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There is nothing, there is no one who could dare to compare to your greatness.
There is nothing, there is no one who could dare to compare to your equal.
Who is like our God?
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Who is like our God?
Who is like our God?
He's indescribable.
Who is like our God?
Who is like our God?
He's undefeatable.
Who is like our God?
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Who is like our God?
Who is like our God?
He'sundefeatable.
Indescribable.
Undefeatable.
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Indescribable.
Undefeatable.
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Indescribable.
Undefeatable.
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Indescribable.
Undefeatable.
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Indescribable.
Undefeatable.
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Indescribable.
Undefeatable.
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Indescribable.
Undefeatable.
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Indescribable.
Undefeatable.
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Indescribable.
Undefeatable.
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Indescrivable.
Undefeatable.
Who is like our God?
Uncontainable.
Indescribable.
Undefeatable.
But if I make you love.
No one likes you more.
Give him a chance.
The sun was darkening in the heavens.
Thunder.
And for a moment, death had thought it had conquered.
But it wasn't over until you said "it's over."
Your word is greater still.
The perfect sacrifice.
Your body broken.
As you restored to us what sin had stolen.
Once and for all, you tore the veil wide open.
Your power is stronger still.
All praise.
All praise.
To the name above all, Jesus.
You're the name above all names.
You told the grave into a new beginning.
Our God is risen.
You're alive.
Alive and living.
There's nothing that can rise against your victory.
Your name is higher still.
Your name is higher still.
And all praise.
All praise.
To the name above all names.
Jesus.
You are the one.
You're the name above all names.
All praise.
Still stands.
The blood still flows.
All praise.
The work is finished.
Hell still knows.
That the grave is still empty.
The stone is still rolled.
And you're still high.
Lifted up.
You're still seated on the throne.
The cross still stands.
The blood still flows.
The work is finished.
Hell still knows.
That the grave is still empty.
And the stone is still rolled.
The stone is still red.
You're still high and lifted up.
You're still seated on the throne.
And all praise.
All praise.
To the name above all names.
Jesus.
You are the one.
Hallelujah, you're the name above all names.
Hallelujah, every voice will proclaim, there is no higher name.
Hallelujah, each new age we will sing, there is no higher name.
Hallelujah, each new age we will sing, to the name above all names.
Jesus, you reign.
You're the name above all names.
You're the name above every name.
You're the name above all names.
Every name.
That's your name, oh God, need to be praised.
I need you.
The name of creation bows down in worship to the King above.
Seated in glory, high upon the holiest, hear the heavens echoing.
The name of creation bows down in worship to the King above.
The name of creation bows down in worship to the King above.
You are above all names.
You deserve the praise.
Now and forevermore.
The earth and heaven cross.
How awesome is the Lord.
Omega, author of all things.
You have all authority.
To the Lion of Judah.
Lamb who is risen.
Oh, you're holy.
How awesome is the Lord God Almighty!
The name above all names.
You deserve the praise.
Now and forevermore.
The earth and heaven's throne.
How awesome is the Lord.
How awesome is the Lord God Almighty.
The name above all names.
You deserve the praise.
Now and forevermore.
The earth and heaven's throne.
How awesome is the Lord.
The kings and lords.
The lords and lords.
Evermore will honor you.
Glory and praise.
To the highest name.
Complete.
I am His kingdom stand.
And ever reign.
All honor.
Glory and praise.
To the Lamb of God who conquered sin.
Defeated death.
And rose again.
All honor.
Glory and praise.
To the one who always needs to be.
To come.
Forever.
He is lifted up.
All honor.
Glory and praise.
The Lord God Almighty.
The name above all names.
You deserve the praise.
Now and forevermore.
The earth and heaven's throne.
How awesome is the Lord.
How awesome is the Lord.
God Almighty.
The name above all names.
You deserve the praise.
Now and forevermore.
The earth and heaven's throne.
How awesome is the Lord.
Glory and praise.
To the highest name.
Heaven, heaven's roar, how awesome he was.
How awesome he was.
Thank you, Lord.
I thank you for the praise you've read before.
All honor, glory, and praise.
To the highest name, I pray.
I am whose kingdom stands and never ends.
All honor, glory, and praise.
To the Lamb of God who conquered sin, defeated death, and rose again.
All honor, glory, and praise.
To the one who always needs to come, forever he is lifted up.
All honor, glory, and praise.
To the King of kings, the Lord of lords, who lives and reigns forevermore.
All honor, glory, and praise.
To the highest name, the great I am, whose kingdom stands and never ends.
All honor, glory, and praise.
To the Lamb of God who conquered sin, defeated death, and rose again.
All honor, glory, and praise.
To the one who always needs to come, forever he is lifted up.
All honor, glory, and praise.
God Almighty, the name above all names, you deserve the praise, now and forevermore.
All honor, glory, and praise.
The earth and heavens roar, how awesome is the Lord.
God Almighty, the name above all names, you deserve the praise, now and forevermore.
The earth and heavens roar, how awesome is the Lord.
How awesome is the Lord.
A thousand generations.
Falling down in worship, sing the song of ages to the Lamb.
And all who've gone before us, and all who will believe, will sing the song of ages to the Lamb.
Your name is the highest, your name is the greatest.
Your name stands above them all, all thrones.
And dominions, all powers, and positions.
Your name stands above them all, and the angels cry, holy.
All creation cries, holy.
You were lifted high, holy forever.
And since we've been forgiven.
And since we've been redeemed.
We'll sing the song forever to the Lamb.
And since we walk in freedom.
And since we bear his name.
We'll sing the song forever to the Lamb, we'll sing the song forever, amen.
And the angels cry, holy.
Amen.
Holy, all creation cries.
Holy, you are lifted high.
Holy, holy forever.
Oh, hear your people sing.
Holy, to the King of kings.
Holy, you will always be holy.
Holy forever.
Because Jesus is your name.
That's the highest, your name.
That's the greatest, your name.
It stands above them all.
Above all thrones and dominions.
All powers and positions.
Your name stands above them all.
Sing that again.
Jesus is your name.
That's the highest, your name.
That's the greatest, your name.
It stands above them all.
Above all thrones and dominions.
All powers and positions.
Your name stands above them all.
And the angels cry.
Holy, all creation cries.
Holy, you are lifted high.
