19 - Lesson 10: Stewardship (Use of Money and Attitude of Giving), Part 2

Well, welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Discipleship. This is our class on an introduction to discipling.

In this class, we are trying to go through some techniques and helpful things to train really focused on new believers, but we are trying to help you as you learn to disciple other people.

We're going through a book called Growing in Grace. It's something that you can get from our website down there.

Order some multiple copies, go to our store and pick up some copies of that and you will be able to follow along.

It's also something you can get extra copies using maybe homeschooling, maybe in your church in which you have some new believers that you look to disciple that you could, or even people that have been in church for a long time but don't really know the scriptures well.

I know there's some there like that. But as we go through this lesson, we're hoping that you will learn to fulfill the

Great Commission. We are all commanded to make disciples. And that's what we're looking to do is to help you be a better disciple maker.

We want you to learn to make disciples better. And that's the goal of this class that we're taking.

We have been going through this book and we are this week in lesson number 10.

This is a continuation on our stewardship, which is our offering to the

Lord, which I know that means we're talking about money. Those preachers are not supposed to talk about money, right?

Because there's all those people on TV that are always asking for your money. And this has actually caused a problem.

We've actually gotten to a point where within many circles in Christianity, it's like this one thing that we're not, pastors at churches are not supposed to speak at.

No one's supposed to discuss money. And yet the scripture has a lot to say on our attitude toward money and our procurement of money and our use of money.

And we're going to be looking at those in this lesson. This is part two, which means we already looked at some of this in the previous lesson.

In the last lesson, we looked at our attitude toward money. We discussed why our attitude toward money is important to God, why it should be important.

Our attitude is important about money. What shouldn't be our attitude toward money?

We talked about the procurement of money. How do we obtain it? Well, there's an improper and a proper way.

We know that there's many who use Christianity to profit.

Call it what it is. That's what they do. They're looking to sell books. They even use their churches to buy their own books so they can be on the

New York Times bestseller list. Things like that, which wouldn't be the right focus on money.

Scripture talks about that. But we shouldn't go so far one way to alienate the other.

You know, it's an interesting thing that we find people who, well, we find that people get upset if you talk about money as if it's like one thing in Christianity you're not supposed to do.

And I find it interesting, we actually had someone this week that said, how dare we in these free classes mention that you can go to that website and buy the syllabus.

The argument was you should just give the syllabus away and just trust

God to provide it. In other words, as if we don't have the faith somehow because we actually are saying, hey, can you cover the cost for the products that we ship to you?

Amazing how people are like that. My challenge to the person was do you do that at your job? Your secular job.

Do you go into your boss and say, hey, you don't have to pay me anything. Whatever you think is fair, pay me.

I won't take a dime. I'm going to trust the Lord. Or do you actually go in and expect them to pay you for your work?

And furthermore, do you demand it when you want promotions and things? I don't know. This gentleman who argued with us said that's exactly what he does.

And I said, well, hey, let's ask for his boss's number and ask him. We haven't gotten that yet, did we?

No. Because he probably doesn't do that at his secular job. And that's the reality.

We hold the Christians to a standard. And yet, the argument is made in scripture that we should pay people who minister on our behalf.

Paul says you should pay him a double honor, not just the honor to pay your pastor of giving him the respect due him, but you pay him so he can feed his family.

And it is a thing, unfortunately, within Christianity we've gotten to with a view of money as almost as if it's like people feel that if it's a

Christian, you can rip them off. We're working with a

Christian radio station, an online radio station, and they were like feeling bad. Well, you know, if you want to pay us less, we can work something out.

I said, why? Why shouldn't we as Christians pay the most that we can afford to help you with your radio station and us with our programming?

We shouldn't take the less of the two. We should take what you are asking for air time.

And yet, as Christians, that's exactly what we tend to do. We figure, hey, since you're a Christian, will you cut me a break?

What's that really saying? Hey, I'm really not interested in you, I'm interested in me. And I want my money for me, not you.

