Crazy Like Us • Part 1┃"You Just Think You Are"

hi everybody welcome to your move I'm Andy Stanley if you're like most people you consider yourself a generous person but what if you're not what if you're wrong what if there is more to generosity than just random acts of giving stick around and I'll tell you what real generosity looks like right here on your move [Music] I've decided to teach you how to do something you probably think you already know how to do but if no one has ever taught you how to do it you probably think you know how but you don't so what I'm gonna do for the next three weeks is I want to teach you how to be generous not how to give all of you know how to give everybody knows how to give everybody in America knows how to give this is this is a bee versus the do I'm not trying to get you to do something I want to teach you for the next three weeks how to be generous now as soon as I say that I know what you think cuz I'm the same way soon to somebody says you don't do something you immediately think of that one time you did it when I talk about generosity when I talk about generosity we're not talking about random acts of giving okay most American most of us are good at random acts of giving and random acts of giving generally come as a result of somebody persuading us to do something asking us to do something inspiring us to do something guilting us to do something and the truth is most of our giving our random acts of giving are kind of at the end of a little bit of a sales pitch and I don't mean we're upset or we wish we didn't give but generally somebody makes a need known and it's like wow you know maybe I should do that we do a little random act of giving random actually giving random act of giving what we're talking about in this series are not random acts of giving and I'm all for random acts of giving the more random acts of giving the better but for the next few weeks I want to talk specifically about generosity and how to be generous because generosity actually transcends and this is going to be helpful genuine generosity actually transcends inspiration and guilt that genuinely generous people are not moved near as much by the big inspirational pitch about a need somewhere in the world or in our community nor are they ever moved by guilt because generous people have moved beyond that and I want to make you promise about this series as we go forward and here's the promise when you become generous not someone who just gives randomly to things and when you see people in need or somebody says there's a need you will be when you become generous you will actually give more and here's the surprise part this is where I got to come back you will actually save more and you will actually consume less that generous people by nature when you I'm generous you will give more you will give more you will save more money and you will actually consume less now there is a small group of you there's an exception to this some of you have already saved so much you borderline hoarding your money okay it's just a small percentage of you you will not save more you will actually just give more and consume less but you won't save more because some of you've already saved enough and you are still nervous about money and I'm telling you why it's not because you don't have enough money it's because you have never learned to be generous and I don't mean you never give you do random acts of giving in fact the zeroes on the end of your cheque are so big people think you're generous in fact you think you're generous but if you've never learned to be if no one's ever taught you to be generous you may have a lot of wealth and still not be generous but for most of us if you will learn to be generous you will give more you will save more and you will actually consume less and then here's the promise Jesus makes if you don't like my promise jesus promises you will actually be happier because you've never met an unhappy generous person now the reason this has to be taught even though you all think you're generous we all think we're generous because we can think of all that money that we gave away the reason this has to be taught is because generosity is not natural it's just not natural if you have children you know this we have to teach our kids to share we have to teach our kids to share why because there are a lot of things that come naturally generosity does not come naturally there's still something in us that when it comes to giving away what's ours and give it away we've worked for there's still resistance and the reason is because it's not your fault generosity like we're talking about is not it's not it's not it's not natural now in the United States and in some Western countries generosity even though it's not natural it is cultural and the reason generosity or the idea of giving or being generous is popular in the United States of America is because in any nation in the world in any nation in the world where there has been a history of strong Christian influence you find in that nation a shadow of Christian values and one of those Christian values is generosity that generosity is part of our American odds you are to give you ought to be generous it's not natural but it is cultural it's part of our culture but it's something that needs to be taught and if you don't believe me you just need to visit some nations or pay attention to the news about nations that this is not a natural this is not a natural inclination but the best example is what's happening now right now with immigration in the Middle East and Europe you know this the countries that have a history and a tradition of Christianity even though they would not consider themselves Christian nations even though most of the people in those nations may not consider themselves Christian nations there is still a shadow there is