Pre-Decide: Part 5 - I AM GENEROUS
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
We are continuing in our series that we kicked off about five or six weeks ago called Pre-Decide. And the premise and the big idea of this series is that we would, before we're placed in any situation, pre-decide a particular action that we're gonna take. And we've been going through a couple different of these. We've talked about being ready, consistent, devoted, generous, faithful, and a finisher. And today I'm excited to kinda jump into something that not everybody is necessarily excited to talk about in the church, but it's something that we need to talk about and it's something that Jesus really commanded us. I read an article back in 2007, I know the good old days, right? '07, anybody remember '07? Yeah, okay, just me, okay. This was before Instagram, this was before like Netflix originals, this was before like Venmo and Cash App. I mean, how did we survive? Like honestly, like I don't even know how we lived. But in 2007, there was a study that was done that you on average every day were exposed to about 5,000 ads, 5,000 advertisements, whether that was in '07, do they have cell phones? Yeah, okay, cell phone, maybe the interwebs, your dial-up, your AOL chat messenger. Maybe it was a billboard, old school, right? The ones that aren't digital, but like the ones, maybe the ones that like rotated and like they were like three billboards in one, no? Okay, I'm a nerd. But you were exposed to over 5,000 ads every single day. Fast forward to now, 2024. I know everybody's like, huh. You are on average exposed to double that. Over 10,000 ads every single day. You look at, you scroll past, you try to block on your web browser. Everything that you do has an ad, right? Whether you're in an app, you're on social media, you're trying to read a blog to get that perfect recipe. Maybe you're watching an influencer on Google, you read a news article, YouTube videos. Anybody else just really YouTube? You're like, just get me to the video. Like I don't need like some, and they start stacking up. You get like skip one, skip two, skip. I'm like, how long is it? These ads are gonna be longer than the 30 second video that I was trying to watch on YouTube. But this is really bad news. This is really bad news because that study in 2007 actually told us that the more ads that we see, the more miserable that we are. I'm just here to bring hope and excitement to you in your life today, right? But the reality is that the more ads we see, the more miserable we are, why? because this ad wants to convince you and tell you that you don't have the perfect life, that you're missing out. You don't have what you need. And let me tell you today, ladies and gentlemen, what you need. I feel like I'm in my own infomercial right now in front of you guys. But the more ads that we see ad-plaked us to this place where we're just miserable. And the only way that these ads tell us and the world tells us to get happy is to get, get, get, accumulate, acquire, hoard in, hold onto it, have spares, have extras, why? Because then at that point, then you'll be happy that you have to have the new iPhone. You gotta have your favorite brand of shoes. You gotta have that purse. Ladies, you gotta have the Lulu leggings, right? I don't know, I just been told that that's where it's at, but we're told that it is more blessed to get. It is more blessed to acquire, it's more blessed to accumulate, and the world is yelling at us every single day, 10,000 times, that it is more blessed to get.
But Jesus has something different to say about that. I love what he says in Acts 20 verse 35. Jesus says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." This word, the original word here actually means more blessed, doubly blessed, or some might translate it or look at it in the realm of you're happier, you're more generous, you're more joyful when you give, you're more fulfilled when you give, You're more blessed when you give than when you receive. And I think for the most part, we know this, right? We know this kind of deep down inside and we wanna give more. We wanna be able to help people. We wanna be able to take care of our friends and our family and to love them in a way of meeting a practical need. But the reality is that a lot of us are in a place where we just feel that we can't do it right now. Inflation is through the roof. It is bonkers out there, it seems like, what it costs to just... I was talking to my wife about just going and getting a cheeseburger the other night, and we were just like, "$15? Excuse me? When did that happen?" We're like, "No, we'll have a sandwich at home. Thank you very much." But it's like this crazy space that we live in where we want to give, we want to be generous with everything we have but we feel that we just we can't I want to share today and not an infomercial style but to share some principles where you and I can become irrationally generous if you were writing anything down this morning you want to write something out if you want to write today's title for the talk would be when you stop holding back. Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for this morning. God, we are grateful to be here in your presence. God, we continue to invite you into this space. God, lead me with your words from your scripture, not what Pastor Chris has to say or what Pastor Chris thinks, but God, what you think and how you view generosity even in our world today in this moment in 2024. We thank you, Jesus. Amen. If you've been with us, we've been talking about this pre-decided thing, and specifically we've had this saying that we have, we can put this on the screen, that says when we're faced with this situation, we have pre-decided to take a specific action. We are pre-deciding even before we're in the moment, even before when we're looking at this face to face, we have pre-decided a specific action that we are going to take. We're not gonna let our emotions drive us, we're seeking God, we're going to Him, we've thought about it, we've prayed about it, we're trying to pre-decide in a very specific situation area. And we talked about six of these. And we had these stickers we gave away a couple of weeks ago if you didn't get one or you want a second one to put somewhere, they're on the table on the way out, next to hand sanitizer. And we would love for you to have one of these to have with you where your water bottle, you can put in your car, put it on your mirror, kind of wherever you want to be reminded of these statements of who we are. And I wanna say these together with us. We can bring this on the screen. Talking about being, I am ready. Say it with me, I am. - Ready. - Oh yeah, let's go. It's talking about being, I am consistent. I am. - Consistent. - Let's go. Talking about I am devoted. Pastor Andre shared with us last week, I am devoted.
