More Than Enough | Week 2 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

foundational truths to understanding resources from God's perspective

that we've got to kind of agree upon before we talk about, okay, so what do we do? How do we how do we manage this stuff? The first foundational truth about resources that you'll find in the Bible is that God is the owner. K. The scriptures are abundantly clear that you and I are not owners. And this notion that we have that we're, you know, we're self made and that we did this and we saved this and we built this. When you become a Christian and you give your life to Jesus, you begin to realize all of this was always God's, and the perspective that we've got to fight for is is remembering

that I I I have not created this, that this is God's. He's the owner. Psalms chapter 24 verse one says that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. The world and all of its people belong to him. Hey. God is in control. God is the owner. And the idea that we've made this ourselves,

the Bible actually disagrees with us. Deuteronomy chapter eight verse 18 says that, but remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. Even our ability, which some of you, I genuinely believe you have a supernatural

ability to generate wealth. Again, I'm not gonna talk about it a ton today, but I'll I'll lean into it next week. If God has given you the ability to generate wealth, I promise you the next muscle that he wants you to learn is how to give money away. And that if you don't learn the the the practice of generosity

and all you do is you earn the the blessing that God is trying to put into your life will actually become a curse and not a and not a blessing. But we've got to remember that even the ability to generate wealth is because God gave us the idea. The only reason you woke up this morning with breath in your lungs, the scripture says, because God, with his grace,

he gave us another opportunity. All of this is God's. It's all his, and all he wants us to do is to get in alignment with his heart when it comes to resources. So if God's the owner, the logical question is then, who are we? What are we inside of the kingdom of God? The Bible refers to us as stewards. K? The second foundational truth about resources is that you and I are not owners, we're stewards.

This is a term that is kinda unique to the Bible when it comes to our relationship with money, but stewardship

a steward is somebody that has temporarily been entrusted with something. I don't know if your parents had a conversation like this with you when you were a teenager. Maybe you were a better teenager than I was, but I remember my parents sitting me down and going, Daniel, we just wanna remind you, k, you don't own this house. This is not your house. My dad was like, this is my house. You temporarily occupy a room in my house. This house was here before you. This house will be here after you. And if you keep going this way, you're not gonna be in this house for much longer. Right? And eventually, one of the best moves my parents made was forcibly asking me to go find another home to live in because I refused to live under the rules of that house. My parents would tell me. Right? It's the conversation some of you need to have with your teenager. Like, bro, this isn't your house. This isn't my house. You are just temporarily here.

This is the this is the picture

of you and I on this earth. We're not the owners. We're stewards. K? This comes from all types of places in the bible, but I think most clearly is first Corinthians chapter four. Paul says that this is how one should regard us. This is who we are as followers of Jesus. We're servants of Christ and we're stewards of the mysteries of God.

Who are we? We're servants and we're stewards. We're not owners. We're managers. We've temporarily been given an assignment. And what what does a good steward do? What is God looking for in faithful stewardship? Verse two says, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found. Here it is. Here's the key, Faithful.

What is God asking for you and I to be with his resources? Faithful. So the question is is what does faithfulness to God look like with our resources?

You gotta understand that all of us at end of our life, we're gonna stand before God. The Bible says that God is going to judge the living and the dead. Every single one of us will give an account for our lives, and God's gonna ask us two questions.

First question, what did you do with the invitation of faith that you were given to the person of Jesus?

And sometimes when we're, like, thinking we're really smart, we'll go, what about the people that are in those like outlier villages in the middle of nowhere? What what about them? Well, the scriptures actually tell us that everything is crying out to God's goodness, that even nature declares a glory of God's goodness. And so that there's not a single person, the Bible says, that is without an excuse, that all people have an opportunity to know who Jesus is. And so the first question,

when you get to the day of judgment, is what did you do with the invitation of faith that you had through Jesus? Second question, what did you do with the resources that God entrusted you with, that he asked you to steward while you were on this earth? Were you faithful

or not? See, we don't talk about this a lot in church. The the first the answer to the first question is what gets you in the door of heaven.

