Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Making Change, Part 3: Giving Is Good

Episode Date: September 25, 2016

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We are Life Church, one church meeting in multiple locations and reaching around the world with the help of church online. If you have any questions or you'd like to learn more about us as a church, you can always check us out online simply by going to life. Another great way to stay connected is through the all new and updated Life Church app. It's your ticket to staying connected throughout your week and everywhere you go and you can download it today for all of your favorite mobile devices. You know, right now we're in the middle of a message series about honoring God with our finances and today we'll see how giving from a heart of generosity doesn't have to be a chore. In fact, you can actually look forward to it. And our senior pastor Craig Rochelle will show us how in part three of making change. Well, it's awesome to have all of you with us today at all of our

life churches, our open network churches and those of you all over the world at church online. If you're just joining us, we are in part three of a four-part message series called making change. What are we doing? We are seeking God to make significant changes in how we manage the resources that God trusts to us. We are making change. And in this message series, we're actually looking at four really big thoughts. If you've been with us for the last two weeks, you know the first too well. I want to review them, and then I would love for all of you at all of our churches to help me out. We're going to repeat these a lot because we're planting them in our hearts. We believe they will reap a big harvest one day as we internalize these four truths.

The first week we talked about the principle that less is more. If you were here, remember, better as one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and a chasing after the wind. Less is more. Last week we talked about that stress is bad, financial stress is bad. to be in bondage, the borrower is servant to the lender. Today we're going to talk about that giving is good. Everybody say giving is good? We're talking, giving is good.

And then tomorrow matters. So what are we going to talk about? We're going to talk about less is more, stress is bad, giving is good, and tomorrow matters. All of our churches, let's say it aloud. What are our big four themes? We're going to talk about less is more, stress is bad, giving is good, tomorrow matters. Again, less is more, stress is bad. giving is good tomorrow matters one more time work with me because we're driving this in you got it you ready

you ready everybody ready what are we talking about less is more stress is bad giving is good tomorrow matters today I want to talk about giving is good giving is good in fact in Acts 2035 this is a powerful verse to illustrates this awesome truth when acts tells us this you should remember the words of the Lord Jesus when he said what? He said, it is more blessed to do what? All of our churches. He said, it's more blessed to give than to receive. So say it again. It's more blessed to give than to receive. Now, it's more blessed to do what? It's more blessed to give. But that doesn't mean it's not a blessing to receive. Am I correct? I mean, if you've ever received something, that's a blessing. Okay? So it's more blessed to give, but it's also a blessing to receive. What's interesting to me when I think about it, is in my receiving or in my getting or in my consuming, I cannot think

of a single emotional consuming story. When I look back over my life, I can't think of a single time where I've overwhelmed with emotion because I consumed or I got something. For example, I don't have a story like, I remember when I bought my first flat screen television, and I cried all the way home. I just, I was overwhelmed. I just cried with emotion. I don't remember ever saying, I got my first pair of Jordans when I was 17, and I felt so close to God. It was the most spiritual moment of my life when I slipped my feet into those jays. You know, I never said, you know, I felt whenever I got my first coach purse, I think the angels in heaven, this is like, a girl speaking, just in case you're wondering, this is a girl speaking, when I got my first coach purse, the angels in heaven were rejoicing when I got that very purse. I don't have a single, emotional, consuming story, but I bet, unlike you all, I've got a lot of emotional giving stories, right? If you've ever prayed about giving something, and it was a big gift to you, and then you gave on faith, and it really impacted some minute.

or some person, what does that make you feel? A deep sense of satisfaction. Maybe some of you, the first time that you ever tithed, you know, it was like, it was a big step of faith, and you just, you felt the joy of being obedient to God, and you saw the provision and blessings of God in your life, or you prayed about making a sacrificial gift and it was really emotional to you, or there was something you could have sold, but you thought, you know what, no, I think we're supposed to give this to someone, and they were so blown away by your generosity.

