How To Live Selfless In A Selfie World // How To Be More Selfless // Pastor Ken Claytor

and if you have a bible go with me over to hagai some people will pronounce it hey i but i like to make it simple because i'm simple hey guy chapter number one and it's a book that you can read when you go home because it only has two chapters to it and i don't want to give you a lot of context but i'll give you some hey guys one of the one of the 12 minor prophets in the bible it's a time where the children of of god have been babylon has come in and invaded the the land of the children of israel and led them off into babylonian captivity and now they have a word of the lord that they need to return to the land that's been promised them and they need to rebuild the temple god gives this prophet a word that it's time to build again and this is what it says right here in verse 2 it says this is what the lord almighty says these people say that the time has not yet come to rebuild the lord's house and i know that that's let's just say sometimes when we talk about building the house of course they were literally building a temple but let's call it anything that god is calling us to build or anything that god is asking us to do to advance the kingdom to build the kingdom to move his agenda more than ours and sometimes people say is it time for me to live for god fully is it time for me to step towards what he's calling me to do and these people say they have procrastination in their heart they say the time has not yet come hey god has this word of the lord like yeah it is the time for us to do this thing and so in verse number three the word of the lord came through the prophet it is said and he says this it is is it time for you yourselves to be living in your panel houses while this house remains in ruined and so they had nice houses they had mansions like some of y'all do and you got your movie theaters and you got your your soaking tubs and you got your you know you got your kitchen islands and marble and all of that and but do you care about the house of god okay and it says now this is what the lord almighty says give careful thought to your ways and i believe that's what we need to do today and this is what i call introspection everybody say introspection it's where we do a self-evaluation of where we really are now i don't know if i preface this are you all ready for the day because i jumped into this thing i'm like ready i'm rest to go i'm ready to preach the gospel y'all ready to receive now online if you're ready say i'm ready put it in the chats right now whatever nation whatever city you're tuning in from put your nation a city and just say i'm ready from zimbabwe i'm ready from brazil wherever you're from okay this is what god is saying to us give careful thought to your ways because sometimes we're not self-aware and sometimes we don't really do what i call introspection self-evaluations to where we look at our motives and we look at our behaviors and we look at why we do what we do and so he basically rises raises up a man of god and says hey you need to check out what you're doing and how you're acting and how you're living in verse 6 he says you've planted much but you've harvested little anybody ever been there before you eat but you never have enough you drink but you never have your field you put on clothes but you're never warm what he's saying is that you are trying to move your life ahead out of your own willpower and strength but you ain't got nothing to show for it you work 60 hours a week but you still broke you do everything that you can to get where you think you need to go but truthfully you ain't went nowhere and then he says you earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it anybody ever been there i live many years like that i'm making money flipping houses but then i go and it's like i got a bag with holes in it like it comes in and it goes out and it comes in and it goes out and this is what god is saying to us give careful thought to your ways go ahead and tap your neighbor and say you got to think about what you're doing you just gotta just think about it for a minute and then i love the command of god because he says this go to the mountains then here's what you're gonna do for me bring down timber and build my house do what i've called you to do church be who i've called you to be build the kingdom of god right so that i can take pleasure in it and be honored says the lord see you expected much but it turned out to be little and what you brought home i blew away some of y'all think you were attacked by the devil but it's actually god removing idolatry out of your life so you can get your priorities back in line why is he allowing you to go through this season declares the lord almighty because of my house which remains in ruin while each of you is busy with your own house i love this passage of scripture because i believe there's so much that we can take from it um the first thing that i get when i read hey god um this first chapter here is i get priorities having the right priorities he says you're focusing on your house you have these nice houses but what about my house you know i decided years ago that i would be a god first man and that i would raise god first children and have a god first family actually when i was in real estate before i was a pastor on the front of my business card i put this phrase putting god first and i know it was super spiritual and maybe even a little cheesy and i wouldn't even recommend that you do that if you're doing business with the world but for me it was for me i needed to draw a line in the sand i had done it my way now i'm going to do it here and there comes a place in your life where you can't be a punk you got to draw a line in the sand and say for god i live in for god i die i'm not going to put god second third or fourth for me and my household and so matthew 6 33 it says seek first the kingdom of god and in his righteousness and all these other things that everybody else is seeking the things that you really want in your life god will begin to add to you if your priorities are right he don't want to be second or third or fourth he wants to be number one and when he number one he get more fun i'm a poet and don't know it come on somebody and so i take that and so here's the principle that i've always taught that when you put god's house first he'll put your house first basically that's what it comes down to in my opinion but the second principle that sticks out to me from hagap hey i got one is selflessness over selfishness please write that down and i get this out of verse number nine he says you expected much but it turned out to be little what you brought home i