Holy, holy forever.
Oh, hear your people sing.
Holy, you are lifted high.
Holy, to the King of kings.
You're holy.
Always be holy.
Holy forever.
You will always be holy forever.
Almost every time I sing this song and think about that word holy, I'm just reminded of the angels in heaven.
I'm reminded of the 24 elders circling the throne of God, declaring the same thing over and over again.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.
But we just lift our hands to him this morning, church.
And just right there out of your own heart, just begin to declare, Lord, you're holy.
You're worthy.
We're grateful.
Come on, just declare out.
Don't just think it.
Say it out of your own mouth.
We bless your name.
We exalt you on high.
There is no name like your name.
Jesus, you are holy.
You're transcendence.
God, you're so far beyond what we can even imagine or comprehend.
And yet, Lord, you love us.
You're Emmanuel, God.
You're imminent.
You're God with us.
We declare your holiness today.
There's none like you.
There is none like you.
There is none like you.
You are other than.
God, you have no opposite because there is no opposite of you.
There is none like you.
There is none like you.
There is just not any opposite of you.
We declare that today in Jesus mighty name.
If you believe that, say, "Good," "Amen."
Give them a great big hand, claps of praise, would you?
Lord, we bless you.
You're worthy.
You're worthy.
You're worthy.
We'll give somebody a high-five as you're seated.
We'll release our lower and upper elementary to their classes.
Parents, if you haven't checked them in, please do that.
I'm going to switch this over, Dan.
All right, well, good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Morning.
I hope that you're doing well this morning.
If I've not had the opportunity to meet you, my name is Jonathan, and part of the pastoral preaching team.
Glenn was supposed to be over in Owasso today, but he is filling in.
I'm grateful that we have a lot of preachers in the house, and he's over at Presence Church in Owasso.
Jeremy Ford was going to preach over there, but he went to the ER and was in the hospital.
He's getting out this morning, and I think he wanted to go right there and preach, and the doctor said, "you can't preach, bro."
"You gotta relax."
So Glenn went over to the Presence Church, and Ron Jones was preaching over in Owasso this morning, and of course, we're in our series, Holy Generosity, preaching through 2 Corinthians, and just want to welcome you, whether you're here in the building or online.
I want to encourage you next week, we kick off our summer conference.
You'll hear that a lot.
We really advertise that.
I always encourage people that are part of Destiny Life to come, be a part of Destiny Life, and be a part of Destiny Life.
Particularly in the night services, if you're able to, because, wow, that was amazing right there, because it really gives us an opportunity to see beyond who we are as a local body of believers, and ATP is a family of churches that we're connected with, and so we'd love for you to be a part.
Next Sunday morning, again, we've advertised this as well, we'll have with us Marzia Marizadade, I think it's how you say that.
I might have messed that up.
Sterling, I said it there, it was like so-so.
Sterling was like, "you almost got it."
I need to look at it and say it, but I've been trying it.
I've been going back through that book, her book, "Captive in Iran", excellent book, tremendous story.
She'll be with us next Sunday morning, and don't miss that.
Bring a friend or neighbor.
She's really bold in the gospel.
I mean, it's a powerful story.
She was, her and her friend, Miriam, were, in prison, one of the worst prisons in the world, have been in prison for nearly a year in the nation of Iran for their faith, and it's just a crazy story, and so you'll want to be a part of that.
So we are walking through the book of 2 Corinthians.
One thing I really love about preaching through a book of the Bible is that it really allows you and forces you in a lot of ways to deal with things that maybe you would not deal with, or hard topics, or topics that maybe don't get addressed as much.
This would be one of those.
I don't remember the last time that we did a series specifically on giving or generosity at Destiny Life, and so we're in this series, Holy Generosity.
It's broken up a little bit by the conference and Father's Day and various things.
In a few weeks, we'll have a panel of some folks in the body in June dealing with this, but just walking right through here, 2 Corinthians 8, that's where we're going to be, I think it's a good opportunity for us to address some of these areas.
Generosity is one of those things that's probably one of the clearest evidence of the gospel at work in someone's heart or life.
It really reveals our own heart.
I heard a guy say one time that I could tell you where your heart is by looking at two things, your calendar and your checkbook, where you give and where you give your money.
There's a lot of revealing of our heart.
Now, I've asked the question of the first service, does anyone use a checkbook anymore?
And a lot of people were like, "I still use a checkbook."
And I was like, "you boomers, you go ahead."
Y’all use that checkbook.
I got to be honest with y’all, and I went on a little rant.
I was kidding, of course.
I don't like paperwork.
One of the greatest things that's ever happened in my life was the online bill pay.
Come on, let's just give the Lord a shout of praise.
And I got to tell you, when we got out of pay, I can pay my bills through an app.
Man, I don't remember the last time I wrote a check.
I hardly ever write a check.
In fact, I hardly ever write anything.
I mean, I know that's bad, but I'll be writing.
I'm like, man, my hand is cramping.
Like, where's my computer?
I just need to type this in.
If I get paperwork, I take a picture of it to make it digital.
That's how much I hate paperwork, okay?
You say, John, does this have anything to do with the message?
No, I just thought I'd share that with y'all and just bless you, okay?
Alright, it was a check booking calendar, right?
Checkbook.
You guys, the first service got a good laugh out of that.
Come on, y'all took a nap before you came to service this morning.
Come on, 11 o'clock.
You know what I mean?
Come on.
So in other words, he's saying where you give your time and where you give your money is a great revelator of our heart.
And so when we think about this, Paul's writing to the Corinthians, and we'll get there in just a moment, but he's really encouraging them to complete a financial offering.
He's receiving an offering for the believers in Jerusalem who are walking through a lot of suffering there.
But really, when you think about the passage, it's a lot more than just about money.
It really reveals our heart.
It really reveals the purpose and the theology, if you will, of Christian generosity.
And I'm going to call it Paul's offertory.
I remember when I was a kid, we used to have the offertory.
We'd call it offering, but we have the offertory.
And I don't know about you, but I've been in environments and I've been in services where it was just egregious.
Somebody's taking 45 minutes to receive the offering in this long message.
They're not even preaching on giving.
They're just giving the offering.
Or tell evangelists, if you will, for you to sow a thousand-dollar seed, and we're going to send you some holy water and da, da, da, da.
