Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #168 - "When You... Give"

Transcript

#168 - "When You... Give" · The OneCry Podcast

0:00
Music.
0:26
Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
0:30
The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
0:40
Well, welcome to the One Cry Podcast. I'm Bill Eliff, and this is my partner in crime, Kyle Reno.
0:48
What's up? And Kyle, it's good to see you, man. I tell you, always great to
0:54
spend time with you and with all of our listeners.
1:00
You know, I'm always stunned that anybody listened to anything I haven't said about anything. Ditto.
1:07
We're so grateful that you tune in. And I know it's your passion for revival
1:12
and spiritual awakening.
1:14
And that's what this One Cry podcast is about, is helping to stimulate you so
1:21
you can be an agent for revival and helping you know how to pray and fast.
1:28
And Kyle, we're going to do a little four-part series here these next four weeks
1:34
that is really exciting in that regard. Tell us about it. Yeah.
1:40
Well, man, very famous chapter, really, of Scripture, Matthew 6.
1:45
You have these when you statements.
1:48
I'm a clarity guy. I really like distinct, definitive, do this, right?
1:55
And so Jesus really gives us inside of this very famous chapter a few when you.
2:01
When you do this, there's some things that happen.
2:05
And even the manner and the spirit around you do it.
2:08
So So for an overview, we're going to have when you give, when you pray,
2:13
a couple of different podcasts on that, and when you fast and really get behind the heart of it.
2:18
But I think if you miss the context of the whole conversation,
2:21
you miss some promises that are really laid in there.
2:25
And so if you get to the whole of Matthew 6, you see that he says at the very
2:30
end of the chapter to us, don't lay up your treasures in heaven where moth and
2:36
rust destroy. meaning like live for something that will matter a million years from now, Bill.
2:40
You know, like he's charging us, live for something that will way outlive your life.
2:46
And then at the very last section, he says, therefore—,
2:50
I tell you, don't be anxious about your life.
2:54
And then all the parts that come with that, just the promises of God's provision, care.
2:59
He takes care of the sparrows. He'll take care of you. But here's the thought, Bill.
3:05
I believe we break and parcel up passages of Scripture, but this is all one
3:11
comprehensive truth that the Lord is telling us in this moment.
3:15
If you want to live a life that matters a million years from now,
3:18
if you want to live a life that's free from anxiety, fear and control of your
3:25
life, then I'm going to encourage you with these three when you statements.
3:29
Wow. You know, it's fascinating, too. Of course, isn't it in the context of
3:33
the Sermon on the Mount, which really is the great kingdom manifesto?
3:38
You know, one of the first things that Jesus communicated was,
3:44
OK, this is I'm bringing in a new kingdom.
3:48
Right. And so here's what the king. Here's how you enter the kingdom.
3:51
Here's what you do in the kingdom.
3:54
Here's how my kingdom operates.
3:57
And, you know, he even comes at the end and says, seek first the kingdom.
4:01
Right. You know, go go after these things. And it's fascinating to me of all
4:08
the things that he could talk about that in this little past part of it.
4:13
And we have in Matthew six, he pulls out these three.
4:17
And so they're very important. What we're going to talk about these next four
4:22
weeks are very important disciplines, ways of kingdom living and really of a revived life.
4:31
If you want to walk in revival and spiritual awakening personally,
4:36
this needs to be right at the center of it. So, Kyle, I know...
4:43
So we're going to start with just in the progression that we find in the Scripture.
4:48
And Jesus said, when you give, when you give. Talk to us about that.
4:53
What is he going after right there?
4:56
Right. So don't jump off the podcast because it's a giving message.
4:59
You know, like, right off. And it's so interesting that Jesus starts here.
5:05
You know, and I would say, man, to echo what you just said, Bill.
5:08
These are key ingredients to a coming move of God.
5:11
Like, if you want personal revival, the Lord always touches these right responses
5:19
to desire for him. And in this moment, he starts with giving.
5:23
And I'll just read the passage. It says, Be aware of practicing your righteousness
5:28
before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward
5:34
from your Father who is in heaven.
5:35
Lays down this overarching statement, like, Like, don't do these things I'm
5:40
about to command you to do so that you look spiritual.
5:44
And then he's going to give us all three of these things, which is a huge heartbeat.
