[SPEAKER_01]: Tagout chapter one versus three through nine.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says this, it'll be on the screen if you want to follow that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: The word of the Lord came through Haggai, the prophet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the Lord of hosts says this, think carefully about your ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have planted much, but harvested little.
[SPEAKER_01]: You eat, but never have enough to be satisfied.
[SPEAKER_01]: You drink, but never have enough to become drunk.
[SPEAKER_01]: You put on clothes, but never have enough to get warm.
[SPEAKER_01]: The wage earner puts his wages into a bag with a hole in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord of Host says this, think carefully about your ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go up into the hills, bring down lumber, and build the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on, somebody say, build the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then I will be pleased with it and be glorified says the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: You expected much, but then it amounted to little.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you brought the harvest to your house, I ruined it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the declaration of the Lord of hosts, because my house still lies in ruins.
[SPEAKER_01]: While each of you is busy with his own house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord help us, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, if you're taking notes this morning, the title of today's message is freedom through giving, freedom through giving, amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray, Father, we thank you, Lord, for your word.
[SPEAKER_01]: We thank you, God, for the revelation and the truth of your word today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I pray, God, that you would teach us something new, Lord, that you would encourage us, God, and this topic, and in this area of giving, God, that you would help us, Lord, help us, Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Test me and see if I won't open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing upon you And so Father God, we thank you, Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: We put you to the test.
[SPEAKER_01]: We put you to the word and your word says God That Lord that when we are obedient to you God and when we make that sacrifice and when we honor you and the area of our giving Lord that you will bless us in return
[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't do it, God, to get the blessing, but we do it Father because we love you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we honor you, and we respect you, God, and we respect your Word, and we honor your Word, which is truth in our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we thank you for it today, and Jesus name, everybody said, amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just to kind of give you a little bit of a brief recap from last week, one of the most important things that we could do as believers, remember, is to get serious about the house of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: to get serious about his house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when we're serious about his house, I believe he will get serious about our house.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want him to, I want that to be the case, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to be serious about the house of the Lord because I want his hand over my home, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Over my household, and over my family, over my children.
[SPEAKER_01]: So building God's house is something that is supernatural, it's something that's beyond ourselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's bigger than us.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something though that listen has eternal value and has an eternal reward.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of things that we do here on Earth has no eternal reward, has no eternal value.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you look at that scripture that we just read, it's like, he says, hey, you're busy doing all this stuff for your life, but my house is coming into ruins.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's falling apart.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't want to be so busy with the things of life and the things of the family and the things of our home and all that kind of stuff that I lose sight of the fact that God has first called us to build his house.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how do we build his house?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're building his house by building the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a priority that we have as believers that we understand that God has called us to build His kingdoms, specifically to build His house upon this earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And people may say, well, we don't need any more churches.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we need more churches.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need more people of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need more believers.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need more soul winning, come on Sunday.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need more discipling.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need more love and on people.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need more school supply drive to give 100 kids that don't have school supplies for this upcoming year.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to get, we need to help them, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's what the church is for.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he says, don't worry about your own house that you get so busy worrying about you and your money and your bills and your this and your that that you forget about the house of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if you remember there are three major things that help build the kingdom of God, specifically help building his house that we talked about last week, number one, serving.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we serve, we're building his house, we're building the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second thing is giving what we're talking about here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot do much without the obedience and the sacrifice and the honor of individuals that was saying, I believe in what God is doing through this house and I believe in the work of the kingdom that is happening, so I'm going to give to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm just going to simply be obedience to the Word of God that teaches us to give, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then making disciples,
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... which is so important and so i told you that really when you look at this list two out of the three um... i feel like become so easy where it's like you know hey i'll serve all day long i'll give of my of my time i'll serve in certain areas of the church i'll do that i'll i'll help make disciples i'll go do these community outreach events i'll talk to people about jesus i'll pray for people
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, don't preach to me about giving.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can preach to me about serving, and I'll serve.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can preach to me about making disciples, and I'll make disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when it comes to giving, I'm really not sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I find that that's where we find ourselves often is being in that position where we'll do anything else for the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll do anything else for God's house.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we fall short in the area of giving.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not to condemn us this morning, that's to actually encourage us and to help us and get us into a place where we understand that there is an eternal reward.