How many of you know it's more blessed to give than it is to receive? It's more blessed. In fact, as I think about this, there's kind of a little category of stories that illustrates this more pointedly in my life than I can even imagine. Years ago, when Amy and I were first married, we drove, you know, really old cars. Mine's still old today, but there was, Amy's broke down. I took it to the mechanic, and he told me what was wrong with it and said it was going to cause. such and such dollars. Now, the price to get it fixed was not a lot of money to a lot of people, but it was a lot of money to me. Who knows what I'm talking about? You've ever been there, right?

Wasn't a whole lot. And so evidently, I guess the look on my face was like, oh, and I just kind of must have shown that. And he said, I didn't know the guy. He said, I'll tell you what. You don't know me, but I know who you are. He said, my daughter actually came to Christ in your ministry, and so this one's on the house. And I was like, oh my, I went home. I told, you can clap if you want to because that was very, very special to receive. I went home. I told Amy, we prayed, we prayed blessings for this guy. It was very meaningful, and it was a blessing to receive. Years went by. I was in a auto place getting my oil change, and there was this young mom, had two little kids kind of hanging off of her, and she found out what her car was

going to cost to be repaired. And she started crying. And she got on the phone and she went outside and was talking to her husband. So I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. We don't have this money. It's our van. We drive our babies in it. What do I do? What do I do? And I thought back to the blessing I received. And I thought, you know what? That's a lot of money to her. But at this point of my life, I don't need that money. So I walked up to the counter and I said the guy, hey, hey, could I pay for her car? But you can't tell her. I want to pay for the repair. And he got like, like, why would you do that? Like, I don't know.

I just think it'd be awesome. He's like, he was awesome. And so, so just don't tell her. And so I swipe my card. And he said, what do I tell her? She said, make something up. And so she came back in and she's trying to teary-eyed. And he said, you're not going to believe this.

And she said, what? He said, your car is free. And she said, why? And he said, we've got a special going on today. She said, what kind of special? He said, it's a buy one, get one free. She said, that doesn't make sense. He said, the last guy buys it and you get it free.

And she started crying. And then right there, she started thanking God. She got on the phone, called her husband, and through this emotion, she said, God, it just provided for us. It's just amazing. It's just amazing. I'm here to tell somebody that it was a blessing to receive, but with no hesitation in my mind, do I tell you.

It was more blessed for me to give on that day. It was more blessed to give than to receive. The fulfillment, the joy, the sense of being used by God to make a difference anonymously in someone else's life. It's more blessed to give than to receive. What's the principle? Say it with me. Giving is good. Say it again, all of our churches.

Giving is good. One more time. What is giving? Giving is good. It's more blessed to give than to receive. In fact, I love the teaching of Paul in 2 Corinthians 9-11 when he said this. He said, you will be enriched in every way. Why?

Why? So that you can be say it aloud, so that you can be generous on every occasion. And through us, he said, your what say it aloud? He said, through us, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. Imagine people thanking God. Why? Because you were generous and a blessing in their lives. If we know that giving is good, if we know it's more blessed to give than receive, that raises the question, why don't we do it more often?

Right? Seriously, why don't we give it more often? And I'll tell you what I think are probably the top three reasons. Number one is we don't feel like we have enough. We'd love to do more, but we're kind of struggling right now. Our heart's in the right place, but we just don't feel like we have the ability. Another reason I think is because we've actually seen this message abused. And I don't want to take a shot at anybody, but you know what I'm talking about. Slick hair, you know, if you throw your seed today, you know, put a hundred dollars, you're going to get a thousand dollar back, you know. And in the whole thing that goes with that.

And so there's some skepticism about it. Like, oh, here we go again. You know, I don't want a giving message because we've seen this abused. I think the third reason, and this was my reason growing up, is because we often live with a scarcity mindset instead of an abundant mindset. In other words, if I give, I'm going to have less. And there's really not enough to go around. If you have something, that means I don't have access to it,

rather than having an abundant mindset, which is I am blessed to be a blessing. We serve an abundant God who provides for the needs of his people, often through his people. And for me, the thing that held me back was that I really lived under a scarcity mindset. In other words, I will never, ever have enough.

