Freely Received / Freely Give

God gives us what it will take to accomplish his mission.

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    - 35 seconds and counting.
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    We are still go with Apollo 11.
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    30s and counting.
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    Astronauts report it feels good.
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    T-minus 25 seconds.
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    15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
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    12, 11,10, 9. Ignition sequence start.
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    6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, and [indiscernible]
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    Liftoff. We have a liftoff.
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    Apollo 11, this is Houston. You are go for staging.
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    - Hey, and welcome to Crossroads!
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    I'm so excited that you are joining us today.
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    We're here at our Oakley campus,
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    which is in Cincinnati, Ohio, and we know
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    we have people joining online
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    from all over the world, though.
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    So from the States to Brazil to the Philippines.
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    I'm just super glad that you're joining us.
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    And I'm Hannah. - Hey, I'm Andy.
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    We're back for week four of the 10X Push.
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    And I can't, like, I can't believe
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    we're already four weeks into this thing.
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    This has been a journey as a church together.
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    And it's just it's just been so good.
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    Hey, if you're new to Crossroads, maybe first time.
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    First of all, I just want to say welcome.
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    But second, this 10X Push is just an opportunity
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    for us to lean in as a church and expand
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    just the dream of what it would look like
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    for God to 10X multiply the Kingdom of God
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    in our church and in our own lives,
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    and specifically, like, we're pushing all of us
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    to ask the question, do we want to grow spiritually?
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    Like, do we want to go deeper with God?
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    Do we want to allow Him to take us to
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    a new place of impact and of influence
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    and power and just goodness?
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    It's all really, really exciting.
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    So today, our lead pastor Kyle is going to be teaching.
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    But before that, we're going to start off
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    our time by worshiping together,
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    singing some songs about God and to God.
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    - And during this time, you're also
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    not just going to see our singers singing,
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    but you're going to see people getting baptized,
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    which is a water baptism of people who just want
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    to express the outward decision that they've made,
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    to put their personal trust
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    and faith in Jesus Christ, and to choose Him
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    as their Lord and Savior.
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    And so this declaration is something that
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    they're doing outwardly for something
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    that they've expressed inwardly.
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    And it is a big deal.
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    Like, I don't know anyone getting baptized today,
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    but I remember the last time I baptized someone,
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    it was actually on a Go Trip.
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    And I know that was because of faithful believers
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    who invested for us to have reach out, to have Go.
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    And so it's going to be exciting to see people
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    who get baptized during this 10X Push
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    who ten years from now Go
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    because of someone's faithfulness.
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    You know, it's exciting.
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    - Yeah. And what we're going to see today
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    is like a reflection of what God's been doing
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    in people's lives, maybe for years
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    or decades before this.
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    So it's something huge
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    and totally, totally worth celebrating.
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    And if you're not near one of
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    our physical locations to get baptized
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    in person today, hey, that doesn't exclude you.
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    If you're part of our Anywhere community
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    meeting from the Philippines to anywhere across the globe,
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    we will actually remove every barrier possible
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    to help you get baptized, including
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    we'll come to you to make it happen.
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    It's one of our favorite things to do.
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    We'll actually travel to you so that
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    you can get baptized in your own hometown.
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    You've got questions about baptism,
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    Crossroads.net\baptism.
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    There's tons of info there.
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    Or if you want to actually connect with us
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    or ask us a question, you can email us
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    at anywhere@crossroads.net and we'll help make that happen.
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    - And so if you have made that decision,
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    it's a good time to not just sit back and relax,
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    but to join into the celebration
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    as people are getting baptized.
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    Clap and cheer along as you're watching this,
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    because this is a huge, huge deal
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    for the decision they're making.
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    So before, as we go into seeing some baptisms,
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    let's worship together.
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    - Yeah. - Woo!
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    - God, I'm just reminded through the lyrics
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    of that song that when I praise You
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    something powerful happens that when I take
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    a second to not look at the things around me,
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    but to look up at Your sovereignty,
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    of Your holiness and Your goodness.
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    God, there's something that changes.
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    So would You remind me and every single person,
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    God, in this room, that You're a good God,
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    that You're a big God, and You're so worthy of our praise.
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    We love You and we praise You.
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    In Your name. Amen. Come on.
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    Can we just give it up for our God in this place?
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    Well, welcome to Crossroads.
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    We're so excited that you're here.
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    If you're watching online, we want to say welcome to you.
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    Go ahead and take a second to turn to somebody
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    around you and say hello before you take a seat.
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    In The Push, we've been talking about
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    expanding our territory and our kingdom impact as a church.
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    Now, that does not mean that we're getting rid of
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    our current impact, or dialing back things
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    we've been doing for decades.
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    That includes Thanksgiving Food Drive,
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    where we hand out tens of thousands
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    of Thanksgiving meals to people who need them.
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    - And it's just been such a big impact in our local communities.
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    Two quick stories for you just to share what that's like.
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    It says: this Thanksgiving, this meal helped feed
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    me and my boys after losing my job and my brother.
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    I can't thank you all enough
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    for the impact that you have made on my family.
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    The second one says: This Thanksgiving meal box
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    is going to allow me and my kids to be able
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    to gather around our table together
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    for the first time in a while.
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    Due to some hardships, being a single mom
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    and being back in college, everything has been
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    so rough and this box gives me hope.
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    So it's more than just a box,
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    it's giving hope out here.
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    TFD, Thanksgiving Food Drive, as we call it,
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    is incredible.
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    - Yeah, and if you're near one of
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    our physical sites, you can pick up a box there.
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    And if you're part of our Anywhere community,
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    you can do this too.
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    Go to the link, sign up,
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    and we'll actually ship you a box and a list
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    and specific directions so you can make
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    an impact in your local community.
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    You can do that again at crossroads.net/TFD.
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    Now, if you've been on this 10X journey with us,
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    there's your work and your guide
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    that you've been going through.
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    There's specific experiences that have been created
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    to help you 10X, to help you create a new vision
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    and experience God's vision for your life.