[SPEAKER_01]: when we give to the house of God Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as much as we become passionate about serving and passionate about doing all of these things that we do, we have got to become passionate and excited about giving.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we learned this last week based on Malachi chapter three that giving unto the Lord and giving to build his house opens up the windows or heavens, opens up the window or heaven in our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want the wind as a heaven to be open up over my home, over my life, over my finances, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I want that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, how many of you know that the enemy, he really does want you to be powerless.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants you to live in a state of fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants you to be bound to the things of this world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And specifically one of the ways that he wants you to be bound to the ways of this world is to
[SPEAKER_01]: The enemy would love nothing more to ensure that you have nothing, that you're miserable, that you have nothing to show for, nothing to give, nothing to offer up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so watch this when you believe the lies of the enemy, you empower the liar.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you believe the lies, you empower the liar.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you stand on the truth of God's word, we know that the Bible says that the truth will set us free.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen?
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have to stand upon the truth of the word of God, the truth of what God said about us and everything that is marked up all throughout this word.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to stand upon that truth because it's that truth that sets us free.
[SPEAKER_01]: So God wants to set us free, and He wants to set us free by the truth of His Word, and the enemy wants to do the opposite, the enemy wants to keep us bound.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he'll use multiple tactics and schemes and tricks and ways to bind you up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if one of the truths and the revelation of God's word is in the area of giving, sowing and reaping and giving into the kingdom of God, then the opposite that the enemy would do would be to bind you up in the area of finances.
[SPEAKER_01]: To tell you, you don't make enough money to tie, or you don't have enough right now to give.
[SPEAKER_01]: or this or that.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these lies, he'll whisper into you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he wants to keep you bound in that area because it is the opposite of the truth of God's Word.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to go strong on this topic of this morning of eliminating those mindsets and really stepping into a place of freedom.
[SPEAKER_01]: where we can destroy the poverty mindset and a poverty mentality and a poverty spirit that sometimes we don't even realize we have.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that we can be set free and we can walk in the freedom of the Lord and the area of our giving as believers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the greatest ways to build the house of God is by our giving, but hear me, one of the greatest ways to stop our giving is having a poverty mindset.
[SPEAKER_01]: it will stop you're giving just like that and I'm not just talking about for the church I'm talking about in general it will it will stop you from being more blessed to give them to receive right it will prevent you from being able to to step out and bless those that need to be blessed right to bless the poor to bless the widow whatever it may be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we know that one of the tactics of the enemy is to instill fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he wants us to live in total fear in every area of our life.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants us to live in total fear, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and so forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And listen, he even wants us to live in fear financially.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want us to just live in fear emotionally, or spiritually.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, he wants us to live in fear also financially.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if that's his tactic, then we have got to learn how to recognize it and eliminate that from our lives so that we can walk in the purchase freedom of the cross, amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even in how we approach and we think about money.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I want to break down some of those lies of the enemy and really just release truth today of God's Word to help you and to help you.
[SPEAKER_01]: your life and to help your finances and to help your family because I believe that this is so important for us in this day and age, especially for us in this season that we're in as a church here at Church of the City specifically.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we all need to be on the same page in the area of giving.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe that the only way we can do that is if we truly walk in the freedom, the freedom of Jesus Christ in the area of financial freedom and financial giving.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the first thing that I want to teach you today, the first thing that if you're taking notes is this number one, is that the enemy doesn't want you to give, but giving is an act of worship to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that's a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna give you some time to write that down.
[SPEAKER_01]: The enemy doesn't want you to give.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, he doesn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a last thing he wants you to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: But giving you need to know is an act of worship to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Worship just isn't us coming together on Sunday and having a band and lifting up our hands and singing songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Worship is so far beyond that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And giving is an act of worship, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we need to understand that as believers is that when we give, it's not just an act that we do, but it is worship that comes from our heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's worshiping the Lord and honoring Him in the area of our giving saying, God, I'm going to serve you in this way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to worship you in this way because everything that I have, it's come from you in the first place.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the way down to the penny, everything that I have, you gave me, and so I'm going to worship you in the area of my giving.
