Skip to content It's About Grace - It's Not About the Money, Part 2 Feb 18 · 56 min ...more
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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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0:00 Second Corinthians chapter 8, verse 1, Paul's saying, we want you to know brothers about the grace of God. Can somebody say the grace of God? He says we want you to know brothers about the grace of God that has been0:11 given to the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For0:23 they gave according to their means, and as I can testify, beyond their means of their own accord. Begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. And this not as we expected, but they gave0:33 themselves first to the Lord, and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started so, he should complete this act of grace among you.0:45 But as you excel in everything, in faith, speech, knowledge, all earnestness, and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace also. I say this not as a0:57 command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love is also genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so1:09 that by you by his poverty might become rich. Skip on over to chapter 9 verse 6, and here's what he says just to complete this whole section of this wonderful leather letter1:21 from the apostle Paul. He says, the point is this, whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully. Each 1 must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly1:33 or under compulsion for God loves do you know this 1? Yeah. He loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all1:44 times, you may abound in every good work. Skip down to verse 10. He who supplies seed to the sower, seed to the sower. Seed goes from God1:57 to the sower. And then he says, and bread for food. He says he will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your2:08 righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. Amen. This is God's word. Let's pray.2:20 Father, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be pleasing in your sight. We acknowledge in this place that Jesus2:31 reigns. It's all about him. And may our hearts be transformed and changed, and may our minds be renewed so that we2:43 might reflect the goodness of God in a world gone crazy. Oh, Lord, there's people in every location, they feel stressed by money,2:55 but today I pray they feel blessed by their father, that they can reflect his goodness to people around them. Start with me. Forgive me, Lord,3:07 of my sins. They're many. And help me to speak your word so that we all see Jesus. In his name, we pray. Everybody said, amen.3:19 God bless you. High high 5 somebody before you sit down and say, hey. Welcome to church.3:30 Good morning. Happy Sunday. I love Sunday. Sunday is my fun day. Anybody with me on that? And I love3:42 your I love this church. I love being here on North snowy, cold North Attleboro. Praise the Lord. We are so thrilled to be just3:53 gathered together today, and I am particularly thrilled for our really big things 40 week offering 40 weeks ago today. I announced our plans for really big things,4:05 and I'm so excited to get to that. But first and foremost, take out again, if you have your Bibles, please keep them open to second Corinthians 8. We're gonna talk about that text in just a moment, all locations. And4:16 then we also gave you 2 handouts at all of our locations. The 1 like this, it is our note page. We give this to every weekend worshiper. It's all about it's not about the money. Today, it's4:28 about grace. So take that out. That's our notes, and that's the message. It's about what? Grace. Grace. 5 letter word that changes your life. So it's not about the money, it's about grace. We'll get to that in just a4:40 moment. Now we also have a second handout. We do this very rarely, but when we do it, it's important. Say hello to mister Budget. Now I introduced you to mister Budget last4:51 week, and I loved how you responded. I watch every service, whether you're not whether or not you believe it. North Attleboro, you don't you might not know this, but we have spy cameras in this building. I see5:02 everything. Well, not everything, but a lot of things. And I watch the services back, and I see how you guys responded. And I loved, even though I was on video, I loved how you responded to mister budget.5:14 I hate that mister budget. And I want to be real with you, I'm a preacher but I'm a realist, and I know that 90 percent of what I say up here, you forget by the time you get to5:26 your car. And I loved how you responded, I think you appreciate it, but I want you to take this seriously. This is gonna change some of your lives. For some of you, this is gonna change your marriage. So here's the5:38 deal, do what? We're giving you a head start. We we gave you this spreadsheet, and you can see all the categories that you should divide your money up to. We have some financial peace instructors at our church. We had5:48 them go through it. We had them put this together for you. This is for your good. And understand that when the pastor talks about money, it is for your good. It is for your5:59 empowerment. Okay? So how do I do this, pastor Tim? You're going to do this. If you get paid biweekly, you you multiply that pay6:12 by 26 because that means you get paid 26 times a year. Then you divide that number by 12, and that's how you get your monthly income. If you get paid weekly, it's 52, and then you just add all those together and divide6:23 by 12. 