Checkpoints - Give - Luke 21:1-4

Well, listen. Thursday is the big day for Denise and I. We began our trip to AMA, Iowa. You don't seem too excited about our trip. Okay. I'm very excited about it. Here's the funny thing. We've never driven that way before. We've never seen that part of the country. So, instead of flying there, we decided to drive. And somebody mentioned to me, you know, Keith, if you drive there, you're going to say see the same thing over and over and over and over. But Thursday is the big day. And so to get ready for it, we had friends of ours, Stephen, Vicki, Kyle, call and say, "Listen, we have a surprise to get for you. We're going to help you get there." And they gave us maps. Okay? Now, some of you younger um attenders right now, these are things are paper things, and you unfold them and you never can fold them back the right way, but they help you to get where you're going. But we sat down with the map and so they really helped us. They said, "Okay, we're going to go ahead and drew." You know, we spread the whole thing out on the table and they marked it, got the the the highlighter marker and they marked and they said, "You go from I470 to 70 and it turns into 76." And I got all my little post-it notes here and we go from 70 to 76 and then we're going to get on to 80 and from there we get on to 30 and we go through Grand Island and we go through Columbus and we go through Fremont. And about this time as they're sharing our excitement with us, I'm like, "Can we stop?" Okay. All these directions you're giving me, all these things I'm supposed to be checking on my checklist to make sure we're going there. I said, "I'm completely overwhelmed. It makes me not even want to go." And then I looked at him. I said, "I have a better idea. Why don't you guys go also? You can drive your car and we'll follow you. And because you've driven this way so many times and you know where we're trying to go, you can get us there. Wouldn't that be a lot easier? We'll just we'll just follow you. If we get tired, we'll call you and say, "Can we pull over? If we feel like we may be going the wrong way, we can call you to make sure we're going the right way." Just this whole idea of following seems a lot easier than like a checklist on a map, right? If you've been coming the last few weeks, we're doing this new series called Checkpoints. And you know exactly where I'm going with this because it was Jesus himself when he walked this earth. He looked at his disciples and he said, "I'm going to give you a checklist and I need to make sure you're doing everything on this checklist if you're going to be a good Christian." Did he say that? No. He used the other term. He said, "Just follow me." What Jesus was setting up for his disciples is if we're going to be his disciplers, his followers, it is not a checklist that we're trying to work through. It is a relationship with him and we're to follow him. And so over these last few weeks and we got a few more weeks into it, we're creating we've identified through scripture what we're saying not a checklist but as checkpoints if we're following Jesus. There's certain markers in our spiritual life that we need to be make sure we're going through to make sure we're following him. In fact, if you were here two weeks ago, the first one on our checkpoint list was this this idea of gathering. And gathering is what we're doing right now together. It's us coming together on a Sunday morning corporately like this. Now, I know there's different times throughout the week you may gather some friends or you may be in a small group or you may be doing this and more people are there. But when we use the phrase the term gather, we're really talking Sunday morning when corporately we all get together. We've got kids in here with us now. Then they went downstairs and they're doing their lesson. Our students are doing their thing. And as we gather, we're worshiping through our singing. We're praying together. We're studying God's word together. We're fellowshipping together. All of that is what's involved when we gather together. In fact, the definition that we use for gather is this centering your life around God's presence and God's people. I hope y'all listen to Daniel. What a just a heart pouring out of what he was saying earlier is when we gather here, gathering is more than sitting all of our rears in blue seats. Gathering is using on God's presence. Gathering is centering with God's people and we're centering on God's presence. That's what we mean by this idea of gather. And if we're following Jesus, even Jesus made it a priority priority to weekly gather with those that were calling themselves Christians. Now, the second checkpoint that we talked about was last week, and that's this idea of connect. And when we say connect, here's what we mean. It's choosing authentic community over isolated faith. It's often in the terms of what we might refer to as small groups. It's getting together beyond gathering, but it's maybe 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 people, and you are sharing life together. You are sharing your heartbreaks. You're sharing your concerns. You're sharing