Fellow$hip

By Bobby Blakey on October 27, 2019

Philippians 4:14-23

AUDIO

Fellow$hip

By Bobby Blakey on October 27, 2019

Philippians 4:14-23

This is a rush transcript.

[00:00:00] I invite you to open the Bible and turn with me to the Book of Philippians for the last time, ever since the beginning of the Summer of Joy, we have been studying this book now for five months. And today we come to the end of Philippians page 982. If you got one of our Bibles and we know that Paul is writing this letter to them from prison, and yet the theme of the letter has been joy. And we know that he has a rich partnership with this church. And one thing maybe you've never thought about before is Paul's going on all of these missionary journeys where he's going and planting churches, preaching the gospel, ending up in prison.

[00:00:44] Maybe you've got maps at the end of your Bible taking you through Paul's missionary journeys. Here's a question. Who paid for those missionary journeys?

[00:00:55] Who paid for that? We're going to find out today, as Paul is going to say, the Philippians in pretty much the Philippines alone paid for it. And so I invite you to stand with me as we read God's word and as we see what he says to this church that has partnered with him financially. This is Philippians, Chapter four versus 14, all the way to the end in verse twenty three. Let's give this our full and undivided attention today. This is God's word to us. Please follow along as I read. Yeah, it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you, Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the Gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only even intensely. Nyaka you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases. To your credit, I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied.

[00:01:59] Having received from a Pappert died as the gifts you sent a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God and my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches and glory in Christ, Jesus to our God and Father.

[00:02:18] Be glory forever and ever a man greet every saint in Christ Jesus the brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.

[00:02:32] The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Be with your spirit. That's the reading of God's word. Please have your seat.

[00:02:40] And you can see here as he is now signing off in his letter. We really see the reason that he wrote this letter was a powerful dieties, brought a gift or gifts, it says, and he calls them. He says, you Philippians yourselves. You know, a lot of times when Paul's writing a letter to a church, we call the letter by the name of the church. But here it actually says their name in the letter. Like you, Philippians, you guys. You guys shared my trouble, you partnered with me in giving and receiving. You guys did something unique. And remember, the the background of the letter of Philippians is acts chapter 16. And Paul got the Macedonian call and he went there and to fill a pie and he started preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And maybe you remember this lady named Lydia got saved. And then he cast out a demon out of a lady. And because he cast out a demon, they threw him into prison, which still doesn't really make sense to me. Right. And he's there in prison. And he. And Silas, what are they doing at midnight? They're in prison.

[00:03:47] They're singing hymns, praising the Lord. There's an earthquake and they hey, don't worry, Gaoler, we're all still here. And then the jailer ends up believing in the Lord Jesus and being saved him and his household.

[00:03:59] But then they ask Paul to leave the city and he's like, why would I leave? You mistreated me. I'm a Roman citizen. But they do ask him to leave. And so he moves on and he goes in acts 17th at Thessalonica. And so he goes on from there. And within that whole experience of him coming in and preaching the gospel is getting, say, the jailers getting saved, other people are getting saved.

[00:04:22] And then he gets asked to leave town.

[00:04:24] And the Philippians, when they looked at what Paul had done, how he came in and gave them to the life of Jesus Christ in that message of the gospel, how the church there got started, how it got built up the Philippians, they saw what Paul was doing and they had a thought and he kind of singles them out as they're like the the only church that really responded like this, at least at this time when he's writing this, he says, hey, you guys had a thought.

[00:04:50] That's kind of different. They you only you Philippians yourselves. You said, hey, what Paul just did for us. That was transformative. That was life changing. We want to support him.

[00:05:02] We want to partner with him.

[00:05:04] Not just that we would be partners in sharing the gospel message that we would be partners by worshiping Jesus in the church together. But we want to partner with him financially.

[00:05:16] That's what they said.

[00:05:17] And he said they've they've always wanted to do that and maybe for a season, they didn't know where he was off on one journey somewhere, and then they find out he's in this prison and they send a pack for dieties. And here they are giving him another financial gift because they want to meet the needs of the man who brought the gospel to them.

[00:05:35] And they want him to keep spreading that gospel to more people.

[00:05:39] They say, hey, we're gone. Now, I love how he says it here. Look at verse fifteen. He says, you, Philippians yourselves, know that in the beginning of the gospel.

[00:05:48] It doesn't refer to it as his ministry. He doesn't talk about his missionary journeys.

[00:05:52] He just says, hey, you know, in the gospel really started going, you saw that. And you said, we want to be partners in the gospel, ringing out to more souls. And that means we're gonna give money towards the gospel moving forward.

[00:06:08] And so the word here, Koinonia, which is the Greek word for fellowship, something that we've talked about so many times in the last five years at this church, that we encourage everybody at this church to be in a coin in the group, basically a fellowship group, where you get to know other people.

[00:06:27] They become your one another's and you share the life of Jesus together. You talk about what we're learning from the word and you apply it to your life. You encourage one another, pray for one another, bear one another's burdens. We think everybody needs to be in a group like that. And praise the Lord. We now have 30 groups like that here at this church. We rejoice in that.

[00:06:50] We rejoice that people are coming together and sharing the life of Jesus. But here you'll notice if you've got to hand out the title of our message. We put a dollar sign in fellowship because the way he uses Koinonia here is he talks about the sharing of life and he includes it in a financial way if we're going to do church together. We want to gather on Sunday morning, the first day of the week, the day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. We want to come together and celebrate him and praise his name. Well, then who's paying for the building?

[00:07:25] That's the kind of question there's there's a financial partnership, if you want the gospel during our here's maybe a way you've never thought about it before. Making disciples costs money.

[00:07:38] In fact, pretty much like everything else in life, the more you invest in making disciples, probably the more disciples will be made.

[00:07:47] Just like any other business or any other venture that you might get into, if you invest in it, you might see more from it.

[00:07:54] Well, that's how it is at the church. Point number one, if you're taking notes. So let's get it down like this. Be a financial partner for the gospel. Be a financial partner for the gospel. That's what the Philippians are really an example of to us is when they saw the gospel going forward in a powerful and effective way. They said we want to support that financially so it can keep happening.

[00:08:18] And so when you think about Paul going around from town to town, when he went to Thessalonica, he said that two times while he was in Thessalonica, they they sent him a gift. So they were regularly taking a collection to send it to Paul to keep supporting him.

