0:00 to the Lord in in prayer again. Heavenly Father, we just come to you through the blood of Christ and we ask your Holy Spirit to reveal to us your heart when it comes to money and to giving. We want to hear from you in Jesus name. Amen. 0:17 All right. So, I've been uh I've been sharing a few messages on money. And so, just to recap where we started, the first part was was looking at what money is. And what we said is it's it's like sil it's like a silo or it's like having 0:32 silos. And so um you know before we started we talked about you know I had two disclaimers. I had a disclaimer and a goal. And we're going to focus those again before we go into part two. But um it's very important that we're kind of 0:46 anchored when we start talking about money. You know I've talked about money with Christians uh before and and we we get going off so much that the focus winds up being more on money than on God himself and that's not our intention. 0:57 So, we want to re be rooted and grounded in our disclaimer and our goal. And we'll come to that in a second. But last last time we talked about um you know that verse that that talk where the guy builds barns and he tears those down and 1:10 he builds bigger barns and he keeps expanding his barns. And if we're honest, those of us that are rich in this in in America in this day and age, we we have a lot of of silos of of grain that we've stored up for ourselves, you 1:24 know, or that's something we want to challenge. We have these grains, these uh grain silos. And we have to ask like are those our silos or are they God's silos? And if you're called to be a disciple, if you accepted that calling, 1:38 you can have zero possessions. You don't give 10% to God. You give him everything, right? I think it's Luke 14 uh 333 if you want to go check me up on that reference. When you become a disciple, you say, "I'm going to follow 1:50 Christ." You give him all your possessions. So these these grain silos that we've built, these are things like savings accounts, checking accounts, cash, um you know, retirement accounts, all these things, they're silos, and we 2:01 want to acknowledge those. Those are gods. And so, you know, I use the example of going to the refrigerator. I open up the refrigerator and there's a ton of food in my refrigerator. I don't know what your refrigerator looks like. 2:12 If it's completely empty, please come talk to one of the elders. But if it's like my refrigerator, I open it up and there's so many things to eat, right? God has been wonderfully. He's been bountiful with me. There's so many 2:24 things to eat. And I have to acknowledge like, wow, I, you know, when I got paid, it wasn't just to feed me, right? Then he gave me storage. He gave me grain. And so, I want to learn to be rich to him. He's the giver of all good things. 2:36 I want to learn to appreciate that he's given me these things and then use them, acknowledge they're his and and ask him to show me how to be rich toward him, rich in good works with those silos. And we also use the example of the good 2:48 Samaritan. You know, there was a uh you know, we can kind of, you know, lose some of the details. It's good to slow down and kind of think about what was going on in that story. And we saw that he gave two daenery to the inkeeper. And 2:59 he said, "Here, you know, I'll pay you uh take care of this guy. And if there if it's more expensive than two dener, uh then let me know." And we recognized that a two a daener is a dage wages. And so I I calculated two denary be about 3:13 $800 in this day and age. And so you see a Samaritan pulling from his silo, pulling $800 out and saying, "All right, this guy needs it. I want to be rich towards God and give it to him and help him out in addition to the bandages and 3:25 the the uh the wine and the oil and everything else he had to use to take care of him." And we said that, you know, we looked at that verse, you know, at the end of First Timothy and where Paul tells Timothy, "Listen, my 3:38 understanding is that you have rich people in your church." And Timothy probably, yeah, you're right. You're right, Paul. We do have rich people. Okay, here's what I want you to tell them. I need you to warn them. I need you to be very stern with 3:48 them and make sure that they're ready to give, willing to share. That's the attitude that they need to have. Paul does not tell Timothy, "Hey, make sure you remind him of the story of the rich young ruler, how Jesus told him to go 3:59 sell all his possessions and give to the poor." He did not tell him that. And I don't believe that's the instruction for us. For most of us, the Lord may give you a specific instruction that feels very close to that, and that's fine. But 4:11 generally, those of us that are rich need to have