[SPEAKER_01]: And why do you think that the enemy wants to stop you from giving?
[SPEAKER_01]: specifically giving of your tie then offering, because giving is worship unto the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if he can do one thing, he's going to try everything he can to stop your worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: If he can get you to stop your worship then what's next?
[SPEAKER_01]: It begins to be a downhill spiral from there, an absolute roller coaster of events.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there isn't one case, one incident that the devil himself is okay with you worshiping the king of kings in Lord of Lords.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know of one time when the enemy is like, you know, right now I'll let you do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now I don't care about you doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: The devil is not that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants to stop you in every single way possible from worshiping the king.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if he wants to stop you from exulting the creator and exulting the king of the universe and the one that formed you and the one that has you safe in the palm of his hand, then he's going to try to rob you of your worship and one of the ways that he robes you is the area of giving.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if the enemy can stop you from giving by, by whispering lies into you, then essentially what he's doing is he's removing an opportunity to worship the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the motive of giving as we know and I said this a few minutes ago, should never be so that we can get something back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Should never be that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you do need to know that God is and he will bless you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He will bless you, and he is blessing you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I want to do something here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Raise your hand if you know without a shadow of a doubt, and you believe that when you understood the principles of biblical principles of giving, and you put it into action in your life that God began to bless you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Raise your hand, let me see you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see hands all over there and why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's the way God operates.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't, he doesn't just say things just to say them.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just in his word, just because it's written.
[SPEAKER_01]: And remember, we debunked the whole thing last week about giving a specifically tithing only being an Old Testament thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you missed last week's message, go back and listen to it, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because listen, tithing is not law, tithing is love.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a contract, but tithing is a covenant.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, if giving, if tithing is love, then therefore, it's worship to the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we give of our, of our finances, a small portion of everything that God has given to us, that is an act of love, and when we pour out love upon the Father, we are worshiping Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's saying, wow, I see that worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the time is 10% we give 10% back to God, not just what he gives us, but we're giving off of our increase, amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like he's already blessed us in that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of people say, well, I can't afford 10%.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I always say, I had much rather live with 90% than be cursed with 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: because the Bible says that if we don't follow these biblical principles we're under the curse.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd rather live off of the 90% knowing that there is going to be an increase in God is going to bless.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I know that why because we've witnessed it in our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean this is just I mean it's the reality of the Word of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have seen where there are times where it's like man right now financially it's a struggle but we're going to still give our ties and then God somehow brings it right back in.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, wow, God, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what I was thinking when I wasn't trusting you in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many have you ever been there before?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, man, I just, I don't know why I thought that, why I said that, why I believed that lie, because I knew that the increase that God was going to provide, that God was going to do it for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm grateful that God doesn't care about the amount.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of times we like to make it about the amount.
[SPEAKER_01]: God don't care about the amount.
[SPEAKER_01]: He don't care about the dollar down to the tea.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't care about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he cares about your obedience, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if your tie, there's only $10, or if it's $100, or it's $1,000 to God, it makes no difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't care about the amount.
[SPEAKER_01]: He cares about the heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's just looking at the obedience in your obedience and sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me tell you, it moves the heart of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you may not make a lot of money, you may feel like your gift to God is insufficient, but you need to know today that God doesn't care about how many dollars you give.
[SPEAKER_01]: But God simply cares about the posture of your heart, the position of your heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: God simply cares about that and he is pleased when you give, why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because giving is worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an aroma to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every act of worship is an aroma to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he loves, let me tell you, he loves when you worship him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He loves it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so giving is one of the areas of worship that he loves it.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you give, it is a pleasing aroma to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, I see that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see that heart, I see that obedience.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see that sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to bless you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hallelujah, come on, somebody say amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So number one is that the enemy doesn't want you to give, but giving is an act of worship to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And number two is this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that the enemy wants you to struggle, but God wants you to prosper.
