Oh, Crossing family, it is so good to be with you all and
welcome those of you joining at all of our different locations,
those of you watching online and those of you who are part of the
Crossing Inside Nation. I also want to welcome those of
you who are joining us for the first time or the first time in
a long time. We are so glad that you are here
and I hope that you will swing by the new here booth and all of
our different lobbies and take advantage of the QR code on the
seat in front of you. You have come on the perfect
weekend because today we are starting a brand new series
called Map Makers. And the goal of this series is
we are going to chart a path to better stewardship, to less
stress and to greater impact. All of us would like to be
better stewards, All of us would like less stress, and I believe
all of us want to have greater impact.
And so that's why we put this series together.
Map Makers. We want to chart a different
course than the course that we have been walking, and this
sermon series was born out of a broken heart that I have for so
many people who call the crossing home.
This is an area in our life that is causing a great deal of
stress and anxiety. In fact, surveys show that today
people are constantly stressed out and one of the number one
reasons for their stress is their financial situation.
In fact, look at this from Money and Mental Health Policy
Institute. This is what they have.
Their reports have revealed that people have financial
difficulty. You guys, you know, you don't
have to raise your hand, but you know somebody, you've heard
stories of people who are having financial difficulty.
What this leads to is them having stress and anxiety
because of collections or going without essentials or things not
turning out the way that they thought that they would turn
out. You know what this leads to?
This leads to mental health problems.
You know what mental health problems lead to?
They lead to people making bad decisions make.
It leads to them having a harder time earning money, managing the
money they do earn, and spending their money in the right way.
You know what that leads to? Financial difficulty.
You know what that leads to? And the cycle goes on and on and
on. You are going to, over the
course of your life, manage some of you hundreds of thousands of
dollars, others of you millions of dollars.
And most of us were not taught how to handle our money.
And so we are stressed out because we have yet not yet
figured out how to manage our finances.
Furthermore, not only does the mismanagement of your finance
causes all kinds of problems for you personally and in your
mental health and creating anxiety and stress, it also
impacts your marriages. An estimated 20 to 40% of all
marriages and citing financial issues as the 'cause it is the
number one issue related to divorce.
On top of that, the average divorce cost $15,000.
So you're already stressed out about the marriage that you're
in. You decide you got to figure out
a way out of it because you can't handle the financial
pressure. And to get out of the thing you
got yourself into is because of money is going to cost you
another 15 grand to get out of it.
This means that the way you and I handle our money has a direct
correlation to our mental health and our marital longevity.
You know what also it means? It means that how we handle our
money can determine whether or not kids grow up in a house with
a mom and a dad. And the sad truth today is that
most Americans are not good with our money.
Recent statistics show this. 48.6% of Americans consider
themselves to be broke. If the word that they were to
use to describe their financial situation, almost 70% of people
in America would say I'm broke. The irony is we are the richest
group of people in all of human history and we see ourselves as
broke. Furthermore, it gets even more
heartbreaking. 6 or 66.2% of Americans feel like they are
living paycheck to paycheck. That means that there is no
margin in their lives. If something bad happens next
week and they don't get the check for that week, they don't
know how they're going to make everything work.
And then there's a couple people out there who they seem to be
doing really great financially. The problem is, is they're
probably not that better at managing their finances.
They just make way more than there's.
They are stupid. They've out earned their
ignorance because even people who have an awful lot of money
sometimes make really bad decisions.
And unless somebody came alongside of you and taught you,
unless somebody came alongside of you and mentored you, most of
us don't actually have a financial strategy.
And so we find ourselves waking up stressed out, anxious,
struggling, and then it impacts the person who's supposed to be
our support system, our spouse, and then it impacts the kind of
parent we want to be because now we're going through a divorce
and our kids are having to navigate it.
And I just have a question. I think that there's a better
way. Would anybody else want to walk
that road if there was one? Because there is a fundamental
statement here at The Crossing that we believe that God's way
is the best way. And would it surprise you to
find out that when it comes to handling your money, the Bible
has an awful lot to say. We believe that God's way is the
best way in every area of our life, and we preach it.