And just the egregiousness of what we've seen in Christianity.
If you've not been a part of that, then you've probably witnessed it.
And it is egregious.
It's like, oh, guys, come on.
And so what happens is there's times when we swing all the way to the other side because we hate that.
I call it the two ditches.
I use that analogy a lot.
But whereas you have some people that are over here that are highly manipulative and they're in their giving, highly coercive, excuse me, in their receiving of giving, highly coercive.
And then you have people that swing all the way to the other side because they get so turned off by that, they don't recognize the truth in what it means to be a believer and to be generous, right?
We just, we turn it off.
And what I like about Paul's offertory, for lack of a better term, is he's not manipulative emotionally to people.
He's not teaching guilt-driven giving.
What he's talking about is a real gospel-shaped generosity, if you will.
It's a call, a kingdom call to a different way of living, right?
It's open-handed, trusting in God, sacrificial care for others.
It's not just about funding what we would call, quote-unquote, ministry, but really it's about reflecting the character of Christ.
And Paul, in this passage, does what he does so often on an array of topics.
He addresses what I call, what I call, what I call, what I call, what I call, what I call, what I call, what I call, dealing with things in the opposite spirit.
In other words, as believers, we're called to operate in the opposite spirit that the world would in many different ways and on many different occasions.
And giving would be one of that.
Generosity would be one of those areas because we live in a culture that's very consumeristic, even in the church, very materialistic, even in the church.
And we live in a nation, the most prosperous nation in the history of the world, which I'm going to say to you, by the way, I believe has a lot to do with the founding on Christian and biblical principles, even though, let me make sure I say this, that was done by flawed men.
And there's been great sin in our nation.
We have to acknowledge that, right?
But again, you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
You have to recognize that our nation was founded in a way different than any other nation in the world.
And I believe the blessing of God has been on our nation.
There's a lot of principles there that we don't have time to talk about, but I do believe that there's a lot of principles there that we don't have time to talk about.
I believe our nation has been prosperous for an array of areas, but when you boil it all back down to it, I believe it's been God's favor and blessing on our nation.
And we'll talk a little more about that in just a minute.
But what can happen is that because of that, we in the church, what exists in the world oftentimes can creep into the church.
So we also probably more maybe than any other church in the world are plagued by materialism and we could be blinded to it.
And again, we exist in two ditches.
So I grew up in a movement of Christianity that was very suspicious of anybody that had any money.
If you didn't live in poverty, if you weren't broke, if you didn't literally give everything away, you were not serving God.
If somebody had means, it was almost, oh, where did they compromise?
They're out here trying to chase that money.
They're not chasing the call of God.
They're just chasing money.
That's a ditch.
But then you got the ditch on the other side, right?
Where we think if you don't have financial means, maybe you're not serving God.
You're not serving God.
You're not serving God.
You're not serving God.
You're not serving God correctly.
I mean, no, that's another ditch.
It's not about amounts.
It's really about stewardship.
We're going to talk a lot about that today.
So let's read 2 Corinthians 8.
Here's what he says in verse 10 through 15.
I'm going to read the whole passage and we'll come back and just kind of work our way down.
He says, here's my judgment about what's best for you in this matter.
Last year, you were the first not only to give, but also to have a desire to do so.
Now finish the work so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it.
So in other words, let's finish what we started.
Let's finish strong.
Don't be just well-intended.
How many of you know, we judge other people by their actions.
We judge ourselves by our intentions, right?
He said, don't just be well-intended, be faithful to follow through.
And then this is a great phrase here, according to your means.
For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
The only thing that everyone in this room, and online have the same is time.
We don't have the same means.
There are people that have a lot of means, others that have less means.
And he's saying, God's not expecting you to give what you don't have, right?
Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you're hard-pressed, but that there might be equality.
I'm going to zoom in on that word today.
Hallelujah.
At the present time, your plenty will supply what they need so that in turn, their plenty will supply what you need.
The goal is equality.
As it's written, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.
So let's look at this passage here and get some insights into what I'm going to call true generosity and its purpose.
Here's the first purpose.
True generosity, Firstly, reflects a willingness, right?
There's something that happens on the inside.
Paul said, you were eager, you were willing to do it.
I want you to follow through.
There's something that happens on the inside.
He says, finish that work, to do it, you may be matched by your completion of it according to your means, for the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable.
In other words, God measures generosity by our willingness and our obedience, not by the amount that you give.
Am I willing?
Am I obedient to God in it?
Because without willingness, there is no generosity, right?
One reflects the other.
God looks at willingness, not the amount.
Now, I heard a guy say one time, but that's all right.
God will still take money.
God will still take money.
God will still take money.
God will still take money.
God takes money from a grouch.
I believe that's true, but we kind of defeat the purpose of giving if I'm giving begrudgingly.
Whether I'm giving tithe, whether I'm giving an offering, whether I'm giving to another person, if I'm doing that begrudgingly, I've already lost.
Why?
Because my heart's not in it.
If you've given in an offering where you were coerced, I mean, you just feel icky.
Now, when I give in the right heart, this is a side note, when I give in the right heart, even when I've given money, I remember, let me just sidestep.
I remember one time when I first moved to Florida, I'm a single guy and I'm driving home.
And in South Florida, there was a lot of panhandlers.
And I pulled up to this light and this guy was there and he asked me for money.
And there was a McDonald’s across the street.
I said, man, I don't have any cash, but I'll take you over there and buy you something to eat.
So I meet him over there and we have this conversation.
And in essence, he tells me at the end of the conversation, that it cost him money to meet with me.
He said, basically, in the amount of time that I've been here with you, I could have made more money on the street.
And I was like, bro, I'm sorry I cost you money from panhandling on the street.
You know what I'm saying?
But I bought him a meal.
And I just said, I mean, it was obvious.
There's a lot to that story, but it was obvious.
It's like, man, this guy is a hustler.
But those are the kind of areas where when your heart is in the right place to give to people, you just release it.
Now, I don't willingly give to a hustler necessarily.
The church I was a part of in South Florida, we had people come in all the time and they were true hustlers.
They weren't in need.
They went to every church and they were a hustler.
I'm sure there was times when we gave to people that were hustlers, but that's not on me.
That's on them.
Why?
Because I gave it in the right spirit and heart.
Now, if they keep coming back and I know they're a hustler, we don't need to be enablers as a church either.