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    Those happen in the guidebook.
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    And this week there's
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    a really, really special experience
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    designed called the Making Space Experience.
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    It's interactive audio and video designed
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    to help you take the 10X Push from something--
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    - Next level.
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    - Yeah, from something you know about
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    to something you know about, right?
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    Yeah.
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    - Something that's like in your head
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    to something that's deeper that
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    I'll just say this I went through
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    a rough draft of this just last week.
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    And I think I -- I don't know, maybe I'm just a crier.
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    I think I cried three times, like.
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    - It's amazing. It moves you.
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    - Like it spoke. It moved me. That's right.
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    It's something about my identity
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    and something about growing my vision for
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    what God believes is possible for my life
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    that I might not.
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    So if any of that sounds good to you,
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    head to the Crossroads Anywhere App
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    and the Making Space Digital experience
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    is in there for you.
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    - Earlier we've been talking about
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    these territories that we have.
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    You know, uh, I just forgot them.
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    Reach out. I got it. Camps, reach out.
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    I was trying to read through the order, digital and sites.
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    And today we're talking all about sites.
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    So go ahead and watch this video.
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    In the book of Isaiah, God's call
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    to think bigger and push for more is clear.
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    Enlarge the place of your tent is an exhortation
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    to expand the territory God has already given us,
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    the place where the favor of God
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    has collided again and again with the gifts
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    He's put in all of us producing supernatural results.
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    Over the last 28 years, we have taken
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    a lot of ground for the Kingdom of God.
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    But there are four territories that God
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    has clearly given us where we have seen His favor
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    to go farther than we could ever have dreamed possible,
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    and where He is now calling us to not hold back,
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    to say yes to taking a 10X moonshot,
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    to seeing His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
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    Our physical sites are powerhouses for life change,
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    and we want to see more, 10X more.
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    Because when we begin to take new territory
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    for sites and new cities and invest more resources
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    in the immersive sites that God is already using,
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    we're going to see more people come back to life.
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    - As a young man, I was aware of the church
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    and we were going to church,
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    but I really had this relationship with God the judge.
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    I didn't understand grace.
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    I didn't understand any of those things.
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    So it was really a knowledge based relationship with God,
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    but not a connection
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    or relational based experience with God.
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    In college, they would say, "Well,
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    why did you choose chemical engineering?"
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    And I said, "Because they make the most money."
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    I actually came to work for P&G in 1998,
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    and they were the highest paying,
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    highest opportunity company and that's why I came.
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    It was really just motivated about financial impact.
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    I was trying to do all kinds of things, side hustles.
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    I did -- I sold nutritional supplements on the side
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    while I was working in the day job,
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    because I wanted to make more money
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    so that my wife could stay home.
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    It was actually with that direct marketing company.
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    We went to a conference and it was called
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    Designing Your Future.
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    And they had me take an assessment
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    and they said where are you at physically
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    on a scale of 1 to 10?
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    I was, like, I'm in pretty good shape,
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    looking this good. It's high up there.
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    Where are you at career wise or financially?
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    I'm like, oh, that's doing pretty well.
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    You know, I'm at a fortune 800 company,
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    report to the CEO.
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    Um, I mean, we're leading a large organization.
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    And then they said, where are you at spiritually?
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    And on the scale of 1 to 10, I put two.
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    And as I went through that workshop, they said,
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    "Aaron, that is going to be
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    the rate limiter on your life."
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    I really took it seriously.
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    Like, for me, that was a moment where I said
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    I have to figure this out, like,
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    in a business meeting where God just came to me
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    and really just felt God's presence
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    for the first time in my life.
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    And that's really who I met.
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    I met this person who I have a relationship with.
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    Clearly, He's like with me now.
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    And that's just really, I just found, like, my guide.
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    We came to Crossroads in 2009.
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    We had just moved here from Iowa,
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    and we were church shopping.
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    And I was actually training for an ultramarathon,
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    and I was out running on the Loveland Bike Trail.
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    And I was listening to the podcast
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    or basically downloads of the sermon,
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    and I heard this crack
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    and it was Brian Tome on stage drinking a beer.
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    And his context of like, I'm going to be
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    the same guy on stage as I am in my backyard.
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    Like it just really hit me
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    and that's who I aspire to be, is like the same.
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    Like, you shouldn't see me any different
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    in a boardroom or at home,
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    or hanging out with my friends,
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    like, it should be the same.
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    And that was the moment where, like,
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    Crossroads is where we need to be.
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    That, coupled with the outreach.
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    Having an impact in your community
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    is how other people see God's love.
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    We are part of the Game Change Campaign in 2010.
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    It's just so happy to see what we're doing outside,
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    Africa with, you know, sex slavery.
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    I mean, even back then, like,
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    this conversation with Citylink Center was part of that.
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    And I just thought, like,
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    this is what we're meant to be as a church.
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    When I think about that, like,
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    I knew that I needed to be part.
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    And we actually left Cincinnati during
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    the Game Change Campaign because I had asked
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    to move to Switzerland.
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    But we finished our campaign because
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    we wanted to see what was going to happen,
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    because we knew, like, that was just something
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    that we couldn't look back 15 years later and say,
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    "Hey, we missed the movement."
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    And then we came back '16, so the fall of 2016
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    and we've been part of Crossroads ever since.
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    During COVID, my wife had found
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    this amazing property in Germantown, Ohio.
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    Shortly after we made that move, you know,
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    we got back involved with the Dayton campus
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    because Mason was just too far to drive.
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    It's fun to see that grow, and I'm so excited
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    about what's happening at Dayton right now.
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    2022 when we, you know, learned about
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    this Dayton campaign, and that was one that
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    was just on my heart where God's like
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    you need to be part of this in a big way.
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    And as we talked with God, I'm like,
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    what does that look like?
