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Sun, Jul 28, 2024 10 AM • 48:56SUMMARY KEYWORDSchurch, Malachi, sacrifice, give, bible, Jesus, God, apostles, people, pastor, problem, money, reading, verse, test, acts, worship, alright, context, great
Good morning, welcome if you're new here among us. My name is Gene. I serve here at c3 church as your pastor. And I heard a story. I heard a story about one man who asked another man a question, simple question. He asked him, Are you a Christian? Well, the answer was simple, yes, I am. Oh, so kind of another question. Well, I suppose you go to church? Do you go to church somewhere? And he said, No, that isn't necessary. You see the dying thief on the cross next to Jesus? Well, he never went to church. He's in heaven. Well, man who started asking the questions continued. He said, Well, you know, I mean, so this organization, the church, right? Like, that's you got saved through it, right? That's how you found out about Jesus. Don't you feel the need to, like, be a member, give anything back, something like that? Well, he continued, no, the thief. The guy said, let me stop you there, because you seem to be on very intimate terms with this dying thief, and you seem to derive a great deal of consolation from his career. But here's the thing, there's a difference between you and him.
He was a dying thief.
You're a living one.
Ouch.
So you guys were really hoping for a joke there.
I read you guys right. That's so over the last couple of weeks, we've seen that we can kind of prove right, whether we're a Christian or not, by the things we do or don't do right this week, we're going to ask a tough question, are we willing to put our money where our mouth is?
Now, if you're new, don't run out yet,
Because you may be thinking, is it that kind of church? Is this guy going to ask for a private jet? No, my private Jet's just fine. It's doing great. I won't need to ask for another one until next year, when the new model comes out. But until then, it's not that kind of church you'll find out. Just hang in there. It'll be okay, probably alright. So we find ourselves in our twisted scripture series. This is where we're looking at misused verses of the Bible, right, or phrases that people use they don't really think about too much. They're misused. So a lot of Christians today, it's kind of like that. I call it fortune cookie theology, because, well, they get fed a verse on their app, right? And then they don't know the context or anything, and so they just apply it to whatever they what? And so that's really kind of what's going on. So we're doing a little bit to, I'd say, correct this, right, clear up some of the confusion. So we're going to go to Malachi today. If you don't know anything about the Bible, it's in the Old Testament. If you know a little bit about the Bible, or it's probably the last book of the Old Testament in your Bible, Malachi is a prophet, and basically he's going to the Jewish he's like a if you're know the Bible, post exhibit prophet. And he's going to the Jewish people to make sure their hearts are right with God, to make sure that they're putting God first, because they're not. So it deals a lot with sacrifices. I'll explain a little bit more later, but basically, how they worship God in that period, the easiest way to put it, right? So they're giving these, like, lame and blind sacrifices. So these animals that are just leftovers, right? They're not going to be good for anything to sell or to eat or anything like that. So like, by the way, here sacrifice that to God. God's not happy. And so this Q and A kind of begins with them, right? Like, I love you. How have you loved us? Right? So back and forth, like, this conversation between them and God, and you've shown contempt, right? How have we shown contempt? You pollute my altar with these lame and blind sacrifices, and basically I won't accept it, right? So we've kind of heard this before in the past, right? Like, so when people are in that kind of sin, or they're doing all these outrageous things, God over and over again. The Bible says I'm not going to listen here. I won't accept it. I'll shut the temple doors, or you should shut the temple doors, right? So now it goes to the corrupt priests, right? You're cheating the Lord. That's this concept that can't be robbing God or cheating the Lord. And then we get to my favorite verse of the day. I have one. It's Malachi, two, three. I will punish your descendants and splatter your faces with the manure from your festival sacrifices, and I'll throw you put on the manure pile. So there you go. Sorry. So there's my that's my verse of the day. So what do you think the chances of that coming up in your Bible app are like for the verse of the day? What just because it but does this highlight the problem? Right? Like, what, you know, I won't, like the new translation, like, I will rub poop in your face, right? So that's, that's what I'm going to do, because I'm a prophet this morning, right? So I told you guys, the Bible's really entertaining. You. Read it. Okay? So if we continue, so basically, the sacrifices, they're part of a covenant between these people and God, so he moves to another covenant, and it's the wife of you, the marriage covenant. So what's going on is they're marrying these foreign wives, right? So they're divorcing their, let's just say, Jewish wives, right? So, it's a problem. They're breaking this. They have this transactional kind of attitude. We talked about consumerism, right? So it's very easy for them to kind of just discard something, get a new one. That's a problem too. We forget the chapter three mentions John the Baptist, so foreshadowing of John the Baptist, the prophet Elijah. So this will mirror chapter four. So he's sending a messenger. This is, this is John the Baptist. The Herald is going to pave the way for Jesus. So it starts talking about that a little bit. There's going to be judgment, alright? So then our verse in question. So I just want to kind of lead into this Malachi, 310, bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there'll be enough food in my temple. If you do says the Lord of Heaven's Armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you. I'll pour out a blessing. So great. You won't have enough room to take it in. Try it put me to the test. Okay? So the idea here, if you've never been in church, you're like, What are you talking about? But if you've been an evangelical church or prosperity church, you've probably been fed this verse from a pastor, right? And so the idea here is, if you give 10% that's a tithe, that's what it means, 10% of the church, you'll get a whole bunch more back, right? So that's kind of the idea. You give the church money. And so just, quite frankly, this is used by a lot of false teachers to get you to give money. I'm going to show kind of how foolish it is to use this verse in particular, but to get you to give money. So either kind of, like maybe unintentionally, because they don't read their Bible, but then they shouldn't be teaching anyway, or on purpose to get your money right. So either way, it's not good. It's kind of a greedy thing. But why do people fall for this? Read your Bible two, right? It sounds like a really good investment strategy, right? It's a great yield, right? If I just give 10% I'm going to, I'm going to get 100% of that back. So, so it sounds great, right? This is a really good thing, right? But we saw in the past, God is not a genie in a bottle, and he's not a cosmic vending machine, right? It's the wrong way to think. It's not sacrificial thinking, that's what our ship is, right? So it's supposed to be sacrificial, it's transactional, and that's just the wrong it's not a relational attitude. The other point that people will make when they say, and this is the only place in the Bible where God says, test me, and just back up from that for a second and just try not to be a Christian for a moment. At least, I heard this a bazillion times, usually when someone says, like, that's a one off. That's not a good argument, really, like it's the only place. So that's kind of strange, and it is. So let's look at the surrounding context, right? Malachi, three nine, you are under a curse. We're going back to one verse, you are under a curse for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, will there be enough food in my temple? If you do, says the Lord of Heaven's Armies, I'll open up the windows of heaven for you. I'll pour all blessings so great you won't have enough room to take it in, try it. Put me to the test. Your crops will be abundant for I'll guard them from insects and disease. Your grapes will not fall from the vine before they are ripe, says the Lord of Heaven's armies. Now, did you notice the context? Right? These people are cursed and they are cheating God. That's the context, right? And then go back, remember the poop in the face in chapter two, right? So it this is not good, like it's God is not happy with these people at all. They're cheating God. They're not right with God. Now, if we keep reading, we see something interesting. I put this verse on the screen, and if there are new people here, whenever I put things in brackets, it's usually just closer to the original languages. That's what I'm doing. I like to use an easy to read translation, because it's easy to read, easy to hear, right? We understand it. So this looks a little crazy, but this is what it is if we kept reading down Malachi 315 from now on, we call the Arab get blessed. For those who do evil, get rich, or those who do wickedness prosper, right? And they also test God and suffer no harm. Is the point here? Would you notice those who do evil or wickedness do what? Test God? It's a bad thing. So there's a really excellent example of you just need to keep reading, because he clarifies testing God is wickedness. It's not good, right? It's a bad thing. So it's hyperbole if we keep reading. So testimony wasn't a challenge to the faithful in this context, it was a challenge to those cheating God. It's a challenge. To evil people greed as a sin, and certainly so is testing God. So later, we'll see what Jesus says if we keep reading. So let's just do that well, if we kept reading to the New Testament. So we got to Malachi. He went to Matthew right mark. Luke. Will take this from Luke, and we get in the series. We talked about that religious Jesus, right? So he's out fasting. That's how he initiated his ministry fasting. The devil comes to try to get him off course, right? Steer him off course. Get him to do something different. He starts testing or tempting Jesus here, alright? So he starts in, Luke. It's doors a little different, but it's a he must be hungry, so turn the headstone into a piece of bread, right? So he tells him, Look, you know, worship me. I'll give you all the kings of Matthew. It's a mountain. He takes him up to a mountain, right? So he's tempting him. Then it says this, Luke four nine, and he brought him to Jerusalem. He Jesus Jerusalem, and he had to stand on the highest point of the temple. And said to him, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you to protect you, and on their hands, they will lift you up lest you strike your foot against the stone. And Jesus answered and said to him, it is said, You are not to put to the test the Lord your God. Alright? So a couple of notes. We've seen this before regarding the Genie in a Bottle theology, the devil can bless you too careful, right? And he also misuses scriptures. So Jesus makes it clear here, you do not test God. Now he's quoting the Old Testament there. And so a lot of people just so that you understand regarding the Old Testament and that part of it, the law of Moses, Malachi three, is kind of like hearkening back to the law of Moses. So we're not under that anymore. So I'll explain as we go through we looked at this if you've been here for a long series, you know. So we've seen, like Galatians, Philippians, all these different places where it makes it crystal clear, we're not under the Law of Moses anymore. We talked about this a lot of Bible study. We just can't be there's so much of it you can't do alright. So we are saved by grace, not any system of works or anything like that, right? But we saw that if we kept reading Ephesians, two, right, eight, 910, that it explains, right? We're saved by grace, right through our faith, but then we're created and new in Christ Jesus for the purpose of doing good works. And we saw that works are evidence of salvation, right? So Jesus has fulfilled the law. We made this really, really clear. So there's that sacrifice, sacrificial system. Sacrificial system, and that's how you kind of atone for sin. There are a bunch of other things going on there, alright, but Jesus sacrificed himself. He's that once and for all sacrifice. Just in case you don't know. So, you know, we get to Acts we see Peter talking about, it's the first church council, actually, in Acts 15, and it's about this, right? And so it's made very, very clear, no, Peter says we're not under that yoke. It was a yoke that neither our fathers or we could bear. And so there's the other problem with pastors trying to use this verse. So first of all, totally out of context, right? Second of all, when they abuse this verse, they take their people and they put them under the yoke of the law, not good, right? So they're kind of preaching out of both sides of their mouth. These pastors will be the first ones in the evangelical church to say, we're saved by grace, nothing else
except that one part of the law that gets you to give 10%
Wow. Buffet Christianity, right? So it's a really manipulative use of the Bible for monetary gain. And we see the Bible is very serious about denouncing false teachers. We looked at this a lot, huge, huge part of the New Testament. Alright? It's a very, very big deal, especially when people are trying to profit off the church or get private jets. That's still on the table if you want to do that. I mean, I don't know what I do with ticket to Disney and get there in five minutes. Say it's unbelievable. I don't know, but I need it right? So that we saw also, the New Testament says teachers should be paid. It's very clear about that they should right? We saw that there are wealthy people in the church, that's okay. If you have nice things, that's alright. So we saw that all over the place, right? James two, right? The wealthy come in the church. If they have a gold ring and fancy clothing, what was the deal like? Don't show partiality, right? If someone doesn't have a lot, they get the same seats, right? They're all equal. We saw, you know, Lydia, she was a merchant selling expensive purple garments. Put Paul and crew up, uh, Philemon. Philemon is wealthy enough to have a servant. The whole book of the Bible one page about him, right? But what's the thing always, the encouragement is, Listen, you know, be very generous, right? Don't think you're better than other people. Be humble. In Philemon case, forgiving, right? So you see him there, but you got. Have the right attitude. So the bottom line is this, a pastor, leader, teacher, should never be getting rich off the church, right? He should be enriching the church. That's,
that's the point here.
