Rod Palmer
Coastal Family Church
06/10/24
Coastal Family Church Podcast
What Do We Look Like?
[MUSIC PLAYING] Thank you for choosing to listen to this message. At Coastal, we believe in changing and enriching lives through the power of the word. We pray that this message would be a blessing to you. [MUSIC PLAYING] Praise the Lord. Morning, Coastal. Yay. All right. Second edition. First edition, I don't know if I'm going to be able to repeat exactly the same, but the Holy Ghost will give us what to say. And so praise the Lord. Just want to vouch for Nate's teaching on Wednesday. Powerful. Important. It'll be a great resource for the church and our just encourage you. And also those that are coming to have lunch with us. Yeah, there's a lot of food. Please do not avoid the lunch otherwise. I'm going to be eating for a long time. And so, but we look forward to having you guys with us. And those that are coming just, yeah, don't go too far into the swell, because we're going to have to get AAA to get you out of the swell. So, Park, just so that we can at least get one car parked through the dryer, through there, because we're going to inundate the street. Just I think there were about 50 of us for lunch. So it's going to be fun, I believe. It's great, because there's people are visiting and wanting to know about Coastal, which is super fun. I just want to mention something before I jump into the word this morning, is that on September the 18th. We had a meeting here, and about 40 of us were here, and Gavin and John. John Skoltz and Gavin Brettney were here, and kind of led to speak a prophetic word over us as a church. And I just want to elaborate a bit on that, and just kind of set the ground for where we're going as a church. I want you to know that when it's spoken of the church, it means it's affecting the congregation, which means it's going to affect your world, your realm, and those that consider Coastal their home. And it's exciting to what God is saying. You understand that each church has got its redemptive purpose. What does that mean? It's got a focus purpose that God has placed on each church to accomplish certain things. And so there is a redemptive purpose on Coastal, and that's to advance his kingdom with a family. It's from a family that God wants to advance that. And it's going to be spurred on by God's love. It's not going to be a religious thing. It's not going to be a law thing. It's not going to be like a Jehovah's Witness thing that you have to do this so that you can be in the 144,000. No, it's not going to be that. It's because the love of God is so in us. It consumes us that we cannot keep quiet. We've got to advance the kingdom of God, and that's what God is placing upon us. And it is going to, because it's part of the call on this house, it's going to affect your home. It's going to affect your business place. It's going to affect the area you find yourself in. So Coastal is to raise and release the church, the ecclesia, into the workplace to advance his kingdom. And that's exciting because we really want to equip the church to be able to do that. So we need to equip and disciple mature believers, not people that are being tossed to and fro, that could go off into error, but solid people can walk and rightly divide the word of truth so we can communicate clearly and powerfully the kingdom of God. Because the kingdom of God goes into a realm that it affects the finances, it affects the morals, it affects the verbiage in it. I know that when I walk used to walk into certain areas, when I used to work in Metro Cashing Carry as a maintenance guy, they would change their language because they knew where I stood. And it affected them and eventually they would come and ask you, so what is this thing that you have? And that's what happens when you bring the kingdom of God into your workplace, you start infecting and affecting people. And one of the scriptures that was spoken of us, that Wednesday night, as from Isaiah 54 verse 2, it says, enlarge your house, build an addition, spread out your home and spread and spare no expenses. I love that, no expenses. So, because we need to prepare to make ready, make arrangements, make place any quip for what God wants to do, because you realize we're going to be doubling the population of this county within the next 10 years. That's a great problem to have, because we've got more people for the kingdom of God. So, we need to posture ourselves and lean into it. Then, New King Jameson's enlarged the place of your tent and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwelling, do not spare lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. It requires us to do that, because he will bring the harvest. He's bringing the harvest. He wants us to extend the tent picks. And one of the things he's doing, for the past 20 years, we have spent securing the beachhead, Flagler Beach. And so, God has now just released on us the mantle to go into Flagler County and beyond, which is going to allow you, those that travel everywhere, even our James, when he's found all over the countryside now, he's traveling to Minneapolis and to Colorado, all those places. He's the carrier of a mantle that God is anointing and placing favor on. And I want us to lean into it as a church and believe God for it. We have established the beachhead by purchasing land, purchasing property, baptizing believers, well over 100, I think are going tomorrow, like 150 people we've baptized over the seasons, and established a good report in the community we have. And so, we've done that. But God is releasing this favor on us for the county. And I want us to realize