I always need more before I can give generously, and that's why I often didn't. I'm retraining my mind. I'm telling myself, always, I want to live it. It's more blessed to give than to receive. And what I've discovered is this, and you know this to be true. Whenever you give, you are always a blessing, number one. And whenever you give, you are always blessed. Let me say it again.

Whenever you give, you are always a blessing. And whenever you give, you will always be blessed. That doesn't mean that you give $100 and you get $1,000 back. You might. But what it means is you have the fulfillment, the joy, the sense of destiny that God use you to make a difference in someone else's life. You will be a blessing and you will be blessed. In fact, that's why I love the way the message, which is kind of a devotional version

of the Bible translates Proverbs 11, 24, and 25. The world of the generous gets larger and larger. The world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller. The one who blesses others, help me on all of our churches. The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed. What happens? When you give, you're a blessing to others and you're always blessed. That's why I say, without any hesitation, without any weakness in my voice,

that giving is good, giving is good, giving is good, giving is good, giving is good, because it is always more blessed to give than it is to receive. So, if giving is good, then I want to get better at it. If giving is good, I want to grow in generosity. And what I want to do today is I want to just show you three truths from Scripture that will help us all grow in generosity. The first one, if you're taking notice, this is the foundation, and this is where we start.

This is 101 giving. This is for beginners who are followers of Jesus. Thought number one is this. We learn to trust God with the tithe. This is where we start. It's the beginning point. We're going to trust God with the tithe. What is the tithe?

The tithe comes from a Hebrew word the word maasur, and it means one-tenth. It's a tenth of whatever we receive. In fact, Leviticus 27, verse 30, says one-tenth, Everybody say one-tenth. The Bible says one-tenth of the produce of the land, whether grain from the fields or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord. And it must be set apart to him as holy. In other words, if I get $100, the first ten isn't technically mine. It belongs to God. I return that to him as an act of worship. Now, that sounds. It sounds crazy, okay?

That sounds crazy. I mean, the first time I heard that I was like, oh, did I sign up for this? I didn't know that what I called on Jesus. Like, that doesn't make any sense to me. In fact, Matthew chapter 3, verse 10 brings strength to this teaching. When Malachi says, bring the whole tithe, bring all 10%, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, which is a picture of the local church, that there may be food in my house.

What are you receiving today? there's spiritual food. You're being nourished and strengthened in the things of God. Your children are being strengthened. You're becoming fully devoted followers of Christ. Bring the whole tithe that there may be food in my house, says the Lord. And then God says, the only place in Scripture. This is really interesting.

No other place are we allowed to test God. But in this one area, God says, test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. Test me in this. This is the only place where God says you can test me. Now, why did God give us permission to test them in this area?

I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing because God knew it would freak us out. 10% like, are you serious? That's like, how in the world am I going to do this? And some of you would be even right now. So I'm supposed to be getting out of debt and I'm supposed to give 10%, We'll slow the horse down there, big boy, okay?

This is crazy, right? And here's what many of you would think. You're like, in order to do that, I would have to totally and completely 100% rearrange my life around God. It's kind of what I'm saying. It's kind of exactly what I'm saying. You'd have to change some things to actually put God first with the tithe. kind of like we do maybe in other areas of our life.

We're going to seek God first in the day. We're going to seek God first in the week with an act of worship. We seek God the first part of the year with a fast. And we're going to seek and worship God with the first part of what he trusts to us as an act of worship back to him. Well, I'd have to rearrange a lot. Yes. That would take great faith.

Yes. And what that does then is it moves you. out of the comfort zone, into a point of worship. God, I need to depend on you. Test me in this. I'll tell you a little bit of my own personal tie of story. I was a new Christian years and years ago and I heard this. And I shook it off the first couple times.

