[00:00:00] You.
[00:00:04] Good morning. Good morning. All right, so if you are a little bit new with us, this is a wonderful week to be here. We're taking a one week break from our series on traps. I know you're like, but I wanted to hear you talk about demons. So we're going to take one week off of that and next week come back. We're going to talk about false teachers, false prophets, things of that sort. It's going to be a delight. But this morning, this is going to be a great opportunity for us kind of as a church family, to have some pretty candid, I think, exciting conversations about the past, the present, the future. So welcome. If you're new with us and if you are a village church family, let's jump in.
[00:00:46] The most stressful day of the year for me and my family is February 1, every stinking year, specifically at 08:00 p.m. Because that is when registration opens for summer family camp at Upper Peninsula Bible camp. And I want to just tell you this, it is cutthroat. You miss this registration by seconds and you're out. And if you happen to know the director of the camp, our former youth pastor, Matt Soules, and you call him up and say, hey, buddy, I might have missed registration by, I don't know, like 13 seconds. Could you bump me in? And he's like, no special favors. First come, first serve. And many of you know, the experience of being just a little bit too late. It is gut wrenching. Now, here's the deal. Family camp, you know this.
[00:01:45] If you've been, you know exactly what it costs. You know how far away it is. Now, here's what I can do with family camp. I've been enough. We've gone every year since 2017, except for Covid 2020.
[00:01:57] I know exactly what it's going to cost my family. I know what the food is going to cost, the gas is going to cost, the extras are going to cost within, like, 40 or $50. I can budget an entire vacation. It's wonderful. Now, here's the deal.
[00:02:12] My family. We can afford to go to family camp. And the reason we can afford to go to family camp is because, very simply, there are two pieces of information in my life that we know for certain or with high certainty. Number one, we know our expected average of our monthly expenses. We know this by month. We know this by quarter, because it's the same thing every year.
[00:02:40] The second data point that we know is we know our expected family income. You take either of these two data points away, strategic planning for your family becomes a guessing game at best. Right now, imagine with me, your family grows by one kid every year, and the kids you currently have are outgrowing their clothes one time a year. Some of them are growing pretty quickly, and they're outgrowing it two times a year. And as they get older, they cost more and they eat more. Amen. From every mom and dad in this room. Right? Kids are so expensive.
[00:03:17] And for fun, you're like, let's have another one. And then you find out, oh, no, we're having triplets.
[00:03:25] Oh, and add on top of that, inflation. Yay. It might take a little bit more work, but I can still plan if I know the same two data points, the expected average of our monthly expenses. I've had a couple of kids now, so we know what new kids cost. We kind of get a general vibe of what this is going to be and then our expected family income. These two things are essential for any level of strategic planning in your home. So let's bring this home to village church. Every one of you should and do rightly expect even better, require from our elders excellent stewardship of the financial resources that we all give. Now, I'm going to ask you to say amen quite a bit in this sermon, more than usual. Amen.
[00:04:19] You should rightly require wise spending to accomplish our mission.
[00:04:25] Intentional savings for all the what ifs, strategic planning for the future. And all of this is doable if we know our expected average monthly expense as a church, which we do. Praise God. Thank you for our finance team and all of you who work behind the scenes. And number two, our expected annual church income. As the church grows, these two numbers become even more important. I want you to imagine with me for a moment, what if your income wavered month to month by 20%, 30%, 40% or more? It would be impossible for you to strategically plan for anything.
[00:05:14] And this is what's happening at village church. I want to show you a couple of charts that might help get our head around this. This is our 2023 2024 budget. That is the red line stable. And what this actually does is looks at our 2023 giving and our 2024 giving by quarter. What you'll notice is that every year for the last couple of years, I come to you and say, hey, giving was good. And then all of a sudden it dropped at a huge rate. And then you respond and go, because we're a church family, we have open dialogues about this. You're like, oh, we need to address this. And then you do what? What's happening this year is that now these conversations are having to happen on the very front end of the year. And so here's what you have. We are roughly $15,000 per week under our budget for 2024. I mean, the moment this year hit, it went boom and it tanked. Right? Usually this happens in q two. Now it's happening literally right away. Now, there are a whole bunch of ingredients that probably go into making this happen. And I want to share with you six kind of things that are converging that are all adding to this. Number one is inflation. Everything is more expensive in your home. Amen, if you really want to say amen to that, but amen. And it's the same here.