still a vestige of there is still the value of Christianity and those European nations that have a strong history of Christianity are the nations that are saying we know we ought to invite and include these immigrants the nations that do not have especially the past 100 years or further back those nations that do not have as part of their culture a strong Christian influence are their nations that are saying why should we take these people why should we take that it's not our problem so generosity is not natural but generosity can be cultural and it's part of our national culture and that's why there's a little bit of attention around generosity in our country because you know you ought to but it doesn't come naturally but we live in the nation fortunately where it's still part of the American aunt but we don't want to lose that now if you want to know what's natural when it comes to money what's natural when it comes to money is crazy crazy is natural when it comes to money especially in our country I mean this is amazing to me okay most Americans spend more than they make how do you even do that okay I don't know I don't understand this but most Americans spend more money than they make now that is crazy not only that most Americans pay interest most Americans pay interest on things that decrease in value the moment they take possession of them most Americans pay interest on items that as soon as they take possession the value of that item immediately decreases and because they're going to pay interest on it the price immediately increases I this is so confusing I had to sit down and do a visual so I'm going to show you my visual I have a chart to explain this because this is crazy here here's what it looks like okay this is time right okay and then this is the point of purchase all right so this moment of purchase and the moment you purchase something that it's gonna decrease in value over time and the and you're gonna pay interest on it or the credit card interest or you finance or whatever here's what happens immediately immediately the cost increases in the value decreases now this is crazy and we live in a culture of where this is so normal that we think it's normal this is not normal this is crazy and but here's something that's just as crazy we don't feel rich but we are we don't feel rich but we are but we feel generous and we aren't we don't really feel rich again there is there somebody that could drop into your life from third world country and they would look at your life and say are you kidding you're rich and you would try to explain the financial pressure you feel and someone from a third world country would listen to your complaints about your financial pressure and they would think you're crazy we don't feel rich what we are but we think we're generous and as we're about to discover we really aren't so here's what do I mean when I say generous if generosity isn't just random acts of giving if generosity isn't just the moment you know where I take something that belongs to me and give it to somebody else what do we mean by generosity so real quick I'm going to give you four myths I've already given you one four myths that I'm going to give you a definition then we're gonna look at something Jesus said and then I'm going to ask you to use your imagination all right so here's four myths about generosity number one we've kind of covered this generosity is spontaneous you know I go somewhere and they're raising money for something I'm like oh yeah here's your some money lady down the street you know has a tough time family down the street has a tough time the neighborhood collects and money oh yeah here's some money you know find out one of your children at school somebody in their school's having a tough time you know or that you go to a fundraiser and somebody talks about something they're doing globally like here's some money so that's spontaneous giving that's that's random giving but that's not what we're talking about because generous people generous people are actually less spontaneous generous people are actually less emotional and they're giving and generous people and this is why I want you to be generous I want to teach you how generous people are far more strategic in they're giving it's not hit and miss second one generosity other myths is that generosity is determined by cash flow you know you know I can be generous today but I can't be generous tomorrow I just got paid so I can be generous you know where at the end of the month I can't be generous that somehow generosity or a person's ability to be a generous person is determined by cash flow generous people generous people are consistently generous generous people their generosity is not determined by cash flow so if you've if you're one of those people who generally you know I give when I can afford it I don't give when I can't afford it chances are you're a giver but you've not learned to be generous the other myth the third myth about generosity is this it's the amount that counts this one drives me crazy but I always smile and you know I don't want to be rude you've heard this a thousand times you know that was such a generous gift he made a generous gift she made such a generous gift and I'm thinking no one knows if that was a generous gift except the person that gave it the only person that knows if a gift is generous is the person that made it adding zeroes to an amount is not does not necessarily determine whether or not a gift was generous it may be a lot of money compared to what I make it may be a lot of money compared to what you make but one of the ways that we fool ourselves into thinking that we're generous is by looking at the amount of money that boy that was a generous donation the amount here's what we're gonna learn about generosity and within when it comes to generosity the amount does