that there's fears that God wants us to influence with the kingdom of God. And it's family. He wants us to influence that with the kingdom of God. Government, education, business, which is economy, economics, science, the church, religion, and the arts. Those areas God wants us to be those people that carry the kingdom of God into that place. And people that call themselves, well this is a Christian HVAC company, or this is a Christian plumbing company. No, no, it's a plumbing company that has Christians in it. That's how we need it. It's an HVAC company that has believers in it. And so, we got to realize we're the carriers of the lighting, we're the carriers of the salt. God has placed us on us, and so we want to lean into that. And so, here we are graced to reach people, receive people, raise people, and release people into an area where the kingdom of God has to advance, which is so exciting. That's what happened in the days of Jerusalem. All of them were huddled together. And then God said, listen, if you don't scatter, I'm going to have to bring persecution on you guys, and you'll have to scatter and move the kingdom of God out there. So, let's spare ourselves the pain, okay, guys? Let's just get out there and let's do it, because that'll be wonderful. Anyway, more details about the kingdom, which is righteousness, peace, and joy, is to follow. And before I get into the message, I just want to put a note out there that March the 1st and the 2nd, we're celebrating 20 years as a church. So, we want to kind of do something more elaborate. More elaborate that weekend. We're going to have guest speakers in. We're going to have a good time. So, I want you to put a big red pen circle around and say, plan nothing, because we're going to celebrate that weekend. So, please would you do that for us, hallelujah. So, let me pray for you, because I really want our hearts to be posh, to hear the heart of God this morning in the message. So, Father, thank you. Thank you that we get to hear your word. Your word does not return void, but it encompasses all that it's sent out to do. Thank you for your incredible refreshing when the word comes. And Father, I thank you that that brings life and light and hope and love to us as we hear it in Jesus' name. Amen. We've been talking about walking with God. God created the whole earth, and he walked with Adam and Eve, and then sin came and that stopped that kind of relationship. And then, but Jesus came. Precious, it all back for us. And now we have the privilege of walking with God. In his righteousness, we can walk into the presence of God and walk a relationship. And so, I've titled the message today. What do you look like? Bring the emphasis on who do you look like? Who do you look like? Who should you look like? If you claim to be walking with God, we should resemble the one we walk with. We should be. And we should be, look like or eventually look like. And that's what happens when we come to the kingdom of God. It works from the inside out. When somebody comes and gives their life to Christ, there is no outside change at all. But slowly as God starts adjusting the inside, there is a, it permeates to the outside, and then we see the change. One Corinthians 1533, it says, "Bad company corrupts good character." And we always see that with the, you congregants warning your children not to play with the pastors' kids or the elders' kids because we don't want them to be mischievous. But the office is just as true. Good company corrects bad character. And so when we're hanging around and we're walking with God, it affects us, it changes us. And so when I came to Christ, I got information that caused me to realize and it became revelation. And when I grabbed the revelation, I responded to it, it became transformation as I journeyed with the body of Christ. And so God wants to affect us and infect us. In Hebrews 12-2, it says, "Looking unto Jesus, "the author and the finisher of our faith." In the military, there's a, there's a, when you're marching as a squad, you always have a right-hand marker. He's mostly about the height of Jeff, wherever Jeff is. He's always the tallest person in your squad and you keep them in the corner and keeps everything. God have mercy if you do not line up with that boy 'cause you'll have the wrath of the sergeant upon your head. But we have a right-hand marker and Jesus is our right-hand marker. And that's what we need to keep as we walk with him. And 'cause Jesus says that living word, he's the word that became flesh. He's the one that we model after and we get infected and affected by. In 1 Corinthians 11, it says, "You should imitate me "just as I imitate Christ." There's Paul saying, "Listen, I'm on walking with Christ "and I really want to encourage you. "If you can't get it in the pages." Remember, they didn't have the Bible like we have. He said, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ." And so you affect those people around you as you walk with God and you resemble and reflect God. So God comes and affects you and infects you. God rubs off on you, it's so cool. It rubs off on you and it's not a bad thing. Now you become like him, it's like the moon. The moon has no light of itself, generates no light of itself, but it's just a reflection of the sun on it. And we all like that. We're the reflection of the SON upon us because we are in that place and it rubs off on us. It's the relational proximity that affects us. And so like Moses, when he was up on the Mount Sinai getting the tablets and getting the 10 commandments and stuff, he hung out there for 40 days. And when he came down, he was glowing so much