 I wanna speak today a message that we as pastors do not like to talk about, but I think it's very important. Untold biblical truth about tithing. Untold biblical truth about giving. I believe that I have not preached a message like this before at Hungry Jen. I am really excited for it today. Christmas season is a time of giving when the wise men came and they gave their gifts, even though Jesus was no longer a little baby. He was already in the house, not in the manger, and but still the idea of gift giving is very, very Christ-like. Now for those people who may be watching or maybe you're coming here and your idea of why Christians are celebrating Christmas, we shouldn't be celebrating Christmas because it's a pagan holiday. It is a pagan holiday in its origin, okay? Why are we celebrating Christmas? Because it's not a pagan practice of what Christmas celebrates today. Unlike Halloween that has pagan roots, Halloween has also a pagan practice, not just roots. We're celebrating Christmas, not because we're ignoring the pagan roots, it's because of what it practices now. The songs are about Christ, the songs are about his birth, and anything that can expose the world to more of Jesus, we're up for it. Amen. If Halloween would have had pagan origins and celebrated life, love, peace, thanksgiving, eating turkey, everybody dressing up real nice, like they do it for the wedding, I will be the first person to join on the board. But because it doesn't present that where it originated and Christmas does, it celebrates something about Christ, the world sings about, you go to the mall and you hear about Mary, did you know? By the way, she did know. So I just wanna answer that question. And but you hear joy to the world, you hear Christ is born, you hear deliverance. And so when we hear like that, when I walk in the mall, I know most of these people, they don't even know Christ, they sing the songs because it's the holiday cheer for them. It's about Santa and reindeer. But honestly, when I hear the name of Jesus, song in our malls, in our gyms, it gives my heart joy. I'm like, man, I'm for that. This is so awesome. We need to make Christmas great again. Come on, somebody, amen. Merry Christmas. Statistics says that more than one in four Americans, Protestants, gave only $0 during a year to a local church. So one in four Americans in Christian Protestants gave zero a year. From 1968 to 2005, giving to Protestant churches declined from 3.1% of income to 2.6% of income of an average regular churchgoer compared to those who say they're Christians, but rarely attend, give 6% of their acts after tax income. Pretty much overall giving drops in average Protestant churches, Christians life. The median annual giving for a Christian is $200 just over half a percent of their after tax income. Mormons give more than seven times more the amount of money as compared to their income than Catholics. About 27% of evangelicals give away 10% or more of their income. So in about a room of this size, about 27% of people from evangelical background give 10% or more. About 5% of Christians provide 60% of money to churches and religious groups. 20% of all Christians give 80% of all giving. So 20% of Christians are responsible for 80 to 86% of all giving that comes to local churches or charities. Among the Protestants, 10% of evangelicals, 28% of mainline folk and 33% of fundamentalists and 40% of liberal Protestants gave nothing. Now, and I can go on more and more, but I'm gonna leave on what would have happened if all the Christians would have donated. In fact, I'll read this. Christian Smith, a psychiatrist, an expert on American Christianity says, if we estimate that if we committed Christians in the United States gave 10% of their after-tax income fully, but no more than 10%. So just 10%, every committed Christian would just make a commitment to give 10% of their income. This would provide extra 46 billion per year of resources to which to fund needs and priorities. Here are some of the things these money could improve in Christianity around the world. 150,000 new missionaries and pastors in nations most closed to foreign religious workers would open. It would triple the resources being spent by all Christians and Bible translating, printing, distributing to provide Bibles to native languages of the 2,737 remaining people groups currently without Bible translations. We pretty much will eliminate people not having Bibles. We would finance the organizational infrastructure of major Christian research and advocacy organizing fighting against contemporary economic and sexual slavery worldwide. We will quadruple the total resources being spent by all Christians globally to evangelize the world. 