Hmm. Doesn't sound like the gospel, does it? No. We should be willing to help other Christian brothers and sisters.

Interesting thing of view of money that I've always found interesting was when

John Calvin, no, no, don't go all crazy, you people who are anti -Calvinists, hey, we're not talking

Calvinism here. John Calvin was a man of God who did a lot of good things, all right? But one of the things when he went to Geneva, Geneva invited

Calvin because they were like a cesspool. I mean, they said, we got to do something, our city's bad.

And they said, let's get this reformation going here in this city. It's been all over Europe and it's doing well there.

Let's get it here. So they invite Calvin in. And they loved having Calvin for like a year or two until he started preaching like the gospel and they're like, oh, we don't want this.

We want the benefits, but we don't want that. And they kicked him out.

And then he got invited back in like a couple of years later and he picked up again. And he would preach, I think, one message every day.

He was preaching nightly. He was visiting people. He was discipling people. And what happened was people not only were getting saved, but through the discipleship, they were seeing the need to care for one another.

People who had no job started looking to be hardworking so that they could take care of the poor because they saw that they had a need to take care of others.

And what you ended up having is that Geneva turned around into really being an economic center because of the gospel.

People started wanting to learn to read because they wanted to read the Bible. People wanted to work so they could care for others.

It was because of a proper attitude toward money. We have gone away from that to where we think it's okay to rip other

Christians off if we can to save ourselves some money. If you're upset for me for saying that, maybe

I just described you, sorry. But we need to have a right attitude toward money and, as we're going to talk about this class, the use of money.

We are in number three there in our book here, the use of money.

The first thing that we see in our book is that we are to honor

God. Those are your blanks there. Honor God. We are to honor God with the use of our money.

Proverbs, again, we said much of this we're going to see in the book of Proverbs. Here we see in Proverbs 14 .31,

"...whoever oppresses a poor man insults his maker, but whoever is generous to the needy honors him."

We need to be honoring God with our use of money. We should be taking care of the poor, not trying to oppress them.

We should be using our money in a way that honors God. This is something that is such a faux pas in our culture that I know some people who will argue because I do tend to be generous, and I'm not trying to brag, it's just that I want to encourage others to be the same way.

It's interesting because I had someone that told me that I'm prideful because I openly will share that I've shared money with complete strangers at times.

Sometimes I'll say I bought someone coffee or a hamburger or gave them $10 or $5 or $20 and people go, you're being prideful.

You shouldn't let the right hand know what the left hand is doing. Stop taking that verse out of its context because that doesn't talk about me giving money to poor people.

It has to do with people in a church letting everyone know how much they give so that they can receive the accolades.

Hey, hey, hey, I just gave this much. Let me hear it. Let me hear it. Let's hear the praises. That's the difference.

There's a difference there. I'm not giving money to have praises, and when

I share stories of giving money, I'm not doing it to hear praises either. I do it to encourage others to realize, hey, that's an idea

I could do. I could go buy someone coffee for an opportunity to share the gospel with them. It's interesting our culture where we think that if we share things like that, somehow we're dishonoring

God. Why? What verse says that? The use of our money should first and foremost honor

God because as we said in the title of this lesson, it's stewardship. God has given us money as a stewardship.

It's His money, and we are stewards of it. We're managers of it.

You and I are going to give an account for how we use our money. Now, when you're dealing with a new believer, they may have real issues.

They may have big -time debt problems, and you may need to help in this lesson to help them understand that one of the uses of money, one of the ways we honor

God is to not be in debt. Now, I understand in our culture, houses and mortgages, it's so astronomical.

You almost have to be in debt in some form. College bills, yeah, tell me about it. I'm dealing with that one too.

Yikes. That's more than my mortgage. You have those things where you may have to take loans, and it's not that loans are bad, but you have credit card bills because you bought more things than you really could afford.

Those are areas you might need to help counsel the person you're discipling and say, you might need to buy less.

