I just wanted to start

Well, last week we celebrated the midpoint of our deeper wider generosity initiative and all that's already happened, which is remarkable. If you weren't here, you're going to want to check that out. It's so inspiring to see how much wider the impact because of our collective deeper investment. I want to welcome also all of our Atlanta area churches as well as our partners. Join us across the city, across the nation, around the world. It's awesome to be connected today. And one of the things we talked about last week involves you, especially if you're not in the Atlanta area because of the generosity of people in our churches here. We're witnessing some extraordinary things happening in our network of churches and in our organization that we call an inflection point. It's sort of this thing that you look back on, you realize, you know, we're here a year later going, wow, we didn't expect that to happen. We had some expectations, but we didn't expect that to happen. And what an inflection point, as we talked about last week, it's when a change in direction occurs. It looks like this, if you're thinking mathematics or economics, it kind of looks like this. And if you're a business owner, you've seen things like this, you've seen charts like this. And here's one of the things that you know is this happens because of a moment, because of an event or because of something that shifts direction. It's a tipping point. It's a watershed moment. There's lots of different ways to describe this. But it can also represent positive or negative change. It could be a positive or negative shift. It could be that if the point was back here that something happened that slowed this growth and then you began a downward trend. And some of you have experienced that. You experienced that in business or you've experienced that personally. But there's also this point where you experienced something and right away you don't see a positive change. You don't see this turnaround. You don't see something remarkable. But this is actually when the decline slowed and things began to turn around. And looking back is when it's clear. It's not always clear in the moment. December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery. Now in the moment, people thought it's just another arrest. It's just another miss moment of discrimination, a mistreatment of a human person. But this actually led to something significant among Montgomery. It was called the Montgomery bus boycott. And there were people of all races who decided they were going to boycott the bus in Montgomery. And this lasted for 381 days. And it became national news. And because of that, it catapulted a young little known, a young 26 year old Baptist preacher and gave him a platform, a massive platform for what became the civil rights movement. And it's obvious now, but not on the bus on that December day in 1955. Now this happens culturally. This happens organizationally. And this happens personally. You've likely experienced it. You didn't know in the moment. But when you were looking back on your life, when you first met that person, maybe it was your spouse, it was a significant other. Maybe with somebody who gave you an opportunity, it was somebody who made an introduction for you. It's somebody who took a chance on you. When you said yes to that opportunity, or you said yes to that new job, or you said yes to that proposal. And when you stepped out, maybe you stepped out on your own, or maybe you stepped out and you took a risk, you look back and you think, when I think back to that moment, things changed. And this can happen, as you know, for better or for worse. Years ago, when I graduated from college, in 1996, the Olympics were happening in Atlanta. And I had a job to go to, but I thought, when else in my home country, are the Olympics going to be happening? And I don't have anything I really had to do. I wasn't dating anybody. It wasn't married. The job was ready for me whenever I showed up at it, which is a nice job to have. It was sort of one of those things I thought, I'm going to move to Atlanta for the summer. For the Olympics. And I moved down here to the summer, that summer, and I only knew one family, and I was staying with them, and I was volunteering at their church. And then I went to a summer camp with their students. I was serving, and I met a guy named Louis Giglio at this camp. And he was a speaker, and I met him afterwards, and he said, oh, you live in Atlanta because the camp wasn't in Atlanta. And he said, you need to come to my Bible study. And I thought, this guy's amazing. If he's inviting me to his Bible study, I'm going to show up. And now I grew up in the North. So Bible study for me was like eight people in a circle. Like that was Bible study. But his Bible study was called 722. It had a name, and it was a room full of people like this. It was a massive group of people that were my age, young single adults in Atlanta, and I showed up, and I was like, I have no idea what's going on here, but I want to be a part of what's happening here. And that's how I found North Point, me church, North Point, it just started. And it changed the trajectory of my life forever. When I look back, it was an inflection point. Now inflection points can happen in almost every area of our lives. But there's one area, one I want to talk about today. There's one that impacts almost every area of our life. It can happen