And then the third time I heard it like, all right, I'll give 10% and I went to a Christian bookstore and gave them 10% of my income in exchange for T-shirts and music. That's what I did. Like, I'll get something for this. And that wasn't what it was saying. And finally, after a while, I actually became significantly convinced that this is, you know, what was true. My big hang-up was, well, this isn't in the New Testament until someone showed me Matthew 23, 23, when Jesus actually said, hey, you should tithe. Don't forget the other important things, but Jesus said, you should tithe. And so,

like, Jesus says it, I think I need to do it. And so I just worked a whole summer teaching tennis, and I'd made what was a lot of money for a 19-year-old all summer long. And I remember writing a check and going on, and it was one of the holiest moments of my life because once I decided to do it, before I even did it, there's like this sense of, yeah, I'm going to worship and trust God with this. And I'm going to need to see him come through.

And I remember putting the check in the offering plate and just having this sense of, God, I just did something in a real area that's important to me that honored you and took faith. Now, what I'm about to tell you that happened next is 100% true, and I'm not going to say this is going to happen to everybody, but this is what happened to me.

I gave my very first tithe. I went home, and my grandmother called, who lived in Houston, Texas. She grew up in the Depression, lived in this little bit of small house. We always thought she was poor. We had no idea that some depression people put all their money under the bed, okay?

And she had saved and saved and saved and saved. My mom's actually in this service and can verify this story. She called and said, said, I can't explain it, and she had never done anything like this before, she said, but God put it on my heart to buy you a car, okay? And she bought me a Honda Accord, not just a regular car, but a biblical car, Honda Accord. And all the disciples gathered in one, see what I'm saying, right? And I'm telling you what, it's like this, to me, I don't know,

I think that's what I needed to see. This is how extravagantly faithful my God. God is. Now again, let me just tell you, I'm not telling you you do this and you're going to get a new card. That's not what I'm telling you at all. What I am telling you is that when you test God, he will prove himself faithful in some way. You will see the goodness of God. And the way I say it now is, here's what I'll do. I will worship and trust God with my first and my best and trust him to bless the rest. I will worship God with my first. and my best, and trust him to bless the rest. I really believe that God can do more with 90% that's blessed that I can do with 100% on my own. The first 10% goes to God. If I want to grow in generosity, I'm going to worship God with the type. I'm going to worship God with the time. The second thing is this, is we're going to learn to plan our generosity.

Number two, plan your generosity. I don't know about you, but I plan to acquire. Anybody who ever planned to get something? For example, I needed some shoes. Check these shoes out. Look at these kicks right here. We shopped for them all over. We looked around with a coupon and free shipping.

These were under 40 bucks for a brand new pair of shoes. Okay. We shopped and to make the kill. It's like research. A lot of us will do this. Got to find the best deal, the best, blah, blah, blah, blah. What if we sat around and said, how can we plan not just to get more, but how can we plan to give more? How can we plan to be more

generous? What if we stood around and strategize? How can we rearrange our lives since it's more blessed to give them and receive? And so we can be a blessing to even more people. In fact, Isaiah 32 verse 8 says that's exactly what generous people do. Generous people do what, help me out, but generous people plan to do what is generous and what do they do? They stand firm in their generosity. They plan. It's not accidental or incidental, it's intentional. We plan to be generous. In fact, I talked to some people that the economy has kind of slowed down their revenue, and they said, but we're going to give. Why? We stand firm in our generosity. One guy, he always gave to spaces and places. He sold a boat in order to give the money. Why? We stand firm. Another couple sold season tickets just to give that.