Okay.
I remember one of the guys, we were running a capital campaign one time and this little phrase always stuck with me.
Years ago, he was talking to people and he would always say this.
It's not equal gifts, it's equal sacrifice.
In other words, all of us don't have the same amount of means.
Not everyone in here gives the same amount of money.
That's why I love how God doesn't put the emphasis on the amounts.
He puts the emphasis on the willingness of my own heart to walk in obedience, right?
And Paul says that according to what you have, not what you don't have.
Kingdom does not measure generosity by the amount, but by the willingness.
There's a grace of generosity there.
There's an amazing scripture.
You ever just sometimes you just read scripture and you just think, man, I mean, we have the benefit of hindsight.
So sometimes when we read the scripture, we're thinking about it because we already know something.
An example of that would be like John 6, where John 6, Jesus first talks about what we would know as communion and other to follow me, eat of my flesh and drink of my blood.
What?
I mean, now we know that's communion, but if you've never heard that, it's like, Jesus, have you lost your mind?
Right?
We have the benefit of hindsight.
This scripture is one of those.
Jesus, now I want you to, I love to in the story of the Bible.
Okay.
I believe this story is found in Matthew and Mark.
I'm going to read the little passage out of Mark.
You might've seen that heading in your Bible.
It's called the widow's mite.
Anybody ever seen that story?
Let me, let me set the stage for you because this is crazy.
In 2026, United States of America, we would go crazy of this.
Jesus, they're standing there in the temple and Jesus is watching everybody give their offering.
And he's not just casually observing.
He's evidently seeing how much he's offering.
He's not just casually observing.
He's evidently seeing how much he's offering.
He's evidently seeing how much everybody is putting in the offering.
Now we read that story and go right by it.
Like we wouldn't be appalled.
What if me and Glenn and James and the rest of the elders stood on the stage here and we put some baskets out and we said, it's offering time.
And everybody got in a line and went by and put their offering in.
And we just watched y'all give and just knew what everybody was giving.
We're going to do that at the end of service today.
So y'all, I'm kidding, but you're thinking, what, what, what are you guys doing?
Right?
I wouldn't even know.
I rarely, I see the cumulative offering for like the week, but rarely do I go in and look at individual giving, very rarely.
So we don't even do that.
But here's Jesus watching everybody give.
And these rich folks come by and they're just tossing gobs of money in and evidently making some measure of a show about it because people are seeing it and, you know, look at me, look how much I gave kind of deal.
This widow comes by and she puts in two mites, two copper coins worth less than a penny.
And Jesus stops everything and says, this widow just gave more than all of them.
Jesus, I just saw some dude drop a hundred K in there and she just put less than a penny.
And you're saying she gave more?
Why?
How, how in the world could that be true?
Because the kingdom measures differently because those rich folks, that guy might've given a hundred K, but he took that a hundred K out of a billion.
She took that less than a penny out of less than a penny.
The Bible says she gave all she had.
So what, here's what that, there's a whole bunch in that story, but here's one thing it tells me.
Nobody is too broke to give.
So I can't say, Lord, I'm walking through a hard time.
I can't say that.
Right?
That was a good place to say "amen" right there.
I just see the wealthy gave from their abundance and she gave from a heart of trust.
How do we, how do we get there in our own heart?
Now I've heard people say, and you know, I get it.
I understand it because we've seen shysters.
Unfortunately, I hate it.
I'm grieved when I see preachers or whoever get up and just, oh, manipulate people to give.
And oh, it grieves me.
I hate that.
I know we've seen that and it's terrible, but then you, again, that's one ditch, but then you got other people like, oh, those churches all about the money.
And I'm saying, you know, you realize that Jesus talked more about money than anything, like, and not even just a little bit, a whole bunch more about money than anything else.
More about salvation, more about heaven and hell, more than about heaven, more than any of, and it ain't even close.
Out of the 38 parables, 16 of them deal with money or possessions and the handling of them, literally almost half.
So that means if we have 52 services Sundays a year, and we spent 20 of them talking about giving, we'd be in good company with Jesus.
2000 times in the Bible talks about possessions, you know, finances.
Why?
Why is that?
So when we get, my point is this, when we get frustrated with people talking about money, we got to get frustrated with Jesus because he talked about it a ton.
Why?
Because there's a recognition that it is a revealer where I give my finances as a revealer of my heart.
I mean, the Bible does say, right, wherever your treasure is, what?
There your heart is also.
Well, guess what?
Wherever your heart is, guess what?
That's where your treasure is too.
Whatever pulls you out of your heart, whatever pulls you out of your heart, I give to.
So there's a reality to that.
Our hearts are revealed through our possessions.
Jesus said in Luke 16, 11, He makes this comparison.
Here'd be a clear way to say it.
If you're faithful in stewarding earthly wealth, then God can entrust you with greater spiritual responsibilities, and he calls that true kingdom riches.
Now, unrighteous mammon is not just money itself.
It means worldly wealth.
It's money belonging to the present age.
It's often used unrighteously by men or mankind.
It's a test of whether we will use temporary resources to faithfully steward for God's purposes.
See, we in the church, we misquote, and out of the church as well, we misquote this verse in 1 Timothy 6 about the root of all evil or all kinds of evil.
What have you heard?
You've probably heard this quoted before.
Money is the root of all kinds of evil.
That's not what the verse says.
What did the verse say?
The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
Money itself is nothing, right?
But how we steward it is everything, right?
So if I'm in love with money, I'm not going to be a good steward.
Now, again, two ditches.
We try to go the other way, and we almost take a vow of poverty.
So we become terrible stewards, and we reject money totally.
When there is a reality, of money to live on this earth, and it's faithful stewardship, I'm going to say to you, is a kingdom principle.
So even if you've gone the other way, and you've lived and existed in poverty, and you've sworn off money, you're making a mistake on the other side of the ditch.
You're not chasing after it, but you're not, you may not have the love and chasing after it, but you've gone over here to where God can't trust you to steward what he's put in your hands to care for.
It's a big deal.
We don't talk a lot about it.
Dennis Peacock, as some of you know, he's been here a little bit.
We've gone through a couple of classes with him, and he makes a good distinction, I think, between wealth and riches.
This passage here, when it talks about true riches, he would equate with wealth, right?