5 million, so we would develop 5 million micro enterprise economic development projects in poor countries worldwide. We would have 1 million new clean water well drilling projects per year in the poorest nations. We would treat and prevent malaria worldwide. We would provide food clothing and shelter to all 6,500,000 current refugees in all Asia, Africa, and Middle East. We would quadruple the budget of Habitat for Humanity, the budget of World Division, which serves 100 million people in 96 countries. We would sponsor 20 million needed children worldwide providing the food education and healthcare. We will quadruple global Christian medical missions work. We would provide financial and debt management training to 200,000 US Christians per year who are currently in debt. Pretty much if Christians would just do bare minimum what the law in the Old Testament says, the amount that this could contribute to the well-being of the world honestly would be staggering. Like one of the things that you have to understand about Hungry Gen is we're embarking more and more on helping other churches, helping other missions. We've taken a church in Vietnam under our covering financially to sponsor and to help. 100% of Hungry Gen budget goes to the missions. Some of it goes to Tri-States missions. Some of it goes to when we go to conferences, when we're gonna launch churches next year, the internships, everything is missional in its focus. When we help the local people that are in need, when we help also with missions, when we help with all of these things, it goes to the world. So let's go now into the untold truth about biblical tithing. Here are four things you need to know about what the Bible teaches about tithing. Number one, the first mention of tithing had to do in response to God's victory. When Abraham gave first time 10%, it's interesting that we don't know and nobody knows for sure where did Abraham learn about the principle of giving 10%. There was no local church. There was this king named Melchizedek who is symbol of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Abraham goes and gets this huge victory with his army and with his band of people that he was with. And then afterwards the Bible says that Abraham tithed 10%. The first mention of tithing is the tithing of response to God's faithfulness, which I believe the real reason why many of us tithe, we say, God, thank you. And we're not buying anything. We're expressing our gratefulness. So the first mention of tithing, 500 years before the commandments, it was Abraham saying God, I acknowledge you as the source of my victory. The second truth about tithing or the second way of tithing was done, it was a way of promising God to tithe when I get a breakthrough. Now Jacob was the grandson of Abraham and Jacob did not tithe on the credit card, which is something I wanna mention. Okay, there are people who get so fired up about tithing that they tithe on their credit card. That's not wise. Now I'm not gonna stop you if you're gonna do that cause if you buy your shoes and everything on the credit card you decide to tithe on the credit card, good for you, God bless you, but it's not scriptural. And it's also not wise. Jacob is broke like a joke. He has nothing to his name. He's sleeping in front of the sky. He gets the vision of God. He sees the staircase of heaven. He sees God and his house is called Bethel, which is where he was sleeping. He slept on the rock, which there's a revelation there. You know, Jacob went to sleep on the rock. Delilah went to sleep on the lap of the, Samson went to sleep on the lap of Delilah. One woke up with the haircut. The other one woke up with the revelation. Come on somebody. And so Jacob goes to sleep on the rock and there he sees a vision of God and Jacob wakes up. He's like, man, this is the house of God. This is church somebody. And you know, and the first thing that Jacob says instead of saying, man, I'm gonna sign my kids for the kids ministry. I'm gonna enroll to serve. Where's the planning center app? You know, you would think like, hey, what is the next charge service? And the first thing Jacob says is God, the moment I got anything in my pocket or in my bank, I'm gonna give you 10%. That's weird. I'm like, I want you to see the connection. Charge. And he's saying the moment I get anything out, I'm gonna give 10%. No commandments yet. No law, no Moses, no coming with two tablets. None of this stuff. This guy has a vision of God in the sleep. Vision of the house of God wakes up and is first to response. The moment I got something, the moment I get something in my wallet, in my bank account, the moment I get my first paycheck, I promise to give God and to thank Him. Maybe that's where you're at. You broke, but you got a revelation. You're in the house today. You're like, man, I'm in the house of God, but I ain't got a job. I'm going through a very difficult time. You can make tithing as a promise. It could be a response like Abraham or it could be as a promise, like Jacob. Truth number three is the law of tithing. Now the law of tithing was something that when Moses took the Israel out of Egypt, they went to the mountain and God came in the mountain and gave Moses the commandments. Now a lot of these commandments, let's be honest, they were not given to America. They were given to the nation of Israel. A lot of these commandments had to do with real estate. They had to do with how to treat your employees, how to treat the land boundaries. It's pretty much like a code for living as a nation. And one of these commandments was also tithing. What many people don't understand is that there was not one tithe, there was three. There was three tithes in the law of Moses. The first tithe was to support the Levites and the priests. God said you would bring the first of your crops, pretty much like the first 10% of what you're making. And that would help to maintain, keep the lights on in the tabernacle. Levites and the priests, these guys actually did not work. All they did was to kind of worship, pray, cut videos and upload stuff on YouTube. And so all they did were they were working at the tabernacle for the things of God. And God's like, hey, I gotta keep these people so they can keep their families fed and have the roof over their