this attitude. Lord, it's all yours. You tell me when to pull the trigger and I let it go. In fact, it's a privilege to be able to let it go because it's all yours and if you allow 4:23 me to distribute, that sounds great. So, going back to this disclaimer, you know, the the the two things really opposing or competing for our hearts are not God and the devil. It's God and money. And so we want to acknowledge 4:37 that like you know I want to be I want my heart to be his and not you know focused on him not focused on money. And this verse I've heard very few preachers of my lifetime preach on that when it comes to money they say very clearly 4:52 listen you got to make a choice. Do you want money to be your God or do you want the living God to be your God? And we want to keep you know I determine that every time I talk about money I want to start here. And that's what I'm doing 5:03 again today. We're going to start here and then recognizing this verse. Luke 16:11, we see a connection between God and money here. God says, "I'm going to give you some money. It might be two copper coins. It might be a billion 5:16 dollars. But that money in your life is going to be the test of whether I can give you that which is really valuable." And so even if we've made many mistakes in our past, and I have I've made I think I've made honestly I think I could 5:32 line up with every one of you and and and and we could talk about mistakes. I've made a bunch. But I don't want to do that anymore. I want to be faithful now. Lord, I've made mistakes and you've been merciful for that. But like going 5:43 forward, I want you to use the money in my life to teach me uh to test me to see if you can give me that which is really valuable. And he will. He promises and he tells us that's what he's doing. So, we want to keep these two things. Our 5:56 goal is that we're faithful in money so that we can get from God that which is really valuable. So, this morning, I want to focus on giving, right? And just to be clear, I know we got visitors here. We are not interested in your 6:07 money. I want to say that from the beginning. I'm going to talk about money, but you can keep your money in your pockets. Don't don't put it in offering plate. Not today. Right? That's not what we're interested in. I'm not 6:16 talking about money to try to figure out how to free you up from some of yours so you can put it in the offering box in the back. We're not going to pass a plate. Uh there's a box that we allow people to give to. But I tell you what, 6:25 today don't even do that. We're not interested in your money. We believe that God is saying, "Hey, I want you to come follow me." So when we talk about giving, I'm not telling you to dig deep and give to the church. I don't know 6:39 what you've heard about money, but I want to look at the scriptures and see God's heart on giving. And so when it comes to giving, I want to look at a few verses. Wh Why are we talking about giving, Josh? Why are you why are we 6:50 even Why are we hitting this subject? And and this verse in Acts, I think, is very wonderful. The more you know, I was thinking about it as I was preparing. It's Acts 20 uh 35. And what's interesting is that Paul refers to 7:05 something that Jesus taught that is never recorded in the Gospels. Right? So, Acts is a historical book about primarily about the early church. It's it's not about Jesus's earthly life. But Paul says this. He says, "Listen, you guys know that Jesus said 7:25 it's better to give than to receive." And I'm sure you've heard that even the world, you know, has used that expression. It's better to give than to receive. And here Paul says, "The Lord himself, the Lord Jesus himself said 7:36 this." And if he said it, why did none of the gospel writers write that down? Why didn't they say it? And I believe it. Here's what I I came up with. I don't know. I don't know why they didn't write it. I wasn't there when they wrote 7:47 it. But I think it was so obvious that they never thought, you know, this is something we really need to record. I think it was so evident from looking at the life of Jesus who poured himself out completely. And I and I think he said it 8:01 all the time. I just think it was so obvious. They said that's not important. Everybody knows that. Don't need to write that down. Everybody knows that it's better to give than receive. And Jesus not only lived it, he taught it 8:11 over and over again. So let's let's focus on other stuff when we write the gospels. That's my impression. So I want you to see that it's better to give. The Lord says that. So in in in seeking to understand what the Lord is saying, we 8:23 want to give. So we're motivated to do it. In Galatians, Paul tells the story of how he met with the with the apostles. And