your struggles with one another. It's authentic community. You see, you can come in here and gather every single Sunday morning, but really never know anybody. Or even better, nobody knows you. And so when we have this idea of gather, it has take this this concept of gather, but then it takes it into more intimate formality or an intimate expression. And that's small groups, it's gathering, it's connecting to one another. And one of the things I want you to know here at South Sub Church, we have this goal that every single person who comes to this church intimately experiences a relationship with Jesus. And when I say every single person, it's just not us grown-ups in this room. It is the kids that went downstairs. It is our students who are also studying. It is every single season of life. It is at every single age of life. We want everyone to experience Jesus. So something you may not know as we're going through these different checkpoints, when the kids go downstairs and the students go to their class, they are actually learning the same checkpoints. They just actually learn it on their own level. Let me give you an idea. The the checkpoint that we're going to cover today is the idea of give. If you're taking notes, you can write down this definition. When we say give, here's what we mean. Trusting God enough to live generously with what he's given you. So, as we're studying this idea of give, as we're making it a checkpoint in our lives, it is trusting God enough to live generously with what he's given you. Now, if we were to teach that to students, they may kind of look that going, "What?" So, here's how the students are learning it. When students think of the word give, here's what they think of. Doing good with what God has given you. So, we're saying the same thing with our students. We're just bringing it down to a little bit more life relevant stage for them. As our kids learn it, here's how they're learning it. Kids think of give as sharing what God has given you with others. Do you see how we've taken the same concept on this idea of give and we've related it and brought it down to every single age and stage in life? So, we're all getting it together. In fact, um you've noticed in the offering boxes that we I talk about give, there's offering boxes that you see around, we have an offering box downstairs for the kids because it's something they don't just learn with their head, they are to learn with their lives. And so, when you walk downstairs, there's an offering box and it looks something like this when you see it downstairs. and their big gift sign. It's their definition, that definition that says this, doing good with what God has given you. Now, at this point in the preacher sermon, you're supposed to be smiling. Okay? You're supposed to be going, "Wow, that's really good." I mean, they're learning what we're learning. When we go home, we can talk about it, and they're growing up, understanding it, and not having to try to figure out when they're old like I am. So, everybody look at me and smile. That at least makes me think you're listening. Okay? that at least lets me know that you're alive. This is what we're doing. Because why? Because in our relationship with Jesus, he did not say, "Here's a checklist of things to do." He said, "Follow me." And we want to teach our kids. We want to teach our students. And we ourselves want to live that life that we're following Jesus. And these checkpoints help us to make sure we're going in the right direction. So today we're going to talk about give. And some of you are thinking as soon as I say that, if I knew it was about money, I wouldn't have come. Too bad you're here, so you get to listen. Okay, it is about But here's the deal. We're not trying to make up some principle. We're going to look at a story in scripture. In fact, it may be a story that you've heard many, many times. It's one of the most simplest stories. In fact, as the kids are downstairs, they're learning the same story also. And it's a story about a little woman, a poor little woman who gave all that she had to Jesus. Let me read it to It's found in Luke chapter 21. And here's what it says. While Jesus was in the temple, he watched the rich young pe or he watched the rich people dropping their gifts in the collection box. And then a poor widow came by and she dropped in two small coins. And Jesus said this, I tell you the truth, this poor widow has given more than all of the rest of them. for they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she poor as she is has given everything that she has. So, you can kind of see the scene, right? They're in the temple. People are coming in. Jesus and his disciples, they're kind of standing and it's really kind of interesting. He's like watching, okay? It's not like we stand around our offering boxes and we're going, "Who's going to give? Who's going to give?" But on this particular day, Jesus was observing and looking at who's dropping what. and he's got his few disciples around him. And so this offering box is over here and people walk by and they reach in their wallet, they drop something and then someone else reaches in their wallet, they