that they had to put a veil over him because he frightened the people 'cause the presence of God does that. It kind of gets in your face and in your space and kind of challenges your conscience. And so it's, and that's what happens. But church, we have the Holy Spirit. Who's, helps us walk with Christ and look like Christ. We've got to realize that, embrace that, lean into that and allow it to happen. Galatians 5.22 says the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. You understand the tree doesn't, you don't see the tree sweating to produce fruit. No, it doesn't. It happens naturally. And that's what happens if we're walking with God, there's a fruit that naturally happens in our lives which are listed here, which is, so what do you look like? What do you look like? Do you look like the world or do you look like the living word? Because, and we have some people that are very skilled. They look, they're chameleons. They're very adaptable. So they look just like the world when they hang out the world. The language, the jokes, the behavior, everything else. And then they come into church and praise the Lord for us to have things going. Everything's good. Yeah, yeah. But God's saying, listen, if you hang out with me, just can't do that other stuff anymore. Just, it's gravel. So the fruits of the Holy Spirit is to get us to resemble God. Now there's a word called virtue. Virtue is a quality or practice of moral excellence or righteousness. That's kind of a godly thing. And it's the thing that kind of, we need to look at, oh, we haven't had a rub off on us. And godly, there's a godly virtue that we need to look at today. And it's on generosity. I feel that the nature, God's nature is goodness, but the family of that is generosity. I consider it brother and sister, consider them twins, goodness and generosity. And we cannot deny the generosity of God. You cannot deny that. And it's good for us to focus on the generosity of God. Because the generosity of God is something that needs to be part of our dominion as we call ourselves believers that walk with God. And so the generosity of God's forgiveness. Can you imagine how much he's forgiven us? His kindness, his faithfulness to all generations, his provision, his love here has, and it's just not a small measure. It's pressed down, shaken together and running over is the kind of generosity our God has. I mean, yeah, we have one little corn, but when you plant it, it comes out to cobs of corn. I mean, you got, that's just the nature of God. You see it in nature all around the abundance of God. The kingdom people should be and must be known as generous people. If you consider ourselves walking with God, we need to be considered as generous. Generous is showing a readiness to give or do more than strictly necessary or expected. Marked by abundance, show of kindness. That's what the generosity is. And if you find yourself being stingy, a miser, or a trader, you just enlighten you what a trader is, if I have you for dinner, then you expect me to have you for dinner. It's like, that's trading. I'm giving, expecting a return, that's a trader. If you look, if you're like that, I just wanna say you don't look good. You don't look good and you don't look of the characters of a believer. You're out of step with God. You're out of step and my suggestion is, hang out more with Jesus. It'll help that, it really will. In two Corinthians nine, seven, it says, "For God loves a person who gives cheerfully." I would say that he'd give generously. 'Cause that's just, God says, what? Now you're representing me and displaying my nature. We are not only talking about monetary and material, generosity here. Your generosity can be extended to one's kindness, friendship, attention, patience, all these things you can be very generous on and a very busy world where you don't have time, you don't even make eye contact with other people. It is good to be generous with your character and your nature and your personality with people. It is needed out there, in England, they just started a new government ministry of loneliness. There's so much loneliness, they have to create things that would help that. So we need to be generous. We have a resource that we can be generous from and that is our time, our talent and our treasure. Those are the three things we can draw from to be generous. And God says, listen, I have given you time and it's a very, very valuable commodity time. By the time you just showed time to a person in need or a situation and it's just amazing the return. So what do you look like? Are you generously looking? So let's look at a life of generosity. What is a picture of a generous life? I've picked two quickly to talk about and one is the widow with the mites. Where is my mites? Here's my mites, all right? Oh yeah, I've got three mites here. They're little things and they, I don't know. I think they're made in China. (audience laughs) But the widow came and gave two mites while Jesus was watching, let me put this word, how people were giving, not what they were giving. I mean, preachers have hammered us as a congregant and say, Jesus is watching when you're giving, what you're giving. No, no, he's really looking how you're giving. It's important because then he allows Holy Spirit to come and talk to you and say, listen, how you're giving needs to be corrected and been aligned with the kingdom of God. So here in the temple, Jesus was watching how they were giving. You understand in the temple there were 13 places where there would give and being a theocracy, the taxes and the tires were brought to that and administrative from the temple. And so