5:48
My spirituality is not about being seen by others or being recognized as the
5:54
giver, the prayer, the faster, you know, but I'm doing this in light of my desire for God.
6:01
Verse two says, thus, when you give, so he starts there, when you,
6:05
not if you, that the The right response of someone that has received the gospel
6:11
of Jesus Christ. It was given, right?
6:14
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
6:18
For those of us that have received what God gave in salvation through Christ,
6:24
the right response is to be a giver.
6:28
And so he says right here, when you give to the needy.
6:33
Sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues,
6:38
in the streets, that they may be praised by others.
6:43
He said, listen, get the right spirit around your generosity.
6:46
Is that you're not giving, meeting a need, so others will praise your generosity.
6:53
Or look and say, man, look how much that guy cares.
6:58
Years that our giving is in light of the which
7:01
we've received and now we're releasing he says
7:04
but when you give to the needy it
7:08
goes back excuse me it says truly i said to you they have received their reward
7:12
but when you give to the needy don't let your left hand know what your right
7:17
hand is doing i love that so that your giving may be in secret and your father
7:22
who sees in secret will reward you.
7:25
So just talk for a second here, that there is something that Jesus knows.
7:30
You know the passage of scripture where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.
7:35
What has you is displayed in our willingness to release.
7:42
And so here's a statement and a thought.
7:45
If we want to be a revived people, and if we want to be a part of revival,
7:50
you won't find a revival, specifically in the Old Testament,
7:56
these great manifest moves of God, where God won't restore right-giving practices.
8:03
Every revival has this movement of God in the hearts of people and their willingness
8:12
to, not for the sake of being seen, but in sake sacred right response,
8:16
to open their hands with what they have, realizing that I received into one
8:22
hand, I'm releasing through another hand.
8:26
It's that God is wanting to free us from ourselves.
8:30
I'll give you another passage of scripture to sort of illustrate this.
8:34
It says in 2 Chronicles 31 verses 4 through 9,
8:38
and I would just encourage you not to get into the banter or the argument around
8:43
tithing, firstfruits giving, which I believe is a principle of the kingdom that
8:47
predates the law. That's still true today.
8:50
Not that I'm trying to tell you that that's the way you should believe,
8:52
but that's the way I believe about it.
8:54
But you see, regardless, when someone finds, when some person or group of people.
9:01
Find themselves off-center in their relationship with God, often what you'll
9:06
recognize is they've lost this generosity of spirit.
9:12
But when God moves upon them, one of the things that's restored first is their
9:18
willingness to be generous, to give.
9:20
You see it right here, 2 Chronicles 31 verses 4-9, and he commanded the people
9:25
who lived in Jerusalem to give the portion due to the priests and Levites that
9:30
they might give themselves to the law of the Lord.
9:33
As soon as the command was spread abroad, the people of Israel gave in abundance
9:39
the first fruits of grain, wine, oil, honey, and all the produce of the field.
9:46
They brought it in abundantly, the tithe of everything.
9:50
And the people of Israel and Judah who lived in the cities of Judah also brought
9:55
in the tithe of cattle and sheep and tithe of dedicated things that had been
10:00
dedicated to the Lord their God and laid them in heaps.
10:03
In the third month, they began to pile up the heaps and finish them in seven months.
10:09
Then Hezekiah and the princes came and saw the heaps. They blessed the Lord and his people, Israel.
10:16
So, Bill, I want us just to think about this a second, and just talk about the
10:20
need for revival in our giving practices, that when God's people give him what's
10:28
first, then I believe something's broke, honestly.
10:31
That when we come and are generous with what God's entrusted to us,
10:36
with what's first, then whatever's left is His to disperse in any way He desires.
10:43
When a need is there to meet the need.
10:46
And that one of the greatest signs, I believe, would be in the move of God in
10:51
your life or in your church or in our country,
10:54
is that God would so rend us of selfishness and our desire to hold on to that
11:00
we would be willing vessels that the resources of God would come flowing through
11:05
us to others, not to be known,
11:07
but that God might be glorified.
11:10
So I would ask today of our listeners and local churches and leaders,
11:16
one, I think we're afraid of this topic way too much because it gets too personal.
11:21
And honestly, why Jesus wasn't afraid of this topic is because it was actually measurable.
