The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 5: Take Hold of True Life

Episode Date: November 13, 2022

Do good. Be rich in good works. Be generous and ready to share. Take hold of that which is truly life. What is God calling you to do? Are you ready to make your 10:10 Life commitment? You can do so here: http://coe22.com/commit

Amen and amen. Hey, if you got your Bibles, I hope you do, First Timothy 6 is where we're going to be. In your journal, it's page 67, if you want to go there. I know all of our campus pastors just honored all the veterans, but I want to say happy Veterans Day weekend. And to all of our veterans personally, from me, this dude, I want to say thank you because you are willing to stand on that wall

and stand in the gap, people like me get to share the gospel without fear of people coming to get us. Amen? Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Hey, it's huge weekend. Biggest weekend we've ever had, biggest thing we've ever done. It is commitment weekend. And I just want to warn you, I'll be kind of fighting the cold all week, and then it hit

today hard, as it would. So I'm going to put a couple cough drops up here. And a part of the reason I do this one time I was preaching with a cough truck, and somebody asked me if I was dipping. And I said, who in the world would dip at church? So I'm not. It's just a cough drop. So if I hack, going my way through it, just pray about that for me, okay?

Hey, I'm reminded of the very first time I ever preached here in what used to be the Hobby Lobby. It was four years ago, maybe a little bit more than that. And we were about to do the One Initiative, and this was just a leftover Hobby Lobby at that point. And it was in the One Initiative that we built this out and launched a bunch of campuses. And as I got ready to come over here and preach,

one of the things we were doing in the One Initiative is we were rolling out our special needs ministry. And one of my guys, man, a dear friend of men named dear friend of my name Henry. Henry is one of our VIPs in our special needs ministry. And I saw him, and he serves here in a whole bunch of different capacities. And I walked up to him, and I said, Henry, will you pray for me? Because I was about to preach.

And he goes, what do I pray about? And I said, buddy, I'm a little bit nervous. And so he put his hand on my shoulder. And he said this, dear God, don't let Joe be nervous. Then he said, and make him preach good. Amen. So the reason I tell you that is today is commitment Sunday. So I want to echo Henry's prayer to you.

Don't be nervous. I'm going to try to preach good. And then at the end of it, we are going to make our commitment and just see what God has in store for us. I want you to go to First Timothy. And the part of the reason I want to go to this passage is because you need to know a little bit of the background. Paul is instructing young Timothy

to lead a church, the church at Ephesus. And the crazy thing is that there's a relationship here that Paul has with Timothy that is beyond just like a preacher and a protege. It's like a father-son relationship. It's very deep. They pray together. They cry together. They do ministry together. And the way to best understand both First and Second Timothy is to understand, 2nd Timothy 1-7 says, Paul says, for God did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control.

He lays his hands on young Timothy, and he says this. Basically, I've talked about this before, that our heart is like a game of musical chairs, and at the end of it, there's only one throne, and there will always be two things circling that throne of your heart, and it's fear or fake, and they both don't get to sit down. And even today, as we make commitments, those two things, we'll circle the throne of our hearts, and only one gets to sit down, and God did not give you a spirit of fear. but he gave us a spirit of faith, a spirit of power and of love and of self-control. And the reason that he tells Timothy this is because Timothy has a lot of circumstances to be

afraid of. 14 times in 2nd Timothy, Paul's going to give him physical things to be afraid of, that he might get locked up, jail, beaten, bruised, etc. That Timothy grows up without a dad. That can mess you up. That Timothy is going to be a real young guy pastoring a church in an exploding city. So he says, don't let people look down on you because of your youth, but set for them an example in love, life, speech, and purity. In fact, we know Timothy has like a nervous stomach.

Maybe when he stands up in front of people to do what I'm doing, he gets like nervous. He has a bad stomach. And Paul is going to say, so take a little wine for your stomach. Do you hear that Baptist? I read one Southern Baptist commentary that says, that was meant for external use only. Oh, bless those sweet folk. Isn't that great? Don't you love them?

I know some of you were. Welcome. Yeah, man. And then at the end of First Timothy, he's going to talk about another thing that preachers often get scared to talk about. He's going to talk to Timothy about how to talk to people about money. And basically what he's going to do at the end of First Timothy, chapter 6, he's going to say, listen, Timothy, as a preacher, when you talk to people, you're going to talk to two different

types of people. You're going to talk to people who are rich and people who want to be rich. those are the two categories of people you're going to talk to. And with that in mind, as we prepare to make this 10-10-life commitment, I want you to see Paul's instructions to Timothy and God's instructions to us. First Timothy, chapter 6, beginning of verse 2, he says this, teach and urge these things. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ

and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. In other words, Tim, you preach the Bible. You contend for the faith. You don't just say what they want to hear and you don't just talk about what you want to fight about. You preach the Bible. Then it goes on to say,

he has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions. The Greek word for that is Twitter. I don't know if you knew that. That's what it is. and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

There are some people that can be so twisted in the mind that they think that I can put God in my service to give me what I want. That's what he's saying. And this will be true of anybody that puts their self at the center of their own universe. And then he's saying, but Tim, I don't want you to be like that. I want you to be different. Verse six. but godliness with contentment is great gain.