[00:08:35] So the gospel could continue to be preached to more people.

[00:08:40] That's so you see here, the spirit of the of the people where they wanted to come together and they wanted to meet a need that was greater than their own needs.

[00:08:49] Collectively, they wanted to gather together and do something, and they did that in a financial way. And this is how it's always been. And among the people of God, they have responded to God with generosity. Financially, this has been a trademark of the Church of Jesus Christ from the very beginning. Go back to Acts Chapter four with me, everybody. Let's go back to the early church just getting started. Revival breaking out in the streets of Jerusalem. And a lot of times today you'll hear people say, oh, I wish like it was more like the early church.

[00:09:21] They had a great back then devoting themselves to the teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, to the prayer. I wish it was like the early church. Some things that people don't always realize about the early church is the early church was thousands of people. I mean, it was a daily people being added to the church. It started with an explosion of salvation in 3000 people getting saved. On the first day the Holy Spirit came down that day of Pentecost and the gospel rang out. You killed Jesus, but God raised him from the dead. They said, What shall we do? Repent? He said. And 3000 people believed and were baptized.

[00:09:59] And then more and more kept getting at it. So it's like thousands of people are all coming together in this group for Jesus Christ. They're on the streets of Jerusalem. And when thousands of people are coming together. Well, some of these people have needs. And maybe as they're believing and getting baptized, they're getting persecuted by their families or by the Jewish community or or by the Romans there in Jerusalem. And they're getting cut off financially. And so some of these people could have needs and they could have hard times. And so here's what happened. Acts Chapter four, verse 32. It says the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul.

[00:10:40] There was such a great spirit of unity among this group, even though it's growing and it's thousands. They were still one body and no one said, look at this line right here. No one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own. But they had everything in common. Wow. Losing a sense of individualism and really putting the group the collective as more important than ourself. Not thinking of my own things, but but thinking of the needs of everyone with great power. The apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. And there was not a needy person among them. Think about that.

[00:11:22] Thousands of people joining the church in every single one of them is getting their needs met. How could this be?

[00:11:32] Verse 34. For as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and they brought the proceeds of what was sold. And they laid it at the apostles feet.

[00:11:43] And it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus, Joseph, who was also called by the apostles, Barnabus, which means son of encouragement, a Levite, a native of Cyprus.

[00:11:54] He sold a field that belonged to him and he brought the money and laid it at the Apostles Sefi.

[00:12:02] Who's ever heard of Arnovitz before you ever heard about this guy?

[00:12:05] He was not your ordinary Joe is what we learn here.

[00:12:07] No, they gave him a special nickname because when this guy sold his field and he brought the money to the apostles so that the apostles then could distribute it to the people in the church who had need. Now, when Joseph showed up and he sold his field and he gave that gift, all the money that he sold his field for, he gave it to the apostles.

[00:12:27] They said, Brother, we're giving you a new name right now. You really encouraged us, right?

[00:12:32] And they named him Barnabus, this same Barnabus would be the guy that went saw the persecutor of the church meets Jesus on the road and gets saved.

[00:12:41] And we now know him as the apostle Paul. First day he showed up at the church in Jerusalem.

[00:12:46] Everybody's like, look who's coming to church or yikes. Yikes. Who's going, wow, is he here is this operation where he's coming to see who's here and persecute all of us?

[00:12:55] Who is the one who walked up the saw, put out his right hand of fellowship and brought him into the believers? Who is the one who started the disciple this man saw when we started calling him Paul, who is the one who went with him on the first missionary journey? And even though Paul gets all the fame for it, he's really the one who started the missionary journeys and brought Paul along with him. This man right here, Barnabas.

[00:13:18] And how did he start to make an impact in the church in Jerusalem? Through his generosity?

[00:13:24] Through selling a field. Taking all the money that he got. Not a portion of it. All of it. And laying it down at the apostles.

[00:13:33] Next time you hear somebody say, I wish the church lived like the early church, then you just reply to them. I wish the church give like the early church.

[00:13:41] How about that? About that.

[00:13:44] That's how you get to decide what you want to give. That's between you and God. That's your personal response to God. Let me just give you a strong encouragement as you're making decision about what you're going to give to God. Please don't lie about what you're given to God. Please don't act. Other people at church like you give a lot when really you don't.

[00:14:03] Because there's this thing going and people know that it's happening. People know that people are selling houses and lands. I mean, this is like really encouraging. The church community, like people are are given in a big way. And the word is spreading an anti niacin to Vira. They think, wow, that's exciting. Hey, we could sell something. And then they do this thing where it's like, hey, we'll sell it and we'll say we sold it for this much and we'll act like we're given the whole thing. But really, we could make a profit for ourselves at the same time. And we'll keep some of the money for ourselves. And maybe they could have done that.

[00:14:33] And that would have been fine. But because they lied about it. What happened to Anna? Niacin, Safire? They fell over dead.

[00:14:41] So it's between you and God, how much you're going to give, one thing you should never do is lie about how much you give. One thing you should never do is walk around church with the impression that you're given a lot when really you're not.

[00:14:54] And so there was a great spirit of generosity. And so thousands of people could be added to the church. And let's start thinking about this. OK, let's start really trying to think through that. It does cost money to do church, even to meet the needs of the people in the church. So this church can support one another through financial hard times and help one another sometimes get established when people repent and they believe in the gospel and their life makes a dramatic change.

[00:15:24] A lot of times, maybe before that, they have put themselves in a bad position financially through unwise choices that were motivated by their sin. And now they're trying to get themselves on the right track. Is the church going to be able to help meet those needs?

[00:15:38] Well, that's going to just depend on our people giving in a generous way. Are people seeing needs and meeting them personally? Are people giving to the leaders of the church so they can distribute to the people in the church who have need? So we've got to start thinking about the fact that it does require a financial partnership to do church turn with me to first Timothy Chapter five. Everybody flip over to First Timothy, Chapter five. You know, we call Timothy first and second Timothy and Titus. We call them the pastoral epistles because it's Paul deciphering these young pastors of Timothy and Titus, and he's telling them how to be a pastor and how to do church. And in first Timothy, when he's instructing his son in the faith about being a pastor, he gets into money and he talks about meeting the needs of widows and he talks about how men should be providing for their families and men should be providing for their widows.