52 times each week. Or if you get paid monthly, it's you you know, it's just 1 paycheck, and that's your monthly budget. Then you're just gonna you're gonna start separating things out. I always believe tithe, God6:35 comes first. 1 tenth of come what it comes into my house goes out to God's house. Then we have the oh gosh. This is so small, isn't it? Hello. I'm getting old now. There we go. Okay.6:47 There we go. Other charities, and then we talk about mortgage, and we talk about, home maintenance and all those things. You're going to see a couple of things that you may never have seen before. First, you're gonna see6:58 how much you make a month, and some of you are gonna say, wow, we make a lot of money a month. And then as you go through that spreadsheet, you're gonna say, wow. That goes really quickly. But you're always gonna be able7:09 to say, well, maybe we can do a little less going out to eat and a little bit more grocery shopping, or maybe a little bit less out to eat and a little bit more clothes shopping, or whatever. But here's what mister7:19 Budget is, going to be, in your home to do. He's there to help you tell your money where to go before you're wondering where it went.7:31 Okay? The second way that you can do this is you can just save receipts for a whole month and save every single this is a bit more tedious. Save every single receipt, and then add those figures up, put them7:43 in each category accordingly, and at the end of that month, you see where you spend, and then you'll say, wait, we've got a serious problem with 1 of these items. Maybe house insurance is7:55 exceedingly high. Did you know that we live in a society where you can shop for different coverages and you might be able to save money. You might be able to save 100 to8:07 200 dollars a month on house insurance. Always shop your insurance, always. Every 6 months I get my car insurance8:18 renewal, and I tell my insurance call my insurance agent, okay, I need you to shop because I don't wanna pay this. And he goes, okay. And he comes back to me and he always or she, I don't know who it was, they always8:29 come back with a lower figure. I don't know about you, but I like lower figures. So there's 1 way of saving money, maybe you're seeing that you're not saving anything and that's a problem, you need to8:41 save money. So the other thing is that you say, okay, when you're If you're married, this what you're gonna do. You're gonna do it, you're gonna put both 1 hand on each Well, from each person on mister budget and say, 1,8:52 2, 3, mister budget rules. And then you both listen to mister Budget. And you both hate mister Budget, and he's totally fine with being hated. He's very strong like9:04 that. He loves being hated. So you don't hate each other. Amen? Amen. Now at the end of our services, we're going to wait upon you for your tithes and offerings by having you give on the way out. We did this last week.9:16 We are going to do it this week, and we are going to do it next week because I would love to get our church to the point where we just come right out of worship into the word. No more passing the bucket. I would love to9:25 get to that point. Now last week you did very well. You gave very well in spite of the fact that we didn't pass the bucket. A lot of my team members are scared when we don't pass the bucket because they're looking for9:32 those guilty tens and twenties to help boost the numbers. And I say, let you save your guilt. Save your guilt for the world. You give cheerfully and9:44 willingly and submissively to God with a heart of faith. So at the end of this service, drop your regular tithes and your really big things into the buckets. Really big things offering starting9:56 churches in 2 new states, South Carolina, Tennessee, starting a school here in North Attleboro, and looking for land for a a a Poly Beach in Woonsocket, or new places. And and here's an update on all of those things just10:07 so everybody knows, we have just under 900000 dollars in so far for really big things. Thank you so much. Yeah. This has been the most successful and,10:19 fastest, highest grossing campaign we've ever done this early on in the campaign. Still early. We usually do these campaigns for 3 years. So we've got plenty of time to raise 2 more million dollars. Amen. Oh, you10:31 didn't clap for that moment. Alright. 