You've heard us talk about it. Do we believe that there is not
a single area of our life that is off limits to God and there's
not a single area of our life that God doesn't have a best
plan for us to walk in? When it comes to how you
navigate your marriage, we believe that God's way is the
best way. If you were to come to me and
ask for parenting advice, you know what I tell you?
I tell you that when it comes to parenting, God's way is the best
way. If you were to come to me and
say, Clayton, I'm trying to figure out how to navigate my
sex life, I would say God has a plan for that too.
He also has a plan for your work life.
He also has a plan on how to spend your life and he also told
you how to focus your energy and your efforts.
God has the best way when it comes for when you want saved,
when you want to experience the power of the Holy Spirit, how to
handle hurt, how to navigate forgiveness, how to overcome
adversity, and yes, even how you handle your money.
The tough part is almost everybody that you know has
said, I want God in all of these other areas of my life, but when
it comes to my finances, we want God to leave us alone.
And I just have a question to ask you, in any area of your
life that you've turned over to God, has it gotten better?
And the areas of your life where you've said, God leave me alone,
has it gotten worse? I know that's true for me and I
know it's true for the people that sit across the table from
me. The sad truth today is that many
people are living in rebellion to God's best way.
People who call themselves Christians are rebelling when it
comes to God's plan for their finances.
And So what I want to do over the next couple weeks is I want
to show you if God is a father and the Bible says that he is a
good father, I want to allow God to kind of sit across the table
from you and say this is how I think that you should handle
your money, that God is going, this is my plan for you.
And then I'm going to challenge you in a radical way to trust
him in all these different areas.
We're going to talk about tithing.
We're going to talk about budgeting.
We're going to talk about saving.
We're going to talk a little bit about investing.
We're going to talk about how to become a generous person if you
are a generous person. And we are going to do
everything in our power at the crossing because we love you to
give you a chance to go on the journey to experience God's best
for you. Why?
Because Satan has a stranglehold on so many of us when it comes
to our finances. Satan loves to destroy a family,
and money is destroying families.
Satan loves to destroy yourself. Esteem yourself worth and your
identity, and Satan uses money to attack it.
Maybe that's why Jesus and the Bible spend so much time talking
about money. 11 of Jesus's 39 stories dealt with money.
There are over 2300 verses in the Bible if you were to read
it, that talks about money, wealth, and possessions.
God is not silent on this issue. He doesn't stop talking about
this issue. Our issue is not that God is not
speaking. Our issue is that we are not
listening. We are not obeying.
And you've heard me say this before.
Remember, God blesses obedience. You know this to be true as a
parent. How many of you, your kid has
been acting a fool and you rewarded him.
You said, Oh my goodness, I gave you this task to do and you
didn't do it at all. I'm going to give you even more
responsibility. How many of you, when you set a
curfew for your kid and you said you better be home at 10:00 and
they came home at 12:30, said, you know what?
Because you were such a good kid.
Your new curfew is 230. None of you did that.
You'd be crazy if you did that. What you did do is when your kid
honored what you had asked him to do, over time, you gave him
more responsibility. We instinctively reward and
encourage our kids when they are obedient, and we coach and we
correct people when they are disobedient.
So if you and I want to create a better path to better
stewardship, less stress, and greater impact, we need to start
handling our finances God's way. The tough part is that when it
comes to God's ways, His ways are so different than our own
ways. They're so counterintuitive.
Let me show it to you. Matthew chapter 20.
So the last will be 1st and the 1st will be last.
This is Jesus talking. You know what that seems like to
me backwards? That didn't.
That's not how it happens here. Around here, it's first is
first, last is last, and 2nd place is the first loser.
But when it comes to God, he's saying, listen, those of you who
will be last in the Kingdom of heaven, you're going to be
first. Oh, it gets more radical than
that. Mark chapter 8.
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it.
But whoever wants to lose their life for me and for the gospel
will save it. You know what we would say, if
you want to save your life, you better save it.