You don't need the latest toy. You don't need the latest gadget. You can get by.

Pay off those bills. Maybe there's ways of consolidating bills. You may have to deal with things like that at this lesson because sometimes you're dealing with people that have lived a long time in a messed -up way of spending money.

You have to help them. So, we are to honor God. Letter B, we are to take care of that which we have.

In Proverbs 27, 23, know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds.

We should know well the condition. We should know what we have. We should take care of it. We shouldn't overextend ourselves.

We shouldn't go looking to buy things just because we want to have the latest thing. So, we want to be careful with that.

Letter C, as stewards, we are to be faithful. That's your blank there, faithful.

In 1 Corinthians 4, 2, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

We have to be faithful with that which God has given to us. Remember, the money is not our money.

It's God's money. Letter D, if a man does not work, he should not eat.

He should not eat. That's your blank there. Let's look at this one in 2 Thessalonians 3 .10,

and I want to explain some context on this one. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

Notice that it says, if he's not willing to work. It's not that someone lost their job.

This isn't saying that if you're on unemployment, somehow the church shouldn't take care of you, shouldn't help you.

It's a willingness. That's the idea here. Is the person willing or unwilling to work?

There are some people who are unwilling to work. In the context that Paul is dealing with, he's dealing with people who thought the

Lord's coming was soon, and they basically had the attitude of, hey, I'm going to be lazy.

I'm not going to work. I'm going to trust others who are going to provide for me. I'll let the church take care of my needs.

I'm being spiritual. I'm taking care of the things of the Lord, and I'll rest on others.

Now, it doesn't mean we shouldn't donate to missionaries and to people who are serving full time in church and in missions and in ministry.

Those things are good, but this is people who are unwilling to work.

And it says, actually what I think Paul's saying is if you have someone that's unwilling to work and you're taking care of their needs, you're actually enabling them in bad behavior.

If they're unwilling to work to take care of their own needs, then we shouldn't be providing for their needs because it's enabling them in their laziness and their bad behavior.

It's not honoring to God. Now, there are people who have seen this in church, or people who come into churches and they look to take advantage of other

Christians. They always have a sob story, oh, this and that's wrong, and this, I just need money for this. I just had this in church this week where someone was, you know, being that I know the individual.

This person is irresponsible. He's trying to run a business and he is an irresponsible, he just doesn't take care of things.

And he's trying to get people to help him, oh, would you just help me, I'm behind in bills and I can't pay the rent and this and that, and the reality is he can't pay the rent and do these things because he was irresponsible and he wasn't being a good steward.

There's a big difference there. And then giving him money, what that does is he just continues in bad behavior.

It doesn't get him to learn, for some people, to learn the lesson. Some people will learn the lesson. But for some people, if you won't give money, they move on to someone else to get the money.

And really, they learn to live off the goodness of others instead of actually working.

And that's the idea there. It doesn't mean that you can't be on welfare, it doesn't mean, and I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with welfare,

I'm just saying that that verse is not dealing with that. We have to, now it could be, the principle could apply if someone refuses to work, but there is a proper case for welfare or a deacon's fund in your church, which

I think would be more biblical, or a widow's fund or things like that, in your church, but you see it's dealing with the willingness of the heart.

Are you willing to work, or are you, hey, dude, I want others to pay for my way?

Alright, let's take a look at 1 Thessalonians 4, 11, and 12, and see two, give two reasons why a

Christian should work, especially in verse 12. It says there,

So notice there, there's two things. One, walk properly, and two is lack nothing or depend on no one.

In other words, the one reason, and this is what happened with John Calvin in Geneva, is people would read verses like this and say, you know what, we gotta be hard working so we're not dependent on the city of Geneva to pay our bills.

This is actually what's causing great problems in Europe right now, is that they have this huge welfare system, and they have people that are coming in, in droves, many

Muslims, who are living off the welfare system, having many children, and by that, they're being paid by the few that are working, and it's actually going to topple the government where eventually, well,

Islam will take over. But what you have when you have a huge welfare system is it becomes an unsupportable system because people end up living off the system, and it causes a collapse eventually of an economy.