[00:16:37] But if the family can't provide, then the church should be there to provide. And he says this about how money needs to work in the church.

[00:16:45] This is first, Timothy, Chapter five versus 17 and 18. Look at these verses. He says, let the elders who rule. Well, this is page nine hundred and ninety three. First, Timothy five 17. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching for the scripture says you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the laborer deserves his wages. So now he's saying, hey, if the elder and that's one word that the Bible uses to describe this kind of man who should be a leader in the church, it uses the word elder. It uses the word overseer. The number one way we say it today is pastor, which really means shepherd. Those three words in the New Testament, they all describe the same person. Hey, that's the guy leading the church. That guy's worthy of double honor. What does that mean? Double honor? Well, you can tell that one. It says the labor deserves his wages. It means it's worth paying that guy so he can devote himself to the ministry of the word and to prayer.

[00:17:59] So let's let's take a minute back here, we've been doing church now for five years. Let's just try to think how much money does it cost to do church? Have you ever thought about that before? Have you ever thought, like, I wonder, for every person who gets baptized. How much money does the church spend? What is the cost of making disciples?

[00:18:19] Let's think about some categories here. You could write down if you're going to think about and pray for our church and the financial means that we need to meet everybody's needs.

[00:18:29] And to keep the gospel ringing out here in Huntington Beach. Let's start with staff. Let's put that down is one of the things that's going to cost money. Do we want people to have their full time job be serving the church? Do we want pastors who can devote themselves to preaching and teaching? Who can shepherd the people? They can do weddings and funerals. They can go to the hospital. They can be there at any time of the day. They can meet with people throughout the week having conversations sold the soul, telling people the gospel, encouraging them to respond and repentance and faith, leading people to Jesus Christ. Do we want men leading the church full time?

[00:19:08] It says here, hey, that's that would be a good idea for the church to give those guys a double honor where they can be devoted solely to the work of the Lord at the church. And then let's think that through.

[00:19:19] Do we want somebody full time on our high school students?

[00:19:22] We want somebody full time on our junior high students, our junior high ministry that's just doing great and growing like I've never seen a junior high ministry do before. Do we want somebody here making sure the kids are taught the Bible and all the things with the kids are safe and organized and all the teachers with the kids have background checks and are trained and know what they're doing? Do we want staff working with every age group of the church? Do we need somebody to organize the money of the church? Do we need somebody operating the church like, wow. To make the church happen? You might need to have a staff of people to do something like that these days. Let's put another thing down. How about the facility of the church? I mean, if we want to have a place to me, how much does how much is the rent on a building like this? You ever thought about that? This is twenty eight thousand square foot building.

[00:20:12] Twenty eight thousand square feet. If you want to write that down, maybe you know how many square feet you're living in. Okay. You think your utilities are bad. All right. Just put it out to twenty eight thousand square feet.

[00:20:23] Start filling that bill every month. All right.

[00:20:26] I mean, think about all the things that that need to happen to keep this building going.

[00:20:30] I don't know how many days of the week you come to this building, but there is literally something going on in this box every single day of the week. People are here praying. People are here fellowshipping. People are here worshiping Jesus Christ. I mean, there is never a dull moment going on here at this church.

[00:20:48] We're using this space up.

[00:20:50] How about activity? Let's get that down. We've got staff people. We want to work at the church facility, a place we want to gather together to have church. And then the things we want to do as a church where we're saying invite anybody you want to HP Sports Complex on Thursday night because we're going to have the church all together in one time family fun night, free dinner for everybody. Ever thought about how much that cost to make dinner for a thousand people?

[00:21:15] The dinner is not free. We all understand that there's no such thing as a free dinner. Does everybody understand that? Right.

[00:21:22] So, hey, if we want to do activities, we're going on the mandatory like. Yeah, well, the guys pay money to go on the mandatory. Let me just tell you. Any activity we do when people pay money to participate in activity, there's no way that that cost covers the entire cost of that activity. There's no way it actually pays for the activity that's happening. It's still costing money. Beyond that, and especially the people that maybe have a hard time financially and they can't come to the retreat, do we want anybody not come into the retreat because they can't pay for it? Absolutely not. Everybody's welcome, Will. You don't have the money, Will. Hey, we'll help you out.

[00:22:00] So, I mean, just think about those categories and think about I wonder how much does things like that cost?

[00:22:07] And so, Paul, when he's talking about the church from the very beginning of the church all the way until today, if we want to make disciples, it's going to cost some money. If we want to share the life of Jesus, that fellowship is going to include a dollar sign. And so I come to ask you today, we set it up last week we said we were talking about money. Today, maybe you notice we haven't taken the offering yet because it's coming after the sermon.

[00:22:30] Everybody, we're gonna give you a chance to respond to the word of God here today. All right. And I'm going to ask you a very personal, very awkward Orange County, L.A. County kind of question.

[00:22:42] Are you financially partnered with this church? Is this church like a movie theater where you just kind of, you know, you come and it's like you're seeing a show and you give a little bit of money? Is it like if you took your family out for a meal somewhere, you think, well, how much would that meal cost? And you'll throw that at the church. Are you saying, hey, I think the gospel is going out at this church? I think people are getting saved and Jesus is building it up. And I want to be a financial partner with what Jesus is doing in my church. I'm not thinking about how much should I give. I'm thinking about how much can I give to really support the gospel, wring it out.

[00:23:14] Are you a financial partner? With what God's doing here at CompassHB HB.

[00:23:20] Because, Paul, he's he's saying these Philippians, you guys, the thing that you did go back to Philippians Chapter four. He's saying the thing that you guys did where you saw the financial need behind the missionary journeys for the gospel. You, Philippians, you guys have done something that's really helped me not just once, but again and again. And then he says in verse 17, hey, it's not about me getting the gift. Paul was so careful about that. It wasn't about him getting money. In fact, if he was at a city where there was a brand new church and they didn't have the money to pay him, then he would go and work. We know he was a tent maker. He would work not to put the burden on the church. He would work to try to to try to help the church. They didn't have to pay him financially. And so he wasn't in it for the money. He wanted to make that clear. It wasn't about him getting the gift. But here's what it was about. Verse 17. I seek the fruit that increases to your credit.