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    And everything just felt kind of, like, not right.
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    Until I had this conversation with my wife
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    where I'm like, "Well, what if I just work an extra year?"
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    Most of us always had the conversation of,
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    we get to 55 and you're going to retire.
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    And so you're worried about that retirement thing.
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    And I'm like, if that's one of the things
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    that I hold sacred, like, I can work another year,
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    like, for this community.
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    So to think of me laboring that last year for God,
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    like, that's really cool.
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    Like, literally this is a continuous process.
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    I don't ever want to be out of the stream.
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    When God brings an open door, I want to be there.
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    And I've never not seen that return come back.
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    You know, I've never not seen it.
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    And I don't do it as an investment.
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    I do it in faith.
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    But I also know that, like,
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    He's going to open up doors for us, you know,
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    because we're faithful with what He's given.
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    I just don't want to go bury it.
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    When I think about this, The Push, right,
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    or it's a 10X.
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    What I love about it is that we're not settling.
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    I'm always a person that wants to see what's next,
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    and I don't ever want to be a person
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    that's stopping growing, and with Crossroads,
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    this is exactly what's happening, right?
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    Like, we individually need to grow,
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    but so does the organization.
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    We need to continue to grow and push and evolve
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    and make the changes required to have
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    the biggest impact.
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    And just, I mean, it's an exciting time to be part of it.
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    - Yeah, that's amazing, isn't it?
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    I love that story.
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    So many incredible things in there.
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    The thing that challenges me the most about it,
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    and maybe the one that challenges you,
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    he says he's giving away an entire year's salary.
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    Crazy, extravagant, isn't it?
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    And by the way, my name is Kyle if we've never met before.
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    Welcome to week four of the 10X Push.
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    This is our Journey that we're on as a church,
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    where we feel like God's calling us
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    to have a 10X impact on the Kingdom of God
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    for the Kingdom of God over these next ten years.
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    That was about one of the territories
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    that we feel God's calling us to invest in
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    called immersive sites.
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    Now, in that category, there's so many things.
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    I'm not going to get into them with you,
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    but we do feel that God's calling us
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    to be in ten cities in the next ten years.
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    If you want to know more about that project
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    or any of the other ones,
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    absolutely grab the brochure on your way out
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    or attend and or I should say,
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    attend a mission briefing, whatever site you are,
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    whatever service right after
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    or tomorrow night with me online.
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    Let's pray before we go any further today.
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    God, thank You so much for this time.
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    I'm asking that you would use every second
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    to push us closer to You
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    and the life You have for us. Amen.
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    This is week four of The Push.
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    Last week was week three, and Brian talked about
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    how part of the call of God when you follow Him
  • 00:30:02
    is to put everything on the table.
  • 00:30:04
    He said, God's call is to do hard things,
  • 00:30:07
    and the hardest thing you'll ever do is to say,
  • 00:30:09
    "God, everything I have, everything I am, is Yours."
  • 00:30:13
    And so Brian had a box, and he got some things out
  • 00:30:15
    that represented the things that are
  • 00:30:16
    most important to him and and surrendering to God.
  • 00:30:19
    And I don't know if you noticed this part,
  • 00:30:21
    but he put me on the table. Did you catch that?
  • 00:30:25
    And his representation was a tiny Harry Potter Lego,
  • 00:30:29
    not so veiled short joke.
  • 00:30:32
    And in the time since then, many of you have asked me.
  • 00:30:34
    You've said, "Kyle, what are you going to do
  • 00:30:36
    to retaliate?" [laughter]
  • 00:30:39
    Guys, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not.
  • 00:30:42
    I'm not.
  • 00:30:43
    The Bible says to pray for those who persecute you
  • 00:30:47
    and to love your enemies.
  • 00:30:49
    And also, Brian's my boss, and I'm not an idiot,
  • 00:30:52
    so I'm not going to do that.
  • 00:30:54
    I do want to honor him in the same way, though.
  • 00:30:56
    You know, Brian is very important to me,
  • 00:30:58
    and you got to put the important things on the table.
  • 00:31:00
    So I was just trying to think about,
  • 00:31:01
    you know, what would honor Brian?
  • 00:31:02
    Not make fun of him. You know, no old jokes,
  • 00:31:04
    nothing like that, want to stay away from that.
  • 00:31:06
    What would really honor Brian?
  • 00:31:07
    I was thinking about Brian's wisdom.
  • 00:31:09
    You know what I mean? He's got such incredible wisdom,
  • 00:31:11
    and we rely on it so much.
  • 00:31:12
    And so I thought maybe just to represent
  • 00:31:14
    Brian's wisdom, maybe like a Gandalf Lego figure,
  • 00:31:18
    you know? Maybe that's what we should go with.
  • 00:31:20
    But then, maybe you see the obvious problem, right?
  • 00:31:23
    It's like, he might think it's an old joke
  • 00:31:25
    because the gray beard
  • 00:31:26
    and how Gandalf is thousands of years old.
  • 00:31:28
    So I thought, that's not -- probably not the way to go.
  • 00:31:31
    Maybe it's not wisdom.
  • 00:31:32
    Maybe it's something that represents
  • 00:31:33
    Brian's strength and his power.
  • 00:31:35
    Like a -- like a dinosaur, right?
  • 00:31:39
    Yeah, you see it, right? Again. Problem.
  • 00:31:41
    He might mistakenly think I was saying he was ancient,
  • 00:31:45
    prehistoric even. So that's not --
  • 00:31:46
    That's not going to work.
  • 00:31:48
    So then I thought, you know what?
  • 00:31:51
    What would communicate to him
  • 00:31:53
    how much we all rely on him?
  • 00:31:55
    How I really depend on him in my life for advice
  • 00:31:57
    and for wisdom, and I know a lot of us do.
  • 00:32:00
    And so I thought maybe the thing that really
  • 00:32:02
    just communicates the value is Depends.
  • 00:32:07
    So anyway, it's been a real honor being your Lead Pastor.
  • 00:32:11
    You're never going to see me again after this.
  • 00:32:13
    So good luck on The Push.
  • 00:32:16
    Really praying for you. Really rooting for you
  • 00:32:21
    In all honesty, a number of years ago
  • 00:32:23
    we were in a conversation, smaller group of us,
  • 00:32:25
    and we were talking just about some of
  • 00:32:27
    the behind the scenes things
  • 00:32:28
    and stuff going on in our lives.
  • 00:32:30
    And in this smaller group of people,
  • 00:32:31
    our CFO Season, she turned and she looked at Brian
  • 00:32:35
    and she said, "You know, you are
  • 00:32:36
    the most generous person I know."
  • 00:32:38
    It caught me off guard. I was like, wow.
  • 00:32:40
    Like, I know that about Brian, I know that.
  • 00:32:44
    But Season sees and knows everything and she says that.
  • 00:32:49
    And I say that not so that you'll go, "Whoa, wow."
  • 00:32:54
    But because you need to know that this Journey
  • 00:32:56
    that we're going on, where we're raising our hands
  • 00:32:59
    and we're saying, "God, you can push me.
  • 00:33:01
    I want the 10X life,
  • 00:33:02
    and if that means You push me financially,
  • 00:33:04
    if that means You push me sacrificially,
  • 00:33:06
    if that means You push me on generosity,
  • 00:33:08
    I'm okay with it." It's critical that you know
  • 00:33:10
    this is not a thing that we're saying,
  • 00:33:12
    "Hey, all of you should really consider that."
  • 00:33:14
    This is the thing that we're doing personally,
  • 00:33:17
    me, Brian, the leaders at Crossroads in our lives.
  • 00:33:22
    Now, today, I'm going to take the next step. Right?
  • 00:33:25
    Because step one is to say, "God,
  • 00:33:27
    everything I have is yours.
  • 00:33:29
    You can have whatever you want."
  • 00:33:31
    But then there's the next question, which is,
  • 00:33:33
    what do you want, God?
  • 00:33:34
    It starts at that point to have a conversation.
  • 00:33:36
    And my goal today is to help equip you
  • 00:33:38
    for that conversation.
  • 00:33:40
    Sometimes I think you can come into a church
  • 00:33:41
    and especially a financial campaign.
  • 00:33:43
    It's kind of a season like this where we're asking for money,
  • 00:33:46
    and you might think there's a secret, hidden agenda.
  • 00:33:49
    Well, one, I hope you haven't felt that
  • 00:33:51
    at all in this Push.
  • 00:33:52
    And two, I'm just going to tell you
  • 00:33:54
    exactly what my agenda is for you today.
  • 00:33:56
    This is it right here.
  • 00:33:57
    My agenda is to help you hear what God says
  • 00:34:00
    resoundingly through Scripture, to equip you
  • 00:34:03
    to talk to Him specifically about your own stuff,
  • 00:34:06
    in hopes that you give Him your heart entirely.
  • 00:34:11
    That's the whole point of today.
  • 00:34:12
    How do you have that conversation with Him?
  • 00:34:15
    Now I have a bet, which is that
  • 00:34:16
    that conversation is already going on in your head.
  • 00:34:19
    If you did the put your stuff on the --
  • 00:34:21
    Put all your stuff on the table exercise,
  • 00:34:23
    or if you balked at it. Same thing.
  • 00:34:25
    It's because you're having this internal conversation.
  • 00:34:28
    The conversation sounds something like,
  • 00:34:29
    "Man, I can't give away that,
  • 00:34:32
    or it'd be foolish to sacrifice this,
  • 00:34:36
    or God, please, please don't ask me for that."
  • 00:34:40
    That's the conversation that we're having.
  • 00:34:41
    How do I know that?
  • 00:34:42
    Because that's the one I've been having
  • 00:34:44
    inside of my own heart, doing some real wrestling
  • 00:34:47
    over the course of this Push.
  • 00:34:50
    You know, when I got promoted to lead pastor last year,
  • 00:34:52
    Brian gave me a raise.
  • 00:34:53
    That's probably not a surprise to any of you.
  • 00:34:55
    When you get a promotion at work,
  • 00:34:56
    you get a raise. I got a raise.
  • 00:34:58
    And he set me up with a financial planner
  • 00:34:59
    and he said, "Hey, I really want you to go
  • 00:35:02
    and just listen to this guy.
  • 00:35:03
    And whatever he says to do,
  • 00:35:04
    you should probably just do it."
  • 00:35:06
    And so I did, and I went and I listened.
  • 00:35:07
    And the guy basically said, "Well, you know,
  • 00:35:09
    you need to up your retirement savings
  • 00:35:12
    if you want to be able to retire at all someday.
  • 00:35:14
    If you want to send your kids to college
  • 00:35:16
    and help with any of that, you really got
  • 00:35:17
    to get aggressive on college savings."
  • 00:35:19
    And so I did that, took every cent of my raise,
  • 00:35:21
    plus some all went there.
  • 00:35:24
    And, um, you know, I think about this, right?
  • 00:35:26
    I go, "God, what do you want?
  • 00:35:28
    Do you want that stuff I just invested in?
  • 00:35:30
    My oldest is 14 years old.