But again, the second answer the second question that you answer, it will begin to determine what your experience is in heaven. And Jesus talked a lot about this. Don't store up your treasures and riches here where moss and rust can destroy, but store up your treasures in heaven. We gotta understand how you steward your resources here will determine what your experience in heaven is like. Faithfulness

is a big deal to God. The third foundational truth about resources is that stewardship of the little is what determines if we can steward a lot. See, what God is doing when he gives you a little is he's waiting to see what will you do with it. And every single time you're given resources,

it's a test. Remember, we see this again. This is all throughout the scripture. This principle, Jesus, before he fed the 5,000, he took one of the disciples, pulled him to his side, and he said that he he asked him, hey, how do you think we should feed these people? And he says, Jesus, he already knew what he was going to do, but he asked the disciple this question to to test him. He wanted to see, hey, what are you gonna do? Are you learning the lessons? And this is something that's inherently built into all of us. K? Again, my my life is interesting right now in that as of a month ago, I had two teenagers, a 16 year old and a 13 year old. Newborns were in like a distant rearview mirror. Right? No baby stuff in my house anywhere. Then God's got a sense of humor. We shared a couple weeks ago. We've adopted this little boy, and it's been amazing. And I now have a one month old living in my house again. And everything is in a bit of a tailspin. Right? We're getting bottles. We're getting all this stuff. Our walk in the house looks like shrapnel hidden. Bombs have gone off because one little person creates a a train wreck everywhere.

And we're having to realize we had to go buy some plates like this. Right? That we had to get the little kid plates again because there's a progression when you look at the the cutlery that we entrust little kids with, you see the progression

of what I think is a biblical principle. Right? When a kid is getting their first plate, we don't even trust them with this one. We've gotta get one that, like, suctions to the table. Right? We're like, no, fool. It's gonna stick right there because I I don't trust that you can't throw it off the table. And then eventually,

over time when they prove their faithfulness, we go, okay. You've moved off of the suction plate and now now you can move the plate wherever you want on the table. Right? But what happens? Eventually, when you're sitting there with a kid and you're like, hey, gotta eat your vegetables. Like, I don't wanna eat my vegetables. They throw it across the room

and we give them a plastic plate because we know this is all they can be entrusted with. But it's a big day in the in the, like, progression of adolescence when you show up to Thanksgiving dinner, and instead of getting one of these, you're given one of these and you're invited to sit at the adult

table. Come on. For some of you, Thanksgiving this year will be the first year you're invited to the adult table in the name of Jesus. And what happens? Proof of your of your maturity

is that you're entrusted with something new. But you've seen it happen before. And, again, if I was in my own building to demonstrate it for, you know, dramatic purposes, I would I would share with you that what happens is sometimes you you give a kid a plate thinking that they're more more mature than they are. And then they get frustrated about something, and they take the thing that you see that's massively valuable. Like, this is grandma's china. This thing matters. It's a family heirloom, but you've given it to somebody that doesn't understand the value of it, and they take it. And out of their out of their immaturity, they take it, they throw it, and they break it. See, this is what God is kind of waiting for. He's waiting to go, can I trust you with much? And there's this kingdom principle that says, you you prove your faithfulness with much by being faithful with the little right now. And it's a beautiful picture if you think about it. K? God is up in heaven. He has unlimited resources. And if we really genuinely are at the beginning of another major move of God's spirit, it is going to have to be funded somehow. That we again, we get all weird talking about money,

but money and missions go hand in hand. God's purposes are accomplished through finances. K? Vision moves at the pace of generosity.

It tells me that God is up in heaven with unlimited resources looking and waiting to go, who can I pour out blessing on that is proved that they will be faithful with what I give them? And the greatest indicator of future faithfulness is past faithfulness.

This is a word to all of you who are trying to find a spouse today. K? How do you know who they're gonna be in the future? Look at what they've done in the past. You're not gonna change them. You're not that powerful. But I believe that God can change people's hearts, but you need a season of watching them actually live

differently. Because their current their current stewardship, their current reality is the greatest indicator of who they're going to be in the future. This is a principle that's all throughout the Bible. But Jesus says this in Luke chapter 16 verse 10.

Says whoever can be trusted with very little again, love that he puts the description in there, very little, because some of you were like, that is an accurate picture of my bank account right now. Right? It's not just little, it's very little. I'm here to tell you don't despise the days of small beginnings. God can do amazing things. He said, if you can be trusted with very little, you can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?

Says that maybe the prayer of asking God for a better paying job, a a fuller bank account, a nicer car, a nicer house, maybe it's the wrong prayer. And maybe the prayer should be, God, would you teach me what faithfulness and stewardship of this season looks like?

God, would you make me an unbelievable steward of the little you've entrusted me with now? Why? So that you can trust me with more later. Here's the principle that God is trying to get into our hearts is that how you handle anything is how you will handle everything. How you handle anything

is an indicator of how you're going to handle everything, and God is looking. He's trying to figure out who can I trust with kingdom resources? Being a steward is an incredibly big deal. So what do we do? What what is our responsibility

as stewards? There's three practices that I think the scriptures talk about. Three kind of secrets of good stewardship. The first one is as stewards, we're going to make a decision to spend wisely.