[00:24:16] Do you hear what he's saying there? He's saying there's a benefit not just for him receiving the gift, there's a benefit for them giving the gift. There's something good that's happening with them when they give. He's believing what Jesus said, that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

[00:24:37] And so we say literally there's some kind of account, there's some kind of credit, there's some kind of storing up treasure in heaven that we may not fully understand here on earth. But when people are generous and they give here on Earth, it's like it's being added up for them later in some future eternal account.

[00:24:55] It's like what you're giving away here is being stored up for you. There. He says, hey, when you guys give to me, you're actually adding to your account.

[00:25:05] That's the language of the Greek right there.

[00:25:07] You're not losing. You're gaining when you're giving. And then he says this, and I really want you to think about this in verse 18, he says, I've received full payments. Now he's letting them know, hey, your gift really mattered. It made a difference. Not only do I have everything I need, I've received full payment and more.

[00:25:26] I am well supplied, having received from a paper didas the gifts you sent. And then he says this a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.

[00:25:42] These people found out that Paul was in prison, they sent the powerful dieties to give him a financial gift to meet his need.

[00:25:52] And when he receives that gift.

[00:25:54] He says that it wasn't just them meeting his need, it wasn't just the love of them for him. He says they actually were offering that gift was an offering. It was a sacrifice there on the altar before God. And it went up like the smoke from an offering or a sacrifice would go up toward heaven. It went up as a fragrant aroma. And God was pleased with their gift.

[00:26:23] See, here's here's what's really motivated Christian people in the church to give. They weren't like, oh, let's check out this building project that we're going to talk about in a minute. Oh, let's see if that's worthy of my investment. Oh, what's going on at this church? Is this church worthy of giving any money to.

[00:26:41] That's not how Christian people thought throughout the history of the church. They thought. I want to give to God. That's what they thought. God has given me so much. I'm so blessed, I have such an abundance that out of all that God has given me, I want to offer. I want to sacrifice some of what God has given me.

[00:27:01] And I want to give it back to him. Just to say I'm so blessed by you. I'm so loved by you. I worship you. You're more important to me. I trust that you provided all these things. You're going to continue to provide for me. And so I'm giving to you just because I want to.

[00:27:17] Just because you're worth it.

[00:27:19] And when God's people have done that all the way from the beginning, all the way to today.

[00:27:25] God is pleased. Have you ever thought about that, that you could do something with your money that would please God?

[00:27:35] That he would be in heaven looking at what you're doing on earth, like he's smelling this sweet smell, this fragrant aroma. And he's looking down on you. Pleased with what you are doing. Turn with me to Genesis, Chapter eight.

[00:27:51] Let's go to the law. You guys ready to start heading to the law here today? Let's go back to the beginning and let's get into this story here of Noah and the Ark. Maybe you know about the flood that came down and how God drowned the world because of our sin. Buddy Preserve preserved Noah and his family and some of the animals there on the ark. And then when the rain stopped and the flood waters subsided, Noah and the animals, they came out of the ark. And maybe you know the story, how God put a rainbow in the clouds. And the rainbow was a covenant. It was a promise that he would not flood the world again. You want to know what happened between Noah and the animals coming out of the ark and the rainbow being put in the clouds?

[00:28:32] It says here and Genesis, chapter eight, verse 20. This is on page six of your Bible. All right. We're getting back to the beginning here. Genesis, chapter eight, verse 20.

[00:28:43] You've just gone through this whole experience where the whole world has been flooded. You're the only family that survived. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. Here's what he does. He's out of the box. He's out of the ark. Here's what he wants to do right away. He built an altar to the Lord and he took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

[00:29:04] And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.

[00:29:17] Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done while the earth remains seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter. Day and night shall not cease.

[00:29:31] And then in Chapter nine, the sign that he's not going to flood the world again. So the next time it starts raining, everybody is not freaking out and running for the hills as you see the beautiful colors there in the sky of the rainbow.

[00:29:43] And that's God letting you know that he made a promise not to destroy the world again until the end, not to do it in the way that he did before with a flood or to interrupt the seasons. He's not doing that again.

[00:29:55] That's a promise from God. There will be no more floods here on planet Earth. And why does God? What inspires God to say this? What inspires God to put his bow in the clouds? Well, here's my here's Noah making a sacrifice where he's taking some of the animals that God spared some of the clean animals that they brought off of the ark. And he's giving those animals as an offering. Let God save these animals through this worldwide destruction. Here they are. And now he's just offering them to God. First thing I'm going to do. Coming out of the ark is worship you and say thank you.

[00:30:30] And when the smoke of the offering goes up. It's like a fragrant aroma before the Lord. Now let's just make it very clear God doesn't have nostrils, everybody. All right.

[00:30:40] Let's just think this or God doesn't. When we say God sees us, God doesn't have eyes. When we say God hears us. He doesn't. It doesn't have ears.

[00:30:47] These are anthropomorphism. These are when we give physical human characteristics to God as we think about him seeing or hearing or smelling, we give him kind of the the way that we see or hear smell. We attribute those attributes to him. But God, when he has an offering, when someone is giving to God just because they love him and want to worship him, there's something about that that pleases the heart of our father in heaven.

[00:31:15] Brings him joy. He delights in it.

[00:31:20] Do we take an offering and I'm not sure everybody knows what that means when we take an offering and I'm not sure that everybody understands that's a part of our worship.

[00:31:29] Because we don't really understand perhaps the law and we think all those offerings, all those sacrifices, we don't need that because we got Jesus. Yeah, I understand. We have Jesus. But we still want to offer our worship and our praise to God.

[00:31:46] We still want to give out of all that he has given to us. So when they did in offering it was because at that time, the way that people had their livelihood is they're growing things, vegetation out of the ground or they're keeping these animals alive and raising up these animals. That was how they made their livelihood. That was how they survived. And so if you're in the growing things out of the ground business, when you get that harvest, when you get your first fruits, your first crops of the new season, you go and you take your first fruits and you go and offer them to God because you say you're the only reason that these plants are growing up. You're my provider. You've given me everything I've got. And so I want to take these vegetation that's growing up. And I offer I just burn some of it up to say I know it all comes from you and I want to give it to you in worship.

[00:32:37] And God's pleased.

[00:32:40] You're over here, you're raising up all these animals. That's your livelihood and now you're getting ready. It's that season with the animals where you go and you offer some of them on an altar. You sacrifice some of the animals just to show that you know who the provider is and you want to give in response to worship him. And when you give something just for the purpose of giving it to God.

