 for that. Last year, on a service like this, Generosity Sunday. So something for those of you coming to Hungry Jan, you're new. Once a year, we have a service before the holidays start. The Christmas is a sacrifice Sunday. We call it Generosity Sunday. Specifically right now because of the building fund. But even before that, 10 years ago, me and my wife went on this journey. We didn't even have a building fund. We actually sewed into another ministry in the Ukraine. And then we continued to sew. We've experienced God change our life through that. We didn't talk about it for years. And then we felt permission to start talking about it. We started to see this happening to our leaders, to our pastors. God start moving in their life in the area finances. Because if you're not aware of it, a lot of times you don't even get the Lord speaking to you because it's not being taught. And so last year, it's about now nine years, 10 years from that first big sacrifice. It was the first one. We continue to do it every year like this. Cars, I think we by now I think it's about nine cars that we were able to give in the last 10 years with my wife. So last year, we just sold one property, flipped another one. There was something else that happened. And we were able to, I remember it like yesterday was $100,000. I've never seen that much money in my account in my life. So it was huge. We were looking to buy a land where we wanted to build something and looking for it in different places. I didn't like it. The lands that were available. And just kind of frustrated a little bit, decided to just stop pursuing that and focus on just living our life. And as we were approaching generosity Sunday, you know, like, you know how sometimes you have this thing where this is off the limits, Lord? You know, like, this is mine and I have a plan for it. You know, this is not necessarily for your kingdom. This is for my kingdom. And so that's kind of how I saw that money. I kind of saw, hey, this is, you know, this is for us. And we just, that's for our future, which is important to the care of your future. But I started to get this feeling. And what Peter described, I have experienced this many times where big piece of weight drops on your chest. You start and then you start feeling like you want to throw up for a moment where you kind of know in here that you're going to have to do it. And when I say do it, we have to give that amount. And so of course, I don't do those decisions without consulting my wife. And I wanted her to share because for me, I'll be honest with you. I didn't care much about the land. It was just more of like my wife's dream. And I was just here being her Jehovah Jireh, meaning making sure that she's well provided for and taking care of. But for me, personally, I didn't much care about it. So I was concerned for her. And when she came to me and said, Hey, I think we need to do it. Can you speak a little bit about your processes and reasoning? Yes, I would like to share my side of the story. Yes, it was my dream. It was my idea. I wanted to have a land close to the river and all of that. For Vlad, he didn't really care because we already had a house. And he's like, you know, we can live here for the rest of our lives. Like he didn't care. But that was something that I really wanted to. And I prayed about it. And I told God, like, you know, my desires, you know, my dreams. And when he came to me with that proposal, hey, why don't we just take all of our savings and just give it to God that, you know, all these years we've been married for 13 years. And we have been very generously sacrificing to different into lives of different people into the lives of different churches and ministries. Big amounts of money, practically everything that we had. And I felt like all these years we were like doing this, sacrificing. And I felt like that money was finally something that we will have for us. And I felt so sad in my heart. And I told him, you know what, I'm not sure how I feel about this. And I need some time to, like, maybe process it and talk to God about it. I'm going to see. And he does not make those decisions by himself without my agreement. And I really appreciated that. So I took some time to Tony points. Yes. And I kind of took some time and I started to analyze everything. And I loved what Peter mentioned that there is a season to so and there is a season to rip, rip the harvest. And I felt like that was not our season to rip the harvest. And the Lord started working in my heart and he's like, trust me, because I know how to bless you beyond your wildest dreams. And I felt like I needed to let this go. And and I agreed. And I'm like, God, OK, let's do this. And I one thing that I live by personally, what the Lord has taught me through the years and experience is that if things don't fall into place, don't try to make it happen. And I this is how God has led me and both of us, especially in the area of finances and big purchases. If things don't fall into place, there's no God's grace on it. We couldn't find the land and the land that was available. I didn't even want it. Like, why? Why do we need something? You know, we already have a house. I wanted something very specific. And so I I was like, you know, things don't fall into place. I need to just kind of let it go into. Plus, it wasn't it wasn't enough for the kind of land you wanted. Yeah. And sometimes when what you have is not enough to meet your need, what you have is your seed. That's exactly it. Yes. And I and I started to feel like, you know what? This is not our season to rip. And this is still we're still in the season of sowing the seeds. And we decided to do that. And last year, the first Sunday of the December, we saw that the interesting part is it created a ripple effect because to be honest, in 20 years of Hungry Jen existence, the donation we gave last year was the largest one single donation that was ever came to Hungry Jen. So two hours later, a couple from Idaho was here. And I was actually performing their wedding after the second service. Now I don't do weddings after service right away. They were an exception. And they dropped 100 K so I can do a wedding after service for 100 K. Just I'm just kidding. I don't that's that they didn't do that for the money. I they got saved through the ministry and they came the Sunday after. They're like, we will. Could you marry us? I was like after service during altar call. Yes. But I don't have the time to kind of do a big wedding. And so they did it. They bring that some few weeks later. It was actually Peter that brings another 100 and the pastor