The Reward of Generosity | The Blessed Life Week 5

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- Would you like to be rewarded by God

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and have Him multiply the impact of your life?

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I know I would.

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- Yeah, me too. - Same.

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- Okay, cool.

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Well it comes down to the answer to the question:

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Am I generous?

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Welcome to Crossroads. We're Kyle Ranson.

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- We're doing a series called The Blessed Life.

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We did this series several years ago,

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and it's one of the most powerful series

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that we've ever done.

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And you're going to hear some stories from people

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who went through it before,

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so powerful that we're going to do it again.

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Now, I got to tell you, that kind of hurts my pride

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because we haven't really repeated very much at all

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at Crossroads the last 26 years.

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And the first time we're going to repeat something

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came from somebody else.

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We borrowed this content from Gateway Church

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in Dallas, Texas.

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I had pastor after pastor, person after person saying,

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"Oh my goodness, this material is,

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sounds like a really religious cheesy word,

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but it's true, is anointed."

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There's something special about it.

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Now, listen, this is not a campaign.

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There's no commitment coming at the end

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where you're going to sign anything.

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There's no big ask of you to whatever, whatever, whatever.

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This is not a campaign.

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We are going to challenge you

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because Jesus challenges us,

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but we just want you to listen, consider,

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and ultimately be blessed.

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That's the Blessed Life.

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- Matthew 6:21, Jesus said,

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Look, I get it, when a church talks about money,

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it feels terrible and awful and all those things.

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But you got to hear me.

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Even if you don't believe me right now, it's okay.

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This is not about getting something from you.

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It's about God getting your heart

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and you experiencing the blessings

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that only come from your heart being in His hands.

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You have to know this is a deeply personal message to me,

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maybe more than any other message I ever give.

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Because what I've experienced

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and what I've seen of God through generosity

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is at the very foundation of my faith.

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It's why I believe in Him.

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I'm going to start with a basic assumption about you

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that if you're watching, you want more of God.

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If more is available, you'd be like, "Yeah, I'd take it."

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And if that's true, there's a simple

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but critical question you and I have to ask ourselves:

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Am I generous?

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It's intentionally in the first person

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so that when I say it, I'm asking about myself.

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I'm not actually asking you. I'm not talking about you.

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I'm not looking at you.

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I'm thinking about me. Am I generous?

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And when you ask the question

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you're asking about yourself, not not someone else,

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not your neighbor or whoever.

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Are you generous?

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That's the question you're asking, and about me.

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And to help get an answer, we're going to examine

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one story today from the Book of John.

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I'm convinced I'm actually, like, inside of this story.

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I know that sounds crazy, but I think you are, too.

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On the surface, there's five characters.

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There's Jesus, Judas, two sisters, Mary and Martha,

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and their brother Lazarus.

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You have to know this happens

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on the day before Palm Sunday,

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which is only six days before Jesus was crucified.

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We'll jump into the story in John 12.

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Now there are two important questions

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to ask about the story.

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First, why would Mary give Jesus such an extravagant gift?

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And two, why would Judas get so upset?

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There's also two hearts displayed here:

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a heart of generosity and a heart of selfishness.

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I want you to notice what revealed each heart generosity.

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Again, our question is: am I generous?

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I think we all want to be generous,

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but we're actually born selfish.

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Selfishness is the enemy of generosity.

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It's how we're born.

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One of the first words a child learns is "mine."

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The crazy part, parents, you know this,

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you don't have to teach it to your kids.

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I have three small kids right here.

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This is Ben and Gracie and Eli.

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I never once had to teach them the word mine,

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but I hear it all the time in my house.

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Typically, when this one takes something

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that belongs to this one, he says, "It's mine, mine, mine."

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And when I hear that, I react

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like somebody just poured ice water down my shirt.

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Nothing makes me more upset.

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Then I have to go find that sound in my house

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and end that sound.

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And the problem for these children is generally,

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I don't care whose it was, because right now it's mine.

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It's Dad's, and I'm putting it away.

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Nobody gets it. That's how we solve it.

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You're looking for justice.

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I'm just looking for quiet kids. That's all I want.

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Because at this moment, I don't care whose it was.

