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And what did he say? God and money. That was his biggest deal. He talked about money more than heaven. You know why? Because money takes over us. The fear of not having enough, the fear of losing what you have, the fear of not being comfortable, the fear if I trust God what's gonna happen to me? It is a huge line of test.

And what we're gonna see today, Jesus shows us how this works out. Jesus shows us that we have to come to those I can't not do this moments. And it is hard. First of all, when he sat in the Garden Of Gethsemane, before he

gave his all for us. And he knew he's a man and God and he decided to leave heaven and go do that. He sat there sweating blood. And he had the moment that I know many of you are having this moment right now. He sat there and said to the Lord, prayed to the Father, if this cup may pass,

is there maybe another way to do this? Because he knew how hard this was gonna be. But then he says, not my will, thy will be done. So Jesus Christ, God the Son has sat in the same place as where I'm asking many of the believers in this room to sit. God doesn't promise following him makes it easier.

He just promises it makes it better. And better is where blessing really is. And his better is eternal. And as we saw last week, as my dad talked about in a fight, in a battle, you got two sides fighting a battle. They all experience the same hard,

but at the end one has victory, one has defeat. The Bible says there's a way that seems right to man, but the end it leads to defeat. It's hard to go the other way. But if you go the way God wants you to go, it's hard too, but there's a win.

And as my dad said, winning and losing just determines in a battle who went forward and who went backwards. And so we got to choose our hard. We have to have that moment, and I am challenging some of you to come to this moment. I'm praying that your hearts would realize this is a moment in your life that you can't not

do it, Instead of I can't do it. And why? How does this work out? What we're gonna see here as we rattle through a few scriptures is is simply this big idea. Love gives and love goes.

That's why we need to do this. Love gives, love goes. What am talking about? It gives and it goes. Jesus did this. His love gives, his love goes. John three sixteen, one of the greatest well known Bible passages known to man says this.

For this is how God loved the world. He gave his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God so loved, he gave his son. Jesus came. Love gives. Didn't get that? God so loved, he gave. Loved gave, love gives.

And you know what? He's calling us to the same thing. And here's the thing, you talk about money, you talk about giving in that way, giving sacrificially how God's called us to. Because you know what? Jesus says, I died for you, your sacrifices live for me. And when he talks about our sacrificing,

honoring him, worshiping him, he talks about dying to self over and over and over again. And that is why money is an issue. You have got to settle as a believer. And I believe in our culture it is the biggest issue. I know it's the biggest issue in this room.

Because I know that we've been blessed. Look at all this. People are growing. We built that building. We raised $6,000,000 in two years with six fifty families. There's 8,000 families that attend this church regularly. Of those 8,000,

3,000 give regularly. That's 30 some odd percent. That's actually better than most churches. But out of those 3,000, 1,500 give less than $1,000 a year.

Think about that. Less than $1,000 a year in our culture. If you buy a coffee five days a week, depending on your size, that is $1,800 to $2,000 a year. See, I have to talk about this because there's too many believers that you are enslaved to money and then if I talk about it, you're mad at me. It's a distraction.

It's a distraction. Because Jesus calls us, in love gives, love goes. If you love, you give. We know this. And here's the thing. I believe the enemy creates incredible cognitive dissonance in us in the church. Because you know for a fact that love gives. If you love something, you give to it. A lot of you in marriage.

I know I was dumb enough to do marriage counseling for a while. I didn't have the temperament. But love gives. It's like you know that. Because I guarantee, take away, you can give me every scenario you have. But every scenario they're mad at and fighting over always comes down to this. You say you love me,

but you don't do anything with that. It's all words and emotions and I'm so so sorry in a moment, but then you walk around and you don't do it. You love me, but you're not here. You love me, you won't help me with the kids. You love me, you won't get a job. You love me, you won't. You love me, but we know love gives.

We can't live in a marriage that way. How about your walk with God? Because what are we gonna do? Love gives. And love goes. It goes and does something. We get that and that's what Jesus does.