brings another 100 and pretty much in one month, four hundred thousand dollars came in for that building campaign. It's almost like started a ripple effect of people started to grow in giving for that. So we finished the generosity Sunday. You know, felt good, empty, of course. You know, looking at the account, slightly depressed. You know, you're like, I've shed the tear during the service because, you know, it felt so good. It's painful yet hurt like it hurts. But it's just beautiful. And then, you know, like all the feelings were out. And then Monday, you look at your account, you're like, what did I do? It's like, why? Why did I do this? You know, what was the purpose of all this and stuff? So, you know, and on the way back home after second service, I felt the Holy Spirit and I called my wife right away. I felt the Holy Spirit put on my heart starting January to give back what I was getting paid at the church every month until we move into the building fund, into the building. And I was like, Lord, I kind of broke already. You know, like, I mean, how much can you break a broken broke man? You know, and but I felt peace about it. And me and my wife, we also have few other sources of income, smaller sources of income. And so we kind of trusted that the Lord will provide for us. We go for a 21 day fast. And during the fast, we get a call from one person that had a land. It was exactly the land that my wife wanted, like, like literally exactly just was not available. And this person sells us this land. Now, can you tell us how I felt? Yeah. Yes. When I heard this, I was I was like, shocked. I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy. This is exactly what I wanted. Except we didn't have the money for down. We did not really. We did and we didn't. We had some. And so the Lord brought this opportunity and I strongly felt inside like this is from God. This is what the Lord wanted us to have and not something else. And I felt like, oh, my gosh, when I stepped out in that, like, simple trust to the Lord, gave up something that, you know, meant something to me. And he met me so much with so much more. Like, it's it's my dream come true. So I'm so happy last week by God's grace, we paid it off. And so a year ago, we had our own desires, let it go, but focused on God's kingdom and then found out that God had something else planned except his way. Now, the reason why we share in this story is not to say that every person that's going to give is going to get exactly same thing. That is not how God moves. What we want to highlight is what we believe in. Hungry Jen, you can never out give God. And what we want to highlight is this, when you give, it feels like a loss, but you're not losing your loaning. You are loaning it to God. In fact, the Bible has a verse in Proverbs. It says, those who give to the Lord, they're loaning to God. So don't think of it. I'm losing it. I'm wasting it. That's what Judas said when Mary or the woman was giving the lobster box and I said, what a waste. And Jesus says, no, no, no. He says, people everywhere the gospel is preached. We'll be talking about this. She's anointing my body. See, the carnal mind says, what a waste. But the spiritual mind says, what a worship. What an investment that I'm giving to the kingdom of God because you can't, you know, go to Bank of America right now and sell or cash up or Venmo God. Like he doesn't have a cash up handle. He doesn't have a Venmo handle. But Jesus tells us that when we give to his kingdom, we're really transferring it into our spiritual account. And I just want to be before I go, you know, when we trust the Lord, when he asks us of something and we don't withhold it from him in just that simple trust, he will always he's faithful and he will exceed everything that we're dreaming about. And as you guys know, in this year, I felt like there's there was so many breakthroughs that came into our life, including us being able to have a baby now after 13 years that we were not able to. And I felt like, Lord, I am so blessed. Like, what else? What else is coming that I don't know about? Just want to encourage you not to be afraid to lay something down, something that the Lord is asking of you. And that is only between you and the Lord. And I loved what was presented earlier today is the fact that there are moments when the Lord extends his hand and prompts us. Now it goes like this, you get a prompting, you get super excited. Fear kicks in, logic kicks in, doubt kicks in. And then if you persevere, faith kicks in and then breakthrough comes in. Let me give you those steps again, because some of you will feel that you get a prompting. So as you're hearing these things, you start thinking, what if? And sometimes even the numbers begin to come out. This is not a sheer fundraising manipulation. I'm just letting you know how it usually happened with us. We get this excitement that comes in right away. And then, you know, tell my wife, say, hey, babe, let's let's give this. And then fear kicks in. You start like deliverance is taking place. Doubt after fear, like, yeah, I don't think this is God. Well, it's definitely not the devil and it's definitely not you, because you're not that generous. So for me, I usually that's how I know this is God. It's definitely not me and it's definitely not the devil. So it must be God. And then, you know, after that, faith comes in. I'm going to do it because I believe God is leading me into this. And then when we step out by faith, you know, sometimes even last year, I remember looking back at what I felt the Lord, because I presented this earlier. You kind of were hesitant about it. Then I let it go and then you came to it. And when it came to even doing a 40 day fast or anything of that stuff, what always tipped the scales for me was that I never know what God will do after disobedience. But I know what will happen if I don't do it. The same thing. It's the fear of missing out that for me personally, I'm sorry, guys, but that's what tips my scales. I'm like, I wonder what will happen outside of disobedience, behind disobedience. And we've always seen God, guys, we're real people, just like you. You and I, we've seen God being faithful. And we've seen God never disappoint us. And we have not seen the righteous begging for bread who give when God leads them. Now it's important also, we don't give on credit card. OK, we don't give the money for food. There's money for food and then there's the extra. OK, it's also important that we usually pray about it. And when you, God speaks to you, then you usually have a counteroffer to God. God says, bring Isaac, you