We should not be that way as Christians. We should not be dependent on the government.

Now, it doesn't mean that there's not needs. You lose your job and you get unemployment. I understand that. That's different than a willingness.

That's different than someone that's mindfully saying, I'm going to take advantage of the system. Okay? There's a difference there.

And so, we should be walking properly. This talks about our use of money.

Now, we finished with the use of money. Now we get into that difficult one, the one that so many people want to avoid, and that is our giving of money, the giving of money.

And here we want to say that while many people do abuse this teaching of Scripture, it is clear that Christians are to be supporting their local church first.

Let me say that again so that's clear. Support your local church first, and then other ministries.

I work full -time here for Striving for Eternity as a ministry, and I am telling you that I would rather not receive your giving if you're not giving to your church first.

Your church is your first priority. You say, but Andrew, I don't have a church.

Well, okay, we do have people that will donate to us in lieu of a church while they're looking for a church.

That's fine. But if you want to donate to a ministry like ours, do it after.

God has blessed you. Give to your church first, and then with the abundance, give to other ministries like ours and like many others.

But your first priority, I think, should be for your local church. And you say, well, wait a minute.

How does that help you? Well, it doesn't. That's why we struggle. I understand. And really,

I wish there wasn't a need for parachurch organizations like ours. I think if the churches across America and the world were actually doing the job of discipleship, there wouldn't be a need for Striving for Eternity.

I would love for the churches to put us out of business because they're all doing the job that we're called to do.

But until that happens, we are here to help train people like you to influence your church so that your church would be discipling and training and doing their own materials so that there's no more need for us.

And then you'd be supporting your church. But I really feel strongly that we should be supporting the local church.

I know there's many people who do not support their church even though they've been in church for years and give to other ministries.

That's not good. Your church shouldn't be struggling. I knew of a church that was financially struggling to a point where they were real close to closing the doors of the building because they could not afford their bills.

Their pastor was bivocational not because he wanted to be, but because the church could not afford to pay him what it would take to live.

And so he had to find work outside of the church. And meanwhile, there were individuals in the church that were supporting other ministries in the tens of thousands of dollars a year.

Now, you say, well, why do they have to give to their local church? Well, that should be where they're getting the primary discipleship and the primary teaching.

And I understand that our culture has changed. And yes, you can listen to your pastor once a week on a

Sunday and listen to someone on the radio five times a week. So really you're more inclined to give to that person who's really pouring into your life through the airwaves.

But he's not really pouring into your life. If you're not getting enough of your pastor's time in discipleship, then maybe you need to go visit your pastor more.

Get more of his sermons and play those in the car instead. Build Bible studies in your church, you know, work with your pastor to get more discipleship going in your church.

All right. So that's all just my pet peeve, sorry, a little tangent for you.

I know, sorry. But what we want to do is, you know, I want to encourage you, we need to be about the business of the local church first, all right.

And I say that knowing that if that means that some can't give to our ministry, God will take care of us.

And if we need to, we'll close the doors. I mean, we barely make ends meet anyway. And don't think that even though I work full time for the ministry,

I don't get paid much, trust me. So the thing is, we need to first look, letter

A in your book, the place for giving. Now, in the

New Testament, giving was always in relationship to the local church.

If you look in Acts and 1 Corinthians, they talk about the most, but in Acts 4, 32 to 37, where was the giving?

It was in the church of Jerusalem. In Acts 11, 26 to 30, where was the giving?

For Paul and Barnabas to go off on their missions trip, the church of Antioch. In 1

Corinthians 16, verse 1, it mentions the giving of the church of Galatia. In verses 3 to 4, it talks about the church of Corinth and their giving.

In 1 Corinthians 8, 1 to 5, it talks about the church of Mesopotamia, that wasn't it.

I don't know, from memory, okay? I'm getting grief.

