My name is Bo Berman and I'm the associate pastor. Our senior pastor is just taking a break. It's been seven years and he's been a church planner and we're just giving him a little vacation, a little time off for his soul to be refreshed and to come back and just be full of joy and all those things. There's nothing wrong with him or anything else like that. I had somebody come up to me last week and go, what's wrong with the pastor? Why does he have to have a break? And I was like, oh no, no, it's not like that. We're just giving him a break because we love him and we want him to come back just full of joy. He left full of joy too, but he's coming back even more full of joy. So anyway, I was at a passion conference one year with a bunch of college students and I heard John Piper speak and he was speaking on, what he only speaks on, which is God's glory and how God is most glorified and we're most satisfied in him and all those things. It was a great message. I'll never forget it because he told a great illustration. And here's what he said. He said, he said, imagine, one day I decided to surprise my wife with some flowers. He said, so I stopped by a florist on the way home and I get her two dozen big beautiful red roses and I pull into the driveway but instead of pulling into the garage and going in through the kitchen, I decided to stop in the driveway and go out and knock on the front door. I'm gonna surprise her. So he has the flowers behind his back and he walks up to the door and he knocks and it rings the doorbell and she comes to the door and she kinda looks surprised as she says, Charlie, what are you doing? And he says, I have something for you and he pulls out the flowers and he hands her the roses and she goes, oh my goodness, why did you do this? And he says, what's my duty as a husband? Here you go. I'm supposed to. And we heard some laughing because guys, that's sometimes the way that we do that, right? We know that we're supposed to do something for Mother's Day or something for her birthday and we just kinda do it out of duty. But he says, when you contrast that with this story, you'll see something very important. He says, imagine one day he decides to surprise his wife with some flowers and he stuffs by the florist and he gets two dozen beautiful red roses and he comes home and he parks in the driveway and he gets out and he walks up to the door and he knocks on the door rings the doorbell and she comes to the door and he has his hand behind his back. And she goes, Johnny, what are you doing? And he goes, hey, I bought these for you. And she goes, oh my gosh, why? What's the occasion? And he said, when I think about you, when I think about your beauty, when I think about how much I love you, I don't even know how to express it. This is just a minor effort at how I feel about you. Now ladies, is there a difference? You feel a little difference there between the first and the second? Why do you feel something on the second story? Because he loves you. Because he delights in you. Because he's doing it not out of obligation, not out of duties, doing it out of love and affection and joy. There's a huge difference in those two things, you see. The first way is because you have to, the second way is because you love her. Every woman dreams of a man who absolutely adores her. And this has relevance for our message today, because today we're gonna be talking about doing something that isn't a popular topic to talk to people about because their defenses go up naturally. And the topic is giving. It's giving generously. And the reason that this story has relevance for today's topic is because God commands us to give generously, but the question I want to answer is, what is motivating us to do it? Do we give to the Lord because it's our duty? Or do we give to the Lord both our money and our time? Okay, out of a deep-seated joy. Look, we want to be generous. We want to serve more. We want to give more. I was talking to a guy just this past week and I said, hey, what do you think about leading this community group and he said, man, I wish I had the time. Work is killing me. By the time I'm done working 60, 70 hours a week, I'm busy several nights a week already doing something for church, I just wish that I had more time. And I know that many of you feel that way. You go, man, Bo, listen, I would give more if I had more. I'd give more time if I had more time. And this is always our struggle, isn't it? We want to give more, we want to give more money, we want to give more time, but it seems like something else is always in the way. Something else needs our money. Something else needs our time. And I want to talk to you today about sacrificial giving. I'm not going to ask you for money. I'm not going to ask you for more money. And I'm not going to ask you to sign up to volunteer because I'm going to show you today that you're already giving as much money and as much time as you can. You're already giving it. You're already giving it. The question is how do we direct it in the proper way? Okay? The text we're going to be looking at is Exodus, chapter 35 and 36. So if you have your Bibles, you may want to flip there. We're going to be flipping a lot through Exodus and I'll be reading out of the ESV today. What I hope to show you is how the Israelites did generosity the right way and how they did it the wrong way and then how the gospel can inspire us to do it the right way. So point number one is going to be trust-infused generosity where the Israelites did it right. Number two will be flesh-infected generosity where the Israelites did it wrong. And number three will be gospel-inspired generosity which will propel us to being a generous people who give both our time and our money for all the right reasons. Let's pray one more time. Father, I pray that people in here this morning would not hear that we are asking them to do more than they're already doing necessarily. Lord, Lord do I want them to hear that they're not good enough and they out of feel guilty and they're not giving enough