[00:33:02] He loves it.

[00:33:04] He absolutely loves it, like this is something you can do as a human being on planet Earth. That brings delight to the father in heaven.

[00:33:13] When his people give him offerings. And sacrifice.

[00:33:17] And we're not going to be offering up, we're not going to be burning up vegetables, everybody, we're not going to be sacrificing animals. I understand that. But we need to give offerings to God. We need to respond to God with real worship of him.

[00:33:33] Go down, Hebrews 13. Turn with me, everybody, to Hebrews Chapter 13 in the Book of Hebrews was written to the Jews telling them, Hey, we don't need to keep doing some of these old covenant things because we have a new covenant, because Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the law and he's brought us now into the presence of God.

[00:33:51] He is our high priest. He is our sacrifice. He is our temple. And the new covenant way is greater in Jesus Christ.

[00:33:58] But look what it says at the end of Hebrews, chapter 13, verse fifteen and sixteen here. This is page 1010. It still talks about offerings and sacrifices. They're just going to look a little different in the new covenant way. It says in Hebrews 13, verse 15 through him.

[00:34:17] Then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. The offerings and sacrifices should not stop because God is still providing everything and worthy of our worship.

[00:34:31] And so let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. That's why we gather together and we sing and we praise.

[00:34:43] But then it says this. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

[00:34:54] That's why every week, as we are singing songs to God and offering the sacrifices, the fruit of our lips, the praise that we sing together that comes from a heart of worship, we also pass in offering to share what we have to give of our money.

[00:35:13] A lot of us, the way that it comes, is through direct deposit. That's how we get it these days. It's not vegetables or animals anymore. All right.

[00:35:20] It's direct deposit.

[00:35:22] Let me just tell you, if you give money to this church, some of the money that you give to this church, we we gave you three categories to think about where that money might be going. Let me tell you one place it's for sure going is to meet the needs of the brothers and sisters in this church. We're not going around to our own horn saying we're meeting people's needs, but but we are meeting people's needs. And when you give when you share out of your abundance, it's helping a brother or sister here in this church who is in need.

[00:35:51] And that's something we are doing all the time, is we are trying to love people who are in need. And let me just encourage you, if you are a part of this fellowship, if this is really your church and you never hit financial hard times, there are hundreds of people here at this church that have your back.

[00:36:06] I promise you that.

[00:36:08] You're part of our church and you're in need. We will be there. Let us know. Let us know your need. Don't keep it secret. Don't hide it. We want to meet the needs of people here at this church. We love to do so. Maybe sometime you might see that. Are brothers or sisters in need? Just through your personal interaction with them because they're in your fellowship group. Maybe at some point guy would put it on your heart that you see somebody in need and you want to give to them personally. Maybe you want to do it anonymously. Maybe you want to see the joy in their face and you want to just go give it to them there yourself. But maybe God to put that on your heart, to give to somebody in a personal way. But when you give to this church, some of that money is going to meet the needs of the brothers and sisters here among us. In fact, when you give to this church, you are supporting a church in Tokyo, Japan. You are supporting a church in Beirut, Lebanon.

[00:36:57] You are supporting missionaries in Dubai who are training up pastors who are going to plant churches all over the world. When you give money here, it is going not just to meet needs at our church. It is meeting needs internationally of people that we may never really know or see or meet. But they are hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ having their greatest need met because of you giving here. When you give that offering, that sacrifice, and you give it because you want to, you give it out of response to God.

[00:37:26] God is smelling a fragrant aroma and he is pleased when we meet one another's needs.

[00:37:33] Point number two, you need to understand how offerings are pleasing to God. This is not about us having to give. This is about an act of worship that we are doing in response to all that God has so generously and graciously given to us. And when we give to God because we're responding to him, because we want to worship him, he is pleased by that offering.

[00:37:59] And remember that story where Jesus sees that widow throwing in her last two mights and he gathers the disciples together and he says the see that lady right there? Jesus, he's pleased with what she has done.

[00:38:17] No one on this earth may ever know what you give. But I promise you, Jesus knows everything that you give.

[00:38:24] And when you give to him for his people, for his gospel, for his kingdom, he is pleased with you. You need to know that. This is something that Paul wants these people to know. Hey, you didn't just meet my needs. You pleased Guy.

[00:38:42] And then Paul says this Go back to Philippians, Chapter four. Look at verse 19. Now, this is a promise. This is something that you and I really need to think about, we need to make sure that we've got it very clear. OK.

[00:38:55] There's there's versus in the Bible that talk about the gift that God has given us.

[00:38:59] For example, a verse you could write down is Second Corinthians eight nine. These are these are similar versus diverse 19. Second Corinthians eight nine six four. You know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that go Jesus was rich.

[00:39:14] Yet for your sake, he became poor so that you buy his poverty might become rich. Jesus has all the riches of God in heaven, and yet he becomes poor here on earth so that we might have his riches. So when the Bible talks about us receiving the riches of Jesus Christ, yes, we're talking about eternal salvation. Yes, we're talking about all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. But one of the promises that come along with being in Jesus Christ is that your financial needs will be met. That's a part of the promise. That's what it says here, look at verse 19 of Philippians four. My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. If you are one of the people who have been adopted by the father into the family because of the blood of Jesus Christ, we're all brothers and sisters now in Christ. If you're one of God's kids, God promises that he is going to make full, that he is going to supply. All of your needs will be met by God because you're in Jesus Christ. Can I get any Amen from anybody on this?

[00:40:27] This is a part of it. Now we have to remember, like we learned last week, if you were here, according to First Timothy, chapter six, verse eight, we might need to recalibrate what need really means. Right? It says with food and clothing, we will be what? Content. Content, right. That's the definition of need, is food and clothing like back to real necessities of life. But there is a promise for every single one of us who are in Christ Jesus that out of the riches that we receive in Christ. One of the things is our needs get made full.

[00:41:02] That's that's the promise here.

[00:41:04] And this is really the promise that drives our response of giving. Because I see God as a generous and loving heavenly father. Because my eyes are open to see that everything I have has been given to me by God. He has provided for me. He's met my every need. He's blessed me with an abundance. Then when I see what God is giving to me, then because I believe in the promise of God to provide, I can be generous with what I have because God's giving it all to me.