Think about this. Like imagine if you fully could experience that. But godliness, like me and God are cool, with contentment, all the world's okay, is great gain. Can you imagine what Paul calls in Philippians, knowing the secret of being content in every situation? This weekend, my son, JP and I were going to a father-son retreat, and we're riding up there to the retreat center, and he goes, Daddy, it's been a good week, hadn't it? I go, oh, buddy, he was a good, he wasn't talking about father-son stuff.

You know what he was talking about? Football. That's what he was talking about. That it has been a good week. That the team that I coached for, that he plays for Providence, we won last Friday night. Praise God for that. He got an interception. That's cool.

Then on Saturday, we beat the number one Tennessee volunteers, but they didn't volunteer to show up, so that was cool. and then last Sunday, even the Jags won. Come on, can I get a witness? I prophesied about it last week. Check it. Down 17, nothing. That didn't stop us, right? And then even the Bucks won too.

I disciple a guy on the Bucks team, so we watched them. So we went four for four in our football teams. That is absolute contentment. Because it's one thing when you lose. You know what I hate about losing when your football teams? I don't have anything to do with it, but, you know, when my teams I like lose, is that when you watch the highlights later, they bring it all up again, right? But when all of your teams win, no matter what highlights you're watching, you don't care because

it's all going to remind you that all is well. Now, that's silly, and that's very circumstantial. But just imagine if you could get to the place where you actually walked in godliness with contentment, great gain, that it would be well with your soul. That is a part of what it means to walk in the abundant life. and so Paul's going to give a little perspective. He says, here's how you get there. For, we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.

It all stays here. I don't care how rich or poor you are, you all leave the same, 100% of it. But if we had food and clothing with these, we will be content. Can you imagine that level of contentment? You mean to tell me if I had a taco and some pants, I'd be all good? Yeah. And you read that, be like, that's impossible. Let me tell you, it ain't impossible.

You ever been on a mission trip? Pastor Britt and I talk about this all the time, man. We got so much stuff around here, and you get on a plane, and you go to, like, let's say, East Africa, and you roll into a village in Kenya. And here's a mama with a bunch of kids living in a house made out of mud, and the roof is thatch, and the floors are dirt, but she sweeps them to the point they look like marble. And she has a joy that all of us with all the stuff are secretly jealous of. You know what she knows?

She knows the reality of the power of the Word of God. She knows that if we have food and clothing, with these, we will be content. But, however, there's another group of people. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation. Let me ask you a very pointed question. Does anyone here desire to be rich? Okay, good, none of you. Anybody struggle with lying?

Oh, it's all of you who didn't raise your hand. You see, I desire to be, actually we don't desire to be rich. We desire to be rich er. We're into er. We'll talk about that in a little while. But he's given us a, he's given us a little warning here, because I desire to be richer, for sure. And he's like, but let me just warn you, those who desire to be rich fall into temptation. If you have this desire for stuff and it begins to get too big in your life and is not subject to the Lord of your life, if it becomes the Lord of your life, you will be tempted to and cheat and steal. You'll be tempted to be prideful.

You'll be tempted to do other people wrong. You'll be tempted to be greedy. And maybe the worst one of all is you will be tempted to say, forget you, God, I don't need you. I have everything I need. And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Those who desire to be rich, pay attention because there's temptation.

And you're tempted into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. it. Now here's how arrogant we are. We read that and you be like, those dummies, not me. Well, of course you don't think it's you. That's why it's a trick. It's a lure. It's a snare. If you've ever snared anything, I know most of you have it, but I do. I catch things that I want to catch. And it's a trick. You're like, hey, look, free corn, and then they're gone. You understand? This is what the enemy is trying to do. He is trying to trick us. I told you this a million times,

but it's been a minute. Gretchen I, we first got married. We got these two dogs, man. We got these boxers. And it got to the point where we couldn't leave them in the house unsupervised. Actually, the reality is when we just had the male, no problem. Introduce the female chaos. Okay? It's very biblical. See, Genesis 3. However, I kid, relax. So we went to Pekko. We got a crate. And the people at Pekko are liars. They're like, oh, they love the crate. All you have to do is say crate. And they're and their inner wolfness will come out and they'll feel like it's the den and they'll get in there and just snuggle and pray for you while you're gone.

They are liars because we would try to get them in the crate and try to push them in and it was, you couldn't do it, man. You'd say crate and they'd run and get under the bed. We ain't going to no crate. But you know what they did love? Cheese. So we just opened the crate and go cheese and they were boxers so they had that drooly thing. I'd be like, you know, come down like that.

And then you would throw the cheese in the crate. They would dive in thinking, how lucky are we? we got cheese and we would close the door and they'd be like oh crap the crate every day three or four times a day it worked and we would think what a dumb dog and then we walk out and the enemy goes cheese and we're like cheese it's just different kind of cheese this is what he's saying that if you're not careful we can plunge into ruin and disruption and he would say oh who would do that oh man any child any children of the 90s and you made it out remember mc hammer He released an album in 1990, and that one album in one day made $33 million.

The hit on the song was, Can't Touch This. Do you know what he did with $33 million? He spent about $35 million of it on a lavish lifestyle. And he went bankrupt. And here's what's crazy. On that same album, he had a song called Pray. You Got to Pray If You Want to Make It Today. Remember that?

Well, guess what? if you made dumb decisions with your money, I don't care how much you pray, you're going bankrupt. Or how about this? Remember Mike Tyson? Right? From 1985 to 2005, Mike Tyson made about $500 million.