drop some money in there. And it's very obvious the people dropping this money were wealthy people. People that, as Jesus tells us, it wasn't a big sacrifice for them to drop money in. But then he says, "Look, there was a little widow woman who comes walking in." I don't know why I think this, but my mind always thinks she's a little stooped over woman with a cane. And I'm not sure about that. We don't know how old she was, but she walks in and Jesus is looking at her and she reaches in and she drops two coins. In our vernacular, instead of dropping a couple of tens or a couple of 20s or maybe even a $100 bill in there like the other people were, she reaches in and drops two coins. And Jesus is watching specific enough. Jesus is eyeing everything that's going on and he looks over his disciples and he goes and she's doing it the right way. In fact, I love the way that the message writes it. It says Jesus said this, "The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest offering today." So Jesus is watching what's going in the box, but more than that, he's watching what's coming out of the pocket. But even more than that, he's watching what's coming out of the heart. And he says, "She is given the largest offering." In fact, in in another translation, the Living Bible, this is what Jesus says. This poor widow has given more than all the rest of them combined. For they have given a little of what they didn't need, but she, poor as she is, has given everything that she has. And so, I want to take the next few minutes, and I think there's just three principles about giving since that's one of our checkpoints. It is three principles that we can pull from their scripture that we can use to just examine our own lives with it. And here's the first principle. When it comes to God's view of generosity and especially in this story, generosity about our finances, when it comes to God's view of generosity, generosity matters to God. Generosity matters to God. Look back in verse one with me. Let's read it again. While Jesus was in the temple, he watched the rich people dropping their gifts in the collection box. Watched. If you circle things in your scripture on the notes that we have there, circle that word watched. Like I think it's so interesting because so many times we try to make our giving more of a discreet thing because we're not trying to brag and show somebody how much we give. It's very discreet. Like we don't have somebody standing by offering boxes going, "Can you show me the size of that check? Can you show me how much dollars you're putting in there before you put it in there? We would be offended if somebody is standing by the box looking how much we're giving in. But the Bible says Jesus watched. And if you go back to the original language of this word watch back in the Greek, it really has a deeper meaning than just he eyed it. He saw it. It has this idea that when Jesus was watching what each person was doing, he was bel looking beyond what they were doing and he was looking more towards the motivation of it. Like I I think of our little grandkids. We've got a new one coming in December and we're going to go in December and see this brand new baby. Can I be honest with you? About five minutes and I'm done. Okay. When they're little bitty like that, I love my granddaughter that's coming, but she'll be really, really, really boring. And I'll look at her going, "Okay, can we go now?" But I'll watch Denise and she will hold that baby and she will look at that baby and she can't take her eyes. There's a maternal thing going on there that she's seeing much more than a I started to say four-legged creature. I hope it's not a four-legged creature, a little more more than this little bitty baby. She will see just the beauty of a child. And when Jesus was watching, he was watching almost like a mother will watch her children. He's she's looking he was looking at who she was or he's looking the giving way beyond just what's happening on the outside. See, he was doing much more than observing what they were doing with their wallets. He was looking at what they were doing with their hearts. And there's a biblical principle that we can pull from this as we think about this idea that in God's view of money, in God's view of generosity, that generosity matters to him. How we use our money is a measure of how much we love God. Now, let me say that one again and let us sink in here for a second. How we use our money is a measure of how much we love God. Now, I'm not saying a person who gives in a hundred versus a person who gives in $10 bill, the person who gives in a hundred loves God more. Absolutely not. Because remember Jesus is looking at this woman who gave two cents and he said she gave much more. In other words, he said and she loves God much more than those other people are loving God right now. So, so it wasn't about the mount, it was about the heart that came behind it. She came by and she dropped in two small coins. I want to make sure we understand as we're looking this biblical teaching right here. This is not a parable. It's an actual teaching about a biblical principle. Now, here's why I say that. Because