So it's, it's used by a lot of false teachers, or kind of like lazy ones, right? People don't read their Bible. I know, I know that in our reading your Bible, I'll just pick this here, make it sound good, and that's what the Bible says, right? And totally de contextualized. But the problem is, is that it encourages a lot of bad behavior in your people. It's bad pastoring. Why? Because what's encouraging, you know, your Christians to be greedy, and a greedy person is an idolater. We saw in Colossians, right? It's encouraging that kind of transactional and greedy attitude, right? And again, test God. What did Jesus say? No, we're not supposed to test God. So it encourages that sin too. And it always just kind of shocks me, right? You know, when it passes around someone and people go, you know, it says, Test him. We should do that. It's the only place that says test him like Pastor. You're not going to correct that. You know you're not, you know you're just that's you're fine with that. Okay, you know. So again, he's not a genie in a bottle. And again, you don't want to start encouraging people to sin. So giving should be sacrificial, right? Not self serving. Otherwise it is not worship, right? So biblical giving, it's about worship. So I explain to you briefly the sacrificial system here, Jesus sheds the blood for our sins. And there are other components as well. So you can see here, like bring all the tithes into the storehouse, like bring your crops, or whatever it is into the storehouse. So this is a part of them giving in a way, monetarily, right? So they're, it's their stuff. It's not exactly for a sacrifice, necessarily. They're just giving it, right? So back then, you wouldn't have pastors, you've had, you know, priests, you have Levites, things like that. They need to be supported by it. But we also saw this, if it's not sacrificial, it's what lip service, alright? So it's got to be sacrificing. We saw this too in the series as well. Alright? Again, as I said before, I'm not listening. Amos five, Isaiah one, and we saw even that gets reiterated in first Peter. He's quoting the Old Testament, same thing, right? Treat your wife well so that your prayers will not be hindered, alright? Not listening, right? If you're not being sacrificial, alright? So we don't have that system, sacrificial system. So, you know, for example, if
someone brought in a service dog, I wouldn't be like,
sacrifice the dog, right? So it's not going to happen. We don't do that part. But again, this is a part of worship. It's how we sacrifice. Now, we may not be on a farm making crops and things like that, although we've had people bringing baskets of mangoes, and that's kind of nice. But it's not exactly how we sacrifice what we need. It's the monetary system. Now, alright, so, and also on that topic of sacrifice, Romans 12 gives us the definition of true worship, right? Therefore, make your bodies a living sacrifice, right? This is your sacrificial worship. This is how you worship him, with yourself, with everything that you have, right? So in this context, the practice of biblical worship, biblical worship is literally putting your money where your mouth is, right? Are you being consistent with those two things? Is what the Bible challenges us with. Now, people will ask this good question, right? Alright, we're not required to give 10% that was a part of the
law of Moses. But so what do we get? Like, what
do I do? What's the thing here? So
I like to look at what they did in the early church. Well, it's pretty simple, right? So if you are new here, maybe you didn't notice, if you come in the time, you see four little signs, right? So those are the four points in the early church. That's kind of what we model, the basis, our foundation after, right? So it's pretty simple, the word of God. So they were devoted to the Word of God. It's really important the Bible, what the Bible says. That's the hill that we're going to die on, right? If we're not getting that right, we're not going to get anything else right. You can see that through this series, right? So we get that right first, right. Fellowship, breaking of the bread and prayer. So if we told about the cafe later, we have fellowship up there, and we're serious about praying Wednesday nights. We need Bible study. We pray before the Bible study for everybody in the church, everybody who has needs, very, very important to us. And with that basis, if we get that right, then we can get other things right, right? But some people stop, start the opposite way, right? And maybe they start with the show, and let's get the band, let do all these things, and then they don't worry about any of those four points. Not good, right? So let me show you what they did in the early church acts. We get to Acts, and this is the early church Acts 242, and they were devoting themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayers and fear came on every soul, and many wonders and signs were being performed by the apostles. And all who believed were in the same place and had. Everything in common, and they begin selling their possessions and property and distributing these things to all to the degree that no one had need. And this continues. So if we jump ahead couple chapters, acts 432, now the group of those who believed were one heart and soul, and no one said anything of what belonged to him was his own, but all things were theirs in common, and with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and with great and great grace was on them all, for there was not even any of them right, any among them who had need, because all those who are owners of plots of land or houses were selling them and bringing the proceeds of the things that were sold and placing them at the feet of the apostles, and it was being distributed to each as anyone had need. Now, somebody in here thought communism, right? We can't do that. Very countercultural, right? Like we're to us. We're like, hi, you know, like, that's weird, right? But we can't look at this through our American lens, right? America wasn't really being thought about when this was being written, right? So we can't really see it that way. We have to see the heart of what's going on here, right? So we see they gave everything, and when they say laying it at the apostles feet, it's like, I'm not using an NLT right now. It's a little more technical, uh, it's giving it to the church. They're putting it in charge of the church. We don't have apostles now, so it's like the pastors or teachers and things like that, right? So this is an appropriate sacrifice, though, right? So if you're thinking rightly about what Jesus did, died for years and died so that you can go to heaven, He gave everything. Well, the appropriate response would be to give everything, right? Kind of makes a little bit of sense. Now here's what's kind of funny to me. When pastors, like use the easy verse in Malachi, I'm like, why didn't you just go here? Like, this was a much better place. You've literally shortchanged yourself. 10% doesn't seem like very much now, does it? Right? So the problem is,
like those who start arguing and doing the math, right? 10%
is this much. It's just the heart is wrong. Like, it's a wrong heart, right? When you're saved, you realize, you come to that full realization about what Jesus did. It's just like, okay, you know, I'm good. Like, how can I be more generous? So when someone's kind of nitpicking over the numbers, that causes me concern, right? It's like, Roundup, you know, why can't you do that? Just kind of, like going to if you do this, I'm not sorry. But anyway, you know, you do your bill and then, like, round to the penny, right? Like, every little penny. And wait, I got to get that right, and I get a calculator out. Did I just do a calculator? Watch thing that's weird, right? But anyway, just round up. You're wearing a cross. You prayed before lunch. You know you have a Jesus fish on your car. They know you're a Christian. Round up, please. You're embarrassing me. You know it's like but it's like that, and you're going to take that attitude into church, into worship like, no, no. It's clearly just wrong. It's it comes with this transactional attitude. Basically, what's in it for me, and that is why people just go to Malachi 310 because, you know, these people are bunch of Americans, and they're transactional. They're all about their money. So this is what I'll say. Instead of saying, hey, it's worship, it's sacrifice. Stop, you know, give what you can, you know, it's okay if you have a lot, whatever, but just give. Like, why are you doing this? You know? So it's supposed to be this sacrificial attitude. So that's really the problem with it. So we've seen this in the series, right? The truly faithful, their minds are going to be centered on like heaven, right? And realizing constantly that this, this is just clearly not heaven, right? You know, as you get older, you're reminded that a lot right, like this is not heaven, right? And that's the goal. They are they are there. And so that's the faithful, and not as so concerned as like all these things here. And so, okay. And the other thing too to know about this, this is what the Holy Spirit inspired in the early church and continues to inspire and faithful believers. So many focus on the work of the Holy Spirit, especially in like Evangelical Church, is more like Pentecostal type churches and things like that. It's not that we don't believe that the Holy Spirit moves within us. But here's the thing, you know, you go to other churches and but these types of churches and so much emphasis is put on, like the prophets, right? And all these cool, Holy Spirit inspired gifts, right? I'm a prophet. I'm of this, I'm of that, right? They go around telling you it's going to rain at three o'clock in southwest Florida, and you're like, okay, not convincing. So anyway, but you hear very little about the miraculous gift
of generosity that the Holy Spirit gives.