John three sixteen, and then you know what? He calls us to be people who love so we give and we go. The last words that he commanded to the disciples that are to us. He gave us the purpose. This is the purpose. Our lives should be intentionally centered around this. It says this,

I have been given all authority in heaven on earth. This is Matthew 28. Therefore go and make disciples. Go. His last thing is I need you to go. Go and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Teach these new disciples to show up to church every now and again and have an emotional moment. Rate what happened by how it made them feel and then go on with their life. It doesn't say that. Teach these disciples to obey all the commands I have given you and be sure that you know that I am with you.

Think about that. All the commands. Chief command, love God, love others.

That's the chief command. How we love God and love others is we go make disciples. That's loving God and loving others. How do we do that? We gotta give. We have to give. He's asked us to give. That's why we're supposed to give of our finance. We're supposed to give of our time. Supposed to give of our testimony.

And it focuses us. It grows us. Me asking about give is a necessary thing. If God didn't want me to talk about money he would just give money. But his plan is people. We're the ones. We go share the gospel. We get to do this. And that was his last thing. He's like, Go do this.

Is that what you're trying to do? Is that what we're about? That's what we need to be about.

Because love gives. When Jesus was in the garden he had his I can't not do this. His love gives, his love goes, and he challenged us to the same thing. The same thing. Go. When you think about your relationship, is it like a lot of marriages where you're like, hey, baby, baby, I'm sorry. You know I love you.

You know I love you. I'm still not gonna do any of those things that I know I'm supposed to do, but you know I love you, but I'm sorry. Take me back. Is that you with Jesus?

Especially when it comes to the financial part of it. It's a matter of the heart. That's why we talk about it. There's a chance for me to share the matter of the heart. Where are we at? Because love gives and we know it. The cognitive dissonance disconnects it.

And then we start doing what I did in my friend's office. Some of you right now, the way you're looking, you're either thinking deeply or you're planning my demise. I'll meet you outside. We'll fight after. And after you lose

Guys, I get it. The world tricks you. One of the number things, all they do is talk about money. All they do is talk, well I just told you how many families and what they do. I have to talk about this. Jesus talked about money more than heaven. Why? Because it's where heart is.

And then the idea is, oh, pastors just care about money. They're just trying to build me and take my some probably are. There's shysters out there. There's people that just wanna take your money. Yeah.

But if you have a doctor that's a rip off doctor that's trying to rip you off, realize this is a shyster doctor. Do you say, I'm done with medicine. No, you're still gonna go to a doctor.

See, there's the cognitive dissonance again. Some of us are sitting in here and and and some of you are using that as a shield. Well, since he's talking about money so much, there's something I don't have to give. No. That's not true. That means you don't believe the Bible and you don't believe in Jesus. Because if you really believe it, you'd go find a church that you could trust and you'd give there.

But you're not gonna do that because the reason you're getting mad at me is you don't want to give. Because if you really do and you really don't believe me, leave and find a church you'll give to. Because that's the best way I can disciple you if you won't listen to me. Go somewhere else.

It's like I said, there'll be people that'll go to Echoes and not wanna give anything. I tried to tell them not to do it. Then I thought about it. You're better off, Daniel. They can be your problems.

Yeah. I do love you guys. You know that, right?

Jesus love gives. Jesus love goes. He's called us to give. He's called us to go. And if you can't see that, I'm gonna read one more passage here. And this is the scariest, probably one of the scariest passages in scripture and most people don't even realize it. They think Revelation. Revelation isn't scary, we win.

Revelations is like a good Lord of the Rings movie. It's like you're like Frodo carrying it, and Sam goes I can't carry it, but I can carry you. You know that's at in the end there's victory, man. You should not be afraid of that bucket unless you're not a believer, then you should be terrified of it.

If you're an orc you shouldn't like it. Lord of the Rings.

But here's Jesus talking about this parable about what the gospel does and what it's supposed to do when it's in our heart and what the hearts that respond to it. He says listen a farmer went out to plant some seeds. As he scattered them across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath and the birds came and ate them. Other seeds fell on the shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow,

but the plants soon wilted under the hot sun. And since they didn't have deep roots, they died. Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. Still other seeds fell on fertile soil.

And they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, or even a 100 times as much as been planted. Anyone with ears to hear should listen to understand. Ears to hear with listen to understand that means you've actually thought about it. You're looking at your heart and you're going, Hey, am I doing this?