From 1985 to 2005, he made $500 million. During that same time period, guess how much I made? You just laugh right at a little bit. He made that. You're right. I made $280,000 during that whole time. That averages out about $14,000 a year if you're doing the math, okay? And in 2013, the guy with $500 million declares bankruptcy, and in 2013, we were one year into planting this church, and I had exponentially more than Mike Tyson had. It's crazy, isn't it? Now, don't tell him I said that, because he might push me in the face

and bite my ear off, but that's not what we're talking about. You know, I met him one time? He was super cool, but anyway, I was scared. It was like petting a pit bull. You're like, this is awesome, and I could die any second. That's how I felt the whole time I meant. See, he's talking about people that plunge into ruin and destruction. Why does this happen? Why does this happen?

Here's how easily we are to be tricked, because you don't think it could happen to you. Ecclesiastes 5 says, He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income. This is also vain. How many of you have ever met a family, and they don't even do Thanksgiving together anymore, and everything was fine until Nana died, and they couldn't figure out the inheritance?

See? How many ever knew some people, I mean, good church buddies, and they planted a business together, they started a business together, and when they had no money, no problems. But when money got involved, just like the 20th century philosopher Biggie used to say, more money, more problems, and now these people don't even go to church together anymore. How many of you have ever seen a marriage that was torn apart because they couldn't agree on this, on money? Be careful.

It's a snare. It's a trap. And then a very famous verse that gets misquoted all the time. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. The Bible does not say money is the root of all evil. But the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Why? Because we were designed to love God, love people,

and then use money as a tool to that end. But when our affections begin to shift and we begin to love money, then we will try to use God and people as a means to the end of loving our money. This is why the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It's through this craving that some people wandered away from the fate and pierced themselves with many pangs. You know what a craving is? A craving is like an appetite. And here's the thing about an appetite.

It will never be fully and finally satisfied. our appetites have a very short vocabulary it's more and now that's all they know and when your heart begins to shift towards the temporary things of this world then you will begin to go down this path that will lead to your destruction and some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs and you think not me let me tell you how easy it is look man god blesses it and you be like you know what we're going to get a boat now let me just tell you man there's nothing wrong with A boat? It could be a good gift of God. Does anyone have a boat? If you have a boat, raise your hand. Primarily a fishing boat. If you have a fishing boat, raise it high. Keep that hand up. Invite me to come to your boat. We'll do ministry on it. I'll do ministry on a boat. Jesus did lots of ministry on a boat. Ain't nothing wrong with a boat. But let me tell you what happens. When you begin to fall in love with this boat and it was cloudy on Saturday and it's sunny on Sunday. And you'd be like, you know what? I don't think I'm going to go to church day. I'm going to go get on the boat. And then before you know it, you're hanging out with church people. You're hanging out with boat. people doing boat things and you got to you're just chasing after this like boat life and then everybody's

like anybody's seeing ted but like no you got a boat and he's wandered away from the fate and the fate family and let me tell you this when the wheels fall off of ted's life guess who ain't going to help him the boat people ain't it's the church people that will gather around him to do for him what he needs to be done man he's just warning us he says be careful be careful be careful because every single one of us are prone to wander, Lord, I feel it prone to leave the God I love. And then, remember, Paul's will preach here for a second. Remember, he's warning his son. And part of the reason I wanted to look at this passage together is because I do not consider what I get to do as your pastor. This ain't like a job for me, man. I don't clock out. This isn't just like a role I play. They're like Timothy

had this spiritual son, I mean, Paul had the spiritual son, Timothy, me getting to love and care for it and nurture this flock, I want this for you. I don't want anything from you. I want the abundant life for you. And so with a great passion, Paul is warning his spiritual son Timothy. In verse 11, he says, but as for you, old man of God, flee these things, pursue righteousness and Godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness, fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. And I charge you in the presence of God who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus,

who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. and Paul gets all caught up in his own sermon, which he will display at the proper time, he who is the blessed and only sovereign, king of kings and Lord of Lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light,

whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. That's what he does. And here's how you know Paul's a preacher. He says, amen. He's got like 30 more minutes. Don't you love that?

And you look at that and you think, hold on, is this out of place? Why is there a doxology right in the middle of a money talk? It's not out of a place at all. Because when we get our eyes fixed on the temporary things of this world, we will always be let down. But when we get our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and the creator of all things,

who is the king of kings and Lord of Lords, then we can walk in that freedom that brings that godliness and contentment that we're looking for. That's what he's saying. So listen to me, church, in this 10-10 life, I don't want you to respond in generosity to a sermon. I want you to live a life of generosity in response to the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That he is first, that he loves first, that he went first, and then what we do is respond to him by bringing him our first and our best. Verse 17, now he's going to shift gears. So he's talked to the people who want to be rich. He's like, hey, let me warn you. And again, that's all of us. And then in verse 17, he says, as for the rich in this. present age. Now he's going to talk to rich people. He says when you talk to rich people, this is what you say. Here's the problem when the Bible talks about rich people. None of us

think the Bible's talking about us. You're like, you get them, pastor. You tell those rich people. I know some rich people. They need to listen to this. Well, here's the thing. Do you realize that globally and historically speaking, if your annual combined household income is $35,000 a year, than you're in the top 1% of wealthiest people on the planet. Every year I'm waiting for somebody to stand up and be like, amen, I told you, Martha, 35K, knocking it down, we rich. But I'm going to tell you, man, I'm going to tell you, it's hard being rich people have rich people problems.