11:27
It was a great indicator. It was like the dashboard to show where's your true
11:32
heart, what has your focus in life.
11:35
One of the things that would be an easy indicator of where you are with the
11:39
Lord today is ask this question, well, when I give, how do I give?
11:47
What does that look like? What's the spirit behind that? How is that used in
11:52
the advancement of the kingdom? How is it helping people?
11:54
How is it advancing God's purposes through his church?
11:58
So, Bill, just to banner a little bit back and forth here, man, what's your heart?
12:02
And how have you seen this play out in the hearts of people in local churches?
12:07
Yeah, you know, Kyle, I can't help but think both of us have had the privilege
12:12
of being in environments where the Lord has really manifested himself for revival.
12:19
We'd say revival had come.
12:22
And one of the most profound for me was in 2011 here at the summit where our
12:30
pastor was pastoring, and the Lord just showed up in a Sunday morning service.
12:36
I've told that story before.
12:38
And we came back the next night and the next.
12:41
Totally unplanned. and it lasted five weeks every night except Saturday night.
12:48
Well, one of the immediate things that happened when the Lord just manifested
12:55
himself, there's no other way to explain that, and the services went three and
13:00
four hours just completely unscripted.
13:04
Was spontaneous giving, just unbelievable giving.
13:10
And I remember the first night that a guy came down and he was so moved.
13:20
And he was a young guy and his wife.
13:22
They lived in this nice part of town and they said, God just moved our hearts.
13:27
And we want to go live in this poor part of town and help couples that are there
13:33
and get us a little house.
13:35
And people, I just, I put a basket on the pulpit area and people just started
13:44
coming down and just emptying their pockets and just giving, giving, giving.
13:48
By the end, I think there was $11,000 in there.
13:52
And by the way, about a week later, a woman came, said, I heard you all were looking for a house.
13:59
Said, I've got this little house.
14:02
You know, I have to be fixed up, but I could sell it to you for maybe, I don't know, $11,000.
14:09
I mean, to the penny. Well, that happened over and over and over again.
14:16
Cars were given, money was given, needs were met.
14:20
You know, it was just, it was just insane.
14:23
And my experience with.
14:29
Of revived hearts is what happens
14:33
is your heart starts beating in unison with the heart of God. Right.
14:37
And he tears down one of the primary idols of our heart, and that is materialism. That's right.
14:45
That we've been substituting for the presence of God. So
14:48
you can hardly track any
14:53
revival in history where there hasn't been a falling down of this idol of materialism
15:04
and a rise of this absolutely gracious and unbounded generosity.
15:12
And, you know, like this passage says, it says, beware of practicing your righteousness before men.
15:19
Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.
15:23
I think the other thing that's key in that is it's not so I can be seen.
15:28
I'm not giving for my sake. I'm giving out of love for God because I just love God and love people.
15:35
Yeah. You know, the beauty, Bill, I think Think about, like,
15:38
that's the intimacy of relationship with God.
15:40
Like what God says, hey, don't do it so you can have those conversations where
15:43
people go, look how awesome you are.
15:45
Do it so in the secret place, me and you can talk about it.
15:49
The Lord's saying, let's walk so close in fellowship that I can prompt your
15:55
heart to meet that need, and that'll be a little secret between me and you.
16:00
And God's a giver. Yeah, right.
16:05
Just God so loved the world that he gave. I mean, he just, he is a giver.
16:11
And so when you start walking with him, which is what Jesus is describing in
16:17
this whole Sermon on the Mount, what his new kingdom is like,
16:22
that we're not going to be like the world.
16:24
We're going to give, and we're going to give from the right motivation.
16:28
And, you know, I think, Kyle, Hal, what do you think this says to...
16:35
The average person who's just listening today, what's the takeaway from this for their life?
16:42
Yeah, I think the Lord is moving in the hearts of people all over our world,
16:47
obviously, in our nation.
16:49
But even right now, listening to this podcast, and I think there's a genuine
16:53
desire for revival and renewal and for God to move mightily in his kingdom.
16:59
What I love about Jesus, though, is he doesn't play compartments.
17:03
He's after the complete person. And so I think in this moment,
17:07
like there's for the average guy, God's warming his heart, a lady that's wanting
17:14
to go all in with the Lord.
