You Got Me Messed Up Ducks In A Row (Part 5)

0:00 Are you ready for the word? All right, let's go ahead. We are ending our series that we have been in called Ducks in a Row. How many people have been getting some of your ducks in a row? Come on, like right now, there's some things you've been challenged. I had somebody come up to me before service and said, I've been procrastinating on starting this business that God told me to start. and I've been got my ducks in a row. I put my two weeks in. I've already started in, in, in, in the business that I'm wanting to, and I already have seven clients that have signed up already. Listen, listen, this is the thing that I believe God is trying to do to let you know that this whole thing about generosity and stewardship and, and, and, and it's really, I need you to hear this. It's from a godly biblical perspective. Like the reason I'm talking about this is because most people don't have a biblical godly perspective on generosity and stewardship. You have a worldly or a bank taught or a family member taught or a we done been broke all of our life so we just going to be broke taught idea about generosity and stewardship. And I had the same thing.

1:14 I want you to realize that it doesn't matter where you come from. If you don't know something, you function in the ability of understanding that you have. And so this is not talking about good or bad. This is just talking about understanding. And when you get understanding, you get understanding from knowledge. But when knowledge becomes its full power, it turns into wisdom. And wisdom is applied knowledge. So that's the crazy thing. People be like, I already heard this. Why are you still doing a sermon on tithing? Are you doing it? because the problem is we know a lot of stuff, but the problem with many of us is we don't apply what we know. How many people know you need to get in shape? Uh-oh, let me just, let me, look, people ain't even raising their heads. She mad over there. It's like, I hate him. Like, this is all I'm telling you. We, everybody know we need to get in shape. Everybody know we need to eat better. The question is how many of us are applying the knowledge that we know. And so my burden as a pastor and a leader is not to teach you stuff that makes you be like, Pastor Mike was killing. That's dumb. I want to teach you stuff that makes you go back to God and say, how do I need to change? This cannot be transformation church. If you're pacified in your dysfunction.

2:39 they didn't want me to come back Charles they didn't want me to come back listen if we're pacifying yeah keep doing what you're doing and and keep being a liar sometimes and keep keep not honoring God which yeah you can talk to your wife any kind of way and yeah like if what why are we even here if this is a thing that you do to feel better about yourself, but never transformed. And so the only reason we've spent five weeks on this, and if you're already doing this, all this should be every week is like, thank you, Lord, for changing my life. Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to see what generosity can do in your life. Thank you, Lord. That's all this should be. But for everybody else, this should be not something that brings condemnation. This should be something that brings conviction. and the Holy Spirit, the Bible tells us the one who convicts.

3:36 Pastor Mike is not checking people's tithing records at the door. Nobody's coming in to judge anybody. I just would hate for there to be a truth that could change my life and nobody told me. And so today I just want to, I want to kind of just take it to the next level and finish this series in a way that I believe will give a clear picture to everybody what God wants for every single one of us. Everybody say, God wants this for me. Say it like you mean it. God wants this for me. He wants you to get the concept of giving so that there will be nothing he has to hold back from you. I'm going to say it again. He wants you to get the concept of giving so when he thinks about who am I about to bless with too much? he won't look past us because it would stop with us he wants you to be so blessed that you then become the blessing and i need some of you you some of us are so broke and and and some of us and not even in finances you got resources but it's broke here like your perspective is broke and and what what i'm trying to tell you i don't care if you're in high school middle school i I don't care if you're a senior citizen.

4:57 I'm telling you, this is what God wants you to get because giving is the backbone of the entire body. I can prove it to you with probably the most famous scripture in the Bible. John 316 for God so loved the world. He did what? He didn't pray. He gave. He didn't prophesy. He gave. He didn't sing a worship song. He did what? It's because when you get the the muscle of giving work in your life It becomes the thing that is automatic and it is all changing to your heart Everybody say my heart And this is what you got to get if you haven't got it giving is all about the heart I'm telling it to you over and over and over and we see it in matthew And when it talks to us about our treasure and our heart it says to us and we've said it almost in every message, but wherever your treasure is, your heart follows that thing. And I started to think about this in my own life because people ask me, there's no secrets of my testimony. I tell it all the time because I just believe in, if you put it all out there, you can overcome by the blood of the lamb and the words of your testimony. So everybody knows I was addicted to pornography. I was a manipulator. I was a liar, all of those different things. And somebody came up to me about two years ago and asked me, Pastor Mike, man, how did you overcome? How did you really, not just like, okay, I'm done with that, and then you go back to it, but how was it like, this is over? And I really began to think about it because I knew I was saved. I knew I had been given salvation. I knew that I was accepted into the family, but I didn't know how that thing that had been so planted in my heart for over a decade was going to be able to be removed from that. And then the Holy Spirit showed me, and I want to give you this roadmap. It's kind of called an equation of treasure. And I want, I want you to just see this real quick. God told me, he said, when you give