in almost any area. But there's one that impacts almost every area of your life and mine. And I'm not going to bury the lead. I'm going to be up front. Here's what it is. It's generosity. Generosity has the potential to be an inflection point in your life. If you're brand new, you're brand new to one of our churches, you're brand new here today. The reality is that you're thinking, I knew it. I mean, I showed up at this big church and I knew they were going to be talking about money. So here's what I want to relieve you of just for a second today. I don't want anything from you. I want something for you. And the truth is, I've seen over and over in people's lives, generosity become an extraordinary inflection point. That when they embrace the true value of generosity, it changed everything. I want to try it today, maybe expand your definition of what you think generosity is, where it comes from and why it exists. So I want to start there. Let's start with this. What do you think of? What comes to mind when you think of generosity? If you were going to come up with a definition, I don't want you to use your phone, I don't want you to use chat. But if you were going to write a definition of generosity, I just want you to think for a minute, what would that be? We all know it when we see it. And how do you define it? Like what is it specifically? Maybe think of something you've seen or someone you've seen in their generosity. What epitomizes or personifies generosity? Why are you thinking about that? Here's where I want to jump in. Because one of the things I've seen so common is most of us think we know where generosity comes from. But today I want to pull back the curtain. In fact, I want to go back to the very beginning. I want to help us discover where generosity comes from because most people believe generosity is the result of prosperity. We think generosity is a direct result of prosperity. Here's what this sounds like. If I had more, I'd give more. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand if you ever thought that because some of you wouldn't raise your hand, you'd be lying in church and that's a bad thing. So I'm not going to put you in that position. But here's the thing. People who have more, people who are prosperous should be generous, which turns out actually isn't the case. As a matter of fact, according to IRS data, the IRS tax return data over decades. This is sustained over decades. So this isn't just, I'm not cherry picking data. You can go look this up for yourself. IRS tax return data over generations. People who make under $50,000 a year give roughly on average in the US give 3 to 5% of their income away. They give it towards philanthropy, towards their church, towards other nonprofit organizations. People who make $100 to $200,000 a year, they give away 2 to 3% of their income and people who make over a million dollars a year give 1 to 2% of their income. Now there are outliers to this. And maybe you're the exception, but the truth is this is the average. These are the national average that have sustained over decades. It turns out the more you have, it's not true that the more you give if you have more. This is not only true on an individual level. This is true nationally. 2025 World Giving Report. Again, all this is public information. The World Giving Report. Low income nations in the US, many third world nations and other nations give roughly 1.45% of their gross national income, GNI of their GNI, they give 1.45% of their gross national income to 4.8. Amongst the highest or the high income nations, they give only about 0.7%. So they're half as generous as the low income nations. See, we think the more prosperous you are, the more generous you are. In fact, that's why some of us are great. And if you'll bless me, I'll give. If you'll bless me, I'll help. If you'll give to me, I'll support. And the truth is, that's not only not really the way it works. It's not true statistically. It's also not true biblically. In fact, the relationship between generosity and prosperity is just the opposite according to Solomon. Solomon wrote in Proverbs, which is part of the wisdom literature. Here's what he wrote. He said, "A generous person will prosper." Not a prosperous person is generous. A generous person will prosper. Generosity is not the result of prosperity. Generosity according to Solomon is the pathway to prosperity. No. If you're a little bit skeptical, I'm going to illustrate with this one of my favorite stories. If you have a Bible, Genesis chapter 4, you open your Bible, turn to it, and your Bible app device, I would love for you to follow along. We're just going to look at a few of the verses, but we're going to look at them in context. And embedded in this story, and here's how I want to come to a more holistic definition of generosity, embedded in this story are the three key elements of generosity. And we can talk. Maybe there's four, maybe there's five. I think there's at least four key elements. There's generosity. Where does generosity come from? What are we generous with? So there's giving from. There's giving with. And there's giving too. Do you think about the three key elements? Where am I giving from? What's the place I'm giving from? Why am I giving it? What am I giving with? What are the resources? What am I being generous with? Because there's lots of different ways to be generous. And then what am I giving to or what's my generosity