Do you know this? You've been through it. There may be a person or two that's not there, but most people in the room, man, you're rich, and rich people have rich people problems. You know what rich people do? I don't know if you know this. mostly rich women.

They walk into rooms full of clothes, bigger than most people's homes around the world. You know this? And they look at all of these clothes, and rich women think this, they say this, I have nothing to wear. Did you know rich people's clothes had seasons? I don't know if you know that.

I know about deer season and turkey season. Did you know pants have seasons? Only rich people's pants have seasons. Regular people, they just wear them any time. Here's how you know you're rich. You have these kind of crazy conversations. Hey, we need to use this gift card, before it expires. Do you ever, you think about that? Or here's what rich people will do.

Rich people will go to a restaurant and look at a menu and say this, this menu's too big. Poor people don't do that. Rich people do this. This is confusing. I can point to any picture here and they'll just bring it to me. I don't want to do this, okay? These are rich people problems. Rich people will open up the refrigerator and complain about what? There's no room to put our leftovers in here, what are we doing? You see, guess what? Guess what? You're rich? Yeah, rich. Here's one that you're going to struggle with in the next 25 days, especially if you're married. Rich husbands are going to say to their rich wives, you won't say this, but you'll feel it. Man, I got to go buy you something for Christmas that you don't need, because you're going to

buy me something for Christmas that I don't need, and I don't want to go out and do that. Isn't that crazy? It's hard being rich. Jesus says it's easier for a camel to go through. through the eye of a needle than it is for rich people to make it to heaven. So you might want to pay attention to this next part. As for the rich in this present age. Now, you know what the hardest thing about being rich is? Do you know what you need for salvation? You need, need.

And when you're rich, you don't feel like you need anything. That's the biggest danger of it all. And so he says, all right, Timothy, when you're talking to rich people, or all right, Jobie, when you're talking to 1122, Charge them. That doesn't mean like charge them. I know that's what rich people think. Command them.

This is not a request. And he's going to give two don'ts and four dos. So there's twice as many positives as there are warnings. So as for the rich people in this present age, charge them, number one, not to be haughty. All right? That's not hotty. It's not like, oh my God, that's not bad. Haughty means like arrogant.

Haughty means entitled. haughty means I deserve this. And what he's saying is, listen, everything you have is a bloodbought grace gift from God to you. So don't be entitled, be grateful. Because here's the thing, I've told you this all the time. Like if you're a teenager driving a sweet car,

nobody thinks you're awesome teenager. Everybody's like, cool, your mom let you drive her Mercedes. That's cute, all right? Nah, man. And listen, dude, if you're haughty, if you think you're awesome, God will humble you. Years ago, one of our elders had a Porsche turbo, all right? And I didn't even know you're supposed to call it Porsche, right?

So if you just call it Porsche, you're not supposed to call it that. I didn't know that, but Porsche people get mad, okay? And he told me, he was like, anytime you want to drive this thing, anytime for whatever reason, you can come and pick it up and take it out any time you want. And honestly, I rarely did it because I was terrified. I would get in this thing, and it cost more than my first house. And I was like, but about one time a year, I would take it. Gretchen out for our anniversary and I would go get the Porsche Turbo. And I'm telling you,

when I pulled out of his neighborhood, I felt like Tom Cruise. Do you know what I mean? I didn't just go home. I rode all over town. You know you can do over 100 on the Beach Boulevard Bridge, allegedly, okay? Every stoplight I'd pull up to and I'd be like, come on, you want some of this, as if I had anything to do with it. In fact, one time we were going to this fancy restaurant and when we pulled up, they did not have ballet, and I left. She's like, where are you going? I was like, I ain't parking out there and just walking. I'm pulling up in here and getting out and handing somebody the keys to my one-day portion.

That's what I'm doing, okay? And so in my arrogance, we were going home, we used to live in the woods, and they have, like, the little gate thing, but we didn't have the sticker because I'd borrowed the car, so he had to, like, pull up next to the person. And so I pull up to get in my neighborhood, and the guard gate's waiting, and I'm looking for the window, how to roll down the window. Because in America, it's over here, like normal people. Apparently in Germany, they want you to roll a window over here. I couldn't find how to roll down the window. I had to open the door and go, it's not my car.

The lady went, you think? All right, so, don't think you're awesome. Don't be haughty. Number two, this is the second don't. Nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches. He's going to tell us in a little while how to be rich in a godly way. but when we set our hopes on the uncertainty of riches, it's a problem. And the reason is because money, like every other idol, will always let you down.

Your money lies to you and me, because here's what your money tells you. If you love me, I'll love you back. And the way we show love to one another is we provide and protect. And money cannot bring you the security or the satisfaction that you're looking for, only the sovereign king of the universe that can provide you with that. And notice, 2,000 years ago, he says this, don't set your hopes on the uncertainty of riches. Do I need to talk about our economy right now? I mean, it just goes in these waves.

What you think you had, you don't have anymore. And he said, so if you put your hope there, that is a misplaced hope, and it will always let you down. So one is don't be haughty, two is don't set your hope on the uncertainty of riches. And now we're going to get four positives. Number three, but put your hope. on God who richly provides us with everything to, what's that next word? Let's try that one. That was the most miserable time.

