Prioritize Me and Multiply

Good morning, Summit Church, Genesis chapter 13. If you have your Bible this weekend, and I hope that you do, we are in week number three of a series through the life of Abraham called Multiply, in which we are taking some time together as a church to talk about where God is taking us as a church. As I've told you every week, God has blessed us immensely, Summit Church, and with that blessing, we know comes the responsibility to multiply it for the blessing of the world. So we are talking about steps that we need to take together as a church. In obedience to what God has done here, we are also talking about what your role is specifically, both you individually and your family is, and what God is doing in your lives as well as here at the church. This series is not just about what God wants to do through us in the community, it's also about what He wants to do in us as He deepens our trust in Him and our commitment to the mission of God. So we say we're wanting to multiply deep in our love for God and multiply wide in our effectiveness in our life. That's what God wants us to do in our mission. I told you last week that our hearts are like a car that is severely out of alignment, and we are always veering into the ditch of self-centeredness and self-sufficiency.

If you've ever had a car out of alignment, which I have, when you take your hands off the wheel, it just drifts to the right or to the left. Well, in our case, our hearts are always going to drift towards self-centeredness and towards self-sufficiency, so periodically, the Holy Spirit wants us to grab a hold of the wheel and ask some very fundamental questions about our lives to say, where are we trusting, where are we going, what's our priorities? And sometimes these are really dramatic moments, sometimes they're sermons, sometimes they're events in your life. I heard about a dad here at the Summit Church whose son was having some significant behavioral issues. The man tried everything he knew to get his son's attention.

He read every book he could get his hands on, but nothing he tried seemed to work. Well, this man was a pilot, and so he decided that he would take his son for an airplane ride. He would just get him up there high in the sky and try to give him a different perspective and then use that time to talk about his son's need to grow up and make better decisions. He discovered that these high altitude conversations put his son in a totally different frame of mind, and after they returned from the flight, the son was always more cooperative and more respectful. So whenever the boy's behavior began to deteriorate again, he would take him up on another plane ride, he'd look him right in the eye, and he would tell him what he expected of him. Well, one of this man's friends here was amazed at the effectiveness of this technique, so he asked if he might accompany them on one of these father-son airplane rides because he said, I want to see if this might work with my son. Well, the dad agreed, and during the flight, the second man took this picture, which might explain the effectiveness of the technique.

I'll put it here on the screen for you. So that's not really true. The man doesn't go to our church, but God does this from time to time in some way with us to help us get our bearings in life. And listen, I know, I know that it might be uncomfortable for you to be quite honest with you.

It is uncomfortable for me also, but that's good. That is good. You see, as I've explained, the dilemma of being a living sacrifice, which we are called to be, is that sacrifices are typically dead. When you have a living sacrifice, the living sacrifice wants to keep getting up and getting off the altar.

So we're going to talk about putting ourselves back on, and that's what we're taking time to do. Today, we're gonna talk about establishing our priorities. You're gonna see God put Abraham in Genesis 13 in a couple of situations. Where Abraham has to choose what is most important to him, what is the most foundational thing in his life. He's not going to have to choose between something good and something bad. He's going to have to choose which, out of a couple of good things, are the most good, or the goodest, or the best, I guess.

And which one should come first. These subtle choices that Abraham makes are going to have a dramatic impact on how Abraham's life turns out. What I've ever read says that establishing priorities is the most essential key to success in life or career. Knowing what, in a long list of good things, knowing what's gotta come first.

Knowing which things are mission critical, and which things may be nice but are not essential. In the kingdom of God, that is especially true. Genesis 13, let's begin here in verse 1. It was, his nephew went with him into the Negeb, which was a region in what became, later, Israel. Verse 2, now Abram was very rich in livestock, rich in silver, rich in gold.

And he journeyed as far as Bethel to the place where he'd made an altar at the very first. If you underline stuff in your Bible, I would encourage you to underline that. So take out a pen, do that.

If you don't have a pen, lipstick, mascara, prick your finger, dab it in blood, whatever it takes. That's a good phrase to remember. And there Abram, again, again, called on the name of the Lord. So Abraham says to Lot, you know, there doesn't need to be strife between you and me. Isn't this a big place? Isn't the whole land in front of us? I tell you what, man, if you take the left hand, then I'll go to the right. If you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.

It's pretty unheard of. The average observer in those days would have expected one of two reactions to this situation. The first one would be war. The first war, and Abraham is a lot stronger, a lot older. He's clearly going to be the one who wins that war. Or he could just ask Lot to go somewhere else, since Abraham is clearly the big man in this party. He's older. He's the uncle. Lot's the nephew. He's richer. He's the one who received the promise directly from God. I mean, if anything, Lot is just kind of a tag along, sharing in Abraham's successes. But Abraham does neither of those things.

Not only does he avoid conflict, he gives the lesser man the better choice. And it's just unheard of in those days. It's unheard of in our day. How many of you had an older brother growing up at all campuses raise your hand? It's like your older brother at dinner giving you the extra piece of chicken or the last brownie.