going toward? So in this story, we not only see these three things, but we're going to see why generosity is often an inflection point. And a lack of generosity works the opposite. An inflection point towards the negative. And it can lead to places none of us want to end up. So here's the context. Genesis chapter four is the story of Canaan Abel. Some of you are like, you're excited about the story of Canaan Abel. I am, it's an old story. And I'll just say this, the oldest stories are the best stories. Only the best parts of those stories are preserved because they're so old. And in this story, it's so rich with truth. And someday I'm going to do a whole series just on some of the oldest stories. But here's what's happening. The first humans are figuring out life outside of the garden, outside of paradise. And they've been removed from the garden. And Adam and Eve have two children. First they have a son named Cain. And then they have a son named Abel. So Cain's the oldest, Abel's the youngest. Adam and Eve, two kids, family of four. Here's what we find out. Genesis chapter four, verse three. It's the first thing we know about Canaan Abel. In the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. So he's Cain's, Cain's a farmer and he brings some of the fruit, some of the stuff that the soil's produced. And he brings us an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering. But he brought the fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. So as I said, Cain's a farmer, Abel's a shepherd. And here's what we're introduced. We're introduced to them. The first thing they're doing is they're making sacrifices. Does anybody else think that's strange? I mean, they're sacrificing. And they're making sacrifices. And they're kind of making these burnt offerings to God. But they're making sacrifices. And if you don't think that's strange, it's because you know too much. And here's the reality is, we don't really know why they're doing this. Like where does this come from? Why are they making sacrifices to God? Because we don't have any instructions to this point that this is something people are supposed to do. See we're all looking back. But if you're reading the story and you don't know anything else that comes after the story, you're going, wait, why are they doing this? And there's only three chapters before this. So here's the quick backstory. The creation story is Genesis 1 and 2. And when God creates everything, He looked at all and He goes, it's good. This is the ideal. This represents the ideal in the world. He looked at everything He created. And He said, this is good. The man and the woman, they have purpose, they have meaningful work that they're doing. They're together. There's nothing between them. This is how this is the Bible describes. This feels awkward, but they're naked and unashamed because they have nothing to be ashamed of. It describes perfection, perfect relationship. And there's just one rule. When God has everything exactly as He wants it, there's just one rule. He said, I want you to trust me by not eating of the garden, of the tree in the garden that's in the center of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Some of you know how the story goes. Genesis chapter 3, the man and the woman decided to disobey God. They don't trust God. And because of that, the ideal is lost. Sin enters the world. There's brokenness. They realize as their eyes are open, they realize that they're naked. And they're ashamed, they cover up and hide. Isn't this exactly what we do? I mean, even if you're here, you're new to the Bible and you think this doesn't exist. I don't know about Genesis. It's old. We don't have any proof of this. I mean, the person who wrote it, they're not eyewitness. Okay, great. All that. Isn't this true? See, when we're, when we sin, we make mistakes and things that were ashamed of, we cover up and hide. We do it from each other. We do it from God and we're ashamed. So we hide and it's interesting. God comes looking for them. They can't find them. And before they were experiencing this community with one another in the garden. And God says, "Hey, where are you? Adam, where are you?" He realizes they're hiding. He's like, "What did you do? How do they respond?" Adam says, "The woman you gave me." It's her. She, it was your idea to have this woman and you gave her to me and she did this and she gave it to me. And then the woman, Eve, she's looking at Adam and she doesn't know what to say. She's like, "The serpent you created, this isn't me." And this is what we all do. We want to shift the view off of us. We want to shift the blame off of us. We don't want to be in the hot seat. We don't want to deal with the heat. So we blame other people instead of taking responsibility and notice how God responds. This is amazing. They betrayed him. They didn't listen. After all he had done and created and the paradise he had placed them in. He betrayed him and didn't listen to him. And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife. Where did he get the animal skins? See, this is the first act of generosity that we know of. God sacrifices something he created, something that belonged to him. He sacrificed it for them. They disobeyed and they betrayed. And he sacrificed and he clothed and he covered them in their shame. Isn't it true when you think of that? You think he didn't have to do that. He didn't have to do that. That was not