Is this really my life? Does my life produce a crop? Over and over when it talks about a crop and then he tells us to go, the harvest is plentiful, the workers are few, he's talking about people and life change and spreading the gospel and going and making disciples.

A lot of people read that and it just means the crop is am I cussing less? Am I doing this less? Am I

stopping doing certain things that I know people don't like? That's part of our growth as a Christian, but it's not just about we are not following Jesus just to do less dumb things. We're following Jesus to do more glorious things.

And that's the idea. It's replacement. Stop being dumb with your money so you can start going where God wants it to go and be a part of what we get to do.

So these He says they don't listen. Goes on and says, why is he talking parables? Now look how he explains it to his disciples in verse 18. Now listen to the explanation of the parable about the farmer planting seeds. The seed that fell on the footpath represents those people who hear the message about the kingdom and don't understand it. Then the evil one comes and snatches away the seed that was planted in their hearts.

The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don't have deep roots, they don't last long.

They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God's word. The seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God's word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth. He's not talking about the lure of trying to become rich. He's saying life is hard. I don't have any money. I have to work. I just my money's mine. I gotta do this. It's like you're lured. You're lured. You're controlled by it. I can't trust God because of this.

So no fruit is produced. The seed that fell on the good soil represents those who truly hear and understand God's word and produce a harvest of 36 or even a 100 times as much has been planted. He said those who truly hear and understand. Here's the scary part. You know what that really said?

Only the last one is an actual Christian. See, he was talking to a crowd just like I do every week. A lot of people come, I believe in God, I believe in you. You come in here and you sing and you wanna hear something. And I guarantee not all of you in this room are Christians.

You're not. He called it out. What is a Christian? You trust God's love to the point that you follow him into the hard thing and it produces a crop. People get saved because you've taken your time, your talent, your testimony, and your treasure and have invested it into where God told you to invest it.

That is what we're called to do. And here's the hard part. If I never end up producing a crop, you are not a believer. You can say Jesus. You can say things, but he even talks about it. There's gonna come some people stand for Jesus and he's gonna say, But Lord, Lord, we did this. We did that. We went to church. We

got angry with Bill when he challenged me to give. We did all these things. And he'd say, Depart from me for I never knew you. So for me to challenge us in this way is an act of love. Now don't hear what I'm not saying and don't hear what Jesus is not saying and don't write me a stupid email about it.

Because one, don't get them.

Me and Jesus are not saying, so you better start giving or you're going to hell. I might think that's where I want you to go if you don't give, but that's between me and my bad attitude.

It's not saying do this to be saved. He's saying the ones who truly understood. You truly understood God's love for you. Because he says because of his love, we can love. It goes back to your heart. You have to truly understand

what it means to know what Jesus did for you. And when you understand what he actually did for you and you really really really know that love, by the power of the Holy Spirit it unlocks your heart. Doesn't mean we're perfect. We still sin. We still have problems. It just means I'm willing to walk that direction. And when it gets hard, I might mess up, but I'm gonna stay in the fight. I'm gonna stay in the fight. I will not sit here and say I'm a Christian and I will not give. That doesn't add up.

It really doesn't. He's saying if you immediately and right, you could say, I want to, I gotta figure this out, I gotta do this, God help me. You could do all that. But a true Christian would not hear God's word and say, I won't do that. You got a problem, but you don't force it. What I'm

trying to say is it should be indicator like, guys, some of us think on what you're doing and ask yourself, why do I not want to? Why when I hear what I get to do with God's word and how he promises the victory is that way and he promises like, could you imagine if just everyone in this room truly tithe and went for it?

You know how much further, faster we would get? How our crop would go from 30 to 60 to 100 and more? I mean, look how far we've gotten, which is 33% and a half well, probably only half, 15% of people here are probably all in.

A good chunk of us are what I call welfare Christians. You're just sitting around and taking. You're actually hurting the gospel going forward.

And it's usually you, if that's you, that complains the most about things when you don't like it.

So don't distract this thing like, Oh, they just care about my money. I care about your heart and your money is a problem with your heart.

We gotta deal with it. We gotta be willing to look at that. That's a scary moment. So what does that mean? It means do Where is my heart when it comes to Jesus' love? And why am I so afraid of what he's asked me to do? Why? And deal with that fear and be willing to handle it. Because here's the blessing, it'll change your life.