there were brass funnels that they would put their offerings in and it's like the funnel that you see on those old windup vinyl records that you could steer the sound everywhere. It's one of those, it's brass. And the rich people would come in and when they would then turn into the smallest denominations like $100 they'll turn it into quarters and they would pour it in there and keep pouring it in there so that they could make a big huge hoopla of how much they're giving. And Jesus is watching this whole circus. He's watching this circus. Those guys, those givers were called zingers. I love that, I thought I'd just throw it out there. It's like, so it's something like a slot machine that's just paying out a jackpot and just ringing it. But let me just read the scripture to you in Mark 12, verse 31. It says, "Now Jesus set opposite the treasury "and he saw how the people were putting money "into the treasury. "Many who were rich were rich put in much. "Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites "which made up a quadrant." So he called his disciples to himself. Jesus never lost out on a teaching moment. Told him to his self and he said to them, "A surely I say to you that this poor widow "has put in more than all those "who have given to the treasury. "For they all put in out of their abundance, "but she out of her poverty, "put in all that she had, her whole livelihood." Word gave everything. This is what it's like. It's like you going to cash out everything that you have out there. Your house, your 401k, you sold your clothes, your car. You walked in here just with the clothes on your back and whatever you converted it into a check and you put it into the coastal offering. You walk out here just with the clothes on your back. That's the kind of giving that widow did. Heavy, seriously challenging. Reminds me of my mom. My mom was not left with much of a pension. I think about $125, which really would run out quite quickly. And every time we'd go and visit her, she would make sure we would leave with something, either some cookies or some candy. And most of the time we found out later that she would sell the one of her five or six dresses so she could buy candy or do something, but we never left my mom's home without anti-handed. And that's the kind of generosity I'm talking about. The widow, and I want to just tell you about this widow. This widow's account of this story over the years has caused the non-wealthy to contribute billions to church and charity. Here I am now, how many years later, quoting this very story, and this story's been quoted and preaches and it has moved billions of people into being a generous people, the story. And so the culture of the day was only the wealthy gave, but here this poor lady, this widow, gave everything she had her two mites. The other story I want to talk about is the good Samaritan. The good Samaritan, obviously there is a guy that James Downford, Jerusalem to Jericho, he gets a bunch of attackers rob him, take his stuff, leave him half naked, half dead on the side of the road, and who comes past the first is the priest, walks past on the far side and headed on out and didn't do anything. The Levite came, passed on the other side. The Samaritan comes, he pulls up, he takes wine, washes his wound, takes the oil, and puts it over so to minimize the infection, puts him on his meal, and goes to the inn, and gets him comfortable there, and then leaves enough money for two days' wages, he leaves there so that as he recovers, and then he said to the guy, "Listen, if they don't recover "in the amount of the two dinners, "I will come back and pay the rest." Now I want to talk, is that a generous person or what? He had to take the time, I'm sure he had things to do and places to go, and he stopped and he gave and he was generous in his giving, generous. It's not how much is given, but how much is being sacrificed? When we look at generosity, how much is being sacrificed? The attitude is more than the action, 'cause if we get the attitude right, the action will automatically be okay. It's our attitude. And generosity is not about how much is in your pocket, it's how much is in your heart. And that is where God comes in and he deals with that. So we have a picture of a generous life. Let's look at the potential of a generous life. You may not like this one, but anyway, we're gonna swing it at you as well. Generosity in Jesus' day was reserved for the wealthy, the powerful, the famous and the affluent. If you're in the Roman system, you're born into a place of affluence and generosity. But God's word communicates that God's kingdom is a generous kingdom. And that means that anybody of us that are born again are in his kingdom and that we are generous and are blessed. Now, America's been always known as a generous nation, amazingly generous as people. And I can vouch for that, for your government, for our government. Our government is very generous. Gives a whole bunch of people all over the planet. It's been found wanting in our own nation, but I wanna just say, we've been labeled generous. And so I wanna just put some facts out there. According to Google, 345 million people are in America. I presume, according to Google, they've added the 11 million that have since been added. But I wanna just say that 85%, some 290 million Americans give less than 2%. Give less than 2% to any church or charity. So yes, we kind of titled ourselves as a generous nation, but not about the church. Let's pop that bubble. In USA, only 20% of all church attendees bring the full tithe to the church, 20%. But I'm talking about the potential. The potential there