Again, most of us as Americans living in the East Valley Of Arizona in 2025, we don't have an income problem. Now, again, I know it's a broad stroke, and there are some people who need who need to get better paying jobs and need more income. But large stroke, big picture, most of us are not walking

in God's favor and blessing with our finances because of a lack of income.

Most of us are not walking in God's favor and blessing with finances because of a spending problem. We can't live lives of radical generosity because of a spending problem. I wanna share some statistics with you. Did you know that last year, Americans spent a $100,000,000,000 on lottery tickets?

You know what Dave Ramsey calls the lottery? He calls it a tax on the dumb. K? Now I don't it's not my words, but it's just what Dave Ramsey says. And I know you've got friends that are like this, and maybe this is you. You're like, why only play when he gets over a billion dollars?

Do you realize the more people that play it, the less likely your odds are to win it? You know, the data says that you have a higher probability of getting struck with lightning twice in one day than you do of winning the lottery. But what do we do? They go, but somebody's gotta win it. You're like, yes. And 999,000,000

other people are just gonna throw away money. There was $2,000,000,000 last year spent on unused gym memberships. You know who you are. K? Do you realize the big box gym, how EOS, the reason they're able to charge $9 a month, the model is built on 80%

of the people that have a membership never actually using the membership. They don't build enough gyms for all the members to show up and use it. If they all did, they would be host.

But they know that most of us with good intentions are gonna buy the membership every time we see it on our credit card. We go, I'm gonna I'm gonna get there eventually. Go to the gym or stop paying for the membership. There was $15,000,000,000

last year spent on bank overdraft fees. There was a billion dollars that were spent on crystals that were designed to keep people calm. You know what keeps people calm? Having money in your bank account. K? That's what keeps you calm. $12,200,000,000

spent on Halloween decorations last year, which I know as Christians throws us all into a tailspin. All of this all of this erroneous spending, it for the first time pushed American credit card debt over the collective number of $1,000,000,000,000. We are the first nation that is saddled with debt,

and yet we are the richest nation in the history of the world. We don't have an income problem. We have a spending problem. You know, they say that on average, we'll see 10,000 advertisements a day.

And most of our money, go, why don't I ever have any money? It's because you buy everything on the TikTok store. Right? Like, you gotta stop shopping on TikTok. Right? It's it's all cheap China stuff that's gonna break once you buy it anyways. Like, you gotta you've gotta start making a decision

that you as a steward of God's resources, you're gonna make a decision to spend

wisely. Jesus said, Luke chapter 14 verse 28, suppose one of you wants to build a tower, won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? What he's saying is if you're gonna build something significant, you don't just haphazardly

stumble into it. You stop and you calculate and you think about, no. I'm gonna build a plan. I'm gonna spend wisely. Here's what I'm trying to say to you this morning. God wants to build something significant through your life. And the reason that you're potentially not walking

in the fullness of God's plan for your life is because you've spent and wasted the resources that you're supposed to be stewarding on frivolous stuff. You're buying stuff that doesn't matter to impress people that you really actually don't care that much about.

And I just wonder what would happen if the people of God began to see our resources as more than just money that we spend. No. These are these are holy decisions.

These these decisions matter more than we could ever possibly imagine. And God's kingdom on this earth is going to be moved forward at the pace of our generosity.

And if we're stewards, we're gonna to give an account for this one day, then we're gonna make a decision to to spend wisely. How do we do it? You start by doing what your grandma said. You gotta get on a budget. You gotta get on a strict budget and make a decision. I'm gonna prespend

all of my money. If you're married and you don't have a budget, I'm telling you, you're setting yourself up for more financial fights than you could ever imagine.

Why? Because in almost every marriage just like mine, you've got one person that's a saver, and you got one person that's a spender. And you you fight it out over which one of you is more holy than the other one. What a budget does is it lets you once a month sit down and predecide where your money's gonna go together.

And it makes not you the bad person, it makes the budget the bad person. It's like, hey, honey, I would love for you to play golf again this week, but the budget the budget says you can't. Right? It's the budget's fault. It's it's not mine. We make a decision to pre spend the money because we know that God is trying to build something big with our life, and we not we not we might not be able to predict the future,

but we can plan for it. And we can make a decision. We're gonna spend wisely. Here's the principle because every spending decision is a spiritual decision. When you understand that I'm I'm a steward of God's resources, the God of the universe has taken his money, his resources, and he's given them to you.