But in God's economy, he says, if you want to save your life,
you better lose it. You better turn over control of
it and give it to me. It gets worse.
Matthew 23 The greatest among you will be your servant.
For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who
humble themselves will be exalted.
That's not how it true it works around here.
Whoever exalts themself will be exalted.
That's how it works. Hey, if you want to become the
greatest, you be the greatest and everybody else serves you
not when it comes to God's plan, God's best way for you is if you
want to be the greatest person ever, be the best servant ever.
God's ways are not our ways. It gets worse.
Luke chapter 6. But to you who are listening, I
say, love your goodness gracious what?
Love your enemies. You're not supposed to love your
enemies. You're supposed to hate them.
Oh no. And God's economy.
We're supposed to love the people who hate us.
In fact, we're supposed to do good to those who hate us.
We're supposed to bless those who curse us.
That's not what we do. We out curse the people who
curse us. We do the one finger wag right?
We pray for those who mistreat us.
That's not true. We pray against those who
mistreat us. God's plan is so profoundly
different than our plan, and that's why it's so hard to walk
in his ways. But Jesus says that wide is the
path that leads to destruction, and narrow is the road that
leads to eternal life. Jesus constantly says these are
hard teachings. Who can understand it?
What do you mean is who will follow it?
And I want you to be a person who has the courage to walk the
narrow Rd. So it shouldn't come as a huge
surprise to us. Then when it comes to how we
handle our money, God has a different plan than our plan.
And the first step in starting to handle your money the way God
expects you to handle your money is to realize that your money is
not yours, it's His, that it comes from Him.
Matthew or Psalm 24 says this. The earth is the Lord's and
everything in it, the world and all who live in it.
And you might be going, OK, that's great, big picture, big
strokes. Totally agree.
Because the trees are His and the oceans are His, and the
galaxies are His, and the mountains are His, but not me.
Actually, he owns you. And you're like, no, yeah, let
me walk you through it. When you got baptized, you said
that you want him as your savior, which means that you
need rescued. You need saved.
You can't do it on your own. You're in a spot that you can't
get yourself out of. So Jesus saves you and you want
him as your Savior and your Lord, which means He owns you.
We are His sons and daughters, but we are also, in a sense, His
slaves. We have turned our lives over.
We have lost ourselves in Him, so that way we become His agents
to do what He wants us to do with the lives that we have
turned over to Him. Your life is now under His
control. If you're a Christian, that
means that we love people who are our enemies because we
belong to Him now. It doesn't stop there.
The Bible teaches that all the money and the wealth in the
world belongs to him. I'll just give you one verse,
Haggai chapter or two, Verse 8. The silver is mine and the gold
is mine, declares the Lord Almighty.
And you're going. Yeah, but I worked for it.
And like, I'm the one who punched in at the job.
I hate working for the boss. I hate it was me.
Well, I got news for you. Deuteronomy chapter 8, you may
say to yourself, it's as if he's been listening to our
conversation. My power and the strength of my
hands have produced this wealth for me.
Well, actually, But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who
gives you the ability to produce wealth.
So your life doesn't belong to you, your money doesn't belong
to you, and your ability to make the money doesn't belong to you.
So then how should we handle our stuff?
That's not really our stuff. How should we handle His stuff?
This is where we get a super biblical term.
It's called stewardship because what we have is not our own.
We are stewards of something that does not belong to us.
And you and I have a choice. What kind of steward are we
going to be? Are we going to be a good
steward of the things that God has given us?
Are we going to be a bad steward of the things that God has given
us? And once we realize that it all
belongs to God, the next logical thing that we should do is what
He tells us to do. And this is where it gets even
more upside down because the first step is recognizing that
it all belongs to God. The second thing that He wants
us to do is tithe. The very first step and you
operating financially the way God wants you to operate
financially is to honor God with the tithe.
Now you might be going, you're brand new to the church.
You're like, what does this mean?
The in the Bible, the word tithe just means a 10th.
It's 10%. When God made man, He gave them
this charge that they were to bring their first and their best
to Him in worship and sacrifice. It was the first fruits.