17:16
Now God's coming and saying, let's talk about your resources.
17:21
Because we can't get to a point, and this is just true in every revival,
17:26
in life of person people, that if you want to be a revived people,
17:30
You want to see the life of God moving through you.
17:33
It's going to, not maybe, it is going to have an aspect of repentance and release
17:41
in our resources. It just is.
17:44
God's not going to let us have that, but everything else is His.
17:48
I think it's the right place is to come, is to just fresh surrender.
17:52
And part of it, and this is, Bill, I know where you are in this,
17:55
I think that's why God's hardwired firstfruits giving is something that you
18:00
break the back of that, that if first things belong to God.
18:06
And so if I cross that line of faith with first things, then everything else,
18:12
I'm listening for what the Spirit of God might prompt in that.
18:16
So I think the right question is as the Spirit of God is speaking to an individual,
18:22
maybe you're a pastor of a church, and let's be honest, Bill and I,
18:25
man, we led through this together and talked through it, that you got to be
18:28
bold and go like, I love my people enough to talk about this,
18:32
you know, and to help them find freedom in this area of their life.
18:36
What's what's the next right step of
18:39
obedience for you that's right in in this aspect of your life it very well might
18:44
be repentance most times it's going like hey Lord I'm holding on to this hoping
18:49
you don't ask me anything you know so well and you know Kyle you look at both
18:54
sides of this when revival comes
18:59
personally or corporately, God's going to get you to generosity.
19:05
He's going to take you there because that's his heart. But this other side of
19:09
the equation is it may be that removing the idol of materialism and the stinginess of, well, that's mine.
19:23
I got to hold on to that. I got to take care of myself.
19:25
And just becoming generous is what brings revival. Yes, exactly right.
19:32
So let's pray together for that.
19:36
And for our listeners, we always on this podcast, we're not here for you to
19:44
listen to us pray. We just want to lead you in prayer.
19:48
And so in just a minute, Kyle, why don't you pray and then I'll close that.
19:56
But I want us to just go into the Lord's presence right now in prayer for just a moment.
20:03
And I wonder just quietly where you are. You may be going down the road or in your home.
20:11
Would you ask the Lord this question? Lord, what are you trying to say to me today about this?
20:19
What are you trying to say to me about this?
20:26
And just listen.
20:36
And then would you be bold enough and would you trust him enough to ask him this question?
20:43
Lord, what adjustment are you asking for in my life so that your life can be
20:54
seen more clearly through me?
20:57
What adjustment are you asking for in my life so that you can be seen more clearly through me?
21:07
Just ask him that and then let's just listen for a minute and then Kyle, lead us.
21:17
So Lord, we do. We come into the secret place that you, Jesus, purchased for us.
21:25
So that we might commune with you i hear from
21:28
you be taught by you and we do i
21:30
ask you to help us make the right adjustments lord
21:34
i ask holy spirit would you even help us right now to just open our hands and
21:40
say what do we have that we've not received so we do not boast or hold on to
21:45
or try to control instead lord we like the sparrows or we realize man and everything
21:51
we got we were were given.
21:53
And so anything that you want to come through our lives to help others and advance
21:59
your kingdom, we say yes.
22:02
We say yes. And so, Lord, I pray that today that that would become measurable
22:08
and that we would be a very generous people.
22:12
And Lord, not to be seen by people, but that the watching world would see the heart of God.
22:20
So, Lord, I pray that you would win this war in our hearts as a part of your coming movement.
22:27
So, Lord, we love you. We trust you. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.
22:34
Well, thanks, Kyle, for that. And thank you, listeners, for tuning in today.
22:40
And we're just getting started on this brief little four-part series.
22:44
Next week, in fact, two weeks in a row, we're going to be talking about when you pray.
22:48
Jesus says when you pray. And he's very deliberate about what he says after that.
22:55
That is critical. In fact, this is, I think, the greatest passage that we have
23:01
in the scripture, a comprehensive passage on prayer that we have anywhere in the scripture.
23:07
So tune in, okay, and invite others to join us too.
23:11
Go by our website, onecry.com. There's just a plethora. How do you like that word, Kyle?
23:20
A whole bunch, means a whole bunch, a whole bunch of stuff on our onecry.com
23:26
website that will help you.
23:28
Music.