And here would be the difference.
Riches is like money, possessions, assets, you know, immediate financial increase.
It can be inherited.
They can be won.
Riches can be stolen, right?
Consumed, quickly gained, quickly lost.
You can have riches without wisdom, stewardship, character.
I mean, there's plenty of people that zero of any of that that have a lot of riches.
Maybe a drug dealer with a ton of money, and guess what?
You're not honoring God, right?
I mean, you're rich, but you're not wealthy, right?
Whereas wealth, like for example, somebody came and gave me the exact statistic in between services.
You probably heard this before.
The majority of people that win the lottery after a few years, they're broke again.
He came and told me 85 percent of people that win the lottery in five years are broke again.
Why?
I mean, they got hundreds of millions of dollars.
How did that happen?
Because they got it too fast.
That was the word I was looking for.
They acquired that too quickly.
So they didn't have the maturity to be able to properly steward that.
I mean, think about that.
You're praying for God to give you financial breakthrough.
What if he dropped $10 million on you tomorrow?
Would you know what to do with it outside of buying a new house and a new car?
Could you put it to work?
Could you really steward it?
And the truth is, most of us could not.
So why would God waste it on us?
That's strong, I know, but it's the reality.
When he gave him the promised land, what did he say?
He said, I'm going to give it to you a little bit at a time because it was already, the borders were already there.
He said, but you're going to have to possess it a little bit at a time because you can't manage it.
It would overwhelm you.
And by the way, I'm going to leave some enemies in the land so I can teach the next generation how to fight.
See, we pray for things that if God answered them, it would crush us.
It would crush us.
It would crush us.
It would crush us.
It would crush us.
It would crush us.
It would crush us.
It would crush us.
I've been there, maybe still there at times.
Here's wealth on the other hand.
Wealth on the other hand is productive capacity, stewardship ability, relational capital, wisdom, skill, generational thinking, covenantal inheritance, ability to create and sustain an increase over time.
Wealth includes character, discipline, trustworthiness, stewardship culture.
Here's a great way to say it, but he kind of says it succinctly that riches is what you possess.
Wealth is who you are.
There's many in this room, you don't maybe have riches, but you have a lot of wealth.
You don't have a lot of wealth.
You don't have a lot of wealth.
You don't have a lot of wealth.
You have wealth of relation, even passing things on to your children.
There's a generational component to that that we totally lost.
Again, we live in these two ditches, right?
So true richness, that would include things like a spiritual authority, eternal rewards, kingdom responsibilities, people, ministry, revelations, treasures of Christ himself.
What does that mean?
That means generosity begins internally before it's ever expressed externally.
There's a willingness there.
It's voluntary and not coerced.
I'm going to talk more about that in just a minute.
It's worshipful, not transactional.
Even in our, I'm, you know, I mentioned I don't like paperwork.
I love our text to give feature.
I love it.
I'm so grateful for it.
It's so easy.
It's convenient.
That's how we give.
Elisha and I, I love it.
But here's the thing that I have to be conscious of.
It's so easy and it's so quick and convenient that I have to, with intent, stop and pray and offer it as worship because it is worship.
It's not just throwing money in a bucket or sending a text.
It is worshipful to say, Lord, what you've entrusted to my care.
Two things that come to my mind when I give my tithe and offering literally almost every time.
Number one, Lord, thank you for your provision over my household.
So there's a thanks.
Number two, Lord, I trust you for your continued provision.
Over my household.
Those two things, thank you and trust, right?
An overflow of that.
So it's worshipful.
It's not just transactional.
You're just, oh yeah, I got done on auto-pay and I just send it in there or I just toss money in the bucket and there's no prayer in it.
Reconsider, church, am I being worshipful in this or am I just being transactional?
It's cheerful, not resentful.
Bible talks about a cheerful giver.
That's where I've heard the guy say, but he'll take money from a grouch too.
Right?
It's not resentful.
I'm not giving begrudgingly.
I'm not giving begrudgingly.
That's one reason for myself personally.
I mean, we want to train and teach biblical finance and why.
So there's nothing wrong with teaching in that at all during the offering time.
I want people to give that up, right?
And we have a lot of faithful stewards in the house here.
It's faith-filled, not fear driven.
See why?
Because God's after our heart before he's after an offering.
The Corinthians had a desire to do it.
And Paul says, I want you to complete what began in your heart.
I want you to complete it.
Because love without generosity remains incomplete.
If I say I love people and I say I'm a part of the kingdom and I'm not generous, I have to question myself.
Do I really believe what I'm saying I believe?
Has my intention moved into action?
So true generosity reflects a willingness.
Secondly, here's what it reflects also.
It reflects the kingdom.
In verse 13 and 14, it says, Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you're hard-pressed, but that there might be equality.
What a great…
That's a great word that we use today.
At the present time, your plenty will supply what they need so that in turn, their plenty will supply what you need.
The goal is equality.
According to your means.
For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
The only thing that everyone in this room, and online have the same is time.
We don't have the same means.
There are people that have a lot of means, others that have less means.
And he's saying, God's not expecting you to give what you don't have, right?
Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you're hard-pressed, but that there might be equality.
So in other words, while you have means right here, you're going to give and help the other believers.
And then when they…
There might come a time where you don't have the means and they're going to help you, right?
According to your means.
See, generosity creates mutual care within the body of Christ that's representative of the kingdom of God.
What does that mean?
That means that kingdom of God is the body of Christ.
So the Lord motivates my heart to care for other believers and to help them when they are walking through difficult financial times.
I love that we have a body of believers that does that continually.
We see that happen of believers giving to one another and caring for one another, whether that's actual money, whether that's meals, whether that's furniture, like whatever that is, it's the body of Christ really operating like a family.
Now, let me say this.
It is not socialism.
I'm going to ding on this for just a minute because we got a whole bunch of Christians running around advocating a very atheist philosophical view of government.
And I'm going to get civil government.
Now, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt to say they have a compassionate heart to care for others.
Unfortunately, their heart is not compassionate enough to use their own money.
They want to use someone else's.
So what's more greedy?
Me wanting to steward my own money or my own money?
I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt to say they have a or me wanting to use your money to meet a need.
Awful quiet.
He's not advocating for forced socialism or government redistribution.
He's describing kingdom interdependence within the body of Christ.