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Now, God uses mine when He talks about the tithe.

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He actually says the tithe,

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the first 10% of all of our income is mine.

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It's important to note,

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if Gracie were to give Ben

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something that already belonged to Ben,

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return a Lego that she had taken and give it to Ben,

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that was already his, would that be generous?

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I'll ask you this.

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If I handed you something that was yours to begin with,

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when I return it to you, am I being generous?

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Well, the answer is no.

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Why? Simple.

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I can't give what's not mine.

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I can return it to you

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and you could bless me with a thank you.

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But that's not the same as generosity.

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See, generosity is what I choose to do with what's truly mine.

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Do you notice in this story,

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Judas is holding the offering box,

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which is odd because who would have given

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Judas the money box?

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Who is the leader of the bunch?

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It was Jesus.

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Why would Jesus give Judas the money box?

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After all, He knew Judas was a thief.

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It's clear if you go back and you read the story

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two years before this moment,

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Jesus actually looked at his 12 disciples

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and he said, "Did I not choose you 12,

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and one of you is a devil?"

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He knew about Judas.

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And yet still, He put the money into his hands.

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Why? Was it to tempt him?

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Was it to get him to fail?

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Was it to-- was it to really put him down?

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No, I don't think so at all.

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I think Jesus was testing him

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in hopes that he would pass.

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See, God will test you. He will never tempt you.

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James says that God tempts no one.

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He's not trying to tempt you

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with what he's put into your hands.

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But God will actually test you in your finances

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to give you an opportunity to pass.

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In the book of Jeremiah God says, "I test your heart."

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See, the answer to am I generous

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is not what you think or feel.

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It's exclusively about the results God sees

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when He tests your heart.

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- Hey, guys. My name is Andy Reider.

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I'm the community pastor for Crossroads Anywhere,

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and this is my good friend, Paco.

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Hey, I love what Kyle has to say about generosity.

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Right?

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And how we can experience more of that in our own life.

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- That's right, man.

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Being generous is like a level up from tithing.

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Like, when we're tithing, we're giving God what's His.

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- Yeah. - And, like, am I generous?

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Am I giving God what's mine?

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Like, what a great message so far.

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It's been really good.

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This series has been awesome too.

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This series has been really good

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and really challenging, helpful for people, hasn't it?

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- Yeah, it's one of those things that, like, man,

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I think it's like life, like,

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you get out of it, what you put into it.

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And we really have leveled up.

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We've leaned in throughout the series.

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So, well done. Stay strong through the end.

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I just want to, like, put this out there.

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I say this regularly,

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but if there's anything that we can do,

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like, we can do to help you in your spiritual journey,

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in your adventure with God, we want to do that.

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Don't hesitate to reach out.

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Anything we do to help, we want to do that.

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- You know, we have scripts for these things

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and we, like, say stuff

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and we're about to go off script.

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Do you remember when I had my first kid?

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- I do.

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- The first person I saw when we were walking

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into the hospital, elevator comes down,

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Andy Reider is standing there.

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- It's like 4 in the morning. - That's right.

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- We had -- we both were there to deliver.

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- Yeah. - It was crazy.

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- Seeing you in that spot gave me a sense of,

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like, "Okay, cool, God's got my back."

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And dude, I think that's a calling on your life

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to, like, be alongside people

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as they get closer to Him as they go through life

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and remind them that God has their back.

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So, take this guy up on his offer.

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Take him up on his offer, email him, hit him up.

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It's good stuff for you. - Paco, thank you for that.

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- Hey, we don't want to talk about this stuff.

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We want to show how it plays out in the real world.

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So, here's a story of someone in our community

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experiencing the Blessed Life and generosity.

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- My parents always --

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I always knew that they tithed and they gave.

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We didn't have a lot of money,

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but we always had enough to pay our bills.

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- I didn't have a lot of money as a college kid

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or anything like that, but I always wanted

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to be a part of big things that were going on.

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- And then when we got married,

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it was sort of continued that habit of tithing,

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even when we didn't have very much money.

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It was, like, years and years and years

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of God saying no to different jobs,

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you know, to increasing our finances,

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to us working harder to get out of debt.

