Well, welcome to the house everybody. If we've never met, my name is Greg Hampton.
I'm one of the pastors here. I'd love to buy you a coffee, get to know you a little
bit better, hear your story and all that. Today we do finish our series on
worship. With everything so far we have covered, worshipping with praying the
scriptures, with writing new songs, with our instruments, worship through our
trials, worshiping together in community and worshiping God with our bodies and
a special thanks to Scott McConnell, to Pastor Jen, to Tony, to Marissa, to Andy
and to Robin, a round of applause for all of them that brought messages out this
series. And now one more just to embarrass him, just one for Andy. I'm just
playing, I'm joking, I'm joking.
Would you like, Andy, you want to make a round, you want to walk around and
shake everyone's hand real quick? Simply put, God gave me my voice and so I
worship God with my voice. Yeah? That's easy. God gave me the scriptures so I
worship God with the scriptures. That makes sense. God gave me an instrument
and so I worship God with my instrument. God gave me creativity and so I worship
God with my creativity. God gave me this very life and so I worship God through
trials, through the good and the bad. God gave me this community so I worship God
in and through this community. God gave me this body so I worship God with the
movements of this body. Today we wrap it up with the subject that the Bible talks
about a lot. God gave me my finances and so I'll worship God with my finances.
I'll use it to glorify His name. So I'm gonna read nine different passages and
they only represent a tiny percentage of how often that subject of finance has
come up in the scripture. So go ahead and stay seated since I'm going to be
reading extended and an extended amount of passages. The first one is in Mark 12.
It says this, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with
all your mind, with all your strength. The second is this, love your neighbor as
yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. We established in that first
message that we worship God with everything and so we have to remember
that that is the verse that we began with. Proverbs 19, whoever is kind to the
poor lends to the Lord. I'll say that again. Whoever is kind to the poor lends to
the Lord and will be paid and repaid in full. Matthew 6, for where your treasure
is there your heart will be also. No one can serve two masters either you will
hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise
the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Proverbs 3, honor the Lord with
your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops. 1st Timothy 6, as for those
who in the present age are rich command them to be to not be haughty or to set
their hopes on the uncertainty of riches but rather on God who richly provides us
with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works,
generous and ready to share thus storing up for themselves the treasures of a
good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of the life that
really is life. 1st Corinthians 16, now about the collection for the Lord's
people do what I told the Galatian Church to do. On the first day of every
week each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income
saving it up so that when I come no collection will have to be made. 2nd
Corinthians 9, each of you must give as you have made up your mind not
regretfully or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. Deuteronomy 8, you
may say to yourself my power and the strength of my hands have produced this
wealth for me but remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives the ability
to produce wealth and so confirms his covenant which he swore to your
ancestors as it is today. Matthew 23, last one. Woe to you teachers of the law and
Pharisees you hypocrites you give a tenth of your spices mint dill and cumin
but you have neglected the more important matters of the law justice
mercy and faithfulness you should have practiced the latter without neglecting
the former. Let us pray. God of every tribe every tongue every color every
nation thank you for the scriptures they have persisted throughout the millennia
that we have them to read and consider I pray that today whatever you have for us
to learn that it would stick that would become a part of the framework of our
faith that our faith will become stronger as we become more like your
son Jesus amen. So whether God wants us to use our finances to worship him isn't
really the question I think that as you read throughout the scriptures and you
see all the times that it's referenced it becomes pretty obvious that this is
part of the deal of worship as well week I don't want to say as strongly say like
all there's no debating it I'm just saying that it's pretty clear that God
wants us to use our finances to worship him you can read the Bible and see it
over and over and over again that it is one way to worship God and to honor God
and to use on others as well money isn't just for your bills y'all just like
anything money is a gift from God and it's a tool that can be used for his
glory so bivouacally speaking it's normal to plan how to give back to God
as an act of worship and use part of our finances as well to help others now
where it gets messy is when we turn our finances into a matter of shame or guilt
I think in the ten years of being a church and preaching on Sunday mornings
and those of you who have been here since they only can probably contest this
we average less than one sermon a year that's specifically just about finances
it's we don't focus just on it very often one of the reasons is we know that
historically there's been a lot of shame and guilt attached to the subject of
finances and so we want to be purposeful about how when we talk about it so