The word, enjoy. Enjoy. This was wrong with you people. One more time. On God, who richly provides us with everything to. He's a good dad, he's a good shepherd, he wants the abundant life for you. He is, man. that we're supposed to enjoy one another, enjoy life, and enjoy God,

and everything that he has given you, he has given it to you, so that you can enjoy. Money was given to us so that we could enjoy glorifying God primarily in three ways. One is we bring our first and our best to him, sowing into kingdom advancement. Two, is we have money so that we can bless one another and the world that we live in. and then three, we have been given money so that we can celebrate His grace.

We're supposed to enjoy it. Let me tell you what you can't enjoy. If you can't afford it, you can't enjoy it. You can't, man, it's miserable. If you worship it, you can't enjoy it. Because eventually, if you worship it, whatever you idolize, when it let you down, you will demonize it.

And if it's not yours, you can't enjoy it. If you were taking what is gods and you were trying to use it for some more stuff for you, you will never be able to enjoy it. This is how C.S. Lewis says it. C.S. Lewis says, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desire is not too strong, but too weak.

We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go, on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased. You see, the truth is, is God has given us everything to enjoy. We bring our first and best to him, and then we bless some other people, and then we celebrate his grace. That's what we're supposed to do with all of it. Listen, I rail on the prosperity gospel all the time because it's heresy, because the fundamental heresy of the prosperity gospel is, God, I go first, I'm preeminent, and then you owe me health, wealth, and happiness.

But just as dangerous as the poverty gospel, as if God is not a good dad that don't want to give good gifts to his kids. You see, if you're a Christian, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, we should be enjoying life more than everybody else. I hope you know this. Listen, if you're not a believer here, I hope you'll become one today. And I've got good news. Did you realize, did you realize that because I'm a Christian, if you're not, my steaks taste better than your steaks. That's a fact, man. You don't even know that. And you're like, how could that be?

Here's how. Here's how. Because when you eat a steak, at best you can appreciate the cow. And I know the one that came up with the idea of cow. But think about this. God in his infinite wisdom, he came up with the idea of cow and pig and put them together and what we call the bacon-wrapped fillet, and you can eat that thing at medium-rare

just as God intended it. And listen, man, when Jesus pushed up on his nail-pier's feet and says, it is finished, it was primarily about paying our sin debt, but you know what was included in that? Bacon-rat-fil-A. Old covenant, you can't eat the pig, and you can't eat the blood. In the new covenant, you put those things together,

and when you eat that steak, your worship does not terminate on the restaurant or the steak or the cow. your worship rises up to the creator of the steak and the cow, and you begin to say, bless the Lord, oh, my soul, and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name, amen. So if you're not enjoying this life, you're not doing it right. You're not doing it right.

Now, listen, if you're taking God's money that you know he called you to sow into his kingdom to buy your steak with, stolen steak don't taste that good. I'm telling you. Listen, in the book of Deuteronomy, which is not exactly the feel-good hit of the century, can we agree on that? In Deuteronomy, the first like 20 chapters, no, the first like 12 chapters or so, are all about Moses talking to the people of here's how you put on a festival. Here's how you throw a party.

They're called them festivals back then. And it's all about the sacrifice you bring. It's all about the tithe you bring. It's all about giving of your people. your first fruit offering to the one true God because you trust him. And as an act of worship, you bring to him what is him? His.

And so after you have brought all that is His, then you get this commandment in Deuteronomy 1426. So after you've brought God what's his, he talks about how you glorify God with the rest of it. And he says, and spend the money for whatever you desire. Oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink. Sorry, Baptist. It just says what it says.

Whatever your appetite craves, and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice you in your household. That God's people are supposed to enjoy the party better than anybody else. Listen to it in King James, man. I don't often use King James, but listen to it in King James. And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after. That sounds like a sin. And it's a commandment of God. Bring God His and then glorify.

God in the party for oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink or for whatever whatsoever thy soul desireth and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God and thou shalt rejoice thou and thine household. You see Jesus changes everything man he changes everything so what do you do you bring God to what is God's you God loves a cheerful giver and so we gladly bring to him what he's called us to bring to him. Like, we enjoy the bringing, because when you know Jesus, what you enjoy begins to change. And then we decide that 100% of all that we have is his, and we are going to leverage it in such a way so that thine and thy household enjoy every good and perfect gift. So the third thing is this, that you should enjoy. Number four is this. They are to do good,

be rich in good works. What this means practically for us is go to the web, and sign up for the 10-10 life. Be rich in good works. Volunteer for one of the areas of abundant life that we're making available to you. Number five, to be generous, to be generous and ready to share.

Let me ask you this. Are you generous? Are you generous? Because here's what's crazy. Most people are rich, but they don't feel rich. And most people are not very generous, but they feel generous. That's a scary combo, is it not?

You see, imagine it. Imagine it with your kids, okay? Let's say you gave one of your kids, just a pile of goldfish, a pile of goldfish. And then one of your other kids comes up and says, can I get some goldfish? But get it from your brother. And so the brother with the goldfish, sister comes up, can I get some goldfish? And they're like, well, you know what? I think, oh.

Is it just my kids? I tell you what, how about this one right here? I ate half of it fell out my mouth into dog licked. But you can have that one. If you saw that, what would you say to your child? Who do you think these goldfish are? Why would you not share them with your sister? Do you not understand that I can give you abundantly more than you ever hoped or imagined in goldfish?