All of this was directed, and this is huge, voluntarily.
If you're forced to give, guess what?
That is not giving.
That's a transaction.
Someone forces you to do it.
It's not giving.
The early church had a deep understanding of this.
And again, we take this passage of Scripture and we're not giving.
We're not giving.
We're not giving.
We're not giving.
We're not giving.
And we advocate socialism out of it.
And it's the furthest from that.
Acts 4 says, there was no needed persons among them.
Now first, let me bring attention to the them.
Who was the them?
Other believers.
So they weren't responsible for every poor person.
I believe the church should help the poor.
From Scripture, we should help the poor.
But in that context, it was not you have an obligation to meet the need of every single poor person.
That's not what the Bible says.
In fact, can you imagine when the first deacons were chosen in Acts 6?
You know why they were chosen?
Because some of the widows, the Hellenist widows that were not the ones in Jerusalem, were getting the short end of the stick.
Evidently, they had some sort of social program for the widows.
And the Hellenist widows were getting less than the widows that were there in Jerusalem.
And so, they said, we need to give our time, the apostles, the prayer and the Word.
We're going to raise up deacons to be able to oversee this ministry.
Now, I want to ask you, do you need to be full of the Holy Ghost to tell this widow, you know, you can still work and care for yourself.
You don't get anything.
You better be full of the Holy Ghost, right?
So, there was the ability to say, you are getting something and you're not.
We don't have that mentality today.
Socialism, here's what you do.
What, in essence, socialism and communism, which is further than socialism, here's what it is.
It is an atheistic, it is the political outworking in civil government of an atheistic worldview.
Jonathan, why do you say that?
Because when you exist in socialism and communism, you're making the state sovereign.
Only God is sovereign.
When you eliminate the opportunity for somebody to manage the resource that God has entrusted to their care, you have eliminated the ability to manage the resource that God has entrusted to their care.
You have eliminated the ability for them to mature.
If you do not feel the pain of your bad financial choices, you will continue to repeat them.
But when you feel the sting of it, what does that do?
It teaches you how to steward your money.
Now, this is Jonathan, forgive me for this, saying it this way.
This is me.
This is not straight out of the Bible.
Every American that has grown up in the prosperity of the United States that wants to be a communist and a socialist, I literally want to invite them to move to Venezuela, to move to North Korea, to move to China, and to be a part of those systems.
Because you are living in the fruit of not that system advocating for that system.
And all the chirping about billionaires, they don't need that much money says who?
You?
And what if one day somebody says, we don't need any thousandaires.
We need to take the thousandaires.
We don't need any hundredaires.
You don't need that much money.
Who decides that?
If it's the state, it's forced coercion.
I never heard this on a Sunday morning because we don't preach the Bible outside of, hey, let's get saved and go to heaven and don't worry about anything else.
Y'all okay?
Yeah, good.
We got to train young people, church.
Because again, I'm being a little strong, but I know there's a generation truly that sees people.
And this is where probably my generation, maybe the generation before me, we could have done a better job of this, of really seeing people through eyes of compassion that don't have means, right?
So I think it comes from a genuine heart of care for people.
Unfortunately, the way that we've taught the working out of it hinders more than helps.
And we've got to show people and understand, again, it's stewardship.
It's stewardship.
It's stewardship.
In the scriptures, God is always sovereign and he moves on the heart of man.
At the same time, he moves on the heart of man.
State requires it.
It's confiscation and it's coercion.
Now, that being said, I'm not saying that there's no place for taxation, right?
But we should be very clear about what that actually is for.
What is taxation for?
Because again, it just balloons into this massive thing, particularly when you get to the federal level, because you have, there's no means for any sort of even representation to, you know, decide where that is able to go.
Sometimes I say it a little bit tongue-in-cheek, you know, what's more greedy, spend my own money or spend somebody else's.
I've met a lot of poor people that were really greedy.
And I've met a lot of wealthy people that were very generous.
And I've met wealthy people that were very greedy and poor people that are very generous.
I mean, it doesn't have anything to do with the amounts.
It's a position of our heart.
There's nothing wrong.
I like this old one liner, nothing wrong with having possessions as long as the possessions don't have you.
It's the love of money.
Paul says your plenty will supply what they need.
So in return, their plenty will supply what you need.
Right?
See, the church was meant to function as a family.
When one part suffers, the other part supplies.
When one rejoices, all rejoice.
But the purpose of generosity is not just relief, even though that's a part of it.
It's unity in the kingdom.
Our hearts are connected together.
Generosity, and this is big, generosity destroys materialism.
This would be worth it if for nothing else.
Because again, growing up in the United States and growing up, and I know everybody is not rich.
But honestly, church, even the poorest among us, in comparison to the rest of the world, particularly impoverished nations, we're not just rich, we are rich, rich.
And unfortunately, that materialism can find its way into the church.
So we can even make our own greed and materialism sound righteous.
So even when we talk about true biblical prosperity, we can twist it because the flesh isn't everything.
We can twist it because the flesh isn't everything.
We can twist it so that if I have things, I must be really serving God well.
Well, not necessarily.
Although, obviously, there are financial principles there.
Even church, when it comes to leaving inheritance for our children, the wickedness, please forgive me if you have this bumper sticker, but this bumper sticker, I don't see it much anymore, but I used to see it a lot when I was a kid.
It says something like, we're just out here spending our kids’ inheritance.
That's wicked.
That's anti-biblical.
Now, the inheritance to your kids, the true wealth of inheritance, obviously, is that spiritual inheritance that goes beyond finances.
But if you’re out here blowing the finances just for the sake of living your best life, you're not thinking biblically and generationally.
I had a brother in the first service here, he's been in the financial services industry for a lot of years.
He came to me between services.
He said, it's crazy.
When I first started out, he said people would come and their main thing was, I want to be taken care of.
I want to be taken care of.
I want to be taken care of.
You know, at the end of my life, but I want to make sure that my kids are taken care of, and I want to plan so that I can pass something on to them.
And he said, now it's completely different.
He said, people come to me a ton and say, oh, my kids are okay.
I just want to make sure.
I just want to live my best life.
Church, that's not a biblical mindset.
That's not a generational mindset, right?
Now, there's a lot that could be taught on that.
We don't have time to talk about this morning, but it destroys materialism.
It's an anecdote to the love of money.
