The Blessing of Generosity – Part 8 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Praise the Lord. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today. We’re gonna be sharing about the blessing of generosity today, and specifically about the grace of giving and how when we administrate the grace of giving well, it will lead to abundance in the church, praise God, and abundance in our life. So stay tuned. I believe you will be blessed. Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today. And we began sharing yesterday on the grace of giving. And in 2 Corinthians chapter eight and nine, Paul talks about grace as much as anywhere in the New Testament. The only place that even equals it is in Romans five and six, where he talks about receiving righteousness by grace. But in 2 Corinthians chapter eight, when we began yesterday, we talked about how Paul was encouraging the Corinthians to give. And he first of all, used this Macedonian churches as an example, and these churches were dealing with a lot of challenges, even financially, but they were willing to give, it says, not only what they had, but beyond themselves. And if you’re willing, I believe that God takes that if you get willing, God gives seed to sowers. So he uses them as an example. And then he encourages the Corinthians to give, and he says, this is part of practical Christianity. And in verse seven, he talks about how… 2 Corinthians eight verse seven, “As you abound in faith, utterance knowledge, all diligence, love, even abound in this Christ.” So faith, knowledge, utterance, love, diligence, these are just all practical Christianity. So giving is part of our practical Christianity. Finally, he uses Jesus as the highest example of giving. And in 2 Corinthians eight verse nine, he says, “The grace of Jesus, even though he was rich, yet for our sakes, he became poor, that we, through his poverty, might be made rich.” And he’s really using Jesus as this… Jesus gave everything and he was rich. He was what… Creator of the universe with the Father, with the Holy Spirit in the beginning, creating all things. And yet he became poor. And this word poor talks about he became poor as a beggar. So we’re actually… That’s talking about what he did on the cross, when Jesus died on the cross. And I said yesterday that there’s four things that Jesus took on the cross. And because he took them, we really don’t have to take them as believers. What are they, Aaron?

 

  Jesus took our sin upon the cross. He took our sickness, he took our anxiety, and even our poverty.

 

  Right, and if you… Yeah, if you’ll read in Isaiah 53 verse four and five, and if you’ll read in 1 Peter chapter two verse 24 and 25, and then right here in 2 Corinthians chapter eight verse nine, you find out that Jesus took sin. And for sin, he gave us righteousness. That Jesus took sickness, for sickness, he gave us health and healing. Jesus took our anxiety, and for anxiety, he gave us peace. And then Jesus took our poverty. And for our poverty, he gave us wealth. So we find that Jesus took all of these different things, praise God. And because he took them, we don’t have to take it. Praise God. And we can really begin to operate in the goodness of God and the blessing of God. And he replaced those, praise God. And so he provided for us spirit, soul, and body. Now, I use Jesus as the highest example. And then he strongly encourages these Corinthians to get involved in this grace of giving. So go ahead, Aaron, and read second Corinthians eight, verse 10 through verse 12.

 

  It says here, “And in this I give advice. It is to your advantage not only to be doing what you began and were desiring to do a year ago, but now you almost must complete the doing of it. As there was a readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion out of what you have, for if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has and not according to what he does not have.”

 

  Now, he says that giving is to our advantage. How is giving to our advantage? How has that worked in your life?

 

  It’s just a good thing to be a giver. And it God wants to bless you to be a blessing. So it’s always to your advantage to be a giver. You can’t outgive God.

 

  Amen. Now, I’ve heard you talk about how you’ve tithed over the years, and when you make money, you write it down on a paper and you’ve kept that. Now what’s happened to that over the years?

 

  It’s grown. So yeah, just my personal way of tithing is I just keep a strip of paper in the back of my wallet. Whenever I earn something, I just write down 10% of what that is. And on the first of every month, that’s the first thing I do. I add that up and then I write out a check usually to the church. And it’s exciting to do that. I actually get excited to see what came in, add it all up, and to write out a tithe to the church. And then oftentimes I’ll go beyond and give an offering. Or sometimes my wife will say, “Well, let’s double tide this month.” But it’s always exciting to be a part of that.