Let me show it to you. Leviticus chapter 27.
This isn't the first time this is mentioned, but this is the
clearest way that it's mentioned.
A tithe. 10% of everything from the land, whether grain from the
soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord.
It is holy to the Lord. It's separate.
It belongs to Him. Let's keep going.
Whoever would redeem any of their tithes must add 1/5 of the
value to it. So let's say we were sheep
farmers and we were running all of our sheep to God and we would
be going, OK first sheep is gods.
Then we go sheep 2 sheep, 3 sheep, 4 sheep, 5 sheep, sheep's
sheep. We get to sheep 10.
I don't want to make a clip, I don't want to make OK then we
get another one, but all of a sudden you're like hold on a
second. I really like that sheep.
I want to redeem it. He would say you can.
What's the fair market price for that and add 1/5 to it.
There was a tax almost imposed for you, trying to keep good
things for you. Let's keep going.
Every tithe of the herd and flock, every 10th animal that
passes under the shepherd's rod will be wholly to the Lord.
No one may pick out the good from the bad or make
substitution. OK, I want to keep oh man, I
don't want that one doesn't get to go to God.
I really like that one. So I'll give him this one and
you give him like the ratty looking lamb, you know stop.
You almost saw me go somewhere. OK.
What he would say is the moment you tried to pull that off.
Both of them now belong to the Lord God is hand smacking stingy
behavior. He's saying, in light of
everything I've done for you, bring me your very best holy and
cannot be redeemed. Next one, this one says in
Deuteronomy, you must not worship the Lord your God in
their way. He's talking about the way other
people worship their gods. But you are to seek the place
the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to
put his name there for his dwelling.
And then what are you supposed to do when you get there?
Let's keep going. To that place you must go.
Therefore, bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your
tithes and special gifts that you have vowed to give, and your
free will offerings, and the first born of your herds and
your flocks. Let's keep going.
What else does it say in the Bible?
Deuteronomy 1422? Be sure to set aside a 10th 10%
of all that your fields produce each year.
Let's keep going. He ordered the people living in
Jerusalem to give the portion to the priests and the Levites, so
they could devote themselves to the law of the Lord.
As soon as the order went out, the Israelites this the people
of God generously gave the first fruits of their grain, new wine,
olive oil and honey, and all that the fields produced.
They brought a great amount, a tithe of everything.
The people of Israel and Judah who lived in the towns of Judah
also brought a tithe of their herds and flocks and the tithe
of the holy things dedicated the Lord, and they piled them in
heaps. Let's keep going.
This is where we're talking to Jesus.
Here's Jesus talking. Woe to you, teachers of the law
and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You don't ever want to be called
a hypocrite. You give a tenth of your spices,
mint, dill and cumin, but you have neglected the more
important matters of the law, justice, mercy, and
faithfulness. You should have practiced the
latter without neglecting the former.
This always happened when we're talking in a sermon on tithing.
There are people who come to our church and they are already
tithers the like, it's kind of nice to have a weekend off.
You know, this is a sermon for everybody else.
You know, I'm already tithing. I'm already trusting the Lord
with my finances. And what Jesus would say to you
if you were reading this passage is you'd say great.
Don't just check the box on your finances.
Make sure that you're paying attention to the other things
that matter even more. Make sure that you're paying
attention to justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
But to the people who are listening right now and you've
never started honoring God in the area of tithing, Jesus says
that you're not supposed to neglect the former, neglect the
tithe. You and I are not supposed are
supposed to not only be good at tithing, we are also supposed to
be good at justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
Tithing is not your time. Tithing is not your talent.
Tithing is your treasure. It was about giving back to God
what is God's. If He supplies everything you
have, then everything you have belongs to Him.
God says you are supposed to bring some of it back.
Let me illustrate it this way. Does somebody have a truck that
I can have and let's do $100 somebody.
God bless you. Thank you so much.
You guys sit right there for just a second.
That was awesome. You guys are so generous.