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It was a lot of waiting.

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Unemployment with two house payments

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and a one part time job between the both of us.

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You know, there was a lot of brokenness and frustration.

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I think it was a season

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when all of our cars were breaking

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and we lived in a house that was a money pit.

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And I think our hot water heater broke.

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And I just -- and then I broke, you know,

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and I'm like, "When's it going to be our turn?"

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You know, like --

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And I remember he was like, "Every day is our turn.

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You know, every day that we wake up

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and our biggest debt is paid for because Jesus died for us,

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like every day is our turn."

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And that has just stuck with me for so long

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because it didn't fix, like, that statement

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and that truth didn't fix a hot water heater.

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It didn't change our finances, you know,

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but it really helped me have a different point of view.

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- As we have gained more money,

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I think God challenged us on it to go,

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"Are you for real?

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If I give you a little bit more money,

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will you actually do those things

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like you said, you always wanted to?"

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And I think we do.

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One of our favorite things is we have

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a line item in our budget that's called God's checkbook.

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It is just a pile of money that builds up

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waiting for a need.

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- A coworker whose husband died unexpectedly

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before Christmas, or a friend who really needed therapy,

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being able to pay for, like,

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six months of counseling for them.

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Adoptions for friends.

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I think it can be like awkward to talk about money

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because it sounds like the prosperity gospel

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or like transactional, like I do this for God

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and then He does this for me, you know?

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But I can just tell from our experience

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and we had so many years, like I said,

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of just hearing no, and He was still good and faithful.

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But this is just our experience now.

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And He keeps giving it

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and we keep trying to be faithful giving back.

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- Jesus said that we should count the cost of following Him.

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I regularly try to think about

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what could I have done with this money

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and how does it compare to knowing Jesus?

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And it's, like, I've not found anything better.

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I count the cost regularly. He always wins.

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- Any time you hear stories of generosity,

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they sound just like that because God comes in

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and He's so excited to have someone's heart,

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that He just starts to bless them.

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It's the Blessed Life and it comes through giving.

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But did you know there are actually three levels of giving?

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See, Malachi talks about tithes and offerings, plural.

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Now, tithes are level one.

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It's returning to God what's His every single time.

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Level two is offerings, regular giving above the tithe.

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And then the other kind of offering

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is extravagant offering.

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Now, if you get to the first level,

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you'll get to the second and the third,

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because the first level

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breaks the curse over your finances.

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This is Sarah and I's story, my wife and I.

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See, after we got to the first level of tithing,

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after we made that hard decision

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to give to God what's His, we kept on going.

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We got to level two of offerings,

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which is above tithe giving.

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And we never felt God to ask us,

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and we've actually continued to increase

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the percent of our income we give away above the tithe.

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Why? I mean, we didn't have to.

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There's nothing explicitly that says in the Bible,

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"You must do this."

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But, you know, if you read that story,

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God never told Mary to give the gift either.

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There's no record of Jesus ever asking her

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for what she gave,

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but He sure seemed to appreciate it anyway.

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And for Sarah and I, we just recognize

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God's been so faithful to us and we're so grateful.

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And so we choose to give to God.

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We choose to offer

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some of what He says is truly ours to Him.

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And there's level three, the extravagant offerings.

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Sometimes we get this extra prompt,

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we feel like God's asking for an extravagant offering.

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Just kind of a moment where it feels like,

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"Hey, would you? Would you give that for me?"

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And you know, it's extravagant

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because it'll feel painful at first every single time.

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And the amount is important.

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To us each time it's felt extravagant.

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And that's the point.

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I'm telling you this,

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it's the very foundation of my faith.

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This one, more than anything else, is why

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if someone said, "Do you believe in God?

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Explain to me why."

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I would point to stories of when I gave extravagantly

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and how God showed up in my life in a way

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that I could have never managed on my own.

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The first extravagant offering we ever gave

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was a small prompt in hindsight to give $500

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to friends who were getting married,

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but they just couldn't afford to print invitations.

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They were paying for everything on their own.

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So Sarah and I stepped in and we said,

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"Hey, we'd like to cover the invitations for you."

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We didn't even know them that well.