That's what's going on here.
Very little about that, right? Cuz that's like, totally Christ. Like, isn't
it alright? Like,
totally sacrificial.
That sounds like what Jesus would do, right? So the Holy Spirit's going to inspire that you. Right? People don't want to talk about that, but that's what's going on there. It's like this waterfall, the Holy Spirit, alright? So it's also, it's, it's the mark of a true believer. It's the mark of someone who believes God's in control. He's got it. It's okay. It's just fine.
So 10%
it's a starting point,
right? It's a base right? For beginners. I say because here's the thing, you even look at some outside financial advice, you know, quasi Christian advice, or financial advice, they'll, you know, when you do your distribution, they'll tell you that, and even for like, a tax write off, right, something like that, in the equation, right? You save 10% give 10% whatever it is to charity, right? Then you can write it off, you know, whatever. It's a beginner thing, like we should come in here, kind of knowing that, right? And when you're a Christian, you believe in Jesus, you want to support your church, well, that's where that 10% goes. It just kind of makes sense, right? And again, I say beginners, because, again, like, when you know Jesus, you should want to live sacrificially, right? That's kind of the point that generosity, right? You'll understand it. And so once you get it, your thinking goes, it changes. Because I didn't get I first came to church I did as really funny, because the pastor did. We don't do this. Don't worry about it, because we stopped doing this kind of thing. Was like, growth truck. I would tell you about the church, then we sit you down. Okay, you got to give your time talents and treasures. And then people were like, I feel like I'm being sold a timeshare here. So we stopped doing that. But anyway, that happened to me. I went to church, and I was like, you know, it's from a martial arts background, business background, and I'd stop playing music for a little bit. So I was like, I don't know. You want me to beat people up. I can bounce at the church like, that's cool, but you're not getting my money. I literally said that, like, you're not getting my money. Heather was like, Oh my gosh, it's so embarrassing, right? So this first day came out,
whatever you
know what I mean. So I don't know, like, but the pastor's car was terrible too. I was like, I had no reason to suspect anything, but you go and what changed, right? I got saved. I got really saved. That's just like showing up to church. And I realized what I was singing about, right? I'm like, Oh, I'm lying, so I have to start getting in line with this. I realized what Jesus did. I got saved, baptized and everything. And I went from thinking, I have to give 10% to realizing I get to keep 90%
of what wasn't mine anyway.
I realized I didn't really have anything to do with this, right? It was God. It belongs to him. You know, it's kind of funny, because I try to relate to real. That's how I work. I so I'm very practical, like that at first, and then the spiritual follows of me. And so, you know, I started preparing this message. I'm like, Oh, the Malachi message again. Here we go. So, you know, I started thinking of some things. Like, you know, what do we do when we really love? Like, how do we give like, how do we treat people we really love? So, like, if you married for a long time, you got to think way back, right, when you first started dating, right? So anyway, you know, like, but how did we How did we behave? We first started dating? I just remember I was like, poor, really poor. We had no money. My wife's college student working 18 jobs, or no money at all, right? But we go to like this, I'm going to take you out. And I don't even know where I got this. I think I borrowed the suit. I had no idea, suit and tie, something I never wear. This is, like, totally ridiculous. Two poor people like going to this, like, five star restaurant or whatever it was, spending way more money than we should ever spend, right? But that's how I acted, right? I didn't think it's kind of interesting, because I didn't think maybe for a second, but I didn't think, like, wow, this is like a month's worth of salary for me, right? No, I was like, really wanting to impress her, right? I loved her. I was like, Yeah, let's do this thing, right? And so anyway, part of the joke while I'm laughing is, like, I was going to say something like, you know, you don't go on a first date at McDonald's, you know, right? Like, something like that show. It's like, I'm totally out of touch, because apparently McDonald's costs like, $100 to take two people there. Like, it's really expensive. I hear people talk about that, like, really. So like, Yeah, let's go to McDonald's. Like, Who, I'm going to get my dress on. But you know what, in foreign countries, they do this, like, it's they really do it's really expensive there. So anyway, blew my whole joke, but just figured I'd share that with you. But, you know, it's, it's kind of a thing, right? And then it's, you know, when we get engaged, like, in our culture, you know, we get engaged, what do we do? Right? The guy goes out and he works real hard and he gets a wedding ring. I hope you did, if you didn't, guys, not sorry, you should have worked hard, right? So you prepare, you plan,
you get a job, you work hard, you
know, you buy a nice ring, and again, you spend, like, way more money than you should spend on anything. It's totally irresponsible, but, you know, it says a lot of things, right? What does it say? It says, Well, I'm willing to work hard for you. It sets the tone in the relationship, correct? I'm willing to work hard for you. I'm willing to sacrifice because, you know, if you were me, you have to give up some. Stuff right to get that right, so less cigarettes or alcohol at that time. So, you know, I had to give stuff up. I had to sacrifice. It says I love you, and I'm going to do this through our relationship, hopefully, but, and it also says to all the other guys, get away from her, right? So it's really important. It's kind of selfish, but Right? So, in a world where money seems to be the most important thing, right, spending money right on someone, it lets them know you have a value. It puts a value on them, we can understand that. So how much more value do we want to put on God, right? We can understand that. But I think, like some of our problem is applying it where it needs to be applied the right way, right? So in relationships, we get it. People say, and we looked in the Bible, the Bible says it a lot. Prove it over and over again, which is amazingly redundant. Prove It, right. We do that. Put your money where your mouth is. We say that, right? So this is something that Christians should be challenging themselves with. If we do it for everything else, why don't we do it? Because, like the, I mean, the person who saved us for eternity, heaven, what do we owe him? Alright, it's not something we are prodded to do in anything else or with anything else that we love, or anything else we love to do or spend our money on, right? We should be doing it that much more the act of giving. Also, it's a really important exercise of your faith, because that is probably like, for me, this was a problem because, again, really poor for a long time, and then, you know, you start making a little bit of money, and you're like, Whoa, the money became way, way, way too important to me, right? But it's just fear, right? That's what that is, right? Jesus kind of helped me with that, right? But if you're like me, you know, and you worry a little bit about the money and this and that, this is a really good exercise of your faith. It's saying, look, okay, okay, doesn't matter, you know. And I kind of, like, it's a kind of a false teaching out there where, like, it should hurt when you give. It's like, No, you should be giving joyfully. It should not hurt, like, because when you love someone, like, if you go on a date and you're like, Man, I spent way too much money, right? And you're doing the bill like that, I'm not going to tip very much, you know, you probably don't love the person very much, right? You might want to just find somebody else, right? So good exercise of that faith. And so what I like to do is take that element out. I personally, I just give through the app. So you make that pledge, you just put it on the auto thing. And I think it's a good tool, because it's kind of like a pledge. It says, Look, no matter what's going to happen this week, God, I trust you, right? It's kind of a little bit disingenuous to go, Okay, I'm all set. And then what they do in Malachi, and I give you the lame ones, you know, give you like, kind of, is that really pure and genuine? No, right? So I love you. I give first. I make that pledge. I have faith, so I respond, what faithfully, it's going to be okay. And just a side note for encouragement, a practical one for you guys, like, I mean, I don't know how long ago I set up. I don't even notice it. It just comes out. And it's kind of embarrassing, because I'm like, this is weird. Why did I ever worry about this? It's so stupid, right now, when we're not faithful in relationships, there's a word for that cheating, right? So that's what it's called. So let's go back to Malachi. Malachi three, eight, should people cheat? God, you have cheated me. You ask. What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you? You cheated me of the Tithes and Offerings due to me. So again, it all belongs to him, and so giving us those leftovers, the Bible says it's like cheating God, right? It's robbing him or cheating him. Now, again, we're not under the law, alright? But we look at Acts, we saw it was so much more, and we continue in Acts. We see a story about two people who tried to cheat God. They tried to rob from God, right? So, packing up. So right after we just read, I'm just going to show you an act of generosity, acts 436, for instance, right? So it's all that giving of everything. There was Joseph the one of the apostles, nicknamed Barnabas, which means son of encouragement. He was from the tribe of Levi and came from the island of Cyprus. He sold a field that he owned, and he brought the money to the apostles. So again, right? So he's selling his stuff, he's laying it at their feet. So he turned the page. And that's a good example. Now we get a good bad example, acts five, one. But there was a certain man named Ananias who, with his wife Sapphira, sold some property. He brought part of the money to the apostles, claiming it was a full amount. So this was the problem here. With his wife's consent, he kept the rest. And Peter said, Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit and you kept some of the money for yourself. The properties was yours to sell or not, to sell as you wished, and after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. It. How could you do a thing like this? You weren't lying to us, but to God, as soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Everyone had heard about it. Was terrified. Then some young men got up, wrapped him in a sheet, took him out and buried him. It sounds like a mobster movie or something like that, right?