From Macedonia, and then in Philippians 4, 15 and 16, we see the giving of the church of Philippi.

Did you notice something in all six of those? Church of, church of, church of, church in, church of, church of, right?

So there were churches. In the New Testament, the first century, we see giving was always part of the church.

It wasn't that they gave to parachurch ministries and said, well, Andrew, hey, hey, hold on.

They didn't have parachurch ministries back then. Right. I wish we didn't have them now either.

The reason that parachurch ministries like Striving for Eternity have sprung up is because of the fact that the church has failed to do the job it should be doing.

And instead of letting Christians flounder, ministries rise up.

Now what you end up seeing is that most parachurch ministries are very focused. They just do evangelism, or they just do apologetics, or they just focus on your stewardship with money, or they just focus on family, or they just focus on parenting, or they just focus on prison ministry, or this, or that.

Everything's kind of compartmentalized. And what's different with Striving for Eternity is we're trying to bring those things together.

That's what discipleship is, and we're trying to say, you know what? We need to be doing all those things. We need to be good stewards of all of our talents and gifts and resources that God has given us, and we need to be teaching others.

That is the function of the church. That's really what the church should be doing.

And the rise of parachurch organizations are really only because the church isn't really doing its job, unfortunately.

So my challenge to you in churches is to stand up, rise up, be disciple makers, disciple people in your church, work with your church pastors to develop a type of church that doesn't need parachurch organizations.

Now understand, not every church is big enough where they can have their own pro -life ministry.

I know some churches that do. A pro -life ministry is part of a church. Not everyone's going to be that big.

Not everyone's going to have that focus. Not every church is going to have their own Christian bookstore or facility to produce materials for other churches, whatever, or for their own church maybe.

But some churches can, and so there's probably always going to be small parachurch organizations like ours around.

I just wish we didn't. Just saying. So a reason for giving.

So we talked about the place for giving is the church. The reason for giving that we see is notice that in the texts that the use of finances as they related to the local church.

So what do we have? In 1 Corinthians 9, 13 and 14, also in 1

Timothy 5, 17 and 18, which is the one I referred to earlier with Paul saying that pastors should be supported.

So the support of pastoral staff. Acts 6 was about that. Your leaders, your pastors shouldn't have to go waiting on tables, shouldn't be getting a second job so that they can make ends meet.

They should be supported by the church. And pastors should be taken care of.

Now there's times where men like Paul were tent makers, as I am, so that I don't require as much from the ministry and that's why we can afford things at such prices where we're barely making money off of all of our products.

The reason we can do that is because we don't require much because basically

I don't get paid much. Why? Because I am a tent maker. Now does that affect the amount of work we can do as a ministry?

Sure it does. Many people require much more sleep than I do and God has designed me in such a way where I can do more than I guess most people because I don't sleep much and I'm very high energy.

Just ask my wife. My wife's always saying that she's waiting until like I'm 80 so that I'll slow down but I remind her that when

I'm 80 she's still 25 and we'll have the same, oh wait no. No my wife will never be 80, she's always going to be 25.

Actually if you see my wife she always looks like she's 25 so she could pass for it even though there's no way

I'll pass for like, you know, people always think I'm older than I am. Wow. And I don't even have the gray hair really.

So we should be supporting our pastoral staff and I don't mean by supporting them so they just barely make ends meet.

You should take care of your pastors. It's a shame that so many churches where they have people that are willing to try to make money at their secular jobs and get promotions and do what they have to to make more money but then they want the pastor to make as little as possible.

And it's like the pastor somehow should just barely make ends meet. That's not being good stewards to your pastor.

Just saying. Acts 4, 32 to 36 we see another reason for giving is so that the church can help those in need.

Many churches have a deacons fund to help the needy. Some churches have food pantries, things like that, clothing cottages to be able to provide for those in need.

Philippians 4, 15 and 16 says for missionary support. Paul and Barnabas were supported by the

Philippian church, or at least Paul was, in their missionary journeys. Another reason for giving is for the overall ministry of the church.