house. So the 10% of everybody's Israelites went to maintain the work that was happening at the tabernacle. But there was one more tithe God was requiring of them and that is this tithe was to be spent on their travel to the festivals that Israel had. In fact, I'm gonna read this because many Christians don't realize there was more than one tithe by Israelites required by God. Deuteronomy chapter 14, verse 22 says the following. You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the fields produce year by year. And you shall eat before the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to make his name abide, the tithe of your grain and of your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and of your flocks that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. But if the journey is too long for you so that you're not able to carry the tithe, they didn't have like UPS and FedEx at the time. And if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far from you, when the Lord your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange it for money and take the money in your hand and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses and you shall spend that money on whatever your heart desires, man. Wow, for oxen, for sheep, for wine, for similar drinks, for whatever your heart desires you shall eat there before the Lord your God and you shall rejoice you and your household. So the first tithe was you bring it to the temple to keep the lights on. The second tithe is God says, hey, I want you to come and celebrate this feast, but I want you to actually spend your second tithe in a way of celebrating my goodness. And if the journey is too far to where you're supposed to come where the temple is, then take your oxen, your sheep, your goats, your horses, everything as you're tied, go to the market, sell them, get the money, get an airline ticket, fly to that place. I'm using the modern terminology, they did not have airlines during that time. Get there and then take that money and this is what God says, I want you to go, buy in the market anything you like and bring that food, all of that good stuff while you having this feast, spend it on a hotel, tip the waiter, do all of the stuff and your spending is celebrating me and rejoicing in my presence. So you can always tithe twice. You can tithe once to the church, second time you can bring your tithe and just spend it at the church coffee shop. I'm just kidding, this is Old Testament, okay? This is not, I see the coffee shop team is like, yes, yes, this is the Bible. But we have to start providing breakfast then. Not just coffee shop, if we bring this law back, but I'm talking about the Old Testament law, okay? I'm not saying this is what we need to do, I'm just giving you an example of what they did. The third tithe that people will require to bring as New Testament people in covenant with God, this tithe was 10% every 10 years. Excuse me, every three years. So 10% every three years, let's read this where the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 14 verse 28. At the end of every third year, you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. And the Levite, because he has no portion, no inheritance with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates may come and eat and be satisfied that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work your hand which you do. So the first tithe went to pay the bills at the temple. The second tithe went in on your travel to the feast and you would spend there with your family feasting, rejoicing, celebrating God. And the third tithe, God says, I want you to give this one every three years, 10%. So each year it would equal to 3.3%. You would set apart, you can set apart either each year 3.3% or just every three years, you set extra 10% apart and they had this like community almost like a place where you would bring that food, you will bring those resources for the immigrants, for the poor and for the people in your community to eat of your tithe, including the Levite. If whatever was provided to him at the temple was not enough, he can come in and almost like a world relief, almost like a food bank, almost like this place, like a welfare for a community. And guess who was paying for that? Not the government, the people. So pretty much to say in the Old Testament, the tithing wasn't 10%. It was 23.3%. Each Israelite would give. So Mormons are a lot more closer to that than we because their standard is 20%, not 10. So but that was the law of tithing. So this wasn't just 10% bringing to the temple, it was also taking 10% to spend on my travel to the temple, celebrating the goodness of God and every three years I would give 10% to the widow, to the orphan, to the fatherless, to the immigrant and to a refugee, somebody that struggled and needed help. And that's what tithing was instituted. Number four, truth about tithing is Jesus talking about tithing. Jesus mentioned tithing twice. We see this in Matthew chapter 23 verse 23 and in Luke chapter 18 verse 12 and in both of those instances, he corrected legalistic abuse of tithing. Jesus didn't endorse it or discredited. He simply corrected legalistic abuse of tithing. Pharisees were so focused on make sure they give 10% that they ignored other important things and Jesus came and said, guys, you're missing the whole point. He says something that is more important than just giving your 10%, it's how you treat people. He didn't stop the tithing nor did he preach about it as often as pastors preach today. He would say, man, but if the way I'm gonna preach speak, the way I'm speaking about tithing today, my goal is not to get you to give more. So I want you to just, those of you who already, the moment I mentioned we're tithing, your defenses went up and you became like Jericho, like close securely, you can open up. I'm not after your money. Plus if you make a decision not to give, there is no one in heaven or on earth that will take what's yours except the devil. So just, I want you to just relax because I see some of you are like, you're stiff, you're looking like, you're not taking anything. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna preach the truth of what God teaches, amen. So does tithing apply to us today? Four things I believe tithing misses. Four things or four truths where I believe tithing falls short, where I believe that Christians should not focus on tithing. Four, first one, tithing was really a response of the nation of Israel to God who delivered them from Egypt. What Christians have is we have God who died for us. Like he didn't deliver us by killing an animal. He delivered us by letting his son die. Like the comparison, if I continue, these guys responded to a God who went crushing Egypt, killed the lamb and got him out from one country to another, I have a God in the covenant where he let his son die for me. So for me to just take that, I say, I'm just gonna do what they do. Like my response is different because what God revealed to me is different. I'm not celebrating a God who gave a lamb. I celebrate a God who gave his son. So I say tithing misses that. Yeah, Abraham God, a victory. You know what I got? I got a victory over sin, hell and death and grave. Yeah, Jacob had a revelation of the staircase. Actually, I know now who that staircase is. It's Jesus Christ. So I believe that the tithing misses the point because it was under an inferior law, inferior covenant. It was under an inferior response. What I have is it's mind blowing. It's crazy. The second thing that tithing misses is tithing was focused on maintaining the ministry in the tabernacle. I believe what the Lord calls the church to do is not to maintain the church facilities but to use the church to reach the globe. So the tithing was really, hey, let's keep the lights on. But the mission of the church is not to, hey, let's just keep the lights on and whoever stumbles into church will give him a gift basket. No, the mission of the church, as you saw me recruiting you to help us with the media ministry, we wanna reach the world. Israel was not given the assignment to spread their faith to other nations. In fact, they were given an assignment to stay away from other nations. We were given a job to go into every nation, every tongue, and every tribe, to translate the Bible into every language, to make e-courses, to write books, to write CDs, why? Go into all the nations and make disciples of all the nations of the world. So tithing was for maintaining. We got to multiply. So tithing misses that because it was given to keep the lights on. We are given, what we are assigned with is to be the light in the world, to be the city in the top of the hill. The third thing that I see tithing misses is, tithing misses the mark of discipleship. Tithing misses the mark of discipleship. Why? Because look at the discipleship model of Jesus. And because some people get really, really afraid. It was like, man, the Bible, Jesus didn't talk about this tithing, 100%. You're right. He didn't mention it for Christians. Make sure you tithe, he didn't. But I want you to notice what Jesus preached. He preached discipleship. And I want you to notice what discipleship requires. See, tithing, it's a legalistic system under the old covenant. Now, you can practice it without being a legalist about it. 100%. But if you miss the point of Jesus' teachings and who Jesus is and what the church is about, we live in response to his death to us. Which is like, he died for me. At least I can do his live for him. Secondly, we're living with this big mission. We want to reach the world, not just keep the lights on in the church. And the third thing is the message of Jesus Christ is not these presets and these legalistic rules. The message of Jesus Christ is discipleship. For example, he says if you have two coats and somebody comes in and wants your coat, Jesus did not say cut 10% of your coat and give it to him. He says give your coat, that's 50%. That's discipleship. That's radical, that's scary. He comes to Zacchaeus' house and Zacchaeus is ripping people off left and right. I mean Zacchaeus lives ripping people off. And according to the law, you have to return back four times more. So Jesus convicts Zacchaeus with his presence. Never tells Zacchaeus, hey Zacchaeus, make sure you sign up to Tithe for Jesus Ministries International. I do have a nonprofit number where you can get your tax deductions since you work in taxes. Zacchaeus, what is your next time where you're gonna set up your reoccurring giving for Jesus Ministries International? No, no, Jesus just comes by his presence. He convicts Zacchaeus' heart and life. And the first thing begins to convert in Zacchaeus' life is not his mouth, his job, it's his wallet. And he says, Jesus, everybody I ripped off, I'm gonna give him four times more. And then he says this, because the law required, if you ripped somebody off, if you stole from somebody, give him four times more. That's