this is a very interesting meeting, right? You got you got John there, you got James there, you got 8:37 Peter there, you got Paul there, and you got Barnabas there. In this meeting, Paul recounts like, "Hey, we were all there. This is a very important meeting. You have a a lot of important apostles there, right? Calls them reputed to be 8:50 pillars." So, these are guys are all coming together. And I'm sure they're talking, you know, things about what the plan is, what the strategy is, what the Lord has shown, what are we going to emphasize. And it's almost like at the m 9:01 end of this meeting in the next verse, uh, Paul records something very interesting. He said as we were closing, you know, they said, "Hey, listen. Remember the poor." And it was like this. I I picture Paul saying like this, like when they said 9:15 it, that's what was burning in my heart the whole time. That's the exact thing that I kept thinking like, "Hey, we're talking about a lot of things, you know, in this meeting as we go out to the Gentiles and to the Jews, you know, and 9:26 and seek to share the gospel, you know, like this was burning inside of me." And one of them finally said it. Yes. This is not a rich man's gospel. this is not a United States gospel. This is a gospel to the rich and to the poor. And he 9:39 said, "Don't forget about the poor." And they they said, "Yeah, that's the that's what the Holy Spirit has been burning in my heart, too." And so that desire to give, the desire to give was even burning in this meeting and it came out 9:53 at the end. And it it was exciting when it came out. Here's another thing on giving. I don't know about you, but when it came to repentance, when I came to the Lord and I saw that I needed to repent of my sins, there were some 10:06 things that I needed to set right. And I think we all have that, especially in regards to money. Maybe there's somebody you stole from or somebody you cheated and you need to go set that right. Right. That's what we see in Zakius. 10:17 Zakius cheated some people and went and he had to set that right. But there's other things that no matter what I do, I can never set right. And it and it would grieve me. There are sins in my life that I can't change the past. 10:33 Lord, I would do anything I could to to repent, to set that right, to turn that 180 degrees, which is what repentance is. But there are things that Lord, I can't set right. They're done. The person that I I I I I could fix that or 10:45 apologize to is dead. Um, you know, the the I can't pay back what I took. You know, there's just so many things that I can't do anything about. And so, I picture this is in Luke 3. This is John the Baptist and he's baptizing sinners 10:59 to repentance and he's preaching to them very strongly. He's saying, "Hey, bear fruit in keeping of repentant in repentance." And I hear those words and I'm like, "Yes, Lord, I want to bear fruit keeping in repentance." And what's 11:10 interesting is John doesn't say anything about his p about their past. He focuses on the present. This encourages me so much that my repentance isn't just linked to some sort of karma of setting the past straight. right there. Not everything I 11:27 can fix, but going forward, John says, "Listen, fruit and keep and and go read it. Go read chapter 3 and check me up on this." John says, "Listen, fruit keep in keeping fruit with repentance, it's giving. If you have two tunics, give one 11:42 of them away. If you don't need one, give it to somebody that does. If you have extra food, give it to somebody that's hungry." Give, give, give. Repentance is giving. So, these are three things of why giving is important. 11:55 So the question becomes now, okay, I agree with you, Josh. It's good to give. How? Raise your hand if you're an expert at giving. Okay, just one little 2-year-old girl is the only expert. Good. She She's probably right. Right. But for the rest 12:11 of us, I can't say that. I want to grow in this, Lord. And I I'll tell you, I've made mistakes in giving. I've messed up. And I realized a lot of mistakes was because I didn't follow the scriptures. I did what I thought was right in my own 12:24 eyes. Like, I I'll give here. This will be good. But I didn't look at the scriptures and I didn't ask the Holy Spirit to guide me in giving. Hey, there's a beggar. He's asking for money. I give. That's not wise sometimes. So, 12:37 what does the scripture say about giving? I want to learn and that's what we're going to look at this morning when it comes to giving. What does God, you know, what is his way of giving? How does he want us to do it? What's he 12:46 trying to teach us? And the the passage I want to go to first is Matthew 6. This is the sermon on the mount and and Jesus talks about giving here and he tells us in these four verses that and there's abundance I'm not going to have time to 13:00 cover everything I would like to share on this but I want to hit some important points and he says he starts with a warning he says beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them otherwise you will have 13:12 no reward with your father who is in heaven. He says, "So when you give to the poor or when you give, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets so that they will be praised by people. 