say, can I bring Ishmael? And we've seen this. I've seen this first time that the Lord put on my heart to give Isaac. And I remember 10 years ago, it was it was 10,000. I said, Lord, can I give a thousand? You know, a counteroffer. This is what I'm comfortable with. It still stretches me. And so I would just really encourage that the Lord knows what he's asking. And when you hear it clearly, just respond in faith and a God will bless you. And if he doesn't speak, you can still give, by the way, God, it's not going to be like, oh, God's going to be like, oh, you're in trouble while you gave, so God's still going to be pleased. Even when we don't feel prompted, we can purpose in our heart and give. Also, I just want to point that out. It's important to give with the mindset of faith and not to I'm giving because I want to get back when we were giving. And Peter mentioned that too. It's very, very important to come to this aspect of giving with the right attitude and a right mindset. We are not giving to it because we're expecting more back, more money back. Even last year, when we gave, we gave it up completely. The land idea, we died. That died at the altar. Yeah, we're like, yeah, God's will, God's will, promised land God gave to Abraham. That's the only land that's out there. Praise God, they're still fighting for it. And but yeah, we totally gave that up. So that was a total shock when next month, this whole thing kind of came around. It's almost like resurrection took place. So it's important. We don't give to get, we get to give. Amen. Amen. Thank you, babe. I love you. We're going to give our son next December at the altar. Hannah, Hannah brought him to the Lord. We're going to bring him put in the offering basket. The biggest sacrifice yet. Come on, somebody. Amen. God is good. And all the time, amen. I think I'm ready for that. But let me just share a few thoughts with you. Let's go to book of Matthew, chapter 21 and verse three. Book of Matthew, chapter one, 21, verse three. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, the Lord has need of them. And immediately he will send them. Matthew 21 deals with the story of Jesus entering into Jerusalem. And he is usually walks. Jesus walks. He doesn't run. You don't see him running in the scriptures about walking. You don't see him riding a horse. You see Jesus walking. But this time, Jesus chooses to get an Uber. I mean, Lyft. I mean, the donkey. Jesus chooses to use a mode of transportation, a walking animal. It was a domestic animal. It was like an animal that brings profit to your work, brings profit to your business. And Jesus chooses to use a donkey to do that. Now, it doesn't seem like Jesus has a donkey of his own. Jesus is a good borrower. He borrowed Mary's womb. He borrowed Joseph's tomb. He borrowed Peter's boat. He borrowed boy's lunch. So don't be surprised if Jesus comes and asks you to borrow things. But he always returns them back differently. Better for the kingdom of God. Amen. So in this case, what's happening is he's sending his two of his disciples and says, I want you to go to this place and you will find a donkey tied. I want you to lose this donkey. And then if the owner runs out and says, what are you doing? Which is a normal thing to do. If you're going to come to my driveway, get into my car, I will come out probably with the gun. But in this case, I don't think they had guns. So the owner comes out and says, what are you doing? And Jesus says, this is the secret answer you should say. The Lord has a need of it. No explanation. What for? Will this ever be returned? Is anybody going to damage it? The Lord has a need of it. So Jesus knew where this donkey was. He knew exactly where this donkey is located and how he needed it. And sent his disciples specifically to capture it. One boy was sent to church by his mom. His mom went to work and so she didn't get a chance to go to church and send her son to church. Gave him money for offering. The son was walking to church, saw a burger stand, decided there's a better use for this money than a church offering. He bought a burger. He didn't finish eating the burger the way to church, so he left half of it in his back pocket. Sitting over there on his burger and the pastor is preaching about the omnipresence of God. How God is present everywhere and the boy starts getting sweaty. God is watching everything you do. His heart starts beating faster because he's thinking about the money he should have given in an offering basket. Instead, he has a burger and half of it is in his back pocket. The pastor continues to say, and God is present with you everywhere, even in your darkest moments. And the boy got scared. Secretly start praying to God, I said, Lord, I know you see everything. I know you're currently in my back pocket. Please do not finish my burger. Jesus knew where what he wanted was at. He also knew exactly what he wanted and specifically requested it. How could a person give up their donkey? Like that. But I want you to notice how Jesus presented it. He said, tell them the Lord needs it. If you're taking notes, write this down. If Jesus is not the Lord, if you don't embrace the Lordship of Jesus, you will never loan him your donkey. It's the Lordship of Jesus that is the foundation of us giving our life, our resources and our gifts to God. This is very little about giving. This is more about Lordship. If you read Book of Genesis chapter two, and I know many of us will start reading next month, we're going to start with Genesis and probably finish or stop reading the Bible on the second week of January. But everybody will get through Genesis chapter two, chapter one, chapter two on the chapter three, that's where the fall of men happened. So that's where most of us quit our New Year's resolutions. But in the chapter two of Genesis, you will see a common reference, the Lord God. Somebody said the Lord. Come on, I can't hear you say the Lord. The Lord God. So commonly you see this in the Bible, the Lord God, the Lord God. In chapter three, Satan comes into the garden. And I want you to see what Satan starts the conversation with, with Eve. He says, has God said, took the Lord out? Why? Because God is Satan's God. He is not Satan's Lord. Satan is his own Lord. And Satan is not an atheist. Satan believes in God. The Bible says demons believe and tremble, but Satan doesn't submit to the Lordship of God. That's why he comes to Eve and he doesn't say has the Lord God because God is not his Lord. He says, has God said, has that being said that? And see, the first temptation of humanity wasn't even to question God's word. It is