[00:41:33] And he promises to keep giving it to me at all of my needs.

[00:41:38] And because I believe in his generosity, I don't have to hoard my stuff or hang onto it for myself or don't get focused on spending it on myself or saving it for myself. I feel free to give it away because I know where it comes from.

[00:41:52] And I believe the promise of God to meet my needs.

[00:41:58] You could write down to Romans, chapter eight, verse 32, Romans chapter three, verse 32, it's an argument from the greater to the lesser, like what is God willing to give you?

[00:42:08] Let's think about that for a second. Out of the grace, out of the abundant goodness of God. How far is God willing to go to give to you? How much does God want to bless you? We'll think about it like this. He gave his one and only son. What more could he give?

[00:42:24] We're worried about our physical necessities in the here and now. When the father is offering up his one and only son so we can have eternal life. And we think he's going to provide the salvation of our souls in Jesus.

[00:42:38] But he's not going to help us with our basic needs here on planet Earth. Do you see the logic there? If he is willing to give his one and only son, how will he not also graciously give us all things? That's Romans eight 32. Like, I know you gave me Jesus, but how am I going to make it this month? No, if he if he gave you Jesus, if it's proven in the blood of the lamb that was sacrificed for your sins.

[00:43:06] Then you can have full confidence as you sit here today. He's going to meet your needs and the riches of Jesus Christ.

[00:43:13] And so you you believe that promise you trust here in the provision of God in your life. And that's why we when we give we're giving in response to God's provision. Let's get that down for point number three. We give in response to God's provision. Now, we don't think this way in our go fund me generation right now, OK? We think. Show me the cause. Is it worth giving, too? Then I'll give to it. Explain to me this building project. Is it worth giving to? Then I'll give to it. What is this church doing with money? That's not how people have thought in previous generations of Christian people. They didn't think. Hmm.

[00:43:52] Is this worth giving to? They thought, wow, look how much God is giving to me. How could I not respond by giving back to him?

[00:44:01] That's the motivation for giving in if you're not motivated to give it, because you're not doing it in response to what God is giving to you.

[00:44:09] That's what we've got to get back to. Do you realize that right now where you live in America, people are giving less to the church than ever before in the history of our nation? Do you realize that?

[00:44:23] I mean, you see, this whole thing has happened here at our church where we started going through Philippians in June and we started out on the Summer of Joy, we remember the summer of joy. Everybody rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Remember that. And so we were fired up. We're going through Philippians. We're gonna have joy here at our church because we've been saved by Jesus. And then at the same time, we're meeting in these pastors meetings and we are praying together. I mean, we are praying every week we're getting together. We started our operations team this last year because we went off financially independent from the church that planted us. So we've got our operations team that's helping with the financial business things of the church. We got our pastors that are devoted to the word and prayer. We're overseeing the church. We're praying together. And we can see there's a problem developing here at Compas H.B. And the problem is so many people are coming to this church. Praise the Lord. You know what I'm saying? Right. Church. I mean, we started with roughly 200 people at Marena High School five years ago. Last couple of weeks there's been thirteen hundred people come into this church on the weekend. All right. Just since 2014 to 2019. And we're seeing, hey, we're running out of space. And this room isn't the main room. We're running out of space. We're running out of space with the high school, with the junior high, with the kids. We don't have enough rooms for these fellowship groups that are getting going all over the place like we're running out of room. And then we start looking at other places like could we move to that building? Could we move to that building? And you start getting the price tags for these buildings and your eyebrows just kind of go to a whole new level, you know what I mean?

[00:45:59] It costs what? What did you say? You know, you're like, did I hear that right?

[00:46:07] And so we're praying. I mean, we're praying for weeks, we're praying for months. It's like the lease is coming up to renew on this building. But if we just have this building, we're going to run out of room at our church. We're not going to be able to keep growing like we have been. What are we going to do? Are we going to stop? Are we going to come and be like everybody stop inviting people to church? Hey, hey, free dinner on on Thursday night. Just for us. Don't invite anybody else. I mean, don't let. Hey. Hey. When you want to share the gospel with that person, stop it. We don't have room for it. Are we going to start saying stuff like that? Like we're running out of room. We're going to have to change how we've been doing this for five years or we're going to move to that place with that amount of money.

[00:46:46] That just seems ridiculous. That seems with so much.

[00:46:49] How can what's going to happen if we can't stay and we can't go where we're like between like the Red Sea and Pharaoh's army here? Like, how is this going to work out? We don't see the solution.

[00:47:01] And then the owner who owns this building, he owns that building. He owns all these buildings here. And he comes to us one day and he takes us through this other property over here. And he says, hey, what do you think about you guys getting this space? You're the only church that's ever survived in this building. I like working with you guys. What if we name this street CompassHB Circle and I work with you guys and you have a church campus here for decades? How about that? And you're like, wow. I mean, so one thing you have to understand about the pastors here at this church is we're not that smart. All right. I'm in the meetings, OK? I'm in the meetings. All right. OK. We're sitting here and thinking, I don't know what's gonna happen. And there's like a building that's empty right next door. OK. OK. God has to open that door for us. We don't see it. OK. And here's another way, we're not that smart. We started going through Philippians because we wanted to have joy as people partnering for the Gospel.

[00:47:58] I didn't even know when we started Philippians that Koinonia was used in financial terms. That's something I learned through doing this study with all of you. We didn't know that that building was going to open up, we started Philippians first. There is no way that we could have planned it, but God did it in his beautiful time that right before we're about to begin construction, the costliest part of getting this building, we're talking about financial giving in a more open and honest way than we ever had before at this church.

[00:48:26] See, this isn't really about a building project. It isn't really even about this church. It's about you being a giver of God, and he wants you to learn about it. There's a lot of benefit that he wants to put on your account.

[00:48:39] So God wants you to see something right now that maybe you've never seen before. Is that everything you own? Actually belongs to him and everything that everybody else zones actually belongs to him. And when you're giving to him, what you're giving is so small compared to what he owns.

[00:48:57] That it's not really even about you giving. It's about you acknowledging that he owns everything.

[00:49:04] So have you seen that?

[00:49:06] Go with me to Sawm Chapter 50, look at it with me here in solemn Chapter 50 and here's God talking in the first person and he says a lot of amazing things in this song.