is in generous believers. If the 80% that are not given they're bringing their full tithe, do bring their full tithe to the church. Let me just tell you what would happen. All hunger, preventable diseases in the world will be altered within five years. Water, the world's water and sanitation problem, would be solved. All the world's mission, Joel, you'd like to hear that, will be fully funded, fully funded, and there will be $100 billion left. Do you understand the abundance that's sitting in the body of Christ that we can draw on? And I wanna just say, if you're looking to the government to be the savior, it's not gonna happen. If you're looking to fairer to being the solver of all these situations, no. It was Joseph, the man of God, it's gonna be the church that's gonna come. And you're gonna see from what the tragedy that has just taken place, how the church will rise up, watch, watch, watch. We're talking about the potential of the believer, and sadly, the giving in the church is going less. Why? Because the advertising out there is getting better, and it's getting us into greed and not into the need. So we gotta just check ourselves at the gate, check ourselves in that little app that quickly buys everything. Because I'll tell you what God is saying, I need you to steward the funds better. So anyway, I better move along because that's getting a little prickly and quiet in this Presbyterian church, so we'll move right along. So let's talk about the path to generous life, a path. You must realize that generosity is the way of the believer. If you consider that you walk with God, the natural outworking is generosity. I wanna bring some pointers just about the way of generosity. We need to change our thinking on money, about money. Re-think ownership. It is not our money. Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You came with nothing, you will leave with nothing. There is no pockets in the casket. I've checked, I've seen open caskets, I've done a few funerals, there's no pockets in there to take anything with you. So I wanna just tell you, we are managers of God. On his behalf, we're managing his finances. And if you think you're such gung ho that I made this money, well, I wanna know who gave you breath in your lungs, who gave your body and your brain to function like it does, and the talent that you have, and you can take all the glory and take all the money. I want you to think about it again. It is not, it's his. But he's so kind, he says, listen, I just need you to administrate 10% to what I need for the kingdom of God, and you can live on the 90%. Now you talk about a generous God, that's a generous God. I like that. So, and you know, it's worth nice. It's easy to give away somebody else's money. Hey, man, so nice to give somebody else. It's like Jerry, you know, just taking Jerry's, I know that he's always, I don't know where he finds it, but he's always got cash in that wallet. And I take his wallet, and I start taking it from him, and I start spending and doing it. You don't understand, I'm stealing. Because it's his wallet, and it's his money, and I am using it for my gain, for my pleasures and my purpose. I need to ask God, say, God, listen, how do you want me to spend this? He has told me that I won't go hungry, I won't go without closing, I won't have, I won't go without a roof over my head. Outside of that, I need to ask God, okay, God, the rest of the finances, what do I do with it? So we just need to change our thinking about money. We need to expose our heart to the brokenness of humanity. This will get us. If there's an ounce of Jesus in you, it's gonna get you. It's easy to complain about what we don't have. But I'll tell you what, look at what we do have. Every one of us, no matter what your bank account is in this room or in the Son of my voice, I want to tell you that you are on the top 2% of the wealthiest people in the world. That's where we are in reality. So we're very rich, very rich in comparison. And so our heart needs to change. There's some of the guys that I've seen the recorder, their heart changer, Charles Finney. He's the guy that made a lot of money with Judy Freister. And he's the need of humanity broke him and he just started giving. And he's one of his sayings is, "The last check I write must balance." And I think the last check he wrote was $7,000 before he passed away and he had given $8 billion away. And so then that Chuck also, or Charles, when he influenced Bill and Melinda Gates. Or no there, that name. And he was in Africa and saw tuberculosis. He saw malaria and he realized, "Men, we can do something about it. We can fix this." It came back and established a foundation, put a hundred million into it. And to date, they have given away out of that fund $36 billion to that situation. Melinda got a note from her mother, Mary, just before they went to, before a wedding. And in the note, it says, "With much as given, much is required." And they walked into that. And so, you know, I got to commend that. But Albert Lexi, at 15 years old, started a shoeshine business inside a Pittsburgh hospital. And Charles, $3, the shoes brushed. He did it for 32 years. And eventually, he had to shut it down because everybody started getting fancy suede shoes and all those things, so he didn't get to that much business. But as he walked out the door, there was a free care fund that he contributed to while he worked there, from the age of 15, for 32 years. And when he walked out the door in his final day, he had contributed $202,000 as a shoeshine boy, which averages out at $526 a month. It's amazing. But the brokenness of humanity, that free care