necessary. It was above and beyond. And isn't that how we describe generosity? Like, that is the epitome. That's the gold standard of generosity. You didn't have to do that. That was above and beyond. And this is where Cain and Abel got the idea. This is why they're making sacrifices. They're making sacrifices in response to what God had done for them. This is the first step. The truth is true generosity comes from a heart. And it comes specifically from a heart of gratitude. The truth is when we're really grateful, people that are really grateful, people that realize that much of what they have or all of what they have came from somebody else, generosity naturally flows from that. It's realizing that everything I have is a gift. My life is a gift. My health is a gift. My relationships are a gift. My talents are a gift. My strengths are a gift. My opportunities are a gift. My work is a gift. My resources are a gift. Everything I have is a gift that's been given to me. You see, the genesis of generosity is not giving to but being given to. That's where generosity begins. The truth is that the truth comes from somebody who recognizes that everything they have is a gift. If you're thought about this, it's going to be a little bit of a downer. Everything you've ever given, sometimes we think, "I'm super generous, everything you've ever given was given to you." That means everything you've ever given is a regift. We're all regifters. The truth is, is we're regifters because everything we've got was given to us or we use something that was given to us to generate what we have. When you begin to realize that everything I have and everything I am and every opportunity and every relationship is a gift, you begin to have a heart of gratitude and you're willing to make a sacrifice. Realize that everything they have is given to them and they're most often, the most generous people are also the most grateful people. You know this. People that you know that are incredibly generous, they're also incredibly grateful when people give things to them or grateful for what they have. Now it turns out not all sacrifices come from truly grateful hearts. We know people who make sacrifices who give and they don't do it out of a grateful heart. They do it begrudgingly or they do it for other reasons. Because of that, Genesis chapter 4, verse 4, the next verse, "The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering, he did not look with favor. How dare God? He's judging their sacrifices." Can you do that? Can you judge? somebody is judging your offering, judging a sacrifice that you made. But think about this, we do this all the time. This leads me to the next thing. When it comes to giving, what we give with, when it comes to, you know, the resources or the things that we give with, we all have different definitions of generosity. And the truth is is most often our strongest opinions come to things of treasure. So when we think about our treasures and people that give, not all giving is equal. I mean, and you know this, you would agree with this. You don't do this out loud. You wouldn't judge somebody's gift. But you've seen people give things and you've thought, wow, that's really generous. And you've seen other people give things of large sums or large amounts and you're like, I know what they have. That wasn't generous. I mean, compared to what they have. So here's the question, how do you know if a gift is generous? And the truth is, is we do measure. We measure in our minds. And usually we measure by quantity. Here's what the interesting thing is in this story, we don't know how much they gave. We don't know the size or amount of what was given or sacrificed. And here's what I know. Because we all do this. When you look at certain gifts, the size of a gift could be generous for one person, but not for another person. Last year I heard this amazing story about one of our high school students. And this high school student with somebody who came, a friend had invited him, he didn't grow up in a Christian family, a friend had invited him and he came. And he went to our student camp one year and it changes life. And he met Jesus and it changes life. And he had a friend from school about a year later, he had a friend from school, he knew needed to go to camp, the Iodetona camp, down in Daytona, Florida. And he was like, I've got to get my friend there. And he knew his parents, his friends parents wouldn't pay for it. He didn't think his parents paid for it. So this kid decided he was going to take extra shifts and he was going to save up all his money. And he saved up enough money so that he could pay hundreds of dollars. It's not cheap to send our kids down there. Hundreds of dollars so his friend could go to camp. Which I thought was incredibly generous. Now it's incredibly generous for him. But somebody who makes a seven figure salary or something makes a whole joint, it's not that it's not appreciated. Not that it's not meaningful. We have lots of people who give to help us create scholarships. But if you make a lot of money and you're not a high school student, it's not that the difference in generosity is based on capacity. And when you think about the nature of what they gave, we learn. We recognize that that's not all giving is sacrificial. And the truth is is giving has to do when we talk about what we give, it has to do with capacity. And when we think about capacity, we think about percentage. The