7:03 your treasure, when you give your treasure, it gives me access to your heart because your treasure and your heart are connected. Whatever your treasure is, not will be, not want it to be, where it is, he said, there your heart is also. So if you want your treasure or your heart in the kingdom of God, your treasure needs to be there. And I said, he said, whatever your treasure is, then you give me access to your heart. And then when I have access to your heart, then I can transform your habits. When I transform your habits, then you live a whole life. and I can honestly say when I made a decision to start tithing and giving offering consistently is when my heart gave God access to remove the seeds of lust perversion and all that crap out of my heart it didn't seem connected I thought I was going to say a prayer of purity Lord purity like that's what I thought was going to take it out but he said I don't have access to your heart You're saying, God, change me, but you won't even let me into your heart because your treasure is still in other things.

8:14 He said, but where your treasure is, I get access to your heart. And when I get access to your heart, then I can change everything in there. And when I can change everything in there, then your life becomes transformed. Some of y'all, that's what you came for today. You've been trying to figure out how to get rid of anger in your heart. You've been trying to figure out how to get rid of rage. I'm giving you the secret. when you put your treasure in a place where God has full access. I'm not talking to your salvation, but do you know that most believers live bound and saved?

8:50 Like your eternity is secure, but your life is hell. And what I what I come to challenge you with is maybe giving is a principle that could actually change your attitude. maybe giving is a principle that could actually take the seeds of abuse that were in there and now it's starting to come out with your children and it's not physical yet but it's verbal right now and all maybe that's the thing that could be able to access and i'm telling you as sure as i'm standing here that's when it changed for me when i made that decision that i will always honor god It was a byproduct that God began to change my heart. And I desire that for every single one of you. So today, I just need to let you know, I was in a time of preparing for this message. And I was looking at scriptures that I could talk about.

9:48 And I've studied this stuff. And probably about a year ago, I went to the probably most famous scripture about tithing and offering. and I read it and I read it through the lens that I'd always been reading it through. And then God told me the title of the message that I'm going to give to you today, but he said it to me. Okay. I read this scripture in Malachi three. We're going to go there in a second, but, but this is what he said. He said, you got me all messed up. excuse me, Lord. And this is how me and God talked to you. He said, no, no, no, no, no. Y'all got me all messed up. And I said, what do you mean? I got you all messed up. He said, there are too many people that have been using the scripture to get their agenda done. And they lost my heart. and I said, okay, well, let me go back and read this, and how many people have heard Malachi 3, maybe you don't know the whole thing, but have heard the scripture, can a man rob God, has anybody ever heard that scripture, can a man rob God, and usually the inference of this scripture is, basically, when you don't give your tithe and offering, you're robbing God of money, and so usually you hear that at offering time, it's like, will a man rob God in tithing offering, So everybody stand up and give $100 and put it in the package.

11:07 And God said, you got me all messed up. And this time it felt like he was offended. And I said, what do you mean? He said, you've lost my heart in why I want people to give. And when I saw this revelation, it changed everything in my life. And I can't wait because you're going to get this today. I got to give you the revelation first. And then we're going to go back and read the scripture and see if we do not have light bulbs go on everywhere. Okay. This is what God said to me. He said, Michael, he said, I'm not talking about robbing me of money. He said, because I've never needed your money. He said that I need your money to create the heaven and the earth. Did I need, did I need your money to create humans out of dirt?