Today we're gonna talk about being I am generous. I am faithful and I am a finisher. This is what we are talking about. This is who Jesus has called us to live as Christians, not only for the world around us, but for one another, and for what we would call our Spring Valley family, our church family, for each other, for our family family, for our neighbors, for our community, for our world. This is who Jesus called us to. And if we say we are a follower of Jesus, this is who he says that we are. So we are pre deciding, choosing ahead of time by God's grace that today talking about we will be more blessed by being generous and we are pre deciding to do so. Why? Why does any of this matter? Why does any of this matter? That no one ever accidentally becomes irrationally generous. Nobody just by chance stumbles into tithing or giving offerings or paying rent for someone who's need or buying groceries for someone who can't afford it or funding ministries or missions trips or having so much fun with tithing that they start with 10% and then go to 12, and then to 15 and 20, 25%, and then accidentally give away almost everything to God, more and more and more, and allowing him to be blessed, and to leave our kids an inheritance to our children, to our children, our children. No one ever stumbles into irrational generosity. It doesn't happen. And we tend to think that we will be generous when the time comes. that we will be generous, but I just can't right now. And we get in this circle of thought that when I have more, I'll give more, right? When, you know, God, when I just get that next pay raise, when I get that next bump at work, God, I'm all in on generosity. I am all yours, God. When I finally get that mortgage payment taken care of and I get the utility bills paid, I go, then God, you know what? I am generous. I am all of yours. You can have everything that I have when I get here. But I want you to understand that this isn't how generous people think. This isn't their thought process. Generosity isn't about what we have or don't have. It's about our heart. Generosity is about our heart. How do we know this? Well, we've seen some poor people who are crazy stingy, right? We've seen rich people who have it set for life, who you can't get a 20 spot out of them. And then on the other side, we've seen poor people who have literally nothing that just give it away. That just absolutely go, it's all yours, God. It's not much, it's all yours. And then we also see really, really rich people, philanthropists, who are incredible and change the world with what they have been blessed with. Generosity isn't something we just stumble into.
There's a story in Luke chapter 12, Jesus tells that illustrates this really, really well. And there's this rich guy who is getting richer, and then he has this incredible harvest. Okay, so farming terms, probably us city people don't get that. But this dude just basically just hit the jackpot, okay? We'll say that. He is loaded. And he probably, at one point, said, "Oh, what am I gonna do with all of this? Man, I have so much more than what I can store. the harvest, it's a grain, they gotta store it or it goes bad, they gotta keep it safe. Gotta keep it dry, gotta keep animals out of it, anything from eating, they gotta protect it. And so this rich guy, he's like, man, what am I gonna do? And I would venture to say, because I think each of us would be similar, that this rich dude at one point or another said, when I have more, I will give more. But what happens? We read this in Luke chapter 12, he said, "Then he said, I know, "I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. "Then I'll have enough room to store all my wheat "and other goods. "And I'll sit back and say to myself, my friend, "you have enough stored away for years to come. "Now take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry." Similar story, right? Written over 2000 years ago, but still rings so true to today. That this story of, when I get more, I'm gonna, God, when I have that harvest, when it comes in, baby, oh man, I'm bringing it to the church, we're gonna celebrate. I'm sending it to my buddy who's a missionary overseas. I'm gonna fund this, I'm gonna take care of this. I'm gonna take care of my neighbor's mortgage. I'm gonna take care of this rent over there. I'm getting groceries for the lady down the street who's a single mom. Like I am all in God when this harvest comes in. But what happened? His heart was revealed. And the reality is, I'm sorry, this one's gonna hurt. More money just makes more of what you already are. That one hurt. Money doesn't change who we are, it just reveals maybe our true self deep down inside. And that is why if you want to be generous, which I think we all do, when we have more, we have to learn to be generous when we have less. We have to learn now and we have to pre-decide to be generous even if we have less than what we think to be generous.