so they out of feel guilty and they're too selfish with their time. Lord, I pray that they don't hear that. I pray what they hear this morning is that you love them and you love them so much that you sent your son to die for them. And if that's true, then maybe they could be giving their money and their time in a better directed way. And Lord, I pray that if that's true for them that it would hit them right where it needs to and that you would ultimately be glorified and receive much praise and honor and glory as we do this. In Jesus' name, amen. Point number one is trust-infused generosity. The Israelites did it right, okay? I want to take you back to the Exodus story all the way back to chapter three. The people had been crying out to the Lord to deliver them from the evil hand of the Egyptians and the Lord's going to answer their prayer. This is what the Lord says to Moses back in Exodus chapter three, starting in verse 16. Show it up on the screen, but if you want to flip there, you can. Verse 16, here's the word of the Lord. Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob has appeared to me saying, I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Parasites, the Hivites and the Jebusites and the land flowing with milk and honey. And they will listen to your voice and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the King of Egypt and say to him, the Lord, the God of the Hebrews is met with us. And now, please let us go with three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. But I know that the King of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will strike out my, I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it. After that, he will let you go. And I will give this people favor in the side of the Egyptians and when you go, you shall not go empty. But each woman shall ask of her neighbor and any woman who lives in her house for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians. It's God's word. Essentially what God was saying was, I'm going to work some miracles here and you're going to go to your neighbor's house on that day after I've killed their firstborn and you're going to ask them for all their good stuff. I can't imagine how awkward that must have been. I was thinking about this and I was thinking I have a neighbor named Mike and he's got his oldest son, his name Eric. And I can't imagine Eric being killed in the middle of the night by God and as the family is sobbing and wailing because the Bible says that wailing and sobbing were heard all over Egypt. I can't imagine going over there and knocking on the door and being like, hey Mike, hey man, heard what happened. Sorry, that's terrible. I'm sorry, man. My son, yeah, my son's fine. Yeah, thanks for asking. Yeah, hey, sorry about Eric. Hey, oh, hey Mike, one more thing. I was wondering if I could have your jewelry. I was wondering if I could grab your big screen, your Harley, your Mustang. Just I was just wondering if I could have that. Would you mind? We're getting ready to go to the wilderness, the worship God. I was just wondering if I could take all that stuff with me. Is that all right? Yeah, thanks, man. I appreciate, yeah, sorry again about Eric, man. Sorry about that. Thanks for the keys, yeah. Appreciate it. You need to get anything out of it? All right, all right, see you later, you know. I'm just sitting there thinking about that when that would be awkward. That would be awkward, but that's what God told him to do. Go and plunder the Egyptians, because that's exactly how it went down. Flip over to chapter 12, we're going to start in verse 33. The Egyptians, it says in verse 33, the Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land and haste. For they said, we shall all be dead. In other words, they're going, get out. You've already turned all river to blood, you know, the flies, the frogs, the locusts, the sand. I mean, we are tired of you guys being here. Get out. And so then when they go, yeah, okay, we're leaving now. Can we have the, well, let's just read it. 34, so the people took their dough before it was left in their kneading bowls, being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor on the side of the Egyptians so that they let them have what they asked, thus they plundered the Egyptians. So here's the question. What did the Israelites do to get the riches that they got from the Egyptians? Nothing. And well, I mean, they asked for it, but that's about it. They didn't have to earn it, they didn't have to work for it. God told them they could have it and sure enough when they asked, it was given to them. It was a gift. Now all of this is important as we begin to look at today's text because what we're going to see is that God is going to ask the people to give generously of both their time and their money towards building an unbelievably intricate and beautiful sanctuary that he promised to inhabit. Flip ahead to Exodus chapter 35. This is where the bulk of our text is going to be coming from. Flip ahead to Exodus 35. We're going to start in verse four. Moses said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, this is the thing that the Lord has commanded. Take from among you a contribution to the Lord. Whoever is of a generous heart, let him bring the Lord's contribution, gold, silver and bronze, blue and purple and scarlet yarns and find twined linen, goats hair, tanned ramskins and goat skins, acacia wood, oil for the lights, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, and onic stones and stones for setting for the ephod and for the breast piece. And the thing we need to see here is in verses five and six. Look what it says. It says, take a contribution and then it says, whoever is of a generous heart, in other words, whoever wants to contribute can contribute. Anybody here grow up in a church that did potluck lunches after Sunday service? Anybody grow up in those? Yeah, well, as you know, the church says, everyone needs to contribute. And there was always those awesome saintly women who would make the big, huge thing a fried