So church can function as the church and the church can do the things that the church needs to do.

Letter C, so we talked about the place for giving, the church. We talked about some reasons for giving. Now the method for giving.

What's the method provided for giving? Well, let us look here at 1

Corinthians 16, 1 to 4 because this is going to give us kind of an idea.

It says, Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I am directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do.

On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper so that there will be no collecting when

I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem.

If it seems advisable that I should also go also, they will accompany me.

So let's not rip this out of its context. He's dealing with giving that was specifically for the church in Jerusalem that was struggling with some persecution going on.

There's some different reasons that people have. Why is he saying, hey, I don't want to collect when I'm there? You know, one thing maybe that Paul realizes when he's there and asking for a collection, people are going to give maybe to impress

Paul, maybe because Paul's there. He wants it to be a heart issue, all right?

But there's some things we can learn from this. In 1 Corinthians 16, Paul is instructing the church at Corinth in how to give for special projects, not regular giving.

You see, it's special relief fund for the poverty -stricken Christians in Jerusalem.

And so notice the following things, though, that he does because there are some principles we can see from this. One is regular giving.

Do you see that? It should be regular giving upon the first day of the week. It should be worshipful giving.

It's part of the worship service that first day of the week. The worship service itself is part of, includes giving.

So giving of money is actually an act of worship. Do you ever think of that?

But it is. It's an act of worship. It should also be personal giving.

Let each one of you give. It's something that we should each be doing.

And we should each be setting it aside. Now notice, I think he's almost saying this is above and beyond what you give to the regular church.

This is set it aside and give it each week. And then it should be proportionate giving.

As God has given you, okay, therefore you give.

Some of us can afford to give more. Some of us cannot.

When I lost my job many, many, many years ago and I was out of work, I could not afford to give more money to my local church.

So I gave my time. I used to, while I was not having interviews and things like that,

I was meeting with my pastor, getting together with him, spending time with him, helping him around the office.

In fact, what ended up happening was that was a time that was very precious because it was a time that I was, as I would be with him, just running errands with him, in the office doing filing for him, doing whatever he needed.

He was actually discipling me quite a bit. And that's really the time that grew me as a

Christian. That's where I really matured was that time that I got to spend helping him.

And he in turn was helping me and I didn't quite realize it until years later. But it was where I couldn't give financially, so I gave of my time.

But I gave as God gave to me. So even though I was on unemployment and barely making ends meet and not having much food,

I was still giving to the church whatever money came in. When I had money,

I gave to the church first before feeding myself. Because I had a high view of God and that he would provide and he did provide for me.

So God does not demand a certain percentage though. And there's some people that talk about this.

That God has, you know, there's a tithe. We're going to talk about that. But God does not demand a percentage of the

Christian income to possessions. However, his word does provide some helpful guidelines.

The minimum that we see anywhere in Scripture in the Bible is in Genesis 14, 20 and 28, 22 where it talks about tithe which is a tenth.

So maybe you say, okay, the minimum is a tenth. Well, when people talk about a tithe, that we should be tithing,

I always find it interesting they want to talk about a tithe. But there were three or four different tithes. So when you actually look at it, about 33 -34 % of people's giving or people's income went to, for Israel, went to a tithe which is a lot more than a tenth.

You had those, a tenth that was just for the Levites and providing for them.

A tenth that was given for the temple tax. A tenth for the government. And then there were some others that were still sometimes called a tithe even though they were a little bit less that was for local towns and things like that.

The most we see, the maximum we see is in Luke 21, 1 -4 which is 100%.

That's the widow who gives her last two pennies, shall we say. To mites. She gave 100%.

Now, keep in mind the context there. That's not a lesson in Luke 21 on giving.

Okay? It's actually a lesson on hypocrisy of the Jewish people that they would allow a woman who as Jewish leaders should have been caring for the widow and instead they're letting her give her last two minnows or the last two pennies, shall we say, the lowest form of coinage.

