tithe. Usually, I Think haven't fully grasped God's grace, his undeserved kindness.
[00:27:21] Just be cool to see you give it a shot. And, you know, there's no judgment because God's going to meet you where you are. But there might be some opportunity for you to do something kind of courageous with all this.
[00:27:32] But all that to say, this is why Paul is using the word grudgingly, because he doesn't want you to do it grudgingly.
[00:27:37] I'm going to talk about this word grudgingly, but first I want to throw you a QR code. So here we go again.
[00:27:42] This is a new one. So the last couple of weeks, a thousand of you signed up to pray about grace and generosity.
[00:27:50] And so it's kind of been this neat interaction we've had over a couple of weeks with you. Now we're going to do another one. Okay, so this is a new one.
[00:27:57] So you can grab your phone and hit that QR code. Or if you'd rather just text it, you can do that.
[00:28:02] And what we've been doing is praying for wisdom and direction about next steps in our own personal generosity. And this scan here, this code, everybody that's online, you get to do this, too.
[00:28:15] You're going to get something back that has five options on it. And you just get to pick one of those options that fits you right now.
[00:28:23] Now, no money's gonna exchange hands. No gifts, no donation, no automatic payment, no screenshots, nothing. You're just gonna pick one of the five options. Here are the five options, by the way. The first one is I'm just gonna start giving. I'm gonna start giving to my local church. Like I should.
[00:28:38] Just gonna get started. The second one is I'm actually gonna be a little more organized. And instead of sort of spontaneously on a whim and trying to pick a number, I'm actually gonna go for a percentage. Your third option is I'm actually going for the tithe. Like, let's go 10% of the increase. We're going to do that.
[00:28:55] The fourth one is, I've been doing that.
[00:28:58] Or maybe you're not doing at all, but you're a delightful overachiever and you're like, man, I'm going to go more than a tithe. Let's go. All right, that's number four.
[00:29:07] Fifth one is, I'm not going to do it right now.
[00:29:09] Jesus doesn't judge you. He's not mad at you. He just meets you where you are.
[00:29:14] Be there. Okay. All right, back to the QR code. So that you can get it. And now let me talk grudgingly. And we're going to close in prayer.
[00:29:24] Grudgingly. This last word really in this passage is the Greek word pleonyxia.
[00:29:36] It's where we get our English phrase pleonyx, maps, Yeehaw, Shadan Elk just made that up. We don't get any English phrase from play on Ixia.
[00:29:47] Grudgingly. It means it's grudgingly. Like I'm resisting this. But it's because of greed and covetousness and parsimony. It's giving, expecting something in return. It's giving because of self imposed pressure, which is always wrong, or not being generous out of gratitude for grace. That's kind of what this grudgingly thing is. So Paul is suggesting that avarice, the greed and coveting is causing less generosity. Very common.
[00:30:18] And they are giving less than they should.
[00:30:22] The verb form of pleioxnea, it's a Greek word. The verb form of this is outwit or exploit. So this is interesting because this might be the quandary that Paul is trying to avoid. If they raise money only after Paul and the delegation arrive, it might be seen as exploitive.
[00:30:44] Using the situation to gain a personal advantage. It's being manipulative. It is arm twisting. Instead of boasting about people, they start boasting about how much money they raised.
[00:30:56] And that all erodes the trust that has been built and the precautions that Paul has put in place so that they would be above reproach. So Paul is saying is all these guys are is couriers. You raise the money, we're going to get it to the people in need. That's the same thing that happens when you give to your church. You worship through your generosity and then your church manages that and stewards it and fulfills God's calling and vision for your church and gets it to the people and the ministries who need it.
[00:31:29] So the cool thing about planning and organizing and managing God's money wisely is it gives you the opportunity to pledge support, but also it gives you the opportunity for delightful moments of spontaneity.
[00:31:45] Delightful, not grudgingly.
[00:31:50] You might know that it has been said that Bozeman sends their homeless to Billings.