blew it away why because of my house which remains in a ruin while each of you is busy with your goals your priorities your career your calling what you want to do where you want to go why what i want is not your priority it's an over focus on self translation is too much about you right now all right it's too much about what you want and not enough about what he wants for you i'm preaching better than you saying amen all right and some of you and i love you but i've come to tell you the truth today you two stuck on you and it's actually your selfishness that is self-sabotaging your kingdom success and you have to go through a season where you die to self so that you can really live i wish that we would teach people that when you get born again there is a birthing but there also needs to be a funeral we celebrate the new birth experience but the new birth experience will be short it will be short-lived if you don't first die to some things i'm dying to my old habits i'm dying to my old language i'm dying to the way i used to be so that who god's called me to be can really live so yes there is a born from above experience but for it to be what he wants it to be you first have to have a funeral and a birthing all at the same time and i feel like somebody needs to hear this and i love you enough to tell you the truth today that some of us we stuck on us and it really ain't about you some of you all are all about you you're about raising your kids you're about making your money you about being on your grind you about getting where you want to go to when it's you and it's and it almost sounds like lucifer i want to be like god and i want to ascend to heaven and i and i and i and you know what happens when you bring i up you get cast out of heaven that's what happened to lucifer so if you try to take yourself higher get ready to come on down because it's really not about you would you go ahead and just tap your neighbor and say it's really not about you which i don't see you participating push the person in front of you say you know it's not about you it's really not about you i know that you think that it is but it's not it's about so much more than you god didn't save you for you he saved you to save somebody else he didn't heal you for you he healed you so you could heal somebody else god didn't bless you for you he blessed you so you can be a blessing to somebody else come on push them again say it really ain't about you it really because some of us were stuck on us and we want to know why god isn't moving in our life more because it's not supposed to be about you it's like he is greater than me let me say it again he is greater than me let's take it a step further and we is greater than me that sounds like love god love people and oh you'll love your life yeah you'll get that but that's the third priority not the first and so what god's called you to do really is more it's bigger than you and sometimes what we want will kind of get in the way and i'm here to help somebody today somebody say help me pastor i want to help somebody who's struggling in their marriage and you're struggling in your marriage because it's all about you what you thought marriage was going to be like what you thought your husband was going to be what you thought your wife was going to do for you and it's about well i don't know and i've been married for 10 years and i want this and i would rather be single and i i i i and truthfully i love you enough to tell you the truth you are killing your marriage because of your selfishness and god is asking us today to die to self i'm here to help somebody today especially the people somebody that help us it says they say i feel like i'm just not growing spiritually well the first step to growing spiritually is you have to own where you are in the psychological world we call it blame shifting and people in this generation love to shift the blame they love to put their spiritual development on everybody else well i'm not growing because my mentor won't do this and my small group ain't this and then they come at me and the church is this don't come at me because i'm gonna come at you because my listen i am not your god i am your pastor and i got a bible like you got a bible go home and read yours and do what it says what we do is we love to blame shift and say it's because of these people so i need another church i need another mentor i need another group no you need a new revelation see people think that spiritual growth is about a new series can we teach me something new today you don't need something new you need a new revelation on something old because the truth is if you went back on the podcast you ain't do nothing with all that stuff we've been preaching for the last 14 years and we need to go back and look at what's old lester anytime we let it slip and it's not just the accumulation of information that causes your spiritual growth you get fed by feeding that's what people don't understand you are fed not by eating but by feeding and you think that you're fed by coming and getting a message and get it a series and i like pastor kim but i'm not sure about so-and-so because it's all about you and you're stuck on you but whenever you flip it and say i didn't come to get but i came to give can i serve in the parking lot can i lead a small group can i invite somebody over my house then all of a sudden you won't be stuck on you am i preaching to anybody that's here today because you're going to need this the test is going to come because the devil's going to tell you well they just don't appreciate me and they don't call me back i didn't think we were doing this for that i thought you were doing what you were doing is unto the lord but it's an over focus on me and what i need and i need to be a i need a title and i need people to recognize me and i want this kind of worship and this kind of music and this kind of singing and this kind of song and god is like what do you got to do about anything isn't this about reaching everybody else so we got to die to self so that where god wants to live in us can really live i'm giving you the truth today because i love you that's all that it is somebody should say thank you pastor you're so welcome i'm giving you my best today you're fed by feeding in your spiritual growth when you first get saved you're you grow by reading and information but then you'll hit a lid right here you'll hit a lid where it's like man i feel like i'm not growing because now those who have been taught are supposed to become the teachers and if you keep needing a word and you keep needing needing needing needing needing you'll always be stuck there until you start giving things to other people from what you've