specifically our giving shouldn't come from a place of shame shouldn't come
from a place of guilt it should come from a place of readiness of alertness
of awareness because all of those things are worship if we're gonna give God all
of our attention and all of our affection we will inevitably develop a
level of alertness and awareness of the needs that are around us and that will
translate into what we do with our finances to be clear if you haven't
noticed already this isn't only about what you give back to a church that's
not what worshiping with our finances is about listen again to what Jesus said to
the religious leaders you give a tenth of your spices your mint your dill and
cumin but you have neglected the more important matters of the law justice
mercy and faithfulness you should have practiced the latter tithing without
neglecting the former of caring for people that were around you these
religious leaders knew the scriptures had taught them to tithe to give 10% of
what they had the temple and so they did to a fault to into the tiny minutiae of
everything they possibly could but things like mint dill cumin I thought
about getting like the little herb rack and bringing it up here and like forcing
you out like hey let's all divvy this up into 10 you're like imagine weighing out
your dill to try and figure out what's 10% of the dill in this bottle these
things mint dill cumin they weren't things that the scripture had explicitly
asked to be tithed from so what's happening here why are they doing this
Jesus is telling these religious leaders I know what you're doing it's easier to
give a tenth of all you have to the temple even the little things the
scriptures don't mention then it is to pay attention to the needs around you
and to give to both it's the only giving to the temple gave them permission to
ignore the needs of their neighbors well I already gave the church I can't help my
neighbor gave them permission to neglect the needs they were coming in contact
with and y'all we need to watch out for the same thing last month as a church we
were able to give a total of three hundred dollars to different people in
the congregation that shared that they needed something for what was happening
in their life you shared your finances we met budget we had above and beyond
they shared their need and we were able to help that's awesome that's important
I would love for us to do that every single month because it means that we
did something together but that doesn't absolve each of us from the individual
opportunities God may offer us between Sundays between offerings that's why
Jesus told these leaders leaders do both give to the temple yes pay the pastor
salary pay the lease make sure the lights stay on buy those treehouse
supplies all that stuff that's great and give to your neighbor love the Lord your
God with your whole self and love your neighbor as yourself give to God and
give to your neighbor when our kids get a check from doing something if they get
paid for something other than like the allowance they get from us we've always
been like all right so this is the percent we want you to save set aside
this is the percent that is safe for you to spend but we want to encourage you to
give this this amounts to God and save a little let's let's save this to the side
so that you can give it to a friend or someone that you think might need it
because we're not supposed to are called to only give to God through the local
church but to give to the people that we come in contact with it's past Wednesday
and Thursday Cindy and I took a little day and a half trip to Chicago to see
one of our favorite bands Josiah in the Bonnevilles most of you if not all of
you never heard of them before unless I mentioned them to you back in 2006
Josiah was earned seven two thousand seven he was 17 years old he was on
American Idol he did not make the top 20 but he did get a record deal out of it
he proceeded to get three record deals that all went bad and during COVID he
started posting music every day on tik-tok he had moved back to Tennessee
he'd been tending bar he'd been working at an Amazon warehouse and he started
posting every single day and back when Taylor Swift's antihero came out I was
like oh that's that's catchy I like that and so I looked it up and one of the
things that came up was antihero parentheses country version and I was
like okay Taylor's all right she put out two versions okay and I clicked on it
and it was Josiah he cut he within like two days he had covered the song and he
had changed the melody and he changed the rhythm a little bit and he'd made it
more of a country Americana song and I was like oh I dig everything about this
everything about and so then I just went down the rabbit hole of his music and
listen and listen and listen and you can ask my children Wallace now knows all
the words to all the songs because it's the only thing I've been listening to in
my car for like a year year and a half so we went to see Josiah in Chicago and
he says that we're the Bonnevilles okay so he's Josiah we're the Bonnevilles
that makes sense here's thing you you probably already know this you cannot go
to Chicago walk or drive the streets without interacting with people that are
in need and people that are asking for help and I had cash in my pocket so we
helped a couple different people that asked I'm not telling you so that you
pat me on the back because it's not the point and it wasn't that much I'm
telling you to illustrate something else Paul said in 2nd Corinthians each of
you must give as you have made up your mind not regretfully or under compulsion
for God loves a cheerful giver I have a personal conviction of what I think God
wants me in my family to give back to him through this local church when it's