[00:06:34] Economic uncertainty. This is very real.
[00:06:38] People moving out of state, and with them, they're going to new churches. They're taking their tithing. They were giving here, giving that to different places, but they're going to states that have lower taxes.
[00:06:50] Number four is unusual growth that we've experienced as a church over three years. And what would happen before pre Covid is that giving usually lags growth by about a year. Post Covid, it's now one to two plus years that the giving catches up to the growth. Translation, people don't start giving when they attend for one or two or more years.
[00:07:16] Reason number five, more spiritually young christians, we've seen more people with spiritual interests than ever before. And most people who are kind of newer to the faith or maybe growing for the first time spiritually, have never sat through a sermon on giving. This actually might be, for many people, the first sermon they ever hear on giving, generosity, or anything of the sorts. And we do not expect people who are brand new in the faith to have a biblical theological view of generosity, let alone one of radical generosity. Most people also, they don't have a theological understanding of what it means to financially support through tithes and offerings, a local church.
[00:07:58] Reason number six is increased, erratic giving. What happens, whether we like it or not, is that people tend to take away from their tithe when they overspend in their personal lives, when they are about to go on vacation, or if they feel uncertain about the future. And so what happens is that people generally assume, like, hey, village church is going to be fine. They've always been fine. And if they have a need, they're going to tell us. And that is all true.
[00:08:27] But when 20 or 25% of your church do that all at the same time, the implications are pretty palpable. All right, so to kind of get our heads around some things that God is doing in this church. I want you to see a few more charts. This is our weekly women's bible study average. And you can see this last 1117 women average over the years of our men's engagement. And I think you'll start to see a pattern and trend. Here's village kids. By the way, this is just averages. There are some weeks we've had pushing up to 200 kids on a Sunday. Forge has been super exciting to see. 43 kids in 2021, 60 kids in 2022 and 2023, we average 83 students. Amazing to watch God grow. Our student ministries. This next chart tracks our average Sunday attendance in January. So what's funny about January is this thing happens every year and they're like catastrophic snowstorms and freezing cold weather. So there's always like a week or two in January where actually attendance can cut by a third or more. It's been very consistent year to year. You get your regular weeks and then your freezing cold weeks. But what this does actually show you is on the ground kind of what's happening here. 405, 480. And then in the last two weeks, we've been in the mid seven hundred s on a Sunday morning.
[00:09:56] This next chart, which kind of brings a lot of this together. The red line is our attendance, which is going up. This is from 2023 to 2024. The gold is our budget goes. It's pretty stable. Come to the budget meeting next week. We're going to have a riveting meeting on money, budget numbers. It's going to be delightful. You'll love it. And then the blue line and the bars are our giving. So you can see the church grows, the giving goes down. Now, when your family grows and you have more kids, do you need more money or less money? Typically the answer is more money. There we go. So add to all of this. We are out of parking space. We are out of foyer space. We would love to go back to two services with lots of space between the services for everybody to connect.
[00:10:42] We would love to continue to grow small by starting a third village church location. The amount of you who travel over 20 minutes or more just to come to church is amazing and we really would love to see this happen. The world is very different. Pre Covid and post Covid, you are experiencing this in your home and your businesses.
[00:11:06] What it takes to plant a new church or location post Covid, let me just give you kind of a high level view of this. In order for a self funding, self sustaining church, we need about 200 people to be able to send them out from the village church of Bartlett. Those 200 people are going to be givers. They're going to be people who serve. And so if we're going to start a new location, what that means is we have to be able to send out a lead pastor and probably a couple of other staff, plus 200 people, and not jeopardize or tank the sending location. You can see how that works. So before COVID actually the numbers were a bit different. You could do it with less people. Things have radically changed, and so that's what it actually takes to do that. We would love to get to the place where we can plan and strategically move in that direction, but we're missing some really important data and information. So this kind of strategic planning where we don't overspend, where we scale our facilities, where we can actually do capital campaigns, where we can launch a third location, is doable if we have two data points. Number one, our expected average monthly expenses. Praise God, we have this. That is under control. Number two, our expected annual church income, which is totally unpredictable, and it has been for the last three years. But we believe we can actually work together as a church with all of you who give and resolve this issue. And I'm going to tell you how we're going to do that at the end of the sermon. Now you have to listen to the rest of it. Okay, so this morning we're going to tackle a few giants. Number one, I'm going to train our body on giving and generosity biblically and theologically. Again, so many people who are newer to church have never once heard a sermon on this. And we want to make sure we are all aligned and we are being trained in the same way. Number two, I want to share with you what's going to be kind of a new way of giving and generosity at village church. So if you are new with us, I need you to understand a couple things. Number one, we do not believe in the prosperity gospel or prosperity theology. In other words, we are not getting rich off of you.