It's a blessing to you to give.

It really is. I used to feel bad when I had to say this. Then I started to realize what people's messed up ideas of money and not willing to trust God this way, what it does to their life, to their marriages. I mean, think about it. Number one fight in marriage, money. You know why? Because you got two people that are selfish,

which we naturally are. Jesus, he says, I died for you so you could live for me.

And we need to die to ourselves is what it says. You get two people in a marriage that both wanna do money a different way. And you know when you both wanna do that, you don't have enough money to do all of that. And neither one will listen to the Lord. And so now you're in debt. And debt causes stress and fear and then you're the debt as a excuse. I can't honor God with my money. And the cycle keeps going.

Choose your hard. Choose your hard. It's hard to not follow God. It's hard to trust God. But when you trust God, there's victory and we all get victory. Now on the other side is that's what God will do to you, in you, when we trust him this way. It makes life less scary.

But he also wants to give us a gift of what he'll do through us. What we've been able to do. And you know what? He says to go into all the world. Do you realize since day one, we've been going into all the world as a people? And I want to encourage you, if you give here,

this is part of the blessing. You didn't just help with what you're seeing around here. You've helped with what we've already been doing in the world. I wanna show you a picture of a well, let me set it up first before we show the picture.

We got together a while back and we started praying as leaders about what's next. Because we we build this building, we expand these seats, and and the way we've been growing six, seven hundred more seats are gonna be filled pretty fast.

So then what? Do we just stop reaching people? Do we put a full sign out front? Do we what do we do? Now we'll still be able to reach people because people move, people die, some of them because of my preaching. And some people move on because of my preaching. So there's always gonna be a chance to reach people.

It's just never gonna be as rapid as it's been here. And it's gonna slow down. So what do you do? Because churches have three options at that point. One of the first options is they just kinda get comfortable.

Pay off their buildings and then the staff no one's motivated because you're like, hey, we can afford stuff. And you don't even notice you slowly without vision the people perish. Meaning when we without vision, faith your faith dies when you don't get in the fight.

And so what happens is the church then dies. They start shrinking. Wow. That was a very big church. What happened to it? They start going backwards. If you wanna continue to go, you gotta do something else. And we prayed about, you know what? We have grown at Rock Point 20% a year since it's been over ten years at least.

And that's what's happening. Well, if we said, what would it be like if we can continue to grow 20% per year for the next ten years? The only problem with that is it would be 35,000 people coming. And I don't think I can get enough of us to leave Sunday morning to fit 35,000.

And so we said one of two ways you can keep doing that. One way is real popular right now, satellite campuses. You go get another campus, you slap the preacher up on the screen, which they work and then you can continue to grow. I'm not anti it. I just don't feel that's right for us, especially

You don't need to slap my face up on a screen. That'll scare the children. And if you slap Daniel up there, his tattoos are gonna scare the parents. So and his torn jeans.

We just feel called differently. We feel really called to do the old school tried and true method. Let's start churches. But the difference is, the reason they say satellites work better than churches is because churches like, good luck, go. They start kinda like what I started from my church.

Instead of what if you spent the time and the resource on a son that you would on a satellite, on a daughter? Put the resources, really believe in them. What we've been doing with Daniel.

Give him a kickstart. I love Nate. Talk to anybody. Take anybody you want. And he's like, right now he's got 700 just in his core group. I'm hoping to God they're from Sunday morning. I hope they're all from the ten a. M. Service. Probably gonna be all Saturday night people because they're the ones that listen to me.

Sorry. But here's our goal. If we're gonna do that we need to go beyond Rock Point. That's kind of our theme.

That we need to go even beyond Rock Point. We don't wanna do satellites because we don't care about our name being slapped on something. I'd rather help someone else who God grows. I feel like God's called me and now my personality has seeped into our team around here. I

have a calling and a heart and I've actually, now that I'm older, I've proven I can raise, I can coach up young leaders, especially communicators. I mean everyone loves Daniel. If you guys remember when he first preached, I wouldn't let him do two weeks in a row.