Every decision you make to spend it is actually a deeply spiritual decision.

So what do we do with all the important financial decisions that are in front of us? We make a decision that if it's important, we're going to automate it. K. Again, I talked about this last week. What what do we do? Well, the scriptures are clear that we give to God out of our first and out of our best. And because it's important, we automate. We don't wait to feel like we give to God. No. We set up a budget. We plan for it, and then we automate it. Just like every other important bill in our life, if it's important to us, we automate it. The first step of secret the first secret of good stewardship is to spend wisely. The second one is you gotta make a decision to save to save diligently.

K? If nobody has told you, you and I are not the US government. We are not Congress. We do not spend money that we don't have. We can't just continue accumulate debt at a ridiculous rate.

At some point, our kids are going to inherit a governmental system that is so in debt that servicing the debt is gonna be what the bulk of our GDP goes to if we keep going at our current rates.

And we might not be able to change the government, but we can change our homes. We we realize, again, the biblical principle, Proverbs chapter 21 verse 20, is that the wise have wealth and luxury. Fools spend whatever they get. Only fools spend every dollar that comes in.

Here's the biblical principle. How do you order your finances? The most simple thing that I've learned that has radically transformed my finances.

I make a decision that God is ultimate in my life. It's all his. It's all worship. So what do I do? The first fruits of my life, God wants my first. What I talked about last week, more than my wallet, God wants my heart. How does he get my heart? As I give him my first. I give 10% of my income back to God through the local church. I then

I save 10% of my income, and I build a budget off of 80% of my life. Why? Because here's the principle.

I might not be able to predict the future, but I can plan for it. Here's how it works for us practically as a church. Okay? Right now, our church, you look around this 12:00 service is our least attendant of all four services that we run. We had 770

adults at just our 09:20 service today. And I don't say to pat ourselves on the back. I say it to say we're kind of freaked out. Right? Because we know that this building, it's not going to be able to fit us much longer. We we can only run probably maybe one more service, but four service is probably the max we can do here. We can try to go to some overflow stuff, but we know we've got to get to a building eventually.

This building, because we only rent it for four hours out of the week, pay about $10,000 a month, which compared to the next building that we're looking at, is probably about a tenth of the cost. We're about to be spending a $100,000 a month. But it would be crazy if we built a budget off of $10,000

a month if we know that God has a bigger vision for our lives. So how have we been running our finances as a church? We've built into our budget a $100,000 a month building cost for the entire year. But we know $890,000

of it is just going to savings every single month. So we're sitting in a spot where we've got a decent amount of money in savings because we know that day is coming where we're going to need it. I can't predict the future, but I can plan for it. And I'm not going to let the vision that God has given us be stopped and hindered because of my foolish spending and my inability to save and steward God's

resources.

God wants to do something big with your life. Might not be able to predict the future, but I promise you, you can plan for it. The reason that we spend wisely and save diligently is so that we can do the third thing. This is what stewards of God's money get to do. This is where it gets really fun for us, is that eventually we get to sow

generously.

I believe that one of the markers of followers of Jesus is that we should be the most generous people on the face of the planet. And this is already true when you look at the data. Christians give more money to nonprofits than anybody else. We adopt babies at four times the rate of the national average. Like, Christians understand that we have a responsibility.

But I just wonder what would really happen to our ability to be generous if we aligned our finances with God's heart and God's vision. The question is is how generous should we be? I'm gonna spend all next week talking about that. CS Lewis has a quote that I love. He says, I do not believe that one can settle how much we ought to give. I'm afraid that the only safe rule is to give more than we could possibly spare.

I want you to live a life of radical generosity to where we begin to really live into the kingdom principle that it's more blessed to give than it is to receive.

I want my life to be marked by just a few things when I get to the end of it. As I think about the end of my life, I want people to go, man, Daniel was known for loving Jesus and putting the weight of his life on that thing.

Daniel loved his family, he loved his church. And he was one of the most generous people I've ever met in my life, not just with resources, but with time, with energy, with influence. So we've got to be the most generous people on the planet. I heard somebody say it once that you make a living by what you get,

but you make a life and you leave a legacy by what you give. And I'm telling you, when you begin to experience walking in God's vision for generosity, it it changes it changes everything

for us. So practically, what do we begin to do? This is what talked about a bit last week. Paul says in first Corinthians chapter 16 verse two that 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 so that when I come, no collections will have to be made. How do we practically live this out? What does this practically look like for us? As we make a decision that ordering our finances in the way that God has asked us to do it,

it matters. How has God asked us to fund the kingdom of God on the earth today? He says that all of us have a portion to give. What is the portion? It's proportional to your income. He says, pick a percentage of your income and set it aside and give it to God. This is the beauty. God's not asking us all to give the same amount. It would be impossible.