Generosity is.
And listen, it's easy for any of us to have this for greed or possessiveness or selfishness to kind of creep into your heart.
Here's an anecdote for it.
Give.
Just find somebody to give to and give and let that just break that greediness off your heart.
It does away with isolation and pride.
Paul is saying you're helping other believers and it helps you in that.
I got to hurry up here.
Alright.
True generosity reflects God's provision.
Look at verse 15.
He says, as it was written, the one who gathered much did not have too much.
The one who gathered little did not have too little.
He's quoting Exodus 16 there.
You might remember when the Israelites were out in the wilderness and God said to them, I'm going to provide for you.
I'm going to give you manna and it would fall and basically cover the ground and they’d go out every day and they would collect it.
But he said, don’t collect more than enough for one day.
I want you to collect it for one day and I want you to come out the next day and I want you to collect it then.
Then the day before the Sabbath, I want you to go ahead and collect double or it's going to be double and it provide for you, right?
And so he talks about there, he uses this story that they would have understood from Exodus to reveal the kingdom principle.
And here's the principle that God Himself is the provider for His people.
Now I’m grateful for good jobs.
I don't know if you have really good jobs.
Maybe you're in the process of looking for a better job or a job and God uses those means.
That's great.
I believe it's kingdom advancement.
There's a lot to that.
So I'm for all of that.
But can I say to you, your job is not your source.
God is your source.
We’ve got to really understand that God is really our source.
And Paul uses this to say that it's really His sovereign hand over provision.
So just like He provided for the Israelites in the wilderness, He’ll provide for you today in 2026.
And can I pause here to say to you today that maybe you're walking through a real hard financial time.
You might be broke.
I've been broke.
I've had plenty and I've been broke, right?
And maybe you're walking through a real hard time.
I'm going to say to you, God will take care of you.
He'll take care of you.
And particularly as you're a tither, he says, he rebukes the devourer for your sake.
Now there is something to be said.
And coming up this summer, we've got the little, you know, seminars that we have.
The summer is for family.
Two weeks of those.
First two weeks are going to be on parenting.
The second two weeks are going to be on marriage.
And the last two weeks are going to be on finances.
Very practical financial management.
So there's something about managing the 90, right?
That's right and biblical of understanding practical principles of budgeting and all of those things.
And I'm going to say to those things, right?
But I don't understand how 90% goes further than 100%.
I don't get that.
It does not make any mathematical sense.
And yet I could tell you as a lifelong tither how God provides for your needs.
And many of you who've been faithful tithers over the years could tell stories after stories after stories.
In fact, in a few weeks, we'll have a panel with some folks in the body in June dealing with this, but just walking right through here, 2 Corinthians 8, that's where we're going to be, I think it's a good opportunity for us to address some of these areas.
Generosity is one of those things that's probably one of the clearest evidence of the gospel at work in someone's heart or life.
It really reveals our own heart.
I heard a guy say one time that I could tell you where your heart is by looking at two things, your calendar and your checkbook, where you give and where you give your money.
There's a lot of revealing of our heart.
Now, I've asked the question of the first service, does anybody use a checkbook anymore?
And a lot of people were like, I still use a checkbook.
And I was like, you boomers, you go ahead.
Y’all use that checkbook.
I got to be honest with y’all, and I went on a little rant.
I was kidding, of course.
I don't like paperwork.
One of the greatest things that's ever happened in my life was the online bill pay.
Come on, let's just give the Lord a shout of praise.
And I got to tell you, when we got out of pay, I can pay my bills through an app.
Man, I don't remember the last time I wrote a check.
I hardly ever write a check.
In fact, I hardly ever write anything.
I mean, I know that's bad, but I'll be writing.
I'm like, man, my hand is cramping.
Like, where's my computer?
I just need to type this in.
If I get paperwork, I take a picture of it to make it digital.
That's how much I hate paperwork, okay?
You say, John, does this have anything to do with the message?
No, I just thought I'd share that with y’all and just bless you, okay?
Alright, it was a checkbooking calendar, right?
Checkbook.
You guys, the first service got a good laugh out of that.
Come on, y’all took a nap before you came to service this morning.
Come on, 11 o'clock.
You know what I mean?
Come on.
So in other words, he's saying where you give your time and where you give your money is a great revealer of our heart.
And so when we think about this, Paul's writing to the Corinthians, and we'll get there in just a moment, but he's really encouraging them to complete a financial offering.
He's receiving an offering for the believers in Jerusalem who are walking through a lot of suffering there.
But really, when you think about the passage, it's a lot more than just about money.
It really reveals our heart.
It really reveals the purpose and the theology, if you will, of Christian generosity.
And I'm going to call it Paul's offertory.
I remember when I was a kid, we used to have the offertory.
We'd call it offering, but we have the offertory.
And I don't know about you, but I've been in environments and I've been in services where it was just egregious.
Somebody's taking 45 minutes to receive the offering in this long message.
They're not even preaching on giving.
They're just giving the offering.
Or tell evangelists, if you will, for you to sow a thousand-dollar seed, and we're going to send you some holy water and da, da, da, da.
And just the egregiousness of what we've seen in Christianity.
If you've not been a part of that, then you've probably witnessed it.
And it is egregious.
It's like, oh, guys, come on.
And so what happens is there's times when we swing all the way to the other side because we hate that.
I call it the two ditches.
I use that analogy a lot.
But whereas you have some people that are over here that are highly manipulative and they're in their giving, highly coercive, excuse me, in their receiving of giving, highly coercive.
And then you have people that swing all the way to the other side because they get so turned off by that, they don't recognize the truth in what it means to be a believer and to be generous, right?
We just, we turn it off.
And what I like about Paul's offertory, for lack of a better term, is he's not manipulating emotionally to people.
He's not teaching guilt-driven giving.
What he's talking about is a real gospel-shaped generosity, if you will.
It's a call, a kingdom call to a different way of living, right?
It's open-handed, trusting in God, sacrificial care for others.
It's not just about funding what we would call, quote-unquote, ministry, but really it's about reflecting the character of Christ.
And Paul, in this passage, does what he does so often on an array of topics.
He addresses what I call, what I call, what I call, what I call, what I call, what I call, what I call, what I call, dealing with things in the opposite spirit.