[00:31:59] Thanks.
[00:32:02] Now you might not hear it because it's usually the receiving city that complains about this Bozeman. They send their homeless to Billings.
[00:32:14] It's an urban legend.
[00:32:16] It is not true.
[00:32:18] And it's actually not uncommon. And it's not isolated to Montana.
[00:32:23] Lots of cities have this sort of caustic Rivalry that engenders fabrications and fascinations. It's urban legend, probably driven a little bit by envy, but we do have homeless people in Billings.
[00:32:37] I served on the board of an agency that serves homeless and at risk teenagers.
[00:32:46] And the advice that you get from people that are in the homeless ministry, homeless services world, is don't give a homeless person money.
[00:32:58] They'd rather it goes to the agencies that will help. And they're concerned about enabling bad behavior.
[00:33:07] Okay.
[00:33:08] But that sort of discounts the Holy Spirit and what God might just whisper into your heart about somebody that might need some help.
[00:33:21] I'm persuaded by what I call path and prompting that, like the Good Samaritan, there's a path that this guy is on and. And that the need is in front of him. And then. And then he's prompted by God to help him.
[00:33:38] When Peter and John healed the guy at the temple gates, that was a guy that Jesus had walked by for years.
[00:33:50] And Jesus does this a lot, actually. He just walks past people. Didn't heal everybody.
[00:33:55] So there's this prompting piece of. There's a person in my path, and now, should I be a part of what this is?
[00:34:02] I was coming out of a restaurant in downtown Billings with a buddy of mine who's from out of state, and we were walking across the parking lot, and two presumably homeless guys are coming at us. And they divide and conquer. You know, I'm on one side of my truck and my buddy's on the other side. And these guys each come over and he asks me for money.
[00:34:20] Now, I drive around with a backpack full of cash in my truck.
[00:34:24] Just kidding. But I do have some money in there, you know, and so I reach in my truck and I'm getting some cash. And then I say to the guy, you know, almost all of us who you ask for money, we think that you're going to use this to either go buy booze or drugs.
[00:34:44] And he goes, I wasn't speaking for myself. I was just kind of talking in general about it, right? And he goes, no, no, no, sir, I will not. He goes, I'm hungry.
[00:34:53] I gotta get off these streets. I could just use some money. I'm like, I know. And I give it to him. My buddy's doing the same thing on the other side of the truck. We get in the truck and it's silent for a minute. We're driving away. And then he goes, hey, Vern, thanks for giving that guy some money.
[00:35:10] He says, my son is a recovering heroin addict, and the only thing that kept him alive on the streets when people would do what you just did for that guy.
[00:35:23] So thanks.
[00:35:25] Yeah.
[00:35:28] Generosity inspires generosity.
[00:35:32] Following through turns vision into reality.
[00:35:36] Preparing and organizing for generosity prevents the emotional arm twisting. You're just good to go.
[00:35:44] And so you can be generous when prompted to those who are in your path, and you can be generous when prompted to your church.
[00:35:53] And this would be a really important next step in your own pursuit of following Jesus and enjoying his generosity and living under his unreasonable grace.
[00:36:06] And I hope you will.
[00:36:07] And how about we pray for a moment?
[00:36:13] Just a. I'll pray here for us in a second, but I'd like you to just tell God what you're thinking and feeling.
[00:36:22] It's good to be with you, Jesus, in these moments. Thank you for your presence and your instruction and encouragement.
[00:36:31] We are in awe of your unreasonable grace. It defies reason that you would love us as much as you do, that you would care so deeply for us, that you would sacrifice for us the epitome of generosity, you laying out your life for us and then giving us new life so that we can live a life after you, which is a generous life.
[00:36:51] So we're grateful, challenged. We worship you.
[00:36:57] And I pray that Journey Church would be.
[00:37:02] You know, the way Paul was bragging about Corinth.
[00:37:10] I pray that people would brag about what Journey does.
[00:37:15] That'd be cool. Love that. Okay. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