Peter asked so
about three hours later, his wife came in, right? Not knowing what happened, Peter asked her. He doesn't bother saying like your husband died, right? So Peter asked her, was this the price you and your husband received for your land? Yes, you replied, That was the price. And Peter said, How could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the Spirit of the Lord, like this God, the young men who buried your husband are just outside the door, and they will carry you out too. Instantly, she fell to the floor and died. When the young men came in and saw that she was dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened. So this year would be a way better section.
It's a lot more reading. I
get it like, if they're lazy, but if I was telling a pastor, use this, right? Give or die, you're ready. This is great, like, dumb, right? Why don't you just keep reading? This is great stuff, right? Real motivational stuff. So again, do you see testing the Lord is a bad thing? There are tons of examples all throughout the Bible, alright? So again, we saw towards the beginning of the series that fear of the Lord, this has come up again and again and again in Acts. You notice that, alright? Not always a bad thing to have fear, alright? But the truth here is, when you don't just cheat God, you cheat yourself. So when you're not exercising that faith, what happens when you don't exercise it becomes weak. You develop weak faith. And that's what all that Andrew just rolls back over into that more fear of money, more fear of money, more fear of money, it's like, okay, you're not going to get strong in that area unless you begin exercising it, exercising that trust, right? And again, it's one of those miracles that nobody talks about, like that sign of generosity. So it really is for yourself, because that question comes up in people like, am I saved? You know? You know what I mean. Look,
see,
are you generous? Like, are
you doing what the Holy Spirit would tell someone who is to do? Like, good question, alright, so remember, it was very, very redundant in the series, that's evident evidence of our salvation. So while most people are testing God, the Bible says we need to test ourselves. So if we get to second Corinthians, We go all the way there, right? Says past acts, right? So Romans, first, second Corinthians, we get there. Second Corinthians is interesting because Second Corinthians is really about two things. It's the motivation for being written by Paul. It's false teachers. So I hope we'll get the Bible about it, false teachers, he's called super apostles, kind of mocking them. And this offering, they're dragging their feet on giving an offering to the church in Jerusalem. Long backstory we don't have time for right now, but those are the context there. Bless you. So when Paul gets towards the end of his letter second, Corinthians, 13, five, Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine.
Test yourselves.
Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you. If not, you have failed the genuine test of faith, or test of genuine faith. So here we see we're to test ourselves, not God, and in the context, the exact context, what was the test giving, whether they're generously giving. That was the exact context here, and I got to tell you the truth. You know, I can honestly say that this is probably accurate 100% of the time. It's just a really good test for pastors. I can tell that there's a spiritual malady. There's something wrong by what people give. How
do you sell? Alright, I
don't look at it often, whatever. But if someone starts giving me trouble or there's a problem in the household, I'll go to the powers that be and I'll say, hey, pull that person. Are they giving anything? And it's always nope, no. In Pastor school, you learn something. They tell you when this is old, but they tell you can tell what someone worships by looking at their calendar and their checkbook done. It's very convicting. And at that point in Pastor school, that's where 70% quit, because then a good mentor goes, let me see.
So now it's a phone, right?
But that was the thing when I was being trained. Open phone policy. Tell everything you need to know about a person, calendar and checkbook. So we've answered a question as we kind of wrap it up. Can you be a Christian without going to church? Let's back up the beginning. Here we made some comparisons, right? It's something like a student who won't go to school, a salesman with no customers, a businessman on a deserted island,
an author with no readers.
That's me,
a soldier who won't join an army, right now, if we
take it a step further, what was the next question, right?
Can you be a Christian without supporting a
church? Yeah, you can. You can be a citizen of a country but not pay taxes. Possible. You can join a club and not pay your dues. You can eat a meal and not pay for it and then complain when the restaurant closes down.
Church is an absolutely essential
part of the Christian faith. We saw that the book of Acts today, right? And if you keep reading, it's kind of a funny thing, because there are a lot of people out there who believe that they believe that they believe that they can be a Christian, just, we don't need church anything like that. But I just want you to think about something. And this may not have occurred to you, I read the Bible a lot. New Testament has 27 books in it. Of those 27 books, Paul wrote 13. Well, 1313, in the books. Alright, so when you think about it for a second, so whether it's Romans, first, Corinthians, Second Corinthians, second, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, first, Thessalonians, second, Thessalonians, first, Timothy, second, Timothy, Titus or Philemon. Think about the context to the church in Rome, to the church in Corinth, to the churches in Galatia, the church in Ephesus, in Colossae, in Philippi, church and all the saints in the church in Philippi, first and second. Thessalonians. It's fun to say, but it's Thessaloniki, if you want to get it right, Thessalonians, right. So the church, Thessalonica, Philemon, all people running a church, the context for the majority of the New Testament is church and the people in it, right? So, Timothy Titus, they're leaders in the church. Timothy at Ephesus, Titus and Crete, so point elders in all the churches and telling the people how to behave in the church, requirements for leaders in the church, right? So it's all about church. And furthermore, as we saw, a great deal of it is about supporting it. That's the context of your New Testament, right? So you get past the gospel, and all of you together, we saw this too. The meaning of church, Ecclesia in Greek. It's not a building. It's, it's about just literally, in Greek, it means to assemble together, like, as people, like, literally, physically assemble together. It's all, I mean, Ecclesiastes, when people translate it, assembly. Yeah, that works. That's what it is in Greek, right? So it means you, you are the body of Christ, as you assemble. We can do this anywhere, right? So it's like a family. And so if you've never been here before, we treat this like a family. We're family. We're family members. We don't have, like, patronizing programs for this type of people with that type of need, and, well, they're poor, and then we have that group and that, you know, it's like, hey, right? You know, hey, we go to the poor people. We're going to feed the poor people. It's patronizing. That's what that is patronizing, right? It's not good. They're family. They're equals. We sit at the same table together, and we make friends, and then we treat them like family members. That's it, as simple as that. So like a family though, when you come of age, it's kind of like, if you're still in the household, you're going to support. It
kind of makes sense, right?
So just to get to a practical thing as I wrap up, so what we kind of do here at c3 if you're new and if you've been here for a while, it's kind of good to be reminded, like refreshed and encouraged. I want to encourage you, those of you who are supporting it, thank you, or encourage you guys in what we do. But if you're new, it's good to hear. So first thing, I don't have a private jet, all right, so I have some nice stuff because I was in the business world for a long time, and we kept some stuff, right? My wife works, and that's why we can afford nice stuff still, alright? So we're not trying to get rich off the church, but, you know, she does pretty well. She stayed in the business world and she tithes. So be thankful for that. It's a good thing, right? He's tithing a percentage of her income. It's great. So pray for that, like new business deal to go through by the end of the year, and we'll pay off the mortgage rates. So we have a little mortgage. We're not We're not in serious debt, but there's we do have bills we have to pay. It's important, right? But what we do here just very, very briefly. If you know our stories, you know us, like I came out of that money addiction that I had and all kinds of problems that I had through the church. The church really helped me get there, uh, my wife, she'll, she'll tell you her she's in recovery. And really, we believe, we know that the church helped save us. It was a V, it's not Jesus, you know, except it's the body of Christ. But that. Body of Christ helped bring us to salvation. Like we know we're going to heaven now, right? And so we really feel that we owe it everything, you know that's I devoted my whole life to it. That's it, you know what I mean? So that's our heart. So we have a real heart for people, especially in recovery. We use this building. We have recovery meetings here. We use this building for things like that, community things. We do rent some space, you know, if they're not a nonprofit in that way, or working for something like that, but there are community groups that we let use our space. It's building. And if you have a house, you know, it's not free, so just scale that out by a lot. There are AC bills, the lights, and if you have a house, you know, there's always a problem, right? So in the building, there's always a problem, but we keep it because it's a great community center. There's so much that we can do here for the community. You'll see afterwards, we do fellowship. So if you just want a meal, you can have a meal. I encourage you to do that. If you need a meal, you can have a meal, and we'll send you with more food, right? So we do a lot with this space and with the building, that's what we're about here, that that's what we really do here, and that's the crux of it. So those four things, right? The Word of God. And now you get that, you're like, Yeah, but we should love to hear the Word of God. It's the word of God. Like, why wouldn't anyone want to hear that and then fellowshipping it together, breaking bread together, praying with one another. That's it. It's kind of as simple as that. So could I be at a private jet church? Yes, yes, I could, but I'm over it. So again, thank you guys who've been faithfully supporting the church. Encourage you guys to get involved and do that. So we just see here right in the series, just another thing, what happens when we let the Holy Spirit lead us right? You know, it reveals the intentions of how we apply these verses right, and guides our hearts to apply them lightly, right? And that's just the point here. So let me pray for you guys, Lord, I thank you for everyone who came in today to devote themselves to Your Word, to hear the Word of God. This morning, I just ask that whatever they have going on with their fears and things that are holding them back from you, that are blocking any of your presence, just to surrender them, to realize that they can let go of them and let you work in their hearts, Lord, just fill them with your love, your joy, your peace, your patience, your kindness, your gentleness, Your faithfulness. And for those of us who've been touched by that presence, Lord, remind us of what you've done, make us mindful of that fashion, a sense of vehicles, of that grace, mercy, peace and love that can only be found through you. Pass these things In Jesus, Name, Amen. You.