[00:13:30] Number two, we do not believe in a poverty theology or poverty gospel, which would teach that God wants you to be as broke as a joke and live in squalor. Okay? Some of you, he may want you to do that. He will put that conviction on your heart. And so I want you to hear that we're not living in these tensions. We do have this conviction, though.
[00:13:52] We do not believe that you can be a mature Christian without a healthy theology of money and without a radical view of generosity and without a financial commitment. To your local church. Let me just say that again, you cannot be a mature Christian without a healthy theology of money, without a radical view of generosity, without a financial commitment to your local church. So as it pertains on teaching, on money, giving, generosity, there are a whole bunch of tender hearts in the room right now. So I'm going to say the things that I think some of you, if you're here, you're like, listen, I go to village church. Just open up God's word. Tell us what's going on. Stop with all the fluff. I cannot tell you how many people are probably in this room, or we're going to watch this sermon, and they are not coming in here with, like, a really excited heart to talk about money. So for some of you, church hurt is real, and you have been burned by pastors and by money. And you are, like, already a little triggered right now.
[00:14:58] Some of you, you brought your family or your friends to church because you thought we were talking about demons, and you're like, don't embarrass me. I'm going to try not to. Don't want to.
[00:15:12] Some of you, your churches in the past have handled money really, really poorly. We don't want to be those guys. Amen.
[00:15:21] Like, we want to be as transparent as we always have been. That is our goal. We want to honor God.
[00:15:27] As your pastor, I'm in a precarious position, and I like to say the quiet thing out loud.
[00:15:34] My income comes out of your tides. You know this. Everybody knows this. And so I'm in a weird position because biblically and under the commission of our elders, my job is to preach and teach on what God's word talks about. And this is one of those subjects that's like. But you're also getting paid by this. I'm aware of that. You're aware of that. I just wanted to say that out loud. And your job and the elder's job is to make sure that I don't cross some kind of weird, selfish line. I want to be faithful to the word of God.
[00:16:02] Lastly, we are tender to the fact that even though the first part of you to get saved is your soul, for most, the last part of you to get saved is your money.
[00:16:17] So two generosity principles I want to teach on this morning. And here's the first one. This is the principle of stewarding talents. If you have a Bible, open with me. Matthew, chapter 25. We're going to start in verse 14. This is a passage that has haunted me, challenged me, encouraged me over the past year. And typically, when a pastor is going to preach on tithing or generosity, they are not going to go to this passage because it is, comparatively to the other texts, a bit harsh.
[00:16:49] And honestly, the more I was thinking about it, I was like, you know what? It's really only harsh if I'm a jerk. You don't want to be if you're stingy, if you're greedy or you're bitter.
[00:17:08] And I'm going to be honest, I just haven't really seen this spirit in our church. So this is not a spirit I can even remember interacting with. The heartbeat of our church is pretty simple. It's always been, give us God's word without agenda, blunt and clear, so that we can obey and glorify God. And by the way, be patient with us as we kind of figure it out.
[00:17:29] But if by chance, you are here and you are stingy or greedy or bitter, I want to make a request of you. And in all sincerity, I want to ask you, please keep your money.
[00:17:47] No amount of money is worth you feeling used, pressured, or manipulated.
[00:17:55] The only people we want to give are those of you who want to give. Amen.
[00:18:03] So this is not like, I don't want to guilt you. I want to open up God's word. I want to tell you what it says. But the Lord has always funded his vision for this church. We have always had what we need to do to do what he has asked us to do.
[00:18:18] For those of you who don't want to give, the rest of us are literally thrilled to fund the difference.
[00:18:28] That might sound weird. I'm going to tell you why.
[00:18:32] Because most of us were where you are right now.
[00:18:38] And while we work through our stuff, our local church was patient with us, and we cannot control the pace of spiritual growth. But I can tell you we love you. And you are sitting next to some of the most profoundly, incredibly generous human beings that as you work through some of this stuff, they are more than thrilled to make sure that every single person who wants to take a next step with Jesus in this church is able to do that. All right. Matthew, chapter 25, verse 14.