Giving is not just something that we do, it's an identity of who we are. In my, for some of you who would look at me, say my short time here on earth, other yous would look at me and say that old dude up front who's been around since dirt, In my life, I will say that I've seen two really big qualities of generous people. Whether in the church, I know a lot of generous people who have nothing to do with God in the church and they're incredibly generous. They make some Christians look really bad. Wherever they are on the spectrum, they are a generous person. Two things I constantly see from them. and the first of which is generous people plan to be generous. Generous people plan to be generous. You might think, I'll say this, and I felt like this for a long, long time, that being generous was spontaneous. You saw somebody on the side of the road and you're like, "Hey, here's a five," or, "Hey, here's my lunch," or you went and got food for them and brought them food. Maybe it's buying the meal or the coffee or whatever for the person behind us in drive-through, right? Or maybe it was, you would see these poor, poor puppies in cages, and you would start to hear Sarah McLachlan singing. That they have to free the puppies. We have to, they're so sad. And so then maybe you get to, You go down and you give some money to the local animal shelter, or you go do an adoption day, or you bring home a new family member, four-legged friend. But we think that that's generosity, but I wanna tell you today, that's not, that's giving. And that's fantastic, it's wonderful. And I wanna tell you, don't stop doing that. That is great, great stuff. We should be giving people. But what is the difference between giving and generosity is that generous people don't have to be guilted into giving. Generous people don't need to be inspired to give. Generous people are not reactive. Does that make sense? Generous people, they don't give whenever there's just a need. They don't give when they have something extra. They don't give when they're prompted to, but generous people actually have a plan. And scripture tells us this very clearly in Isaiah 32, chapter eight, it says, "But generous people plan "to do what is generous." Generous people plan. Generous people pre-decide. Generous people plan to do what is generous, and they stand firm in their generosity. They stand firm, I think stand firm as in maybe a stance where you're not gonna get knocked over, but they plan to be generous and they stand firm in that. Giving is not what I do. Generosity is who I am. And we have to plan to be generous. Pre-decide to be generous. See, what's funny about this is that all people have a plan for finances. All people have a plan for finances. Some, you might say, "Hey, pastor, no." No, I really don't. I really don't have a plan. You have a plan. Is there ever something that you really, really wanted? Like really wanted? You get strategic real fast, right? You start doing research, who's got the best price? Is it free shipping or not? Are they charging tax or not? Can I get a coupon? Can I get a discount? Do I buy it used, but still has maybe a couple of year warranty, so it may last a little bit, or do I buy it locally, so that I'm not paying for shipping, I'm not paying for taxes, a cash transaction. Where do I have the cash? Do I have the cash? I can get the cash. Wait a minute, okay, now I gotta meet this person. You're messaging in Facebook marketplace, offer up. Oh, then all of a sudden Amazon, boom, it's on sale. Oh my gosh, add $5 clip coupon. It's the word of the Lord. He has spoken to me. We have had it, here it is. Just me? Okay. Generous people don't plan to consume. Generous people plan to give. And when we become generous by nature, you are strategically and prayerfully designing your life around generosity. It's not something you do as a reaction. It is a strategy, it's a mindset. When we think differently, you sit down and you think, man, how can I bless somebody? How can I take what God has given me and make an even greater difference? How can I maximize what I have? How can I be a blessing to people around me?