2 it's gonna take about 3000000 dollars to get these things all started. I'm just telling you. And I believe that there are some people here you can give generously above anything10:41 you've ever given before. Some of you need to think and consider about a miraculous offering to make this happen. And I want you to do that, so you got time. This is not the end. Okay? This is just a 40 week offering.10:52 Now, updates. Number 1, I want you to know, we are not waiting for 3000000 dollars to come in. We are moving. I believe the Lord planted a word in my heart for really big things, and he11:03 said, be aggressive. Be be aggressive. Be aggressive. Be be aggressive. Hey, be aggressive. Be be I can't dance. I'm sorry. Don't video that. Please don't put that on the Internet. Okay? But11:15 this we're not waiting. We are moving. Move. I wrote a book about that. So we have, a for our school, this is great, we11:27 have a website, waters academy dot org, where you can apply for your students, or you can apply to teach. As of right now, we have a principal11:39 hired, a board of directors, they are meeting tomorrow at 9 o'clock in the 9 30 in the morning, excited for that. We have room for 140 students already, and11:51 we have plans being drawn up for future expansion in the upstairs area of this location For Apollo Beach, Windsauket, and Greenville, South Carolina, we are actively looking with realtors12:03 for properties every day. We've looked at 2 in Apollo we've looked at 2 in Windsauket. We've looked at several in Apollo Beach. We are aggressively looking for the right spots for all of these places, and we are12:15 going to find 1. And I believe the best is yet to come. So God's gonna do it. We just gotta walk in it because the Bible says the just, the righteous shall live by faith. We12:27 don't walk by what is seen, we walk by what is unseen. And we trust the Lord to provide in the right time. He will make it happen. So that's the plan. Let me see if I miss anything else out12:39 left anything out. I don't think so. Check out waters academy dot org to apply. Oh, by the way, our our students mascot will be royals. They are the Waters Academy royals. Yeah. They said we'd12:50 never be royals, but we are gonna be royals at Waters Academy because my Bible tells me we are a royal priesthood. And we need to raise up young13:02 people. This is the plan, and we're and this oh, another way we're gonna be aggressive is we're gonna add grades every year, maybe 2 or 3 grades every year till we get to college level education here at Waters. Oh, I13:14 love how excited you are. Just remember, 2 more million dollars. Okay? Love how excited you are. But we are gonna be aggressive, and I want to raise up a generation of kids that13:26 know that they rule and reign with Christ. They don't just know that 2 plus 2 equals 4. They don't just know that the United States broke away from Britain in 17 76. They don't just know that there are13:38 only 2 genders. They know that they rule and reign with Christ. So we're gonna be royals.13:50 And if you do the acronym, W A R, we're making war in the heavenly places. Waters Academy Royals. Okay. I'm excited. I hope you are too. And then oh, and Apollo Beach,14:02 your preschool starts this September, and we have a leader for that as well. So things are moving. I mean, me and but things are moving. I love that we are a church on the move. Let's get to14:14 preaching, shall we? Okay. That gives me a reset on the timer. Okay. America has a generosity problem. America has a generosity14:25 problem. An article in 2014, studied from a study from 2014 from Notre Dame scientists determined that, only 3 percent of14:37 Americans give away 10 percent of their income. Only 3 percent give away 10 percent. Now you say, well, why is up with that 10 percent number? There14:49 have been many studies done about generosity. It's amazing how God's word is so true so often. Even secular atheists, and I'm mentioning by name, Princeton15:01 professor Peter Singer, who hates God, hates Christianity, says that 10 percent giving away 10 percent of your income is 1 of the15:12 healthiest and happiest things that you can do. And he's not talking about giving money to the church because he doesn't go, he doesn't believe in God, he just knows how the human15:24 psyche works. Giving is good for you. But only 3 percent of us do the bare minimum. I call 10 percent the bare minimum of giving. I really do.15:36 And by the way, God does as well. And and I I think that's a great starting point. We we have 85 percent of our population, according to a 2014 study15:48 by Notre Dame scientists, 85 percent of our population give away less than 2 percent of their income every year. Less than 2 percent. Now here's the good news America. It's kinda crazy to16:00 say this, but out of all the countries in the world, we are the most generous. Now put some things together with me, if you will. Let's do some scientific discovery. What country in16:12 the world is the