not count because giving giving is only one part of an overall of a person's overall finances the only way to know whether or not a gift was generous is to know everything about that person's finances and nobody knows everything about your finances or anybody else's finances except perhaps your accountant so here's the great news everyone everyone can be generous and everyone can make a generous donation when you understand generosity and then here's the last myth and it's simply this that rich people are generous rich people are generous you know Andy I I get this I'm all for it you know my I know some generous people but anyone I be rich when I become rich then I'll be generous so let me clear this up okay pay attention rich people are rich generous people are generous and there is no natural correlation and let me just predict something for all of you in your 20s okay this is so important if you are not generous now when you get rich you will just be a rich person who's not generous because there is no correlation between how much money you have how much money you make and whether or not you are generous they are two completely different things and I want you to learn to be generous but you have to learn it it has to be taught because it is not it is not it is not natural everybody regardless of your income level can be a generous person so real quickly I want to give you the definition of generosity that we're going to use throughout this series and I just need to let you out no upfront this is a clunky is the best word I can come up with this is a clunky definition in other words this isn't pithy this isn't you know it takes one to know one I mean this is this is like clunky in fact and I made it kind of clunky and difficult on purpose because I want each one of these words to make a difference in your thinking about generosity I'm just gonna give you the definition then the next couple of weeks we're going to come back and kind of take it apart and parse some of these words but here's what I mean when I talk about learning to be generous here's what generosity is generous is the premeditated that means you got to have a plan generous people have a plan calculated generous people already know how much they're going to give designated generous people have pre decided where it's gonna go emancipation this is my favorite word emancipation that is you're going to set it free generous people understand that they will in order not to be possessed by their possessions they have to realize they're not a possessor to begin with and generous people understand that when they order their lives around generosity they are setting free personal financial assets so this series is not about being generous with your time or generous with your relationships or generous with whatever this is specifically about being generous with your money it's the premeditated calculated designated emancipation of personal financial assets now if you're saying it ain't saying where did you get this I made it out okay you're not gonna find this anywhere I totally made it up because I want us to understand and I want us to slow down and understand what it means not simply to give you're all good givers what it means to live a generous life because here's the thing and here's what I really really want for you and hopefully you've heard this and you know this listen when you free your money emancipation when you free your money free yourself from your money when you free your money and when you begin to view your life if to the lens of generosity when you become a generous person when you understand that you order your financial life around freeing your money it frees you from your money and you will actually be free and it doesn't matter how much money you make you've met some very very wealthy people that worry about money all the time you've met some middle-income people that seem to just not be stressed out about it and you met people on the lower end of the spectrum that are stressed out about it and some that are most some of the most generous people you will ever ever meet that generosity is not about income but it's something you have to learn to do I just want to look at one verse of scripture and it is the most popular well-known verse in the Bible I think about money and here's the surprise all of you have heard this before most of you have said this before but I'm betting a big percentage of you didn't know it was in the New Testament and you didn't know that Jesus said it and you don't don't know why it's in the Bible to begin with because it this is so popular it's almost like a saying that is lost all of its meaning in fact I'm gonna argue that this is something Jesus said that has been so redefined we completely miss what he meant when he said it so let me give me a little bit of context that we find this this little so it's really we think of it as a saying but this incredible truth from Jesus all right we discover this actually in the book of Acts you know there's Matthew Mark Luke John in the story of Jesus in the book of Acts tells us what happened after Jesus rose from the dead the Apostle Paul went all over the Mediterranean rim you know planning all these churches and Gentile areas in this particular case he's in this in this of Ephesus he's leaving Ephesus and he's going to Jerusalem and he knows he's going to be arrested and he knows that the people in Ephesus will probably never see him again it's one of the most emotional pieces of narrative in the entire New Testament the Apostle Paul is saying goodbye to friends he's saying goodbye to supporters he's saying goodbye to church leaders and he is saying to them you know I'm leaving you'll never see me again they're begging him not to go and in this little narrative in Acts chapter 20 he begins to rehearse for them how what he did for them