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Didn't even go to the wedding ourselves. Okay?

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But can I tell you, 15 years later,

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these same people are now some of our closest friends,

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to the point that our kids call them uncle and aunt.

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See, what's crazy is God got rewarded

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$500 of extravagant giving

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with 15 years and counting a friendship.

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A few years ago, God prompted us to give

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the most extravagant gift yet, which at that point

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was the larger portion of a year's salary.

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And we're a single income family.

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Sarah stays at home with our kids.

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And so for us, it's a pretty big deal.

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God just said, "Would you give this to Me?"

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That was the impression that we have.

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He was just gently saying,

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"Hey, this is what I'd like you to do."

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And I'd love to say that our immediate response

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was like, "Yes, God, of course, of course we will.

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We'd love -- whatever you ask for, absolutely."

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But honestly, we sweated it at first, it was painful.

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It was only over the course of a couple of weeks

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that we opened up and we said, "Okay, yes, God, yes.

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You've been so faithful to us in the past.

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We've seen Yu show up in the past.

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Whatever you ask for, if we sense You're asking for it,

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it's Yours.

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We'd love to be generous.

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We would, because You've been so generous to us."

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Listen, if you're watching this,

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I'm not telling you a dollar amount.

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I'm just telling you and encouraging you to say yes

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to whatever prompting God gives you,

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whatever He asks you for.

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I promise you'll look back years from now

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and the rest of your life,

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and you'll be so grateful that you just said yes

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when you give an extravagant gift.

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Now, let's talk about

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why Mary gave her extravagant gift.

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Why would she do that?

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Why would she give a year's wages to Jesus?

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We actually don't have to wonder.

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It's because two months before that exact scene

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of her giving that extravagant offering,

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two months before that, her brother Lazarus

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had been raised from the dead.

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The story actually says that Mary fell at Jesus's feet

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weeping as she ran out as he was coming into town,

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she fell at his feet weeping,

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and she covered his feet in tears of grief

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because her brother had died.

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And she was just so sure if Jesus had only been there,

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if He'd only shown up for her, he wouldn't have died.

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And she falls down, covers His feet in tears.

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Jesus comes in, raises her brother from the dead.

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And here we are two months later,

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and she does the most natural thing.

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She assumes the same posture.

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She falls at His feet and she gladly pours out

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an extravagant offering of gratitude,

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covers those same feet

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that her shed her tears on in perfume.

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It's extravagant.

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See, generous people are grateful people.

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And I just want you to think for a minute.

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If one of your family members was raised from the dead,

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would you be grateful?

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Do you think that might change how you give to God?

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Let me just remind you

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that all of us who believe in Jesus

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have been raised from the dead.

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Ephesians 2:1 says:

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She was going to pour out a year's wages on something,

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you know, she was going to spend it on something.

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I think there had to be this moment where she went,

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"I could either spend it on somebody that's decaying

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or the only thing on this earth

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that will outlive death: Jesus."

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And when that happened, Jesus knew He had her heart

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and He rewarded her.

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Why? Because God always rewards generosity.

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The same story is in Matthew and Mark.

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Mark 14:9 says:

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Jesus literally says, "This thing is so amazing,

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I promise for the rest of human history

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this story will be told to honor her."

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That's a reward.

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Mary was entirely rewarded.

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She didn't come to get a reward.

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That wasn't her motivation.

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She didn't come to Jesus going,

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"I really hope this pays off for me in the long run

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while I dump this perfume on?"

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No, she just gave out of gratitude.

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But when you give out of gratitude,

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God always rewards that generosity.

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See, selfishness is when you give

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and you think God owes you something.

00:18:54

Generosity is when you give to get nothing back.

00:18:57

And amazingly, God always rewards it.

00:18:59

See, God will reward you, sometimes financially,

00:19:02

but He'll give you things

00:19:04

that are far more valuable than money or boats

00:19:07

or whatever nice things

00:19:08

that you could possibly buy in your own.

00:19:11

He'll reward you with true riches, non-financial things,

00:19:15

the kind of stuff that

00:19:16

no matter how much money you have,

00:19:18

you just can't buy,

00:19:20

things that only God can make happen.