13:27 Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full." So I see this passage starts out with a warning, right? Be very, very careful when you're giving. It's a righteous thing to give, but be careful in the way you do it. Pay 13:41 attention to the how. And he uses some pretty funny language. Right? Imagine every time I gave, I blew it. Like I trained MYSELF ON THE TRUMPET. Josh is donating, right? It's kind of a funny way of doing it. And we recognize, 13:54 we can quickly recognize in other people that's not the way to give. Trumpet guy over there is doing it wrong. But with us, there's a subtle thing that wants some recognition because when we give, because we worked hard for it. Remember 14:06 the silos? To fill those grain silos, we had to turn the ground, plant the seed, water it, harvest. A lot of work we did. We should get something out of it, right? We should be at least some recognition. Hey, I did dig deep for that money that 14:20 I gave away or gave to that person. That's honest. That's what's what's going on inside. Jesus said, "Don't blow the trumpet." Oh, okay. Well, what do I do then? He says, "Well, when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand 14:34 know what your right hand is doing." Okay? And we're going to come back to that, but I want you to see this. Verse four, he says, "So that your giving will be in secret, and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." 14:47 When I when I put this together and I was starting to think about giving, I hadn't thought to emphasize that verse four as much, but as I was I was thinking about this morning, I want to emphasize that this passage, these four 14:59 verses started out with a warning and commandments. Give, give secretly. And at first the you know my reaction and what the way I looked at this for a long time was okay more commandment you know the new covenant standard is higher now 15:14 I have to be careful how I give not just to give right it starts out with as a commandment but when I got to the end of this verse I was thinking about this verse four and I started seeing this whole passage a little bit differently 15:27 and here's what I see the God of the universe the God who made Saturn and the Milky way and everything that that James Webb telescope can see is offering me an invitation to have secret, private, 15:44 intimate fellowship with him through giving. Oh Lord, Lord, I thought it was a commandment. I see it differently now. Do you see it, brothers and sisters? Do you see how the guilt of, "Oh, I need to give. I need to dig deep. Do I need to, you know, offer 16:04 some sort of sacrifice to the Lord? Do you see how this invitation is different? He cares about you. It's intimate and personal with you. Is your giving intimate and personal with your heavenly father who created everything? 16:17 There's an invitation. There's an invitation. I plan to focus more on verse verse three actually, but I want you to think about that on your own time. Go and go and think more about that. Not just because I said it. Ask the Lord as are 16:33 you really saying that you want to have an intimate fellowship with me in this area and ask him if he says yes I do. But I thought about this part. You know it says don't let your your right hand or left hand know what your right hand 16:46 is doing. I thought at this point I would do a puppet show with my two hands. Hello left hand. How are you? Good. Right hand. How are you? I'm doing what? Okay, I'll stop. And actually I went further than I had planned to when 16:58 the idea first popped into my head. But but how do we do that? Right? I'm I got left I didn't even realize that my left and my right hands talk to each other. What what is Jesus trying to say here? And I want to look at that in a little more detail. And I 17:13 see that I think it this is my interpretation, my understanding of this. It has a double meaning. There's two meanings when it says don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And and the first one is an 17:25 internal one, right? there's something going on inside, you know, inside my body, inside of Josh, I have both of these things. And I picture it like this. The internal uh way of applying this verse is like my right hand is 17:39 doing all this