I'm not taking all the credit, he worked really hard. So we feel like we need to raise up another generation of leaders and we need to get more churches. We need to go for it. And so that in order to do that, we need to strengthen Rock Point. I need everyone here that says this is their church that really is a Christian

to go all in. Because love gives and love goes. I'm gonna ask you to go look at your finances and make some changes. And I am not gonna apologize about that. I used to feel bad. I don't because I've seen what it does when you do that. I've seen how that is probably the number one thing holding back your faith right now.

It's holding you back and it's holding us back. And I'm gonna challenge you to it. I won't apologize. And if you don't believe that I have your best interest and biblical truth behind it, then just at least go on Saturday night or go to another church because we need the seat. To be honest,

because we keep reaching people for Jesus.

So if we're gonna do that, we have to strengthen the church here. I gotta say stuff like that. We need to develop at least a 100 leaders over the next ten years who we send out. We've actually got four or five in our pipeline that we've looked at them and said, I think you're gonna plant a church in the next five years.

And now we put them on a plan to resident. And even though they're doing their ministry they're doing right now, we're moving them and looking and putting them into our thing to train them right now. So they're learning how to do it while they're still not ready.

And then intentionally maximize the resources of the kingdom. And you know what, we've already been doing this. It's just as we run out of room here, as we maximize this place, we can then turn our attention to really turning it into overdrive.

Because now I wanna show you a picture. See, that was like ten minutes ago I was gonna show it. Sermon would have been much shorter if I just wouldn't have remembered what I forgot to say. See the top there? This is in our office. Those are those little plaques, those clear plaques.

Those are all the churches, including Rock Point at the one end. And those are the churches that we've helped plant and start over the years. There's actually more than them. They're not all up. Because this all the actual logos of all the churches that we've helped start and plant starting back in 2006.

So we wanna accelerate it. We've already done a lot. But one of them on here, you look at all these to get the idea of what we're looking for and what we do is Christ Life Church. That's in Zambia. That's Malanga.

Malanga, Chella, we helped him launch. And I've been going there and training his young leaders. And here's what's happened from doing that. Now he has nine church plants since 2018. Yeah.

And we support this. What I'm saying is all those churches, all this, if you give here, it went there too. We're helping to go reach the world. We're producing the crop, the 30, the 60, the 90. And a matter of fact, even Blenga gets it. Look at number nine, most recent church plant. Where is it at? India.

India. He's actually sent someone to another country as well. We are already doing this. As a matter of fact, I leave for London tomorrow

because we've gotten started and connected with some churches. We started out just going there to check out an internship program we were a part of, sending students over there. Then And they were gonna go check it out because they wanted one of our guys to speak at something. And then I invited myself along because I just wanted to go to Scotland where they were having this meeting at.

And then we looked around, got to know it, but then we started to talk to people on the streets. We started to realize this place has less than 2% of people that go to church. And the young people are not anti Christian anymore. They're just ambivalent. They don't know anything. It's so far wrong. They have no idea.

So you start talking to them about what we do. What are you guys doing? You're a bunch of Americans walking around And and and I go, I'm coming over here to save your country again just like we did in the last two wars.

Instead of beating you like we did in the first two wars we had with you. No. I did not say that. I thought it. No. No. They don't like that act. You gotta just humbly just get to know them. So they would tell them we're pastors. And they're like, that's interesting. What does he do?

They don't I see. What do you interesting. I go to get my haircut. I go someplace. What do you do for a living? I'm a pastor. Shuts down. It's hilarious when they've been saying profanity the whole time you're talking to them, and then you say you're a pastor, and it stops.

But we wanted to find a connection. We've been praying and it's happened. And I want you to watch this little video. It's made by Converge Worldwide Ministries.

They're our outreach. That's what we're a part of an organization. They found out, they saw what we did and they say they wanted all churches. This is how you should be involved in global missions. So watch this.

The UK is a really interesting place. It's, I think, almost a unique place in terms of Christian dynamics and demographics. Most of Britain is rapidly secularizing, so it has been described as a textbook example of de Christianizing.