And if I can't trust you with this little bit of goldfish, you think I'm going to give you more goldfish? Surely that's how you would parent. So let me ask you this, church, if you were God, would you give you more money? Because everybody thinks if I just had some more money and solve all my problems. Really? Really? Because the Bible tends to say whatever you do with this little bit

will be the same that you do with a lot. And if you're not trustworthy with a little bit, why in the world would God invest in you if you would not leverage your finances the way God tells us to? You see, he says, be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasures for themselves

as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. So what is life for you? Is life for you defined as an abundance of possessions, or are you ready to chase after the abundant life that Christ has for us? Because I'm telling you, man, when you love Jesus, when you know Jesus, when you abide in Jesus, what we enjoy begins to change into the things that he enjoys. You don't just bring what you're going to bring to him as like some kind of duty that you have to follow through. on, but you begin to enjoy things differently. You begin to enjoy sewing into the kingdom and knowing that every time you see one of these videos of life change that we share, that you

invested in that. When we plant churches all over the world, that you invested in that. But not only that, also in your personal life, you will begin to prioritize and enjoy the people at your house over the address that your house is at. You'll begin to prioritize and a pretty the ride that you're able to give someone in need over the ride that you're in, because you're just trying to impress people with your cool car. You'll begin to enjoy the smile of a friend way more than them being impressed with your new set of clothes. You'll begin to enjoy the people that you serve and make memories with way more than the places you get to go. You'll begin to enjoy the laughter at the table way more than the fact that you can get a table at such and such restaurant.

And when you begin to live that kind of upside down kingdom life, then you, walking in the footsteps of Jesus, learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. And so I'm going to give you an opportunity to make a bold step of faith. Last Friday night, over a thousand of our leaders gathered together right here, and they said, we want to go first. It was a thing we called Advanced Commitment Night, and a whole bunch of them shared testimony about what God is doing in their life. I want you to take just a minute

and be encouraged by their testimony. Check this out. I have a commitment tonight because we actually had a number that we wanted to give tonight, but we realized we wanted to give that. We knew that we could and not what God could do. So that just opened it up for us tonight

to give a number that we know that God was telling us to and we're going to trust him. When I hear abundant life, I think Jesus talking about, about he's going to take care of us the same way he takes care of the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. So knowing that he has his best in mind for me, regardless of what situation I'm going to. I didn't grow up in church, and I never knew Christ. When I started going to church in 2018 at the Arlington 1122 campus, every time I hear about money, I would kind of be bitter

and think about, oh, they just want my money to pay for their bills. And just this whole 10-10 journey has really changed my whole mindset about how we can trust God with our finances. Trusting God with it is really a true freedom. We made a commitment to the Tintin life because I was a foster baby 18 years ago, and we're really excited that we, as a church, we have a commitment to do this. I made a commitment tonight because this is the first time I've ever made one. I've been a Christian since I was eight years old. And I kind of tithe, not regularly, not completely throughout my Christian life.

I needed to have the abundant life that God's trying to give me. I decided to make a commitment tonight because I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to move in the way that God was directed me to as far as my finances. I hope and pray that the kingdom has just increased in every way possible through the Spirit of God. I'm just grateful to be a part of everything that he's doing. We're not young anymore. And I've always worked with senior adults, so I'm looking to become involved in that.

The Lord's not finished with us yet. We still have some work to do, and I want to be in it. I think I decided to make the commitment that I made tonight just because I feel really challenged to believe that it really is true when God says that he will do more than we ever imagine. And so just believing that and going forward in faith. I made a commitment to the 10-10 life because I've been looking for something for seven

years now after coming off the mission field. And I wanted a place where I could serve and use the gifts that God gave me. And this just spoke to my soul. Oh, man, I'm so excited about the prison ministry. I've been trying to get in a prison ministry for a couple of years, seeing people who need to be seen and who need the gospel just as much as anybody else and giving them hope in what a lot of people would say is a hopeless place. I'm really excited for that. For me, the reason I made the commitment to the 10-10 life is I think of the wonderful things that I could do for God or for other people, but it always seems too big. I can't do it.

And now I realize it's possible, and it's not just giving money. I realize it's giving of our time, too. I used to believe it was about money. And now I believe it's about him. He's always there. And surrendering my life to him was a chance for me to really realize that. And that's what living in an abundant life means to me. Amen.

I love the testimonies of our folks. Now it's your turn. If you'd grab the card, it looks like this, it was on your seat back or on your seat, pending. Grab that thing, open it up. This is our opportunity to make a commitment. to the Lord, with our first and our best, with our finances. And again, we have a secondary goal, a financial secondary goal here at 1122, but our primary goal is that 100% of people that call 1122 home would make their commitment to the Lord. You'd be committed to the 10-10 life. And if you're

worshiping with us online, there'll be instructions there on how you make your commitment online. And so I need everybody to grab one and open it up. And I just want to walk through it real quick. For one, there's a bunch of boxes and things over here that are filled out. And one of the things that will be revealed in you is the kind of personality that you have. I'm the kind of guy that just writes the main number down in the middle. And Gretchen is like, you got to fill in all the boxes, okay? So if you're a rule bender or a rule breaker, that's going to come out in you right now, I just want to let you know that the, that the main number is this box kind of in the middle that says my slash hour two-year 10-10 commitment is. And then you would just write your number there.

We also need your name and address and all of that so that we can support you as you make steps of faithfulness and obedience towards what the good shepherd is calling you to do. But if you need the boxes to help you out, this is how it works. That top one says this, what I slash we normally give in a year. So that would be like your normal annual giving. And if you don't know what that is, you should probably know where all of your money is going, for sure. And for many of you, here's what I know is going to happen. For many of you, this will be the very first time, just like you. you heard in the video where you are trusting God with your finances through this local church.