work, right? My right hand is, you know, helping people and giving where I see a need or where the Lord prompts me to give a need. My right hand's doing all the work. And it's saying, don't let the left hand keep 17:50 writing everything down. Don't let the left hand keep a record while the right hand is doing all this work. That's one way that I picture it. And you look at this verse, and you're you're probably familiar with this. This is in Matthew 18:01 25. On the last day, Jesus will tell people, "Hey, you did this for me. You know, you gave me things. You gave me things I needed. You took care of me. You visited me. You know, and Jesus is commending a group of Christians for 18:16 what they did for him." And they're they're a little bit confused. They're scratching their head. They're going, "When did we do that, Lord? When did this happen?" And the following verses said, "Listen, when you did it to the 18:26 least of those, you did it to me." And I'm picturing this like I I had forgot all about that. I never my my right my left hand never wrote that down. So that that just totally left. When I was in college, this is the memory that comes. I was in 18:40 college. I was I went to the University of Oklahoma and I had a cousin that went to the Oklahoma State University. This is more from Monoy Monoy. They're two separate universities, right? Manoy thinks that sometimes thinks that I went 18:50 to Oklahoma State, but if you're from Oklahoma, they're two very, you know, separate things. If you're from Carerala, they're all the same. It's a university in Oklahoma, right? But if you you grew up in Oklahoma, they're 18:59 different. So, I went to visit my cousin and I remember we went out to dinner and uh and I said, you know, I was kind of like I didn't have much money in college, like I didn't have a lot, so I was like, "Oh, the bill's coming." And 19:10 and my cousin goes, "I'll pay for that. I I'll get yours." And I was like, "Oh, wow." I was like, "Why? Why are you paying for me?" He goes, "Because the last time we were together, you paid for me." And I I I couldn't remember that. I 19:24 was like, "Oh, oh, yeah." You know, I remembered after he told me, but I completely forgot. It would have been gone. And it was amazing how I'd completely forgotten that. That little example, that little example before I 19:35 was even born again. I want to live my life that way where I forget everything I've done. Forget all of it. And the only time that I'm reminded of it is when I get to eternity and God is meeting with me and goes, "Hey, you 19:49 remember this?" I'm like, "I don't know. I don't know." Because my left hand didn't write it down. That I believe is the application of this. And you see it. It's the Lord. The Lord's keeping record of everything. I think it's Hebrews 6:10 that said, "The 20:04 Lord is righteous. He pays attention to every good work you do." He's paying attention. Let him keep the account. You don't have to do it. And isn't there a freedom? I don't have to keep track of all my good works. In my earthly job, 20:18 one of the biggest responsibilities I have is I have to keep track of everything. In the electricity market, there's millions of dollars going back and forth. There's lots of communication going back and forth. I have to keep up 20:27 with I have to keep records. I have to pay attention. That's why they pay me. But when it comes to giving, I don't have to keep track of it. What a freedom. I don't have to keep those accounts. I just give when the Lord 20:39 prompts me to give and then I move on to whatever else he has for me next. Oh, it's beautiful. It's wonderful. It's freeing. But I believe the verse also has some external left hand and right hand where it's not just within me, 20:53 right? It's in my relationship with brothers and sisters. And remember when in I think it's in 1 Corinthians 12 when when the when it talks about the body of Christ, the the church, you know, Jesus is the head and we're all members of one 21:06 body and one of us may be a left hand and one of us may be a right hand. And I believe it applies there shouldn't be an awareness of what each other is doing. And I'll give you some examples. Going back to the good Samaritan, I think this 21:19 is interesting. You know, as I think about the story, I see some wonderful things that the Lord is trying to reveal. And despite giving $1,000, that was a little weird for me, too. Besid besides G, I'm a little gunshy now. Besides 21:34 giving $1,000, you know, to him, that that good Samaritan said, "Look, if it's more, I'll I'll come back and pay it." And then he disappears. And I was thinking about this story. I'm picturing that, you know, that guy that 21:46 was beat out and left for dead. He starts recovering. And he actually gets better. And I picture him, you know, kind of getting out of bed that morning and going to the inkeeper and he says, ' And [clears throat] thank you, inkeeper. 