time to give here I'm going to give what I plans to give here so what I gave in
Chicago what was that that was mint that was dill that was cumin now someone could
say that's fine for you you had extra mint and you're right I had money set
aside for this trip but I also knew before I went that I would be prepared
to give to people that I met it was a decision that I had made because I
honestly asked myself without shame listen without shame how could I justify
pulling together enough money to stay in Chicago for a night to pay for meals
while we were there to pay for uber rides to and from the venue to buy the
kids cupcakes from a bakery and bring them back to not only buy the tickets to
the show but because we wanted to tell him we were so proud of him we bought
the pre-show ticket so that we could meet him in person how can I do all of
that but not have a few dollars to meet Jesus on the corner someone asked me for
help it was an easy decision because it was a decision that had already been
made when it's a hard decision listen when it's a hard decision is when I
haven't already set in my heart what I am willing to do with what God has given
me when it's time to give to church it's only a hard decision if we haven't
already talked to God about it when it's time to give to a neighbor it's only a
hard decision if we haven't already talked to God about it God cares what we
do with our money because everything we have comes from him all the way back all
the way back into Deuteronomy one of the very first books of the Bible God knew
that it was our tendency to get something and think that it came from us
so he had them write down you may say to yourself my power and the strength of my
hands have produced this wealth for me but remember the Lord your God for it is
he who gave you the ability to produce wealth it's why Jesus said for where
your treasure is there your heart will be also no one can serve two masters you
cannot serve both God and money so Jesus told the religious leaders tithe that's
great that is awesome but don't do that in such a way that gives you permission
to not also help your neighbors the point isn't to only give to the temple or
the church y'all because and I hope this is man this is I want everyone to hear
this because there is a faithfulness to God that can only be found in our
faithfulness with each other there's a faithfulness of God you will experience
in a new and different way because of the faithfulness that you experience
with each other now I need someone that thinks they're strong who thinks they're
strong particularly a child would be great
Kaden you're strong we know that come on up here Kaden and then Wallace you too
buddy you're strong right okay I need you to give two of these to everybody
then to every to anyone that doesn't get those for every two people give them one
of these okay so you're giving two to somebody and you're giving one to every
two people that doesn't already have that okay okay the goal is for you to
have one dollar in your hand okay so I got rolls of pennies that are 50 cents
each and I got rolls of nickels that are two dollars each so the goal is for
every person to have one dollar so some of you can be paired up with nickels
anyone else needs pennies I got a bunch I got bunch I got a bunch of pennies here
you go Jen
my glasses are here you go Alex good hey maybe
all right back there
all right so everyone should have at least a dollar okay there's more here
all right got pennies from Jenny listen Kaden will give you some all right so
here's the rules all right because there's some rules everybody ready for
the rules all right yeah I heard one person say yes everyone ready for the
rules all right everyone's mesmerized by the money right you know so I've never
seen this much money before rule number one no one can leave with nothing you
have been given something by God you cannot leave here with nothing someone
should say amen you have been given something from God you cannot leave the
presence of God with nothing you cannot put the whole roll of coins into the
giving boxes it's not physically possible the rolls will not fit through
the shape the rolls cannot remain unopened you have to open them because
God does not give us something for it to remain unopened
amen you have been given something you cannot leave here with nothing you can't
just absolve yourself from thinking about it by giving it all back to the
church and you cannot leave it unopened my point is this you have to think about
what you're gonna do with this money today and you have to think about it
before you leave this place you have to make a decision you have to make a
decision and listen once you have made that decision it will be easier for you
to do so you might ask yourself what if this will I give to God it's okay to put
some of it back in the boxes go ahead it's gonna be loud and and Andy doesn't
really want to count it but I told I apologized to him ahead of time when I
told him I was gonna do this I said I texted I texted him I said I'm sorry I'm
sorry you might have to count so much but you know what some of you have pennies
you have a hundred it's easy to count out tenths of that you have nickels it's
easy two nickels is a tenth you cannot leave here with nothing you cannot leave
it unopened and you cannot give it all back to God and so now I leave it to you
begin thinking about what you're gonna do because we're gonna share communion
together and we're gonna hear about the connection card and before you leave
this building you have to have decided what to do with what God gave you and I
want you to learn that before you come here again God wants you to decide what
you will do before coming back here does that make sense because we're all in
this together God has not given you something to leave it unopened unused or
left behind amen amen