11:56 Like this was never about me needing money. He said so what I need you to see right here when I said don't rob me He's it. This is what it says and write this down. Don't rob god of an opportunity to bless you Don't rob god of an opportunity to bless you see when I saw that It makes the whole verse make sense It's like god saying I want to bless you man and I want to open the windows of heaven and pour the blessing you don't have room enough to see. I really like to rebuke the devourer for your sake, but because you won't do it my way, you're robbing me of the opportunity to bless you. So I want us to go back and I want us to read this scripture, Malachi 3 again, but I'm going to add that on the back of it for understanding and let's see if we can't get a fresh revelation of this scripture. Okay. Malachi chapter 3, verse eight. It says, will a man rob God of an opportunity to bless him? Yet you have robbed me of many opportunities to bless you. But you say, in what way have we robbed you of an opportunity to bless us in tithes and offerings? What I'm trying to get you to understand is when we don't honor God by returning that 10% and when we don't obey God, whenever he says to give an offering or bless somebody in the parking lot or put a little extra in the plate or do when we do that it's like you're tying God's hands behind his back he's like no I got all of this that I'm ready to bless you with ah the first came and you played me he's not mad you're still his child you're not a bad person you're not going to hell because of it but he got robbed of the opportunity to bless you see this spins the whole thing where everybody's talking about god i don't need my money that's

14:01 old testament and yeah blessing is old testament too but it's new testament too when we're talking about the windows of heaven being poured out god's like yo don't tie my hands because I got something that you don't just want, but you need. But every time you don't do it my way, you rob me of the opportunity to bless you. I'm going to help you understand it because you need to hear me say this again. God don't need your money. Because a lot of people think, yeah, that's the way the church gets provided for. No, hold on, excuse me. Wait one second. if God wants to provide for something he'll make ways out of no ways ask Elijah who was in the desert with no food he sent ravens every day to be the first uber eats do you hear what I'm saying they dropped off food every day for oh y'all don't hear me ask the children of Israel two million of them they didn't have nothing to eat in the wilderness but every morning like dew, manna, food would fall from heaven. They was like, what is it? And he was like, what you about to eat? And he brought water from a rock. If God wants to provide for his work, he don't need our money. But what he created it for is for every person that believes in him, that at any moment they could have an opportunity for God to bless them abundantly.

15:40 And that spins this whole thing on his head where people are like, the church just want my money. No, God wants an opportunity to bless you. And this is why I look at the rest of this, this scripture right here. He said, when you do it my way, good things happen. but because y'all listening to all these people who think that I just want something from you and I don't want something for you and because there have been pastors and leaders who have manipulated for money, where they at though?

16:13 They don't never last. He said, because I'm over promotion and when I see people damaging my children, I dry up their resource. Oh, y'all, check the records. Check the records. You get somebody who does something wrong and doesn't repent. They won't be there for long And on behalf of every person who's been in church or been manipulated for money. I want to say I am sorry Because what they did Was try to rob you Of a truth that would leave your life blessed More than the money they took from you. They took the principle from you And if you could ever get this principle redeemed back to you It would change the way you see homeless people. It would change the way you see people that you think doing good And god tells you to go give them a hundred like they look better than me God said this is a not about what you think they need. This is about obedience This is about my word being fulfilled This is about what I want to do in your life And when we give we give god an opportunity to bless you but because you won't do it my way Your curse would have cursed verse nine for you've robbed me of the opportunity to bless you even this whole nation could we stop and talk about that that our nation is trillions of dollars in debt the government has been shut down two times in the past eight months like like our whole nation I really do believe has gone down this path because we've walked away from the ordinary things that God set up for everything to flourish Verse 10 it says bring all the tithe into the storehouse. That is the local church It says that there may be food in my house and try me Do y'all know the only reason we were able to give two hundred and fifty thousand dollars away in four weeks Was because there were people here that decided to do it god's way and when they did it god's way When people were in need, we didn't have to raise an offering when people were in need We didn't have to say would everybody please empty your savings account?

18:16 No, all we said is what's the need? What can we do? And we were able to do it because of the faith of a few. Now, let me tell you the sad truth about this. In all churches around the world, less than 7% of people who call themselves Christians tithe. I love you, Lord. You're amazing. Less out of a thousand people, less than a hundred.

18:49 So what do you think when God looks down? It's like, man, I'm always trying to teach my kids. I keep showing them favor when they don't deserve it, and I keep blessing them beyond measure, but they just act like they don't know me. They act like I didn't I'm not the one and now our whole nation sitting up here Not being blessed Look at it verse 10 It says So all i'm asking you to do Transformation church transformation nation try me Try me at it Another translation says let me prove it to you the MLT version, the Michael Living translation says, I dare you. Matter of fact, I double dog dare you. And y'all don't know what happens with the double dog, but you know what I'm saying? When they double dog dare you, you got to do it. He's saying, I double dog dare you to do it my way, says the Lord of hosts. See if I will not open up the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing you don't have room enough to receive. There will not be room enough to receive it.