And her last two pennies, they're going to take it instead of providing for her which was their responsibility.

That's really the context was on the wickedness of the Jewish leaders. And then what should be our attitude toward giving?

This is kind of interesting because there's such an abuse with giving.

This is something that people often overlook. Let's take a look at this passage.

This is 2 Corinthians 9, 6 -15. A little bit of a longer passage but we're going to find many things here about our attitude toward giving.

So the point is this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver.

And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things and at all times you may abound in every good work.

As it is written, he has distributed freely, he has given to the poor, his righteousness endures forever.

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but also the overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.

By their approval of service they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others.

While they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God upon you, thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.

Now, this passage is often abused by those people. Oh, sow and you'll reap, sow and you'll reap.

In other words, there's ministries that say, well, if you give money, if you give to our ministry, God's going to bless you.

And that's really, what are they really saying? Give to get, what is that? That's selfishness. That is not what this passage is talking about.

We should not be giving money to somehow get from God. That would be wrong.

It's talking about that we should be generous. That's the first attitude. God desires a generous attitude.

You see that in verse 6. God desires a generous attitude.

You also see that God desires a joyful attitude in verse 7 of that passage.

We should be a cheerful giver. Not giving out of compulsion. No one should be forcing you to give.

They shouldn't be guilting you to give. If people are using emotional means or selfish means to get you to give, saying, hey, you should give, sow so you could reap.

In other words, it's all about you reaping. That's not right. If someone is trying to guilt you into giving, that's not right.

It should be as number 3 there. God desires a trusting attitude. Verses 8 to 11.

Trust God. Trust God in the giving. You may give and God may bless you where you didn't know money was going to come in and He took care of the needs.

I remember where I had an old phone that somebody was in.

Their phone broke down and I could have sold that phone for a couple hundred dollars. Instead, what I did was I gave that phone to a friend of mine whose phone broke and needed one.

He had that phone. I didn't think anything more of it. When his contract was up, he went and bought a new phone and gave me back that phone.

I was then able to sell that for $200, which was the exact amount that happened to come in where someone said, hey, brother, this is a missionary.

He said, I'm short $200 to be able to get to continue on the mission that I'm on as I was traveling.

Do you know anyone that could help spare me $200? I said, you know what, I just happen to have $200 that on a phone

I just happened to sell. I'm sending it your way. God will provide sometimes a means where you don't expect it.

I didn't expect this person to give me back the phone, but the sale of that phone was able to pay for someone else to be on the mission of going out and sharing the gospel.

That causes us to be, number four there, a thankful attitude. God desires a thankful attitude in our giving, verses 14 and 15.

Notice that our motivation to give in this way is the exceeding grace of God in our life.

That's the issue. It's about trusting God, valuing that God will take care of our needs, and trusting

Him and depending on Him, and give anyway. Don't give because anyone guilts you into it.

Give because you want to give. Don't criticize those that may not give where you think they should be giving.

Unfortunately, there's this attitude with some Christians where they think that some Christians shouldn't enjoy the things that God has provided for them, and they should give all their money to ministry.

I know someone who, unfortunately, has an attitude that, and really what it is, is this is an individual who just doesn't work hard.

I think because of his own irresponsibility, he doesn't make much money. Because of that,

I think he is actually jealous. I'm judging his motives, granted, and that would be wrong, but notice I'm not saying he is jealous.

He seems jealous of those who make more than him, and his attitude is always that they should give money to people like him who don't make as much.

Really, what I think then is that could be an issue of jealousy, where someone's really, they're not thinking about how that Christian's attitude is.

He happens to make a lot of money, and therefore, he can have a nice car. This was an issue in a church where I was, and there was a guy who had his own business and did very, very well for himself, and he had a very nice car.

This other individual thought that somehow that's not right, because his car barely ran, and he couldn't afford a nice car, even a nice used car.

He thought that the church should basically require this guy to give his money to the church to provide for people like this guy who wanted a nicer car.