  • 00:35:32
    God, wouldn't it be stupid to put
  • 00:35:35
    the college savings on the on the table?"
  • 00:35:39
    I think about some of our house improvements.
  • 00:35:41
    You guys have heard me talk about my house before.
  • 00:35:43
    We bought this fixer upper 6, 7 years ago.
  • 00:35:45
    I've been working on it.
  • 00:35:46
    Inside the first six months, I thought
  • 00:35:48
    the first thing I would do is convert the garage
  • 00:35:50
    into a master bedroom for Sarah and I.
  • 00:35:52
    And 6, 7 years later, it still hasn't happened.
  • 00:35:55
    Which means that we share one upstairs bathroom
  • 00:35:58
    with all three of our kids,
  • 00:35:59
    two of which are middle school boys.
  • 00:36:02
    If you've ever been in a bathroom
  • 00:36:04
    used by two middle school boys, oh my gosh.
  • 00:36:08
    It'd be cleaner if I just drove to Base Camp
  • 00:36:10
    and just bathed in the cow pond, right?
  • 00:36:12
    Like it's disgusting. Like, God, surely
  • 00:36:15
    You wouldn't ask me for that, would You?
  • 00:36:17
    And then I'm going through
  • 00:36:18
    the put everything on the table exercise.
  • 00:36:20
    And the last thing on the list,
  • 00:36:21
    I think is supposed to be a joke.
  • 00:36:23
    It says my actual table, except for me,
  • 00:36:26
    two weekends ago, I went shopping for wood
  • 00:36:28
    to build a new table and I was like, "Really?
  • 00:36:31
    Put that on the table, all of it?"
  • 00:36:34
    This is where I've been.
  • 00:36:35
    And the question I keep coming back
  • 00:36:37
    to the thought in my head is,
  • 00:36:38
    "God, isn't what I've already done,
  • 00:36:41
    isn't what I'm already doing, isn't it good enough?"
  • 00:36:44
    And I wanted today to tell you
  • 00:36:46
    exactly what I have been doing.
  • 00:36:47
    I want to be very transparent, very vulnerable with you.
  • 00:36:49
    That's our goal every day at Crossroads.
  • 00:36:51
    But with giving, it's not something that we're used to.
  • 00:36:54
    I'm actually going to share with you
  • 00:36:55
    what I've been giving over the course of my adult life.
  • 00:36:59
    And it's important to hear this really clearly.
  • 00:37:01
    The Bible says in Matthew 6,
  • 00:37:03
    which is what we're going to examine today.
  • 00:37:04
    That's going to be our core Scripture.
  • 00:37:06
    Jesus says very clearly in there:
  • 00:37:08
    don't tell people what you're giving.
  • 00:37:11
    Let it be done in secret so that
  • 00:37:13
    you're not doing it to get praise from people.
  • 00:37:16
    It's very clear instruction in there.
  • 00:37:18
    I want to be very, very clear, that's about motivation.
  • 00:37:21
    And my motivation, as far as I can see,
  • 00:37:23
    is not to get your praise.
  • 00:37:25
    That is not what I'm after.
  • 00:37:26
    I would rather not tell you about my giving.
  • 00:37:29
    Super would rather not do that.
  • 00:37:30
    That's not my motivation.
  • 00:37:31
    See, on the other side of that though,
  • 00:37:33
    the Bible also gives many, many, many examples
  • 00:37:36
    of very specific giving, usually from leaders.
  • 00:37:40
    Five times in his writing, Paul actually says,
  • 00:37:42
    "Follow me as I follow Christ."
  • 00:37:44
    There's something for me, I go, you know,
  • 00:37:46
    I think it'd be a pretty crappy lead pastor
  • 00:37:48
    if I was talking to you about giving,
  • 00:37:49
    and I wasn't willing to talk to you
  • 00:37:51
    about where I've been, where I am, and where I'm going.
  • 00:37:53
    Because it relates to this feeling that I have
  • 00:37:55
    that I'm willing to bet you have too of,
  • 00:37:57
    God, isn't what I've already done,
  • 00:37:59
    isn't what I'm doing good enough?
  • 00:38:03
    Sarah and I got married about 19 years, 18 years ago.
  • 00:38:06
    And when we got married, Sarah came with two things:
  • 00:38:09
    a cat and a campaign commitment. Crazy campaign.
  • 00:38:13
    Now, praise God I got rid of the cat
  • 00:38:15
    without spending any money.
  • 00:38:16
    Praise Him. Man it's beautiful.
  • 00:38:18
    Second thing, though, we had to pay off
  • 00:38:21
    thousands of dollars, that campaign commitment.
  • 00:38:24
    We also started tithing together,
  • 00:38:25
    giving away 10% of our gross income
  • 00:38:27
    every single month at the very beginning of our marriage.
  • 00:38:30
    About four years into our marriage,
  • 00:38:32
    Crossroads did the Game Change Campaign.
  • 00:38:34
    At that point, my salary was $48,000
  • 00:38:37
    and God called us to give away $12,000.
  • 00:38:40
    That felt crazy. Insane.
  • 00:38:43
    It was like, how are we going to eat food?
  • 00:38:45
    How is this going to work?
  • 00:38:46
    In the midst of paying that off,
  • 00:38:47
    we actually had to sell our house,
  • 00:38:49
    downsize by $100,000 our mortgage to be able
  • 00:38:52
    to continue to give our tithe
  • 00:38:55
    and to give above and beyond our tithe.
  • 00:38:58
    Just for five years after that, 2015,
  • 00:39:00
    the I'm In Campaign came up and we felt
  • 00:39:02
    God called us to give $50,000 to that.
  • 00:39:05
    That was half of our complete
  • 00:39:07
    total household income at the time.
  • 00:39:10
    Since then, we've continued to give
  • 00:39:12
    above and beyond the tithe.
  • 00:39:13
    We've done that for about the last 15 years
  • 00:39:15
    as a regular thing.
  • 00:39:16
    We give more than 10% of our income away.
  • 00:39:18
    Two years ago, we gave a chunk of money
  • 00:39:20
    to the Dayton Building campaign.
  • 00:39:22
    Last year, we gave five figures to a campaign
  • 00:39:24
    at a church that a friend of mine leads.
  • 00:39:27
    I just say all this to go, like,
  • 00:39:28
    this feeling that I have is, God, isn't that enough?
  • 00:39:33
    And as you hear that, I don't know what you think.
  • 00:39:35
    I don't know what you think about that.
  • 00:39:37
    Maybe you give more, maybe you give less.
  • 00:39:39
    Maybe you give. It doesn't matter.
  • 00:39:40
    The point is, no matter what you do right now,
  • 00:39:43
    there is a voice that's telling you the same thing:
  • 00:39:45
    Isn't it good enough? Isn't it good enough?
  • 00:39:49
    Step back from my life and I go, you know
  • 00:39:51
    the reason that I'm behind on college savings,
  • 00:39:52
    I gave all that money away.
  • 00:39:55
    You're sitting on my kids college savings.
  • 00:39:58
    Literally.
  • 00:39:59
    In 2015, the average price of a seat at a new site
  • 00:40:03
    was $10,000 per seat. We bought five of them.
  • 00:40:06
    You're sitting on it. God, isn't it? Isn't it good enough?
  • 00:40:10
    Isn't it good enough?
  • 00:40:11
    Now we're all hearing that same voice for a reason.
  • 00:40:15
    It's because when we start looking at our money,
  • 00:40:18
    when we invite God to have a conversation with us,
  • 00:40:21
    another voice butts in and wants to talk too.
  • 00:40:24
    See, there are two voices who want to talk to you
  • 00:40:27
    about your money. Two voices.
  • 00:40:30
    They're in direct opposition
  • 00:40:31
    and there can be one winner. No ties.
  • 00:40:35
    Well, winner of what? Not a winner of your money,
  • 00:40:38
    but of your heart.
  • 00:40:41
    So which one wins it?
  • 00:40:43
    Well, according to Jesus,
  • 00:40:45
    it's the one that has your treasure.
  • 00:40:47
    This is what He says in Matthew 6.
  • 00:40:49
    Now, I mentioned this verse very quickly
  • 00:40:51
    in week one of The Push, but we're going to
  • 00:40:52
    dig into it today. Matthew 6.
  • 00:40:55
    This is where Jesus does the Lord's Prayer.
  • 00:40:56
    This is one of the central verses we're looking at.
  • 00:40:58
    This idea of of heaven coming on earth,
  • 00:41:01
    that there could be 10X better than what we thought.
  • 00:41:03
    It's baked inside of the Lord's Prayer.
  • 00:41:05
    But if you look at the context of
  • 00:41:07
    the Lord's Prayer, it's actually giving in money.
  • 00:41:09
    Here's a chart, just a color coded chart of Matthew 6.
  • 00:41:13
    It's basically got three different sections
  • 00:41:15
    and two subjects.
  • 00:41:16
    At the top the very first section is about giving
  • 00:41:19
    and money right out of the gate,
  • 00:41:20
    then how to have a conversation with God,
  • 00:41:22
    and then more stuff about giving and money.
  • 00:41:25
    And today I want to focus in on the first part
  • 00:41:28
    of that second section where Jesus talks about
  • 00:41:31
    giving and talks about money.
  • 00:41:34
    He starts this way. Matthew 6:19, He says:
  • 00:41:56
    He says, will be, not might be, not could be,
  • 00:41:58
    not probably is. He says will be.
  • 00:42:00
    And He says there's only two choices
  • 00:42:02
    of where to put your treasure: It's on earth or it's in heaven.
  • 00:42:05
    Two choices of where to place it.
  • 00:42:07
    See where you place your treasure
  • 00:42:09
    determines who has your heart.
  • 00:42:12
    And then, right after these two choices,
  • 00:42:14
    He starts talking about two visions.
  • 00:42:15
    Very next verse He says:
  • 00:42:21
    -- what you see, what your vision is --
  • 00:42:28
    Talks about two visions. Why?
  • 00:42:30
    Because whoever has your heart sets your vision.
  • 00:42:34
    Those two visions, good and bad,
  • 00:42:35
    if you go to the original language,
  • 00:42:37
    it dials it in a little more clearly.
  • 00:42:38
    Good means singularly focused, as in on His kingdom.
  • 00:42:43
    He says a little bit later,
  • 00:42:44
    Seek first the kingdom of God,
  • 00:42:46
    and everything else will be added to you.
  • 00:42:48
    It's that kind of vision.
  • 00:42:49
    And bad means a bunch of chaos, full of labors
  • 00:42:53
    and hardships and annoyances,
  • 00:42:55
    in other words, focused on the worries of today.
  • 00:42:57
    The things that say, you know,
  • 00:42:59
    I could never give that away because
  • 00:43:00
    I've got to deal with all of these things.
  • 00:43:02
    That's what bad means.
  • 00:43:04
    And He concludes it this way:
  • 00:43:21
    He says whoever sets your vision,
  • 00:43:23
    that's your true master.
  • 00:43:24
    Two choices: God and mammon,
  • 00:43:27
    which means you can actually shorten all of this
  • 00:43:29
    to just one sentence.
  • 00:43:31
    This one right here, right here, right here.
  • 00:43:37
    Wait. No. Okay, whatever didn't work.
  • 00:43:41
    There it is. Okay, good.
  • 00:43:44
    Whoever you listen to about your treasure
  • 00:43:47
    is your true God.
  • 00:43:48
    That's basically what He's saying.
  • 00:43:50
    And that might sound extreme to you.
  • 00:43:52
    That might sound kind of crazy.
  • 00:43:53
    You're like, "Really? I thought --
  • 00:43:55
    I thought mammon meant money,
  • 00:43:57
    because a lot of Bible translations
  • 00:43:58
    this is how it's translated.
  • 00:44:00
    It doesn't say mammon, it says money or wealth,
  • 00:44:03
    but that's not the word. Why do I think that?
  • 00:44:05
    Because Jesus spoke the common language
  • 00:44:08
    and the common language of the day, Aramaic,
  • 00:44:10
    there was lots of words for money,
  • 00:44:12
    just like we have dollars, bucks, cash, coin, whatever.
  • 00:44:15
    They have the same exact thing.
  • 00:44:16
    Jesus could have chosen any of those words,
  • 00:44:18
    but He didn't. Instead, He chose this word mammon.
  • 00:44:22
    Second reason I think that is because money is neutral.
  • 00:44:25
    20 bucks in your pocket, it doesn't have an agenda.
  • 00:44:28
    It's just 20 bucks.
  • 00:44:29
    You can do something with it or not.
  • 00:44:31
    But when Jesus talks about mammon,
  • 00:44:33
    very clearly He says this thing wants to be your master.
  • 00:44:37
    That means it has an agenda for your life.
  • 00:44:39
    It wants to direct you and it wants to steer you.
  • 00:44:41
    In fact, the word mammon, it means
  • 00:44:44
    that in which one trusts.
  • 00:44:47
    Mammon says, "You can trust me. I'll take care of you.
  • 00:44:50
    I'll tell you what to do with your money.
  • 00:44:51
    If you trust me, I'll give you all the things
  • 00:44:53
    that God says He can give you. He really can't.
  • 00:44:56
    He's too dangerous, but but I can.
  • 00:44:58
    You can trust me."
  • 00:44:59
    That's why I say mammon is a false god.
  • 00:45:02
    In fact, if you Google mammon,
  • 00:45:04
    this is the image search that will come up.
  • 00:45:06
    This is exactly what you'll see.
  • 00:45:08
    It's a false god. It's an idol.
  • 00:45:12
    False gods just whatever promises things
  • 00:45:14
    that only God can deliver. That's what it does.
  • 00:45:16
    It promises you security.
  • 00:45:18
    Have you ever heard this spoken in your mind,
  • 00:45:21
    "Man, if I just had X dollars set aside, then I'd be safe.
  • 00:45:26
    Then I'd be set, then I'd be secure"?
  • 00:45:29
    Promises to you, identity.
  • 00:45:30
    Man, if I just had a house in that neighborhood,
  • 00:45:32
    if I could just afford that car.
  • 00:45:33
    Just make a little bit more money,
  • 00:45:35
    just save a little bit more money,
  • 00:45:36
    then I'd be something. I'd be a success.
  • 00:45:40
    Promises you happiness.
  • 00:45:42
    Man, our marriage right now,
  • 00:45:43
    a lot of our fights are about money.
  • 00:45:44
    If we just had a little bit more money,
  • 00:45:46
    then we would be happy.
  • 00:45:48
    If that's what you've heard or believed,
  • 00:45:52
    I just want to gently suggest to you
  • 00:45:54
    maybe you haven't heard the voice of God,
  • 00:45:57
    maybe you've heard the voice of the false god,
  • 00:46:00
    mammon is after your trust.
  • 00:46:02
    This, by the way, this is, like me and Brian
  • 00:46:05
    will never tell you what to give.
  • 00:46:07
    You're not going to hear us do that.
  • 00:46:08
    We're not going to give you a number.
  • 00:46:10
    That does happen in some churches.
  • 00:46:11
    That's not what we're doing because
  • 00:46:13
    you're not needing to hear from us.
  • 00:46:14
    You're needing to hear from God.
  • 00:46:16
    We're not your God. I don't know your heart.
  • 00:46:18
    I don't know what's in there. God does.
  • 00:46:22
    Goal today is to help you have a conversation with Him,
  • 00:46:24
    to hear from Him.
  • 00:46:26