Good morning, welcome if you're new here among us. My name is Gene. I serve here at c3 church as your pastor. And I heard a story. I heard a story about one man who asked another man a question, simple question. He asked him, Are you a Christian? Well, the answer was simple, yes, I am. Oh, so kind of another question. Well, I suppose you go to church? Do you go to church somewhere? And he said, No, that isn't necessary. You see the dying thief on the cross next to Jesus? Well, he never went to church. He's in heaven. Well, man who started asking the questions continued. He said, Well, you know, I mean, so this organization, the church, right? Like, that's you got saved through it, right? That's how you found out about Jesus. Don't you feel the need to, like, be a member, give anything back, something like that? Well, he continued, no, the thief. The guy said, let me stop you there, because you seem to be on very intimate terms with this dying thief, and you seem to derive a great deal of consolation from his career. But here's the thing, there's a difference between you and him.
He was a dying thief.
You're a living one.
Ouch.
So you guys were really hoping for a joke there.
I read you guys right. That's so over the last couple of weeks, we've seen that we can kind of prove right, whether we're a Christian or not, by the things we do or don't do right this week, we're going to ask a tough question, are we willing to put our money where our mouth is?
Now, if you're new, don't run out yet,
Because you may be thinking, is it that kind of church? Is this guy going to ask for a private jet? No, my private Jet's just fine. It's doing great. I won't need to ask for another one until next year, when the new model comes out. But until then, it's not that kind of church you'll find out. Just hang in there. It'll be okay, probably alright. So we find ourselves in our twisted scripture series. This is where we're looking at misused verses of the Bible, right, or phrases that people use they don't really think about too much. They're misused. So a lot of Christians today, it's kind of like that. I call it fortune cookie theology, because, well, they get fed a verse on their app, right? And then they don't know the context or anything, and so they just apply it to whatever they what? And so that's really kind of what's going on. So we're doing a little bit to, I'd say, correct this, right, clear up some of the confusion. So we're going to go to Malachi today. If you don't know anything about the Bible, it's in the Old Testament. If you know a little bit about the Bible, or it's probably the last book of the Old Testament in your Bible, Malachi is a prophet, and basically he's going to the Jewish he's like a if you're know the Bible, post exhibit prophet. And he's going to the Jewish people to make sure their hearts are right with God, to make sure that they're putting God first, because they're not. So it deals a lot with sacrifices. I'll explain a little bit more later, but basically, how they worship God in that period, the easiest way to put it, right? So they're giving these, like, lame and blind sacrifices. So these animals that are just leftovers, right? They're not going to be good for anything to sell or to eat or anything like that. So like, by the way, here sacrifice that to God. God's not happy. And so this Q and A kind of begins with them, right? Like, I love you. How have you loved us? Right? So back and forth, like, this conversation between them and God, and you've shown contempt, right? How have we shown contempt? You pollute my altar with these lame and blind sacrifices, and basically I won't accept it, right? So we've kind of heard this before in the past, right? Like, so when people are in that kind of sin, or they're doing all these outrageous things, God over and over again. The Bible says I'm not going to listen here. I won't accept it. I'll shut the temple doors, or you should shut the temple doors, right? So now it goes to the corrupt priests, right? You're cheating the Lord. That's this concept that can't be robbing God or cheating the Lord. And then we get to my favorite verse of the day. I have one. It's Malachi, two, three. I will punish your descendants and splatter your faces with the manure from your festival sacrifices, and I'll throw you put on the manure pile. So there you go. Sorry. So there's my that's my verse of the day. So what do you think the chances of that coming up in your Bible app are like for the verse of the day? What just because it but does this highlight the problem? Right? Like, what, you know, I won't, like the new translation, like, I will rub poop in your face, right? So that's, that's what I'm going to do, because I'm a prophet this morning, right? So I told you guys, the Bible's really entertaining. You. Read it. Okay? So if we continue, so basically, the sacrifices, they're part of a covenant between these people and God, so he moves to another covenant, and it's the wife of you, the marriage covenant. So what's going on is they're marrying these foreign wives, right? So they're divorcing their, let's just say, Jewish wives, right? So, it's a problem. They're breaking this. They have this transactional kind of attitude. We talked about consumerism, right? So it's very easy for them to kind of just discard something, get a new one. That's a problem too. We forget the chapter three mentions John the Baptist, so foreshadowing of John the Baptist, the prophet Elijah. So this will mirror chapter four. So he's sending a messenger. This is, this is John the Baptist. The Herald is going to pave the way for Jesus. So it starts talking about that a little bit. There's going to be judgment, alright? So then our verse in question. So I just want to kind of lead into this Malachi, 310, bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there'll be enough food in my temple. If you do says the Lord of Heaven's Armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you. I'll pour out a blessing. So great. You won't have enough room to take it in. Try it put me to the test. Okay? So the idea here, if you've never been in church, you're like, What are you talking about? But if you've been an evangelical church or prosperity church, you've probably been fed this verse from a pastor, right? And so the idea here is, if you give 10% that's a tithe, that's what it means, 10% of the church, you'll get a whole bunch more back, right? So that's kind of the idea. You give the church money. And so just, quite frankly, this is used by a lot of false teachers to get you to give money. I'm going to show kind of how foolish it is to use this verse in particular, but to get you to give money. So either kind of, like maybe unintentionally, because they don't read their Bible, but then they shouldn't be teaching anyway, or on purpose to get your money right. So either way, it's not good. It's kind of a greedy thing. But why do people fall for this? Read your Bible two, right? It sounds like a really good investment strategy, right? It's a great yield, right? If I just give 10% I'm going to, I'm going to get 100% of that back. So, so it sounds great, right? This is a really good thing, right? But we saw in the past, God is not a genie in a bottle, and he's not a cosmic vending machine, right? It's the wrong way to think. It's not sacrificial thinking, that's what our ship is, right? So it's supposed to be sacrificial, it's transactional, and that's just the wrong it's not a relational attitude. The other point that people will make when they say, and this is the only place in the Bible where God says, test me, and just back up from that for a second and just try not to be a Christian for a moment. At least, I heard this a bazillion times, usually when someone says, like, that's a one off. That's not a good argument, really, like it's the only place. So that's kind of strange, and it is. So let's look at the surrounding context, right? Malachi, three nine, you are under a curse. We're going back to one verse, you are under a curse for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, will there be enough food in my temple? If you do, says the Lord of Heaven's Armies, I'll open up the windows of heaven for you. I'll pour all blessings so great you won't have enough room to take it in, try it. Put me to the test. Your crops will be abundant for I'll guard them from insects and disease. Your grapes will not fall from the vine before they are ripe, says the Lord of Heaven's armies. Now, did you notice the context? Right? These people are cursed and they are cheating God. That's the context, right? And then go back, remember the poop in the face in chapter two, right? So it this is not good, like it's God is not happy with these people at all. They're cheating God. They're not right with God. Now, if we keep reading, we see something interesting. I put this verse on the screen, and if there are new people here, whenever I put things in brackets, it's usually just closer to the original languages. That's what I'm doing. I like to use an easy to read translation, because it's easy to read, easy to hear, right? We understand it. So this looks a little crazy, but this is what it is if we kept reading down Malachi 315 from now on, we call the Arab get blessed. For those who do evil, get rich, or those who do wickedness prosper, right? And they also test God and suffer no harm. Is the point here? Would you notice those who do evil or wickedness do what? Test God? It's a bad thing. So there's a really excellent example of you just need to keep reading, because he clarifies testing God is wickedness. It's not good, right? It's a bad thing. So it's hyperbole if we keep reading. So testimony wasn't a challenge to the faithful in this context, it was a challenge to those cheating God. It's a challenge. To evil people greed as a sin, and certainly so is testing God. So later, we'll see what Jesus says if we keep reading. So let's just do that well, if we kept reading to the New Testament. So we got to Malachi. He went to Matthew right mark. Luke. Will take this from Luke, and we get in the series. We talked about that religious Jesus, right? So he's out fasting. That's how he initiated his ministry fasting. The devil comes to try to get him off course, right? Steer him off course. Get him to do something different. He starts testing or tempting Jesus here, alright? So he starts in, Luke. It's doors a little different, but it's a he must be hungry, so turn the headstone into a piece of bread, right? So he tells him, Look, you know, worship me. I'll give you all the kings of Matthew. It's a mountain. He takes him up to a mountain, right? So he's tempting him. Then it says this, Luke four nine, and he brought him to Jerusalem. He Jesus Jerusalem, and he had to stand on the highest point of the temple. And said to him, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you to protect you, and on their hands, they will lift you up lest you strike your foot against the stone. And Jesus answered and said to him, it is said, You are not to put to the test the Lord your God. Alright? So a couple of notes. We've seen this before regarding the Genie in a Bottle theology, the devil can bless you too careful, right? And he also misuses scriptures. So Jesus makes it clear here, you do not test God. Now he's quoting the Old Testament there. And so a lot of people just so that you understand regarding the Old Testament and that part of it, the law of Moses, Malachi three, is kind of like hearkening back to the law of Moses. So we're not under that anymore. So I'll explain as we go through we looked at this if you've been here for a long series, you know. So we've seen, like Galatians, Philippians, all these different places where it makes it crystal clear, we're not under the Law of Moses anymore. We talked about this a lot of Bible study. We just can't be there's so much of it you can't do alright. So we are saved by grace, not any system of works or anything like that, right? But we saw that if we kept reading Ephesians, two, right, eight, 910, that it explains, right? We're saved by grace, right through our faith, but then we're created and new in Christ Jesus for the purpose of doing good works. And we saw that works are evidence of salvation, right? So Jesus has fulfilled the law. We made this really, really clear. So there's that sacrifice, sacrificial system. Sacrificial system, and that's how you kind of atone for sin. There are a bunch of other things going on there, alright, but Jesus sacrificed himself. He's that once and for all sacrifice. Just in case you don't know. So, you know, we get to Acts we see Peter talking about, it's the first church council, actually, in Acts 15, and it's about this, right? And so it's made very, very clear, no, Peter says we're not under that yoke. It was a yoke that neither our fathers or we could bear. And so there's the other problem with pastors trying to use this verse. So first of all, totally out of context, right? Second of all, when they abuse this verse, they take their people and they put them under the yoke of the law, not good, right? So they're kind of preaching out of both sides of their mouth. These pastors will be the first ones in the evangelical church to say, we're saved by grace, nothing else
except that one part of the law that gets you to give 10%
Wow. Buffet Christianity, right? So it's a really manipulative use of the Bible for monetary gain. And we see the Bible is very serious about denouncing false teachers. We looked at this a lot, huge, huge part of the New Testament. Alright? It's a very, very big deal, especially when people are trying to profit off the church or get private jets. That's still on the table if you want to do that. I mean, I don't know what I do with ticket to Disney and get there in five minutes. Say it's unbelievable. I don't know, but I need it right? So that we saw also, the New Testament says teachers should be paid. It's very clear about that they should right? We saw that there are wealthy people in the church, that's okay. If you have nice things, that's alright. So we saw that all over the place, right? James two, right? The wealthy come in the church. If they have a gold ring and fancy clothing, what was the deal like? Don't show partiality, right? If someone doesn't have a lot, they get the same seats, right? They're all equal. We saw, you know, Lydia, she was a merchant selling expensive purple garments. Put Paul and crew up, uh, Philemon. Philemon is wealthy enough to have a servant. The whole book of the Bible one page about him, right? But what's the thing always, the encouragement is, Listen, you know, be very generous, right? Don't think you're better than other people. Be humble. In Philemon case, forgiving, right? So you see him there, but you got. Have the right attitude. So the bottom line is this, a pastor, leader, teacher, should never be getting rich off the church, right? He should be enriching the church. That's,
that's the point here.