21:58 Thank you for what you did for me. And the inkeeper is like,"I didn't do anything for you." And he's like, "Oh, then why am I here?" And he says, "Some guy brought you here and he's already paid the entire bill for you. You're 22:09 fre, you know, you can go. You don't owe me anything. You can't even thank him, right? He's a left hand. He doesn't even know who he doesn't even know who the right hand is. And even the right hand, you know, he he doesn't know. He didn't 22:22 tell him when he was going to be back. And so I'm picturing this left hand going, I can't thank the inkeeper. He won't even accept it because he didn't do anything except his job. So who does he thank? The only one that the left 22:36 hand can thank is God. You must have done this. The right hand disappears. And I see that in the story. The right hand is gone. He did what he was supposed to do and he disappears. Can we do that again? That secret relationship with our father. It was all 22:55 I needed was that relationship with him. I don't need any credit for other anybody else. I don't even need the left hand to know I'm gone. I'm gone. The inkeeper probably didn't even know his name. He just pulled him off the donkey, 23:08 put him in the uh on the bed, said, "Listen, all he needs is rest. Here's two daener. I'm going to go. I'll you know, I I'll be back. I I'll check and make sure all the expenses were covered, but I'm going to disappear. 23:21 Ain't that beautiful? That's a right hand. I believe that's the right hand the Lord was referring to. Here's another example. Now, Boaz, you know, if you get some time, this is there's a wonderful story in the Old Testament. You know, it's 23:34 four chapters. Go read it as a story. You know, sometimes you take a a novel off the shelf and you read a book. Go read this as if it's a story. There's beautiful, beautiful things in this. And one of the things you see here, I think 23:44 you're familiar with the story of Ruth and Naomi and Boaz and all that, so I don't want to go into too much detail. What I want you to see, though, is that Ruth was or I'm sorry, that uh yeah, that Ruth and Naomi were very poor. If 23:57 you read the story, the whole reason that they went to Moab is there was a famine. They didn't have food. And so, they went seeking for opportunity. And they wound up back in in Israel. And Ruth was like, "Hey, we need to eat. 24:09 [laughter] I need to go into the field and get some food. If we're going to eat, if we're going to have anything to eat, I have to go glean the fields. And and you and you can read this. I won't I won't read it because of time, 24:20 but you know, gleaning the fields was something that's not something that that Boaz did that was was good. That wasn't giving. That's what God instructed in Leviticus. I picture it like this. If you guys have ever flown in a plane, next time you fly 24:33 in an airplane, you look down at the fields. I don't know if this is exactly how modern agriculture works, but this is what I picture. You'll see a plot of land, maybe a 40 acres, and it's in a perfect square. And you'll see where 24:45 it's been harvested, and there's a circle in the middle of the the square, and that's where I think the harvest is. I think that's where they hold the grain. But the corners, you know, look just like that. There's a circle within 24:56 the square and there's corners. God made a provision for the poor. He said, "Listen, when you harvest, don't cut the corners. Leave those for the pe poor people. allow them to come in and allow them to, you know, to take what's left. 25:09 Don't go over it twice, just go once. One harvest, leave what's left for the poor. That's what that's what Ruth was doing. And so Boaz wasn't doing anything generous by letting her, you know, glean in his fields. That was a provision that 25:24 God made in Leviticus. But here's what's beautiful. If you look at these next verses, you see something wonderful. And I'm going to go ahead and go to the next slide because I want you to see what I have in bold. Ruth or I'm sorry, Boaz had his servants 25:40 put out pull the grain that was off the harvest and throw them in the part that she would glean, right? She didn't know it. If you read this, if you read this passage, it says that she worked until evening. So he takes, you know, off the stack 25:57 that was harvested, he has his servants take it off and throw it in the gleaning pile. And as far as Ruth knows, she discovered, you know, all this barley that that was was gleaned. She had no I, you know, I don't think she knew. She's 26:11 a left hand. She just needs to eat. And and and she's finding