[00:19:10] Jesus is explaining the culture of the kingdom of heaven. And this is a kingdom where our king, Jesus, invites us to steward his resources in his name until he comes back. Verse 14. For it, the kingdom of heaven. It will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one, he gave five talents. This is a quantity of money. It's a good amount. To another two, to another one to each according to his ability. Then he went away.
[00:19:47] He would receive five talents. He went, notice the words at once, immediately. And he traded with them. And he made five talents more. So also, he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent, he went and he dug in the ground, and he hid his master's money. Now, after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them.
[00:20:14] And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, master, you delivered to me five talents. Here I have made five talents more. His master said to him, and you're going to recognize these words.
[00:20:28] Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will now set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.
[00:20:45] And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, master, you delivered to me two talents. Here I have made two talents more. His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. I love this line. Enter the joy of your master. All right, there are some powerful principles I want to draw out. Four on the front end. Number one, God doesn't ask people to steward that which they don't have the ability to steward. Look at verse 15.
[00:21:23] To one, he gave five counts to another, two to another, one to each according to his ability. Whatever God asks you to do or to steward, he has given you the ability to do it. Principle number two.
[00:21:42] God generously rewards those who strategically invest their resources in his kingdom. Look at verse 21.
[00:21:53] His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a little.
[00:22:01] I will set you over much. Here's like a good general kingdom rule.
[00:22:06] God rarely gives great kingdom responsibility to those who do not steward well, the small and quiet things.
[00:22:17] Principle number three, the heart of God is greatly delighted when we wisely steward his resources for his kingdom. Look at verse 21. His master said to him, enter into the joy of your master. What's interesting is that the first two men, they considered it and that you can just read their tone in the text, especially as you compare it to the third person. They love their master. They were delighted to receive these talents, to steward them, and to grow their master's kingdom.
[00:23:00] Principle number four. We don't get to choose what God asked us to steward, only whether or not we will steward it. There was no negotiation in how many talents each person got. But everybody got something, and they weren't forced to do it. They didn't get to control how much? But they did get to choose whether or not they would steward the resources given to them by the master. Okay, the story isn't over yet, so let's watch this play off of the third man. And by the way, this is where the text gets a little bit personal and difficult.
[00:23:32] Verse 24. He also, who had received the one talent, he came forward saying, I want you to pay attention to the man's heart toward the master.
[00:23:41] Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. So I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.
[00:23:57] What do you notice about his heart toward the master? Does he love the master?
[00:24:02] No. Minimally, he's scared. And there seems to be even a bit of despising in his heart toward the master. So he went about he was living his own life, doing his own thing, living for himself, meanwhile not growing his master's kingdom in any way.
[00:24:20] Verse 26. But his master answered him, you wicked and slothful servant.
[00:24:26] You knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I scattered no seed. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and in my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. Oh yeah, that's logical now that I think about it. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away. In verse 30 says, cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
[00:25:03] Three more principles. Number one, God will hold every one of us personally responsible for how we steward what he has given us.
[00:25:16] No exceptions. Look at verse 19. Now after a long time, the master of those servants came and he settled accounts with them. Have you ever thought about your resources as an account that is going to be settled when Jesus comes back or you die?
[00:25:40] The giver of your resources has crystal clear expectations that we would invest our resources into his kingdom. But here's principle number two.
[00:25:53] God sees it as evil. This is interesting. I mean, this is why most guys, you see, they don't like to preach on this one because it's like blunt, it goes to the heart of the matter. God sees it as evil to not invest our lives and resources into God's kingdom while we are alive. Look at verse 33. Jesus calls this man who did not invest into the kingdom who didn't steward well, the resources, the worthless servant. Does anybody want to hear that when you meet Jesus and be like, I gave you all of this. I gave you that personality, this family, this place, this time, that job, that income, those energy, those talents, and you just literally used it all for yourself and your kingdom? I want to hear, well done, good and faithful servant.
[00:26:40] Principle number three is it's a grave warning to all of us. It is possible that our refusal to invest anywhere in God's kingdom is a symptom of an unsaved heart. Look at verse 30. Cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Guys, this is hell.