most blessed, most prosperous country? You're sitting in it, except for Guatemalans. You're sitting in it right now. This is the most blessed. And by the way,16:23 historically blessed. Historically blessed. And, we're also the most generous. Here's why I think that we're so blessed,16:35 because we're so generous. But yet, we're far below where I think God wants to bring us. And and and so we've we've got work to do. We've got work to do. I heard a16:47 preacher say say this many years ago, stuck with me. He said a study was done that if you took every household in America and put them at at welfare level income, every household in16:59 America, put them at welfare income, and they gave away 10 percent of their income, giving in America would go up by17:10 300000000 dollars. Think about that. Most of us are above the welfare line, and yet if we went all to the welfare line and just gave 10 percent away, we would go up in our giving number by17:22 300000000 dollars. So I did what a lot of you do. When I heard that, I said, I don't believe it. That is preacher talk. You ever know you know what I mean by preacher talk? You know what I mean by preacher17:33 talk? Preacher talk means that the preacher is exaggerating just a little bit, or a lot to make a point. So I did my own study this week for you. There are17:45 331000000 Americans, 331900000.0 Americans in 2021. These are the latest figures that we have. The poverty level income, or the welfare level income17:57 is 38000 dollars. So I broke up my calendar, the calendar. Calculator. And I said, what's the average household in America? 3 people. So 3 people making 3800018:09 dollars a year. If you divide 330.93 hundred and 31.9 people million people by 3, that means we have 110000000 homes.18:21 Hundred and 10000000 homes times 38000 dollars a year at the well if every household is making 38000 dollars a year, you times those 2 numbers, it comes out to 4270000000.00,18:33 4273000000.000, trillion dollars. This is confusing, but stay with me. 4200000000000.0 dollars if every household, 318:45 people to the household makes 38000 dollars a year, that's how much money in income we would make. Now 10 percent of that is 427000000000 dollars. 427000000000 dollars.18:58 Okay. Now guess how much money Americans gave away in 2021? 326000000000 dollars.19:10 So when I did my study, and I didn't believe that preacher, I'm glad I did my own study and research because that preacher vastly underestimated the number. Let me put it very19:22 simply, if every household in America, household is 3 people, if every household in America made welfare level income and gave 10 percent away of that income,19:33 charitable giving in America would increase by number, as a whole, by 100000000000 dollars. Are you19:45 are you hearing that? You're quiet. Maybe you're feeling guilty. I don't know. But that to me is alarming. As blessed as we are, imagine how19:57 blessed we would be if we stepped up our game in generosity. Because here's the thing. We're an electioneer, and every politician wants to tell you that they're gonna solve these problems. I don't believe that. I believe20:07 God's people solve problems. I believe the church is the hope of the world. Amen? Not Washington, the church. And so I thought about this. We got a giving20:19 problem, and maybe that's why we have a depression problem. Young people, Gen Zers. Did you know that the Gen Zers are now about 29 years old? That's20:31 crazy to me. You need to be buying houses and settling down at this point, but hear me, Gen Zers. I I've got I've got a little advice for you. You don't have an anxiety problem, and you don't have a depression problem.20:43 You have a giving problem. How dare you say that? Okay. Well, wait. Stay with me. Giving changes how you feel.20:56 It really does. And all the research that I've done and that I've looked at for years, because I am big into research, backs up what I'm saying. Hilariously, an Axios21:08 dot com article in June 20 23 said that Americans have a giving a serious giving problem. They are giving to charity at their lowest level in 3 decades.21:20 So in 2014, we were giving about 2 percent of our income away. Well, fast forward to 2024, 10 years later, and we have we have gone all the way from 2 percent of our21:32 income down to 1.7 percent of our income. Guess what also has gone down? Our mental health, our sense of joy, and community, and21:43 belonging. We're more isolated than ever, lonelier than ever, depressed than ever. Could there be a connection between giving and generosity, and a heart filled with21:55 joy, and and connectedness, and social connection that brings healing and wholeness to your heart? Yeah. Hilariously, 1 month later,22:07 axios dot com had this headline, America's therapy boom. America's therapy boom. And this is what it said, more Americans across every age, gender, race are22:19 seeking mental health treatment than they were in the last 2 decades. Amazingly, we've given less money to charity over the last 2 decades. 