00:19:22

It's called the principle of multiplication.

00:19:24

See, no one can multiply the impact of your giving

00:19:28

like God, no one can.

00:19:31

Now, I told you that Sarah and I

00:19:34

gave that last very large amount,

00:19:37

the one that was hard to give it first.

00:19:38

And eventually we got around to,

00:19:40

we said, okay, okay, okay.

00:19:41

And I have to be honest, we've gotten rewarded

00:19:44

and we did see some financial return

00:19:47

at the start of giving that money.

00:19:48

We had no college savings.

00:19:50

By the end of paying it off,

00:19:52

we had a year's tuition in the bank.

00:19:54

We got a beautiful house on land

00:19:55

that we shouldn't have been able to afford.

00:19:57

We even got a free trip to Hawaii in there.

00:19:59

Crazy things, they did happen.

00:20:00

And I wouldn't be honest if I held those back

00:20:02

just so you wouldn't think I was strange.

00:20:04

You hear this all the time when people give.

00:20:07

But I want you to know,

00:20:08

none of those are what I consider the true reward.

00:20:12

The true reward was something

00:20:13

I could have never made happen on my own.

00:20:16

During that time, both of my sons, Ben and Eli,

00:20:22

on their own, separately, came to me

00:20:23

and asked if they could get baptized.

00:20:25

I didn't convince them to, I didn't sell them.

00:20:27

I know I'm a pastor.

00:20:28

You probably think, like, every night, you know,

00:20:30

I sit down before bedtime and I just grill them on,

00:20:32

like, "Do you want to get baptized? You should."

00:20:34

No, none of that at all. I never talked to them about it.

00:20:37

They just came to me. They asked.

00:20:39

And when they asked, I didn't just make it easy.

00:20:41

I raised the bar.

00:20:42

I said, "Hey, do you know this means

00:20:43

you're saying to God

00:20:44

that you'll follow Him no matter what?"

00:20:47

"Yeah, Dad, we understand that."

00:20:49

"Okay? Do you know this means

00:20:50

that you have to give Him some of your money?"

00:20:52

"Yeah, we understand that."

00:20:53

"Well, do you know this means really,

00:20:56

no matter the craziest thing He ever tells you to do,

00:20:58

you say yes?

00:20:59

If Jesus says give all your toys away,

00:21:02

you would do that?'

00:21:03

They were like, "Yeah, yeah, Dad, we will.

00:21:05

We want to follow Jesus with our whole lives

00:21:08

no matter what."

00:21:09

Then on November 19th, 2017, both of my sons

00:21:13

gave their lives to Jesus through baptism.

00:21:16

That's a reward. That's a reward.

00:21:19

And I'm telling you, no matter who you are,

00:21:21

God has something waiting for you

00:21:23

if you're willing to step in,

00:21:26

if you're willing to be courageous,

00:21:28

if you're willing to walk the road

00:21:30

that most people, frankly, aren't.

00:21:32

But if you do, I'm telling you, there'll be a reward

00:21:34

and you'll never, ever regret it.

00:21:40

- Man, look, I can't tell you how, like,

00:21:43

encouraging it is to know that when I step out

00:21:45

and give God what's mine, when I'm generous,

00:21:48

that then He steps in and multiplies it

00:21:50

and does the thing that I could never do on my own

00:21:52

and help people, man.

00:21:53

Talk about being blessed, dude.

00:21:55

That's what it's all about right there.

00:21:56

Good job, Kyle. - Well done.

00:21:58

Yeah, there's something cool that happens.

00:22:00

Like, when we're generous,

00:22:03

we're just following God's example,

00:22:04

like, we're doing for other people what He did for us.

00:22:07

And there's actually an example of that coming up

00:22:10

where, man, I hope you would experience

00:22:12

some generosity from God, some blessing from God.

00:22:15

It's a thing we do every month.

00:22:16

It's called Monthly Night of Prayer.

00:22:18

It happens online so you can join

00:22:20

from wherever you are, whatever time zone.

00:22:22

You don't even have to get dressed.

00:22:24

You can just join from the comfort of your own home.

00:22:26

And there's worship.