chicken, right? Something really good, fried chicken, somebody else would make homemade pies. You know, the empty containers by the time you got through the line, that was always with the saintly old women made. And then you had the young moms who were in super big hurries and they brought the jello salads, right? You remember the jello salads? Every potluck has one, every French onion dip with a bag of chips, right? Everyone has to contribute what they can. The point is that God needed gold and silver and bronze and fine linens and he needed all these things to make this beautiful intricate sanctuary. But it wasn't only the material goods that God needed. He also needed their time and their skill, look at verse 10. Let every skillful craftsman among you come and make all that the Lord has commanded. The tabernacle, it's 10 and it's covering. It's hooks and it's frames, it's bars, it's pillars, and it's bases and the text goes on and on and on about all the different things that God needed made. So the people heard what God needed, they heard what kind of volunteers God was seeking and then they all went back to their tents, they talked with their wives, they emptied their piggy banks, they got what they could and look at verse 21. And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him and everyone whose spirit moved him and brought the Lord's contribution to be used for the tent of meeting and for all its service and for the holy garments. So they came, both men and women, all who were of a willing heart brought breaches and earrings and signet rings and armlets, all sorts of gold objects, every man dedicating an offering of gold to the Lord and everyone who possessed blue or purple or scarlet yarns or fine linens or goats hair or tan rampskins or goat skins brought them. Everyone who could make a contribution of silver or bronze brought it as the Lord's contribution and everyone who possessed a cacia would of any use in the work brought it. And every scuffle woman, every scuffle woman spun with her hands and they all brought what they had spun in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twine linen. All the women whose hearts stirred them to use their skill, spun the goats hair and the leaders brought on stones to be set for the e-thought and for the breast piece and spices and oil for the light and for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, all the men and women, the people of Israel whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done brought it as a free will offering to the Lord. And that is dedication. That is how to give, right? I mean, there's a need. God's asking for the money, all the people gave. They give generously of their materials, they give generously of their time and of their skill. Look at verse two of chapter 36. They not only gave everything they owned monetarily wise, but now they're also going to give their time. Look what it says. And Moses called Bezilell and a holiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him to come up to do the work. And they received from Moses all the contribution that the people of Israel had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him free will offerings every morning so that all the craftsmen who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, all the craftsmen, each from the task that he was doing and said to Moses, the people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do. And the text goes on to say that it was more than enough. And eventually Moses had to say, hey, everybody, stop, take the stuff back to your tents. We have enough, we don't have room for anything else, we don't have time, we have no more slots left to fill, we have nothing left that we need where our needs are met. The people gave generously of their money, they gave generously of their time, they gave generously of their giftings. And they did it the right way out of the overflowing generosity of their hearts, not because they had to. But because they wanted to, but that's not always how it was. They didn't always do it right. Point number two on your outline is flesh-infected generosity. There was a time a few chapters earlier that the Israelites had done things the wrong way. In Exodus chapter 32, if you wanna flip back a few chapters, the people who had been delivered from the hands of the Egyptians, who had God fight their battle for them, who had crossed the red sea on dry ground, stood at the foot of Mount Sinai. And their fearless leader Moses had been called up on top of the mountain and had disappeared into the cloud, and he was up there visiting with God, and he was staying up there quite a while. The Bible talks about it being 40 days, and the people start wondering if God had abandoned them and they began to not trust God. Look at the text with me, chapter 32, verse one. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's become of them. So Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron, and he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And I want you to see something here. The people were called upon to be generous. The God that they were worshiping the golden calf needed them to contribute generously. The calf, which represented sexuality and fertility, called to them and asked them to be generous and they were. Verse three says that all the people took the gold out of their ears and brought it to Aaron, and we say, what were they thinking? Why were they giving generously to this false God, this idol? And I want you to realize something very, very important. Before you start to cast judgment on these Israelites, you have to realize that there's something true of all human beings. Listen, human beings will give generously of both their time and their money to whatever it is that they worship. Human beings were made to worship and so whatever it is that captivates our minds, our souls, whatever is more important than God to us, we will give generously to. Think about it. If you worship a sports team, we will spend money. We will devote hours to watching the