1 month later, we're going to therapy way more than in the last 222:31 decades. And we're taking in some cases the money that we should be giving to the Lord's work Christians, and we're giving it to the therapist who by law do you understand this? The22:42 therapist can't even tell you you're wrong about anything. You understand this? I got therapists in this church, they tell me about they can't even say, my word, you're a stupid22:54 moron. Their only advice is to say, how does that make you feel?23:06 I'm the last line of defense friend. I'm the last line of defense for the truth of God's word in this culture to stand up and itch it between the eyes and tell you,23:18 my word you're a stupid moron, but good news, Jesus Christ died for stupid morons. Give your life to him, he'll bring you to a wise place in life.23:30 I don't like to be called a stupid moron. Read the book of Proverbs, it calls us fools constantly. Yeah. Jesus called the sheep. I mean, sheep are not23:42 smart. Now people get funny at the church when the church talks about money. But I thought about this. Do you know where people don't get funny with money? At the football game.23:55 We just had the Super Bowl, NFL's over, but I wrote this down, I thought, you know, people don't get funny at the football game when it comes to money. They'll gladly pay to park 20 to 10024:06 dollars at the football game. They'll happily dole out 40 dollars for souvenirs, including that stupid fat foam figure finger at the football game. They'll pay 14 dollars for 1 beer at the football game.24:17 Nachos, 11 dollars at the football game. 10 dollars for a burger, hey, it's the football game. And yet they may sit next to or behind or in front of an obnoxious fan at the football game. The seats24:29 are cramped and tight at the football game. The weather may be rain or snow at the football game. The players do not know them at the football game. The coach doesn't call24:41 them at the football game. No 1 watches or teaches their children free of charge at the football game. There is no free coffee at the football game. And even more so, there's a good chance that their team will24:53 lose at the football game. And 31 out of 32 teams will end their season in defeat at the football game. Now let me get real with you. Nobody gets saved at the football game.25:05 Nobody gets healed at the football game. Nobody gets set free at the football game. Those things happen at the church of Jesus Christ when God's word is preached. I don't know if I'm talking to anybody25:16 who realizes the value of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But it does way more for you than men running around in tight spandex throwing a ball.25:30 Have I got your attention now? Maybe again, you feel a little bit guilt, and I hear you. You know what the cure to guilt is? Grace. So it's not about25:42 money, it's about grace. Write this down so I know you're getting it. Grace is the currency God uses to save us and change us. Grace is the currency25:53 that God uses to save us. You're saved by grace, not of works, the Bible says. You don't get saved because you come to church,26:06 or read your Bible, or do nice things for other people. You do those things because you're saved by grace. My26:18 favorite passage in the Bible, 1 of my favorites, is Ephesians 2 8 through 10. Read the whole thing. It says, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of26:27 works so that no 1 can boast. It is God's gift of grace. And then the very next verse, verse 10 says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God preordained for us to do, that we should26:38 walk in them. Works of goodness follow salvation by grace. But understand, so many Christians leave grace at the front door of the church. You gotta walk26:50 through the whole house of God with grace. How do you keep a marriage alive? Grace. How do you get free from addictions and out of repetitive harmful behavior? Grace.27:02 How do you get a mind renewed? Grace. How do you get a heart chained? Grace. How do you come out of all the enslaving practices of this world mentally, physically, socially, and emotionally? Grace. See, grace is God's27:13 currency, not just to get you in the door. Grace is God's currency to show you all the nice furniture that God wants to put into your house of faith. And that's what this passage in second Corinthians 8 to 9 is about.27:25 Paul is raising money. Pastors be raising money. They've been doing this for 2000 years. He's raising money from the Corinthians, a very highfalutin, very affluent area of the Greek, Roman, Greco Roman world in27:37 the first century. But the way that he does it is he just saturates these 2 chapters, Corinth second Corinthians 8 and 9, with just grace, grace, grace, grace.27:49 And he talks about grace at work in the churches in Macedonia. Those are the churches that he he started in, Acts chapter 17. Those are the Philippian