learned and all of a sudden you'll start growing that's why listen i've been in ministry 20 years i'm growing right now more than i ever have before and i never sit under the word i'm always cooking the word listen my wife she just went through a nine-month battle with chemotherapy i can't even tell you how hard it was because it's not my job to get on instagram and tell you how hard it was maybe one day we'll write a book and tell you how hard it was but one thing you know she would go to church sometimes sometimes she wouldn't because of you know going through chemotherapy you didn't want to mess with covid and all you know so many things that were happening but i looked at her one day i said how are you doing spiritually she says i feel like i'm growing she wasn't growing because she was coming to church she was growing because even though she was going through chemotherapy she was still calling wendy she was still calling darnell she was still calling pastors wise and she was growing because she was giving she was [Applause] she was fed because she was feeding that's a word for somebody today that's a word whether you're shaking your head and saying amen or not now very quickly i'm gonna take my time today i don't even care i'm here for both services listen how many y'all got a smartphone can you take your phone out if you got a smartphone come on play play with passion go with me all right take your smartphone out y'all know what you do on your smartphones right you do selfies everybody do a church selfie very quickly everybody do it yourself okay on the count of three we're going to do it together all right come on everybody if you got a smartphone if you got a dumb phone you can't play with us but it's okay we're going we're going to pray for you all right come on online everybody ready one one no i said we're gonna do it together on the count of three gotta pay attention ready one two three all right nobody's looking at mine because y'all looking at your own right now you know if you you want to share it with me share with me hashtag dot itself hashtag a live church but i'm setting this up that was a setup because i'm gonna give you today's message is entitled how to live selfless in a selfie world you better text somebody that you know should be here right now and tell them tune in right now because you need this word i'm here to save somebody's marriage i'm here to save somebody's ministry i'm here to save somebody from making some mistakes because selfishness acts as a blindfold you can be a part of something great but you can't even see how great it is because you're blinded by what you want and i need to teach you today how to live selfless in a selfie world now i got a vision for our church and i really believe it's for god dream with me for a second y'all ready what would our church look like if we eradicated selfishness what would it look like i got a dream for our church and it goes down like this i see a church with passionate praise and worship just people that love god going after the heart of god i see a church of people that love god so passionately and love people to where we're inclusive not exclusive it don't matter what color you are don't matter what mistakes you made last night we just don't love you no matter what age you are we're going to look past what you look like on the outside for who god's called you to be i see a church that has the presence of god not just visitation but habitation where the presence of the lord is always here people get out of the parking lot people get healed under the teaching of the word enduring worship i see that kind of church i am dreaming of a church with thousands of people that have died to self people who have put down what we want for what he wants through us people that say you know what i want to be a part of something that is bigger than me i don't want to live just for that which is temporal but i want to live for that which eternal now what does that look like y'all if that dream was to come to pass dream with me what could that feel like thousands of people who have stepped out of selfishness into selflessness i believe divorce rates would plummet that's the only thing wrong with your marriage really is that it's about you i think adultery would be completely eradicated because the re reason you cheating is because of what you want you don't care about your kids you don't care about anybody else nor do you care about the lord i'm coming for you today i believe the pornography industry would dry up billion dollar dry up completely because you just online to get your rocks off i came to preach to somebody i need to preach some truth to somebody today because it's really been all about you but nobody's been bold enough to tell you that i think that church splits would never happen i think that dissension and gossip and evil speaking and slander would be nullified and completely go away why because all of those things have its root in sin all of uh in selfishness so all sin has its root and selfishness god i messed that up y'all with me all those things have its root in selfishness and selfishness is the root to all sin it's true you give me a sin i'll tell you that selfishness is on the scene somewhere whatever the sin is at some place it's got its foundation in some kind of selfishness i really believe that so let's define it very quickly what is selfishness it is the tendency to prioritize one's own desires and needs above the needs of other people it's not that you don't care about other people it's just that you care a whole lot more about yourself than you do anybody else okay and i want to define it correctly today because selfishness is not you taking care of yourself it's not you not being successful not being good at your career not you saving for retirement because some people have what i call a martyrs complex or a martyrs mindset so they've read the one scripture that says deny yourself take up your cross and follow after him but they forgot deuteronomy 8 that says that he's given you the power to get wealth so what's the balance that god wants you to first give up your life so that you can have the life that he wants you to have and so it's not that he doesn't want you successful it's not that he doesn't want you to plan for your retirement and to move your life ahead he just wants you to focus on other people more than you do yourself and some people need this part of the message because there is a minority group of people that they live so selfless that they never take care of themselves my wife is kind of like that and i have to i have to check all the time like sweetheart um can it's like she won't get her hair done she'll go to cvs get her own stuff she'd