to get under from God's Lordship. And once we left God's Lordship, everything goes downhill after that. We doubt his word. Can God's word be trusted? What if it has errors and mistakes? We doubt God's character. God doesn't really truly love me. He's an oppressor and he just simply does not want me to be free. And then all the junk starts. But if you go to the root cause, has God said it? Meaning God wants to remove the Lord out of God in our life. Think about disciples. Jesus looks at his disciples at the last supper and he says, one of you guys going to betray me. And they all said, Lord, is this I? Look at how Judah said, rabbi. Is that I? To Judas, Jesus was just the teacher. To the disciples, he was Lord. That's why they left their nets. That's why they left their lives to follow him because to them, Jesus was not just the teacher. He was their Lord. The first theological statement of the church was that Jesus is Lord. Now, we don't have Lords ruling our cities and praise God for that. We don't have Lords in the White House. We have presidents, mayors, commissioners, chief of police. Those are the positions. And that day Caesar was Lord. To say Jesus was Lord was it could cost you your life. To live like Jesus is Lord will cost you your life. Today, many of us, we embrace Christianity where Jesus is rabbi, savior, life insurance, a spare tire, a body I go to wind is with. He's my hashtag homie. Me and Jesus are cool. We chill together. And that is a trap of the enemy. If the enemy has succeeded to pull you out of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, Jesus is Lord. God is Lord. But if we don't submit to his Lordship, that's why Jesus said to his disciples, tell the man with the donkey, the Lord has the need of it. Yes, sir. Why? Because the Lord asked for it. He owns it. The Lord owns it. The Lord, it belongs to him. Generosity is easy if it's not yours. We can do a test. If you reach to your neighbor's pocket right now, give like you always wanted. Most of you have no problem giving generously. If you take your neighbor's money. If you work at the bank as a teller, you have no problem giving customer money that's in their account. You don't feel emotional attachment to it. Why? It's not your money. Everything changes when we live like Jesus is Lord. He can ask and we don't put up walls. Because some of you, even as we were talking about money, you were triggered on steroids. You look down. But if we stop all of that nonsense and go deep into the root, you will find one thing. Jesus is your savior, not your Lord. Now, if you're not a Christian and that triggers you, I get it. I understand. But if you are a Christian and Jesus is not a Lord of your life, what kind of a Christian are you? See, I heard a story. Of one boy, he was a son of a very rich man. His dad bought him a brand new, I think it was a Ferrari, like a very fancy luxury car. Not a good idea to buy to your son on the 16th birthday. Nevertheless, he bought him a car. The guy goes to a party, gets drunk, takes some drugs and gets behind the wheel. Starts driving his car and next thing that happens is he loses, goes blacks out and on the edge of the mountain, because of high speed, his car hit the rails, broke through half of the rails and the car was suspended between a cliff and the highway. It was like two or three in the morning, so nobody was there. And he finally, of course, sobered up and opened the window, realized his car any second can tilt and fall. He started, of course, to cry out to God. Lo and behold, there was another car driving by and the gentleman stopped, came to this car that's suspending, literally just hanging in the air. Half of it is hanging in the air and the guy is going to fall with the car and die. And this was a judge, a local judge. He came in and he shouted to the boy, he says, I want you to open the driver's door and I want you to jump out onto the cliff and hold on to it. And I'm going to hold on to the bumper of the car. And once I let go of the car, the car is going to fall into the abyss and you're going to survive. So the boy said, OK, so the doctor, the judge started to count to one to three. He counts to one to three. And then the boy, you know, opens the door and jumps out, quickly grabs hold of the rocks and the judge helps him to come out and the car goes down, explodes. He smelled on the boy alcohol. He said, young man, you're 16 years old. You have a license. He says, yes, I do. He says, why why you have alcohol on your body? He says, sir, I'm so sorry, I will never do it again. I'll never drink again. I promise after this incident, I'll be fine. Six months passed. He didn't drink. Six more months passed. He forgot about this incident and started to slowly go to parties where they drink, but wouldn't drink. Sometime later, he would now just drink a little bit, but have somebody else drive him. And then a few years later, he's full blown drinking. He gets a DUI. He comes to a court with his daddy, who's very rich, and sees the very judge who saved him a few years ago on the cliff. So he smiled at him. He told his daddy, he said, that's my friend. He helped me. He comes up to a judge with a boldness. He says, sir, do you remember me? And the judge says, that night, I was your savior. Today, I am your judge. Let me ask you a question. Is Jesus just someone who bails you out all the time? Or is he your Lord? And one of the ways that that's tested, my friends, is not whether we say it, it's whether we live it. He said, man, he will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, there's in your name, but he said this. He says, you did not do my will. He didn't say you never repent. He didn't say you never called for help. He didn't say you never called for on me. He just said, when I called on you, you always closed your hand. You always said, no, Lord, I can't do that. He says, you practice lawlessness, meaning you live your life practicing sin, not struggling sin, but practicing sin, but you keep calling me, Lord. He doesn't want a profession of faith. He wants possession of Lordship. That means we give our life. What does it mean when Jesus is your Lord? It simply means this, acknowledging his ownership. We have absolute surrender and we have willingness to serve. Jesus is called Lord more than called savior in the New Testament. He is called Lord 747 times. Savior 25 times. Let's be honest. How many of us called him savior 747 times? Jesus is my savior. Jesus is my hashtag best friend. But he's more than that. He is your Lord. The Lord has a need of it. The Lord needs you. The Lord needs what you have. The Lord, and he has