church, the Thessalonica church, the Berean church. And so28:00 he talks about those churches in Macedonia to the church in Corinthians and in Corinth, and he says, want you to know about the grace of God that was at work in them. This is how God gets us to be turned28:12 from takers into givers. Grace. Are you a taker? Are you someone who comes, you receive, you get all the blessings of the Lord as everybody here in all of our locations28:24 does at the same time, but then you just do nothing, you give nothing, you serve nothing, you do and and men, I'll tell you something, I've learned this the hard way. Do you know where the loudest complaints come? From28:34 the takers. The the people who say, pastor, can I talk to you? Can I talk to you? I got a problem. And I always say, okay, wait a second, and I have them check the giving record. I do.28:46 And 9 times out of 10, no, no, no, like 99 times out of 100, they don't give, but they got a lot to say. I've shared this story, I'll share it again. I've been to Gillette Stadium, yes,28:58 the temple. The temple to the 6 time Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 6 time Super Bowl champion, New England Patriots. I've been up into the29:10 3 hundreds, and I've been up into those red, beautiful, comfy, cozy seats, they're the club level seats. And the fans are totally different in both sections. You go up to the cheap29:22 sheet sheets cheap seats, and the fans are obnoxious Philistines. I'm telling you, these people need Jesus. The team throws a bad pass or makes a bad29:34 mistake, and everybody's like, this team sucks. I hate this team. They're terrible. You go down to the red seats, they make a bad pass or they do something wrong, and everybody's like, come on guys. You can do29:46 it. You know what I learned? I learned that the more you have invested in an organization, the more heart you have for the people in the organization. The loudest complaints come from the29:57 cheapest seats. Still love me? How does God change takers or cheapskates into30:09 givers? Grace. Point number 1, write this down, grace empowers giving. I wanna be a giver, pastor, but I look at my money and it's just I'm out of30:20 money. You're doing it wrong. Notice in mister Budget's list, tithes and offerings are at the top. Do it first. Because it's not just a financial principle,30:33 it's it's a spiritual issue. It's not just a financial principle, it's a spiritual issue.30:45 Who has the power to bless your life? So why would you put him last on your list? Why30:57 would he get the leftovers? Why would you say, God, I know you are infinitely wonderful, good beyond my my my greatest imagination, you can do more than I can ask31:09 or think, and I also believe that you love me eternally, but I'm not gonna give my money to you first. Your mortgage company31:21 can't bless you. Your electric company can't bless you. Your kids. Do I have to go there? Valentine's Day can't bless you.31:32 God can bless you. All those things are worthy of financial resources, but God first. Well, how am I gonna do that? Okay. I want you to test God and just try it and put God31:44 first financially. 10 percent to God's house, 10 percent. And then charitable giving on top of that. My wife and I do this. And then you see how God will empower your giving by his grace. Because grace is the power, the31:55 currency by which God doesn't just save us, it's how He changes us. Here's what he says in verse 1, want you to know. I want you to know, he says, I need to give you a testimony about the grace of God. Underline grace of32:07 God. The great the charis. The word for grace is charis. It's the word we get charismatic from. And there's this idea that there are churches that are charismatic, and there are churches that are not charismatic. Let me32:17 say something very clearly. Every church is charismatic. Because charis charis or charisma is just the Greek word for gift. Every church is gifted. Every church is graced.32:29 That's what it is. So I want you to know about the grace, the gift that God poured upon the churches in Macedonia, they gave. And something happened. God went to work, and they gave. God went to work, and they32:41 gave. God went to work, and they what? Gave. If you're not giving, can you even claim that God's going to work? So here's point number 2, grace and power is32:53 extraordinary giving. Not just giving, extra Extra try break that word down into 2. Extra ordinary. In other words, God's people, by God's grace,33:04 do extra ordinary things. Extra or we are not ordinary. Everybody gets excited about being royal priests, holy nation,33:16 chosen generation, a peculiar people. You know, we are we are the head and not the tail. We we we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. We are his people, chosen,33:28 set apart. Okay. Yeah. And all that means that we should be doing some pretty spectacular stuff on this planet. If we claim to rule and reign with Christ, we better act