Thank you. And you might be thinking, how
do these two young guys so freely come up and give me truck
keys and $100? It's because I gave it to him
before the service started. They have no problem returning
to me what they realized belonged to me in the 1st place.
And what do you think I would have done if they had not
returned it to me? I would have had our security
snipers address it post haste. All right, guys, have a seat.
Thank you. Guys.
Give them a round of applause. OK, So they gave it back to me
because they know that I gave it to them.
So here is what tithing looks like.
This is going to freak some of you out.
If this week you're babysitting, you're a babysitter.
You're just doing the babysitting thing.
You made $100 this week. If it was your birthday, today's
my son's birthday. If he gets $100 from his
grandma, which is grandma should give him $100, he's getting
expensive. He would show up for church and
he would give $10 back to God. Everything that Zane has comes
from the Lord and He returns 10% of it.
If you are out there and you're working and you've got a a side
hustle and you made $1000 this month on your side hustle, you
would bring $100 and you would give 10% back to God.
If you are crushing it and you're making $10,000 a week,
that means that every week when you'd show up for church to
honor God in the area of tithing, you would bring your
first fruits. The very first thing that you
would do with the money that you made is you'd give $1000 back to
God. If you make $100,000 a year, you
would every single year make sure that you were giving
$10,000 to God. You would give it back to him.
And if you're killing it and you're making, you know, you
sold your business for $10 million, guess how much money
you would write to the church you would write a check for?
Yeah. So yeah, that we got six of you
that are still awake. God bless you.
And you're going. Yeah, that's a lot.
You get to keep 90. When Jennifer and I, when I
first got into ministry, that was the first time I was making
like real money. I don't want to brag, but I was
making $18,000 a year. Don't.
I know, I know, I know. I would go to McDonald's
sometimes twice a month just because I could.
And when I was making $18,000 a year, every year I was giving
$1800 to the church. When I was in Bible college and
I was preaching at a little church that would give me
$200.00 a week to preach at that church, there would be a check
for $20 that would go in the offering plate.
And when you start tithing young, when you start off
operating in God's plan at an early age, it is not nearly as
hard as finding yourself one day in a spot where you're making
$100,000 a year and you've been living on $105,000 a year.
And now you have to figure out how do you get yourself in
alignment with God's will and God's purposes.
But look what happens when the Bible says that we honor God.
Proverbs chapter 3. Honor the Lord with your wealth,
with the first fruits of all of your crops.
Then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats
will brim over with new wine. What God is saying here is when
you honor Him, He will take care of you.
God's blessings flow in the direction of your obedience.
This is a fundamental truth that Christians have.
You might attend our church. You may have been around here
for a while, but the people who have trusted God in this area of
your life, this is what they would say to you.
They believe that 90% with God is better than 100% without Him.
That they want to trust God in this area of their life because
they would much rather have God be a part of their financial
picture than not a part of it at all.
And I want to show you an example that God gives of a
group of people who chose not to put him in their financial
strategy. It's in Malachi chapter 3.
I, the Lord, this is God talking, do not change.
So you, the descendants of Jacob, this is the people of
Israel are not destroyed. Verse seven.
Ever since the time of your ancestors, you have turned away
from my decrees and have not kept them.
You have not done what I have told you to do.
You have been disobedient. Return to me and I will return
to you. There's a correlation that God's
proximity and God's impact in your life is impacted by your
obedience to what God calls you to do, says the Lord Almighty.
But you ask, so the people go. But how are we to return?
Let's keep going. Verse eight Will a mere mortal
rob God? Yet you rob me.
The people go. You're God.
How could we possibly be robbing you in tithes and offerings?
They're going. How are we supposed to return?
How are we robbing you? Because you are not giving back
to God. What belongs to God?
Verse nine, You are under a curse, your whole nation because
you are robbing me. God's blessings flow in the
direction of obedience. What do you think flows in the
direction of robbery? They're under a curse because
they are not being good stewards.