many times Jesus would teach in parables and parables would be about a story that you would try to apply and it could mean many things. This is not a parable. We don't get to fill in the blank about what generosity is. In this particular teaching, when Jesus is talking about generosity, he is specifically talking about generosity of finances. Now don't get me wrong, we should be generous in many areas of our life. We should be generous with our time. We should be generous with our encouragement. We should be generous with so many things. You can fill in the blank. But here's what happened to most people. Because our finances are so important to us. And in our society, finance controls so much of what we do. And finances even control so much of who we are. When it comes to biblical moments that with God's talking about generosity, we want to like, can we put finances over here and let's just give time because it's easier to give time. It doesn't cost me as much to give my effort. Again, generosity is a big scope, but we cannot leave out the financial generosity that Jesus referring to right now. Like, woo, Keith, pack up, preacher. You're kind of being harsh on us today, right? Why are you so focused on on money? Because Jesus was. And here's why Jesus was. Because he knows our finances is what controls most of us. It is a thing that we work for. It is a thing that we spend our money on. It represents our time. It work represents our work. It represents our effort. I mean, when it comes to money, we work effort so we get money so we can exchange it for what? What we need and what we want. And so when it comes to money, giving money away means giving up other things that I might want. If I'm generous with my money over here, I may not get this over here that I want. And we've worked really hard to get the things the money so we can get the things that we want. You you you feel the tension with me right now? Not the tension of the preacher talking about money, the tension about what money is in our lives. That's the reason Jesus watched. That's the reason he didn't just walk in there and have a seat. He watched because he goes, "I need to teach my boys who are around me, but I need to teach the future church what I feel about generosity, about this idea of give. What we do with our money matters to God. because it says something about what matters to us. Let me say that one more time. What we do with our money matters to God because it says something about what matters to us. That's the reason the first principle from this teaching right here is generosity matters to God. Let me give you the second thing. If you're taking notes, you can write this down. generosity according to this particular teaching generosity is measured differently by God you can put in there than by the world. So we have this idea of generosity and here's what happens. We're running it through our own filter of what the world has taught us to think about it. But I need you to pause right there going I got to give you a different paradigm because God looks at generosity completely different than you and I look at generosity. You see, people measure generosity by how much is given. God often measures generosity by how much is left. Let that one sink in for a second. God measures generosity or we often measure we often measure generosity by how much is um given, but God measures measures on how much is left. Let's say I leave here today and I've got 10 tens in my pocket and I walk out and somebody's out there on the street and they're needing money. Their car broke down. You can tell they need a new tire. They're asking for help. And I reach in, I'm going, "Woo!" And I give them three tens. I still got seven tens left over. The next person walks out and pulls out their wallet and all they have is one tin and they know that's all they have the rest of the week. But they see this family in need and they reach in their pocket and they hand this family one 10. I gave three tens. This family gave one 10. I have seven tens left over. This one over here has no leftover. Who's been the most generous? And the world will say, "Oh, the one that gave $30." Like that's three times as much. And God's going, "No, no, I don't measure generosity that way. It's the one who gave more of what they had. That's the reason the woman gave two coins [snorts] and Jesus made the comment, "She's given more than all of you combined because she gave her all." You see, we see the size of the gift. God sees the sacrifice. Few weeks ago, I got a letter in the mail from someone who attends our church and I just want to read you anonymously what she wrote in the letter. She says, "I recently had," and in this letter that she sent was a very small gift to the church. Now, personally, as pastor, I never see the gifts that people give, but Laura, who does our finances, brought me the letter. And she said, "Yeah, it was just a small little check, but I thought you might want to see this letter." And the letter says this, "I recently had emergency surgery, and I was in the hospital for six days. Because of this unexpected illness, I have been unable to work. However, God has placed on my