 

  And you’ve done this for years and many times now, Aaron, your giving exceeds what your total income used to be. It’s been supernatural and it’s worked for you. And there’s something I taught you and your brothers when you’re young, I taught you all about the basic principles of tithing. And you’re all tithers, you’re all givers, you’re all gainfully employed. You all work in different areas of life. You’re all part of local churches, different local churches. Y’all married and have good families, and you’re all supernaturally blessed ’cause it works for everybody, doesn’t it? So it works to our advantage when we get involved, and he’s talking really about the grace of giving. He’s not being legalistic. He says, “I’m not telling you this by commandment,” in verse eight, “But I’m really encouraging you, and if you’ve really received, you ought to be givers.”

 

  And I think also we talked about this a little bit, but giving, it not only impacts you financially, I believe that God will give back to you, but it also impacts you in other areas. I believe that if you tap into the blessing of generosity, that grace of giving, it’s gonna come back to you. Not just financially, but also just in your soul. You’ll have peace because you’re a giver. Even when you’re going through tough times, you’re gonna keep being a giver and God’s gonna keep giving you peace. But I believe that God can bless you relationally. And I’m very… Some of you might be… I didn’t get married until I was 31. I’ve been married four and a half years now. But I believe that part of God bringing me my wife that I have is because I was a giver. And if you’re single looking to get married, finding someone who is a generous person, that should be a very high priority. If you’re gonna marry someone who’s very stingy, not generous, not giving, that’s not just gonna be financial, they’re not gonna be giving in a lot of other areas as well. They’re not gonna give of themselves, give of their heart, give of their time. You should find someone who is a generous person, who’s a giver. And years ago, I heard Robert Morris, the pastor of Gateway Church talking about his daughter who’s now married. But he said, when you know someone wanted to marry her, he looked up that person’s giving ’cause he said if that person’s not a giver, that he can’t have the gift of my daughter. And I actually think that was a very practical, wise thing for a father to do.

 

  Amen.

 

  You should want to marry someone who’s a giver. And maybe you’re a father and mother watching this advising your children, they’re gonna make the decisions that they make. But marrying someone who’s a generous person, it’s very important.

 

  It works out to your good. If I had a daughter, I don’t have daughters, I have three sons. But I taught you all to be workers, to give be givers, to keep a good attitude, and that’s all worked out. You’re all blessed. You’re all part of a local church. You’re all generous people, and you’re blessed in your relationships. You’re blessed in your businesses. You’re blessed in your families. You’re blessed in all these areas. It’s worked out just like you say. But he says another thing in the end of verse 11, 2 Corinthians eight verse 11. And then again in verse 12, he says, “There needs to be a performance out of what you have.” And then he says, “If there’s first a willing mind, it’s accepted according to what a man has and not according to what he doesn’t have.” What’s he saying there?

 

  Well, some people, they say, “Well, I’ll if I just had the money to do so.” But that doesn’t really matter. There’s some people who are generous with other people’s money.

 

  Right.

 

  And there’s some politicians who wanna be generous with other people’s money. I remember years ago when… Not to get too political, but when Obama was running for president, they actually had all the… Him and Biden, all these people who are running for office, for president report their past 10 years of finances. And I remember Biden’s finances, when he was running for president the first time, they looked at his finances and he’d only give like one 10th of a percent of his income to charity. It was really pathetic actually ’cause this person’s saying, “I wanna change the world,” but-

 

  Yeah, I wanna give away your money.

 

  He wasn’t  Yeah, he wants to give away other people’s money, but that doesn’t count. It only counts if it’s from what you personally have.

 

  Yeah, and so… But he starts with what you have. God doesn’t care about what you don’t have, but if you’ll start with what you have, it says it’s accepted according to what a man has. God is not looking for what you don’t have, but he says not what he doesn’t have, And then he goes on and encourages them more. So go ahead and read verse 13 to verse 15.

 

  It says here, “For I do not mean the others should be eased and you burdened, but by an equality that now at this time, your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack. That there may be equality. As it is written, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.”