games. We will buy gear. We will use our minds to engage with that team. We will read about it. We will spend money on it. We will spend time watching it. We will listen to it on the radio. We will go to the game, actually thinking in our head, if I yell louder, if I scream louder, I may help this team win. It's on the part of who they are. And I'm not saying if you like sports, you necessarily worship sports, but if you think about it, whether it's sports or whether it's making money or whether it's your children or whether it's being attractive, I mean, let's look at how much we worship ourselves. Let's think about how much we worship the idol of approval. How much money does the cosmetics industry make here in America? Guys, have you been on a cosmetics aisle at Walmart or a grocery store or something? Have you been on one? There's billions of products. Guys, guys, wives, you want to torture your husband? Tell them to go and find the right lotion for you. I have never been so frustrated. When my wife goes, babe, I need this oil of a lad. This one's certain type. And I go to the store and I swear I look for 20 minutes because that's how long it takes to read every single label. And I'm on the phone with her going, it's, this one and this one and this one and this one and this one and this one and this one and this one and she's like, no, no, no, no, she's, I'm telling you, it's there, it's lower left-hand side. It was on the lower left-hand side last time. It's there, I'm telling you, it's there. I mean, it's not here, I can't find it. Anyway, think about the money that some of you spend on looking good. Workout supplements, protein powders, gym memberships, workout gear, workout magazines, workout music, heart rate monitors, chicken breasts, how many chicken breasts can somebody eat? And think about how much time you devote to it. The hours in the gym every week, the things that you sacrifice as far as sleep or as far as morning meetings or lunch meetings or after work meetings or time away from the family or time that you spend cooking chicken breasts, right? Or time that you have to fix your healthy meals, you know? We will spend money, time, energy, and our bodies to serve whatever God it is that we worship. And the Israelites were no different. God had hidden Himself, Moses was nowhere to be found and they figured that they'd make a calf to represent God and they would give generously to it. But the problem was that the God that they were worshiping was flesh engraved instead of spirit engraved. They had made something more important than God, something worldly, something secular. They had made a deity to worship instead of worshiping the one true deity question. What is it that makes you feel more significant, more secure, more joyful than God? What is it? What is more important to you? What takes, what do you daydream about when there's nothing else occupying your mind? What do you dream about? What do you long for? What if you could just have it, would make you happy? What is your golden calf? What takes your money and your time and your energy? What is it for you? Is it golf? Golf takes a little bit of time on being facetious. If I were to look at your bank account, I would have a pretty good idea of what it is that you care the most about. Because we all give generously, we do. And some of you go, I don't, I don't give generously, and I go, well then you, you give generously to your savings account because that's what makes you feel secure, that's what I struggle with. You guys, my wife, our minivan is on its last leg and we need to sell it, you know. And it's time to buy a new car and I am as miserable of a human being as you will ever see. You know why? Because my securities and my savings account. And we've been saving for the car. We've been saving for the car. For years, we've been putting money aside for that car. I've been making car payments to myself anticipating having to buy a car. And you know what, now that it's time to get that out, which I'm feeling real good about that savings account, now it's time to get it out and spend it. And I'm miserable. Why? Because I give to my account, why? Because it makes me feel good to have it in there. What makes you feel good? How can we ever give generously of your money, your time, to the Lord, unless he is our true source of joy, our true source of security and our true source of identity? How can we have what point three is talking about? Look what point number three is, it's gospel-inspired generosity. How do we go from a people who already gives generously of your time and your money? I'm not accusing you of not. You give generously, everyone does, to what you care about. How do we go from a people who gives generously of our time and our money? How can we become a people who gives that to who goes from that to giving generously of our time and our money to the Lord? To the kingdom of God. If you look back at the generosity of the Israelites, what we see is that when God said he needed them to contribute to his dwelling place, that people came and they gave. They gave their money, they gave their time, they gave their abilities. Why? I believe it was because of this. That they knew that the money that they had received from the Egyptians, the plundering they had received did not come from their own effort. I believe that what they really did believe was that they didn't really earn it. And therefore, because it was given to them out of rich abundance of the Lord, rich blessing from the Lord, because they were given it, it was easy to give it back. The more we feel like we've earned what we get, the more selfish we'll be with it. The Israelites didn't earn it, they didn't work for it, they knew God had provided it. In fact, God had given them their freedom. So they didn't mind giving back some of the money, they didn't mind giving their time, they knew that God was trustworthy and so they gave generously. What do you give generously to? Who do you give generously to? Is it to the Lord? Do you give sacrificially to the