heart to give what I can. I know it's not a large amount, but once I'm able to work, I can increase my gifts to the church and honor God, my father, who is walking each step with me. And then she goes on to write, "Please pray for me to overcome my issues and my health issues and to stay faithful in my worship and my prayer and continue to give all this to God. He has never let me down. He is my father. He is my savior. And he is my faithful hope. Do you know who gets it? She does. This dear sweet woman who gave whatever it was, just a small gift, but she gave it. And what she's saying, she goes, "I'm giving what I have. One day God may bless me, but here's the deal. I am giving it because I'm hanging on to God." And you can tell from the heart of her letter that she gets more than generosity. She really gets what it means to follow Jesus. And she recognizes as these different checkpoints that we set up. Yes, there's there's gather out there and we need to do and there's connect out there. But she understands that you can't just do two out of three and be okay. That she needs to be following all three if she's following Jesus. You see, sacrifice looks different for everyone because everyone to each of us sacrifice looks different. That's the reason this is when we talk generosity, when we talk give, it's not really about numbers. You can't measure a heart by numbers. We measure or God measures our heart by the sacrifice. God measures our heart by the generosity. God measures our heart by the place it has in all of our lives. Let me give you the third principle. Third principle says this from this particular passage. What we're learning about what God's view about giving especially when it comes to our finances. The third principle says this, generosity reveals our trust in God. Our generosity reveals our trust in God. Verse four, Jesus made this comment. He says, "For they," meaning the rich people that walk by and put some money in, put some money in, put some money in, and the the offering box is getting fuller and fuller. He goes, "Those those people, for they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she," talking about the widow woman, "but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has." It took an extraordinary amount of trust for her to give her two coins. And the way Jesus is talking, it didn't take a lot of trust for the other people to give their money. I have a dear friend of mine. He passed away this past year. Um, but he was a special needs individual. He was 65 years old. His name is James. I've told you some stories about James, but I'll never forget James would come to the church that I used to be a pastor at in Texas. And James would come in his simplicity of life. And most of the time he would come in time before church to get the donuts. People made him nervous, but he would stick around long enough to feel like he came to church and then he would go home. But that was his gathering. That was his worship. And one Monday I was talking with him after he came on that Sunday. And he looked at me and said, 'Hey pastor, he said, "The bishop will be really proud of me." Now, let me explain. Church did not have a structure of a bishop. I wasn't the lead pastor. I was one of the associate pastors. But the white-haired, gray-haired man that preached on Sunday mornings, he always called him the bishop. He goes, "Hey, Keith, the bishop would be really proud of me." I'm like, "Why, James?" He said, "When I came to church on Sunday, I gave a tip." Now, in his mind, he's thinking, "You go out to eat, you leave a tip. When the waiter or waiter, waitress comes up, you give a tip." But here's what I want you to know. I think it was the most beautiful offering of the day because it came out of his heart. It came out of his little simple mind that didn't understand everything that we understand about giving. But I know this about James. He had very little cash. And his cash was important to him because he you would use it every single week to get scratch off tickets and buy more fish for his aquarium. And when he gave God a tip, that meant he had less money for scratchoff tickets. That meant he might not buy a fish that week. And in the life of a 65 year old man, he gave the biggest gift he could give. And he gave it out of his heart. You see, here's what we have to understand, and this is important because some people get so turned off when we talk about giving and generosity and money and shirts. Like, oh, I know they just want more of my money. They want more of my money and they want more of my money. Here's the deal. God doesn't need our money. Can we just understand that God does not need our money? In fact, Psalms 50:12 says this, and this is God talking in and through the Psalms. He goes, "If I was hungry, I would not tell you. For all the world is mine and everything in it." Okay? So, this is not the greedy game of God. We talk about giving. This is God going, "What I really want from you is not your money because I don't need it. What I really want from you is your trust, your faith in me. You're trust that if you give something that's so so valuable to you that you've worked so hard for