[00:49:16] This swarm of Asef page 473. But I just want you to focus on what God says, and he's do it in the context of them offering their sacrifices. So they're bringing their first fruits of their vegetation. They're offering up some of their animals, the pure and spotless animals. Right. And they're offering these things up. And maybe at some point when they're given these offerings and their sacrifices, they start to think that they're really doing something with through these offerings. And they're starting to think that God really needs these sacrifices or he needs their offerings. And so God just wants to reset their whole thought about offerings and sacrifices, about our response of giving to him. And so he just says it like this in Psalm Chapter 50, verse 10. He says it like this. Maybe you've heard it before. Every beast of the forest is mine. You think it's a big deal that you're giving me a few of your animals?

[00:50:09] Every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you for the world and its fullness are mine.

[00:50:27] That's who our God is, the lord of heaven and earth, the ruler of all things.

[00:50:33] If we're tempted to think that our giving would somehow be a big deal, no, our giving is just a small response to the provision that God has given to us and to all that God has.

[00:50:48] Hey, you think you guys are offering up a lot of animals there at the Tabernacle or at the temple? Yeah, I got all the animals on every hill.

[00:50:57] And every forest.

[00:50:59] Did you see that, do you see that the money you have is not really yours? You're just a steward of God's money? Do you see that the money you have is not really years because God gave you every single penny that you have when you're sitting down with your family and everybody's clothed and everybody's eaten food and they're having a good time and smiling faces and jokes and stories. And you're looking around the table and there's your wife and there's your kids and you've been blessed is your first thought. Praise the Lord for providing for me. Or have you gotten so deceived into thinking you actually had something to do with.

[00:51:34] So the reason we pray traditionally before our meals to thank God is we're acknowledging where it all comes from.

[00:51:42] It comes from him who owns everything.

[00:51:44] And he's just given it to us. And then when we give to him, see, it's a response between us and God. I just got to ask you. Do you have that response? Do you believe the promise that God has provided everything you got, that he will continue to meet all of your needs and out of your faith in God loving you and providing for you? You can be generous because you have a generous heavenly father. Is that where you're at?

[00:52:13] And he and he loves talking about the birds. You know, so he's always talking about the birds. Like, I'm impressed with the cattle on a thousand hills. Then you go to the birds of the hills. That doesn't seem to be as impressive to be in ornament.

[00:52:24] See, the birds, if you if you were in lower income, you didn't have a lot of money and you couldn't do the full sacrifice. Well, you could sacrifice some birds as kind of a lower calls cost alternative.

[00:52:36] And so when God's telling us that he even knows all the birds, see if you're sacrificing cattle. Well, that seems like a big deal. You're just sacrificing a bird. That doesn't seem like as big a deal. And God's telling you. No, I know we're all the birds are. You might think the birds are are lower animal, but I'm even providing for the birds. Have you seen the sparrows? Have you seen the migration begin to happen? You wonder where all those birds are going. I know every one of them. I know every one of them by name. I'll tell you exactly where they're going right now.

[00:53:04] You see what God's trying to say, hey, you just see the birds fly by and you don't even think about it.

[00:53:09] I know every one of those birds and I'm providing for those birds. I'm giving those birds something to eat. I take care of them if I can take care of all the birds out there that you don't even pay attention to. Don't you think I can provide for you?

[00:53:21] And see, this is what Jesus came saying. He said, hey, stop worrying about what you're going to eat and what you're going to wear. Hey, that's the thing that Gentile's run after. That's the way of the world. That's what they're all focused on, is their money and what they can get with it. And they're storing up treasure for themselves. And thieves are gonna break in and steal it. And it's going to have moss or rust destroy it or they're gonna die and they're going to leave it to the next person. And who knows what they're gonna do with it. Don't get caught up in that. Jesus says seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and then he makes a promise. And all these things will be added to you.

[00:53:58] There is a promise in the Bible that when you put the kingdom of Jesus Christ first, he takes care of all your physical needs.

[00:54:05] Do you believe that? Do you live like that? Does your generosity show your faith?

[00:54:12] We act like faith is over here and I believe in Jesus. My money's over here and that's something separate. Jesus actually talks like you show your faith by your money.

[00:54:23] I was reading for this sermon, I was reading about all kinds of things about giving, and I and I came across stuff as we've been doing this building project, as we've been thinking now about giving, as God's been having me study this scripture.

[00:54:36] I started to learn, like, how much are people giving? And that's when I that's when I came across information that people today I'm talking about churches like us in America right now are giving a lower percentage of their income to the church than ever before in the history of our nation. And look where it's gotten us, everybody. People in America right now are giving roughly around 2.5 percent of their income to the church. That is the lowest that stat by this group of people that we work with. That has been tracking giving across churches in America for some time. They would tell you that is the lowest that that has gone. Like the amount of money that people are giving to the Lord through the church is going down, down, down. In fact, in the Great Depression and the worst time financially in American history, people were giving three point one percent of their income to the church.

[00:55:31] So we are now officially giving less percentage of money than people were giving in the Great Depression of our nation.

[00:55:42] That's the level that money has a hold on people's hearts. Christian people, church people.

[00:55:50] And I read this sermon by this pastor when he was preaching on Philippians four. It was like it was like he went around the pulpit at one point in the sermon and he stepped up and he said, you know, and this guy, he was a pastor for a long time. And he's now gone home to be with the Lord. But he preached many sermons, the word of God faithfully for many years. He saw God do great things. And he looked at his church and he said, you know, I really have come to believe that for some of you, the best possible thing you could do today would be to go and take that large amount of money that you have saved up in your bank account that you think makes your future secure. And if you went today and you gave all of that money away, you would feel so much better about yourself. Because for the first time, you wouldn't be trusting in money, but you would really be trusting in Jesus Christ. To provide for you out of his riches. And so if you're having anxiety, if you're having depression, here was this pastor's idea for his church, you should go and see how much money could you give away and you'll feel a lot better. Because you'll trust in the great provider. And you'll give in response to him.

[00:57:00] That's how it supposed to be.

[00:57:02] We're supposed to give in response, and so this is an interesting time for our church. Five years into it, our first building project, OK, we can't be contained by the box. I don't I don't know what you think. Do you think. OK, well, we've kind of filled our building up. So that's it. No more. No more growing. Is that how you think our church should be or do you think it makes sense? Hey. Wow. That seems like a great deal. The owner is giving us an amazing lease, an amazing deal on this building.