So it's, it's used by a lot of false teachers, or kind of like lazy ones, right? People don't read their Bible. I know, I know that in our reading your Bible, I'll just pick this here, make it sound good, and that's what the Bible says, right? And totally de contextualized. But the problem is, is that it encourages a lot of bad behavior in your people. It's bad pastoring. Why? Because what's encouraging, you know, your Christians to be greedy, and a greedy person is an idolater. We saw in Colossians, right? It's encouraging that kind of transactional and greedy attitude, right? And again, test God. What did Jesus say? No, we're not supposed to test God. So it encourages that sin too. And it always just kind of shocks me, right? You know, when it passes around someone and people go, you know, it says, Test him. We should do that. It's the only place that says test him like Pastor. You're not going to correct that. You know you're not, you know you're just that's you're fine with that. Okay, you know. So again, he's not a genie in a bottle. And again, you don't want to start encouraging people to sin. So giving should be sacrificial, right? Not self serving. Otherwise it is not worship, right? So biblical giving, it's about worship. So I explain to you briefly the sacrificial system here, Jesus sheds the blood for our sins. And there are other components as well. So you can see here, like bring all the tithes into the storehouse, like bring your crops, or whatever it is into the storehouse. So this is a part of them giving in a way, monetarily, right? So they're, it's their stuff. It's not exactly for a sacrifice, necessarily. They're just giving it, right? So back then, you wouldn't have pastors, you've had, you know, priests, you have Levites, things like that. They need to be supported by it. But we also saw this, if it's not sacrificial, it's what lip service, alright? So it's got to be sacrificing. We saw this too in the series as well. Alright? Again, as I said before, I'm not listening. Amos five, Isaiah one, and we saw even that gets reiterated in first Peter. He's quoting the Old Testament, same thing, right? Treat your wife well so that your prayers will not be hindered, alright? Not listening, right? If you're not being sacrificial, alright? So we don't have that system, sacrificial system. So, you know, for example, if
someone brought in a service dog, I wouldn't be like,
sacrifice the dog, right? So it's not going to happen. We don't do that part. But again, this is a part of worship. It's how we sacrifice. Now, we may not be on a farm making crops and things like that, although we've had people bringing baskets of mangoes, and that's kind of nice. But it's not exactly how we sacrifice what we need. It's the monetary system. Now, alright, so, and also on that topic of sacrifice, Romans 12 gives us the definition of true worship, right? Therefore, make your bodies a living sacrifice, right? This is your sacrificial worship. This is how you worship him, with yourself, with everything that you have, right? So in this context, the practice of biblical worship, biblical worship is literally putting your money where your mouth is, right? Are you being consistent with those two things? Is what the Bible challenges us with. Now, people will ask this good question, right? Alright, we're not required to give 10% that was a part of the
law of Moses. But so what do we get? Like, what
do I do? What's the thing here? So
I like to look at what they did in the early church. Well, it's pretty simple, right? So if you are new here, maybe you didn't notice, if you come in the time, you see four little signs, right? So those are the four points in the early church. That's kind of what we model, the basis, our foundation after, right? So it's pretty simple, the word of God. So they were devoted to the Word of God. It's really important the Bible, what the Bible says. That's the hill that we're going to die on, right? If we're not getting that right, we're not going to get anything else right. You can see that through this series, right? So we get that right first, right. Fellowship, breaking of the bread and prayer. So if we told about the cafe later, we have fellowship up there, and we're serious about praying Wednesday nights. We need Bible study. We pray before the Bible study for everybody in the church, everybody who has needs, very, very important to us. And with that basis, if we get that right, then we can get other things right, right? But some people stop, start the opposite way, right? And maybe they start with the show, and let's get the band, let do all these things, and then they don't worry about any of those four points. Not good, right? So let me show you what they did in the early church acts. We get to Acts, and this is the early church Acts 242, and they were devoting themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayers and fear came on every soul, and many wonders and signs were being performed by the apostles. And all who believed were in the same place and had. Everything in common, and they begin selling their possessions and property and distributing these things to all to the degree that no one had need. And this continues. So if we jump ahead couple chapters, acts 432, now the group of those who believed were one heart and soul, and no one said anything of what belonged to him was his own, but all things were theirs in common, and with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and with great and great grace was on them all, for there was not even any of them right, any among them who had need, because all those who are owners of plots of land or houses were selling them and bringing the proceeds of the things that were sold and placing them at the feet of the apostles, and it was being distributed to each as anyone had need. Now, somebody in here thought communism, right? We can't do that. Very countercultural, right? Like we're to us. We're like, hi, you know, like, that's weird, right? But we can't look at this through our American lens, right? America wasn't really being thought about when this was being written, right? So we can't really see it that way. We have to see the heart of what's going on here, right? So we see they gave everything, and when they say laying it at the apostles feet, it's like, I'm not using an NLT right now. It's a little more technical, uh, it's giving it to the church. They're putting it in charge of the church. We don't have apostles now, so it's like the pastors or teachers and things like that, right? So this is an appropriate sacrifice, though, right? So if you're thinking rightly about what Jesus did, died for years and died so that you can go to heaven, He gave everything. Well, the appropriate response would be to give everything, right? Kind of makes a little bit of sense. Now here's what's kind of funny to me. When pastors, like use the easy verse in Malachi, I'm like, why didn't you just go here? Like, this was a much better place. You've literally shortchanged yourself. 10% doesn't seem like very much now, does it? Right? So the problem is,
like those who start arguing and doing the math, right? 10%
is this much. It's just the heart is wrong. Like, it's a wrong heart, right? When you're saved, you realize, you come to that full realization about what Jesus did. It's just like, okay, you know, I'm good. Like, how can I be more generous? So when someone's kind of nitpicking over the numbers, that causes me concern, right? It's like, Roundup, you know, why can't you do that? Just kind of, like going to if you do this, I'm not sorry. But anyway, you know, you do your bill and then, like, round to the penny, right? Like, every little penny. And wait, I got to get that right, and I get a calculator out. Did I just do a calculator? Watch thing that's weird, right? But anyway, just round up. You're wearing a cross. You prayed before lunch. You know you have a Jesus fish on your car. They know you're a Christian. Round up, please. You're embarrassing me. You know it's like but it's like that, and you're going to take that attitude into church, into worship like, no, no. It's clearly just wrong. It's it comes with this transactional attitude. Basically, what's in it for me, and that is why people just go to Malachi 310 because, you know, these people are bunch of Americans, and they're transactional. They're all about their money. So this is what I'll say. Instead of saying, hey, it's worship, it's sacrifice. Stop, you know, give what you can, you know, it's okay if you have a lot, whatever, but just give. Like, why are you doing this? You know? So it's supposed to be this sacrificial attitude. So that's really the problem with it. So we've seen this in the series, right? The truly faithful, their minds are going to be centered on like heaven, right? And realizing constantly that this, this is just clearly not heaven, right? You know, as you get older, you're reminded that a lot right, like this is not heaven, right? And that's the goal. They are they are there. And so that's the faithful, and not as so concerned as like all these things here. And so, okay. And the other thing too to know about this, this is what the Holy Spirit inspired in the early church and continues to inspire and faithful believers. So many focus on the work of the Holy Spirit, especially in like Evangelical Church, is more like Pentecostal type churches and things like that. It's not that we don't believe that the Holy Spirit moves within us. But here's the thing, you know, you go to other churches and but these types of churches and so much emphasis is put on, like the prophets, right? And all these cool, Holy Spirit inspired gifts, right? I'm a prophet. I'm of this, I'm of that, right? They go around telling you it's going to rain at three o'clock in southwest Florida, and you're like, okay, not convincing. So anyway, but you hear very little about the miraculous gift
of generosity that the Holy Spirit gives.