an abundance in her gleaning. She's working hard. She doesn't know that Boaz had his servants throw extra food there, extra barley. And it's interesting in between the the 26:24 part I put in bold. Notice what uh Boaz tells his servants. He says, "Don't insult her. I want to make it very clear to you men. This is what Boaz would tell him. Listen, I want to make it very clear. Ruth better not feel an ounce of shame 26:41 during her gleaning. And then he says it again at the end. He says, "Do not rebuke her. Don't make her feel small. Oh, he this is a godly man, right? make sure that she gets plenty to eat, but don't you dare take an ounce of dignity 26:58 away from that woman, right? He get he gets it. That's the right hand that is doing it in secret that the left hand has no idea. Ruth doesn't know this. Ruth doesn't know the strong admonition he gave to his servants. But he made it very clear 27:12 twice. Don't insult her and don't rebuke her. Don't make her feel small because she's poor and has to glean. Do you men understand me? Yes, sir. You make sure it stays hidden. You make sure that she doesn't see you pull it off the bundles 27:27 and throw it in the field. You do whatever you have to do, but she better in no way feel small. That's what I picture. That's how I picture Boaz with his servants. I wasn't there. I don't know. But that's what I picture. He took 27:38 this so seriously. You know, he had light that maybe a lot of people in the new covenant don't have about that secret way of giving with the with in fellowship with the heavenly father. Here's an illustration that I like to give. It's a short video 27:54 clip, about two minutes. Um uh it's from a a series called Little House in the Prairie. And in it, I see one of the best ways to give in secret. And and and you guys can watch it and discern this is the world. And you know, I you know, 28:10 I was kind of thinking about like I'm I'm taking a TV program in the world and using it, you know, in my message. Is is that good, Lord? But I'm challenged by this. Does the world understand this better than Christianity understands it? 28:22 So, let's watch it and pay attention and see if we can uh, you know, learn something and be challenged by it. [music] 28:47 How's everything? Fine. Still breathing. You just fine. Heard that kid of your right city. Ah, he didn't exactly run off. I know that's crazy. I have young ones myself and not one of them ever comes to see me. 29:06 In our village there is a saying, one father can support 10 children. 10 children can support one father. Amen to that, brother. Mr. Brower, I notice you have an extra bucket 29:24 and I need one very badly. Would you be willing to trade for this cane? Workmanship ain't bad. 29:42 Uh, you say you want to make an even swap? That's right. I guess it'll be all right. Okay, it's a deal. Thank you, Mr. Brower. And be well. Same to you. I don't get it. How can you trade in that great walking stick for this piece 30:01 of junk? Alvin, there's a Jewish word ramonus. It means in English compassion. A life without ramonus is not worth living. He's a poor man. He needs a new walking stick. Then why didn't you just give it to him? 30:20 Want to trade him for a rusty old bucket? Because our faith says when you give charity, you must give so the person receiving the charity [music] feels no shame. I don't know if you caught that at the end, but he's explaining it to the young 30:37 boy who's watching this interaction. He says, "Well, why didn't you just give him the cane? If the guy needed a cane, why didn't you just give it to him? Why'd you trade? Why'd you make it look like it was a trade?" And and he says 30:49 because the the recipient should never feel any shame. And so he made it look like it was an exchange. And even from the, you know, from the from the guy that received the cane, as far as he knows, he he just got a good deal. He 31:03 doesn't know he was given to. Brothers and sisters, are you challenged by that? You know, we're we're rich. We have an abundance. When you give, are you challenged to make sure that whoever you're giving to feels absolutely no 31:18 shame? I look at it like this. There's two hands here, right? You know, the right hand in giving must make sure there's no exalting. There's no pride. And if I go back to that verse in first Timothy before Paul said, you know, to be tell 31:35 them to be ready to give, willing to share, he says, make sure they're not conceited. Make sure the right hand is not exalting himself and thinking that he's better because he has money and he's able to do this. Make sure that's not happening. 