[SPEAKER_01]: The enemy wants you to struggle.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he really does.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants you to struggle in whatever way possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's financially or a relationally or whatever it may be, he wants you to struggle, but God wants you to prosper.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants you to prosper.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to read Proverbs 1125, Proverbs 1125.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says this, it says, a generous person will be enriched, and the one who gives a drink of water will receive water.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when we give, there is a receiving there, there is something that it comes back to us, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: In a person, a generous person, a one that gives, will be enriched in my life and my finances and my household, I want to be enriched, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so how do I become enriched?
[SPEAKER_01]: I become enriched by being generous.
[SPEAKER_01]: by being generous and sowing into the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, many people get nervous when we mention and we bring up the word prosper, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm gonna help us here for a few moments, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you say, well, the enemy, yeah, he does want me to struggle, and then I say, well, God wants you to prosper, you're like, oh, there's that prosper word.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not so sure about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna help us today, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I believe that this can make us kind of nervous.
[SPEAKER_01]: or concern.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here's the thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe prosperity in many ways has become wicked.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has become wicked.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that unfortunately that the church has in some ways made prosperity wicked.
[SPEAKER_01]: has bought into some deception and some unbiblical truths.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you sow into the kingdom of God, God will heal you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, God doesn't need my money to heal me, God needs my faith, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So we hear all these different kind of things and it's like, wait a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't line up with what the word says and what I know about God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I believe that there has been a twisting, if you will, on what it means to prosper as a believer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what prosperity really is all about.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the thing, I believe that the whole get rich quick and the kingdom of God is not the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe that for a second that us giving
[SPEAKER_00]: us rich.
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes us rich, you know, by feeling good, you know, like, it fills our hearts up.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't, I don't sow into the kingdom of God, expecting a massive amount of load of all of these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, I'm not, I'm not so in to become prosperous.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so in because I love God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in a lot of times, what we see is we see pastors and ministries twisting the arm of people saying, if you would just give God would do, and there's no truth of the word of God behind that.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it does say that God will open up the windows of heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We learned that last week.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it does not say that only when you give, can you be healed?
[SPEAKER_01]: Only when you give, can I do this or can I do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that aspect of the prosperity thing that we have heard and that people have bought into is so wicked.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so wicked.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you give, you know, a hundred dollars right now, I'll pray for your healing.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm going to pray for your healing, and you keep your hundred dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need it.
[SPEAKER_01]: God doesn't need your money.
[SPEAKER_01]: He needs your faith, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so these whole get rich, quick schemes, and all of this have really deceived people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And people have gone completely broke, trying to get rich from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's true, and none of that is true biblical prosperity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hear me church, I believe God wants you to have enormous amount of money and to be blessed and all that kind of stuff, but do get caught up in the enormous amount of money and this and that and all these bells and whistles, that is when it becomes wicked.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe God wants you to be blessed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe he wants you to not be blessed.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants you to be blessed.
[SPEAKER_01]: But listen, I don't believe in what many would call the prosperity gospel today that if you give God what you have, he'll make you rich.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe that, but what I do believe is that God doesn't want you to be broke and God doesn't want you to be miserable.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not anywhere in the heart of God or his desire for your life that you are broke and miserable all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: God doesn't want that for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the key here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many people believe the lie of, well, I don't make enough money, or my family grew up poor, so I'm probably gonna be poor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or I've never made enough money, or I've never done all these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what we cannot allow ourselves to get to is believing the lie that God doesn't wanna bless me.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you can become so anti-prosperity that you become anti-bibble.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe that's where sometimes people get to is like, I don't believe in that whole prosperity message and all of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe in getting rich off of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So therefore, I just don't believe in God allowing us to prosper.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, then you don't believe the word of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so prosperity is not an evil thing, but you can certainly make it an evil thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're not careful, and you become a lover of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are people that will go and preach in a church and say, come on, empty your pocket books.