the right to demand it. Why? Because it belongs to him. The second thing I wanna highlight, and that is this. Giving to the Lord requires being loose from things. See, when Jesus is the Lord, he rides your donkey. He is the master of your finances. When you are your Lord, the donkey rides you. You don't ride the donkey, the donkey rides you. Money rules you. Greed rules you. Materialism rules you. That's why giving for some of us is slightly painful and we get so worked up and defensive. Our old man does, this is why. It's because greed is not when you control the money. Greed is when the money controls you. That's why before Jesus can get the donkey, the donkey has to be loose. Money gets loose from us when we give and God separates us from the power and the grip of man and in our life. What is greed? Greed has a grip. Greed is less about what you possess but more about what you obsess over. Greed is a selfish and excessive desire for more of something that is needed. That's what dictionary says. But greed is the relentless pursuit of self-interest, marked by an arrogant belief that both others and material possessions exist solely for my personal gain. Paul in 1 Timothy 6, 9 and 10 tells us that the root of all evil is the love of money. He says people who chase after money, that's all there is at the expense of others and at the expense of God's purpose in their life. They fall into harmful lust and they fall into all kinds of things. You probably saw it this week on the news. Dr. Farid Fatah, he is a Michigan doctor, is sentenced to 45 years in prison. He made 17.6 million dollars off of misdiagnosing 553 patients by telling them they have cancer when they didn't, putting them through chemotherapy when they didn't need to, making a lot of them sick and in an interview in the court, in the court actually, this doctor said the following, I have misused my talents. I have permitted this sin to enter me because of power and of greed. Patients were not his people. They were his profit centers. You may say, oh, this is a bad doctor. Judas was the same and he was the disciple of Jesus. Ananias was very similar. Ghazi was very similar. Akin was very similar. That's why giving is one of the only remedies that loses the grip of finances over our life. Gratitude is what breaks the grip of greed over our life. You can't be grateful and greedy at the same time. Because the power of greed is this, you have insensible desire for more. Nothing wrong with more. But when it's a lust for more, you're willing to run over people, symbolically speaking, ignore your family for more, chase after more like after a win and never catch it. The moment you're grateful, that hunger for more dies. The moment you're generous, that obsession dies. Giving feels like a loss, but it's actually being lost, being freed from this world. God is not against us having money. He's against money having us. God is not against you being wealthy. If that would be the case, His heaven would be paved with concrete, not with gold. God owns a cattle on a thousand hills. He gives power to get wealth. He finds pleasure in the prosperity of His service. He blesses the works of those people that honor Him by making it prosper. So the idea that God wants lack, shortage is not true and consistent with Jesus because He multiplied bread and they found overflow and more than enough, God is a good God and was good gifts. But the devil takes advantage of that and instead of us loving God, he wants us to love those things and those things become the root of all evil and they have a grip upon us and they begin to grab us. That's why many of us don't give, not because we can't give, something chokes us. There has to be loosening that happens for you to be generous and you can't be loosed until you give. You gotta be loosed. Jesus has loosed that donkey and bring it to me. When you are loosed, it feels like man but I'm loosing this. You're not loosing, you're loaning. You're loaning it to God and God makes you more of a generous person. I come from a very good godly family. My dad taught me to tithe. When I first received my first settlement check, before I got paid from like work, I got paid by breaking my leg. I didn't break my leg, somebody broke it for me and they said it was my fault. The devil is a liar. I spoke no English. So they wrote whatever they wrote, when I ended up in the hospital, they found out that it's my fault. So thank God for Jewish lawyers out of Seattle and they were able to somehow figure it out and make it not my fault. Cause it was not my fault. Okay, I didn't even speak English. I was riding a bicycle and it didn't have brakes cause I bought it off of Goodwill and it was like six months of being in the United States and this guy just is looking in his glove box where he's taking right on, I think William Street in Richland and he just accelerates. I fly out of the bike, land in the middle of the street, break my leg right away. They bring me to my house, put a casket on me and then I find out it was my fault. I was like, how, that's not my fault. The guy on the bicycle is always right and the guy in the car is always wrong. I get my first paycheck. It's a settlement. Now I'm a teenager and I think at this time it was about 16 and a half and it was about 6,000 US dollars. It's equivalent right now to like a million dollars. For a teenager who has never had a job up to this point and has never seen any money, my dad brings me a big fat envelope. Oh, and my dad told me this. He says, son, 10% out of this you have to give it to God. And I said, God didn't break a leg. I did. My dad is a good theologian. He says, well, he broke his body for you. So all right, good point, good point. I don't remember how painful it was to give the $600 out of that 6,000. And my dad took the rest of the 6,000 to buy me a car. He's like, and the rest of it is mine. I'm gonna buy you a car. You're not spending that. I don't trust you with that. All right, dad. But he trusted me to give my tithe. I gave my tithe. But I'll be honest with you, being extravagantly generous was not in my blood. I don't know if my parents were generous. I just was stingy. And the reason why I was stingy, I didn't see myself stingy. I saw myself as frugal. That's more holy word. Simply means I follow the Ramsey teachings and I am responsible and a good steward of my finances. This is how good steward I was. When I lived with my parents at the time, I didn't buy my clothes. I just wore my brother's clothes. And I'm the oldest one. So that just shows you stinginess, not frugality. I never ate out. Well, my mom cooked really well. There's no