[00:27:03] I am guessing for most of us in this room, if we're like, yeah, I've never invested in God's kingdom for a whole bunch of us. You're hearing this sermon and you're like, I never knew I needed to. These are like new ideas. Like, I would like to obey God. All of us, by the way. I mean, don't raise your hand, but we've all had seasons of selfishness, seasons of building our own kingdom, seasons of withholding. And the grace of God is so incredible, and the holy spirit kind of pricks our conscience and says, it's time to kind of waken from your slumber.
[00:27:35] Benefit of the doubt.
[00:27:38] You might be in a season of struggle or a lack of training. Totally understand. Some of you are in marriages where honestly, you have a spouse who's not a Christian or struggling. And so there's a whole different dialogue going on there. There's a lot of grace when it comes to this. But minimally, your desire, my desire and willingness to invest in the kingdom is a revelation of what's really going on in our heart.
[00:28:03] So let's break through some of the weirdness here.
[00:28:06] You might be hesitant or refusing to support your local church because someone in the church hurt you or because someone in the church you used to go to hurt you. And you might not be comfortable giving at the church you currently go to. Some of you are visiting, maybe from out of town. You have a different home church. And you're like, yeah, I'm not comfortable giving to my home church. So I want to make a big ask of you. I want to ask you to do something really big.
[00:28:38] I want to ask you if you are a follower of Jesus, to give away as much money as you wisely can somewhere else, but I want you to do it to a place that is intentionally building Jesus'kingdom if you're like, listen, I'm just not in a place to give to my local church or to the village church. Great, mature, or maturing christians, radically give, generously give. And if you're not comfortable, I don't want to force you to be someplace you're not, then I want you to look at your money, and I want you to wisely and generously find someone or an organization that is building God, Jesus's kingdom, and I want you to invest there. That might be $5 for you, that might be a lot of money, it might be 50,000, it might be 5 million, I don't know.
[00:29:36] But what I want you to do is I want you to be in the habit of being somebody who is radically generous for the sake of building the kingdom of Jesus. Okay? So this first principle, stewarding the talents, so important you have a talent, you have things that God is giving you to steward. We're going to be responsible. But what I want to do is I want to put rubber to the road, and I want to share with you a second principle. And this is the principle of first fruits generosity. I have been training village church on this principle for 15 years, and it is my joy to do it again and again. The first fruits principle is an eternal principle, meaning it is not bound by the Old Testament or old covenant, or by the New Testament or new covenant. It is a principle for all people in all places, everywhere. Like the principle, do not murder before God wrote in the ten commandments, you shall not murder. Was it wrong, everybody? The answer is yes. In fact, you find it identified before the law was ever given in the book of Genesis, murder equals bad. Now, when the old covenant law was retired and we had a new covenant come in, is murder still bad? The answer is yes. It is a forever eternal principle. And the principle of first fruits is also a forever eternal principle. Now, what is the first fruits principle? Very simple. Jesus expects my first and my best for his mission. The very first offering given ever recorded in human history is Cain and Abel. All the way back. Genesis, chapter four, verses three and four. And let's read this. In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. Great, that's fine. But you're going to notice that Abel's offering was different.
[00:31:22] Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock, that's his first. And of their fat portions, because everybody knows this, the village church, the best part of the animal is the fat, and all fat is the Lord's. And here's what Abel does. Abel brings his first and his best to God. And then it says, the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering. But for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. Why did God reject Cain's offering? Because Cain brought God his leftovers.
[00:32:01] And Cain's like, you're lucky you got anything, God. And I imagine God's like, you're lucky you're still alive.
[00:32:08] But he loved Abel's offering because Abel understood the first fruits principle, that I give God my first and my best for his mission. So what was given in first fruits? Look at Exodus, chapter 23, verse nine. The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. So for Israel, they had the number 10%. That's what the word tithe means for the nation of Israel. They would look at all of their crops, their produce, which for them, that was their money, and they would take the first and the best 10% of everything, and they would bring it to the Lord. The first and 10% of best of their oil, their wine, their grain, their flocks, their fleece, their honey, their produce, anything, any good that they would use for exchanging goods and services, functionally, money. Right. They would bring the first and the best, and they would bring it to the Lord. 10% was the old covenant number. The new covenant doesn't seem to have a number percentage that it connects to it. For some people, 10% might be a little too high or unrealistic. For some people, it is like nothing. And the Lord is like, you're going to give more than 10%. I actually appreciate the lack of a number in the New Testament so that every person can spend time and go before the Lord and say, what does it look like for my life to give you my first and my best? And so what God did, actually, is he created for Old Testament Israel an annual feast, a celebration to make this principle a part of their life and their culture. And what God was teaching the nation of Israel, and we get to see this now, is this principle that my standard of living is determined after my standard of giving, not the other way around.