That's a wrong attitude. Since I was a deacon at that time in that church, my attitude was, sorry,

I don't tell another individual what to do with their money. God does, and it's

God's business to deal with that. My only encouragement to the person who had his own business is be a cheerful giver, be a generous giver, be a trusting giver, and be a thankful giver.

That was my encouragement. The same encouragement was that guy who might have been jealous about the other person, who didn't have much.

You also, who may not have much, should be a generous, joyful, trusting, and thankful giver.

That pleases God. As homework, as you see in your book there, is to read 2

Corinthians 8 and 9. Then next week, I know, you can't wait for this lesson.

I know, and neither can I. We're going to talk about evangelism. We're going to teach you more about evangelism.

If you have any questions about this lesson or any others, feel free to email us, academy at strivingforeternity .org.

You can enroll in the school right there. We do have some changes going on with our website.

Depending on when you watch these classes, we're working on creating a whole new website. A major part of it is going to be that we're going to be having a learning center.

The money that you donate to be a member is actually going to go toward the learning center, where you can take quizzes, tests, and get a whole lot more material than what we teach in class.

Then we're going to sell the syllabuses completely separate from the class. That's how we're going to do things.

I say that because we have a new syllabus coming out once we finish this lesson. We have about four classes left.

Then you can get the new syllabus. That's going to be on our website at our store very shortly.

You could pick that up as well. You could always go to the store and pick up the

Growing in Grace book. Buy them in bulk. We just had an order for a church where the church is buying them in larger quantities so that their whole church can go through it.

I know a church that is putting an order. They're working on the order to buy the Growing in Grace books for their

Sunday school class so that their whole class can go through that and have that.

Those are some ideas that you can have. As we do in our ministry here, we want to encourage you to encourage others.

We're not just about ourselves here. We have an opportunity this week, depending on when you're watching this.

If you're watching live, next week I will be heading out to the

Super Bowl for the Super Bowl outreach. I do this each year. We work with a team. There's about 100 people that go out to evangelize at the

Super Bowl. I have been a team leader for the past several years.

I have said I'm taking a break from that. I want to be a team member. One of the guys that has been on my team for several years has stepped up.

He's now a team leader. He has asked me if I would help just be with him, be on his team. I said, yes,

I would be honored to help and be part of your team. This week,

I'm going to ask, and actually for the next two weeks, ask that you would consider encouraging Brother Rick Garland.

There's his Facebook down there. Rick and Amy Garland. Rick is going to be my team leader.

In other words, his job is going to be to try to keep me in line. Pray for him.

I hope to have lots of video. Brother Mitch LeBron is going to be coming out with me.

We're going to bring the video camera. We hope to get a lot of witnessing done on video.

Hopefully, we'll be able to release some of those online.

That's the hope. I hope you encourage Rick. Rick is a guy who's actually in his neighborhood.

I believe he and his pastor have knocked on every door in their town to share the gospel.

If they haven't reached every door yet, they're working on it. They've developed a team that they're trying to knock on every door in their town.

Then, they're going to branch out from there just so they can share the gospel. It's encouraging to see folks that would have that kind of mindset and that mentality to say, let's go and do something like that.

I want to encourage you. I know that we'll still have class next week, but he needs lots of encouragement.

The two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, being that I used to be a team leader and I know what that's like, it's a lot of work.

It's a lot of stress. Not stress, but it's a lot that we have to do. Bill Adams, who runs

Sports Fan Outreach International, he keeps a busy team. With that,

I say be praying for Rick as he's trying to wrap everything up, get everything together.

He's got to coordinate flight plans and travel plans for everyone that's flying in at different times for his team.

It's a lot of work. He's got a lot to do. Be praying for him and his wife as this is his first time leading a team like this at a major event like this.

Be praying and encouraging Rick as he's helping to lead teams for the sake of the gospel.

Until next week, I want to encourage you to strive to make today an eternal day for God's glory.