the thing that you want to hang on, it represents taking care of yourself now. It takes care of takes it represents taking care of self in the future. For many of us, it takes care of taking care of stuff we've already bought. He goes, that's what makes the world go round right now. And when your heart opens up to generosity and when we are willing to give, it says all that stuff is important. Both my past, my present, my future, and I'm going to trust God with it. That's what he's really after when it comes to generosity. You see, we go back this idea. Jesus looked at his followers. He looks at us and says, "You want to be a Christian? You you you want to do right, then follow me. You can't follow somebody if you don't trust that person. I mean, can you imagine Denise and I Thursday, we get ready to go and we talk our friends Stephen, Mickey, Kyle into going ahead of us, and we're going to follow them. And we pull out of our neighborhood, we go to their house, we're we pick them up at their house, they're in their car, we're in our car, they pull out of their car, and they pull on to 470. And the first time they as soon as they get on 470, hey, Steve, are y'all sure you're going the right way? Steve's going to get on that phone going, "Dude, you got to trust me. I've been this route many, many times. I know what's there before you ever think about getting there. And every 10 minutes, hey Steve, are you sure this is the right way? I guarantee you, we're not going to get outside of Denver. He's going, hey, here's what I'm going to do. You're not trusting me, so this following is not really working. I'm going to go and go back and see what you can do on your own. Now, would you think Steve is crazy for No, you're going, I'd have done it before Steve did it. But how many times are our prayer life, hey God, are you sure you know what's going on? Hey God, if I give this, are you sure you're going to take care of this bill that I have? Hey God, if I give this, are you sure? I'm supposed to retire in a couple of years and I'm not sure I can retire. Hey God. Hey God. Hey God. And we do God the same way. And really what God is wanting from us is the trust. He doesn't need our money. He wants our trust. That's the reason when we set up these checkpoints and we gave definitions for them under the definition for give. We didn't say here's your definition for give. Give to God generously. I mean that's giving, right? But we're missing the very point of it. That's the reason as we are learning together and trying to hang on and remember these definitions that go with our checkpoints. The definition is this. trusting God enough to live generously with what he's given you. You see, generosity with our finances loosens our grip on what we have so we can hold tighter onto God. Let me say that one again. Our generosity in our lives loosens the grips on what we possess so we can hold tighter to God in the relationship.

Generous giving isn't only about what our money does for others. It's really about what it's doing for us. See, when you're generous, the South Sub Church, we can do things like North Littleton Promise. Did you know this? We have over nine or we have nine outreach programs that we partner with. And so a lot of the generosity here goes to take care of ministries that you're a part of that you see take place every single Sunday, every single Wednesday throughout the week here at the church. But there's nine other partners that we have out in the community that we're making a difference. We're making a difference in Tijana, Mexico. When we go in a few weeks and take 15 to 20 people and we build a house for a needy family. When you give generously, we take care of and help as North Little Promise helps the immigrant families not just in their needs in front of them, but to help educate parents to help them with medical um information they don't understand. They are fully engaged and embracing their lives so they can make the next generation a more healthy, better life here in these states. Love, Inc. fish and loaves that we help mount and partner with Mount Air Church to feed the the the the some of the folks around in their neighborhood. I can go on and on and on. So, when you and I are generous, yes, we're doing things with our generosity to help others, but we're really doing more what's inside of us and what God's wanting to do in us. And so, in the pathway and the checkpoints, give is one of them, one of five. So far, we've got gather, we've got connect, and now it's give. And so, let me just wrap up today just with steps. Every time we've done this each week, we give you steps. Where are you? Because everybody's at a different place, right? If you've never really given, okay, you're not even at the place my special needs friend James was, and you're not even giving God a tip. Let me just say this. Take these notes here. Here's the first step. If you're not generously or giving to God at all, a crawl, commit to weekly give a designated dollar amount. Like, so, okay, God, for the next three months, here's what I'm going to do. When I come to church, every week, I'm going to give fill in the blank, $10. Hey, God, every