be in the bathroom doing herself she won't like go shopping i have to she went shopping with the kids it's always about the kids it's always about me like she will never do anything for herself she will not spend a dollar she will not go anywhere i have to beg her sometimes have you taken a day off it's always about the kids it's always about me it's always about you guys and that's not everybody but there are some of you guys that you need to take care of you so that you can take care of other people see you can't love other people if you first don't love yourself you can't live a selfless life if you haven't first taken care of yourself but for the majority of us we just got too much selfishness in the tank and i believe god wants us to take a step out of it on today and so here's a few scriptures um philippians chapter 2 verse 3 it says do nothing out of selfish ambition of vain conceit rather in humility value others above yourself not looking to your own interests but each of you looking to the interest of others all right and the problem keep this on the on the board for a moment just keep that scripture up especially the last part the problem is not that you're taking care of yourself it's just that you're not looking out for others at the same time that you take care of yourself so i look at it like this this thing it's almost like this is you take care of you but also take care of others are y'all with me what most people have is this is you and this is how you take care of others then there's some of you all this is you and you take care of everybody else and you never take care of you i think it should be about right here matter of fact i think it should be you take care of others a little bit more than yourself because of the way that it says here it says in humility value others a little above yourself and when you value others above yourself god's going to make sure he raises up people that will value you so you might say well what do i do about me well you're going to trust god and god's going to take care of you does anybody believe that today all right i want to look at second timothy chapter three and watch this because this one's talking about the in the end times and i believe we are living in these last days he says but mark this there will be terrible times in the last days people will be lovers of themselves now watch these characteristics lovers of money boastful proud abusive disobedient to parents ungrateful unholy y'all know anybody like that are they sitting on your row right now without love unforgiving slanderous without self-control brutal not lovers of the good treacherous rashed man there's a lot a lot of stuff going on conceited lovers of pleasure more than lovers of god having a form of godliness but denying its power in this last part as a trip to me have nothing to do with such people because sometimes as christians we feel like we need to have everybody in our lives because we're supposed to turn the other tea can overcome good with evil and i'm not saying that we should just cut off everybody but there are certain people that they are toxic for you and it's okay that you have nothing to do with those people you have to learn how to love some people from a distance you got to know how to let them go and let god i'm talking about people in your own family y'all ain't ready i'm going on this side because some of y'all feel so in bondage just because you have the same bloodline but the blood of jesus has now moved you into a different bloodline where you are an heir of god and a joint heir with christ jesus and who is my mother and brother other than those who do the will of god and sometimes we're so in bondage to people that we can't do what god's called us to do is anybody hearing me today and so listen i know this is not the people that man they're messing up okay minister to them help them i'm talking about the people that you know they've taken a stand and they're going to change you before you change them the bible says have nothing to do with those people i love you i'll see you i'll see you soon but god bless you i got to move on and you know but i love this first part of this when he talks about these la the last days go back up to the first part it says in the last day there's going to be terrible times people will be lovers of does that sound like today and i'm guilty with everybody i know but i'm really trying to use my social media to reach the ratchet people around the world i mean these lovely people all around the world i really am i love you you know i did i'm really not trying to be famous because if i wouldn't if i wasn't a public figure and preaching the gospel around the world i don't know if i would be on social media very much at all because i don't believe it brings me a lot of health i just don't all right but i love this characteristic he says that in the last days people would be lovers of themselves now some of y'all might have heard this story before did you guys know that in the 10th grade i was the class president of my high school did you know that okay um it was my sophomore year so back in where i grew up in west virginia um we had high school which was 10th 11th and 12th grade all right so i was fresh in high school i said i'm gonna run for president and i was up against um the prettiest girl in school i mean she was pretty she was popular she was smart i know i said in school back then baby she gonna say watch out girl get out of here i'm preaching right now all right don't throw me off all right and so they did a thing where they said okay we're going to bring the whole class together there's like 700 kids and we're sitting in an auditorium and they said we're going to let you do a speech to see who is going to win and then we're going to let everybody vote all right so i was like man this is going to be a hard one because of who she was but she decides to come out in a clown suit and you know try to be funny and i don't know if it went over very well i was kind of backstage but i saw the clown suit and i was like huh you know but i came out and i wrapped m.c breed and tupac song and the song went like this i gotta get mine you gotta get yours i gotta get mine you gotta get yours i gotta get mine you gotta get yours then it stop get yours right so all over the school i put up signs and this was my campaign get yours vote for ken clatter so all over the school it was get yours vote for ken clatter get yours vote for k i won by a landslide why because at 15 years old i knew that all them kids cared about was themselves they were lovers of themselves and here's the thing i was the worst class president ever in the history of the school because i just wanted to win i didn't