what the law required. I want you to see where discipleship goes. He says, and I will give half of my income to the poor. Not to the Jesus' ministry, but to the poor. That's discipleship. Discipleship doesn't require even 20%. Discipleship is radical and discipleship is scary. That's why most of us would be comfortable believing in Jesus. We would have a difficult time following him because following him is not clicking a button on Twitter. Following him is not subscribing to his YouTube channel. Following Jesus Christ is, it's a scary thing to do. Jesus says, if you want to follow me, you're gonna have to pick up your cross and die. Tithing misses that because tithing can give you in this little comfortable little thing where you're like, hey, I'm paying my dues, I'm paying my taxes, and that's all. Jesus, leave me alone. But the moment you begin to follow Jesus Christ, Jesus doesn't talk to you about tithing, why? Because he's trying to make you into a disciple. And the standard for discipleship is radical. There's not a percentage, it's a process. Where Jesus makes you just like him. And that could look different for different people that different seasons, but I'm gonna tell you one thing. It's a roller coaster. It's crazy. It's crazy. Which ruler came in? A tither gives 10%. Honors his mom and dad, doesn't kill, doesn't steal, doesn't smoke, doesn't hang out with those who do. I mean, this guy is like, amazing. This is the guy you want your daughter to marry. Not the joker that she's dating right now. This would be the guy's like, why don't you like him? That would be that guy. And every dad and mom would tell their daughter to connect with. He comes to Jesus and says, Jesus, what do I do to get eternal life? And Jesus gives him 10 commandments and he's like, I've done them all. And Jesus doesn't rebuking, he's like, no, you didn't. Jesus, Bible says in one scripture, it says he loved him. He's like, man, where were you when I was choosing my disciples? I could have chosen one good one. So he does the tithing. He does the Old Testament. He does that perfectly. But I want you to notice how he misses discipleship. And the moment Jesus goes for the heart, because this has nothing to do with money, he goes for the heart. Because though he kept the commandments, he broke the first one. He had a different God and this different God was money. And Jesus says, I want you to take everything you have and I want you to put it for sale, sell it, take the money. And I want you to notice another thing. Jesus wasn't interesting to grow his ministry's bank account. He says, give it to the poor. And then after that, come and follow me. Follow me, not believe in me, follow me. Because you can believe in me and just do the tithing and everything. But if you wanna follow me, it's scary. It's radical, it takes self-denial. And the Bible says he was sad and he returned back. And we never heard from him again. In fact, we don't even know his name. There's no churches built in his name. There's no epistles written. I wonder what would have happened to him. He lived, see the tithing, you can do tithing and miss discipleship. You can do tithing and it will maintain the lights in the church, but we can miss reaching the globe. We can do tithing and we can miss discipleship. And the last thing where I see tithing misses the point. Tithing is focused on percentage, not on the presence. What I mean by that? With tithing, you have a percentage that you give. You don't rely on God to lead you to give. You rely on the law that you have chose to subscribe to. Now at first, some of you are kinda confused like, is Vlad against tithing? I'll get to that in just a second. I was a tither for a very long time in my life. Like a Pharisee tither. That verse where Jesus was rebuking for the abuses of tithing, I think it would fit my life perfectly because I was like very careful, make sure I tithe even to the scent. Usually didn't give above tithe and I make sure I didn't give below the tithe. I really believe in the verses in Malachi, Kirstah, you, ta-da-da-da. And I do believe that tithing brought a blessing in my life. Unapologetically, I'm gonna tell you one thing. I do believe when you tithe, you're gonna release a blessing upon your life because you become a blessing to the church and to other people. I believe in that, okay? I don't believe that you tithe so you can buy something from God, but I do believe when you tithe, you're gonna be blessed. And I was. About seven, eight years ago, I started to experience this thing where I started to feel leading of the Holy Spirit, to give radically, not just to the church or to the ministry though, it was including that to the other people. And it messed with my theology because I was so comfortable here. I developed a system in here. I am in control in here. I have a budget in here. I have a plan in here, five-year plan, three-year plan, two-year plan. And that is fanatics. That is, the other thing is scary. The other thing is unpredictable. The other thing is God takes all of your money and leaves you high and dry. That was my view. And when the Lord started to challenge me, not necessarily so that the church can have more money or other ministries, the Lord wanted to challenge me and he says, I wanna take you from devotion to me to being my disciple. I went through emotional, mental, little spiritual breakdown. God had to break down the blessing to give me the breakthrough. I started to discern his voice more than before. And