reason for that. And even when we went with friends, I always had water with ice. Unless they volunteered to pay. Then I knew the Lord provided. Me paying for someone? This never happened. Never happened. Even if I had money, I was like, I ain't wasting money on you. Plus you need to lose weight anyway. No, we're not paying. This was my attitude. I'm just, I'm confessing to you my sins. The cast, the coffee, I didn't go to Starbucks not because of mermaid demons. That was my real reason. But the other reason is because it was expensive. So when I met my wife and we went to Starbucks and she's from Vancouver and I was like, okay, I'll go to Starbucks. The only coffee I drink was a gas station. At the time they had 99 cents for a medium cup French cappuccino. There was no coffee in that. It was just like a full blown sugar. And just, and I didn't even taste any coffee. I just got a sugar high and that's it. 99 cents. I would drink that once maybe in four or five months and that's it. And I brought pennies all the time. Make sure not one penny more, not one penny less. My justification for that. Well, I don't have a lot of money. I work at the church. Church keeps me poor. God keeps me humble. And I'm just a good steward. You meet my wife. Now, if you would tell me, Vlad, you're greedy. Used to stingy, you're clinchy. I would say, no, I'm responsible. You're the one that's not responsible. At the age of 20, I had my first real estate property because I was frugal, because I was clinchy. My dad loaned me some money, paid him back, got a new car, had the real estate property, paid for the car, I get married to my wife. Now God has a sense of humor because he was always attached to ones who are clinchy to the one who is super loose. My wife is loose in this area. Meaning she absolutely is not, doesn't have a grip of greed over her life. She has no grip over her life at all. So we meet, we go to Starbucks, and me being the right gentleman took her out on the day, so I'm gonna pay for that. When I saw how much Starbucks charged, this is why I knew I had to boycott Starbucks. Mermaid, everything, whatever it is, is just we need to boycott Starbucks. We get married, I'm thinking, I'm gonna pray her out of this stuff. And she's gonna not drink coffee a lot, she's not gonna shop, she's not gonna go to her nails, she's not gonna spend hundreds of dollars to fix lashes, who does that? It's not even in the Bible. Definitely not gonna spend hundreds of dollars going and doing her hair. We have a brush at home, plus coloring your hair, it's not even biblical? Aren't you changing the DNA that God created your body to be with? So it had all the scriptural arguments for why certain things that women shouldn't be doing. But also, I wanted my wife to love me. It's hard to do. You can be giving without being loving, but you can't be loving without being giving. And I learned it the hard way. First few years of our marriage, outside of the demonic attacks that we had, and that was my wife's problem, the other part was this robe that was around my neck. And this robe was clenching us. I would say I wasn't greedy, oh, but I was bound. I was afraid. I lived in fear, and I was not generous. Until that particular time, I don't remember one time that I gave anything about my tithe. I was clinchy like this with my finances. And it drove us crazy. We would fight over $5 coffee cup. We would fight over dumb stuff. I go to the store in on coupons, the stuff, Google quickly for any sales, and my wife, she's free. She goes to the store. I look at the price, and then I decide if it's worth to even buy it, and then I decide we even need it. We already have two pairs of shoes. We don't need the third one. We only one pair at a time. My wife goes in, she looks at the thing, she buys it, puts it on the plastic, brings it home, and I said, hey, honey, how did you spend it? She's like, oh, I didn't check. Let me just go check. I was like, you came home. You don't even know. I would check our credit card statements five times a day. Refresh it all the time. Where's my, and that's how I actually knew where my wife was also. This was good way. It got bad to the point that we separated with our bank accounts. Not personally separated. So she had her own account. I had my own account, which is not good. She worked and I said, that's your money. That's my money. It almost created a turf. But a lot of that, a lot of that, I blame on Zara. I blame on all other stuff, but mainly I blame it on, there was stuff that was in my heart that needed to be changed. And when we started to sacrifice to God, one of the wishes that my wife had is that I become as a person less clingy, less bound, more free. And it happened. I think God answered that prayer in such a powerful way to the point that we started to pray, Lord, restrain us a little bit because we became radical. Both of us became radical. I mean, give one car, next week gave second car, end up without a car, both walking to work with zero money in our account. For real, we would house people, two, three people, started to really live in that path. And I went through change personally as a person where money, possessions, those things, they no longer had a hold on me. I'm not saying giving them was easy, but it became easier. It got so easy, I still have till this day, people come to my car, lay their hands on the hood and says, I claim it. Yeah, because people know that whatever I drive, somebody else will drive it next week and they come in and they already kind of claim it. I said, go to God, I'm not your God. Don't claim my car, go to the Lord. But the Lord really stretched that. I could testify. There could be a grip over someone's life when you're being tight. And when the Lord changes us, the Lord transforms us, we become generous. It doesn't mean reckless, it doesn't mean irresponsible. It doesn't mean that we're not stewards, but we're not fighting, clinchy. I remember in one conversation I had on this traffic light right here, off of Sylvester, and this is the conversation I had with God. And I said, Lord, how can I cut back on the spending of my wife? It was never my spending that I was cutting back on, even though I had spending, but I always saw my wife as the problem. And so how can I cut back on the spending of my wife? And I remember the Holy Spirit challenged me and he says, what if you ask me a different question? I said, well, what question? I mean, I can't ask you the question, why did I marry her? Because I love her, that's why I married her. So that's not the question. He says, ask me this question. Ask me for an idea to increase your