    Now, the number one way to listen to God
  • 00:46:28
    is to examine what He has already resoundingly
  • 00:46:31
    and clearly said in Scripture.
  • 00:46:33
    If, when it comes to giving, you're waiting on God
  • 00:46:36
    to tell you something other than what He's said
  • 00:46:38
    or to tell you you're the exception,
  • 00:46:40
    it's not going to happen. It's not.
  • 00:46:43
    Read a verse later on where God says,
  • 00:46:45
    "I do not change."
  • 00:46:47
    Whatever is written is what's still in place.
  • 00:46:50
    And so what does God say about giving?
  • 00:46:53
    Well, I think there's actually some levels
  • 00:46:54
    of giving that He outlines,
  • 00:46:56
    a biblical chart of giving, so to speak.
  • 00:46:58
    The first level I'll call common giving.
  • 00:47:00
    It's not the word that the Bible uses exactly,
  • 00:47:03
    but it's my kind of summation of
  • 00:47:05
    what the Bible describes as common giving.
  • 00:47:07
    Stuff that's normal,
  • 00:47:08
    stuff that most every single person does.
  • 00:47:10
    You know, 20 bucks here, a percent or two
  • 00:47:12
    of your income there, a generous tip or whatever.
  • 00:47:15
    It's common giving.
  • 00:47:17
    But what does God say about it?
  • 00:47:18
    He says this, Hebrews 13:16, God says:
  • 00:47:21
    Do not forget to do good and to share with others,
  • 00:47:24
    for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
  • 00:47:27
    So if you practice common giving, good news,
  • 00:47:31
    God says, great, that's awesome.
  • 00:47:33
    But He also would say clearly to you,
  • 00:47:34
    that's awesome. While I like it,
  • 00:47:36
    I just want you to know it has nothing to do
  • 00:47:38
    with God having your heart. Why?
  • 00:47:41
    Well, because that kind of giving is giving
  • 00:47:43
    when you do it, when you feel like it,
  • 00:47:44
    it's usually emotionally driven,
  • 00:47:46
    sometimes by guilt, sometimes by happiness,
  • 00:47:47
    whatever it is. But when you feel like it.
  • 00:47:49
    It doesn't require any level of faith because
  • 00:47:51
    it doesn't actually impact your bottom line.
  • 00:47:53
    It's because you're giving out of your excess
  • 00:47:55
    or another way of saying, your last.
  • 00:47:58
    The beginning of giving God your heart
  • 00:48:00
    is when you give Him your first.
  • 00:48:02
    You know, God actually says in the Bible
  • 00:48:03
    that the first of everything is His.
  • 00:48:07
    Here's one example in Exodus 13:
  • 00:48:16
    And mine is emphatic.
  • 00:48:18
    In the original language it is absolute soul ownership.
  • 00:48:22
    In fact, God says His claim on the first
  • 00:48:25
    is so strong that you could accurately say
  • 00:48:27
    God cannot be second.
  • 00:48:29
    You might go, "What? He can't be second?
  • 00:48:32
    Can't God do anything?" No, He can't.
  • 00:48:36
    Another example God says He is love in the Bible,
  • 00:48:40
    which means God cannot be unloving.
  • 00:48:42
    Same thing, God says He is first,
  • 00:48:44
    therefore He cannot be second,
  • 00:48:46
    and He can't be tied for first
  • 00:48:48
    because that's not sole ownership.
  • 00:48:51
    God and Ricky Bobby agree,
  • 00:48:53
    if you ain't first, you're last. Same thing.
  • 00:48:56
    That's basically what Jesus is saying
  • 00:48:58
    when He says you can't serve God and mammon.
  • 00:49:01
    God wants your first.
  • 00:49:03
    Well, how much is your first?
  • 00:49:05
    This is an answer that becomes
  • 00:49:07
    resoundingly clear in Scripture.
  • 00:49:08
    The first time we see it is Genesis 14,
  • 00:49:10
    where the father of faith, Abraham,
  • 00:49:12
    goes to the priest Melchizedek,
  • 00:49:14
    and he gives him 10% off the top of everything.
  • 00:49:18
    It's a principle that comes to be known as tithing,
  • 00:49:20
    returning the first 10% of all of your income,
  • 00:49:24
    all of your increase to God.
  • 00:49:25
    Tithing is giving Him your first.
  • 00:49:27
    And I know there are people who will say,
  • 00:49:29
    you know, that's part of the Old Testament law.
  • 00:49:31
    And so, good news, no longer applies.
  • 00:49:33
    We don't have to do that because Jesus came
  • 00:49:34
    and He fulfilled the law.
  • 00:49:36
    It's like eating bacon or getting tattoos,
  • 00:49:39
    you know, we can do that stuff now. It's awesome.
  • 00:49:41
    You can eat tattooed bacon if you want to. Great.
  • 00:49:45
    It's a wonderful sentiment and I wish it were true,
  • 00:49:48
    but it's very clearly not. Why?
  • 00:49:52
    Because tithing is in the law,
  • 00:49:54
    but it's not only in the law.
  • 00:49:56
    It supersedes it. It's before and it's after.
  • 00:50:00
    It's one of God's ordinances.
  • 00:50:02
    An ordinance is a principle of ordinary behavior
  • 00:50:06
    for people who follow God.
  • 00:50:07
    Not murdering is another one.
  • 00:50:09
    Yes, it's in the law,
  • 00:50:10
    right smack dab in the Ten Commandments:
  • 00:50:12
    Do not murder.
  • 00:50:13
    But way before the law, principle of ordinary behavior,
  • 00:50:16
    Cain and Abel, God says really clearly,
  • 00:50:19
    "I don't want you to kill other people."
  • 00:50:21
    And it's reinforced.
  • 00:50:23
    This is tithing, way before the law.
  • 00:50:26
    That scene where Abraham gives 10% to Melchizedek,
  • 00:50:28
    that happens 430 years before the law.
  • 00:50:33
    And way after Jesus affirms the tithe.
  • 00:50:35
    Matthew 23:23 He says:
  • 00:50:41
    In other words, you're going like, "Yeah,
  • 00:50:43
    you give all your money.
  • 00:50:44
    But even every time someone gives you
  • 00:50:45
    a little bit of a spice which has value in their day,
  • 00:50:47
    you take 10% of that, weigh it out and give it to God.
  • 00:50:50
    You've done that."
  • 00:51:01
    In other words, he goes,
  • 00:51:02
    "You should have been doing all of it."
  • 00:51:03
    This is where I'd say if you want to take
  • 00:51:05
    the attitude and the approach
  • 00:51:07
    that you're a New Testament person.
  • 00:51:09
    Awesome, I am too.
  • 00:51:11
    You should just read the words of Jesus
  • 00:51:12
    in the New Testament, because again and again
  • 00:51:14
    and again, He does what He does here.
  • 00:51:16
    He doesn't lower the bar, He raises the bar.
  • 00:51:19
    He goes, "You've heard it said, love your neighbor.
  • 00:51:22
    Well, I say, love your enemy.
  • 00:51:23
    You've heard it said, do not murder.
  • 00:51:25
    Well, I say, don't even get angry
  • 00:51:26
    with somebody inside of your heart."
  • 00:51:29
    That's what Jesus does. He raises the bar.
  • 00:51:32
    Okay, but why would you give 10% to your church?
  • 00:51:35
    This is a great question that we need to examine,
  • 00:51:37
    need to ask and see what Scripture says.
  • 00:51:39
    Why give 10% to your church?
  • 00:51:41
    Why not give 10% to whatever select nonprofits
  • 00:51:44
    that you want to do? It's a great question.
  • 00:51:47
    The answer would be, first,
  • 00:51:48
    God's clear instructions over and over again
  • 00:51:50
    in Scripture are to communally,
  • 00:51:52
    for His people to communally pool our resources
  • 00:51:55
    and entrust them to spiritual leaders
  • 00:51:58
    who are held to account again and again and again.
  • 00:52:02
    Exodus 23 God says:
  • 00:52:09
    We see this in the Old Testament.
  • 00:52:10
    Tithes were brought in to the temple
  • 00:52:12
    and given to the Levites, entrusted to them.
  • 00:52:14
    In the New Testament we see this.
  • 00:52:16
    All the offerings, all the tithes,
  • 00:52:18
    are brought to the apostles and laid at their feet,
  • 00:52:20
    entrusted to them who are held to account.
  • 00:52:22
    And then secondly, I'll just say this,
  • 00:52:23
    even if that weren't true.
  • 00:52:24
    On a really practical level,
  • 00:52:26
    when you give to a healthy church,
  • 00:52:29
    it's like giving to a very carefully managed mutual fund.
  • 00:52:33
    See, we take wise stewardship incredibly seriously,
  • 00:52:36
    incredibly seriously.
  • 00:52:37
    And I would just gently propose to you that
  • 00:52:39
    you have a really hard time matching our rigor
  • 00:52:42
    and therefore our return.
  • 00:52:44
    And yes, we do pay attention to our return.
  • 00:52:46
    Jesus again and again in the Bible,
  • 00:52:48
    a lot of His parables about money
  • 00:52:50
    are about a return that He wants from our lives.
  • 00:52:53
    And so we look at this stuff.
  • 00:52:55
    One example is baptisms.
  • 00:52:56
    By the way, if you got baptized today,
  • 00:52:58
    congratulations!
  • 00:52:59
    We had baptisms at all of our sites.
  • 00:53:02
    Absolutely amazing.
  • 00:53:04
    The number I saw was 197 people
  • 00:53:07
    are going to be baptized just this weekend.
  • 00:53:10
    197, crazy!
  • 00:53:13
    Now what's even more mind blowing to me
  • 00:53:16
    is that for the year, if you add those 197
  • 00:53:18
    to what have been baptized since January 1st,
  • 00:53:20
    we're at 2002 baptisms for the year, in ten months.
  • 00:53:25
    That's that's more in ten months
  • 00:53:28
    than we've ever had in 12 months.
  • 00:53:30
    But that's not return. That's not return.
  • 00:53:34
    What do we spend on that?
  • 00:53:36
    Well, let me tell you before I tell you that,
  • 00:53:38
    let me say that the average cost per baptism
  • 00:53:39
    according to the Center of Christianity,
  • 00:53:42
    global study is $1.5 million.
  • 00:53:45
    That's the average return.
  • 00:53:47
    In other words, all the money a church spends
  • 00:53:49
    divided by the number of people they see baptized,
  • 00:53:51
    it's $1.5 million. Well, what's our return?
  • 00:53:55
    We've got to start with what we spent. Right?
  • 00:53:57
    January 1st to October 30th we've spent
  • 00:54:00
    $65,383,401.78.
  • 00:54:05
    If you divide that by 2002,
  • 00:54:07
    that's $32,659.04 per baptism,
  • 00:54:11
    which is a 45.9x better return than the average.
  • 00:54:17
    See, Jesus said aim for 30, aim for 60, aim for 100x.
  • 00:54:22
    Well good news, I hope,
  • 00:54:24
    your church currently sits right between 30 and 60
  • 00:54:27
    and we'd like to take that number higher.
  • 00:54:30
    We measure this stuff. We're transparent.
  • 00:54:34
    And listen, please, please hear -- Hear me.
  • 00:54:37
    Hear my heart on this.
  • 00:54:38
    If you hear all that and you're sitting
  • 00:54:41
    and you're going, "Man, I just --
  • 00:54:43
    I just don't trust you. I just don't believe it."
  • 00:54:47
    Okay. That bums me out personally,
  • 00:54:50
    but can I give you some advice?
  • 00:54:51
    I want God's best for you.
  • 00:54:53
    If you don't trust us. Okay.
  • 00:54:56
    Go find a church you do trust.
  • 00:54:58
    And wherever it is, bring your tithe there.
  • 00:55:01
    I want you to have God's best.
  • 00:55:03
    If that means leaving, that's okay.
  • 00:55:05
    Get His best for you, and that means
  • 00:55:07
    giving Him your first.
  • 00:55:09
    He hasn't changed on it.
  • 00:55:11
    He said this really specifically, by the way,
  • 00:55:13
    right before He talked about tithing.
  • 00:55:14
    Malachi 3:6h, one of the classic places
  • 00:55:17
    where He really zeroes in on tithing. He says:
  • 00:55:40
    God's response.
  • 00:55:55
    And then the mind blowing part is
  • 00:55:57
    this is God's next line.
  • 00:56:09
    This is the part in the Bible I read,
  • 00:56:10
    I'm like, "God, you're such a better parent than me."
  • 00:56:13
    When I find out my kids are doing stuff I don't want,
  • 00:56:16
    I don't walk up to them and go, "Honey,
  • 00:56:19
    test me in this.
  • 00:56:21
    See if I will not throw open the floodgates
  • 00:56:23
    of the Ranson bank accounts and --" No.
  • 00:56:26
    I'm like, "Get in line or you've lost
  • 00:56:28
    TV for the rest of your life." You know?
  • 00:56:31
    That's not God. God's a positive reward parent.
  • 00:56:34
    I want you to hear that clearly.
  • 00:56:36
    I'm not after condemnation for you.
  • 00:56:38
    Wherever you are in your journey,
  • 00:56:40
    I'm not after condemnation for you.
  • 00:56:41
    I don't think God is either.
  • 00:56:42
    It's not condemnation, it's an invitation.
  • 00:56:44
    God says, "Would you step in?
  • 00:56:45
    Because if you will, if you'll give Me your first,
  • 00:56:47
    you're going to get My best."
  • 00:56:50
    It's giving Him your first,
  • 00:56:51
    putting Him first in your heart.
  • 00:56:53
    I started tithing 20 years ago.
  • 00:56:55
    I was 23 years old. I was living with my parents.
  • 00:56:57
    Not excited about that, by the way.
  • 00:56:59
    And tithing meant that I had to continue
  • 00:57:01
    to live with my parents.
  • 00:57:02
    It was not an easy decision, but it was very simple.
  • 00:57:06
    I just decided I wanted God to be first in my heart.
  • 00:57:11
    But that tithing stuff, that first,
  • 00:57:12
    that's just a starting spot for biblical giving.
  • 00:57:15
    There's actually layers and levels beyond tithes.
  • 00:57:18
    In Malachi we got a clue to that.
  • 00:57:20
    Malachi talked about tithes, plural.
  • 00:57:21
    Because every single time you get paid,
  • 00:57:24
    you give the first 10% of that back to God.
  • 00:57:27
    He said tithes, plural,
  • 00:57:28
    but he also talked about offerings, plural.
  • 00:57:31
    And there's two levels to offering.
  • 00:57:32
    The first level is what I do with what's my own.
  • 00:57:36
    See, it's actually most biblically accurate
  • 00:57:38
    to say that true generosity starts above the tithe.
  • 00:57:43
    Why? Well, because God said the tithe,
  • 00:57:45
    the 10% is His and you can't give what's not yours,
  • 00:57:49
    you can return it.
  • 00:57:50
    Actually, the Bible never, ever says give your tithe.
  • 00:57:53
    Always it says return the tithe to God.
  • 00:57:57
    See, generosity starts with what I do with my 90%,
  • 00:58:00
    what I do with my own.
  • 00:58:02
    We see so many examples of this throughout the Bible.
  • 00:58:04
    One of the ones that I think is most powerful
  • 00:58:06
    has to do with the ministry of Jesus.
  • 00:58:08
    I don't know if you think about this,
  • 00:58:09
    but He had a cost of business,
  • 00:58:12
    going around, going to towns.