care anything about them i didn't care anything about the floating homecoming and parade and all that i didn't want anything to do with any of that and i resigned by the end of the year and never did it again but i got mine see and that's the thing we we lift up people that don't care about you but they care about themselves and it comes right out of the word ain't that amazing and and god is saying that we can't be like that and have the kind of life that he wants us to live i'll give you one more and this has to do with jesus look at second corinthians chapter number um five i believe second corinthians five it says for christ's love compels us because we're convinced that one died for all and therefore all died and he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves for but for him who died for them and was raised again so the life in christ is a life where jesus died so that we can live but we don't live for ourselves so he died so that we could live selfless one of my favorite preachers and she's a bible teacher is joyce meyer anybody know who joyce meyer is and she's like been one of my favorite for years actually we were listening to her in the car on the way up here just she was listening to her i mean it just came up i mean she's just one of my favorites she really is and she tells a story about how back in the day she was crazy and she was all about herself and she would always be like her husband's name is dave and dave will go out and play golf and she'd be like what about me and he would stay out he would go to a football game and she would be like what about me and all day long in her marriage she was killing her marriage because she was like what about me and she would go to bed thinking about herself she would get up in the morning thinking about herself and the holy spirit had to check her one day he gave her a vision of like a little robot and she says i saw myself being wound up like what about me what about me what about me what about me and then the devil was releasing her all day long what about me what about me what about me what about me what about me and some of y'all come to church what about me what about me what about me what about me you go into your marriage what about me what about me what about me what about me you go into everything that you do in your life is what about me because the devil has wound you up to over focus on you and it's never really been about you and god wants to break that chain because when you make it about others watch out he's about to bless it are y'all hearing me today i told you i ain't going nowhere it ain't going nowhere no time soon we're going to keep preaching and so this is what i believe god's saying to us today if you're ready shout i'm ready i believe god is asking us to get you off your mind you got to get you off your mind think about others more you know think about what they're going through i've felt a whole lot of pain lately if people are passing away from covid and people are in hospitals and all kinds of things and i'm just like god what is going on in the world and it's amazing that i've been touched and moved with compassion maybe it's because of what tabitha and i went through over the last nine months but it's easy just to ignore the pain of other people and just focus on yourself but you want to start focusing on other people praying for other people being there for other people the most unhappy people in the world are the people who are selfish it's true you show me people who suffer with depression i will show you people that are just focused on their problems not saying that it can't be a chemical imbalance but god can heal those chemicals your chemicals got in balance because you're probably off balance focusing on yourself i'm telling you from someone who lived with somebody who was depressed for 12 years and been free for the last 20 years it is an over focus on your past and your problems instead of the promises of god much of it not all of it but much of it all right and it acts as a blindfold come here very very quickly warren this is what selfishness does your selfishness is like a blindfold got hurry up quicker than that now who's number seven is that mike vic it's old school man right this is this is how your selfishness is and the crazy thing is that your destiny and what god has for you can be way over here but you could never reach it because you can't see selfishness acts like a blindfold it's amazing that you can be in a great marriage but all you can see is what he don't do what he isn't what you thought marriage is going to be like because you're focused on what you want what you think marriage should be where you want to go to in life that car you want to buy the kids that you wish you know you could have done this and went back to college and all that stuff and it's blinding you to the fact that he's faithful that he's a man of god that she's a woman of god that that she's a person of faith like you can't even see that no more not because it's not real come on somebody you can be in a church where that reaches 237 000 people in a week that just opened up a multi-million dollar building in another city and reaching people in india over 53 people got saved last week but you worried about the music and who's preaching today you can't even see what's happening all around you because it's all about you and what god is saying if you take this off then you can see which way you're supposed to be going come on give it up for him i gotta go he's like it's so true you blinded by you number two this is what i believe god is saying to us today is that we have to start with repentance and i believe this is a word that revival comes on the heels of repentance what does that mean to change your thinking to change your behavior we need to preach on repentance again y'all god that's the old school word we need to preach about repentance jesus came preaching for the repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand that means you need to change from going this way to going my way when it comes to selfishness we have to locate where we are and say god forgive me is anybody here there were you like you know what i have been a little selfish here and there and now it's time for me to change some things don't let this just be a message let it be something that you move out and that you do and number three i believe god is saying love is the answer and love is an action love is the answer and love is an action so you say pastor what is the answer to uproot selfishness is crazy love because god is love and there is no selfishness in love because the agape love of god is other serving it's all about what you can do outside of you and that's who