[00:34:02] And so what we do is we give first and we give God our first and our best, and then we decide our standard of living. Question number three, how were first fruits given? There are two ways first fruits were given, as the name says, firstly, leviticus, chapter 23, verse 14. Anybody really pumped to get back into Leviticus in a little while? Woohoo.
[00:34:29] And you shall eat neither bread nor grain, parched or fresh, until this same day until you have brought the offering of your God. Let me translate.
[00:34:44] I won't do anything until I do this.
[00:34:48] I will not eat and feed my family until I give God what is his. I will not plan my vacations until I set apart for God what is his. I will not buy clothes or hobbies until I give God what is his. First fruits is first, because God knows this, because he made you this way. Whoever gets your first is your God.
[00:35:11] First fruits were given firstly, and they were given number two faithfully. Exodus 22 29, you shall not delay to offer from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. In other words, as often as the provision comes in, we don't delay. Delaying is easy when you think about 10% if you're an israelite of your first and your best.
[00:35:41] But as often as we have provision, which means our giving is consistent and it is reliable, and it flows with the way money comes into our homes.
[00:35:52] Number four, why was first fruits commanded?
[00:35:56] Because we will love, worship, and serve that which we give to first.
[00:36:03] This is the way we are made. God designed us this way, which is why he commands his people to first fruits, because it ensures that if we give to him first, then he continues to have first place in our lives.
[00:36:19] Okay, Pastor Michael, what's in it for me? Why should I give Jesus my first and my best for his mission? Let me just encourage you with three biblical just reasons. Number one, to honor the Lord. What greater privilege could we have than to lift high and honor the name of our Lord? Proverbs three nine says, honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all of your produce. This communicates honor and delight to the heart of God.
[00:36:46] Number two, to mature spiritually, let's go to the New Testament. Two, corinthians 1010, he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, that's God, will supply and multiply your seed for sowing. That's giving in this context. But watch this and increase the harvest of your righteousness. Those who give generously grow spiritually. For those of you who have understood the principle of first fruits and applied it to your life, you've learned this lesson already. For those of you who haven't, you're going to be skeptical about what I'm about to say. The pace of your spiritual growth is more times than not set by the pace of your personal generosity, that if you want to accelerate your spiritual growth, it will happen at the pace with which you release things and give them to God first.
[00:37:40] Number three, why might I do this? To repent of my past neglect. Nehemiah, chapter ten, verse 35. When the nation they came back to God, the first sign of their recommitment to God was giving him first fruits. Here's what they said. We obligate ourselves to bring the first fruits of our ground and the first fruits of all the fruit of every tree, year by year, to the house of the Lord. And then verse 39. This is just a wonderful statement. We will not neglect the house of our God.
[00:38:15] All right, I have three. So whats number one? As a church family, we need to change the way we give so we can plan and steward effectively.
[00:38:28] We know, generally speaking, what to do in the next season to help Villa church grow small. And I want to reiterate this, here's again what we mean. It means that whoever you are, we want you to be able to take your next step.
[00:38:47] You might be a Christian your whole life. You might be have been a part of this church for 51 years from the day of its inception. You might be walking through these doors. This is your first week. You might be having a lot of questions about Jesus in general. You might want to go deeper in the word of God. You might need to be discipled like a million things. And wherever you are, whoever you are, we want to make sure that we are able to help each person personally take a next step with Jesus. We don't want to just pump you through a program. Every single person matters. And so to be able to do that, it is one of our highest values.
[00:39:23] We don't want to be the people who overhire, overextend, overspend, overestimate. Amen. That's not what we want to be. There are two big roadblocks that are getting in our way from planning well, and I think serving you really well to the best of our ability. Here's the first roadblock we are missing. Essential giving data to help us plan our budgets, run more on projection, faith and crossing our fingers than the right kind of data. Here's our current working data. Number one, our expected average monthly expenses. We know this. And number two is erratic, giving patterns that can waiver 2030 or 40% and sometimes more on a month to month or week to week basis.
[00:40:04] The right data is this. It's our expected average monthly expenses and our expected annual church income.