31:50 And then the other side of it is make sure that the left hand is feeling no shame, doesn't feel small, doesn't feel, you know, less because they have less less money. Make sure that's not happening. That there there's an equal 32:04 footing and there's a fellowship between both hands. I'm challenged by that. I've made so many mistakes in this area I'm ashamed of where I gave but I I made them feel small in my giving. I didn't mean to, brothers and sisters. I didn't 32:17 I didn't want that person to feel small but there was something in me that wanted a little credit and and I did that. I don't want to do that anymore. I want the Holy Spirit to teach me this principle of of perfect fellowship with 32:30 the left hand and the right hand and that nobody feels small and that the credit can only be given to God alone whether I gave or I received. One one one story before I close. I remember I was a I was a young father. Um I was in the military and uh Amber 32:47 and I were going to a church and I I remember you know we had uh we had you know we just I think Amber was pregnant with Solomon or just had Solomon. So we've been married about a year and I remember this was a small church and it 32:58 was a poor church poorer church in California. And I remember a lady with kids behind her. This was like 21 years ago. She came up to me and she handed me an envelope and she said, she said, "God told me to give this to you." Like, it was the 33:18 strangest thing. Remember, this is a poor church. I'm a military guy. I have a I have a great salary. My wife works. Why? And I and I'll tell you, I was just confused. And and and I have no idea who she was. Remember the like I should know her, 33:32 right? and and and and I never saw her again. I have no idea who that was, but I felt that and I opened it up and there was $100 in the envelope and I was like, "What do I do with this?" I was just confused. But I think it was God letting 33:48 me feel what it would be like to be the recipient. And the confusion like Lord, I have stuff. Why is why is she giving me and to let me feel that all the emotions that go through when you have to receive it? All I would say is thank 34:01 you. But I I thought about it a long time. Lord, what are you teaching me? What are you teaching me? And I believe he let me feel some of that some of that smallest you can feel in receiving. He said, "Don't ever do that to anybody." 34:13 [clears throat] Okay, Lord, let's do it your way. All right, let's summarize real quick. We started with a few verses dealing with why we should give. And it's because Jesus himself said, "Listen, this is better. And if you haven't discovered 34:28 this, let's let's continue to to seek what Jesus is talking about where it's better to give than to receive. And we talked about the the apostles, the big guys all getting together and the burden on their heart was, hey, let's make sure 34:39 we remember the poor. And we looked at repentance and we saw that it's not just correcting everything from our past, but it's moving forward in the present and the future of seeking a life that goes from taking and turns around and goes to 34:52 giving. And then we looked at some uh we looked at this passage in Matthew 6 in the sermon on the mount that says basically there's a way to give that you guys need to understand. And it involves the right hand and the left hand not 35:06 knowing what's going on. And it involves an intimate relationship with a created human being and his heavenly father. And we want to grow in that. And we looked at that. Well, what does it mean for the left hand not to be knowing what the 35:19 right hand is doing? And we said that there's there's an internal part of it, right? Where we don't keep records. We're not writing down everything we do with our right hand. The left hand's not writing it down. So, there's an internal 35:29 thing. And then we also said there's an external thing. And we looked at some examples of where the good Samaritan disappeared and didn't let that left hand know what had been done for him by him. And then we looked at Boaz and the way 35:43 he took care of Ruth and made sure that even though he had helped her out and hooked her up and gave her some extra, that she in no way felt small or felt any shame for it. And then we looked at the the video and we saw an example of 35:55 how, you know, we we we can get creative and we can make it look like an exchange. And brother or sister, if you can ever come to that place where nobody knows what you sacrificed and what you give, they think they even helped you 36:07 out by giving you a rusty bucket that you needed. If you can come to that place, I'm telling you, I believe you will have such joy with your heavenly father when you say, "We did it. We did it in such a way they don't even know we 36:19 sacrificed." Brothers and sisters, I'm I want to continue to grow in these things. May the Lord help us to do it.