Lord? If not, I have good news for you. It's possible to go from giving because you're supposed to, to giving because you want to. I want to share with you the only way you'll give more money to the Lord and the only way you'll give more of your time. Let's start with the money first. The only way you'll give more financially is to realize that just as the Israelites plundered the Egyptians and by plundering them, I mean, took all they had. The more you realized that just as the Israelites plundered the Egyptians and thus became rich, Jesus was plundered for you. We took all of the righteousness of Christ while He became sin for us. He became poor, ultimately poor and homeless, and beaten so that we would become rich, maybe not on this earth, but eternally rich, rich spiritually. The more you love Jesus, the more real the gospel is to you, the more generous you will become with your money. The more you realize that Jesus gave it all up that we plundered Him, we took His righteousness, He took our sin just as the Israelites plundered the Egyptians and took their money. The more you realize that, the more freely you'll be able to give money back out of the blessing, out of the abundance. Let's talk about time. How can you be more generous with your time? Because frankly, I think that we're more stingy with our time than with our money. If you want to give more of your time, you have to realize that Jesus gave up His eternality to inner our finiteness. He left heaven. He left eternity. He left existing outside of time and space to inner our time and space. To He made a way He gave up His eternality to give it to us. Do you see that? Jesus left eternity to inner our finiteness. To give us infiniteness. To give us eternality. The more you appreciate that and the more that deeply enters your soul, the more you will transfer your time from finite things and the more you'll spend time doing eternal things. The Sunday school class that I taught last fall was on a book called Total Church. And what the authors were saying was how important it is to see yourself as a church member, as a member of the body of Christ, as a member of God's family, who juggles all the rest of life from that standpoint. What we can't do as Christians, what we cannot do is go well, I'm a husband who tries to do work in church and community and softball and all the other things that I'm juggling. Nor am I just a dad that does work and husbanding and we are a member of the body of Christ who is juggling everything else, but this is our primary identity. And it'll never affect how you spend your time unless that is what your identity comes from. Unless Jesus is giving you the identity, the security that you long for and that you need and that you want, unless he is the one who defines you, who gives you everything that you are, your identity and everything else, you'll never spend your time as a church member. The church will get just a little bit just like everything else. Well, it just so happens that this sermon is coming at an opportune time because we just bought a church building. And so we as the elders gathered together last Tuesday night, for our marathon meeting where we had to make some really big decisions. And we had all these building options in front of us. And the first option was to not spend any of the money that we've saved, the money that we've been putting away a little bit every month that we're not going to spend any of that. We're just going to meet in this gym with the raft, with the basket hanging down and the ugly ceiling and all the stuff that's kind of fallen apart that we're just going to do church. And then the second option was, well, we could really fix up the nursery, but it would take this much money. And then the third option was, well, we can really, we could put the back wall into the sanctuary and we can make it look a lot nicer and we can do the nursery. And then the fourth option was, we can really make this place look nice. We can really make this church feel like a really awesome place when people come. What are we going to do? Are we going to step out into faith? Will our people respond? Will they meet the needs? Because we're building a sanctuary and we believe that this church, maybe I should hyphenate the last name in the meantime, Redeemer River Oaks Church. You guys didn't think that was funny, that's all right. The hyphenated last anyways. You guys are like, you're on a roll, keep being serious. Okay, that's fine. So we believe that this church is going to be a sending church that's going to plant churches all over the city. We've already planted one, we're getting ready to plant another. Will you be a part of it? Will you give generously of both your time and your money? Not because you have to. Not because we'll make you feel guilty if you don't. Not because we'll make you feel ashamed if you don't. Will you give out of the abundance that God's given you because we need it, we need it. We have an opportunity to really trust God and I hope and I pray that we will do it. Let's pray. Father, we desperately need you. We desperately need your blessing. We as elders felt your spirit telling us that we needed to step out in faith and spend the money that it takes to make this place a church. And Lord, we hold this in your hands because if our people don't give, then we won't make it very long and we'll have to default. But God, we are trusting you to provide because you've always provided and we are trusting you to work in the hearts of people to be generous, both with their money that we need and by volunteering their time, planting flower beds and painting and fixing up stuff and peeling wallpaper and doing all the things that we ought to do to make it the way we need it to be. Lord, I pray that you would bless this, that you would bless our church. Thank you for the unification of the elders as they have made these decisions. Clearly you're working and so we as a church just want to look heavenward and say we trust you. Would you provide and I pray this in Jesus' name on them.