In Our Every Day Giving

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. So our theme verse that we started last week that we're going to run all the way through Christmas is taken from the Gospel of Matthew where the angel Gabriel, when he came to Mary, who was shocked, and by the way, you know, most people believe, most commentators and biblical scholars believe Mary was about age 12. Wow. I cannot imagine, okay? For a lot of reasons, I'm a guy, but also just age 12, right? And that she gets the most profound word from the angel Gabriel to tell her that you're going to be with child and that your child is actually going to be conceived by the Holy Spirit and be the son of the Most High, right? So he shares this passage with her from Isaiah's prophecy, and it's, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. And I want us to repeat the profundity of that and the passage together. So let's say this together, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. In fact, Emmanuel, we get the word imminent from. Do you know that word? Have you ever heard the word imminent before? That is being real close and upfront. So God is not just transcendent, but he's imminent at the same time. He is both way, you know, beyond the beyond and above and beyond all creation and filling everything in every way, and yet he is so personal and intimate and imminent with us. It's just blows me away, okay? So last week, we talked about how God is with us in the valley, and I know we've all gone through valleys, and I think there were a number of us, I thank you for your comments. By the way, when you make comments about a message to me afterwards, constructive comments one way or the other saying, I didn't get it, or wow, that really touched me, it really helps me in becoming a better presenter of the gospel, okay? So please consider doing that at times. Let me know if it does impact you, if you felt like God was really speaking to you or not, because I understand that, okay? But so last week, we talked about how God was with us in the valley, and a couple people commented on how profound that was. This time of the year, instead of all the lights and the glitter and the glamour and all the fun stuff, it actually feels like a valley at times because of losses or difficulties or struggles, or you're wondering why you feel left out, everybody else on Facebook is having a good time and you are not. We understand that. And so we talked about how God is personally working in you in amazing ways. This week, we're going to talk about an aspect that might seem odd at first, okay? And hopefully after you hear this message a little more, you go like, wow, I never thought about it this way, and yet, wow, isn't that cool that how God is working, okay? And that is the fact that God is with us in our giving. And what I mean by that is God is present in your giving, okay? But what I really mean by that is more profound than you realize, okay? First of all, you are, when you are giving and serving, you are more like Jesus than any other time. But beyond that, that God is actually the one who's working behind the scenes incognito through you, and you're his servant, you're his vessel, you're the one, but he's the one who's actually giving through you. Do you get it? He is present with you in your giving. So anytime I am giving, it's God behind me that's actually giving, and I am being used by God. It's just really cool, I think, to think that God is divinely using me when I'm serving others and giving of myself in one form or another. Now, some people have loved Thrive because we don't talk a lot and have a lot of messages about money and giving. In fact, now if this is their first or second time here, you're going like, whoa, wait a minute, that's one out of two or one out of three. And one reason is I don't want money and giving as a center, because so often there's a lot of people who are jaded about Christianity because it just seems like one giant pyramid scheme, not much different than other kind of schemes out there. In fact, I don't know if you've ever heard of L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology. He said you don't get rich writing science fiction, which he did. If you want to get rich, you start a religion, so he did. And you can go up to Clearwater and see they've bought a huge portion of Clearwater, Florida, and it is a total scheme. It's a totally made-up thing just to make money. He even admitted that. But I'm sorry to say, in Christianity I've seen this kind of happen, and you can get preachers who basically are going to preach a prosperity gospel, which is another pyramid scheme of like, I'm on top, and if you give, then God will give. I haven't seen too many of these on Facebook or in emails anymore, but we used to get these. If you pass this on, and if you do this, chain letters type stuff. An...