now I understood why the Lord in the New Testament did not give us a law of tithing because he gave us the spirit to lead us. And he expects every son of God and daughter of God to be led by the spirit, more than to be led by the percentage. Because you can practice tithing and never develop a relationship with the Holy Ghost and feel safe in here without being sanctified in here. The presence of God is what a Christian should be led by. The presence of God is what Christians should live by. We should live by principles but be led by the presence. I have principles to fall back on. If he doesn't lead, I live by this principle. But I understand he didn't give me a spirit so I can live by the law. He gave me his spirit. Why did the Old Testament believers needed the law because they didn't have the Holy Ghost? I do. The lamb did not die for them, the sheep died for them. And because he died for me, now I have a reason to live in response as a disciple. Not to live responding to a death of an animal but I just give bare minimum. And I hope that I have this favor with God. God now he has my heart and it's radical. It's scary for people who love to have control of their life and use God to put a cherry on the top of their self-controlled life. Because it demands yielding control. It demands submission. It demands making him Lord and King of your life. And for some of us, that is difficult. We don't mind saying, Jesus forgive me all my sin because we screwed up. But the moment somebody comes in and says, I'm gonna take your life and I'm gonna run it for you and I live in another realm. For us it's like, are you kidding me? Nobody's gonna do that. And that is radical. And tithing becomes a safe backup, safe thing that we fall to, fall back on instead of living in a radical response for the grace of God. That's why the New Testament doesn't emphasize tithing. Because it emphasizes discipleship and being led by the Holy Spirit. So what do you do? How should we respond? Few things that I wrote down. One, make a decision to start with 10% to the local church out of your paycheck. Make a decision to start with 10%. Now, the people who walk around and say there's a magic, 10% is something, yes, it's a number for testing, but honestly, you don't see Jesus walking around and says it has to be 10% or it even has to be, I'm just giving you recommendation as a pastor. This is not required. I cannot give you one verse in the New Testament for the requirement. As much as I would want to and I live by it as a requirement for myself, but it's not what the Bible teaches us. It is recommended that we make a decision and I will have another teaching very soon where I will teach what Paul taught about giving. And it's very different from the Old Testament teaching on tithing. I know this goes death blow to some of us who feel like if you don't tithe, you don't have salvation. If you don't tithe, you shouldn't even be in church. I do believe that you should move forward from being a believer to being a disciple and it will radically, radically change your financial life. So start with the first. Start with 10%. If you never tithe before in your life, start with that first. Don't jump into, you know, don't run a marathon if you didn't run a mile. So start with this first. That's why Jesus preached discipleship to who? To Jewish people. They were used to with the first. They were used to on the first level. It took them higher. Today, I'm just gonna bring it to us. Start with this. If you've never lived consistently tithing, okay? Give you a challenge. Three months. Take a three month challenge and just begin to give 10% of your income to God. If in three months, nothing changes with your finances, your job, or you, stop after that. And if God asks you on the judgment seat, there's still the Vlad said it. Why? Because this is the only area where God invites you to challenge him. Even under the old covenant. So I just ask you, just throw a challenge. Three months. Because for some of you, this is very radical. 10%, that's a lot of money. And you need money. And an average American spends 110% of their income. Yeah? 110% of their income. So your goal would be to spend 70% of your income. And some of you, it will help you to spend by if you will start honoring and you will have a difficult time to cut back the spending. So I'm gonna ask you to get God involved in your finances by seeking first. Now, I can't tell you that if you give 10%, God's gonna get you out of debt and everything, but the Bible does say that if we put God first in our day, we know our day goes better. If that's why during the year we take the first month and we fast, why? Because we want the remaining of the year to be blessed. The principle of putting God first will work all the time. In Proverbs, it says that honor God with the first fruits and your vats will overflow with new wine and your barns will be filled with plenty. So there's the principle of putting God first. And that's what really, what tithing as a beginning stage is. Begin to make a decision. Say, hey, I'm gonna give 10% of my income. Now, for some of you who 10%, it really hurts. Every time I say 10%, you go in the cold sweat, you go in the hot flashes, start with 20%. Make it easier on yourself. Start with 23%, 23.3%. So whatever the help should get out of that, or those people who are gonna, I know they're gonna troll me on YouTube who are like, they look for any word on tithing and it shows up in their email and they go, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Common everything and so. Let me relieve you from your troubles. Start with 50% lezakias. You will feel better. You will be closer to God and you will be a disciple. So, but 10% is a good place to start. What if you start eight? Still fine. Why am I saying to start first, to give that first and to do that consistently for at least three months? Because if you do this sporadically, if you do just kind of whenever I feel like it, you don't develop it first as a muscle of a Christian discipline. Giving, as it's led by the Lord, it's also something that needs to be practiced irregularly and we practice that regularly by doing it. There's few ways that you can give to HungryGen, those of you watching or those of you who are here. You can go to the website, HungryGen.com, you can write a check to HungryGeneration, bring it to the front in the lobby or bring it during the week. You can use Venmo, you can use Cash App, you can use PayPal, you can use Crypto, you can use Stock, you can use Zell. So there's many different ways and if you have another way that through which just let Victoria know, we will create a login for that as well. The second one is I wanna encourage you as a Christian, as a disciple and as a member of this house, take a pledge to donate to our building fund above your tithe. We are trying to accomplish the building, we don't care about the building for the sake of building. What we care about is we need to house more people, we need to have housing for insurance and potentially a school for our students, school for our young ones. And so it requires resources and God wants to use our resources. All of us, including myself, we give above our tithe generously so that we can make this building possible. I believe God will one day send us millionaires and billionaires who will underwrite everything. But honestly, I don't think God will do that right away. The reason why is because then I have no room to be involved. God wants to make room for a guy like me, person like you, the widow, the single mom, the young businessman, for every person to be involved. God does things to get everybody involved and stuff. So make a decision. If you made a decision to give toward building fund earlier this year, and honestly, instead you just start building your own building and took that building fund to something else, I want you to prayerfully reconsider and fulfill your commitment. Number three, and this is the big one, give one time your most generous gift. This could be for those of you who have a business or who throughout this year, during this giving season, maybe for tax deduction purposes as well, where you feel like, you know what, during this season of giving, I want to give a one time, my most generous gift. You say, what should I give? This is the amazing part. Ask the Holy Spirit. Even concerning what I'm teaching, ask the Holy Spirit. If he doesn't confirm, because he lives inside of you, throw it out. If he doesn't confirm, and what I'm sharing is not in the scripture, throw all of that out. Because we don't live by what the pastor teaches. We live by what the word of God teaches. Amen. So give one time your most generous gift. Number four, you did you know that you can support Hungry Jen by shopping on Amazon. This is the best news you've heard today. So husbands, let your wife shop. Let her buy you and herself a gift for this Christmas. Now, so this is how you can support Hungry Jen by shopping. Amazon has this service called Smile. See, it's crazy how the world also wants to give. Amazon gives certain amount of proceeds from every purchase that you make. They already do that, to charities. When you set Hungry Jen as the charity of your choice, then instead of those proceeds going to other causes, they go to Hungry Jen. So all you gotta do is go to hungryjen.com forward slash Amazon. Or you can just simply, no, there's no QR code, hungryjen.com forward slash Amazon. The moment you click on that link, it automatically goes to your app and sets us up as your donation. It's still same Amazon, nothing different. It's the same Amazon. The only thing is the small percentage that Amazon already gives to charities. But when you shop, that small percentage will be given to Hungry Jen. Number five, the last one. Maybe you're giving, maybe you're generous, but you have a gift of giving. You're like, man, I love the idea of finances. I love the idea of sponsoring. I would love to serve on the stewardship team. What is a stewardship team? For example, you can help input receipts. You can even help depending on also that will go through interview, help to input donations. One thing that I'm starting, we're starting next year, is when somebody gives one time, first time, we're gonna be sending them a handwritten card. Because we give handwritten cards to first-time guests. They make their way to church. But the Lord start dealing with my heart and he says, when people start giving, they're not just getting to church. Something is moving in their heart. And we need to start, not congratulating, but we need to start acknowledging that step they took toward their discipleship. Because discipleship is not just coming to church. Discipleship is when you begin to evangelize, when you go to small group and when you begin to give. These are the three things that these are signs. You're not just a church member, you're becoming a disciple. When you're bringing somebody with you, when you go into a