 

  Yeah. And so what he’s saying is everybody ought to get involved in the grace of giving. And there shouldn’t be some people that are giving and other people that are holding out and just letting everybody else carry the burden. I remember this. You remember when you started your watch business in Houston, there was this older German man. He’s a very conservative person, both financially and politically. But he said that everybody really ought to give something. We have about 49% of the people in this country or whatever don’t pay taxes. He said everybody ought to give something. He said even if it’s only $50, if they gave something, it would make a difference. And I think Paul’s kind saying the same thing in the church. It shouldn’t be that we just rely on other people. Say, “Well, somebody else is gonna take care of this.” He said we all have get involved in the grace of giving. Now what happens when you get involved in the grace of giving? What happens, Aaron?

 

  It’s awesome.

 

  You increase. So when you really get involved in this grace of giving, it’s like it causes you to have more. And you find out, hey, there’s a blessing. Exactly what the Bible says is true. When I honor God with my finances and with my substance, my barns are filled with plenty and my presses burst out with new wine. When I give to God, he opens up more doors of revenue, increase comes to me, different things. Just like Jesus said, “Give and it shall be given to you.” Good measure, press down, shaken together, and running over shall men give unto your bosom forth the same measure that you meet, it will be measured to you again. So in the same way we give it out, it’s gonna come back to us again. So we wanna get involved in this grace of giving. Now in the second half of this broadcast, we’re gonna come back and talk about how when we administrate as spiritual leaders, this grace of giving right and finances right, it will lead to abundance. It doesn’t lead to lack. So stay tuned, we’ll be back right after this break. Blessings. Friends, I’m so glad that you’ve been connected with us while we’re talking about the blessing of generosity. We have these teachings and those live in church services available to you free of charge on our website at careschristiancenter.com in downloadable audio and video. Also, check out my book, “Provision: Releasing Supernatural Increase in Your Life.”

 

  December, I found someone who said that Habitat for Humanity build home for the low income people. And so I went and applied and they said, “No, we’re not taking application.” Then January, God told me to call again the office. By May, I was approved.

 

  You got a five bedroom, two bath house within a year. It’s exactly what Jesus told you. And you said what you believed. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us. We’re talking about the grace of giving. And in 2 Corinthians eight and 2 Corinthians nine, Paul talks about this giving and receiving, this grace of giving. It’s the greatest disposition on giving and receiving in the entire New Testament. So I think we need to really consider what he’s saying. And we talked about how he talked about the Macedonian churches and they were examples of giving. And then he said, you guys need to get involved in this. This is practical Christianity. And then he says Jesus is the greatest giver. And then he begins to say, hey, it’s not about what you don’t have. Use what you have, and everybody ought to give something. But in the end of 2 Corinthians eight, he begins to talk about administrating this grace of giving. And he makes a statement in verse 20, and he says, “No man should blame us in this abundance which is administered by us.” I actually believe when we administrate finances right in the church, that it leads to an abundance. And he says, don’t blame me because God is the greatest giver and God has ultimately given us this abundance. Now, let’s go back and read in 2 Corinthians eight, Aaron, if you’ll read in verse 16, read on down through verse 19 or verse 20, 16 to verse 20.

 

  So it says here, “But thanks be to God who puts the same earnest care for you into the heart of Titus. For he not only accepted the exhortation, but being more diligent, he went to you of his own accord. And we have sent with him the brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches. And not only that, but who was also chosen by the churches to travel with us with this gift, which is administered by us to the glory of the Lord himself and to show your ready mind, avoiding this that anyone should blame us in this lavish gift which is administered by us.”

 