  • 00:58:14
    There was lodging, there was food.
  • 00:58:15
    I'm sure somebody's sandals broke.
  • 00:58:16
    Peter's probably broke all the time,
  • 00:58:18
    had to buy him new sandals.
  • 00:58:19
    There was a cost to it.
  • 00:58:21
    And so somebody had to fund it.
  • 00:58:23
    We hear who and how in Luke 8. It says:
  • 00:58:46
    These are good Jewish women.
  • 00:58:48
    Their tithe had been entrusted
  • 00:58:50
    to the Levites in the temple.
  • 00:58:52
    That was already gone.
  • 00:58:53
    Out of their own means, meaning out of their 90%.
  • 00:58:56
    Sarah and I have been doing this
  • 00:58:58
    for about the last 15 years or so,
  • 00:58:59
    and I'll tell you, to be honest,
  • 00:59:01
    we've never heard God say, "You know,
  • 00:59:03
    I'd like a couple more percent." Never heard that.
  • 00:59:05
    It's just out of a heart of gratitude for God
  • 00:59:08
    we said, "God, we want to be generous.
  • 00:59:10
    You've been so generous to us.
  • 00:59:11
    And so we don't want to stop at the tithe.
  • 00:59:13
    We want to reflect on a continual,
  • 00:59:15
    constant day in, day out, week in, week out,
  • 00:59:18
    month in, month out basis
  • 00:59:19
    Your heart of generosity back to You."
  • 00:59:22
    That's an offering.
  • 00:59:23
    But there's actually a level above offerings
  • 00:59:26
    called extravagant offerings.
  • 00:59:28
    This is not just when you give God your first
  • 00:59:31
    or give God out of your own.
  • 00:59:33
    This is when you give God your all.
  • 00:59:35
    And I think this is the point where that voice
  • 00:59:37
    for many of us starts to speak.
  • 00:59:39
    Isn't what you've already done,
  • 00:59:41
    isn't what you're doing, isn't it good enough?
  • 00:59:44
    And in response, I'd say, you know,
  • 00:59:45
    there are some things in life
  • 00:59:47
    where good enough is good enough.
  • 00:59:49
    One putts inside of five feet.
  • 00:59:51
    Can we just make it a rule in golf,
  • 00:59:54
    "Good enough, man. Pick up your ball.
  • 00:59:56
    It's not the Masters.
  • 00:59:57
    I want you to keep moving,
  • 00:59:58
    especially if you're in front of me.
  • 00:59:59
    Just it's good. I'll call it from the tee box.
  • 01:00:01
    Pick it up. You're fine."
  • 01:00:03
    Putts in five inside of five feet, that's good enough.
  • 01:00:05
    Middle names. If you're a young parent
  • 01:00:07
    and you're stressing out over picking
  • 01:00:09
    a middle name for your kid, do not.
  • 01:00:10
    You'll never use it.
  • 01:00:11
    Just pick one, you know, randomly
  • 01:00:14
    and just go move on with your life, good enough.
  • 01:00:17
    There's also some spots in life
  • 01:00:18
    where good enough is not good enough.
  • 01:00:21
    Skydiving, for instance.
  • 01:00:24
    Not really good enough is good enough place.
  • 01:00:27
    Vasectomies. Okay, not --
  • 01:00:29
    Not really looking for a good enough vasectomy, right?
  • 01:00:32
    And giving God all of your heart.
  • 01:00:36
    There's not a good enough is good enough here.
  • 01:00:37
    It's either all or it's not all.
  • 01:00:40
    That's why the herd thins at this level.
  • 01:00:43
    Many people never make it.
  • 01:00:45
    I'm actually becoming convinced that
  • 01:00:46
    the god of mammon, He has a religion,
  • 01:00:48
    and it's called the Cult of Good Enough.
  • 01:00:50
    And there's a temple he's built on this line
  • 01:00:53
    trying to distract you and pull you away
  • 01:00:55
    and pull you in and get you to stop listening
  • 01:00:57
    to God, go no farther and to start listening to him.
  • 01:01:00
    But the question you got to answer at this line is,
  • 01:01:03
    do you want to give God your good enough?
  • 01:01:05
    Or do you want to give God all of your heart?
  • 01:01:09
    Which is to say, an extravagant offering.
  • 01:01:11
    Now I find, kind of bizarrely,
  • 01:01:13
    since we serve a God of extravagance
  • 01:01:15
    that many Christians, we have a problem with extravagance.
  • 01:01:17
    We don't like extravagance.
  • 01:01:18
    We hear this all the time at Crossroads.
  • 01:01:20
    People complain about stuff.
  • 01:01:21
    Some of the projects you might respond to
  • 01:01:23
    and you go, "Isn't that extravagant?
  • 01:01:25
    Isn't what we already have,
  • 01:01:27
    isn't what we're already doing good enough?"
  • 01:01:30
    We don't like extravagance.
  • 01:01:31
    There was a story reminds me of this.
  • 01:01:33
    One of the most interesting stories,
  • 01:01:35
    I think, in the entire Bible.
  • 01:01:36
    It takes place exactly seven days
  • 01:01:38
    before Jesus was crucified.
  • 01:01:40
    A woman comes up to Jesus with a jar of ointment
  • 01:01:44
    or perfume worth a year's wages.
  • 01:01:46
    And she does the weirdest thing.
  • 01:01:48
    She opens the top and she dumps it all over his feet.
  • 01:01:52
    Super odd. Here's a story, John 12. It says:
  • 01:02:07
    That's the jar.
  • 01:02:17
    Right after that happens, Judas.
  • 01:02:18
    Yes, that Judas, he just lashes out.
  • 01:02:21
    He goes, "Oh, what a waste. What an extravagance!
  • 01:02:25
    This could have been sold and given to the poor."
  • 01:02:29
    Then the writer John, he goes.
  • 01:02:30
    By the way, Judas didn't say that because
  • 01:02:32
    he was like, really concerned about the poor.
  • 01:02:34
    He actually held the offering box,
  • 01:02:35
    and he used to take out of the money
  • 01:02:37
    that was put in there.
  • 01:02:38
    He used to steal from the offering box.
  • 01:02:40
    That's why he wanted the money in there.
  • 01:02:42
    But that quote we hear all the time
  • 01:02:43
    around Crossroads, heard that quote so many times.
  • 01:02:46
    Why the extravagance? Why the waste?
  • 01:02:48
    It's the first thing I ever said when I walked into Crossroads.
  • 01:02:50
    I walked in and there was $10,000 plasma TVs.
  • 01:02:53
    This is back in the day where TVs
  • 01:02:54
    were still like nine feet deep. You know what I mean?
  • 01:02:57
    It was these massive TVs.
  • 01:02:58
    And it was flat screens had just come out
  • 01:03:00
    and they had these plasma TVs, $10,000 a pop.
  • 01:03:02
    There were six of them. I counted.
  • 01:03:03
    And I walked in and I looked and I said,
  • 01:03:05
    "What a waste."
  • 01:03:07
    I didn't know I was quoting Judas.
  • 01:03:11
    Then I walked in the room and there was equipment
  • 01:03:13
    far more expensive than that,
  • 01:03:16
    but all of it wove together
  • 01:03:17
    to capture my attention, to grab my heart
  • 01:03:20
    and to communicate the message of Jesus
  • 01:03:21
    in a language I could finally,
  • 01:03:23
    for the first time, understand.
  • 01:03:25
    Yes. It's extravagant. There's a reason.
  • 01:03:29
    What was Mary's reason for the extravagance?
  • 01:03:31
    Why would Mary give such an extravagant offering?
  • 01:03:34
    Well, it's because exactly two months before this,
  • 01:03:37
    her brother Lazarus had died.
  • 01:03:40
    Jesus was away. He was out of town.
  • 01:03:41
    They were really good friends with Jesus.
  • 01:03:43
    But He was gone. Lazarus dies.
  • 01:03:44
    And Jesus starts walking back into town,
  • 01:03:47
    and Mary sees Him, and she runs to Jesus,
  • 01:03:49
    and she falls down at His feet
  • 01:03:51
    and she just starts to weep.
  • 01:03:52
    Scripture says she just sheds tears of joy,
  • 01:03:54
    like, all over His feet.
  • 01:03:57
    And then Jesus does the craziest thing.
  • 01:03:59
    He walks to the tomb where Lazarus is,
  • 01:04:01
    and He says, "Lazarus, come out."
  • 01:04:04
    And Lazarus comes back to life.
  • 01:04:07
    He raised her brother from the dead.
  • 01:04:09
    And so two months later, I think she does
  • 01:04:11
    the most natural, understandable thing.
  • 01:04:13
    Next time she sees Jesus,
  • 01:04:14
    she takes that jar of oil, which I think,
  • 01:04:17
    by the way, she bought to embalm her brother with.
  • 01:04:20
    It would have been an embalming type of fluid.
  • 01:04:22
    She cracks the lid off, and she's in
  • 01:04:24
    the same posture that she shed the tears on His feet.
  • 01:04:26
    She pours it all over and she wipes it with her hair.
  • 01:04:28
    She says, "God, I want you to know
  • 01:04:31
    you have all of my heart."
  • 01:04:33
    And I'm telling you, in that moment
  • 01:04:34
    Jesus knew with absolute certainty
  • 01:04:37
    that's exactly what He had, her all.
  • 01:04:41
    See is it extravagant? Yes.
  • 01:04:44
    But it's not difficult to understand.
  • 01:04:47
    What would you do if someone raised
  • 01:04:50
    one of your loved ones from the dead?
  • 01:04:52
    What would you give a God who raised you from the dead?
  • 01:04:58
    Let me just remind you, Ephesians 2:1 says:
  • 01:05:06
    He made you alive. How?
  • 01:05:08
    By giving His first His own and His all.
  • 01:05:12
    He gave His firstborn son over all creation.
  • 01:05:15
    That's the Scripture says about Jesus.
  • 01:05:17
    He's the first.
  • 01:05:18
    His own son, not somebody else's son,
  • 01:05:20
    and His only son, that means all.
  • 01:05:22
    He gave you His first, His own and His all.
  • 01:05:26
    What do you do to a God who does that?
  • 01:05:28
    How do you respond?
  • 01:05:30
    I've just been in the last week
  • 01:05:31
    I've been just stepping back
  • 01:05:32
    and just coming back to the spot and going,
  • 01:05:34
    "Oh God, man, I'm sorry.
  • 01:05:38
    I haven't been thinking straight.
  • 01:05:40
    I haven't been remembering the life You've given me.
  • 01:05:43
    You saved me. You rescued me.
  • 01:05:46
    My wife, my kids, the blessings that
  • 01:05:49
    You've given me again and again in my life."
  • 01:05:51
    And it's not that I've had a problem free life.
  • 01:05:53
    I haven't. We've experienced tragedy in our life.
  • 01:05:55
    But it's that again and again
  • 01:05:56
    in the difficulty of life I see and receive
  • 01:05:59
    the unmerited, generous, extravagant,
  • 01:06:01
    crazy blessings of God. It's crazy.
  • 01:06:07
    Last, probably two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago,
  • 01:06:11
    I was up in Columbus at our Columbus site
  • 01:06:13
    doing a Mission Briefing, just talking
  • 01:06:15
    to some leaders up there about the projects
  • 01:06:17
    and what we hope to fund and why, and all that stuff.
  • 01:06:19
    And at the end of the night, a guy came up to me
  • 01:06:22
    and he said, "Hey, I don't like to share this
  • 01:06:24
    with people, but I'm actually a doctor
  • 01:06:27
    and I'm a stroke specialist.
  • 01:06:29
    And I know, Kyle, you talked about your dad
  • 01:06:31
    having a stroke this past summer.
  • 01:06:32
    And I just keep thinking about him.
  • 01:06:34
    And I just want you to know
  • 01:06:35
    if there's ever anything I could do to help,
  • 01:06:38
    I'd love to do it."
  • 01:06:39
    I was like, "Man, that's -- That would be --
  • 01:06:41
    That'd be awesome."
  • 01:06:42
    That's been the hardest part of my year,
  • 01:06:44
    is that that thing and dealing with the aftermath of it.
  • 01:06:47
    And I said, "You know, there's one thing.
  • 01:06:50
    My parents, they just moved
  • 01:06:51
    to Charlottesville, Virginia,
  • 01:06:53
    and my dad's actually having a really hard time
  • 01:06:55
    even just getting in to seeing any stroke specialist.
  • 01:06:58
    The earliest appointment he could get
  • 01:06:59
    with anybody isn't until February.
  • 01:07:01
    And I just -- I don't like him waiting that long.
  • 01:07:03
    They moved there in August."
  • 01:07:05
    And this guy looks at me and I said,
  • 01:07:07
    "So you don't know anybody in Charlottesville, do you?
  • 01:07:10
    Any stroke doctors?"
  • 01:07:11
    And he goes, "Yeah, I actually know
  • 01:07:14
    every single stroke doc there because
  • 01:07:15
    that's where I did my residency.
  • 01:07:17
    In fact, I'm going to text my buddy right now.
  • 01:07:19
    He's the best guy and get your dad set up."
  • 01:07:22
    [cheers and applause]
  • 01:07:26
    Better than that, my dad had that appointment
  • 01:07:28
    just a few days ago, he went and had that appointment.
  • 01:07:31
    I talked to him the other day on the phone.
  • 01:07:32
    And, at the appointment
  • 01:07:42
    the doctor said, um,
  • 01:07:45
    "You know, your your indicators for stroke
  • 01:07:47
    are extremely low. I don't know why you had this,
  • 01:07:52
    but, while we can't predict the future,
  • 01:07:54
    I can say pretty confidently,
  • 01:07:56
    it's not going to happen again in your life."
  • 01:07:58
    [applause]
  • 01:08:03
    And then he said, another six months
  • 01:08:05
    and you're going to be recovered to the point
  • 01:08:07
    where no one will ever know you ever had a stroke,
  • 01:08:09
    fully recovered.
  • 01:08:10
    And you know, I stepped back from that
  • 01:08:16
    and my life and I go, "God, would I really want
  • 01:08:20
    to give somebody else my heart?
  • 01:08:22
    Would I really want to put my trust in my stuff?
  • 01:08:26
    What can my staff do for me?
  • 01:08:28
    What can money in an account do for me?
  • 01:08:30
    Nothing. Nothing."
  • 01:08:34
    In your life, what has God done for you?
  • 01:08:37
    Has he saved you?
  • 01:08:40
    If that was it, wouldn't it be good enough
  • 01:08:43
    to give Him your all?
  • 01:08:45
    Has He blessed you?
  • 01:08:47
    Has He saved your marriage?
  • 01:08:49
    Has He given you a shot at a second chance at marriage?
  • 01:08:51
    If He has, wouldn't that be good enough?
  • 01:08:54
    Has He saved your kids? Has He rescued them?
  • 01:08:57
    Wouldn't that be good enough?
  • 01:08:59
    That's the God we serve.
  • 01:09:02
    Let's not give Him our good enough.
  • 01:09:03
    Let's give Him our all.
  • 01:09:05
    In this Push I've changed my question.
  • 01:09:08
    I've stopped asking that.
  • 01:09:09
    God, I'm not interested in asking what's good enough.
  • 01:09:11
    I'm interested in saying,
  • 01:09:12
    in this season of my life, what's all of my heart?
  • 01:09:19
    I don't know what you're still holding back in your life.
  • 01:09:22
    Maybe you're holding it back because of your own concern.
  • 01:09:24
    Or maybe you're holding it back out of
  • 01:09:26
    wanting to bless and help somebody else besides you.