19:58 Why would God give you so much that you wouldn't have room enough to receive it so you could give it away? Like that's what like God wants to bless you to the point where it's obnoxious to keep it. And then you get to understand what it means to be blessed to be a blessing.

20:20 Then he says, he says, and I'll rebuke the devourer for who's sake? It ain't for his sake. It ain't for the kingdom's sake. The streets of gold did not run out of gold. Like there's not. He said, I'm doing this for your sake. He says so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field. That's your business, your job, your investment. He said, I want everything you do to be bearing fruit. He says, verse 12, and all the nations. I love this. every nation they can't even speak your language but they gonna stand up and say he is blessed Ain't that what it say? And all the nations will stand up and call you what? Blessed.

21:14 For you will be a delightful land, says the Lord, because you gave God the opportunity to bless you. We could go home right there. All I'm telling you right now is when you don't honor God by returning the tithe and you don't give God an offering, He's not sitting up in heaven. Look how I can destroy them. Now it's time to curse them.

21:43 He's like, nah, y'all take it back. Take it back. They're not ready yet. I thought, I thought all the things that I showed him, all the crumbs that I left them this week. I thought, I thought that extra little boost that I gave him, they got a, they got a bonus. They didn't even know why they got it. Like that was me trying to give them the opportunity. to allow me to bless them. They got their tax return, but they gonna go buy a big screen. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. And I keep coming day after day Hoping that you would realize this is not about amounts It's about the heart So what I found out is that there's levels To this thing and what i'm encouraged To tell you today is that whatever level you're on I want you to believe this is all i'm asking you to do. We're not taking no offerings we're not doing nothing. I'm asking you to believe that in the next 12 months, some of you, it'll start today, that you'll be able to go to a whole nother level in the area of generosity. Everybody say another level. Say it like you want to go to another level. Say another level. So the first level of this thing with generosity is tithe. Just write that down. Like, like, like it's tithe.

23:01 So, so right here, if I was out, I'm saved on this level, but when I really give my life to God, I'm saying, you know what? I'm going to go up a level, and I believe there's many of you that are going to do this. You're going to say, you know what? Tomorrow the 15th. Dang, why did he teach this message on the 23rd, Lord? but I'm gonna make a decision that I'm gonna go to this level of tithing I'm gonna step up it's gonna be uncomfortable do you know what I could do with 10% do you know how this could but this is the thing you got to realize that 90% with God's blessing is better than 100% without it and this is where I need everybody to understand that's why Leviticus 27 30 says and all the tithe of the land whether the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree is the lord's it's holy to the lord it doesn't take faith to give the last 10 percent when everything's done when you done paid everything it don't take no faith to do that it's like oh but i got a little bit left over here you go god but we learned last week that god is only concerned about one place in his life and that's first. Okay. So, so it takes faith to give the first 10%. And when you do that, it is the greatest thing that you could do. Cause it tells God, Hey, you got to figure this out now.

24:28 You told me to do this. Prove it. Like this is the only time you can be ignorant with God. Like there's been months where I paid my time and I returned that thing. And I was like, all right. You can add right? This ain't gonna work. Oh come on let's be honest. This right here is not gonna work. So I'm gonna prove it. And I'm standing here. The scripture says it like this. I was young, but now I'm old and I have never seen the righteous for sale. I'm telling you, God had whether it was decrease in a bill payment or somebody just slid me a hundred or or I miscalculated and some. I'm telling you every month I've ever done this. I've never gone without. Let me clarify because some of y'all gonna trip i've never gone without what I needed Do you need 300 channels?

25:34 because this is going to take some of y'all changing your lifestyle to honor god do you need all the premium channels you need the nfl network and the nba like do you You need three cards?

25:54 You need to take a vacation? See, now I'm off on your toes right now. And it's okay. It's okay because we've all done it. But you need your hair done every other week? Uh-oh. You won't paint your own nails, but you need $50 cloths? Hey, listen, I got to say it anyway. Your eyebrows have to be... Starbucks every morning? Some of us are more faithful to Starbucks than prayer. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Let me just... I should go to the next point. They think you're speaking in tongues. I would like a shakalala ba-si-tayala ba.