That's what's going on here.
Very little about that, right? Cuz that's like, totally Christ. Like, isn't
it alright? Like,
totally sacrificial.
That sounds like what Jesus would do, right? So the Holy Spirit's going to inspire that you. Right? People don't want to talk about that, but that's what's going on there. It's like this waterfall, the Holy Spirit, alright? So it's also, it's, it's the mark of a true believer. It's the mark of someone who believes God's in control. He's got it. It's okay. It's just fine.
So 10%
it's a starting point,
right? It's a base right? For beginners. I say because here's the thing, you even look at some outside financial advice, you know, quasi Christian advice, or financial advice, they'll, you know, when you do your distribution, they'll tell you that, and even for like, a tax write off, right, something like that, in the equation, right? You save 10% give 10% whatever it is to charity, right? Then you can write it off, you know, whatever. It's a beginner thing, like we should come in here, kind of knowing that, right? And when you're a Christian, you believe in Jesus, you want to support your church, well, that's where that 10% goes. It just kind of makes sense, right? And again, I say beginners, because, again, like, when you know Jesus, you should want to live sacrificially, right? That's kind of the point that generosity, right? You'll understand it. And so once you get it, your thinking goes, it changes. Because I didn't get I first came to church I did as really funny, because the pastor did. We don't do this. Don't worry about it, because we stopped doing this kind of thing. Was like, growth truck. I would tell you about the church, then we sit you down. Okay, you got to give your time talents and treasures. And then people were like, I feel like I'm being sold a timeshare here. So we stopped doing that. But anyway, that happened to me. I went to church, and I was like, you know, it's from a martial arts background, business background, and I'd stop playing music for a little bit. So I was like, I don't know. You want me to beat people up. I can bounce at the church like, that's cool, but you're not getting my money. I literally said that, like, you're not getting my money. Heather was like, Oh my gosh, it's so embarrassing, right? So this first day came out,
whatever you
know what I mean. So I don't know, like, but the pastor's car was terrible too. I was like, I had no reason to suspect anything, but you go and what changed, right? I got saved. I got really saved. That's just like showing up to church. And I realized what I was singing about, right? I'm like, Oh, I'm lying, so I have to start getting in line with this. I realized what Jesus did. I got saved, baptized and everything. And I went from thinking, I have to give 10% to realizing I get to keep 90%
of what wasn't mine anyway.
I realized I didn't really have anything to do with this, right? It was God. It belongs to him. You know, it's kind of funny, because I try to relate to real. That's how I work. I so I'm very practical, like that at first, and then the spiritual follows of me. And so, you know, I started preparing this message. I'm like, Oh, the Malachi message again. Here we go. So, you know, I started thinking of some things. Like, you know, what do we do when we really love? Like, how do we give like, how do we treat people we really love? So, like, if you married for a long time, you got to think way back, right, when you first started dating, right? So anyway, you know, like, but how did we How did we behave? We first started dating? I just remember I was like, poor, really poor. We had no money. My wife's college student working 18 jobs, or no money at all, right? But we go to like this, I'm going to take you out. And I don't even know where I got this. I think I borrowed the suit. I had no idea, suit and tie, something I never wear. This is, like, totally ridiculous. Two poor people like going to this, like, five star restaurant or whatever it was, spending way more money than we should ever spend, right? But that's how I acted, right? I didn't think it's kind of interesting, because I didn't think maybe for a second, but I didn't think, like, wow, this is like a month's worth of salary for me, right? No, I was like, really wanting to impress her, right? I loved her. I was like, Yeah, let's do this thing, right? And so anyway, part of the joke while I'm laughing is, like, I was going to say something like, you know, you don't go on a first date at McDonald's, you know, right? Like, something like that show. It's like, I'm totally out of touch, because apparently McDonald's costs like, $100 to take two people there. Like, it's really expensive. I hear people talk about that, like, really. So like, Yeah, let's go to McDonald's. Like, Who, I'm going to get my dress on. But you know what, in foreign countries, they do this, like, it's they really do it's really expensive there. So anyway, blew my whole joke, but just figured I'd share that with you. But, you know, it's, it's kind of a thing, right? And then it's, you know, when we get engaged, like, in our culture, you know, we get engaged, what do we do? Right? The guy goes out and he works real hard and he gets a wedding ring. I hope you did, if you didn't, guys, not sorry, you should have worked hard, right? So you prepare, you plan,
you get a job, you work hard, you
know, you buy a nice ring, and again, you spend, like, way more money than you should spend on anything. It's totally irresponsible, but, you know, it says a lot of things, right? What does it say? It says, Well, I'm willing to work hard for you. It sets the tone in the relationship, correct? I'm willing to work hard for you. I'm willing to sacrifice because, you know, if you were me, you have to give up some. Stuff right to get that right, so less cigarettes or alcohol at that time. So, you know, I had to give stuff up. I had to sacrifice. It says I love you, and I'm going to do this through our relationship, hopefully, but, and it also says to all the other guys, get away from her, right? So it's really important. It's kind of selfish, but Right? So, in a world where money seems to be the most important thing, right, spending money right on someone, it lets them know you have a value. It puts a value on them, we can understand that. So how much more value do we want to put on God, right? We can understand that. But I think, like some of our problem is applying it where it needs to be applied the right way, right? So in relationships, we get it. People say, and we looked in the Bible, the Bible says it a lot. Prove it over and over again, which is amazingly redundant. Prove It, right. We do that. Put your money where your mouth is. We say that, right? So this is something that Christians should be challenging themselves with. If we do it for everything else, why don't we do it? Because, like the, I mean, the person who saved us for eternity, heaven, what do we owe him? Alright, it's not something we are prodded to do in anything else or with anything else that we love, or anything else we love to do or spend our money on, right? We should be doing it that much more the act of giving. Also, it's a really important exercise of your faith, because that is probably like, for me, this was a problem because, again, really poor for a long time, and then, you know, you start making a little bit of money, and you're like, Whoa, the money became way, way, way too important to me, right? But it's just fear, right? That's what that is, right? Jesus kind of helped me with that, right? But if you're like me, you know, and you worry a little bit about the money and this and that, this is a really good exercise of your faith. It's saying, look, okay, okay, doesn't matter, you know. And I kind of, like, it's a kind of a false teaching out there where, like, it should hurt when you give. It's like, No, you should be giving joyfully. It should not hurt, like, because when you love someone, like, if you go on a date and you're like, Man, I spent way too much money, right? And you're doing the bill like that, I'm not going to tip very much, you know, you probably don't love the person very much, right? You might want to just find somebody else, right? So good exercise of that faith. And so what I like to do is take that element out. I personally, I just give through the app. So you make that pledge, you just put it on the auto thing. And I think it's a good tool, because it's kind of like a pledge. It says, Look, no matter what's going to happen this week, God, I trust you, right? It's kind of a little bit disingenuous to go, Okay, I'm all set. And then what they do in Malachi, and I give you the lame ones, you know, give you like, kind of, is that really pure and genuine? No, right? So I love you. I give first. I make that pledge. I have faith, so I respond, what faithfully, it's going to be okay. And just a side note for encouragement, a practical one for you guys, like, I mean, I don't know how long ago I set up. I don't even notice it. It just comes out. And it's kind of embarrassing, because I'm like, this is weird. Why did I ever worry about this? It's so stupid, right now, when we're not faithful in relationships, there's a word for that cheating, right? So that's what it's called. So let's go back to Malachi. Malachi three, eight, should people cheat? God, you have cheated me. You ask. What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you? You cheated me of the Tithes and Offerings due to me. So again, it all belongs to him, and so giving us those leftovers, the Bible says it's like cheating God, right? It's robbing him or cheating him. Now, again, we're not under the law, alright? But we look at Acts, we saw it was so much more, and we continue in Acts. We see a story about two people who tried to cheat God. They tried to rob from God, right? So, packing up. So right after we just read, I'm just going to show you an act of generosity, acts 436, for instance, right? So it's all that giving of everything. There was Joseph the one of the apostles, nicknamed Barnabas, which means son of encouragement. He was from the tribe of Levi and came from the island of Cyprus. He sold a field that he owned, and he brought the money to the apostles. So again, right? So he's selling his stuff, he's laying it at their feet. So he turned the page. And that's a good example. Now we get a good bad example, acts five, one. But there was a certain man named Ananias who, with his wife Sapphira, sold some property. He brought part of the money to the apostles, claiming it was a full amount. So this was the problem here. With his wife's consent, he kept the rest. And Peter said, Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit and you kept some of the money for yourself. The properties was yours to sell or not, to sell as you wished, and after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. It. How could you do a thing like this? You weren't lying to us, but to God, as soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Everyone had heard about it. Was terrified. Then some young men got up, wrapped him in a sheet, took him out and buried him. It sounds like a mobster movie or something like that, right?