00:22:27

There's music that actually I'll be leading

00:22:30

with some friends

00:22:31

and there's a time for you to receive prayer.

00:22:33

And we've seen God show up in amazing ways.

00:22:35

We've seen, like, legit miracles.

00:22:37

I know that sounds crazy. I know you might be skeptical.

00:22:39

We've seen God show up.

00:22:41

We've seen people healed of stuff.

00:22:42

We've seen people hear from God

00:22:44

and get direction for their career,

00:22:46

for their family, or for their life.

00:22:48

It's a powerful time.

00:22:49

7:30 December 1st, would love to have you join us.

00:22:52

- That's real.

00:22:53

Some people are like, "Oh, another zoom."

00:22:55

Oh, stop it.

00:22:56

There's not many places that you can get prayer

00:22:58

and receive prophetic words

00:23:00

and encounter God in a real way

00:23:01

while having fuzzy slippers on.

00:23:03

So, this team has done a great job

00:23:05

of putting that together.

00:23:06

And God wants to be generous.

00:23:07

He wants to like throw blessings your way.

00:23:09

Take advantage of that, man.

00:23:11

- That's right.

00:23:12

- Speaking of fuzzy slippers, it's Christmas season.

00:23:15

- It's coming up, man.

00:23:16

- What's your favorite Christmas movie?

00:23:17

- Favorite Christmas movie. That's tough.

00:23:19

I make sure I see Elf every year. Every year.

00:23:23

- It's like Elf is on repeat the whole month?

00:23:26

- It makes it easy, right?

00:23:27

- So, the Christmas movie with the little kid

00:23:29

and the leg lamp, what's that one called?

00:23:31

- Christmas Story, right? Yes.

00:23:32

- I like it. - So good.

00:23:33

- Next week, Brian's kicking off our Christmas series

00:23:36

where we're going to unpack

00:23:37

some nostalgic Christmas movies

00:23:40

and tie those into the story of Christmas

00:23:42

as we see it in the Bible.

00:23:43

You are not going to want to miss it.

00:23:45

See you then.

00:23:50

- Well, hey, Andy Reider here,

00:23:51

community pastor of Crossroads Anywhere.

00:23:53

And I've actually been on staff at Crossroads

00:23:55

now for like 12 or 13 years.

00:23:57

So, I want to tell you something I've learned.

00:23:59

It's that around this place, the only constant is change.

00:24:02

We're always experimenting.

00:24:04

We're always changing things up

00:24:06

to figure out what will serve people better.

00:24:09

And I want to give you a heads up

00:24:11

about one of those changes that's coming up

00:24:13

actually starting next week.

00:24:15

For the last two years or so,

00:24:17

we've actually created two versions

00:24:19

of our weekly message that you can experience,

00:24:21

one that's filmed here in front of a live audience,

00:24:24

and another that's kind of, like, prerecorded,

00:24:27

shot on location or in a studio some place.

00:24:29

And the change that we're making

00:24:31

is we're actually consolidating those

00:24:33

into one common experience.

00:24:35

One common experience is going to be filmed

00:24:38

right here on stage in front of a live audience.

00:24:41

We think that's going to be the best thing

00:24:43

that we can offer, and this is really important,

00:24:47

the thing that gets me really excited, like,

00:24:49

and it frees up resources to continue to experiment,

00:24:52

to continue to take ground,

00:24:54

to continue to try new things and create new things

00:24:57

that we think will help people understand God

00:25:00

and His care and His love for them

00:25:02

in new and profound ways.

00:25:04

We actually shot our first pilot this past Thursday,

00:25:06

and man, I got to see some clips.

00:25:08

It's amazing stuff. It's amazing stuff.

00:25:10

So, while this is going to be

00:25:12

just a little bit different for some of us,

00:25:13

I think it's going to reiterate and just remind us

00:25:17

of the fact that we are one church

00:25:19

and get us all more aligned and more on the same page.

00:25:23

And we're grateful for you being with us

00:25:25

on this journey to experiment and to, as we say,

00:25:28

build a new kind of church,

00:25:29

a new kind of church for the future.

00:25:32

Thanks for being with us.

00:25:33

We're grateful. Have a great one.

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