income, to match the spending that you need. He says, why are you always asking and fighting over the extra $200, $300? Ask me for an idea, I can give you that idea. And from that point on, when I noticed that the spending has already been cut or trimmed to the best of our ability, not like trimmed where we no longer eat, but trimmed where we can still live at this season recognizing where we had in the way that God wants us to live, but it's not enough. Instead of going in and cutting into the bare bone and say, that's it kids, one meal a day, we're gonna go into fasting for 365 days. Instead of going that route, which is dangerous and not right, you can go this route, you can come to the Lord and say, Lord, could you give us an idea? Could you give us something that we can do that we can bring and increase the resources in our life? Be generous in how you view the world. Don't be stingy, have an abundance mindset. When you look at your life, don't be the person that constantly fuses, constantly fights, constantly worries, constantly is afraid. Be a person that has an abundance mindset. You're first to serve, you're first to be grateful, grateful, generous. These are the qualities that break the grip of fear, worry, and the greed in our life. Can somebody say amen? Hallelujah. And the last thing that I would like to share, and that is this, a donkey is what Jesus used to reach the multitudes. Donkey is what he used. If you read verse eight, you see the great multitudes spread their clothes. If you read verse nine, you will see multitudes went before him. If you read verse 10, you see that the whole city was moved. Money is the good means, but a bad master. Money is a means, but not the end. Money is like manure of very little use except to be spread, Francis Bacon said that. Money is a means to reach multitudes with the ministry or the mission of Jesus. I want you to notice that Jerusalem became this home for Christianity. It's where disciples stay, though that's not where they were born. Like we heard today, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but we see that they stay there after Jesus' death. It's where Jesus died. It's where the spirit was poured out. It was the home of the early church, but it became a hub for the church of Jesus Christ. Everybody remembers that place because out of that place, the sacrifice of Jesus was offered. Out of that place, the Holy Spirit descended. Hungry Jen is kind of the same. It's the home for thousands locally, but it's the hub for millions globally. Hungry Jen is the home for thousands locally. For example, where this year, we've seen over 600 people made professions of faith. This year, we've seen over 300 students gave their life to Jesus in a public school. Come on. But it's also a hub for the millions globally. Currently this year, we've seen about 100,000 new subscribers to YouTube and broke about 20 million views just this year at Hungry Jen YouTube. We've seen also this year where almost a million people visited our website. We've seen this year 2,572 people went through our deliverance online, not in person. And then 2,841 people went through our deliverance in person. It's a hub for the masses, for the multitudes to be reached by Jesus. So when you're giving your donkey for Jesus, it's to touch the masses, it's to touch the multitudes. This is not just for the brick and mortar for Hungry Jen to meet. It's not just the home, it's also a hub. Also we were a part, our church, we were a part of the Come Out in Jesus Name movie this year. 1,000 theaters, 200,000 people saw this throughout the United States and Canada. And 50-something thousand people streamed it after it came out. And if one movie was not enough, there was another one called Domino Revival that also brought an exposure to what God is doing at Hungry Jen all around movie theaters. Who would have thought? Popcorn buckets could be useful more than popcorn, but also vomit. And for deliverance, who would have thought that you can go to movies to get delivered from demons and get healed, usually go to get demons and get sick? God was reversing things this year. God opened the door for Hungry Jen this year to be on Sid Roth, to be on Daystar, to present the message of what God is doing on these channels. And God opened the doors for me to be able to be in Chicago, Carolina, Texas, few times in Texas, California, Philippines. In fact, when we were in Philippines and standing there in that large, big arena, about 10,000 youth that was there, I was having a picture of Arte Yoda Center because this is where we're gonna be at. This is where God's gonna bring thousands locally in tri-cities to touch the world for the glory of God. Come on, somebody. Somebody say thousands locally and millions globally. Somebody say this house is our home, but this house is the hub to reach the world. So I want you to know today, when you're laying a foundation for that new building, God has taken us to the next level. When you're laying the foundation, the flatwork is the foundation. What happens is that we are setting something in motion through what the Lord is doing. Our money is just a donkey. You can fry it, cook it, or you can let Jesus ride on it and touch the masses for the glory of God. Now I do wanna conclude this message by letting you know somebody gave a donkey. Disciples gave their clothes. The Bible says, that's okay, I'm gonna use it. A man or a woman gave their donkey. Those who were inside of Jesus' circle gave their coats, and the Bible says the crowd gave branches. Three types of giving. The outside givers are people who are not part of this church. Maybe you're visiting our church. You know, there were kings of Persia who donated to word God's building in the Old Testament. Romans and Syrian who helped to build a synagogue for the Jews not being a Jew. Wise men were not Jews from the East, yet they brought gifts to Jesus. Maybe you're visiting hungry Jen today and you're an outsider. You're looking and you're like, I love what God is doing at this house. I love what God is doing there, and God is gonna lead you to give a donkey. You can be a blessing to what God is doing at this house, but I wanna speak to people who God wants to take and also receive not only a donkey but garments. Maybe you're part of this church house today, and I'm gonna ask each person to just look at me for just a moment, get off of your phone for a second, unless you're using church app. Don't let this pass you by as well. Don't be the person when the Lord is moving in the church and we're praying and fasting, you're spectating. You're kind of a window watcher, just