Here's the key, it's not just spontaneous. Maybe it is, but not, certainly not all the time. That's not how it works. It's not emotional, strategic. It's not random, it's intentional. And along with our series, we are pre deciding before in the moment that we will be generous. So you might say, I'm just not a planner. It may not be a good plan that you have, may not be written down, but there's a plan. I'll show you kind of what I'm talking about today. I have the circle illustration I wanna show us. That for the most of us, the reality is where we are is we spend more than we make. God supplies us, God increases us, whether that's an income or an allowance or something special we get in our lives every single month or maybe quarterly, I don't know, it comes in and we probably most likely spend more than we make. But then that puts us in a really bad place because then we start lacking margin. And we don't have any wiggle room with where we're at financially. And then what does that cause us to do? It starts bringing worry into our life. And then to combat the worry, we go and have retail therapy and we spend more than we make and then we're lacking margin, and then we worry more, and then we spend more than we make, and then we lack margin. You guys kind of get the picture of this. This is not a money problem. It's a spiritual problem. Everybody like super excited they came to church today. Like, yeah! It's a spiritual problem. I'm preaching to myself up here by the way, this is hard. We are trusting in things rather than putting our faith in God. And what happens is that generous people, they break the cycle. Not accidentally, not by happenstance, not by just falling into it, but intentionally, strategically, pre-deciding with a plan. We break the cycle by choosing God first. Jesus said this, what did he say? He said, "Seek first the kingdom of God "and his righteousness, "and then all things, everything else, "will be added to you." We don't seek the shoes, we don't seek the countertops, we don't seek the new car, we don't seek the new watch, but we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We put Him first, then everything else will be added. We seek God first.
There's actually a principle in scripture that talks about this very, very powerful, important, life-changing thing, and it's called a tithe. Maybe you guys have heard of it, maybe you haven't, but we find this in Malachi. And it says in Malachi 3.10, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, "that there may be food in my house." What is a tithe? It's not a word that's typically used in society. It actually comes from the Hebrew meaning masser, which means 10%. And we see this in scripture as to bring 10% of what God has blessed you and me with back to him as an act of worship that there may be food in God's house. Confession, first time I heard about some of this, I was becoming a kid and I'd started mowing lawns and I started earning some money from family members and doing some yard work. And I first heard about this idea and I was like, Wait, what? A tithe? 10%? That is way too much. That's ridiculous. I can't afford to do that. God, you don't understand, I got things I need to buy. I got basketball shoes I need. I got the Backstreet Boys CD I need. I got the Pokemon cards. They just dropped. Like, God, you just don't understand. In order to do that, God, okay, I would have to completely rearrange my entire life, all of my priorities, everything that I have chosen to do, and put you, God, first. It's almost like he knew. It's almost like he knew that this would be a place where I would have to change my priorities, I would have to put him first, I'd have to fully trust him, I'd have to worship him with everything that I had, I'd have to step into a place that is completely uncomfortable, a place that I didn't like, a place that meant I probably had less, a place that rearranged all of my priorities, every single thing that I had focused on my mind, on my wishlist, I was working towards, it was almost like he could see the future. God can, by the way, just letting you know that.
God put us in this place You know what he said? Test me. This is the only place in the entire Bible where God says, I dare you. I double dog dare you. Put me to the test, bro. Test me in this. Says the Lord Almighty. and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be enough room to store it. If you put him first, God says, "See if I'll take care of you." See what happens. Now you might say, hey, hey, hey, Chris, let's, eh, careful here. It kind of sounds like a little tell the evangelist prosperity gospel here. If you give money to the church, then you will be rich. What I'm talking about today is not prosperity gospel. What I'm talking about today is the generosity gospel. And Jesus, God himself first did that, right? John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave." God was the first one that was generous. God was the first one that poured out. God was the first one who blessed us, even when we did not deserve it whatsoever. God was the one who first gave, and this is the difference. And when you and I start to recognize giving, we begin to see that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive. And it breaks the cycle, right? It puts you into this new cycle. And it says this, when God supplies, we give, we trust him. We go, God, don't make no sense. My calculator on my phone, it doesn't add up, God, you don't get it. But then what happens? God blesses. And we go, wait, wait, wait a minute. I did this math. I'm not like the most brilliant person, I'm a math guy, I like numbers, and my math was not math in God. But then you took care of it, somehow. You took care of it. And then that builds our faith. And then it builds our faith and we go, okay God, you did this last time. Maybe we can do it again. And we give. And God blesses. And it builds our faith. And we give and God blesses and it builds our faith and it builds the faith of those around us. And then they see us giving and they go, Wait, how are you doing that? And you're like, I don't know, it's God, but I'm still giving. And God continues to bless and it builds faith and we keep giving. This faith that builds replaces the worry in our life. It pushes back those feelings of going, God, I'm living paycheck to paycheck. I don't get this. I got this stuff coming in. I don't understand what's going on. God, I need you. I'm stressed, I'm anxious, I'm worried. I don't know what the interest rate from the feds, what they're gonna say next month. I don't know what's gonna happen this summer with the housing market. God, I don't understand if they're laying people off at work, God, you don't understand. I just, you, ah, ah, ah, ah. And this faith that starts to build just pushes all of this stuff out. and we start living in this generous place. And it doesn't have to be a lot. If there's anything that you wanna take away with this morning, it's being generous doesn't mean it has to be a lot. Being generous doesn't mean we have to have our name on a hospital or on a plaque in a hallway somewhere or for people to see it and to be recognized. My grandparents were an incredible example of this. They would constantly just bring money to the church and drop it off, and they told the pastor, "You know who needs it this month." And every time they would show up, the pastor would look at him and go, "You have no idea. "We just had somebody call. "They need this much money, "and you just handed it to me in an envelope." That's God. That is generosity.