god is and i believe when we say god pour your love in my heart the love of god begins to eradicate this over focus on self the self absorption the self exaltation the the self promotion when we say god fill me up with the agape love of god because the love of god is the answer we need the love of god again people in the last days the love of many will wax cold we need the agape unconditional about other people about building the kingdom radical love of god we need bold crazy ridiculous love because love is the answer but love is also an action and so some people say well i just don't feel that way and it got nothing to do with your feelings love is a choice and it is a choice that is followed by action it is not just you saying how much you love me and how much you love our church and you love other people it is about you doing something with that love so then my question is what what action is accompanying your love because love is an action all right so i want to transition today because this is stretch sunday and i want to give you an opportunity to put your love on display generosity is an action that we take that is beyond ourself come on somebody why don't people give to god jesus gave his life on the cross for us why don't we give i mean i just preached the whole 30 minutes about it yeah because my money where i want to go what i want to do i was going to buy this i'm saving for this so it's all about what we want and it ain't got nothing to do with what he's talking about doing right and so this is what i want you to do i want us to prepare ourselves for giving all right this is not something that you have to do but if you desire to do it um we have a few simple ways to give here at our church okay if you need a tithe and offering envelope ushers help me out very quickly okay they're probably one in the seat back in front of you all right what i would ask you to do at this time is just be sensitive to the holy spirit i believe in old school offerings like back in the day we would just set an atmosphere and we would just wait on people to give an hour two hours we just wait we ain't going to do that today but i believe that all of our giving shouldn't just be online sometimes we should be in an atmosphere of faith where we begin to to follow the leading of the holy spirit and so all i'm asking you to do today is to do whatever god is is leading you to do and so if you need a tithe and offering envelope you can lift your hand if you don't have one in the seat back in front of you and i shall hook you up very quickly you can also text to give on whatever amount to 84321 um if you want to give online you can go to mylifechurch.org backslash give of course you can place your tithe and and offering in the box after service and for those of you all who are online my hope is that you have not settled um i've realized that the crisis that we have been through has been very revealing that's what a crisis does you do not know what people are made of until they go through their worst moments in life that's why if you're a person who's dating someone you need to date them long enough to see them go through crisis because a crisis will reveal who they are they either gonna go back to the club and smoking and drinking and going crazy when they go through a problem or they're going to go to their knees and start fasting and praying and seeking the face of god and you need to find out what people are really made of and the crisis of the pandemic sent some of us home when we should be in the house of god no matter what not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together that's not a slight but it is a pastoral observation because some of us have gotten lazy in our christianity and online can be the easy option and it's so important for us not just to watch online but to engage if you're online and you're in brazil and you can't get here god bless you this is for you you're in south africa you can't get here god bless you this is for you but please just don't watch if you can't find a church home engage with us online we have small groups online we got growth track for you online and you can also give online get another device go over to the give button and say you know what i'm going to respond with a selfless act of love towards god today and i know that he's going to bless us because of it all right now as you're preparing i want to share with you some quick reasons of why we give if you're ready to say i'm ready you all know these but here's a refresher giving connects our heart to the heart of god right where man's treasure is that's where his what god in his infinite wisdom he knows that if we what we love we will invest in some of us love golf more than we love god we love cruises more than we love god vacations we love getting our hair done more than we love god so what god asks us to do is to give to him for where your treasure is that's what you really love why do we give when we give it shall be given back to us good measure pressed down shaking together and running over everybody loves a harvest how many of you all want a financial harvest in your life luke 6 38 says that if you give it shall be given back to you there is a harvest i can't tell you when i cannot tell you how i don't know what god's going to do i just know that he is watching over his word to perform it in your life why do we give giving helps deliver us from the love of money serving money and trusting in uncertain riches all right this is the laxative of the spirit see many of us we we trust money more than what we think that's why it's so hard to give so what god gives us is an antidote called giving which flushes our soul out of greed loving money and serving money why do we give giving brings us one of the greatest joys that we could ever receive do you all know that it's more blessed to give than it is to receive like i love when people give to me it's cool and everything but i love it more when i give to other people i actually have a savings account just for giving over the last 19 years on average tabitha and i give over 19 percent of our of our income away i love just to set apart stuff and i just always look for people um to give to if if i've given anything to anybody here can you lift your hands this is a quick test you've gotten something from me like on cash app or something like that all of that yeah i just i just love it's your birthday okay now don't everybody hit me because i can't do it for everybody but what i'm saying is that he got to know when my birthday is no and last but not least we change lives when we give does anybody believe that today come on man how many already that open heaven is now a live conference is on its way we about