In other words, as believers, we're called to operate in the opposite spirit that the world would in many different ways and on many different occasions.
And giving would be one of that.
Generosity would be one of those areas because we live in a culture that's very consumeristic, even in the church, very materialistic, even in the church.
And we live in a nation, the most prosperous nation in the history of the world, which I'm going to say to you, by the way, I believe has a lot to do with the founding on Christian and biblical principles, even though, let me make sure I say this, that was done by flawed men.
And there's been great sin in our nation.
We have to acknowledge that, right?
But again, you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
You have to recognize that our nation was founded in a way different than any other nation in the world.
And I believe the blessing of God has been on our nation.
There's a lot of principles there that we don't have time to talk about, but I do believe that there's a lot of principles there that we don't have time to talk about.
I believe our nation has been prosperous for an array of areas, but when you boil it all back down to it, I believe it's been God's favor and blessing on our nation.
And we'll talk a little more about that in just a minute.
But what can happen is that because of that, we in the church, what exists in the world oftentimes can creep into the church.
So we also probably more maybe than any other church in the world are plagued by materialism and we could be blinded to it.
And again, we exist in two ditches.
So I grew up in a movement of Christianity that was very suspect of anybody that had any money.
If you didn't live in poverty, if you weren't broke, if you didn't literally give everything away, you were not serving God.
If somebody had means, it was almost, oh, where did they compromise?
They're out here trying to chase that money.
They're not chasing the call of God.
They're just chasing money.
That's a ditch.
But then you got the ditch on the other side, right?
Where we think if you don't have financial means, maybe you're not serving God.
You're not serving God.
You're not serving God.
You're not serving God.
You're not serving God correctly.
I mean, no, that's another ditch.
It's not about amounts.
It's really about stewardship.
We're going to talk a lot about that today.
So let's read 2 Corinthians 8.
Here's what he says in verse 10 through 15.
I'm going to read the whole passage and we'll come back and just kind of work our way down.
He says, here's my judgment about what's best for you in this matter.
Last year, you were the first not only to give, but also to have a desire to do so.
Now finish the work so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it.
So in other words, let's finish what we started.
Let's finish strong.
Don't be just well-intended.
How many of you know, we judge other people by their actions.
We judge ourselves by our intentions, right?
He said, don't just be well-intended, be faithful to follow through.
And then this is a great phrase here, according to your means.
For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
The only thing that everyone in this room, and online have the same is time.
We don't have the same means.
There are people that have a lot of means, others that have less means.
And he's saying, God's not expecting you to give what you don't have, right?
Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you're hard-pressed, but that there might be equality.
I'm going to zoom in on that word today.
Hallelujah.
At the present time, your plenty will supply what they need so that in turn, their plenty will supply what you need.
The goal is equality.
As it's written, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.
So let's look at this passage here and get some insights into what I'm going to call true generosity and its purpose.
Here's the first purpose.
True generosity, firstly, reflects a willingness, right?
There's something that happens on the inside.
Paul said, you were eager, you were willing to do it.
I want you to follow through.
There's something that happens on the inside.
He says, finish that work, to do it, you may be matched by your completion of it according to your means, for the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable.
In other words, God measures generosity by our willingness and our obedience, not by the amount that you give.
Am I willing?
Am I obedient to God in it?
Because without willingness, there is no generosity, right?
One reflects the other.
God looks at willingness, not the amount.
Now, I heard a guy say one time, but that's all right.
God will still take money.
God will still take money.
God will still take money.
God will still take money.
God takes money from a grouch.
I believe that's true, but we kind of defeat the purpose of giving if I'm giving begrudgingly.
Whether I'm giving tithe, whether I'm giving an offering, whether I'm giving to another person, if I'm doing that begrudgingly, I've already lost.
Why?
Because my heart's not in it.
If you've given in an offering where you were coerced, I mean, you just feel icky.
Now, when I give in the right heart, this is a side note, when I give in the right heart, even when I've given money, I remember, let me just sidestep.
I remember one time when I first moved to Florida, I'm a single guy and I'm driving home.
And in South Florida, there was a lot of panholders.
And I pulled up to this light and this guy was there and he asked me for money.
And there was a McDonald's across the street.
I said, man, I don't have any cash, but I'll take you over there and buy you something to eat.
So I meet him over there and we have this conversation.
And in essence, he tells me at the end of the conversation, that it cost him money to meet with me.
He said, basically, in the amount of time that I've been here with you, I could have made more money on the street.
And I was like, bro, I'm sorry I cost you money from panholding on the street.
You know what I'm saying?
But I bought him a meal.
And I just said, I mean, it was obvious.
There's a lot to that story, but it was obvious.
It's like, man, this guy is a hustler.
But those are the kind of areas where when your heart is in the right place to give to people, you just release it.
Now, I don't willingly give to a hustler necessarily.
The church I was a part of in South Florida, we had people come in all the time and they were true hustlers.
They weren't in need.
They went to every church and they were a hustler.
I'm sure there was times when we gave to people that were hustlers, but that's not on me.
That's on them.
Why?
Because I gave it in the right spirit and heart.
Now, if they keep coming back and I know they're a hustler, we don't need to be enablers as a church either.
Okay.
I remember one of the guys, we were running a capital campaign one time and this little phrase always stuck with me.
Years ago, he was talking to people and he would always say this.
It's not equal gifts, it's equal sacrifice.
In other words, all of us don't have the same amount of means.
Not everyone in here gives the same amount of money.
That's why I love how God doesn't put the emphasis on the amounts.
He puts the emphasis on the willingness of my own heart to walk in obedience, right?
And Paul says that according to what you have, not what you don't have.
Kingdom does not measure generosity by the amount, but by the willingness.
There's a grace of generosity there.
There's an amazing scripture.
You ever just sometimes you just read scripture and you just think, man, I mean, we have the benefit of hindsight.
So sometimes when we read the scripture, we're thinking about it because we already know something.
An example of that would be like John 6, where John 6, Jesus first talks about what we would know as communion and other to follow me, eat of my flesh and drink of my blood.
What?
I mean, now we know that's communion, but if you've never heard that, it's like, Jesus, have you lost your mind?
Right?
We have the benefit of hindsight.
This scripture is one of those.
Jesus, now I want you to, I love to in the story of the Bible.
Okay.
I believe this story is found in Matthew and Mark.
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