The county of Essex is one of the fastest growing regions in The United Kingdom. And so you've got this dynamic going on where there are more and more people moving into Essex at the same time as there are less churches. The relationship between Rock Point Church and King's Church and Simon's Church, it came from a heart of,

is there a way we can help as a church in The US reaching out to

people in The UK that we have a heart for? When Rock Point came in a year ago, the jury was out for me. Here's this large church from America. Are they gonna have the right posture? I didn't know them at all. American England can be described as two nations divided by the common language, and there there are actually big

cultural differences that flare up. One thing that's working really nicely is that Rock Point has a great value on humility. We take the ministry seriously, but don't take ourselves too seriously. We're willing to challenge each other

with the truth, and that really resonates with folk here and makes it easy and exciting for us to listen and learn. Despite the fact that Arizona

and Danbury, Essex is very different, we instinctively got on well. I think one of the things is that we we shared a sense of humor, which sounds really quite a sort of trivial thing, but it meant that actually there was a bit of chemistry there. We were looking for like minded churches, people that were going the same direction, rowing this the same way and go, do you have an oar and a bench that you need help with? And can we can we row with you towards this goal? And when we couldn't find any, we settled for Simon.

And you're about mission ethics and church planting, and that's what I'm a church planter. I'm a part of an organization that plants churches, and we are trying to go beyond Rock Point and plant all over the world. So we're like, hey. Maybe we can work together on this. What we've discovered is we look for principles.

How do we learn to adopt principles and then adapt practices? When you hear stories of people that didn't know the lord that now they do, you you hear a community that had no church in it, that was that was a strong biblically centered church now pointing people to Jesus. That's what I get excited about.

Simon's already started a movement called Mission Essex. That's how we got connected. He's already planted three or four churches. His leadership team has empowered him to spend a good chunk of his time not just leading his church, but leading this movement.

And they're just a church of 500. We have more people in here than they do. And we wanted to help them row. If you give, it goes. We're starting to see people come to Christ in a in a nation where it's been going backwards. I mean, I love that. Don't you love I mean, this is what's awesome.

Wouldn't you wanna be a part by investing in your money and your time in a movement where we go to a place that people said Christianity's gone, and God lets us be the tip of the spear to go draw the line and go, it's not going backwards any further.

It's going forward. I mean, what is more powerful than that? But you have to come to that moment where you can't not do it. I'm hoping this is for many of us in this room. I really am. I say those tough things out of love. The person I have the most heartbreak over is those of you sitting here

that know the Lord and you just can't commit financially. And you're trapped by the lies. You're trapped by the lies of I don't have enough. I don't have this. And

and yeah, it's gonna take some work. You're gonna have to look at what you're spending your money on. The only way you can give is to look at the rest that you're supposed to keep and go, what am I doing with it?

It's gonna mean some tough moments. It's gonna mean maybe shift into the idea that why does the Bible talk about percentages? It's a lot easier to give a percentage because what's 10% of zero if you don't have a job? It's zero. So you can triple your tithe at that moment if you want.

And I'm gonna challenge you even when it comes to regular good. We wanna give to this, but I hope this gets you to just get your heart right in regular good. If you've never given, I don't care about 10 right off the bat, just go somewhere, move forward. So I'm gonna start with one. And when you don't die and you start to go, wow, God took it, I'm getting smarter with this, go to two, go to three, go to four. And then I'm gonna challenge somebody in the room, you've been you've done so well your margin of living and your standard of living, 10% is nothing. Go to 12%, go to 15%. It never said you had to stop there. I mean, I'm not bragging, but my wife and I with what we give to the building, here, we're at 20%.

And it's there are so many things we could have done, like helped our kids go to college, but we chose not to.

Because I didn't think they'd get through it. No. Just kidding. We've helped them. It's just been hard. It's been hard. But you have to be at that point that you see what God sees. You know the heart of God. See, it comes back to the love of God. We love because God love first. Where is your heart?

And if you have the heart of God, you can come to this moment, and you can get in this fight just like a a shepherd boy named David did. He ended up being king David, you might remember.

He got anointed as king as a young boy and told that he'd be king, but he didn't get it right away. And he didn't act entitled. He didn't act cocky. He just kept doing his job. He bloomed where he was planted. He says, I'm gonna take what I have now and what I know now, and I'm gonna do the best with it in the mission I've been given right here.

And that was to be a shepherd. But

then you move a few few years later. It's like a teenager at this point. And and and and the Israelites are fighting the Philistines. A group that marauders that are coming in that God's already said this is the Israelites land. And if they fight, they are gonna win. If they trust God and get in the fight, they win.