[00:40:12] If your employer came to you and said, I'm not going to tell you what you're going to make, but it's going to waiver between 2030, 40 or 50% week by week. Could you do anything functional? Neither can we. There's our challenge, and what I love is that this data, with a little bit of open communication and collaboration, is 100% accessible to us if we work together. In other words, before we cast vision into the future, we need to do things differently. Now. Here's the second roadblock.
[00:40:42] We have multiple families not giving anything and or regularly. So we need to open up kind of this discussion as a church. Try to be as crystal clear, blunt, direct, like on the ground, as humanly possible. Don't want you to read through anything. You've heard me say this. I want to keep saying it. It costs $2,000 per person per year in a church just to give basic functions. This does not include saving or capital campaigns. If and when a church grows, that's the bottom line. Low shelf number with slim and trim budgets and a ministry that puts people first and doesn't just pump everybody through a program.
[00:41:24] So we have to kind of figure out how to do some things differently. So here's our next step, and here's what we are going to ask all of you who call village church your home, whether you're a member or you're a regular attendee. So we're asking each person to do two things. Number one, we're asking each person to make a 2024 giving commitment for the rest of the year. What do you plan on giving for the rest of 2024? What this will allow us to do is to plan, and I think what will allow you to do is to make some decisions, talk about it as a family, and then be faithful and consistent. If you're faithful and consistent and prayerful, and we know what those numbers are, we can begin now to work together to say, okay, we know what to expect.
[00:42:12] The second thing we're asking you to do is to make a 2025 giving forecast. For most families who give regularly. They increase their giving by a certain percentage or number based on their income, year by year. And that's wonderful. We know a million things can happen between now and 2025. Totally understand. What we want to do is open up a candid dialogue amongst us so that we can begin to even project into 2025. What this is going to look like now. You might be like, I don't know what even this year is going to look like. There might be a minimal number that you pray about and you're like, this is what I'm comfortable with. And then you might want to say like, hey, I'd love to have an open dialogue about what's going to happen in the next six or twelve months?
[00:42:59] We want to be in a position where we can talk frankly and candidly. So there's also like a weird circumstance where we found over the last couple of years, some of you, your automated giving stops, you don't know about it, sometimes for months on end. Can we call you and say, hey, that's kind of weird. This stopped. Are you okay? So that we can actually be in a really healthy, open dialogue, because people in a healthy relationship, they communicate. And we'd love to be in a really healthy relationship with you. We want to be really tender to your season. We also want to be tender to steward what God is asking us to steward here. And this is going to require us having an ongoing healthy relationship. So there are two ways, actually, you can submit this, and this fell out of my pocket. But here's the first one.
[00:43:44] When you walk out today, you will be given this card, and it says, intentional ministry requires intentional giving. And on the back, it allows you to write out your 2024 commitments and your 2025 forecast. Do not turn this in this week.
[00:44:01] Over the next month, we are asking everyone who calls village church their home, would you take some time? Would you pray about this? Would you talk to your spouse? If you are married, if you maybe have kids and they have income, we think it is really valuable to teach children or young adults who are receiving income to teach them the first fruits principle, because who they give first to will be their God. And so this is an opportunity for you as families to kind of go home, think about this. So you can do this in paper or you can go to
[email protected]. Slash give. If you forget that, you can go to the hub and find it there and all the stuff on this card you can actually fill out online.
[00:44:43] This information is not going to go to me. It's going to go to Pastor Steve and our finance team. And what we want to do is open up this dialogue because healthy people have healthy communication and we want to have an ongoing, healthy dialogue with each of you about what's going on financially in the church. So March 10 is when we're going to kind of not end it because this will always be open. But we want to ask all of you if you can pray about this and then respond by March 10. That would be absolutely incredible. Now, as elders, we have some really specific asks.
[00:45:15] Number one, to the so many of you who give firstly and faithfully, this is going to be so easy for you. Your giving is probably automated. You know exactly what you're doing. You could go literally online right now, fill it out, and you're like, all right, I'm going to increase next year by 2% or five or whatever it is. You probably already know how you think about giving, and this is going to be so easy for so many of you in this church.
[00:45:41] Number two, to those who give more erratically, would you pray about seriously giving faithfully, consistently and generously?