and he talks about his generous life and he's not bragging he's just saying I lived in front of you a generous life and when I'm gone I want you to continue to live a generous life and it gives some details and then this is so cool to me then he throws out this statement that was so familiar to them he didn't have to say you know Jesus one day taught he throws out a statement that is so familiar to the first century audience just like it's familiar to us that when he said it they were like oh yeah we've heard that before oh yeah we've heard that before oh yeah we've heard that before but they understood what Jesus meant when Jesus said this whereas for us it's become a pity little saying that we oftentimes say when we're giving a gift or we feel good about giving a gift so here's what the Apostle Paul says then I want us to look at this this is such a powerful powerful idea and it really sets the direction for this entire series so he's at the end of this farewell he's about to get on a boat they're never gonna see him again and he's talked about a generous life and he says remembering the words of the Lord Jesus remembering that the words of Lord Jesus said in other words remembering like you already knew this you've been taught this before this isn't new information remembering the words the Lord Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive it is more blessed to give than to receive now when you have said this or when you have heard this I'm guessing ninety percent or a hundred percent of the time it's when you gave a thing in a moment of time and you felt good about it or somebody said you know hey thanks for giving that and you're like oh no no I really I like giving and somebody says well it's more blessed to give than receive it's more blessed to give than receive or if you grew up the way I did it is more blessed and why they say it that way it is more blessed to give than to receive but this this saying of Jesus this is so important does not refer to a moment in time this was a reference to a way of living this was not a reference to a moment in time you know in that moment in time when I gave that boy I felt so good about giving you know and that's not what Jesus is talking about in fact let's be honest you have given things to people before and somebody said oh it's more blessed to give than receive and you thought what I thought growing up yeah but it's it's blessed to receive as well isn't it I mean it is it is blessed it is blessed to give and it is blessed to receive and I'm not always sure it's more blessed to give than to receive I'm thinking there there may be equal and sometimes receives better and that's because we hear these words and we think about a moment in time transaction then listen to this and I'm almost done listen that's not what Jesus had in mind that this kind of bless really means happy and youso and you reap your way into happy that it is an outcome of a lifestyle and what Jesus was referring to and when you read it in context what Paul was referring to is this he's saying if you live a generous life if you live a generous life not have moments of giving but if you live a generous life if you order your life around generosity you will be happy happiness is an outcome of a lifestyle of generosity essentially he's saying this happy is the person whose life is ordered around giving rather than receiving happy or happier is the person whose life not a moment time not a transaction not a okay I'll give or okay I'll give a little more that's all good not random acts of giving happy blessed is the man or woman the teenager the kid whose life whose entire life is ordered around Jenna giving rather than receiving now at this point in the message I know so if you're thinking and I understand this okay Andy how many weeks is this okay because I think I have something to do for the next did you say two more weeks I think I'm pretty sure we have something to do and hopefully you do some a little more practical something that'll help my wife or my girlfriend or my boyfriend you know but listen anything okay so I just I understand that here's here's just everybody relax I'm really not trying to get something from you I just want you to tea I want to teach you to do something if we just want something from you I'm telling you somebody with a microphone and pictures of children we can get money I mean people know how to sell giving to you in fact the reason some of you don't enjoy giving you feel like you're being sold over and over and over you have to be inspired you have to be motivated you know you have to see pictures and your flannel and finally tears in your eyes you're finally writing a check this is not about that this is way better than that and so you have permission to ignore me but you owe it to yourself because I'm telling you okay this is the offensive part I don't know that for the rest of your life anyone is going to teach you how to be generous for the rest of your life people are going to try to inspire you to give motivate you to give guilt you to give but this may be your one opportunity for somebody to teach you how not to give how to be generous so before you write me off I just want you to use your imagination real quick and we're done okay and this is kind of weird imagine that suddenly magically mystically providentially you know this can't happen but imagine that suddenly you had a checking account full of all the money you've wasted the last five years if you're 40 let's go ten years okay if you're 40 or old or 10 years there's suddenly and buy wasted you defined wasted I'm not going to tell you what waste is I just want you to imagine issues your imagination you have a checking account full of all the money that you considered wasteful spending dumb investments whatever it might be that boat why didn't I listen I bought a boat