One person was unemployed and said, I don't have an income in order to tithe. Can I come and give my time until I have a job. Why? I've got to give something. I'm standing firm in my generosity because giving is not something that we do. Generous is who we are as Jesus followers. We plan to be generous. In fact, there's a really cool couple I met from the church that really grasped this idea. They started with the tithe and said, here's where we're going to start. And then I taught on this verse years ago, and it really captured their hearts. And they said, we can't do much above that, What can we do? And they decided to take $20 a month and set it aside and plan to be a blessing to somebody

else. So before the month ever started, they actually kept a journal to keep track of how God would use them so years later they could recount all the fun stories of how God used them to be a blessing. And so before the month started, we've got $20 set aside to be a blessing to someone else. The first month they said the tornadoes hit in a certain part of the country. and so they felt led to give that to help people in need. The next month there was someone, a mom in the grocery store

that came up short to pay for their groceries, and guess what? They were prepared and said, here, let us pay for it and keep the rest. They ended up inviting her to come to church. She ended up coming to church and even bringing people with her, and they wrote that down in the journal. One kid couldn't afford a uniform on their kid's team. They bought them a uniform.

And the stories went on and on. They planned to be generous. Here's what's really cool. That was years ago. And as they've been faithful in their resources, and as they've been generous, they're even blessed more now than before. This couple that started out giving $20 a month above their tithe now gives $200 every single month above their tide. Why? It wasn't accidental, you see.

It was intentional. How can we give more to be a blessing to people? If it's truly more blessed to give than it is to receive, then what are we going to do? We are going to plan to be generous. How do we grow in generosity? It starts with the tithe. God, we return our first and our best and trust you to bless the rest. Then we plan to be generous.

And the third thing, if you're taking notes, is this. We're simply going to start being generous now. Right now. We're going to start being generous now. Well, I thought we were getting out of debt. Oh, absolutely. we are. But this is the supernatural part along the way. We're not going to wait until we're out of debt to be a blessing. We're going to be a blessing along the way and watch as we always bless others

and we're always blessed as well. We're going to start now. In fact, Paul told Philemon this and Philemon 1-6, I'm praying that you will do what? Let's say it, that you will put into action, the generosity that comes from your faith as you understand. And it's a very thing. And it's, experience all the good things we have in Christ. As you understand all the good things we have in Christ, our only reasonable response to the one who gave his son for us is to give our lives back to him. God doesn't just own the first 10%, he owns everything that we have, and we want to use it to be a blessing. We're going to start being generous now. Here's how this really changed my whole life. I told you, I lived for years with the scarcity mindset.

So true. Well, a little over 10 years ago or so, our church had grown to the place where now people around the world were starting to say, can we purchase your resources? Can we get the sermons, the videos, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we were just trying to be faithful to the church. We didn't have any systems in place to do this. And let me just be real transparent when I tell you. There's a lot of money in selling resources, okay?

not only for the organization, but if I can be really transparent, the person who creates it can get royalties off that. Who would that be? That would be me, okay? And so that was, you know, always a reality. And so they said, can you sell it? And the problem is, we were in the peak of debt back that time. In fact, as a church, you could say we were living paycheck to paycheck. We were always, always tight. And they wanted to, you know, can you sell these resources? And someone on the team said, what if we gave the resources away? And the minute they said that, I had two emotions. One is I thought this is absolutely the right thing to do, and the other thing is I had sheer terror because I was so afraid. Okay? I'm just being real honest with you. And I remember thinking,

why don't we sell the resources and give a part of that? Or why don't we sell them until we're in a little better shape, and then we'll give them away. That was I thought. Okay? I took a trip to a developing nation. And this was during a time when my wife Amy was on a crazy diet kick, and we were eating no meat. Okay. Oh, thank you, Jesus. We have been set free from that little short period of time. Okay. Glory to God for meat. And I was joking around at church about how, you know, some guys go out in town to get drunk. I go out of town to get a steak, you know. I was just joking around. And I said that in a message, and then we flew to this really, really poor part of the world. and if you've ever been to a place, it was just heart-crushing.

We're talking like cardboard houses, you know, no floors, no electricity, no running water, you know, the toilet's a whole outside and such. And so this lady had us over for dinner, well, that's relatively speaking. So we were outside sitting on logs for dinner. I looked around, and everyone there had greens and such. And she put in front of me meat. and I was really confused. I said, you know, why?