And to you, I would say, well done. Congratulations. The Lord is stoked over you. And the reason that God is stoked over you is not because you're giving for the first time. The reason that he delights over you is because of this, that this is love. Not that we love him, but he loved us and sent his son as the propitiation for our sin. And God's general disposition towards his children is he delights over his. children. So whether you've been tithed for 100 years or this will be your very first time,

well done. So you're going to write that number down, and then if it helps, then you write what your expanded giving towards this initiative will be over this next year. Then you multiply it times two because it's a two-year generosity initiative. It'll start in December and it goes for two years. And then one of the reasons we do this is this is not over and above, and I want you to think this way. We do what's called a one-fund approach. We do what's called a one-fund approach. This means whether you're brand new to this or you are radically generous, no matter where you are on that spectrum, all of us are in this together. That our goal is 100% of our folks would be rich towards God, no matter where you are on that spectrum. And while this, the numbers on this, we have a secondary goal.

What God calls you to do in your steps of obedience in regards to this card will play a primary role in your own discipleship over the next two years. on what it means for you and your family to walk in that abundant life that Christ has for us. And then there's a box there for you to bring any stored resources that you may have. Then maybe God is calling you not to just trust them with what's going to come in going forward, but to look back over your past

and his faithfulness towards you and you've got some barns with some stuff in it or some accounts with some money in it and you think, you know what, God is leading me to transfer that from my account to his account, for his glory and the advancement of the good news of the gospel. And then you will just write down that total number for the next two years.

And so listen, here's what I know, man. Gretchen and I are with you in this. We've been praying and praying and fasting and seeking God as to what God is calling us. And it gets real, man. The number that we feel like God is calling us to bring is exceedingly more than we ever thought we would be able to do. We're not even totally sure how it's going to happen, but we're going to trust him. And then here's where it just rubber meets the road, man.

Before this thing is over, we'll be sending one to college. And we need to pay for that too. And so we're just trusting God that he will come through. And in fact, speaking of college, we were meeting with one of those college advisor types. And they instructed us when you're figuring out what college you want to go to go to, you should, based on your scores,

you should have like a reach school because you never know. they might mess up the paperwork and they let you in. You just never know. And then there's like a safe school. So to make sure you get to move out of the house. And so praise God for that. You understand what I'm saying.

And here's what I think. I think some of you came in with that kind of mentality. Like the moment that we began to talk about this, you immediately went to, oh, I know a safe number. I just want to remind you, man. On the throne of your heart, there will be two things circling that in this life of musical chairs. And that's faith and fear. and we want to ask God that he would not give us a spirit of fear because that's not what he gives,

but he would give us that spirit of faith to say, God, I trust you. Because there's really two ways to figure out what is fateful for you to bring before the Lord. One is like reason and rationality. You just do the math, you cut out a couple things, you add a couple things, you get a sharp pencil in your budget, and by reason you come up with a number. The other way, this is what Gretchen and I have done, is Revelation. You see, because the whole point of the 10-10 life is that he's the good shepherd. He speaks to his sheep.

His sheep know his voice. That recognizes his voice. They follow his voice. And whenever we take steps of obedience to follow the voice of the good shepherd, it always only leads to life abundantly. That's what we're talking about here. So that's what I want you to do. I'm going to give you a little while to pray over this and hear the voice of God and do whatever it is that he tells you to do. as you saw before I started preaching that our kids and our students go first and years ago when we were doing the one initiative

JP came home from students he was 12 years old and he came home with his commitment card and on a salary of zero dollars a year he had rent down as his commitment hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars by faith because he didn't have the money and I was like, buddy, so glad you're listening to the voice of the shepherd, you know, way to go, but, and his mom was like, how you will pay for this? And he didn't say anything spiritual, he's 12, but he said, well, if I can't, I figure my dad can cover me. So we did, we added his number to our number, but, you know, aren't we doing the same thing? Aren't we doing the same thing? that if we will just by faith, do what he tells us to do and say, God, this is my first and this is my best. And I'm not even sure how this is going to be possible, but I am believing that my father can cover me.

And listen, I don't know how to rightly explain this, okay? But there's something that happens when we make a faith commitment, a faith step, when we do what our good shepherd tells us to do, that just changes things. You see, in the book of Matthew, when Jesus tells Peter that he is the rock, and upon this rock, the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Jesus was going to build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

Right after that, he says, I'm going to give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And then Jesus tells Peter this, there's going to be some stuff on earth that you bind and it will be bound in heaven. There's going to be some stuff on earth that you loose and it will be loose in heaven. and now you can't like buy baptisms, but let me tell you what happened in our own generosity story.