to go now's the time we've been believing god for come on worship team let's get some music going and so here's a quick story so when i was first came to a church like this one i was 23 years old i thought i was 22 but i just did the math i was about 23 years old tabitha and i had been married for about a year and a half our marriage was headed for divorce we had all kinds of financial problems we had over a hundred thousand dollars of debt and i'm not talking about appreciating assets i'm talking about she just owed all kinds of people she was so financially ratchet it was crazy her credit score was like 5 25. i had to go in and try to build it up and it was ridiculous she oh she owed a store called gabe's y'all know what gabe's is you know what gabe's is gabe's is where they sell all of this the dysfunctional products that they can't sell in the store so you get a sleeve that's like this and they'll sell it for 50 cent you know i'm like how are you going how gabe is going to be on your credit report like you rob gabe's like who does that just the shirt was 53 right and so i remember coming to a church like this one and i didn't even know who the pastor was but after the guest preacher sat down the pastor stepped up and he said this statement that changed my life i'm 43 years old this is 20 years ago it was right after 9 11 he says tithing is the one area in the bible that god gives the opportunity to test him to see if his word won't work and with a hundred thousand dollars of debt in a marriage that was headed for divorce i said i've tried to rest it's time for me to try the best and i made up my mind that i'm going to start giving first to god and do you know where i started giving at 20 the bible says to give 10 in an offering but i like a party i like i like to go hard so i started giving 20 and i did that for about six months before i brought it down a little bit it was the hardest six months of my life it was like i have gas money to go anywhere a guy stole money from me it was the worst but what i decided to do is that i would not allow the devil to steal god's word from me see some of y'all allow the devil to steal god's word and he steals god's word he's still god's promises and for 19 years i don't care who's the president for the last 20 years i don't care i've been through recessions i have never seen the righteous forsaken or the seed begging bread because i'm covered by my god and i've been a tither right now and so it didn't change anything right away after about four years of living right living holy given to god our combined income the first year of our marriage was about ten thousand dollars for the year by the fourth year of our marriage we made over seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in one year listen and this wasn't because the market was good or i was a businessman it was because god caused what we touched to prosper because he knew if he could get it to me he could get it through me because i wasn't doing business for me i was doing business to build what he would want me to build and because i took care of his house he always has taken care of i'm preaching better than you saying amen right now come on somebody and so i want to give you that opportunity that i've been given as well and i believe that there's a few people that are here today there's four kinds of people that are here number one someone who is not a christian yet this is not for you we don't expect you to give anything we want to give you jesus but there are three kinds of believers that are here today are you ready number one are those of you who are not currently tithing you do not give 10 percent of what god gives to you you don't bring it back to him you don't return it to the lord the thing that changed my life was malachi 3 10 he says bring the tithe into the storehouse and prove me now herewith that word prove in the hebrew means to test me so i begin to test god there now tithing is not the end of our giving it's actually the beginning and so my challenge for you today is to start to become a tither test god take a 90 day tithing challenge and say everything you give to me god the first thing i will do before i get my hair done before i go on a cruise before i get a new car before i get a new iphone god knows we say we can't afford to tithe it ain't true it ain't true we go shopping everywhere then we say we can't get right now i can't afford it i'm going through hard things but your hair is fresh you got a new wig and you got your eyebrows dead i mean what are you talking about your priorities are out of line the second kind of person who's here today is a person that you tithe but that's all and i want to say congratulations thank you for taking the first step but the tithe is not the end it's the beginning it is not the ceiling it's actually the floor it's actually as a born-again believer where we start in our giving it's not where we stop in our giving and i want to encourage you today to take a step to the right just what is god asking you to do in your offering so when we started our open heaven initiative tabitha and i we looked at what we gave last year and we said we're going to give 10 more this year you know and we give way over the tithe and when we got our little card where it says a one-time gift we gave over a five-digit gift because we've been living this way not because we're pastors because we're lovers of jesus i don't want anything from you see giving is not the preacher trying to get something from you it's god trying to get something to you he's trying to let you he's getting you to a place where you let go what's in your hand so he can let go of what's in his hand and some of us are holding on to what we have too much i encourage you take a step to the right the third kind of person who's here today is the person who you've been tithing and you've been giving offerings you've been going over and above and we just want to say thank you come on would you put your hands together for those people thank you come on you can do better than that y'all clapping like i ain't talking to you whoever that is praise god for them [Applause] you should clap by faith like that was you you know what i mean but we want to say thank you you know and some of you all you shouldn't give anything more you are already at the top of your giving spectrum and you just need to keep doing what you're doing but at the same time those of you all who are radical givers don't close your heart to what god can do and what he wants to do tabitha was just telling me a story years ago she used to just give money to the homeless so we lived in washington dc and she would just give money to the homeless all the time like 20 bills you know