[SPEAKER_01]: God's calling some of you to sow the biggest seed in the my ministry today.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, wait a second, God is God really saying that right now because what essentially you're doing is you're calling people to a life of being broke out of obedience to God, and that's not obedience to God, that selfishness and foolishness in your heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's becoming a lover of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Bible says that that is a big deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: like to become a lover of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing wrong with having money.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing wrong with having a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've got a lot of money, bless God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Praise the Lord that you got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing wrong with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you become a lover of money, now you're in a situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you've got a problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: But true biblical prosperity is you living a prosperous life in every area.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, we hear prosperity and we think, oh, it's only in the area of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's not.
[SPEAKER_01]: God wants you to be prosperous.
[SPEAKER_01]: How?
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants you to be prosperous in your health.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants you to be prosperous in your wealth.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants you to be prosperous with your family.
[SPEAKER_01]: And your career, your relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can keep going on and on and on.
[SPEAKER_01]: God wants you to be prosperous in every area of your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a difference between godly prosperity and ungodly prosperity.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we need to know the difference so we don't get caught up in lies in false doctrine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that we stay in a place of solid truth of the word of God, amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: So put it on the screen.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is ungodly prosperity?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's simple.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's using God for money.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna do this or I'm gonna do that
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's ungodly prosperity.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need to give God anything to get his attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm his son.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, I'm his son, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You are his son, you are his daughter, and just like if my kids run up to me, and they say, dad, I'm gonna respond.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's my kids, and I love them, and I'm called to that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And God is the same way, but we don't use God for money.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is unbiblical prosperity.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's simple, it's using God for money.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen to what an ungodly prosperity is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ungodly prosperity will make an idol out of money and riches and wealth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyways, we've come into worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: God tear down every idol of my life, and yet you're holding on to the love of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has become an idol.
[SPEAKER_01]: On Godly prosperity leads you into a place where having more money is your priority.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus is not.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I could just make more money, if I could just get more money, if I could just have more money, then I'll worship you Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, I worship you and out of the abundance of my heart, then God you begin to bless me in all these ways, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And all these areas.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we gotta be careful for ungodly prosperity.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is, if it's ungodly prosperity, then God is your second and your success is your first.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's ungodly prosperity,
[SPEAKER_01]: God is secondary, and my success is number one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if we know what ungodly prosperity is, then what is godly prosperity?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Godly prosperity, it's the blessing of God that He freely gives His children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice that this is not us doing something, it's just all Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not us using God for money, that's ungodly prosperity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Godly prosperity is the blessing of God that He freely gives His children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Says, I want you to be prosperous in every area of your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to be blessed in every area of your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Godly prosperity is God's blessing to us as an instrument that we can use to help bless others and help build His kingdom and build His house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Godly prosperity is not about us getting more in us.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about us releasing what God has given to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, God freely gave me salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna go and lead the lost unto salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a free gift to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Guess what?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a free gift to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everything that He has given us financially is a free gift.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He calls us to be a blessing to other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the ways that he calls us to be a blessing, he calls us to be a blessing in the area of the kingdom of God and to build his house.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then he goes into the biblical principle about tithing and he says, if I have blessed you with everything that I have given you, and one of the ways that you worship me is through your giving, that I need you to give 10% back to me so that the church can continue to do what the kingdom of God is set out to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not so, so pastors can get rich.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, this is not so the leaders of the church can all drive the nicest cars.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not so that the leaders of the church can have all of their pockets filled with all the money and then everybody else says congregants are sitting there busted and broke.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not the word of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not truth, amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when we give into the household of the Lord, we give and listen, it should pay the bills.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It should make sure that we keep the lights on and we do all the things that we need to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it should also make sure that we are reaching people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, a church that's not reaching people are they really a church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where's the money at?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going on there, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when we give and we sow into the kingdom of God, it's so that we can go out and do these events, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so that we can expand and open up this building.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some more people can come to hear the word of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that more families can get touched by the power of God, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: When we do these things and we go out in the community, it's so we can reach the lost for Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the goal of these 100 families that we're going to bless with school supplies and if we can do more than that, and more money comes in and believe me, we're going to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we can do 200, we're going to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we go and do this out here, August 1st, we're not going out here to bless 100 kids so that we can shove church of the city in their face.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the last thing on the list.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's the bottom of the totem pole of any kind of priority or importance.