[00:45:54] This is going to be a whole family endeavor to make sure that we can steward what God is asking us to steward in this season. It's going to kind of take all of us to come together. And I just want to very boldly ask. I am very excited about what God is doing here, and I have no hesitance looking at you and saying, would you jump in and would you start giving and serving faithfully to those who have never given but have been around for a while?
[00:46:21] I also want to give the same invitation to you. I want to invite you to start giving generously and faithfully to invest in God's kingdom. And I think this is an incredible place to do that. And I have no hesitation asking you to do that as well. Maybe you've got a whole bunch of questions that stand between you and generously or regularly giving. Every question you have. I want to invite. We would love to have a personal conversation with you. There is no question that is off limits to those who are new. I want to encourage you. Jump in. We believe it is really important for you to have a home church. And if you're not ready to give, I want to come back to what I have been talking about earlier. Would you find any ministry, anywhere that builds the kingdom of Jesus and just begin to radically generously, financially support anywhere, anything that is explicitly building the kingdom of Jesus? This is so important because more than anything, we want your hearts completely devoted to Jesus.
[00:47:21] To those of you who are uncertain of your future, you might be thinking of moving. You might only be here for six months. That is incredible information for us to know. We have had multiple people who gave regularly and faithfully move, and so we would love to be able to plan and anticipate that. And this is a place where we can just have really open, candid conversations about what's going on in your life. You might be looking at the future and thinking, my job is uncertain. I don't know if I'm going to have regular income again. Those are conversations we would just love to know about and talk candidly with so that we can plan lastly to those who can make a huge difference.
[00:48:01] Would you reach out to us?
[00:48:04] You know who you are. We do not know who you are. As we are looking into the late summer and fall. We have a lot of needs financially to be able to get this facility scaled so that we can love and serve people. It is tight parking, fort, you name it, you know who you are. And there are some of you that you're like, I could actually make a really big difference. And we would invite you. Would you come talk to one of us? I'm going to definitely connect to you with Pastor Steve, and we'd love to talk about what does it look like to partner together in a capital campaign in the near future so that we can steward what God is asking us to steward in this place. All right, so at number two, prayerfully commit to your family's generosity. Take the next month. Why are we doing this? Let's just look at, like, one more chart again to kind of give you some context here, because the church kind of just keeps growing. I believe it's going to show up. There. It is. Yes.
[00:49:02] And this is sort of just the trend and trajectory. What an incredible gift that God has given us to steward. By the way, this isn't mine to steward. It is ours to steward. And so we want to do this together, and we want to make sure that we can stand before God. And I would love for the Lord to look at us as the village church and say, well done, good and faithful servant. Lastly. So at number three, more than anything, God wants your heart.
[00:49:32] Yeah. We have to fund ministry. The Lord has always come through.
[00:49:37] More than anything, God wants you to give your heart to Christ. If you have never given your heart to Jesus, forget about money, forget about tithing, forget about generosity.
[00:49:49] The Lord made you loves you, designed your personality, your heart, created your soul and your body, all of it, and wants you to come back home to him. That's what he wants. And so the absolute greatest gift you could ever give to God is for you to personally tell him, I am sorry. I believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Will you save me and forgive me? And let me tell you that our God stewards souls wonderfully well. He will never let you down. And so if that is a decision you've never made, to trust in Christ, you're like, I don't really care about money and giving right now. I want you to hear this. You can come to Christ at any moment, anytime. And if today, you just know I've never trusted in him. I need to. Would you do that, would you tell him you're sorry and you believe in him? And then come tell one of us? We would love to help you take a next step as you learn what it means to follow Jesus. All right, for those of you is your first sermon on giving and generosity. You made it. You're alive. And we're going to pray and we're going to sing together. Good job. Let's pray. Father, we love you.
[00:51:01] Thankful for your word for water when I cannot breathe and coughing. Thank you for our incredible church body. I thank you for mostly for how generous and unbelievable you are to us. You're so good.
[00:51:19] Everything we have is from you.
[00:51:22] You are such a good, kind master.
[00:51:26] And when you come back or we die, we want to hear from you. Well done, good and faithful servant. That's what we want.
[00:51:34] And so, God, thank you for the blood of Christ that has forgiven us of our sins. And the Holy Spirit who teaches and trains us and the word of God, which points us and directs us, help us individually and as families, as a church steward, well, everything you have given us to steward.
[00:51:51] And, lord, we are so grateful, and we do all of this as a response to your generosity and your kindness. And so we pray to you and we sing to you now, and we do it in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