fund was for those people that came to the hospital desperate for it and could not pay for it, that fund paid for it. And he contributed to that. It's just amazing when you get to see the brokenness of life. When we went to Sri Lanka with Dave and the team, and you saw lives broken there from that tsunami. It's what you're seeing on television, our fellow men and women up north and their families. It affects you, going to Haiti affects you when you see the brokenness of man. The other point I want to say before you start doing the big things, could you just do the little things like picking up the tab or checking on the gratuity? How are you? You know, they even printed out in their seat now, so you actually can see how much you can give them. You can be very stingy, or you can be very, very elaborate. But anything, but let's just start the little things. And also understand, I'm not only just talking about finance, I'm talking about your time and your talent as well. Here are stuff that you can do that can be generous and help people, and so I just want to say that. The other thing I want to say is that start giving more so it is uncomfortable. Start giving more so it's uncomfortable. You know, we can just mosey along being comfortable. And God says, sometimes I want to give, I want you to give. So we came to the States in 1986, and Nathan and Daniel were one and two years old, and we landed up in Tulsa, and Billy Joe Daltrey was having a building program because he was renting the Ora Roberts Big Huge Auditorium. And the day we arrived, say, he's doing this grand campaign to raise money. So we left Zimbabwe with four $100 travelist checks. And by the time we got to sit down and enjoy the service, we were down to our last $100 travelist check. And the people that promised to look after us said they couldn't look after us, so we had $100 between us in Tulsa and our home back in Zimbabwe, and we got a one and two year old little guy, and we here for a year. And so I look at Val, Val looks at me, so we say, what do we give? And we sense God say, are you going to eat your seed, or are you going to sow it? Yes, talk about being uncomfortable. We had a pocket of change after we signed that check-off and gave it. God was checking us out. Five days later, I leave Valery with a whole bunch of macaroni, those instant macaroni things, whatever you guys come. But it changed for some more, with my two kids, and I go up to Minneapolis, Minnesota to go with Robert Lear and then go minister. First church we go into, I'm busy packing his books out, selling his books, and he starts the meeting, and I come back, and the pastor says, right, come up here. First he was startled, he was expecting me to be black, because I was came from Africa, and then I was. He said, but your wife must be black. Your wife must be black. No, my wife had permed here as well, so that kind of messed his whole theory up. And he says, Rod, come up here, because I just sense God's telling me that we need a minister to you. And so people came and prayed and everything. I didn't know that they had an offering basket at my feet. And so they get, and when I finished, they had given us, I think it was five and a half thousand dollars. That was four days later, after handing my, so being uncomfortable when you're giving, I want to just tell you God is faithful to the end. Okay, be spontaneous, guys. You've got to be ready. When you come up to the traffic light, and that guy with a little board there, is it awkward, and you don't want to lay eyes on him, you kind of just know, and you're all your excuses why you shouldn't be there, and you should have a job, and this, and so, but sometimes you need to say, "Holy Spirit, what do you want?" And let's be spontaneous. Yes, we plan, and we budget, and we do all the responsible things, but sometimes there's a spontaneous giving that needs to happen. Now, when you go into the grocery store, and that person is saying, "Can I have something?" Stop for a moment, and just say, "Holy Spirit, yes or no, what do I do, what do I give?" That requires you to carry some cash on you, which is quite a difficult thing nowadays, because everything's credit card. And these people that are holding these boards, they need to have one of these cards or you can just swap. It'll just help, just help, Holy Spirit, sort of things out there. Okay. Pray about being radical. Man, we've got to be radical believers. Mission Myers up in church, Christ for the nations in Dallas, Texas. Now, this guy was radical. So, his mission, he's lived buffet, and God would entrust mega money with him. And he would go into the foyer, 'cause my brother-in-law insisted they went to Bible school there, and they would sit there, and they would go into the foyer, and there's pigeonholes where they communicate with the students what their bills are, or assignments, or whatever it is, and they would just be praying, and they would have money put into envelopes, different amounts, and they would go and just put it in there, and just know that they were being led. And it's just a real blessing. And God would pass tens of thousands of dollars of money through his hands, 'cause they could trust him. They could trust him. It could be a conduit for God. But one day, his wife comes home, and he had given his lounge suite away, he's dining room suite away, he's bedroom suite away, and all his appliances in his kitchen. He says, "What did you do?" He says, "Well, there's a couple of two doors down "that just got married to actually have an empty home, "nothing in it." And I just felt God say, and so I did. Well, it wasn't two hours later, knock on