They are rebelling. They are robbing some of you
listening to the sermon and you're going, you know what, I'm
going to start giving back to God and I'm going to start
giving like 2% or I'm going to start giving 3% because 10%
seems like a lot. I would just tell you God is
accusing them of robbing him, and the solution is not to rob
him less, Right? Like your kid.
Your kid does something he's not supposed to.
Did you throw six parties at the house this week?
We gave you a rule. No parties at the house.
All right, all right, I give up. I'll just throw 3 this week.
Bosses. You kept somebody robbing from
you like you've been taking 1000 bucks a week.
I know. I'm so sorry, I want to make
this relationship right. I'm only going to steal on two
days this week. It sounds so simple when we put
it in our world, but what do you think is impacting your
relationship with God? If we are in a position where we
are robbing Him, the solution is not to rob Him less.
The solution is to be obedient. So how much do you give the
person who cut your hair as a tip?
How much do you give to the person who hands you your coffee
out the window as a tip? How much do you give the
waitress who brings you your food that you didn't actually
order? And how much do you give to the
one who gave everything you have?
How much do you give to the one who died on the cross for your
sins? How much do you give to help
other people find what you have found in Jesus?
Verse 10 Bring the whole tithe 10% into the storehouse.
This is where you worship, this is where you gather.
This is where you grow. This is where you attend.
This is where you serve. This is where you learn.
Bring it to the church that there may be food in my house.
Then God says, Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see
if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour
out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store
it. Verse 11 I'll prevent pests from
devouring your crops, and the vines of your fields will not
drop their fruit before it is ripe, says the Lord Almighty.
Verse 12 Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours
will be a delightful land, says the Lord.
All mighty. So my entire life I have been
operating in the area of tithing, no matter how little or
how much I made my commitment as a bare minimum has been 10% and
you might be going. So Clayton, are you a multi
trillionaire? I'm not.
The blessings that God has poured into my lap have not been
over the top financial success. What they have been is I have
not had stress, I have not had worry.
He has supplied all of my needs. He has been there every step of
the way. He has showed up in miraculous
ways in this area, in my life, in ways I never thought
possible. And every single week when I'm
at church and I walked, watch the baptism video, I go.
I was a part of every single one of those.
And that blessing is worth all the blessings in the world to
me. God is saying when you honor me,
I will take care of you. And I want to put me and my
family in a place that God blesses, in a place that God
protects. And you might be going right
now. This is really hard.
Trying to give 10% of what I make to God is really hard.
That's going to take some serious faith.
Isn't that the point? Faith Hebrews Chapter 11, verse
six. And without faith it is
impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must
believe. That's faith, that he exists and
that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
If you and I are going to be Jesus people, we are going to be
giving people. We're going to be obedient
people. And you guys know this to be
true deep down inside, that you can give without loving, but you
cannot love without giving. We give money to all sorts of
things. We give it to the government.
Some of you don't love it. We give money to restaurants and
we didn't like it. We give money to the cell phone
company and we can't stand the way they treat us.
We give money to Netflix, we give money to Hulu, we give it
to the bank. I've never met somebody who's
wearing the I love my Bank shirt.
That didn't work at the bank. Like I love the bank.
I can't. I go there all the time.
No, we can give to all kinds of things and not love them, but
you can't love without giving. Think about your family, your
friends, your church, and your God.
How can you and I possibly say we love God and not give to
accomplish the very thing that He called us to accomplish?
Because at the very heart of the gospel is a generous God who
made a generous gift. You've probably missed this
before, and the most popular verse in all of Scripture is
this principle. John 316 For God so loved the
world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes
in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
This is an issue of God's generosity and our faith.
You and I, we were made in the image of God.
That means that He has woven generosity into our DNA.
And we might be the most like Him when we are obedient to Him
and generous on His behalf. Because whoever believes in Him,
this issue of faith will have eternal life.
And when we trust God, He promises to bless us.
And when we want to chart a path to being better stewards and to
less stress and to greater impact, the first thing God
asked us to do is realize it all belongs to Him.
And the second thing He asked us to do is to honor Him, to bring
Him. The tithe will impact the rest
of it. Next week we're moving to a time
decision.