truth is is that kid had far less than other people do. And he gave almost everything he had so that his friend could go to camp. And it's not just percentage. Think about the nature in this story. Few verses ago we read and able he gave his first and best. He gave his the fat portions of some of the first born. It wasn't only percentage for him. It was it was priority. There was a priority in his giving. He was going to give his first and his best quality gift with priority to God. And in doing so, he honored God and God looked upon his sacrifice. He looked upon his giving with favor. Now, Cain gave some of his fruits, which is almost as if to say he made sure he had enough. And he gave what he had left over what he didn't need, which is there's a very different. He still gave. So we go well that's still generous. I guess I mean that's he at least gave or he at least sacrificed. But this leads to the third element. I mean, there's giving from where we give from. There's giving with and then there's giving to and in in terms of our giving to this is the target of our giving. Now, there's lots of different ways to give. And I genuinely today, my goal is not to get you to give something to somebody specific. Though I'm going to talk about some specific ways to give and an opportunity. And I'm going to invite some of you in an opportunity. But if you're here today and you're skeptical about that, I want to free you of that. This is as I told you earlier, I don't want something from you. And the truth is is when it comes to our giving, though it's strange that Canaan Abel are making sacrifices in the beginning, isn't it true? We all do that. We all make sacrifices when it comes to our giving, when it comes to what we're willing to spend our resources, our most important resources, our time, our talent and our treasure. And this is what Canaan Abel are doing. And you do the same thing. You're not sacrificing things and making burnt offerings, but you make sacrifices all the time. And you try to sacrifice the right things for the right people at the right time. So things will go well for you, right? I mean, that's your looking for you want a prosper and you want favor. You want things to go well and what Abel does is he sacrifices his first and best for God. But Canaan he reserves his first and best for himself. Now here's where we would all agree. The truth is is when it comes to our sacrifices, what we would all agree on is that you true generosity is not self-focused. It can't be about your agenda or about making you look good. We've seen people do this. The truth is true generosity prioritizes self-sacrifice. And this is what we see with Abel. It's self-sacrifice over self-interest. And you know this when somebody makes a sacrifice and it's something that's for them first, it has to do with them. It's not really from a heart of gratitude from what's been given to them. And it's not really a percentage or a priority that's being targeted towards God or towards somebody else. It's really about themselves. It's about highlighting themselves. What it does is it reveals what's really in their heart. In fact, this is what Jesus said. There's a relationship, direct relationship between the target of your treasure and your heart, which is why, specifically financial generosity, is an inflection point in our lives because where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be. If you don't want to know where your heart is, just check your bank account. What you spend on most, what you give to most, because spending is giving. It's just giving to yourself oftentimes when you're paying bills and you're buying things for yourself. And it's isn't about guilt. I'm not trying to call anybody greedy. I mean, nobody looks at the mirror and goes, I'm greedy. This is the difference between Kane and Abel's giving between their offerings. Kane's offering was unfavorable because he was putting himself first, which was not good for Kane. That's why it was unfavorable. It's not just God looking down, judging and going, I accept that. I don't accept that. This is not good for Kane and his stories. We're going to see in a second. His story shows it. And this is why embracing the value of true value of generosity is an inflection point because when you don't, things don't go well for you. See, as I said a minute ago, we try to sacrifice the right things for the right reasons for the right people so that things will go well. They'll go favorably and we'll prosper in business and in marriage and in parenting and friendship. You know this. Before you were married, you sacrifice differently than when you got married. And then when you had kids, you sacrifice differently. And you had a business and you had employees and you have people you're in charge of and you have a team and you have relationships and then you have grandkids and life continues to change and you're constantly having to make decisions about what are the right sacrifices to make? And you know this, when you put yourself first, things don't usually go well for you. We don't prosper. That's when we realize things that were going well begin to slow. And we end up here. But oftentimes when we decide, we make a choice when we decide to commit to truly being generous. And oftentimes, the Linchpin, Jesus said, your treasure is, that's what your heart is. What changes our heart first is our giving when we make a commitment when we make a decision. And