But they're up lined up against each other. And David's father says, take this food to your brothers. They're up in the Israelite army. So he takes it up there and he shows up right when he sees their morning ritual that's been going on for the last month. And that is

the Israelite army gets together, they rally, they do their urahs. It's like your battle cries, urah, you know, whatever it is. And that gets them all pumped up. It's kinda like what we do at church when we're singing. Yeah. And then we gotta go out the door and fight the fight.

And they do what many of us do every week. You come in here, you hear this, you get a you go, yeah. I I love the Lord. And then you walk out there and do what they do. They turn around. They walk towards the battle lines, which by the way, I've been to the Valley Of Elah.

It's only they only probably walked a 150 or 200 feet. It wasn't miles where they can get scared. It was like right there. Yeah. Let's go do it. They'd walk right over there, and a guy named Goliath, a giant of a warrior, would come out every morning and challenge their best warrior. Give your champion,

and let's settle it. Less bloodshed, me against your champion. And they would hear him say that and taunt him, and they go, ah, and then run back and bank camp and not do anything about it. That is the problem that I see in the Western church where we act like we're poor and we're richer than the rest of the world.

We used to be the ones that went. Now we're the ones that sit. And we come back and we fall back from the fear. And we sit around and go, we'll try again tomorrow. And every day after day, and here's the sad thing. Here's the sad thing. This is what I wanna tell you. I love you because I'm gonna say this.

Because I don't wanna be like their king. Their king in that era, if you didn't have another champion, you know who's supposed to go fight that fight? The king. I'm not gonna be Saul. I refuse to be Saul. So I'm getting in this fight. I'll face the giant and I'll challenge us to do it too.

So his brother, David, around his brothers saw this happening, and something boiled up in his heart. He goes, this shouldn't be. And it wasn't that he was just mad at the Israelite army any more than I'm mad at us. It was he said, we should be winning. We shouldn't be living in fear.

We shouldn't be getting grumpy. We shouldn't be fighting with each other. We should be fighting that. And you know what his brothers did? They ripped on him. Oh, you're just wanting you just wanna know? Which is, I think, what some of you are doing in your heart right now over what I'm saying.

I'll be bold. I have not said anything that is not biblical. I have not said anything that I have not experienced myself that will change your life and will get you to the purpose you're supposed to be at. I will not apologize for it. But I'll tell you this, if you're mad at me about this, it is an issue in your heart.

It is an issue in your heart. I want you to win like David wanted Israel to win. And the reason is he knew God already said that's where the victory is. He was confused, not angry. He was like, why doesn't someone go kill this guy? And his brothers thought he's being cocky

because he knew the battle belonged to the Lord. You just had to go fight it. So the king finds out, pulls him into his tent. And he looks at David, his little shepherd boy, and he's like, who is this? How are you gonna go fight? You know what David said? I have killed a lion and I have killed a bear.

Where do you think he learned how to do that? Being a shepherd. I think some of us refuse this moment. You won't go any further because there are so many little moments in your life that you will not be faithful. You will not trust God. So you keep losing the big moment. David had been faithful where he was.

So he says, alright, I'll let you go, but you need armor. They put the armor on. I always imagine one of your kids when they wear your clothes and shoes because Saul should've went and fought that battle because he was actually their best warrior. He was big. He was the closest one.

The closest one of them to the size of Goliath. And he wouldn't do it. And when David looked at the way the armor felt, he goes, I can't do this. This isn't me. I don't have this kind of stuff.

He took his sling out and said, I gotta do it my way. In other words, I have to go into this fight with what I've been given.

I can't sit around and say, well, until I have the armor, I'm gonna get in this fight. Until I have the money, I'm gonna get that's not you take what you have and you throw it at the direction God wanted it. That's all you needed to do. And that's why he's able to say, I killed a lion and killed a bear, and I will take the head off this uncircumcised Philistine.

Because the battle belongs to the Lord. He just needed to go that direction, not that direction. He needed to go forward where the victory was. I couldn't imagine what the Israelites thought when he walked out there and they see this kid. But as he walked out there, he walked down to this dry creek bed,

and he grabbed five stones like this. I got this at the exact same spot. I hope Mossad doesn't track me down for stealing Israel's property. This is a rock from that creek bed. He just grabbed five things like this, and he said, I'm gonna go fight a giant with a piece of cloth and five stones. He took

what he had been gifted with, and he went to battle with a giant. He threw what he had at the problem, at the calling. Says when he walks out there, you would think, okay. He's probably gonna be a little scared. He's a little guy. He's walking out there. You might be thinking, what did I just commit myself to?