oh I do you regret the day what all the cat you know all it's in a checking account and you can't spend it you have to give it away and you have to give it away in 12 months for most of you it's hundreds if for a lot of years hundreds of dollars for most of us that's thousands of dollars it might be tens of thousands I'm just - just imagine for a second you have a checking account and you you can't spend it it's yours but it's not yours it's yours to manage but you don't really possess it you can't do anything to benefit but you've got a checking account and all you can do with this money is give it away you'd have to give it away immediately you have a year to give it away wouldn't that be fun wouldn't that be fun you know they're down the street trying to raise $800 you're like $900 done you know it's cool they're doing something and you're writing checks and they're like whoa are you rich and you're like no I'm not rich I just can't spend this money on me and I got the you know I woke up one day and there was an angel at the end of my bed and said hey you know you got to spend this money on somebody else and I'm so grateful I'm so good and you know what you wouldn't be possessive you wouldn't be regretful I'm telling you you would experience the joy of living a generous life so here's my question why not just do that going forward because I'm going to teach you how I'm gonna teach you how you can do this you've already screwed up the last five years of dumb whatever you did with your money and you would love to have it back you would love to have it back and you would love to have it back even if you couldn't spend it on you so don't do that again for another five years don't do that again for another ten years I want you to learn to be generous because it's a powerful powerful powerful thing and you can learn and you'll save more and you'll spend less and you'll have more joy in your life and Jesus said you're nothing believe me Jesus said you'll be happy her when by the time I was thirty by the time I was thirty years old I had given away two cars I was in graduate school I had this big old clunker car it was my family's car my parents car they gave it to me to go to the Graduate School in Dallas and I mean you can put everything you own in this car it was so big it was not cool nobody wanted this car it was bad color I don't see what color was case you have a car that was it was all bad you know it was a big family card it was just me the single guy going to graduate school and while I was in graduate school there was a family that had a really really difficult time had three kids just tough time and I decided gosh and they lost their car and so I decided to give him my car I'll never forget driving over there to their house because they're one of the families that would kid me about hey you got the fan yet the car where's the family I said hey I prayed about this and I know this is kind of crazy but here's the keys you can have my car what I said yeah you can have it like who gives away a car who what graduates didn't gives away a car and let me tell you okay I was it's not because I was rich it's because I was generous and if you dropped in on my life at that point nobody in this room would say dude you were so rich no that's generous because you learn to do this so a few years later I was 30 years old good friends back in Atlanta his wife wreck the car totaled the car no insurance you know is kind of hurt it was not kind it was her fault big issue now they don't have a car they've got four kids he's looking for a car and trying to figure this out I've been saving money because I'm when you're generous you save you have if you have a hard time save understood make it a sense you got to come back if you have a hard time saving you need to learn to be generous it is a keystone habit it will affect all of your finance sighs I'm a saver it's easy and they're trying to buy a car not an expensive car basically a replacement station wagon remember those you know this is some years ago and I thought well I could just buy him a car so what - is it good for us I know this is awkward it's kind of crazy but you know let me just buy you a car he'd already found one he's trying to figure out how to finance and you know it's gonna be on I said no no let's just go down there and I'll just buy it for you he's looking at me I said no no really I want to do this a bottom a car I'm telling you there is more joy and there is more emotion around those two car stories than all the other cars I've purchased combined you say well any of you bragging no I dare you to become generous it's awesome and here's the thing giving equates cars that's crazy let me just tell you and then we're done Jesus says not to be generous as crazy don't miss next week Jesus says to live any other way those are the crazy people those are the people without a clue those are people the people that are living in la-la land it is the men and women the man and woman the child the single the college student the rich the poor the in-between it's the person that learns to live a generous life those aren't the crazy people those are the people who live with their eyes wide open so you have to choose your crazy but before you do you need to come back week for part two of crazy Lika [Music] you

Channel: Your Move with Andy Stanley

Views: 15,637

Keywords: Andy Stanley, Your Move with Andy Stanley, Your Move, better decisions, fewer regrets, crazy like us, generosity, compassion, be generous, humility, how to make a difference, inspiration, guilt, how to change the world, how to save money, kindness, charity, how to be happy, generosity not spontanious, strategic giving, cash flow, be rich, philanthropist, You Just Think You Are

Id: oNcHMHA6tBc

Length: 27min 12sec (1632 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 02 2018