I asked my translator, why do I have meat? Does she have meat? He said, no, no, no, she didn't have meat. Why didn't anybody else have meat? And she said, well, my translator said, well, she heard that you haven't had any meat. And she really wanted to bless you with meat. And I said, I can't receive this. I want her to have it.

Can she eat this meat? And he said, no, she probably hadn't had meat in several years. But she was saving up because she was saving up because she was. She wanted to, and I watched a lady who didn't wait to be generous. And I came back, and we sat in a little room, and we said, we're giving the resources away. We're giving the resources away. We're going to do it now. And Pastor Jerry's in this service, and he can verify that very week, we started being blessed financially.

And 10 years later, we're 100% debt-free as a church. no man anything, and we have been blessed along the way beyond any sense of the word. Last year, there were 35, 35,000, 65,000 pastors that downloaded free resources. 350,000 pastors around the world downloaded free resources. We've given away about 9 million free resources, not counting, 237 million U-Version Bible apps to people all over the world. And as a church, we now live with this driving thought, and that is this. We will lead the way with irrational generosity, because we truly believe it is more blessed to give than to receive. We will lead the way with irrational generosity.

We will not wait until later we will give now. Why? We truly believe it is more blessed to give than receive. What do we know? What do we know? We know less is more. I don't need more stuff. Better is one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and it's chasing after the win.

We know that stress is bad. We know that say it with me, giving is good and we know tomorrow matters. If it's more blessed to give than to receive, why would we wait until later to be a blessing to other people and to be blessed in our own life? Jesus said it, we will live it. how will we do it? We trust God with our first and our best and believe that he will bless the rest. We plan to be generous. Generous people stand firm in their generosity. We seek God how we can be even more generous. And then we start now because of all God has done. Our only reasonable response is to be a blessing in the lives of other people. And what do we know? Every time we give, every time we give,

we are a blessing to someone else. And every time we give, we are blessed by God because he uses us to make a difference. And imagine if we're enriched in every way, why? So we could be generous on every occasion. And people would give thanksgiving to God because his people honored him with generosity. So Father, today I pray that you would plant this tree,

truth deep in our hearts. The giving is good. Giving is good. Giving is good. May we always believe the words of Jesus. It's more blessed to give than it is to receive. And all of our churches, take a moment and reflect on the words of Christ and other in

scripture. I wonder how many of you would say, you know what? I do. I feel a lot of that. I believe it's good, and yet sometimes I would love to give more, but I don't feel like I can. or I've seen it abused and it kind of aches, or I feel that scarcity mindset.

But by faith, I want to be more generous. I want to plan to give. I want to give now. I want to be blessed to be a blessing to see divine opportunities to make a difference. And all of our churches, those who say, you know what, yes, I want to grow in generosity. If that's you today, would you lift up your hands?

All of the hands, all the churches, then hands going up everywhere. God, I thank you for a people that have been changed by the goodness of your son, Jesus. And because of who he is, God, we want to be a blessing to others. So, Father, I thank you that even today, there will be those who will take a massive step of faith, to trust you and to worship you, even to test you and see you be faithful as they honor you, God, with 10% of what you blessed them with, believing that 90% with your blessings will go further than 100% without. God, encourage them, minister to them as they take a step of faith.