  • 01:09:30
    There's another story of generosity in the Bible,
  • 01:09:33
    extravagant generosity that touches on that.
  • 01:09:35
    It's a story of David. David, King David.
  • 01:09:37
    Like David and Goliath,
  • 01:09:38
    he gave $20 billion to build the temple of God.
  • 01:09:44
    He gave that out of the national treasury
  • 01:09:46
    and his own personal finances.
  • 01:09:49
    Now, the craziest part about this is that,
  • 01:09:51
    yes, those are the accounts that came out of.
  • 01:09:52
    But I don't think David was actually
  • 01:09:54
    giving away his resources in his mind,
  • 01:09:56
    that's not what was happening.
  • 01:09:58
    Why do I think that?
  • 01:09:59
    Well, because David very clearly knew
  • 01:10:01
    this was the end of his life,
  • 01:10:02
    knew it with absolute certainty.
  • 01:10:04
    In fact, he was to die within a few weeks
  • 01:10:06
    or months after he made this extravagant offering.
  • 01:10:09
    And so, in David's mind, he wasn't
  • 01:10:11
    giving away his own resources.
  • 01:10:13
    He was giving away his son's,
  • 01:10:16
    Solomon's inheritance on two sides, nationally
  • 01:10:20
    because Solomon was going to be the next leader,
  • 01:10:22
    and as the family leader, a giving away
  • 01:10:25
    all the personal wealth and resources.
  • 01:10:27
    And so logically, logically, I would say
  • 01:10:31
    the voice of mammon would coach you.
  • 01:10:32
    Logically, he should have bankrupted his son
  • 01:10:36
    on two sides, nationally, there's no money
  • 01:10:39
    to fund wars, no money to build walls,
  • 01:10:41
    no money to plant crops,
  • 01:10:43
    no money to do infrastructure.
  • 01:10:44
    Should have bankrupted him and doomed him.
  • 01:10:46
    Personally, same thing.
  • 01:10:48
    There's no money to invest in anything for the family.
  • 01:10:50
    It's all gone.
  • 01:10:52
    But you know the craziest part?
  • 01:10:55
    Do you know that Solomon personally became
  • 01:10:58
    the wisest and richest man on the planet?
  • 01:11:00
    And do you know that nationally,
  • 01:11:02
    Israel experienced the absolute height
  • 01:11:04
    of its prosperity under his rule?
  • 01:11:06
    The exact opposite happened.
  • 01:11:08
    You might be in a place where you're thinking
  • 01:11:10
    about inheritance, you're thinking about
  • 01:11:12
    the next generation, and that's challenging to you.
  • 01:11:14
    And maybe there's a verse in your mind.
  • 01:11:15
    The Bible does say this in Proverbs 13:22,
  • 01:11:17
    I think it says, A righteous man
  • 01:11:19
    leaves an inheritance to his children's children.
  • 01:11:22
    Absolutely, that's in there. Absolutely that's true.
  • 01:11:25
    But let me just push you a little bit.
  • 01:11:26
    Inheritance doesn't just mean money.
  • 01:11:29
    And in fact, if you were to think about
  • 01:11:30
    what makes it a righteous inheritance,
  • 01:11:32
    I would say it's the non-monetary part.
  • 01:11:35
    See, if you're leaving your kids,
  • 01:11:37
    if the value of what you're leaving
  • 01:11:39
    is the amount of dollars you're leaving,
  • 01:11:41
    I'm just going to push you,
  • 01:11:42
    that's an unrighteous man's inheritance.
  • 01:11:44
    Because an unrighteous man can leave the same thing.
  • 01:11:47
    When God says, leave a righteous inheritance,
  • 01:11:50
    He means leave a legacy of giving
  • 01:11:53
    all of your heart to God.
  • 01:11:54
    That's the most valuable thing
  • 01:11:56
    you could possibly do for people who come after you.
  • 01:12:00
    Model giving all of your heart.
  • 01:12:03
    Now those are some big examples, right?
  • 01:12:05
    I mean, we've heard some numbers today
  • 01:12:07
    and there's some big numbers in there.
  • 01:12:08
    A year's salary, half a year's salary, $20 billion.
  • 01:12:12
    But an extravagant offering,
  • 01:12:14
    I want to be very, very clear,
  • 01:12:15
    it is not about the amount. It's not.
  • 01:12:19
    In fact, the most extravagant offering
  • 01:12:21
    in the entire Bible is when a widow
  • 01:12:24
    gives away her last two pennies.
  • 01:12:27
    It says this in Luke 21:
  • 01:12:29
    That's Jesus.
  • 01:12:50
    It's not about the amount. It's not.
  • 01:12:54
    In a number of days there's going to be
  • 01:12:55
    a lot of us making commitments above and beyond, right?
  • 01:12:58
    And some of them will be $1,000 and that'll be all.
  • 01:13:01
    Some of them will be $10,000,
  • 01:13:02
    some will be half a year's salary,
  • 01:13:03
    some will be three times a year salary,
  • 01:13:05
    some will be $1 million.
  • 01:13:06
    I'm hoping and praying some will be millions of dollars,
  • 01:13:09
    but the amount doesn't matter.
  • 01:13:10
    What matters is the hearts behind the amount.
  • 01:13:14
    Does it represent some or does it represent all?
  • 01:13:19
    This 10X and ten year vision, by the way,
  • 01:13:21
    it takes all of us.
  • 01:13:22
    I know it's easy to look around at Crossroads,
  • 01:13:24
    such a big church and be like,
  • 01:13:26
    "Man, it's so big it doesn't need me."
  • 01:13:28
    No, the opposite is true.
  • 01:13:30
    The call of God is so massive
  • 01:13:32
    it requires everyone giving our all.
  • 01:13:37
    We want to see an awakening.
  • 01:13:39
    It requires everything.
  • 01:13:41
    This whole message, like I said,
  • 01:13:43
    it's about you hearing God's voice on giving.
  • 01:13:47
    What is He asking for you to do?
  • 01:13:50
    I'll give you a push.
  • 01:13:52
    Do you know that none of those extravagant offerings,
  • 01:13:55
    Mary's oil, David and the 20 billion,
  • 01:13:59
    the widow and her mite, in none of those stories
  • 01:14:02
    do we see a scene where God speaks to them
  • 01:14:05
    and says, "I'd like 20 billion.
  • 01:14:09
    I'd like your last $0.02.
  • 01:14:11
    Mary that jar of oil, I want you to give Me."
  • 01:14:15
    We don't see that.
  • 01:14:16
    Instead, it appears that all of these people
  • 01:14:19
    in this conversation with God.
  • 01:14:21
    Yes, they've been listening.
  • 01:14:23
    Yes, they've been hearing.
  • 01:14:24
    But there's a point at which
  • 01:14:25
    they want to say something out of their own heart.
  • 01:14:28
    "God, you can have all."
  • 01:14:31
    That's the choice.
  • 01:14:33
    Which master will you serve?
  • 01:14:35
    You can't serve God and mammon.
  • 01:14:37
    They say completely different things.
  • 01:14:39
    Voice of Mammon, last verse
  • 01:14:41
    I'm going to give you for the day.
  • 01:14:42
    The voice of mammon says, put your trust in me
  • 01:14:45
    and do that by holding on.
  • 01:14:47
    It's actually a story that Jesus tells
  • 01:14:49
    about bigger barns, and a man who decided
  • 01:14:51
    this was the path to safety and security.
  • 01:14:54
    He listened to the voice of mammon.
  • 01:14:55
    It goes like this in Luke 12:
  • 01:15:23
    And then Jesus closes the story this way.
  • 01:15:24
    He says, this is how it will be.
  • 01:15:27
    There's the phrase again.
  • 01:15:33
    See, the the safest place for you to put your trust
  • 01:15:36
    is not in mammon, it's in God. Why?
  • 01:15:41
    Because He's something mammon can never be.
  • 01:15:44
    He's generous and He's rich.
  • 01:15:49
    He said in that verse, Malachi says,
  • 01:15:50
    "See if I don't throw open the floodgates of heaven."
  • 01:15:53
    Have you ever wondered what that means?
  • 01:15:55
    You know, like, how wealthy is God?
  • 01:15:59
    I was thinking about that, did a little bit of research.
  • 01:16:01
    Just ask the question,
  • 01:16:02
    how much gold is there in the universe?
  • 01:16:06
    Well, if you look at the Earth,
  • 01:16:08
    there's some gold in the earth,
  • 01:16:10
    244,000 tons in the crust, 1.6 quadrillion,
  • 01:16:14
    like, more than trillion, quadrillion tons in the core.
  • 01:16:17
    Just in the Earth.
  • 01:16:19
    By the way, gold, one ton of gold is worth $49 million.
  • 01:16:22
    Not going to do that math for you,
  • 01:16:24
    but it's a lot by itself.
  • 01:16:26
    But, you know, there are more planets
  • 01:16:28
    than just Earth in the universe.
  • 01:16:31
    How many more planets?
  • 01:16:32
    Well, for every single grain of sand on the Earth,
  • 01:16:36
    from your backyard playbox
  • 01:16:39
    to the eroded top of a mountain,
  • 01:16:41
    to the beaches that you go to,
  • 01:16:42
    to the bottom of the ocean floor.
  • 01:16:44
    For every single grain of sand on the earth,
  • 01:16:47
    there are 1 billion planets in the universe.
  • 01:16:51
    That's just the golden planets, by the way.
  • 01:16:53
    There's also golden stars.
  • 01:16:54
    The sun contains 2.5 trillion tons,
  • 01:16:56
    and there's 200 billion trillion stars in the universe.
  • 01:16:59
    God is rich.
  • 01:17:00
    Do you know that it rains diamonds on Jupiter?
  • 01:17:04
    It does. You can look that up,
  • 01:17:05
    maybe in a couple of other planets, too.
  • 01:17:06
    God is rich and He's generous.
  • 01:17:11
    He says, "You can trust Me. Will you give me your all?"
  • 01:17:18
    Before we get up, we're going to take a moment.
  • 01:17:20
    Wherever you are in your seat,
  • 01:17:21
    I want you to just close your eyes
  • 01:17:23
    and start a conversation with God.
  • 01:17:25
    Justin's going to play a song for us
  • 01:17:27
    as we have this conversation.
  • 01:17:28
    It's a song that I heard a few days ago
  • 01:17:30
    in a staff worship setting, and it just --
  • 01:17:33
    It just broke me. It just got me in a different gear.
  • 01:17:35
    Song called Take Me Deeper.
  • 01:17:38
    And it has lyrics about sacrifice
  • 01:17:40
    and leaning into God and saying,
  • 01:17:42
    "God, you can take me farther
  • 01:17:43
    than You've ever taken me before."
  • 01:17:45
    And it just hit me different that it's easy to sing.
  • 01:17:47
    But when I think about my money,
  • 01:17:49
    the thing that God says represents my heart, Oh man.
  • 01:17:53
    So I want you to start a conversation with God
  • 01:17:55
    before you get out of this room.
  • 01:17:56
    Maybe it's about something that pushed you
  • 01:17:58
    in this message today or in this service.
  • 01:18:02
    Maybe it's something that you're having
  • 01:18:03
    a hard time letting go.
  • 01:18:05
    Whatever it is, talk to Him about it.
  • 01:18:07
    Maybe you're at the point where you want
  • 01:18:08
    to just say to God, "God, you can have all of me."
  • 01:18:11
    Whatever it is, start that conversation now
  • 01:18:13
    as Justin plays a bit of the song for us.
  • 01:20:17
    - Father, that's our prayer.
  • 01:20:20
    Would You take us further than we think is possible?
  • 01:20:24
    Would You take us beyond the boundaries that we put up?
  • 01:20:26
    Would You take us beyond the norm
  • 01:20:27
    of listening to the voice of mammon?
  • 01:20:29
    Would You take us to a place
  • 01:20:30
    where we give You all of our heart?
  • 01:20:35
    Give us that courage. Amen.
  • 01:20:46
    - I just really enjoyed that message with Kyle.
  • 01:20:49
    It was so real. He had a lot to pack in there.
  • 01:20:52
    And I want to say I both learned something,
  • 01:20:54
    I was moved spiritually.
  • 01:20:55
    I enjoyed that story about his father.
  • 01:20:58
    God just does everything so great.
  • 01:21:00
    And Kyle's right, we want to respond to a God
  • 01:21:03
    who's not random, who's not doing coincidental things,
  • 01:21:06
    but who loves us so much that He would
  • 01:21:09
    go out of his way to place the right people
  • 01:21:11
    in our path at the right time,
  • 01:21:13
    to give us the exact thing that we need.
  • 01:21:15
    So, so good. Great job encouraging us
  • 01:21:17
    and challenging us as well.
  • 01:21:19
    - Love it! Yeah, the 10X Push has been so good
  • 01:21:22
    and it's full of stories.
  • 01:21:23
    Stories of ways God is moving in our churches
  • 01:21:25
    at large, and like Kyle's, like stories of ways
  • 01:21:28
    God is moving in our lives individually.
  • 01:21:31
    So the 10X Push has been so good,
  • 01:21:32
    and we're already over halfway
  • 01:21:34
    through the six week journey together.
  • 01:21:35
    I just want to remind you guys do three things with me.
  • 01:21:37
    Keep watching every weekend,
  • 01:21:39
    two, keep doing the work in your guide.
  • 01:21:42
    And third, if you want to press in even further,
  • 01:21:45
    we actually have an online mission briefing
  • 01:21:46
    that's going to be led by Kyle on November 4th,
  • 01:21:49
    7:30 p.m. eastern.
  • 01:21:51
    If you're watching this in real time on Sunday,
  • 01:21:53
    that's tomorrow night.
  • 01:21:54
    This is a chance to dive in deeper
  • 01:21:56
    to the specific territories and the work within them
  • 01:21:59
    that we believe God is calling us to:
  • 01:22:01
    camps, reach out, digital and sites.
  • 01:22:03
    There's so much incredible work,
  • 01:22:04
    so much potential impact just within those
  • 01:22:06
    you actually have to have a chance to ask Kyle
  • 01:22:09
    and myself questions.
  • 01:22:10
    You can head to crossroads.net/10X to RSVP.
  • 01:22:13
    We'll send you the zoom link so you can join.
  • 01:22:15
    - And if you can't make that tomorrow,
  • 01:22:17
    if you're watching this in real time,
  • 01:22:19
    we do have a space where you can see all about
  • 01:22:21
    what we are talking about with these territories.
  • 01:22:23
    You can receive that digitally through a PDF,
  • 01:22:26
    and so you can scan the QR code
  • 01:22:28
    that is here on your screen
  • 01:22:29
    or you can go to Crossroads.net/territories
  • 01:22:32
    to learn a lot more.
  • 01:22:33
    - That's right. Hey, one last thing.
  • 01:22:35
    If all of this has been exciting to you
  • 01:22:37
    and you're ready to be a part of
  • 01:22:38
    what God wants to do next in you, for you,
  • 01:22:40
    through you, and through our church
  • 01:22:42
    specifically with Crossroads,
  • 01:22:43
    mark your calendars for Sunday, November 17th.
  • 01:22:47
    It's going to be one of the biggest weekends
  • 01:22:49
    in the history of Crossroads.
  • 01:22:50
    You can join us in person or online that Sunday.
  • 01:22:54
    Until then, we'll see you right back here next week.
  • 01:22:56
    - Have a good one.