the door, and a Penske truck arrives, and it was all the furniture they gave away was in the truck. A businessman said, "Listen, we bought this stuff, "we actually don't really like this, "we're gonna change it for something else, "but we thought mission mires would know "what to do with this." And he, they slept in a bed, but at night. And that is radical. That's giving, that's crazy giving, man. And some have decided to live on 10%, and give 90%. Oh, may I get to that place? I would love to get to that place. And why do they do this? Because they have the same. I live simply, simply so others may simply live. And it's something that we gotta realize. We wanna try and keep up with the Joneses, but can't we just live simply so we can get to others that they simply can live? Says we are on the top of the food chain here. Paul sums it up like this, and then I'll bring my last point to you. In Timothy, chapter six verse 17, teach those who are rich in this world, not to be proud and not to trust in their money. So he's talking to all of us in this room because we are rich. Which is so unreliable. I want you to understand how unreliable money is. Zimbabwe, the currency devalued so much and you woke up in the morning, your bank account was zero. And that happens twice in your life. You're thinking, what is happening with this economy? I have multiple trillion dollar notes in my side of my bed at home. Money, my brother-in-law and sister, they saved up, they had about 10 million each, when the Rhodesian dollar was stronger than the American dollar. So they were good to retire. And by the time they left, they could not buy two tickets with the money they had in their bank. Some trust in horses, some trust in chariots, but you best be trusting in the Lord your God. So you best be knowing God's economy and we best be living by it. So where was I in my reading here? Hallelujah. Their trust should be in God who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. He's not a stickler, God wants us to enjoy things. There is written, Paul writes it, tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this, they will store up their treasure as good as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life. I'm telling you what? The treasure they're talking about is my next point. Make sure you're moving towards your treasure and not away from your treasure. And what is that treasure? What is true treasure? What has eternal value? What qualifies as eternal treasure? It's the souls of men and women. That is true treasure. And when you're generous, you're moving towards the treasure. It's because that treasure, when affected, goes to heaven and it goes to your account because you affected them with the kingdom of God. You're generosity touched in. And God is saying, move towards your treasure because we can become so selfish. And I want to just tell you that selfish is an, it's selfishness is a cruel God. It's never enough. It's never enough. And so we need to be generous with our time, our talents and our treasure and reach lost souls. Pursuing souls with our generosity. Amen. We believe. We believe as the recipient of God's generosity. You think of salvation and the generosity that came with that at, of sending Jesus to come and save a miserable, sinful world. The generosity there is overwhelming. And all of us are sitting in the generosity of God, his forgiveness and his kindness and his grace. And I wanted to affect us so that we be like them, be like him and be generous. We need to be that. And the plus side is we have Holy Spirit to help us. We understand I can't do this Christian thing outside of Holy Spirit's help. My soul power is pathetic. I cannot keep up to it. That's why religion is such a drag. 'Cause I mean, you've got to do all the do's and don'ts. And then I just can't make it. But Holy Spirit with Christ, Holy Spirit helps us and powers us to be generous, to be selfless. So what do we look like? 'Cause when we're generous, we look more like Jesus than anything else. And I hope that we would have a look at that in our lives. Can I, let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you that by your Holy Spirit, you're wooing us to be those generous people that would infect and affect people around us because we will reflect your goodness and your kindness and your grace. And so Father, thank you. Thank you. Just for a moment now, us, Holy Spirit, how's our generosity? He's wooing us. He's not condemning us. He's just wooing us and saying, come, we can do better. We can do better. Some of you in the sound of your voice haven't experienced the generosity of God and received Jesus Christ as a Savior and Lord and brought Him into your life and have this Holy Spirit come and walk with you and talk with you and help you be the full expression of who you should be. 