26:48 Latte. Okay. This whole middle section mad at me. I'm sorry. All I'm saying, all I'm saying to us is we waste the tithe anyway. In a month, if we really calculate it, we wasted on food we didn't eat. We wasted on clothes we can't wear. Baby, you're a size 12. Why did you buy that four dress? I bought it in faith. Get your money blessed.

27:26 Like, come on, let's be honest. We wasted on birthday parties and cupcakes that we didn't need because we thought more people were going to come. But our child really is not that popular at the school. so we... I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I don't know. Maybe I'll be better next service, but I just thought I would be real this service. But come on, let's be honest. We waste the 10% anyway. What if we made a decision that, God, I'm going to honor you? And when you do that, guess what you do? You go up a level. You level up. And this is the beautiful thing you got to know if you ever get to the level of tithing The other two levels are going to come Because this is the level of the heart And some are like well, I can't give an offering yet. It don't matter If you just stay faithful on this level You will level up And this is the one thing that I realized About levels like there's levels to everything and again the reason i'm telling you this I'm hoping to expose you. When I was 19 years old, we went on a trip with one of our friends who went to college here, but she lived somewhere else with her parents.

28:51 And she was like, y'all should come to my house for spring break. And I was like, cool, let's go. And so a few of us went. And the funny thing was one of the people that were going on the trip with me was like, yo, they got a big old house. And I was like, yeah, right. And the reason I had that attitude, because my parents had five boys. Okay, and one of the things that I realized is that my parents would make up economically friendly games for us to play That would take up a lot of hours like the game they call that's my house And we love that game called that's my house Let me explain it to you What they would do is put us all in a conversion van and drive through wealthy neighborhoods with the windows down and they would tell us to yell That's my house I realize now as an adult, they were just trying to save money. But we used to do that.

29:45 So we had gone through very wealthy neighborhoods, huge gated neighborhoods. And we'd be yelling, that's my house, that's my house. So I thought I had seen the levels of homes. Like I thought there was levels. I thought I'd been exposed. And so we get down and we go, we drive to this house and we pull up to this compound. That's the only way I can describe it the driveway was four and a half miles long When we pulled up in front of the house was a limousine covered that means they don't drive it We pulled around to the side of the house there was a nine-car garage with chandeliers in the garage and wallpaper We looked over and there was a two-car garage off the two-story master bedroom suite the master bedroom suite was 10,000 square feet I Need everybody to just hear what I just said So I'm looking at this house, I said, what in the world?

30:50 I mean, physically, like I was just like, you know, when it just takes over you. And so I asked her, I said, where are we staying? She said, y'all staying out back. I said, uh-uh, slavery is over. We ain't staying in no outhouse now. I'm going home. She said, no, no, no, no, no. She said, no, when my parents built this house, they built four 1,800 square foot homes in the backyard for when guests came. It's right past the Olympic-sized pool. they had a ballroom that seats 500 people on the west wing of the house the west wing why are you telling us this pastor mike because i learned from this moment that if you see a new level it can shatter everything that was there previously what i'm praying for you today is that As you get the faith to step up to a new level, that it would shatter every inch of poverty, every inch of lack, every inch of greed, every inch of selfishness, that we would be a church that would be blessed to be a blessing.

32:12 Can I get somebody to give God a shout of praise in this place? Because you're going to another level. Okay. Okay. So once we go to the first level of tithing, then you go to the next level. Boop boop! Uh oh. this next level level two is giving offerings see if you start at this level and you start tithing then god will say hey put an extra ten dollars in there lord what is that about to do it's about to multiply see because god is not a god of addition he's the god of multiplication he don't want to just add to you he wants to multiply you i can paraphrase it for you best if you look in luke chapter 9 verse 10 through 17 but long story short um this was probably theologians believe the largest crowd jesus ever spoke to and um he it's it's chronicled in the bible as the miracle of 5 000 the fish and the loaves but what ended up happening at this moment is that Jesus is preaching. Start at 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock, 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock, 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock, and he's still preaching. Literally, the disciples was like, yo, when is bro about to stop preaching? I'll prove it to you right now. Look what it says in verse 12. It says, when the day begin to wear away. Let me tell you what that means in Hebrew.