Says he walks straight out, And he says the giant sees him and starts just ripping on him. He's calling him a dog. Like, why are you sending a chihuahua at me? And he's laughing.

And then it says that he's gonna tear him apart. And then David looks at him and he goes, nope, the battle belongs, Lord. Today, in a minute here, you're gonna be dead. It's basically what he said.

And he says the giant started walking at him thinking, I'll finish this. And David, instead of like chickening out or waiting like we all oh, maybe this is my moment. It says he ran quickly at the giant. Think about what what Goliath thought.

He's not even running away. He's like, I better go try to get this guy and comes at him. He doesn't even have to move that fast because all of sudden, David starts running straight at him. Straight at him.

Pulls out a sling, grabs his first stone, winds up, wham, plants it in his forehead and drops him. And here's the crazy part. He said, I will take the head off the giant. He didn't even have a sword. What's he gonna do? Hack at him with a stone? He knew that God was gonna provide what he needed next.

And when he got there, he took Goliath's sword because he killed Goliath so fast. He never even touched his sword. The only one who touched the sword of Goliath in the battle was David. And that's why the Bible says we are more than conquerors.

We might only have a strip of cloth and some stones. But with God on your side and going into the battle he called you to, you take what you have and you throw it where he told you to throw it, you will defeat the enemy. You will have victory, and you will be holding the sword in the end. So

that is why I will not say sorry for asking you to sacrificially give because I know that that is where victory is. All I'm asking you to do is give from what you have.

And many of us in this room, your Goliath is money, and you need to run quickly at this. The biggest thing is you're gonna cheer here you're gonna be a little bit moved, and then you're gonna walk out there and forget about it. So I'm gonna challenge you. When we're done here, give now. Now. Run immediately to obedience.

Go back, figure out the grander plan of what you're gonna do consistently, but do something about it right now and see what starts happening in your life. Don't waffle. Don't sit back. Have some courage. Because I get it. I get it. The way I use this story, we're not Israel.

Our money issues and our buildings isn't isn't isn't

isn't the Philistines and Goliaths. And I'm no David, but here's my fear. In England, they went from 75% of people going to church to 2% in one generation. It took one young generation to say no. So why do you think I want us to throw our rocks at finishing this building that helps us reach the next generation?

And I might not be David, and you might not wanna believe me, but as long as God lets me stand here and lead this place, I will throw rocks at the heads of giants.

And I will invite you to join me, which is exactly what happened after David took that head off the giant. The army rallied, and they all ran in, and they routed the other army like God had already called them to. So who's gonna grab your rocks and start rolling into where God wants us to go?

You gotta decide that in your heart. So we're gonna finish here. We're gonna sing a song. I'm gonna stay seated. It's a new song. I want you to listen to it because all of this doesn't matter. All of this pep talk means nothing if it's I'm gonna go do this for God. It only matters if you understand that the seed

of God's love has planted in your heart. Do you know his love? I want you to reflect on that. Then grab your rocks and then roll into where God wants you to go. And for some of you, honestly, some of you, what you need to decide in this moment before you even think about giving,

this is proven that I don't want the money. I want you to have a heart for God. If you don't know Jesus and you have you you haven't settled that in your heart how he loves you, I'd rather you do that right now. Do that first because the giving is is it doesn't mean anything if it doesn't come from the love.

So some of you take a moment and reflect on who Jesus is. And if you have never professed that you're a sinner, I've ran backwards from the battles he's called me to. I've done my own thing. Confess that. And then say simply this, talk to about, I believe, Jesus, that you died for me and rose again to give me life.

If you've never done that, do that first as we reflect on God's love.

And though I try, my mind can't comprehend It's so high to marvelous words. And I could sing a million songs about

Amen.

The love of God is great, and I want you to know my love for you is great, and I hope as you go, you have a great day. Hey. Thanks for joining us for service online this weekend. Be sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the Rock Point Church app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.