like it.33:41 My God has a cattle on 1000 hills, my father has all the resources that I will ever need. So the Macedonian churches had an explosion of grace. I want you to know about the grace, this is verse 1, that happened in the33:53 churches of Macedonia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea. And here's what he says in verse 2. He says, for in a severe, say the next 3 words. Test of affliction.34:05 They were going through a hardship, a severe trial. It says their abundance of joy and their extreme, what? Poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity34:17 on their okay. Here's how grace works. This is so cool. This is so awesome. There's a pot on the stove of God's amazing grace. The fire is the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah. Amen. The fire's burning. Okay? And God does this34:28 with some people's lives. He says, okay, I'm gonna allow a severe 1 of the ingredients of life, I'm gonna allow a severe test of affliction. There we go. Gonna pour that into the pot. And I'm also gonna give them the joy34:38 of the holy spirit because Christians are doing extraordinary things. By God's grace, they have joy in affliction. Don't we sing that at our church on a regular I still got joy in34:49 chaos. I got peace that knows no Makes no sense? Alright. So all those things. Well, are we talking about? We're talking about the Holy Spirit fire. The affliction comes in, but the joy of the Lord35:01 comes in. We're still strong. And then look at the next mixture, extreme poverty. God says, okay, I'm gonna put you through a season where there's gonna be a little bit of hardship financially. I'm gonna pour that in. I35:09 don't like that guy. Yeah, I know, but I got a purpose. And then he stirs it all up. He stirs it all up. Affliction, joy, poverty. Affliction, joy, those are 3 ingredients. But the fire of the Holy Spirit is burning35:20 underneath that sucker, and God then pours it all together on the oven of his God God of his grace for 30 for 30 minutes, and then he pours it out on a plate, and out comes a wealth of generosity. Holy35:31 smokes. How does wealth of how does generosity come out of poor people? Grace. God's grace does more than save you. It changes you, and it causes you to do35:43 extraordinary things. Things this world doesn't understand. So so here just so I know you're getting it, can you write this down? God's grace is God's power to35:55 do the improbable in impossible situations. Has anybody been through some impossible situations? Do you and you can say, you could testify, you know how I got through that? God's36:07 grace. I've had so many things happen in my life where things should have fallen apart, man. I'll tell you, things should have really gone south for me many times. And I'm a preacher. Okay?36:19 And I and I look at it, and I've done some stupid stuff. You know what I was talking about stupid moron? Right here. Stupid moron number 1 that I know, right here. So many many years ago, about 20 years ago now, when my36:30 wife and I were very young with young children, all we had was 1 car. It was a Dodge Neon, 2000 I think it was 2001 Dodge Neon. Terrible little car. But I love to drive fast. This has always been36:43 my my sin nature. I do not encourage this. But I was coming away from a Christian bookstore sale and driving down 95. For anybody outside of36:54 Boston, this is the loop that goes around 95, called 1 28 or 95 because we like to double name roads around here. And it was pouring rain and I was flying, flying. And there was traffic everywhere, cars on every side, in37:06 front of me, behind me, beside me. And it was hydroplane rain, you know what I'm talking about. And I hydroplanned, and I was flying. And my car just lost all37:18 control and spun through the heavy traffic going probably upwards of 80 to 85 miles an hour in heavy rain, went around 337:30 times through the traffic. And it was so long that I had time to say to God, here I come, Lord. I literally37:42 said that. I said, I'm either gonna be maimed for life, or I'm about to meet Jesus in my head. 3 times around, hydroplaning, heavy rain, heavy traffic.37:54 Astonishingly, I didn't hit a single car. My car hit the guardrail straight on and just stopped in the highway, on on38:06 the side on the median, and everybody just flying past me like it didn't even happen. And I just sat there, the adrenaline and my blood and everything just flying through. I'm like38:20 I got out of the car and I looked, and there wasn't even a dent on the car, and the airbag didn't even deploy. And I drove home, and I never told my38:31 wife about it. And she's learning about it right now by video, I'm sorry, honey. No, no, I'm kidding, she knew about it, she knew about it. I'm kidding about that. What I'm not kidding was,38:45 God's grace was at work in my life. And I wonder who here is not a car, but it's your financial life. And you'reShow more
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