33:43 When the day began to wear away, the 12 came to him and said, hey, Jesus, yo, we probably need to send the multitudes away. There's a lot of people so they can go into the town and get some Chick-fil-A and get some church's chicken because, you know, ain't no lodging and provision here.

34:03 There's no provision in this desert place. That's what a lot of us complain about. Not at this job. in this place i'll never be able to get my need met but look what jesus said he said because we're in a desert place is what the disciples said verse 13 um okay cool well then you give them something to eat

34:28 JC, you crazy, bro. I just said that we need to let them go because we're in a desert place. I don't have enough and we need to let them go find food. He said, no, no, no. In this desert place, I want to make you the blessing. Okay, let me go talk to the other disciples and see what we can get going.

34:57 Guys, we have a problem. What's going on, bro? What's going on? Jesus, this is so funny. He said... he said that we need to feed all these people what bro we bro we don't have anything and doesn't that sound like us god why would you ask me to give anymore i don't have nothing to give i'm in this desert job i'm in this desert season of my life i'm in this thing where we're barely be making it ourself. We're hungry. The real reason we want you to stop talking so we can go get something to eat, let alone feed somebody else. He said, okay. And I think like my holy imagination, I see this thing in movies. I feel like Peter was like, if y'all ain't going to eat, fine then. I'm going to eat. And he sees a little boy walking with the long John Silver snack pack, two fish and five hush puppies and he was like come here little boy on the set i bet you better not say nut disciple anyway i don't know but he steals his long john snack pack takes a bite of it and it was like man this is all we have and somebody said that's it go tell jesus we tried We tried to do it his way.

36:26 But this is all we have. That'll work. He goes and tells them, Jesus, we have no more. Look at it. In verse 13, we have no more than five, well, four and a half hush puppies, you know, Peter, and two fish. And then they get sarcastic. Unless you want us to go buy food for all these people.

36:53 For there were about 5,000 men there. Most theologians believe it was about 25,000 people because they only counted the men, but their wives were there too, plus about three to four children per capita, okay? So about 25,000 people are beginning to fit. And doesn't literally that make sense? If there's 25,000 people, two fish, four and a half hush puppies, that doesn't make sense. Tithing doesn't make sense. Like offering doesn't make sense. Okay? But watch what happens. Look what Jesus says. Obviously, we would think Jesus would say, OK, great. Send everybody home. Then he said to his disciples, great. Make them all sit down in groups of 50.

37:36 Basically, what he was saying is all you have is all you need. At the job you're at, you can tie them and give offering on the disability you're on. All you have is all you need and he made them sit the people down in groups of 50 So they did that and made them sit down. Let me give you just a point. That's not here. They had to organize What what they had even though they didn't have enough And so many of us when it comes to our finances, we don't even we've been in debt so long or been so frustrated with stuff We won't even organize what we have And god made them put these 25 000 people in groups of 50 Because he was about to do a miracle and i'm just encouraging you some of you need to find out the numbers You need you need to find out what it would take for you to actually pay your car off You need to figure out what you need to allow them student loans to go bye-bye I know you're not supposed to pay it off until the year 2058 I know that but I need you to find out and I need you to figure because if we could get organized With what we have I believe that god can do a miracle Do I have anybody in the place that has faith to believe it?

38:48 So I got to speed through this because I need you to hear this. And the reason I'm giving you so much passion with this is because when I figured it out, it changed me. Look what Jesus did. Then he took the five loaves and the two fish and he looked up to heaven. He blessed it. That's the time. He broke it. And then he gave it back to them for the disciples to set it before the people or to give it away. Now can you get a picture of this? Think about your paycheck That's the loaves and the fish You say here you go god i'm returning my 10% He breaks it And doesn't give you the whole thing back He gives you a portion of it back 90% but it's blessed And then he says now go give some of it away Offering no god You already took yours He said no no no no yeah you gave me back what what what I what was mine But now I need you to be my hands and feet And I need you to go bless somebody or something else I want you to see the key to this miracle that I missed for the entire time until a year ago I always thought the miracle of multiplication happened in jesus's hand like I thought it started multiplying in Jesus's hand because that's how everybody tells it but the miracle happened in the disciples hands as they gave it away now I want you to see this I bet Peter went up with the first if he isn't like take just a little take just a little.