week when I come, I'm going to give $15. Here's what we normally do. We come and we look what's in our pocket and we give out of that. The problem is we've already spent most of it on Friday and Saturday. And so a commitment lets you say, "God, before I go out on Friday, before I go out on Saturday, before I do these things, I'm going to commit." And just fill in the blank there. Now, I'll give you a little hint from the life of Keith and Denise. We have great intentions many times with many things, but intentions don't always make action. And so, when it comes to our giving, here's what we do. we go and have it automatically taken out of our account because we'll forget get busy and forget about this week. Oh, we'll make up next week and we look up and there's three or four weeks and we haven't been generous with our giving. So, we have just found for us if we just commit through automatic giving. And if you need help with that, we can help you and set it up online or through text. But automatic giving makes sure that whatever I commit actually becomes more than intentions. It becomes a real action. But if you've never given, here's what I would say. just commit to give something. And the reason I say it weekly is just there's just that regularness of it. You could do it every two weeks, you could do it once a month, but just the regular commit to regularly giving. Now, now maybe you give kind of regularly, okay? Like maybe not every single Sunday you come, but most time you come, you give something and there's amount you give. So the next step, if that's a crawl stage, here's the next step. It's a walk stage. And I would say this, commit to weekly give a designated percentage of your income. See the difference in walk and crawl. Crawl and walk. Crawl is simply like, I'm just going to pick an amount. I'm going to pick the cost of a Starbucks coffee. Okay? I'm going to pick a dollar a $10, just amount. But the the walk part of it is go beyond just amount and look at your whole budget and say, "Okay, God, I'm going to prioritize you enough. I'm gonna make sure that I give you a percentage of what I make. Now, you're like, "Oh my goodness, Keith, a percentage? Are you about to get in that tithe thing and tell me I got to give 10%." There's some biblical argument, discussion about how much percentage you should get. Let's not even worry about that right now because most people aren't even giving a percentage. Start somewhere. And you're thinking, how much percentage? Let me give you an idea where the average person's money goes. Little research says this, that the average person, now this may not be you, but the average person in America will spend 3% of their income on Starbucks. The average person will spend 5% of their income on eating out. And you know this, it just takes one time to hit that 5% now, right? The average person will spend 4% of their budget of their income on streaming and subscriptions. The average person will spend 1% of their income on alcohol. And the average person will spend 3% of their budget on clothing. That's a total of about 14%. Now, I'm not preaching against any of that, okay? I'm not preaching against streaming. I'm not preaching against alcohol. I'm not preaching against Starbucks. I'm not preaching against any of it. But here's what we can know. The average person has about 14% of their budget at least that they can redecide where they distribute it. And many times we're giving God a tip, but we're committing 3% of my budget to streaming and subscriptions. Do you see the balance there? Do you see where it's off? And so that's the reason I believe scripture really teaches about percentage of giving. It lets you look at all your funds and say, "God, where is my priority of you in all of my funds?" Here's the last one. Walk. Maybe maybe you are maybe you are giving just a weekly percentage and it's already coming out and you're giving it very regular. Here's the last thing I would say. Just simply run. Maybe think about consider. Now, this is not that point the preacher is going, "Give me more money. Give me more money." This is about how much you trust God. And just ask God, God, I am giving regularly. I'm doing well in this checkpoint, but do you want me to trust you more? Not give more, but do you want me to trust you more? Here's how I end it with this. This sermon is not about money. The sermon's about our heart. Let's not walk out of here today going, "Oh, I knew I shouldn't have came because the preacher talked about money." Walk out of here going, "Man, I'm so glad I came because I now understand better how God measures my heart." And he measures our heart through the generosity just like he did the woman in our story. Will you pray with me? Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for your word. And God, thank you that sometimes your word just encourages us. And sometimes our word, your word nudges us. And God, sometimes your word spans us. But your word, you say, is like a double-edged sword used to carve us into who you want us to be for you. And so, thank you for your word. And may our hearts always be moving towards you. And we pray this in your name. Amen. Amen.