kind of watch, yeah, this is for them, this is for Vlad, yeah, he needs to give and those people need to give for me. I mean, what do I have? When Young It Show was building a building in Korea, around the same time, a big economic crisis happened. There was 1973, dollar was devalued. This caused the Korean one, which is tied to American dollar to suffer. They entered into a deep recession. The oil crisis hit us, that's Young It Show's writing this, worsening our fragile economy. Our people lost their jobs and their income went down. He said, having signed contracts with a construction company and experiencing unprecedented increase in building costs, I suffered greatly seeing the possibility of a financial collapse. I sat in the unfinished church building wishing to still bear rafters would just fall on me and kill me. During this crisis in my ministry, a group from our church went to the property and started by the building place to pray mainly for their suffering pastor, Young It Show. Although I saw the need for this in my church, my concern was added. My concern was added expenses that kept piling up on my desk. Seeing as the only miraculous intervention of God would deliver this from this problem, I joined the intercessors at the prayer mountain. One evening while we were there at the prayer meeting on the ground of unfinished church floor, several hundred people joined me and old woman walked slowly to my direction as she approached the platform. I noticed the tears were filling her eyes. She bowed and said, pastor, I wanna give you these items that you may sell them for a few pennies to help with our building fund. I looked down and in her hands were old rice bowl and a pair of chopsticks. I said to her sister, I can't take these necessities from you. But pastor, I'm an old woman. I have nothing of value to give to the Lord. Yet Jesus has graciously saved me. These items are the only things in this world I possess. She exclaimed, tears now flowing freely down her wrinkled cheeks. You must let me give these to Jesus. I can place rice on the old newspaper. I can use my hands to feed myself. I know that I'm gonna die soon. I don't want to meet Jesus without giving him something special on this earth. As she finished speaking, everyone began to weep openly. The Holy Spirit's presence filled the place and we all began to pray in the spirit. A businessman in the back of the group was deeply moved and said, pastor, show I will buy that bowl and the chopsticks for $1,000. With that, everyone started to pledge their possessions. My wife and I sold our small home and gave the money to the church. The spirit of generosity broke away and they saved our church from financial ruin. And they finished building that massive glorious building. And that is the pastor of the largest church in the world. This could be close. Something small. I'm not saying physical close. What I'm saying is disciples gave what they had. They had no donkey to give, but they said, we will give this and let the donkey walk on this. Other people said, we don't have clothes to give. We're just gonna cut branches and we're gonna prepare the way for the Lord. I want to encourage you today what the Lord gives to your heart to give that you give. If you came today with no intent and as the service was going on, prayerfully consider, we're your pastors. We're here to walk with you. We do not desire to lie, to manipulate or to co-horse people. Because if God leads you, he'll bless you. I can't bless you. Therefore, our desire is to follow Jesus and lead you by example and let God speak to each and every one of us. I want you to rise to your feet. In both sanctuaries, we're going to bring offering baskets to the front. As the worship team is going to sing, I'm gonna give you just a small instruction. Today's giving is going to go toward the flat work, specifically. You can give through QR code behind me and I wanna ask that what you give today that's above your tithe that you dedicate toward the flat work. If you choose to partner for 12 months, kind of like we did with my wife to give each month, that you give that toward the building fund. Some people, what they do is they take the tithe and it's like, oh, I'm just gonna give the tithe. That's different. So we wanna keep on bringing our tithes to keep the operational costs and the costs of the building, the loans that we have on that building and other stuff. So this is what we give above our tithe. We don't have to give, we get to give. Amen. I'm gonna pray to the Lord that the Lord will guide and lead each one of us. Aroma is gonna break out in this room as we give because generosity releases something in our spirit and in our lives. It did in our life. I pray and believe it will in your life as well. Father, I thank you that you gave your son on the cross. I thank you that you gave us your Holy Spirit. I thank you that you gave us eternal life. Today, Lord, we come to you as our Lord. We don't come to you just as our Savior, but as our Lord and Savior. We bow our knee to you, Jesus. We acknowledge everything we have is yours. Our business, our companies, our resources are yours. We love you, Jesus. And today, whether we give out of poverty or we give out of abundance, we give to you, we trust in you. We trust in provision. We trust in miracles. We believe that as you take us through the trials, the tribulations and the difficulties, that we will come on the other side. And this time next year, our story will be rewritten. Our story of our family will be different. Our story of our business will be different, Lord. We believe in you, Lord. We don't give so that we can manipulate, move your hand, God. We give because you've been gracious and good to us and faithful and we trust you. We respond and we say yes to you, Lord. When you guide and when you lead, we open ourselves to you, Lord. May you move powerful in our life, in Jesus' name. If you came to bring a giving today, you can do that. You can come and bring it to the front at the baskets in both sanctuaries. If those of you giving online, you can give it online through your phone. And I want you after that, take a moment and just begin to worship. Come on. Don't just kind of allow this moment to pass you by. Some of the most deepest, richest moments I've experienced with God was right after that sacrifice. Right after that, something would die. Something would be resurrected. Something would yield. Some of you maybe will need to get on your knees and just press into the Lord and say, Lord, I trust in you. I put my hands into your hands. I give you my life right now. I love you, Jesus.