[SPEAKER_01]: The priority is let us be a blessing to you and let us tell you about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if so, it comes about that we can have a conversation about church, we'd love to have that with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we are here to bless you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are here to serve you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are here to give to you because the Bible commands us to do so.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are a group of people that sit in that building every single Sunday that so many and time into blessing your family.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we're here to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on, somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so hear me this morning church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our God is not a God of lack.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we serve El Shaddai, who is the God of more than enough, come on somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just like God brought the people out of slavery and into the Promised Land, it was a land flowing with milk and honey.
[SPEAKER_01]: God wants to bring you out too.
[SPEAKER_01]: God wants to bring you out of where you think you should be.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants to bring you out of where you think your life should be right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: What it should look like and so forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he wants to take you into a place where you understand, my God shall supply all my needs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on, according to His riches in glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not so that you can live a rich life, but that you can live a blessed life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because there is a big difference between a rich life and a blessed life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to be rich.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to be blessed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to be blessed by God, Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's read John chapter 10, verse 10, says a thief comes only to still kill and destroy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have come.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that day, who is day?
[SPEAKER_01]: All of us may have life and have it in abundance.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he came so that we, you and I could have life and not just have ideal life, but we can have an abundant life, abundant life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus didn't just die on the cross and say, well, good luck, figure it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, he died so that we may live.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we may breathe and have our hope in life within him, hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, I'm not only going to give you life, but I'm going to give you an abundant life, hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that word, abundance is the Greek word, whoopropole, if we'll put it on the screen there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whoopropole, not superbowl.
[SPEAKER_01]: which means a throwing beyond it's a excellence, it's a seeding greatness, exceeding greatness.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he says, I have come to give you life in life more, what, abundantly, life more, hoop a roll, more, life more, excellence, exceeding greatness.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the kind of life that I gave you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he got in just die so we can, whatever, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: He died so that you can literally live in the exceeding greatness of who he is.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means if he died so that we can have an abundant life beyond our sins and covering of our sickness and disease and all those kind of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: If part of it is the abundant life that he has given us, then that means we can have that exceeding greatness in every area of our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he came to give us that kind of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not to say that we neglect the fact that there will be pain and suffering.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know there will be trials and tribulations.
[SPEAKER_01]: There will be times when things are hard, when they're chaotic, when they don't make sense, when we feel like we have been beaten up, and we have been thrown to the wolves so to speak.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not to say that we still don't have to also carry our cross daily.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even despite the pain and the trials and the challenges of life, we can still live and abundant life that Jesus came and died for.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, look at Psalms 35 verse 27.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says, let those who want my vindication, shout for joy and be glad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let them continually say the Lord be exalted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at this, He takes pleasure in His servants well-being.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that word well-being there is actually that same word abundance.
[SPEAKER_01]: And some of your versions may say that He takes pleasure in His servants
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of your versions say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's that same word, who purple there?
[SPEAKER_01]: The God, himself, look at that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He takes pleasure in his servants exceeding greatness in their abundant life that he came and died for.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he didn't just die so that you can have it, but he is constantly pleased by the fact that you get to walk in abundant life.
[SPEAKER_01]: that you get to live in a abundant life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: He takes pleasure in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So God is wanting us to prosper.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not the false, unbiblical kind of prospering.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the true biblical prosper.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not the false teaching, but the truth of God's word, amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that the enemy doesn't want you to give, but giving is an act of worship to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, the enemy wants you to struggle, but God, he really does want you to prosper.
[SPEAKER_01]: And number three is this, that giving breaks, the poverty mindset, it breaks it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll break it over your life, I'm telling you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll set you free.