small group and when you begin to give, and we wanna be able to celebrate that, we wanna be able to say, this is awesome. Because every believer, like we have it here, is a disciple maker. But you can make disciples until you first become a disciple. And so we're recruiting that team. We're also recruiting a team. We have people who donate largest sum of money for the building. We wanna be able to help them as well. Not cater to them, but at the same time pray for their needs. Reach out what they need as a help. Maybe they need help with their family or prayer for something. We also have a list of people in our church who are currently going through a difficult time. We wanna be able to bring them meals. We wanna be able to maybe come in and double check the utility that they cannot pay for, to check with the city if there's other resources that we can do. And we have right now one person that manages all of that. And this person is extremely very busy and it's swamp left and right. And so what we wanna do is wanna build a team of stewards, stewards who will come alongside with her and we can help both members of our church who are struggling, double check. Instead of just handing out money that we do a very thorough research on what's happening and how we can help them. So we can also reach out to members or new people that are just starting to give. Reach out to donors who are maybe giving above and beyond to be able to minister to them. Reach out with some of these tedious tasks that we have that take a lot of time but they're very necessary because everything has to be done in church in orderly fashion, especially in the area of finances. We might be in Pasco but we don't think and act on the level of ghetto. We're not a ghetto church. We're a kingdom of God church. And everything we do, we do with excellence and everything we do, we do with a sense of thing that glorifies God. So these are five ways that I wanna invite you to consider joining, growing your discipleship next year. I'm gonna tell you one thing. This is God's church. He took care of it. He will take care of it. Randomly, every few weeks, people send very large donations from all around the United States. If you think that, if you don't give, it won't be taken care of. I'm gonna tell you one thing. Think again, cause you're wrong. This is not just for us. This is to grow you in discipleship. Because in New Testament, it wasn't about the law. In the New Testament, it was about love. It wasn't about the percentage. It was about the process. It wasn't about this principle as much as it was about being led by the presence. Start with something that you are comfortable with, something that is according to your ability. Do it for three months. If you've done it already and you're faithful, tighter, I'm gonna ask you a question. What about asking the Holy Spirit to take you to next level next year? It doesn't have to be always in finances. It doesn't always have to be increasing your giving. Have you given to the poor? Have you given to people in need? Is there somebody you've been a blessing to because God has prospered you? Don't just be a person like the rich ruler or rich man whose ground produced great, great harvest and he kept getting bigger and bigger but he didn't grow in God and did not grow in generosity. Whatever that looks like for you, take the challenge this year. Tithing releases a blessing. Discipleship releases a breakthrough. Tithing releases a blessing. Discipleship releases a breakthrough. And I'm not saying you're gonna drive a Bentley. I'm not saying even the breakthrough will be that you're gonna have a better business and more money. What I'm saying with breakthrough is there will be something that will break through in your life. It will be evident to everyone. Sometimes it shows up in finances. Sometimes it shows up in opportunities. Sometimes it shows up in your family. Sometimes it shows up in salvations of other people. And sometimes, you know what it shows up? The places you sowed, you reap the harvest of souls being saved. Ultimately, that's what this is all about. Hungry Gen is the most generous church I personally have ever seen. We're not the richest church. We don't have people here who have the most money but we have the biggest hearts. We always have. We stand on a building that's paid off. We have more people than the staff than most churches have on their staff. We're able to do more projects because of that. We're able to go into a bigger territory because of the prayers and because of the giving of Hungry Gen. But every few months, I wanna bring this message to bring that realignment to each one of us to keep our hearts pure and to also center us on the mission that we have and on the New Testament teaching of what the Bible teaches. Amen. Hey, thanks for watching this video. If you enjoyed this content and this was a blessing to you, would you help us and hit thumbs up so that it could help more people to discover this video? It cost you nothing but it can go a long way to help with the algorithm. As well as if you're not subscribed to our channel, hit subscribe, click on the bell so that you can be reminded each time that we upload videos. Thank you so much for being a part of this community. If you're interested in learning more about Hungry Gen, our internship, our conferences, deliverance, and so many other things, go to HungryGen.com for more information. And as always, remember, better is not good enough, the best is yet to come.