  So Paul is really talking about, first of all, he talks about, I set Titus to administrate this gift. But he says something here. He says, “Thanks be to God who put the same earnest care into the heart of Titus for you.” So Titus cared for them. And I think when you get to personally know a minister of the gospel, there can be a mutual care, right? This is one thing. We pastored in our first church and we helped pioneer a church with a group of believers in Kit Carson, Colorado, which is a very small area, right? It’s a town of 300 in a county of 2,200, and this county covers 2,400 square miles. So there’s less than one person a square mile. So we were in that. But there’s something about country people. They kind of… They get to know you and they’re gonna… They’re gonna make sure that you don’t starve. They’re gonna take care of you. That’s kind of how country people are. But not only was there this care for the people, for the minister, he says Titus cared for them. It was a mutual care. And Paul said, “I didn’t only send Titus, I sent other people with him.” So we have this mutual care in the body, and I believe, again, this is basic Christianity. We ought to have this care for ministers. We ought to have this care for the body, we ought to have this care for one another. And so he said we sent people whose praise is in the gospel throughout. So we sent people that have a good report. You don’t wanna have people who don’t have a good testimony, who don’t have a good report administrating your finances. I know I advise a number of pastors, a number of churches, but I’ll tell them, listen, if you’re getting a board member, make sure they have a good testimony and make sure they’re good in the area of finances. And the Bible actually talks about this. Look out seven men full of the Holy Ghost that are honest, that are of a good report. The way we deal with finances says a lot to the world about who we are. And if you have a bad testimony in the era of finances, it can really limit your ability to really minister well to people.

 

  I saw some advice that a retired pastor of a large church, what he was saying about how to choose leaders, people for key leadership roles in the church, maybe a leadership role as a volunteer or a leadership role amongst staff. And he said for a long time, he would never look at people’s finances when making a decision. But he kind of realized that some of the people in leadership that had the worst attitudes, that were very negative, very pessimistic, that they weren’t very generous.

 

  Right.

 

  And he said the people who were very positive very productive, just thankful, that they were generous people. They were givers. So he said his advice was if you’re a pastor and you’re making decisions like this, is to make sure that they are a generous person.

 

  Yeah, I found that out kind of the hard way, but I know two of my mentors talked about this same thing. Lester Sumrall talked about this, and he said, number one, he says, I wanna know before I hire somebody what they do first. He said, I wanna know what they do first thing every week. Do they attend the church, right? I wanna do what they do first thing every day. Are they in the word every day? Are they in prayer every day? Are they communicating with God? And are they in the word every day? But he says, I wanna know also what they do every time they get paid. And I think it’s just really… It really reveals some things. And I’ve seen some of this on the backside. We’ve had some really negative experiences. And you look back and you say, hey, they weren’t even given close to a 10th, and that’s really tragedy. I don’t think anybody should be working in the local church who doesn’t give a 10th of their income to the church, because I mean, that’s just basic Christianity. Again, of course, that’s my personal opinion, but I think I’m right. And I’ve seen the negative aspect when you see these people with really bad attitudes, how it really is limiting them. And I’ve noticed this not only actually after the people have been gone, but figured these things out. But two of my mentors talk about this. Andrew Wommack had to make a decision one time between two people, and they both look very, very well qualified on the outside. And it was years and years ago, and it was a key leadership position. So he said, well, go look up their giving. And one person gave almost nothing, and the other person was very generous. So he said, well, pick the generous person. I want the generous person. Well, that’s gonna work out in the church. If we’re in leadership, we shouldn’t be expecting other people to do something that we don’t do. And this is one thing I also believe, not only should I be a generous person as a pastor, and mom and I give about 30%. We’ve done that over the years. We’ve totaled it all up and it’s rough figures, but it’s around that. But I think churches should be generous and churches should be givers. And our church has given this church every year since we started it, we’ve given between 10% of the income and 27% of the income away to other churches, to other ministries, to missionaries. But it’s not all about us. We wanna be generous, we wanna share this with other people. So he says, “Hey, he was giving, you cared for him, he cared for you, but he says they were chosen to take care of this grace of finances.” I definitely don’t want people who are administrating my finances, if I know somebody’s not very good with their personal finances, I don’t want to give them a lot of responsibility. If they’re not a very good money manager, I don’t want to give them very much responsibility in the area of buying things, so on and so forth. Because if they’re not good with their own, they’re not gonna be good with the church money. But they learn how to be good with their own. And it’s not always about how much you have. It’s about how well you administrate what you have. And so he says, “This grace which is administered by us to the glory, it works out to the glory of God when we administrate finances in the proper way.” And then what’s he say in verse 20? Aaron, go ahead and read verse 20 again.

 

  It says here, “Avoiding this that anyone should blame us in this lavish gift which is administered by us.”