[00:57:30] It's right here. We don't have to go through the crazy cost of moving somewhere else. And in this building, here's what we can get. We can get a room where we can have 300 high school students meeting at a time.

[00:57:42] We could have a hundred junior high school students meeting at one time. We would have five new rooms that are fully devoted for fellowship. Groups were a different group, could meet in there every night of the week. We would have a space open for fellowship throughout the week that people could come and get coffee and do partners and read the Bible together here at their own church any time they wanted to.

[00:58:05] I mean, we have people who work at this church right now. We have people who work full time at this church for free just because they want to serve the Lord.

[00:58:13] We have people who work here day in, day out, grinding for Jesus Christ. I see how hard they work. They don't have an office here at this church. They don't have a place even to have a desk. There's no room for them. And God provides for us now a place that we could grow and when the high school and junior high move over there.

[00:58:32] That means the kids ministry takes over here and fellowship goes into the parking lot. And that's just a free space right there in the middle of the of the two buildings.

[00:58:41] And so it's a question are what is our response? To God answering prayers to God providing.

[00:58:48] What are we gonna do? And so as you leave, you're gonna get this little CompassHB Circle brochure and the main thing is for you to put it somewhere where you would see it. And the first thing we want everybody to do is pray that God will put it on the hearts of people to give money so that we can build this thing.

[00:59:03] OK.

[00:59:05] You want to talk about an eyebrows raising moment a few weeks ago, we got our first bid back on what the construction of this project would be. Okay, so this is a warehouse. It's an office. It's kind of rundown. Right. And if you go to the city of Huntington Beach and you look at their code to use a space as a warehouse, you can get through that code. Really easy. You look at their code for an assembly area where hundreds of people are going to gather together. I don't even know how to read all of those diagrams, all of that code.

[00:59:35] So the amount of investment, the amount of upgrade that you have to do to go from warehouse space to assembly space, the electrical, the mechanical, the plumbing's, the things, the fire alarm systems, the things that cost tens of thousands of dollars, each one adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, that eventually the bid came back and it was a two million dollar project is what the bids at.

[00:59:58] I mean, my eyebrows were up for like the next 24 hours, like you say what?

[01:00:04] Like that what?

[01:00:06] You could tell I'm I'm a new pastor, I'm a young pastor, I haven't been through this before. Right.

[01:00:11] Now, now, here, we're gonna do everything that was a first no, we heard we're gonna do everything we possibly can to bring that number down. But I'll just tell you, we're not going to be able to build out that building unless the amount of giving goes hundreds of thousands of dollars up.

[01:00:25] Just being honest here at church day, that's where the projects.

[01:00:29] And let me just tell you, this is how we operate here as a church family, as a staff. We here's how seriously we take people given money to this church. We knew we wanted to put a sign up on our new building. I don't know if you saw did you see the new sign that's up on the building? Did you go check it out if you haven't seen yet? You know, put up that sign. You'll see it on your brochure. You'll see the pictures. Pastor Daniel and Mr. Taylor put up that sign this week. That's who did it, everybody.

[01:00:55] All right. We started figuring out how much a sign costs to put on the building.

[01:01:01] And I heard the number of the estimate to put up a sign. And I and my eyebrows, they start to go it up. And I was like, does it saying, does it dance?

[01:01:11] Does it spit out rainbows? How much is that sign cost?

[01:01:16] And so here's the thing, we try, we try, we're always trying to save money, and so we have two guys on our staff who work very hard and bust out a project and build our own sign in my mind. It looks great.

[01:01:29] It looks beautiful. You wouldn't know that. That was Pastor Daniel and Mr. Taylor bustin that out. Wait. Praise the Lord for that. So that's that's the level we're trying to do this with. But I'm just here to tell you, this is an interesting moment that God has brought us as a group of people together because we've come to the end of Philippians. We've experienced the joy. We're striving side by side for the gospel. We got fellowship going on. People are professing faith. Praise the Lord. OK. But are we going to partner together? Financial.

[01:02:02] Are we all in? Are we all ready to be generous?

[01:02:06] What are you going to do, what's going to be your response? So on the way out, you get this brochure, put it somewhere. Pray about it. Now you can respond right away. We're gonna take an offering here in a minute. If you want to respond right now, maybe you want to pray about it and think about your response. But we want to invite everybody when we're done. You can grab some donuts and coffee and head on over to the new building. Pastor Bill will be in there. He can answer any question you've got. We've even got three rooms there in the new building that would get demo there. And when we're right in our prayers on the walls of the rooms, so go in there and write a prayer about God save in people in that building, about Jesus Christ building up his church so that more people can fellowship, write a prayer, that God's people will be generous and we'll have everything we need, that he'll make our needs full so we can keep on reaching more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I'll pray for us and then we're going to worship God. We're gonna give him an offering, the fruit of our lips, and we're gonna give him an offering of our finances. So let us pray together here right now.

[01:03:13] Father in heaven, we come before you and we thank you. For this promise that our God will make for all of our needs because of the riches we have in Jesus Christ. And father, we just want to praise your generosity. We want to praise you that you are the giver.

[01:03:32] And there you are, the owner of all things and the things that you give to us out of your generosity.

[01:03:38] Now, we just want to confess that we've been thinking those are ARS.

[01:03:42] Now, we've been greedy with those things that some of us have been hoarding on to those things that some of us are saving up in such a way that's making us miserable because we're trusting in the uncertainty of riches rather than in the one who owns all things.

[01:03:56] Please open our eyes. To see what a generous giver you really are.

[01:04:02] And let us respond with an offering, with a sacrifice.

[01:04:08] Gabby, you just want to thank you for how good you've been to this church. And we want to thank you for bringing us to this moment where you've provided a new building.

[01:04:17] But you're also challenging us if we're really a giving church, God, if we're going to excel in evangelism, if we're going to excel in fellowship, if we're going to excel in reading through the Bible together.

[01:04:30] Let us also excel in this grace of giving. Let that be something that we're known for here at Compass HP, that people know that this is a place of generosity because we believe in a God who has been so good to us and let us worship you through our gifts.

[01:04:47] We pray this in Jesus name and everyone, said a man.

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