Process, journal or discuss the themes of this article - here's a few questions to get the ball rolling...

Welcome to the Weekend-Follow Up!

This is the group guide where questions are based on specific Bible passages from the weekend message. Each week, your group will explore what God might be saying to you and how you can respond through group discussion.

  1. Are you a fan of pro wrestling? Why or why not?

  2. What stood out to you most from the message?

  3. When was the last time you wrestled with someone or something (emotionally, spiritually, or physically)? What was the result?

  4. Read Matthew 6:19-21. Where would you say your heart is right now?

  5. Which type(s) of giving have you engaged in recently (common, tithing, offering, extravagant offering)?

  6. Which type of giving do you find most challenging to engage with? What makes it difficult?

  7. What’s one step you can take this week towards giving all of your heart over to God?

  8. Let’s end our time praying together. You can say something like;

    “God, thank you for the ways you extravagantly love us. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to wrestle with you, to get to know you more intimately. Give us generous hearts in this season. Give us the courage to trust you fully with all that we have. Amen.”

More from the Weekend

Bonus Questions! Check these out if you’re on a roll and want to go a little deeper.

  • Where in your life have you seen “good enough” thinking rob you?
  • What would trusting God fully with your heart look like in this season?

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(This stuff helps us figure out how many fruitcakes to make come December)

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Nov 3, 2024 1 hr 23 mins

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