Cain decided he was going to prioritize himself and exactly what Solomon said happens happened to him and his family just before our verse where he says a generous personal prosper, the very verse before that he says this, one person gives freely and gains even more. You've experienced this. Some of you financially, you gave to somebody, somebody saw your generosity, it came back to you, but even not financially. Sometimes that giving or that generosity came back to you in terms of a level of peace. Sometimes it came back to you in terms of purpose. Sometimes relationships when you were generous, not just with your finances, but with your time and with your forgiveness, what you did was you gained more. It was favorable for you. Those were the type of relationships that happened in Abel's family and his family line. That was the legacy he set in his family. Another, another with holds unduly but becomes, but comes to poverty. Unduly, this, this is strange word, it actually means disproportionately. This is directly related to percentage. They hold a hold or excuse me with hold disproportionately. Like, it doesn't even make sense as to why you do that. And what happens is when you hold on to things, you continue to lack. And isn't it true? It's like more is insatiable. And the more I have, the more I want. And another person, Solomon says, holds on to and they continue to want. And they come to poverty or another word can be translated as ruin. They come to ruin. And this is what happened to Kane. He lived with a scarcity mindset. He decided, even though God was generous to him and decided to protect him, he actually protected Kane and Abel's family by saying nobody could avenge Abel's murder. And he did that because he knew revenge and avenging his death was not good for Abel's family, which was gracious by him. But he protected Kane, which was gracious towards Kane. But Kane decided he wasn't going to rely on God's protection. And he decided he was going to protect his family and he began to threaten people. And it was, it was sort of, he lived with his mindset of trying to hold on to and gain more and gain more for himself and gain more for his family. And they became divisive and defensive. And generations later, ultimately, one of his descendants, if you read the story, was a guy named Tubal Kane, who was credited with the first weapons of war. His family came to ruin. Because that's what happens when you put self first, when you're not generous, when you don't put God in others first ahead of yourself. It's the antithesis of what Solomon said and he said, a generous man will prosper. A generous man is somebody who prospers in lots of areas of their lives. And I love the second part of this verse. Most people don't ever quote it. A generous man will prosper and whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. This is a promise. This is what God does. And you've seen this and you know people that are generous and isn't it true? They're so refreshing to be around. People that are generous, they seem to live with greater freedom, a greater sense of purpose, a greater level of peace. And when you're around them, it's just, it's refreshing. And they're not just generous financially. The downstream of that is they're generous with their time and they're generous with their expertise, willing to help other people. They're generous with their patience, they're generous with their criticisms and their characterizations of other people. It's just a better way to live. Now they have their struggles. I mean, that's true. But they seem to be prospering. In my experience, people that are truly generous seem to be prospering in many other areas outside their life, not just their finances. Oftentimes they're generous. I don't get it, but they're their their their their prosperous and their finances, but but also in their their marriages and their parenting and their friendships and their influence. And all of those things, all of the benefits of generosity, they reside on the other side of the inflection point. They reside over here. And here's what I want you to know. And and again, some of you today, I want to free you of this. You think I'm trying to use this as a leverage point for you. I'm not. And here's what I know is oftentimes, and this is true of my own life, when I've decided to be generous financially, when I've decided to be generous in a relationship, when I've decided to be generous in my account of something, or when I've decided to be generous in my thinking of of what might have been happening for somebody else as to why they acted the way they did all the benefits reside over here. Now things don't always get better right away. And that's why we often give up. We practice generosity once or giving once and we're like nothing happened. Because we're thinking, okay, God, if I do this, will you do this? But true generosity, it starts in your heart out of gratitude that you give and you give according to what you've been given and you use, you give with that towards others self sacrifice, over self interest. And what happens is, is things begin to go well for you and over time. Things begin to turn around in all the benefits of living generous. Are on the other side of that reflection point. Some of you, you live this way. We have so many generous people in our church. And not just generous to our church, they're generous in their time, the groups that they lead and