[SPEAKER_01]: from thinking that you'll never have enough, that you'll always live in lack, that you're not gonna, you're always gonna struggle to make ends meet, that you're gonna always live paycheck to paycheck.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, God came to break that stuff, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: He came to destroy that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't give to get, but we give because we get to give.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe God honors giving to get something, but I do believe He honors the cheerful giver who gives not out of obligation, but out of the generosity of His heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Out of the love and honor He has for Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know what it's like to not have much.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know what it's like to have more than enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: But listen, I don't believe for a moment that God has called you to live poor.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe that.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a point in time and church history where the church was taught, that if God calls you to sell everything and get rid of all your money and suffer for the sake of Christ, he'll bless you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how biblically accurate that is because I don't see anywhere in the Word of God that God wants us to lack, that God wants us to have nothing, that God wants us to be poor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hear me, if God called you to live poor, then you could never follow what His Word says to give to the poor.
[SPEAKER_01]: God has called me to just, you know, have this kind of lifestyle and just, you know, suffer for the sake of Christ and just serve the church and not ever make any money and just always struggle in my fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, he has not.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just doesn't make sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if he has called us to give, we got to have before we can give.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to have something to give if he's called us to give.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's simple, giving will break the poverty mindset in you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, I told you last week that giving is not God trying to take something from you, but rather it's God trying to get something to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's trying to get something true to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's trying to help you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's trying to encourage you, he's trying to motivate you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's trying to take you to another level.
[SPEAKER_01]: So giving under the kingdom of God is not him saying, oh, I'm not giving you 10% now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give it up, come on, cough it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's not the way God operates.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not how the kingdom is happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not it right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Giving of your tie then you're offering is one of the ways that God uses to break the spirit of poverty over you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've known people that really struggled, I mean, struggled bad financially.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they stepped out in faith and they said, you know what, I'm going to start tithing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll just try and see what happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of a sudden, their whole financial world flipped upside down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Same job, same income, same everything but somehow they had more than enough at the end of the month rather than not having enough at the end of the month.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because God's hand was on it now.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were trusting God in an area that we were withholding.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were trying to keep it in our pockets, in our wallets, in our paybooks.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're trying to keep it there.
[SPEAKER_01]: God says, no, I'm just asking for a small portion back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just a small portion back.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can teach you, and I can show you my goodness, and that it can be on display for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it can be a testimony to my power
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know about you, but I'd rather be more blessed, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the tie then the offering gets, I believe it will get greed right out of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Giving your time, it will destroy the any kind of greedy spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it will break it, and you know what else it does?
[SPEAKER_01]: Giving up your time, and giving up your offering, it will destroy lack off of your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible says, you will lack for nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will lack for nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: How is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it takes you from trusting in the world and the world's systems to trusting in God and God's systems.
[SPEAKER_01]: His system is way better than the world's system.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's way better.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you can make all kinds of money in your life and put it into a bank account
[SPEAKER_01]: The world's market could crash.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, the government systems, financial operations can come crashing down in what about all the money that you worked so hard for in your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's happened to some people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's real.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he says, if you give into my kingdom, you don't have to worry for nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It goes into a good soil, the Bible says.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a soil that is rocky or shaky or anything like that, but it is a firm foundation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on, we sing about it today.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a firm foundation and when you give into my kingdom, come on, it is taken care of, it is protected, it is blessed, hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you no longer have to trust in your job, you no longer have to trust in your paycheck or what you can build, but you begin to trust in God.
[SPEAKER_01]: You stop trusting in your personal abilities and you begin to trust in God's abilities.
[SPEAKER_01]: So giving really is a mindset shift.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's changing the way we think all together.
[SPEAKER_01]: It really is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's changing the way you think about money and how you handle your money.
[SPEAKER_01]: to the way that God would do things, because God handles things way differently than us, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So hear me church, you don't have to live in lack.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to struggle all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to live with the spirit of poverty hovering over you in your household because, well, my parents were poor, and my grandparents didn't have a lot, and this is a family thing or whatever it may be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are all lies of the devil.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all lies from the evil one, because my word says that you are a child of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to today's message.
[SPEAKER_00]: We pray you were inspired, challenged, and marked by the word you heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this message blessed you today, we encourage you to subscribe to the Church of the City podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: There you can find more faith-filled messages to uplift you and help you on your journey of faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: For more information about Church of the City, head on over to www.cotcdfw.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: And until next time, remember this, the best is yet to come.