But he is asking us to give the amount from the percentage of sacrifice that it is to us. Right? That we all give the same. We give a percentage. We set it aside, and we give it we give it to God. I think there's two goals when it comes to generosity. What what are the goals for a follower of Jesus when it comes to generosity?

And again, if you don't have goals for your your your finances and for your, you know, generosity, I I would set them just like any other goal in your life. I think growing in generosity, something all of us should aim to do. The first goal for every follower of Jesus is to get to a place where we're tithing 10% of our income.

And again, I know for some of you, you're just joining us, I spent an entire message talking about last week what tithing is. Tithing is not something that we have to do to get to heaven. Tithing is something that we do because we believe it's how we unlock heaven into us. You can go to heaven and never give a dollar.

But I promise you, you will not walk in the fullness of God's plan and vision for your life here if you don't walk into obedience with what he said. And tithing is a principle that we see all throughout the scriptures, but it should be a goal for us. For some of you, it feels like a really distant goal. That's okay. Start somewhere. K? Start with 1%. Start with 2%.

And then the second step of the goal is to realize that tithing is actually the floor.

It's not the ceiling. We should all get to a place where our second goal is to give away a crazy amount above and beyond that. Again, that's what I'll talk about all all next week. What we're asking the church to do, make it really practical. We're asking every single person in our church. We did a comprehensive study of where we currently sit financially,

understanding that we're about to walk into something that's gonna be much more expensive than what we're currently sitting in. We we've done a study. K. We've averaged 31 to 3,200 people a weekend. You take that. You divide it by the average income in the area, which is $50,000 a person. Household income is a $100,000.

You know, you can find yourself somewhere on there. We're asking every single person in our churches to make a decision to move one percentage to the right. K. We've got a graphic here that kinda shows this. You can find yourself up here. On average, when we ran the numbers for our church, we know that lots of people give more than this. But when you average it out across our church, the average person gives 1.7%

of their income. So that says that if we all make a decision to increase by 1%, we effectively can increase our bottom line budget by 50%. And I just wonder what God could do through us if we had 50%

more resources, 50% more staff, 50% more outreach, 50% more opportunity to reach this community with the gospel. We're asking everybody to just go, let's go 1% more. We can all start somewhere. We've got these little key chains that our ushers are passing out on your way out. Again, just as a physical reminder to say, hey, this is a big deal. We wanna grow in generosity. We're stewards, and this matters to God, so it's gonna matter to us. So grab one of those on your way out. Again, I said last week, if you make a decision to give to God for a year and your life is not more blessed, you can find pastor Josh, and he'll refund you all your money. K?

Here's why all of this matters. I know some of you are sitting here like, man, I just I came here to support a baptism. I don't know why you're talking about this stuff.

I need to remind you, here's why we have to talk about this. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 13 verse five that you gotta keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have.

If we don't order our finances the way that God has told us to order them, our hearts will move to becoming lovers of money. Money is a terrible god, but it can be a great tool and a great resource.

And for some of us, man, that is a word. You've gotta stop being a lover of money and learn to become content with what you have. You know Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes, he's talking about he's the guy that was the wealthiest guy in the world, had all the wisdom the world could ever offer.

You know what his summation is about life? A guy that had more wives, more resources, more cars, more houses. They say today's in today's economy, he would have been worth over $1,000,000,000,000. His summation of life is here's how to find meaning

in this life. He calls it the life under the sun. He says, learn to be content with your lot in life, and it will open up the windows to a life that you could only possibly imagine. But we live in a world of comparison, and God invites us into a world of contentment.

We've gotta fight our heart's natural tendency to move towards being a lover of money, and we've gotta see money as a tool to use to expand God's kingdom. But here's the truth,

that when you and I lack satisfaction in God, we start to pursue satisfaction in stuff. For some of us, man, we just keep buying stuff, and we convince ourselves that when we when we get the next car and the next house and the next boat, then I'll finally be satisfied. And I'm here to tell you satisfaction for the soul,

it can only be found in God.