God, help us to plan to give, recognizing that generous people stand firm in their generosity. And God, we commit, as you bless us, even if we don't even feel extraordinarily blessed, we will give now being generous to meet needs because we truly believe, God. Truly believe it's more blessed to give than to receive. God, for those who may be even hurting today, I pray, God, as the church, you would use us to meet the needs of people all over this world, that the world would look on and see, see how they love each other. And, God, you would be glorified as we use what you've given us in an act of worship to meet needs of people all over the world. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, if there's anything that God is known for, what is he known for giving? For God's so loving. For God's so long. love the world. What did he do? He gave. He gave. He gave his one and only son, Jesus, that whosoever believes in him would not perish, but would have eternal life. And all of our churches, there are many of you who say, you know what, I'm not kind of all into the church thing, or,

you know, maybe I believe in God, but I'm not like, you know, overly spiritual or religious or whatever. I want to tell you right now that God didn't call you just to be religious. He is calling you to surrender your life completely to him. If you recognize, hey, I don't. not walking with Jesus daily. You may even recognize, I need something in my life. If you're really, really honest, you're going to have to acknowledge.

We've all done things wrong. And what is that called? Honestly, that's called sin. We've all sinned and fallen short of God's standard of perfection. But this is why we talk about the gospel. What does the gospel mean? It means good news.

The good news is that God did something for us that we didn't deserve and we could never ever earn. He became one of us in the person of Jesus. For God so loved the world that he gave. His one and only son, Jesus died for our sins on the cross. On the third day, the tomb was empty. He was raised from the dead.

Why? So that anyone who calls on his name would be saved. At all of our churches, there are those of you. You recognize, okay, God gave his son for me. My only reasonable response is to give my life back. That is salvation. when we turn from our sins and we turn toward God, and we completely surrender saying,

Jesus, I give you my life. Forgive me. Be first in my life. I give my life to you. And all of our churches, those who say, yes, that's my prayer. I recognize my need for him. I am a sinner. I need a savior.

Today, I turn from my sins and I say, yes, Jesus, I give you my life. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now. All of our church and say, yes, I surrender to you. Church online, you click right. below me and as we have people all over the world calling out to him I would love it if you would pray with those around you simply pray aloud pray Heavenly Father today I trust you

giving you my whole life Jesus forgive me of all of my sins make me brand new fill me with your spirit so I could know you and serve you and follow you and follow you and Every day of my life, my life is not my own. Today I give it to you. Thank you for new life. Now you have mine. In Jesus' name I pray. All of our churches, would you take a moment?

Worship God, loud, big welcome those born into God's family today. It's our honor as a church to play a small part in all that God is doing in and through your life. And we would love to continue with you on that journey. To find out what your next steps could be in your relationship with Christ, So all you have to do is go to life.church slash next. And a great next step for you could be enrolling in Financial Peace University, where we have groups and classes meeting at all of our life church locations, as well as church online.

To find out more, all you have to do is talk to your campus staff or go to financial peace. com online. You know, as Pastor Craig said, honoring God with our finances starts with a tie, believing he can do more with 90 than we can do with 100. But taking that first step can often be the most dead. difficult. Caleb Kramer had to take that step at one of the most financially strapped times in his entire life, but what he found on the other side was way, way more. Here's his story. So before we started tithing, financially, we were doing really well, but all that changed.

My wife lost her job. We just had a newborn baby, and I wanted to be home more, so I quit my second job. And it was in the midst of like this financial, just craziness of not knowing if we were going to be able to pay everything, that we felt convicted to start tithing. I remember leaving church that day, driving home, we were discussing, like, can we do this? Like, what if we can't pay all of our bills? What if it doesn't work out? But we decided to take that step of faith anyways, and man did God show up? We were able to pay all of our bills.

We were able to pay off our debt. Our marriage grew closer. We became better parents to our daughter. It was so many ways that God bless us, both financially and not financially, that God did so much more with the 90% that we had left. than we were ever able to do when we had our 100%. It's people like you and like Caleb who give generously that make everything possible that we do here at Life Church. And one of the things you've made possible is by allowing our 25th campus location in Overland Park, Kansas that opened earlier this year to move into their brand new facility on September 25th. If you know anybody in the area, friends, family, I don't care who, you just got to let them know that the new building will be opening on September 25th.

and we'd love to see them there. You know, it's our mission and our passion to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. It's that statement that drives everything we do here as a church. And we do all of it because we believe whoever finds God finds life.