40:39 I said, take just a little, you're a greedy butt. And he gets down to one last crumb. The thing that's not going to be enough. And he says, take, go ahead. And at the moment he gave it away, it grew in his hands.

41:00 How did I get that promotion? How did they send me money back? How did... Take some. Take some. And as the miracle kept happening, I think he got confident. Ha ha! Bread! Y'all want bread? Ha ha! Bread on tap.

41:31 Why? It was because the same God who made it go from a little bit and multiplied it is the same God that would continue to multiply it. But what would have happened? What would have happened if they would have ate the bread? what god blessed it and then they just ate it all it would have never multiplied why are you saying level up pastor mike because if you start tithing when you give offering you give everything you give a chance to multiply okay pastor mike so what's the last if it's tithes offering this last level that i'm praying that everybody gets to is sacrificial offerings. These are the offerings that hurt.

42:24 These are the offerings that you don't think, oh, that was nice. This is the offering that you might be like, oh, oh God, did I just do that? When you look at any significant great man or woman in the bible They got to level three When we think about david David gave the equivalent of twenty will twenty one billion dollars to the tabernacle. He would never see built His son solomon who was gonna see it built When it was customary to sacrifice one bull when you became king Solomon sacrificed 1,000.

43:07 Extravagant gift. There was a woman who anointed Jesus' feet with a year's worth of oil. It was an extravagant gift. Even some of the disciples were like, why don't we just take that and give it to the poor? And Jesus said, y'all better shut up because this is the only anointing I will have before I'm crucified.

43:28 There was another woman, the most sacrificial gift, the extravagance it's not about amounts it was two mites and all these people were coming into what they called the synagogue at the time and they were they were giving money and people were in there making it rain dropping the hundreds of thousands and coming in with their gucci coats and everything like this and this woman came in with two mites and jesus said hey hey disciples Come here. Did y'all see that? Did y'all see that? That woman right there just gave more than everybody here because she didn't give out of her abundance. She gave from her heart and gave out of her need. What this woman did right here will be spoken of forever. see I know it seems cute for us to just be a church that all together we gave $250,000 but what happens when God challenges you to do something last year God challenged me he told me straight up he said Michael you want to live the blessed life and you want your church to live the blessed life I said yes sir he said you're going to have to go first. I said, what that mean? He said, wait on me. I'll tell you that's scary.

44:51 Right before I got up to speak, he told me to give $1,200 to a lady that's in the audience right now after she had given $10 in offering for an entire year. And I saved every one of those envelopes and I gave it back to her. And I gave her a hundred dollars for every 10 she gave broke down, crying, snotting, weave about to fall off. It was great.

45:16 And I was like, God, I did it. He said, you did it once. You ready to do it again? I said, I don't know. Come on, can we be real? I do not know. He said, I want you to give your Land Rover away. My what? You mean the black on black Land Rover with the rims that I just finished paying off three months ago, Lord? He said, yeah. He said, you bought that car when you shouldn't have. And my grace allowed you to be able to pay for something that you got out of season. Oh, y'all want to talk real. And he said, and you've been flossing and fly. He said, that's my car. It's not yours. Or it can be yours. And you hold back what I'm about to do.

46:09 I thought, oh, well, when you put it like that, that's what I'm supposed to say. I called a young man that was serving here and riding the bus to work. Called him up. I was like, hey, bro, here's your new car. He started crying. I started crying. I wasn't happy for him. I was hurt. And what that did is another person in our church found out what I was doing because I was trying to keep it secret. And it was like me and my wife, we've been thinking we need to give our car away, too. And so then another young man in that same service got a car given to him by somebody. And it was like because generosity is contagious. Oh, you didn't know that? Like when we start doing stuff, it's contagious. and so the crazy thing is i gotta tell you part two of the story okay i'm gonna ask y'all please leave right after the service because i'm so over on time but i haven't preached until we just get out of here and come back next week okay i just gotta get this out okay so what ended up happening was for seven months i didn't have a vehicle somebody came up to me and was like pastor wife, what you about to get? I said, this Honda Odyssey that we already have is about to be our only vehicle. I didn't do this as a stunt. I did it because God was challenging me. Seven months, no vehicle. We got out of that Odyssey on date night like, what's up? Look at my wife. She bad, sliding doors. Like it was killing. August comes around and I was like, Lord, I need to kind of get an A and B car. Cause my kids going to school and I've been walking to church to the office and I had no problem with it, but now it's getting a little nippy. And I was like, Lord, can I, you know, just get a little A and B. So I put it out there. I was like, yo, I'm going to get this a little three, $4,000. This is pastor Michael Todd, the pastor of your church. This is thousands of people aligned. God don't care about none of that. He cares about your heart. So I'm walking