Peter asked so
about three hours later, his wife came in, right? Not knowing what happened, Peter asked her. He doesn't bother saying like your husband died, right? So Peter asked her, was this the price you and your husband received for your land? Yes, you replied, That was the price. And Peter said, How could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the Spirit of the Lord, like this God, the young men who buried your husband are just outside the door, and they will carry you out too. Instantly, she fell to the floor and died. When the young men came in and saw that she was dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened. So this year would be a way better section.
It's a lot more reading. I
get it like, if they're lazy, but if I was telling a pastor, use this, right? Give or die, you're ready. This is great, like, dumb, right? Why don't you just keep reading? This is great stuff, right? Real motivational stuff. So again, do you see testing the Lord is a bad thing? There are tons of examples all throughout the Bible, alright? So again, we saw towards the beginning of the series that fear of the Lord, this has come up again and again and again in Acts. You notice that, alright? Not always a bad thing to have fear, alright? But the truth here is, when you don't just cheat God, you cheat yourself. So when you're not exercising that faith, what happens when you don't exercise it becomes weak. You develop weak faith. And that's what all that Andrew just rolls back over into that more fear of money, more fear of money, more fear of money, it's like, okay, you're not going to get strong in that area unless you begin exercising it, exercising that trust, right? And again, it's one of those miracles that nobody talks about, like that sign of generosity. So it really is for yourself, because that question comes up in people like, am I saved? You know? You know what I mean. Look,
see,
are you generous? Like, are
you doing what the Holy Spirit would tell someone who is to do? Like, good question, alright, so remember, it was very, very redundant in the series, that's evident evidence of our salvation. So while most people are testing God, the Bible says we need to test ourselves. So if we get to second Corinthians, We go all the way there, right? Says past acts, right? So Romans, first, second Corinthians, we get there. Second Corinthians is interesting because Second Corinthians is really about two things. It's the motivation for being written by Paul. It's false teachers. So I hope we'll get the Bible about it, false teachers, he's called super apostles, kind of mocking them. And this offering, they're dragging their feet on giving an offering to the church in Jerusalem. Long backstory we don't have time for right now, but those are the context there. Bless you. So when Paul gets towards the end of his letter second, Corinthians, 13, five, Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine.
Test yourselves.
Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you. If not, you have failed the genuine test of faith, or test of genuine faith. So here we see we're to test ourselves, not God, and in the context, the exact context, what was the test giving, whether they're generously giving. That was the exact context here, and I got to tell you the truth. You know, I can honestly say that this is probably accurate 100% of the time. It's just a really good test for pastors. I can tell that there's a spiritual malady. There's something wrong by what people give. How
do you sell? Alright, I
don't look at it often, whatever. But if someone starts giving me trouble or there's a problem in the household, I'll go to the powers that be and I'll say, hey, pull that person. Are they giving anything? And it's always nope, no. In Pastor school, you learn something. They tell you when this is old, but they tell you can tell what someone worships by looking at their calendar and their checkbook done. It's very convicting. And at that point in Pastor school, that's where 70% quit, because then a good mentor goes, let me see.
So now it's a phone, right?
But that was the thing when I was being trained. Open phone policy. Tell everything you need to know about a person, calendar and checkbook. So we've answered a question as we kind of wrap it up. Can you be a Christian without going to church? Let's back up the beginning. Here we made some comparisons, right? It's something like a student who won't go to school, a salesman with no customers, a businessman on a deserted island,
an author with no readers.
That's me,
a soldier who won't join an army, right now, if we
take it a step further, what was the next question, right?
Can you be a Christian without supporting a
church? Yeah, you can. You can be a citizen of a country but not pay taxes. Possible. You can join a club and not pay your dues. You can eat a meal and not pay for it and then complain when the restaurant closes down.
Church is an absolutely essential
part of the Christian faith. We saw that the book of Acts today, right? And if you keep reading, it's kind of a funny thing, because there are a lot of people out there who believe that they believe that they believe that they can be a Christian, just, we don't need church anything like that. But I just want you to think about something. And this may not have occurred to you, I read the Bible a lot. New Testament has 27 books in it. Of those 27 books, Paul wrote 13. Well, 1313, in the books. Alright, so when you think about it for a second, so whether it's Romans, first, Corinthians, Second Corinthians, second, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, first, Thessalonians, second, Thessalonians, first, Timothy, second, Timothy, Titus or Philemon. Think about the context to the church in Rome, to the church in Corinth, to the churches in Galatia, the church in Ephesus, in Colossae, in Philippi, church and all the saints in the church in Philippi, first and second. Thessalonians. It's fun to say, but it's Thessaloniki, if you want to get it right, Thessalonians, right. So the church, Thessalonica, Philemon, all people running a church, the context for the majority of the New Testament is church and the people in it, right? So, Timothy Titus, they're leaders in the church. Timothy at Ephesus, Titus and Crete, so point elders in all the churches and telling the people how to behave in the church, requirements for leaders in the church, right? So it's all about church. And furthermore, as we saw, a great deal of it is about supporting it. That's the context of your New Testament, right? So you get past the gospel, and all of you together, we saw this too. The meaning of church, Ecclesia in Greek. It's not a building. It's, it's about just literally, in Greek, it means to assemble together, like, as people, like, literally, physically assemble together. It's all, I mean, Ecclesiastes, when people translate it, assembly. Yeah, that works. That's what it is in Greek, right? So it means you, you are the body of Christ, as you assemble. We can do this anywhere, right? So it's like a family. And so if you've never been here before, we treat this like a family. We're family. We're family members. We don't have, like, patronizing programs for this type of people with that type of need, and, well, they're poor, and then we have that group and that, you know, it's like, hey, right? You know, hey, we go to the poor people. We're going to feed the poor people. It's patronizing. That's what that is patronizing, right? It's not good. They're family. They're equals. We sit at the same table together, and we make friends, and then we treat them like family members. That's it, as simple as that. So like a family though, when you come of age, it's kind of like, if you're still in the household, you're going to support. It
kind of makes sense, right?
So just to get to a practical thing as I wrap up, so what we kind of do here at c3 if you're new and if you've been here for a while, it's kind of good to be reminded, like refreshed and encouraged. I want to encourage you, those of you who are supporting it, thank you, or encourage you guys in what we do. But if you're new, it's good to hear. So first thing, I don't have a private jet, all right, so I have some nice stuff because I was in the business world for a long time, and we kept some stuff, right? My wife works, and that's why we can afford nice stuff still, alright? So we're not trying to get rich off the church, but, you know, she does pretty well. She stayed in the business world and she tithes. So be thankful for that. It's a good thing, right? He's tithing a percentage of her income. It's great. So pray for that, like new business deal to go through by the end of the year, and we'll pay off the mortgage rates. So we have a little mortgage. We're not We're not in serious debt, but there's we do have bills we have to pay. It's important, right? But what we do here just very, very briefly. If you know our stories, you know us, like I came out of that money addiction that I had and all kinds of problems that I had through the church. The church really helped me get there, uh, my wife, she'll, she'll tell you her she's in recovery. And really, we believe, we know that the church helped save us. It was a V, it's not Jesus, you know, except it's the body of Christ. But that. Body of Christ helped bring us to salvation. Like we know we're going to heaven now, right? And so we really feel that we owe it everything, you know that's I devoted my whole life to it. That's it, you know what I mean? So that's our heart. So we have a real heart for people, especially in recovery. We use this building. We have recovery meetings here. We use this building for things like that, community things. We do rent some space, you know, if they're not a nonprofit in that way, or working for something like that, but there are community groups that we let use our space. It's building. And if you have a house, you know, it's not free, so just scale that out by a lot. There are AC bills, the lights, and if you have a house, you know, there's always a problem, right? So in the building, there's always a problem, but we keep it because it's a great community center. There's so much that we can do here for the community. You'll see afterwards, we do fellowship. So if you just want a meal, you can have a meal. I encourage you to do that. If you need a meal, you can have a meal, and we'll send you with more food, right? So we do a lot with this space and with the building, that's what we're about here, that that's what we really do here, and that's the crux of it. So those four things, right? The Word of God. And now you get that, you're like, Yeah, but we should love to hear the Word of God. It's the word of God. Like, why wouldn't anyone want to hear that and then fellowshipping it together, breaking bread together, praying with one another. That's it. It's kind of as simple as that. So could I be at a private jet church? Yes, yes, I could, but I'm over it. So again, thank you guys who've been faithfully supporting the church. Encourage you guys to get involved and do that. So we just see here right in the series, just another thing, what happens when we let the Holy Spirit lead us right? You know, it reveals the intentions of how we apply these verses right, and guides our hearts to apply them lightly, right? And that's just the point here. So let me pray for you guys, Lord, I thank you for everyone who came in today to devote themselves to Your Word, to hear the Word of God. This morning, I just ask that whatever they have going on with their fears and things that are holding them back from you, that are blocking any of your presence, just to surrender them, to realize that they can let go of them and let you work in their hearts, Lord, just fill them with your love, your joy, your peace, your patience, your kindness, your gentleness, Your faithfulness. And for those of us who've been touched by that presence, Lord, remind us of what you've done, make us mindful of that fashion, a sense of vehicles, of that grace, mercy, peace and love that can only be found through you. Pass these things In Jesus, Name, Amen. You.