the people they invest in, they're generous in other places in our community. And they would tell you, they look back to a moment in their life when they decided, okay, God, everything I have has been given to me. How would you want me to re-gift your resources? What do you want me to do with it? How can I honor you in my giving? Now, before we finish today, I want to conclude with an opportunity. I told you, doesn't matter to me, whether you give here or not, but deeper wider represents an opportunity to practice being generous, whether you're beginning your journey of generosity, continuing your journey of generosity, or trying to deepen your journey of generosity. Deeper wider, one of the things from the very beginning is we said, God, we want to deepen our investment in your kingdom to widen the impact. We want to choose to be generous. And I've heard stories from so many of you who committed, and as you began to give, the way you saw God show up in your life. And here's what I'm not going to tell you. If you commit and you start giving, God's going to bless you in your finances. He might. I don't know. But here's what I do know. I do know that you will prosper, that generous people prosper. And if you think this is about us getting your money, the truth is, is you give it somewhere else. But here's what I want to challenge you with today. Because your heart follows your treasure. And all of this, true, this sort of construct of true, true generosity depends on choosing to commit, to give, to commit, to be generous. I want to challenge you to make a commitment. In fact, do you know that we're warned in the scriptures against testing God, but there is one area that God invites us to test Him. And it's in the area of our finances. He says, "Test me. See how I will not be faithful. See how I will not pour out my resources. How I will not bless your life. How I will not help you to prosper." So here's one of the things I would encourage you. What if you were to decide to make a one-year test? We're at the midpoint of this generosity. What if you decide to make a one-year test and say, "God, I don't know what you want to do in my life." But it's possible that you look back from a year from now and look back. In the same way we're looking back as a church, you might look back and go, "That was an inflection point in my life." When I chose to trust God, by being obedient to what He was asking me to do, to be generous toward God and towards others. For God is to where you do it. Grows to where you give it. I want to challenge you to be somebody who's generous. Now, before we finish, I got one last thing. The truth is, some of you are wrestling with a question that's really important and you're debating with me and you're winning. And here's your question. Your question is, "But able died." How is He favored by God? Able died. Like it didn't go well for Him. Like you're making this case. Here's the best part of the story. God gifted Adam and Eve with another son. Anybody member his name? Seth. Some of you do read your Bible. That's amazing. Seth was the son and Seth means in place of Seth was God's righteous replacement of Able. He was Able's legacy. And Seth comes in place of Able. Do you know the next story in the Bible? It's Bible trivia day in church, by the way. Next story in the Bible? The flood. It represents God's judgment. Ideal was lost. There's two ways to live life. Or your life towards God and others or towards yourself. Things go poorly for Cain. Able's families replaced by Seth neither in making their sacrifices save themselves or the world. God sends a righteous replacement in Seth of which Noah comes from the line of Seth and God rescues humanity. And this is what He did for you and for me and Jesus. Your sacrifices don't save you. If you're generous, it's Solomon said a generous man will prosper. But it's not so you can be saved. God already took care of that by sending a righteous replacement in Jesus so that you could be rescued so that humanity could be rescued so of all people on planet earth with what we've been given as a church, as Jesus followers, as Christians. We should be people. We should be among the most grateful and the most generous people because Jesus came so that we could prosper in this life and the life to come. God gave His first and best when He gave His one and only Son for you and for me. God thank you for the gospel. Reflect your generosity. May we be found not just faithful but may we be found grateful. May we give out of grateful hearts. The scripture says not out of compulsion, not out of guilt, but a grateful hearts. To be generous, recognizing everything we have is and given to us by you. We give to others. May our generosity reflect you that people would see us, see our generosity and they would glorify you and they would see you and your heart for them and your generosity for them and your gift of life new life in Jesus to them. We pray in His name. Amen. Well, thanks for being with us today before you leave. I just want to let you know Andy's be back next week to continue our series of inflection point with another inflection point that has nothing to do with money. So you can be sure of that. You're not going to want to miss out on that next week. Until then, let's not just be people that attend church. Let's be a generous church and let's be the church where we live, work and play. 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