'Cause God designs you for the purpose in mind. But when you come to Christ, that starts being walked out in your life and God starts taking you on that journey where you are fulfilling your purpose. That sweet spot in your life. And if that's you and you haven't invited Jesus into your life, pray with us today. I'm gonna ask the church to pray out the Lord just to encourage you to pray. But pray and invite Him into your life. Say, Jesus, I believe that you're the Son of God and that you died in that cross for me. Today, I receive your generosity of forgiveness and I receive you as Lord, as my leader, as the forgiver of my sins. I accept you in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. Amen. Oh, coastal, I preached this but I wanna just tell you you are a great church and you're great in your generosity and your kindness and you're giving. I'll watch how you give of your life and your warmth and your friendship and help people and our kind to people and have people around for meals. I wanna commend you. But I know Holy Spirit wanted a spur us on. And what I'm gonna ask now is for us to turn our hearts to the plight of those that have been hit by the storm. And like I said, let's stop looking to the government to try and help. Let's be the church. Let's be the generous ones. As an organization I've been walking with for the last two years and I wanna use them as a vehicle to give. I want to give to the convoy of hope but I want you to hear from the founder Dale Donaldson. And he started the convoy of hope 30 years ago. He was a reporter and he walked into a room where Mother Teresa was and he was ruined forever. He went home, took his old, his dad's old truck, loaded up anything you could find and drove into town and started helping people. Now 2.8 or $2.5 billion later it gets to the source. So I have a clip I want you to hear. I want you to listen to and then I'll come up after this. I want you to know that the truck you see there, not bought with the money that we're gonna send or anybody sent before, corporations buy those trucks. Drivers, not employed by hope. They volunteers. The maintenance on those trucks, from corporate companies they do the maintenance. The fuel in that truck, everything. The only thing that our money goes to is the contents in that truck that's going to its destination. That's how they run their system. There are stewards of note and I want just to listen to his heart cry and that's a video straight from where Helena's victims are. - Hello, this is how Donald's son of convoy of hope and today I'm standing in Swan and Ella in North Carolina which was devastated by Hurricane Helene. This is already considered one of the worst natural disasters in American history. I've traveled to hundreds of disaster zones including Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti and the tsunami in Indonesia and this is one of the worst I've ever seen. This will be a long-term response for convoy of hope. We plan to be here for many months helping survivors put their lives back together. And as the country mourns the lives that have been lost and as families search for those who are still missing convoy of hope response teams and volunteers from churches and businesses are on the ground in places like this. Hard hit areas. We're distributing food and water or emergency supplies in six states. North and South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Virginia and Tennessee. Now to date more than 100 semi-truck loads of supplies have been distributed and many more truck loads are on their way. I just wanna say on behalf of the families and children ravaged by this hurricane, thank you. Thank you for partnering with us to bring them help and hope during these uncertain times. In the coming weeks, undoubtedly news coverage of this tragedy will wane. But the needs of those affected will be ongoing. With your help, we pledge to be here with a long haul. But God bless you and thank you again for caring and giving. - Hello, Leah. So coastal, I wanna be able to ask you to get uncomfortable and let's give. Give to right, C-O-A-H on the memo or convoy of hope on your memo, whether it's in PayPal, whether it's, if you cash, put in an envelope, put a convoy of hope on it and you check with the memo, convoy of hope on it. But I want you to think about how we can give. And we wanna do it with a discomfort on our comfort, because we need to, 'cause that's the right thing to do. And I'm asking you to ask God. And so I'm not gonna, we're not passing any baskets. We've got the offering boxes on the left and right of the sound desk on the left and right of the stage. Put it in there, if you need it, it will start, it'll, we will start ferrying the money soon as it starts happening. But I'm gonna, the whole of October, we're gonna press towards sending, sending, sending, as much as we can. Marie, at least when you stand. Just stand, don't worry, you look very beautiful, my darling. Yeah. So, Marie's going up with a trailer, when there is a list of things, baby stuff, essentials that need, and so it's, but maybe just easier. You talk to her, I've got a list on my text message, but it's print so small, I don't be able to read it. But it's a list of stuff that we can bring and she can take what she can, and maybe we can get other words out to people running up there and we can take some of the immediate needs. You know, when there's no diapers, and there's no formula, and there's nothing I get, and I can, I can, I can bite the bullet, but when I see my kids needing help, that's tough. So come church, I'm not gonna do anything except tell you, we're gonna send, and convoy of hopers our vehicle that we're gonna do the passing through, 'cause I know where it goes, and how efficient they are. To me, pray for you, and church, you're fantastic. You're the best. I am the most blessed pastor on planet Earth with you guys. Father, thank you. Thank you that you, by your Holy Spirit, are leading us to help in this time of need. And so Father, we thank you that we can get uncomfortable in our giving today and the days that lie ahead. Thank you that some will have to rearrange their budgets and their priorities and their, you know, their outlook on what they're gonna be spending on, because Father, this is the need and it's now. And so Father, give us ears to hear what your spirit is saying in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. Kate's Cafe is ready for you. Coffee and needs.