Four years ago in the one initiative, as Gretchen and I are praying about what God was leading us to give, we wrote down a number that we never believed we would ever be able to do, and by God's faithfulness we were able to do it and be able to expand it now. But at Advanced Commitment Night four years ago, something I had been praying for for 28 years was the salvation of my dad. And listen, man, I'm talking about. you realize in my ministry I have led over 10,000 people to Christ, but I couldn't lead the one dude that I prayed for more than anybody else. It bothered me, made me cry. I mean, mess with me. Whenever he would come to town, about 30 minutes into the sermon, I would just punt on where I was going,

and I would do a gospel invitation to one person, my dad, and if the rest of you heard it, good for you, okay? I sent him emails, I had conversations with him, all this kind of stuff. But on that night, as we wrote down that number, I said, here's what I'm believing before the one initiative is over. is that I am praying for the salvation of my dad, and I dunked that card into the tub. Sure enough, the summer before we finished that initiative, I'm sitting in a hotel room working on a sermon on prayer, and Jesus says, what father among you if his son asked for bread

would give him a stone? And I wrote down in my notes, I have a good dad, even though he didn't know the Lord at that point. And the Spirit of God told me, I don't say that lightly, he told me, text him. And I know it must be the Spirit of God, because I don't text nobody, especially something serious or sensitive.

That's why I don't return text. I don't like it. And God said, no, just texting. And so I was like, hey, Daddy, I know you grew up in church and had been in a while, but I've never just come straight out and ask you, have you ever surrendered your life to Christ? And if not, are you ready to do that right now? And I put my phone down.

And I waited. It's about two minutes, felt like 25. That thing went, zip, zip. And I flipped it over. And it just said, I'm ready. I'm ready. And after 30 years of praying for my dad, something was loose in the heavenlies that opened up my dad's heart and he put his faith in Jesus Christ. As you are filling this out, I need you to be praying the big, bold, audacious God, I need you to move in a way only

you can move kind of prayers. Because do you realize what you're holding in your hand here? Think about what we're doing with the 10-10 life. God is going to use, our commitments, though they might not seem like much. It's like a little boy with some bread and some bread and some fish, and we bring it to God and we're going to, Jesus is more important than your hands than mine. You realize some things are going to happen? Some mamas are going to embrace life and they're going to be babies that get born that would not have gotten born without your step of obedience.

They're going to be foster kids that get raised up in a Christian home and they're going to meet Jesus and be reunited with their birth parents and they're both going to meet Jesus and their great-grandchildren's legacy will be changed because God's going to use your faithfulness. That our special needs community is going to be loved on in such a way that the whole world is going to scratch their head and go, what's going on there? And what's going to be going on there is the shepherd is bringing abundant life.

Listen, there are women right now this very second caught up in human trafficking, and they are begging God. God, would you please help me and save me? And God is going to use your step of obedience to kick down the door and rescue that girl in the name of Jesus. That's going to be it. That's going to happen. There are going to be first responders

that do not walk down the statistical path of divorce and depression and even suicide, but because they're going to cry out for help and God's going to hear their prayer and it's going to send you on a rescue mission for these first responders and say, we got your back because God's got your back. There's going to be senior adults that don't just waste

the best years of their life on the nothingness that this world offers, but going to be engaged in the great commission in ways that this world has yet to see. And all of that comes down to this, just one step of faith. So here's what I want you to do, 100% involvement.

That you would grab this card, you would pray, God, what are you calling us to bring? What does first and best look like for me or for us? And then you would write down that number, and then in just a little while, I'll come back and give you some instructions. I'm going to give you like three or four minutes. Now again, man, if you're a praying person, it's going to go about like this.

If you are not a praying person, it's going to be the longest three and a half minutes, four minutes of your whole life. But you're just sitting in that. You say, God, what are you asking me to do? And my encouragement to you is the same thing Mary encouraged the service in John 2. I just want you to do whatever he tells you to do. Because you have no idea the miracle that could be hanging on the other side of a step of obedience. So you got about three or four minutes. Pray, listen, write.

I'll be back. All right, church, the time has come for us to make our commitments. And so I can be completely honest with you. You know, it's like the fourth time I've done this. Fifth. How many? Advanced commitment night? Second one.

Yeah, this is the fifth time I've done this, right? And we've prayed and we've prayed and we've prayed. And I went and sat down and I preached so good. Gretchen just said, I think we should do more. So you know what we got to do? We got to do whatever the Spirit of God tells us to do. Amen? Because it's not the size of your faith.

It's the object of your faith that matters. Jesus said, if you just got a tiny little itsy-bitsy bit of faith and you put it in the everlasting, almighty, all-powerful God, it is exponentially and infinitely greater than putting all of your faith in the temporary things of this world. So that's what we're about to do. We're going to trust God that he's going to use us to change the world, to for sure change the world to some people.

that we get to minister to starting with us. Would you please stand to your feet? If you're ready to go, stand to your feet, and I just want you to hold this card up, and we're going to dedicate it. We're going to consecrate it unto the Lord by faith. So would you hold that card up, and would you join me in prayer?

Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, God, we love you more than anything because you first loved us. And God, just like that kid with a little lunch, a couple fish and some bread, put it in your hands, and you thank God for it. You broke the bread. You handed it out.

out and in the hands of the disciples, miracles happen. And so God, we pray, as we bring this to you and lay it at your feet, God, we pray that lives would be changed, that life would be embraced, that from womb to tomb, every image bearer of you would walk in that abundant life that the Good Shepherd came to give us. God, it is by faith and not fear that we come in your name to proclaim.

And we ask that you would stretch out your hand, that you would do signs and wonders all for the glory of the one name under heaven whereby we must be saved. And God, in so doing, may we walk in the abundant life you purchased for us. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. So, church, there are baptismal tubs down here. There are baptismal tubs in the middle. If you would just look around and go to the closest one towards you as we sing, as we worship, why don't you let this be an act of worship?

come make your commitment and then pray and then you can return to your seat let's go