48:22 to work. I'm getting rides from people. And literally God said, he said, I'm about to bless you. I was like, okay, cool. Whatever you want to do. A guy heard about it and he was like, yo bro, I heard you looking for a car. I got a used car lot. Why don't you come down and I'll hook you up. I was like, for real? He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, could you come get me? no I can't make this stuff up come get me he pulled up to the house in this killing Mercedes like it was nasty a black Mercedes I was like oh I was like who's Mercedes that he's like oh man it's not mine I was like who let you drive their Mercedes he said it's yours and threw me the keys to this Mercedes

49:14 Like, I messed up. I was like, are you serious? He said, yeah. Took me down to the car dealership, wrote a big zero on it, put a slash in the middle. I said, here you go. Now, nobody can convince me, because that's never happened to me before. Nobody can convince me that those two things weren't directly connected. because I went from tithing to offering to extravagant offerings. And God said, you can never beat me giving. But do you know the crazy thing about the whole story? As soon as that man handed me the keys to the car, God said, and you'll give this one away too. And earlier this weekend, I did the same thing. Now listen, now listen. I just handed it to somebody.

50:07 because God says, I'll always give seed. to the soul. We back to the Honda Odyssey again. It's all good because I've seen God do it before and he's going to do it. Y'all better, somebody, somebody needs to help me right now. We serve a God of multiplication. We serve a God who wants us to be blessed so we can be a blessing. standing all over this place. The only reason I'm sharing this, I didn't bring the person up or make a spectacle out of it because that's supposed to be done in private. I'm just trying to tell you. I'm not talking to you about something. I'm trying to lead you into something.

51:02 This church will be blessed. Your life will be blessed. Your businesses will be blessed. Your families will have legacy. You will leave more than just good words for your children's children. But it starts with us realizing that there's levels to this. Three weeks ago, I preached, I told this story at another church in Tennessee. Pastor Chavner Smith, that's my brother. I just told the story, same passion, same conviction. The pastor came up at the end of the story, crying, just bawling. and you know you can tell when people don't normally cry because it's extra ugly he's extra ugly crying and he said he said i didn't know what you were going to preach on because usually guest speakers they can literally preach on whatever they want but god told me to preach on levels and going to another level financially he said god told me earlier this week I was supposed to give my truck away. It's the first time he ever told me I'm supposed to give my car away. And he said, and then you get up on my platform and talk about giving a car away.

52:29 And God literally said to me, are you going to ignore me? during the service he had some guys clean his truck out and a single mother in their church he brought her up at the end of service and handed her the keys to a cold-blooded black-on-black Tahoe and said God bless you that woman broke down crying he broke down crying the church erupted because generosity is contagious. What I'm hoping starts in our church is an eruption of generosity. What I'm hoping happens in your family is an eruption of generosity. But it gets better. I leave town. He texts me not even 24 hours later and said, OMG!

53:26 He said somebody pulled up to the church in a brand new white Tahoe, left the keys and said, thank you for leading us, Pastor. Now, hold on. Hold on. It gets better. Five people that week gave away cars from their church. because generosity is, can we give God some praise right now, y'all? I'm telling you, we're going up levels. We're going up levels. If you believe it, why don't you give God a shout of praise in this place? Hey listen! you're responsible for what you heard it may not be a car maybe a watch it may be it may be something you really like and God said is that yours or is it mine the earth is the Lord's and the fullness there when you catch this it changes everything I want to pray for you right now hands lifted all over this place. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to not rob you, God, by us honoring you with the tithe and giving offering. We trust you today that all condemnation is gone. But Father, there would be a conviction that we would believe you and trust you like never before. I speak to all doubt and every lie and every fear of trusting you.

55:05 And I declare by the power of God that this church would erupt in generosity. That, Father, we would honor you with the tithe, that we would give when you say, and, Father, when you call us to that special moment of extravagant offerings, that we would listen and obey. Have your way in Transformation Church, in Transformation Nation. This is your church, and we will live a blessed life. In Jesus' name, if you believe it, Give God the-