It's a mindset that changes who we are when we put God first, but we have to pre-decide. It's not just giving when it's convenient. It's not just giving when you might have some leftover, But we do it and we give God our first and our best, and we trust him to do what he's gonna do with the rest of it. We pre-decide to put him first. And I would say that it starts with a tie, that it starts with a decision to say, God, this is yours, but it doesn't stop there. There's a lot of people I know in the church, not in this church, my other old churches that nobody just, you just don't talk about it. That's a joke, it's okay. They were good churches. But I've met people in the church, they're like, "Hey, pastor, 10%, I'm in, buddy. Just wanna let you know, check the box. God's happy with me." And I would challenge them. I was like, "Dude, you're not being generous. Like, I appreciate it. You're helping keep lights on and ministry going and coffee and food on Sundays. Like, hey, awesome, thank you. Still got some hard work, man. This isn't an end all be all, boop, there we go, I'm done. That's where we start, that's like step one in our plan of being generous, but we don't stop there and we're not accidental about it. I heard this story one time of a guy who literally has in his monthly budget 50 bucks. And he gets paid, sets the 50 aside, and he says, "God, you know this month where this is going. "I don't know yet, but you know." And he goes throughout his day. "Hey God, you got anybody in mind yet?" "Hey God, what?" Every single month, God has a place for that $50. But he pre-decides. This isn't like, "Hey God, January 31st down here on earth. "Got 27 bucks in the checking account, where do you want this to go, God?" Pre-decide, put it in the budget. There's no accident, it's not planned spontaneity. You have pre-decided that this dude is gonna bless somebody with 50 bucks every single month. I've heard stories of people who have decided to increase 1% every year. So what does that look like? Well, it looks like they start one year at 10% and then it's 11, it's 12, it's 13, it's 14, 15. But they pre decided that this is what they're going to do with what God has blessed them with. And they've done some incredible, incredible generous things in their life. I know somebody who was a small business owner. And he talked to me and he was like, "Hey, can I give from my business to the church?" And I was like, "Totally, bro, absolutely." He goes, "I didn't know that. "I didn't know if like the whole tithe thing "was just like my income." Or I was like, "Dude, if you're feeling led "by the Holy Spirit to give through your business, "then do that." Well, say this, the caveat, business blew up overnight. I've also heard stories of people with business plans to get to a point where they are giving away 50% of their profit every single year to world missions. To fighting hunger around the globe, to ending diseases that we don't even have to think about in America, to changing the trajectory of cultures around the globe, people that have way less than anything we do.