 

  So yeah, in the King James, it says abundance. So I believe when finances are administrated well, and we know Titus was a very, very diligent person, this led to an abundance. It led to where it looked like it might be lavish. There’s some people I know, some of my friends, and they might be considered lavish in areas, but never criticize a person’s harvest until you’ve seen their seed. Because when you get involved in this grace of giving, it just leads to tremendous, tremendous, good things happening in your life. And he goes on and says in verse 21, “Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of man.” Man, I wanna be honest. I don’t wanna lie to anybody, just tell the truth. That always works out better. And honesty, again, when they chose leadership in the church in Acts chapter six, they said, “Look out seven men full of the Holy Ghost, full of wisdom,” right? “And honest, that we may appoint over this business.” I don’t want anybody who’s not honest dealing with the finances in the church realm. And really, I don’t wanna do business with anybody. There’s two things that I had when I was in the cattle business. Number one, if somebody was not honest, I did not want to deal with them no matter what. And number two, if they were not capable, if they were unqualified and not capable, if they don’t have the capability, if they’re not honest, I don’t want to deal with them because it will… I mean, I put so much trust in people when I was doing millions of dollars of business, and I actually bought thousands ahead of cattle that I never saw physically, but I dealt with honest people. And I dealt with honest people, number one, and I dealt with people that were qualified, number two. Aaron, go ahead and read verse 22 to verse 24, and let’s finish up two Corinthians eight before we get off here.

 

  It says, “And we have sent with them our brother whom we have often proved diligent in many things, but now much more diligent because of the great confidence which we have in you. If anyone inquires about Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker concerning you. Or if our brethren are inquired about, they are messengers of the churches, the glory of Christ. Therefore show to them and before the churches, the proof of your love and of our boasting on your behalf.”

 

  And so Paul says you ought to get involved in this grace of giving. I’m strongly encouraging you. I’ve sent some brothers, they’re diligent, they’re honest, they’re good people. And you know what? They care for you. You care for them. I’m encouraging you. And when you get involved, and when you administrate these finances right, it leads to abundance. It leads to your wellbeing. And so get involved in the grace of giving. I want to encourage you today, get involved in the grace of giving, praise the Lord. How can people get involved there?

 

  Well, there’s different types of giving. And I’ve actually had people call into the church or email the church before, asking about different types of giving. And I don’t wanna get too hung up on all the different types. Basically all types of giving in the New Testament, it’s from your heart. It’s a seed that you sow. So it’s tithing is one form of giving, but it should be from the heart. It should be a seed that you’re sowing. It’s not a debt that you owe. Tithing is the first 10th. An offering is something that’s beyond that, something that, again, is from the heart. And there’s also alms giving, which is giving to the poor. And when you give to the poor, the Bible says that God will actually pay it back. And that there’s different ways and forms that God brings it back to you, but he always brings it back.

 

  And when you get involved in the grace of giving, it will come back to you. The Bible says this in Ecclesiastes 11:1, “Cast your bread on the waters and it will come back to you.” Friends, the greatest gift we could ever receive is Jesus. And if you’ve never received Jesus, I want to give you the opportunity to pray with me right now. Say, heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus is your son. He died for my sins, and you raised him from the dead and made him Lord. And I surrender to you in Jesus’ name. Amen. Hi, friends, I wanna invite you to go to our website, CharisChristianCenter.com, where you can receive hundreds of hours of teaching free of charge. Downloadable audio, downloadable video, we’ve made this available for you and we’d love to have you go there and check out what we have available. Thanks so much. God bless you.

 

  When we step out in faith and tap into giving and receiving, there are tremendous promises available to us. Discover scriptural principles that will help you understand the abundant blessing that is connected to generosity. We are blessed to be a blessing. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, “The Blessing of Generosity,” a $20 value free of charge. Download it today at CharisChristianCenter.com.

 

  Friends, I certainly hope that you’ve enjoyed the program today and it’s ministering to you to move into that which God has for you. And I want to say a great big thank you to all of our partners for helping us share this gospel across the United States and across the world. It’s because of our partners that we can take this message of grace and faith around the world. If you would like to join our partners and receive that blessing, give us a call today. Blessings.

 

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