what i mean and she was at the atm one time and a homeless guy came up behind her and he was like hey i need this that other she gets 100 and gives it to the homeless guy she begins to walk off and a police officer comes up said this guy's been scamming everybody at these atm machines and she says in that moment when the police officer said that her heart was hardened and she said for years i never gave to the homeless because i'm like what you spending it on what you doing so forth and so on and she said it took me years until the holy spirit got hold of me and says why don't you just start giving anyway not 20 but like now every person you give at least a dollar or two to and then um if i lead you to give more than that give more than that because it's about you not tainting your heart see some of you all have given these amounts and i ain't never gonna do that again it just stretched me too much and then my business got attacked okay your heart is now hardened and you no longer hear from god concerning your giving do you see how dangerous that is to be going through as a vessel of god but your heart is now hardened because of one experience you had with a homeless person now you want to cast a cloud on millions of homeless people who could use your blessing who could use your love go ahead and tell your neighbor just don't let your heart be hardened don't let you don't let your heart be hard now y'all hear me today don't let your heart be hardened so as a giver we just want to be open and say god what do you want me to give today all right and so if that's you could you just prepare yourself now we have a few different things um and you see here we have like this this commitment card we want you to take this home and fill it out and bring it back next week or you can drop it today this is this will help you come up with a two-year giving plan where you put god at the top of your budget this right here is what we call the 90-day tithing challenge card if you want to take this 90-day tithing challenge stop at the connection center fill out this card we have a 90-day program where we will walk with you pray with you send you letters and encourage you over the next 90 days we have an offering envelope here and that's nothing special but if you stop at the open heaven booth in the foyer we have this pamphlet here that's telling you all about the open heaven initiative but i just want us to prepare our hearts and minds now as we go before god and worship so i'm gonna have stacey if you could come and just just kind of sing a song for us [Music] [Music] i give myself away so you can't use me i give myself away jesus i give myself away so you can't use me i give myself away my god i give myself away so you can use me i give myself away all my dreams all my plans i give myself away so you can life is not my own to you i belong i give myself i give myself to you yeah my life is [Music] i give myself to you jesus come up with one voice my life [Music] i give is to you so here i am to worship here i am [Music] all together [Music] [Applause] [Music] lord here i am here i am here i am i'm laying it down now you'll be jesus lord i trust you lord i trust you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] lord we love you and we so we thank you so much for giving your life for us on the cross that you will beat what a catan tells and bruised beyond recognition and what you took we don't have to take god you so loved the world that you gave your only begotten son that whosoever would believe would not perish but have everlasting life and we give because you first gave to us and so if you're giving today or if you've ever given before just lift a hand to the lord and lift your phone to god i want to ask god those of you all who are online as well i want to ask for god just to bless your offering and bless your tithing bless you in the storehouse i pray that he blesses you in your storage places he blesses you in your savings account and your investment properties i pray pray that he blesses you with appreciation i pray for supernatural debt cancellation i also pray for your heart that you sense the presence of god you sense this connection to your high priest even more because where a man's treasure is that's where his heart is also i bind the thoughts the generational thoughts of keeping in selfishness i bind that mindset that train of thinking in the name of jesus and i lose a generous spirit all throughout our church to where we'll be known as a house of generosity in the name of jesus god and i just thank you that you give seed to the sower and you use what we give god to see more people saved more people transformed more people delivered in the name of the lord jesus and with every head bowed and every eye closed i want to give you an opportunity to make jesus the lord of your life if you're here today and you say pastor i want to be right with god i want my sins to be forgiven if that's you could you just lift the hand all over the building so i can pray for you thank you i see your hand thank you if i see your hand anyone else all over the building thank you i see your hand those of you all online if you're not sure if you were to die tonight if your name would be found in the lamb's book of life allow us to pray this prayer with you where you can have a relationship with jesus i'm not offering you religion but if you want a relationship with jesus pray this prayer let's all pray it together right now say lord jesus come on so everybody say lord jesus come into my heart today forgive me of my sins i repent i turn away from my sin i turn away from the world's way and now i want your way say god forgive me god use me god heal me and thank you for saving me from this day forward i am yours and you are mine in jesus wonderful name come on somebody and give god praise come on you can do better than that all heaven is rejoicing as we give god praise for what he's doing amen amen amen amen amen hey guys i hope you've enjoyed this long service with your pastor i love you all and um hey some of you guys who are going home and you're taking these cards pray over them at home and look at your budget um sign up for automatic giving online you know you sign up for all your other bills online because you don't trust yourself do that what you're giving cause it's important amen let's keep giving let's keep changing lives i love y'all i'm out give it up for pastor aaron the best campus pastor in the world y'all got the best campus pastor in the world i bet you better understand come on somebody whoo

Channel: Alive Church

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Length: 54min 29sec (3269 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021