That doesn't happen by accident. Now we probably don't do that tomorrow, but it takes strategy, it takes planning, it takes thinking, it takes pre-deciding what you're going to do to be generous. The other thing that I see when we close from generous people is that generous people always round up. Generous people always round up. What do I mean by this? I heard a story one time of some believers. And they had gone to a restaurant to have a meal. And the server knew who they were. The server hated God, the server hated the church, the server hated everything to do about Christian, server just utterly despised everything. And she goes, here's my chance. Gives them the most horrible service that they have ever received in their life. She goes, I'm gonna stick it to them. It comes time for the bill. And they feel led by the Holy Spirit for some reason. I mean, they were talking, "There's no way we're going to tip this gal. We're not paying her anything. We're just doing a fat goose egg under tip." I'm getting food comped. But the Holy Spirit's tugging their hearts saying, "You got to pay. You got to tip. You need to round up." round up. And they're like, oh, okay, God, that's what I gotta do. And they tithe, or not tithe, tip, round up, minimal to go, hey, God, yeah, I got you, I got you. Here we go. And she was floored. Fast forward a couple years later, she hits a point of just rock bottom in her life. And she goes, "You know who I need to go see? "Those Christian people who blessed me "when I had done absolutely nothing to be blessed by them, "and they rounded up." They rounded up. She knew what she had done. She knew how she had treated them. She knew that she was undeserving of anything, and fully expecting no tip or anything, whatever, just to be like, see, told you, feel that fire. God flipped that upside down, she went to church, she found the saving message of Jesus Christ and she's living for God. Generous people always round up.
Proverbs 21:26 says, "All day long, the lazy, he, the selfish craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back." Generous people round up. We see this all over scripture. I love this, real quick. See this all over scripture. First thing I will say, the Good Samaritan. You guys heard that story maybe? If you've been in church, you're Good Samaritan. This dude coming along the road, see this guy who just got beat up, he got jumped, he got everything stolen from him. He got just the living daylights beat out of him. It's basically moments from dying. Good Samaritan, bandages him up, says, "Hey, we're taking you to town. "We're gonna get you well." Takes him to basically a hospital in the inn and basically says, you gotta take care of this guy, you gotta take care of, and he says this in Luke 10:35. He says, "The next day, he being the good Samaritan "handed the innkeeper two silver coins, "telling him, take care of this man. "If his bill runs higher than this, "I'll pay you the next time I'm here." Good Samaritan bro could have just been like, hey, bandaged you up on the road, good luck, peace. He bandaged him up, picked him up, took him to town, Hey, he could have just dropped him at the doorstep of the inn and said, "Hey, innkeeper, "somebody out here, see ya," and rolled. But he takes in there, he pays the bill and then gives his word, "Hey, if anything else comes up, "it's on this dude." No, he says, "If anything else comes up, I'm good for it. "Next time I'm in town, tell me the bill, "I will take care of it." Generous people round up. Anybody remember Zacchaeus? Zacchaeus was a wee little man A wee little man was he Okay, some of you are like, who is that? It's okay. It's like early 2000s, late 90s church. It's okay. But Zacchaeus, this short little dude, he climbs up in a tree so he can see this guy, Jesus, walking on the road, and he's like, I wanna see who this dude is. And Jesus comes along and says, hey, Zacchaeus, I'm coming to your house for dinner. What you making? And the dude basically falls out of the tree in shock. And it's like, are you okay? Okay, cool, let's go to your house. He's like, ah, he fell on the tree, bro. No, but seriously, he goes to his house and he's having dinner with him. And this guy was the worst of the worst. He was a crook, he was a swindler, he was a manipulator, he stole money from people, he was taking taxes, but then he was taking his taxes, and then his friends' taxes, And then his friend's tax is on top, really he was taking it all, but he was taking all this extra tax stuff, and Jesus shows up in his life and radically changes him. And he says what? In verse, Luke 19, verse eight, he says, "If I've cheated anybody out of everything," newsflash, he cheated everybody out of everything, "I will pay back four times the amount." That's pretty generous. That is pretty generous.
Jesus himself, he tells us, he says, "Anybody demands your shirt, "give them your really cool jacket too." If somebody says, "Hey, go a mile with me, round up, go too." Jesus says, "Generous people round up." It's not what you're not doing, We're just not randomly giving. We're not just waiting until we have more. We are generous people who make a plan and round up. My wife, amazing, she's incredible. You haven't met her, she's really, really cool. She came up with this idea somewhere of creating these pre-made packs of stuff for people who are unhoused. And it has like deodorant and socks. And I think there was like a beanie in there and there was like a Starbucks gift card and all this stuff. And because we were driving around and our girls kept saying, "Hey, can we help this person?" It was just like, "Sorry, we have a water bottle." We hand them a water bottle and the girls were like, "That was cool! We gotta do this more. And so then we started having water bottles and it was just like, we didn't have enough water bottles. And then we came, my wife found this idea. She came probably with herself, she's brilliant, to make these packs that have all this stuff in it ready to go. And we would call them our bless packs. I think that's the term. But we would have them in the car ready to go. So when we pulled up next to them, one of the girls was like, "Hey, let's do a bless pack from the back of the van." And one was like, "Okay, Lauren, okay." And we would hand it to them. This incredible, incredible, and they, seven bucks maybe? A pack? 'Cause the Starbucks gift card? But it was just something so simple and so easy, but we had to pre-plan. Does it take some time? Yeah, does it take some effort? Yeah, you gotta go to the store, you gotta buy some stuff, you gotta put some, but that generosity in a practical way for someone.