Last verse, last story I have for you is found in Luke chapter 12, probably my favorite parable that Jesus tells when it comes to this idea of money. I think it's a beautiful picture. Jesus tells the story two thousand years ago, but it could be as if he was telling it today. Jesus then tells him a story.

Here's a story to sum up all of God's principles when it comes finances. He says a rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. And he said to himself, what should I do?

I don't have room for all of my crops. He says, I know what I'll do. Here's the brilliant idea. I'll tear down my barns, and I'll build bigger ones. Then I'll have enough room to store all of my wheat and other goods. Then I'll sit back. I'll post on Instagram, and I'll say to myself, my friend,

you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry.

Is that not the American version of what true life is? To have so much that you just sit back and you're just enamored by it, and you invite your friends to come over and just stare at it, and you go, man, let's just eat, drink, and be merry. Is that not the goal? But Jesus says, but God said to him, you fool.

You will die this very night. And then who's gonna get everything you worked for? Yes. A person is a fool to store up earthly wealth, but have but have not a rich relationship with God. Jesus himself says that if you all you have is earthly wealth, I'm telling you, you're a fool. But notice what he doesn't do.

He doesn't rebuke having earthly wealth. And this is relationship that we have with money in the church today. We think that people with money are bad, and it's just not true. I I say to most of my friends that have more resources than I I will ever dream possible of having. I go, man, I wouldn't want your lot in life.

I wouldn't wanna have to stand up and give an account for what you're gonna have to give an account for. It's a burden. Just like me being a teacher of the Bible. You know the scripture say that not many desire the office of an overseer as a teacher of the church? Why?

Because I at the day of judgment will be held to a higher standard, just like somebody that has more resources. It's not bad to have money.

We need people in the church to have money to advance God's kingdom on this earth. But if all you have is earthly wealth and not a rich relationship with God, I'm telling you, you're missing it. But there is a beautiful invitation to submitting your life to God,

to surrendering your will to his, getting in alignment with his vision and his heart for your finances that potentially not only unlocks purpose and meaning for you, but it also potentially unlocks more financial blessing and provision than you could ever possibly imagine.

And I have people all the time that ask me, Daniel, are you a prosperity gospel guy? Like, no. I think there's a lot of things wrong with the prosperity gospel. But I'm also not a poverty gospel guy. I think there's just as much wrong with the poverty gospel. I'm a provision gospel guy, and I believe that God wants to provide for you, that God wants to be your provision and your sustenance. And when you begin to realize that as I surrender every part of my life to him, he blesses me beyond my wildest dreams. And there are I would venture to guess there's two groups of people that are sitting here today. There are people here who have lived into that and believe it. And you you have the heart posture says, man, I I can't out give God. No matter how much I try, God continues pour out blessing and favor on my life. Or there's a second group of us that sit here and your heart right now is fickle.

Your heart is cynical. You're looking and thinking going, this guy, what what's he talking about? And we sit here and we live in this posture where it's just like, no, can't. We have closed handed. That's why the theme verse of this whole thing is that God is going to make the lives of the generous bigger and bigger. And he actually says he makes the lives of the stingy

smaller and smaller. But the choice the choice is ours. The choice is yours. Which life do you want? God's blessing, God's favor, or your control in your lordship?

Here's why I love baptism Sundays for us. Because what we're about to watch today is people physically going through the process of surrendering their life to Jesus. Why do we put them underwater?

Because it's symbolically, it's uniting with them with Jesus's death. We don't put them under dirt, but we put them underwater to go, this is you are now dying, and the old person that you were is gone, and what's gonna come out of that water is a new creation in Christ. But it's an invitation to surrender. It's not a one time decision. It's something we do for the rest of our lives. Here's what I'm asking you guys to do. If you guys would stand to your feet with me.

If you're getting baptized this morning, you can make your way over. Get in line. Start getting lined up to get baptized. Every single one of us here, though, we're about to watch miracles

in motion. Motion. We're We're going going to to watch watch people people go go from from darkness to light, from death to life, from being lost to being found. And what's amazing is you read the Bible, you realize that in heaven,

there's no such thing as salvation. There's no angels that are lost that are being found because it's only angelic beings. And the Bible says there's only one thing that up in heaven makes the angels celebrate. And it's it's a single person on earth that's a sinner that comes to know who they are in Christ. And what happens is is this says that the the angels begin to rejoice

as lost people come home. And so what we're gonna do is we're going to actually join in with the celebration of heaven, and we're gonna join with all of the angels in heaven who are rejoicing with our loved ones and friends who are making decision to be baptized today. Amen?