There was another time I was working at Starbucks in college. Lauren and I were just early married, and we were living paycheck to paycheck. And we were trying to do the tithing thing, and every month or so we'd try to get there. Sometimes we didn't make it. But I had a coworker of mine who was a single mom. She had gone through a really ugly divorce, and she was living at home with like six kids. And a couple of them were in high school, and we were talking one time, she was my shift manager, and we were talking and she's like, I just, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I was like, what do you mean? She goes, it's a couple days before payday and we are literally out of food. She goes, I got nothing. She goes, I think the kids might be able to get something at school. She goes, but I really don't know what I'm gonna do. And we were like, okay, what can like, they're like, no, it's nasty, but here's a bunch of old muffins and some breakfast sandwiches, and here's a gallon of milk. We'll just turn a blind eye. And she had never asked for anything ever. And so I go home and I can't stop thinking about it. Can't stop thinking about it. And God's like, you gotta do something, bro. You gotta do something. I'm like, I don't wanna do it. So I talked to my wife, Laura, and I'm like, this is what's going on. And she goes, "We're going to the store." I was like, "What do you mean?" She's like, "We don't have the money." She's like, "Yeah, we do." She's like, "We're going to the store." And I was like, "Okay." And it was a couple of days before our payday, and we were looking at our fridge, and we were going, "Okay, God." And one time she turned to me, she goes, "We have to do something." And I was like, "Okay." So we went to the store, and we filled the cart, and we checked out. And we went to their house and we doorbell ditched them with a load of groceries. The math didn't math. God took care of the bill. It wasn't Lorna me. God took care of the bill. There was enough. We made it to payday. And then I had that next shift with her at work. And she was like, I gotta tell you a story. And she was in tears. She was like, I don't know who it was, or how it happened. She goes, there was just enough food. Young married couple buying for a family of six. We had no idea who could buy it. And I was like, man, that's incredible. And she was like, "I don't understand." I was like, "Probably not meant to understand, "but just say thanks God." And she goes, "Oh yeah, I've been talking to God "like I've never been talking to God these last 48 hours.”
Being generous is a heart, attitude, mindset change. It's not what you give. Being generous is who you are, and this is who God has called us to. If you want to be more generous when you have more, learn to be generous when you have less. This isn't, it wasn't like that day after Lauren and I did that, like we never struggled with generosity in our life. No. It is a constant battle and struggle. But when we seek God first, and we trust Him with everything that we have, He will take the portion that is left over, and it will go further than you could ever have best plans for the whole. It's the only thing I could tell you that. And I know generous people in this church that say the exact same thing. It's like we started just being generous. We didn't understand, it didn't make sense, and it just happened. But you have to pre-decide. We're not waiting till later. not making excuses of why we can't. We stand firm in our plan of generosity, pre-deciding, rounding up, because we serve a God who went above and beyond and was the most generous, who pre-decided to send his son to take care of everything for us as the ultimate gift. our choice is to then share from that generosity.
Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for today. God, we thank you for your generosity of the rain outside, even this moment. God, you are so caring and loving. We are so incredibly grateful. And so God, I pray for us as we go from this place today that we would start maybe having some hard conversations, God, of where do you want us to give? Where do you want us to be generous? How do you want us to handle the increase, God, that you have given to us? Jesus, may we be people as Christ's followers who are identified as generous people, not because of the amount that we give, but because of how we care and we love for those around us, God. May we pre-decide, may we pre-choose to trust that you're gonna be the one who's gonna take care of it. Give us eyes to see, give us the strength to plan strategically to be generous. God, be with us as we go from this place. We love you, we praise you, we thank you for who you are. We love you, Jesus. Amen.