It's just unheard of. It's not going to happen. That's another key phrase.

You want to underline that. Verse 11. For all the land that you see now, I'm going to give to you and your offspring forever. I'll make your offspring like the dust of the earth. If somebody could count the specks of dust on the face of the earth, then yes, your offspring also could be counted. If there were ever a way to increase the number, the size of the promise there, God did it. It was just going to be the stars in the sky, but now it's the particles of dust on the earth. Arise, verse 17.

I will give to you. What you see here in this story is a contrast between two different sets of priorities, two different ways of looking at the world. Both Lot and Abram are ambitious men, and both men made smart decisions according to a particular system of values. But Abraham's choice is going to lead to increased prosperity, increased blessing, and multiplication, while Lot's choice is going to lead to destruction. You don't see it in this story, but Abraham is going to have to rescue Lot not once but twice from the Jordan Valley. The first time is going to be in the next chapter, chapter 14, when the kings of Sodom kidnap Lot and Abraham has to go rescue him.

The second time is going to be in chapter 18. This time, Abraham rescues Lot just minutes before God destroys Sodom and the entire Jordan Valley. And in the process, he destroys all of Lot's fortune and Lot's wife is going to turn around and look back because she so loves the Jordan Valley that she's going to get turned into a pillar of salt. So let's look at the value systems and let's look at the priorities of each man. Let's look at Lot first. Lot, number one. Lot prioritized the riches that he could see. Lot prioritized the riches that he could see. When Lot looked out at the options, Lot made his choice based on one factor and one factor alone.

Which direction, which choice can make me wealthier? Basically, his choice was a good choice. It was the right choice. But in the process, Lot shows total disregard, perhaps even disdain for spiritual things. We know that Lot knew God.

He was a worshiper of God, but there is no prayer nor any consultation with God in this choice. And Lot chooses to make his home next to Sodom, which was notorious for its wickedness. He puts his family in grave spiritual danger.

And you're going to see these choices play out tragically in his family. If you follow the trajectory of Lot, you'll see in chapter 13, he moves next to Sodom. But by chapter 14, he's no longer next to Sodom. Chapter 14 is going to say he's in Sodom. By chapter 19, not only is Lot in Sodom, he's one of the most respected men in Sodom. And eventually when God calls him to get out, like I mentioned, his wife is so in love with the material prosperity and the way of life and Sodom that she can't leave it. And so God turns her into a pillar of salt. Listen, God sometimes calls his people to live in Sodom. And I say that for the benefit of all you at the Chapel Hill campus.

Okay. So God sometimes calls us to do that. The point is not that we're supposed to live in a place that doesn't have sin in it, because that would be we can't really live anywhere. The problem is that Lot prioritized the material prosperity of Sodom and the Jordan Valley above God.

Did you hear that? It's not that he chose to live where sin was, it's that he prioritized the Jordan Valley and its riches above God. I know people who are in jobs that are terrible for their family and terrible for their spiritual life. Their jobs leave them no time for family, no time to serve the kingdom of God. But that job pays for a lifestyle they've convinced themselves that they need and that they've always wanted. So they stay in it regardless of what it does to their family or to their spiritual life. They're couples with kids where both parents work, not because they feel called to it, or not because they believe it is the wisest use of their gifts, or not because it's truly what they think is right for their family. They do so entirely because two incomes are required to pay for this lifestyle they've convinced themselves that they want. I know parents whose kids are not really involved at the church because they are so committed to dance, to baseball, or softball.

And listen, I get it, I get it. I have four kids and my oldest kid is getting ready to be a teenager. And as they get older, it is hard to figure out how to balance everything, all the demands that are put on them and all the opportunities that are out there. But let's face it, your kid is probably not going to play in the major leagues, but they are definitely going to go to heaven or hell. So why would you sacrifice spiritual things on the altar of something you know is passing, fleeting and improbable? When I watch, it seems that many of you parents care more about where your kids go to college than where they spend eternity.

And honestly, that's sad. What good is it if you and your children become leading men and women in Sodom, but they lose their soul? It's not that these other things are wrong. It's just that God should get the priority in all your decisions.

He ought to have the first and the weightiest place. And what I want to say around here is that what it means to follow Jesus in your career field is whatever you're good at, whatever you're good at. And God didn't make you all good at what I do.

It didn't make you all good at ministry per se. But whatever you're good at, you ought to do it well to the glory of God and do it somewhere strategic for the mission of God. Many factors go into where you choose to pursue your career. And they're all legitimate. Where your family, your extended family, where you want to live, where you can make the most money.

Those are all great, great factors. Why shouldn't the kingdom of God and the mission of God be the largest and the weightiest of the factors that go into where you choose to pursue your career? We always tell our graduates here, you got to get a job somewhere. So why not get a job in a place where God is doing something strategic? You see, Lot's primary concern, Lot's primary concern is in where he pursued his career was where he could make the most money. And it does not turn out well for Lot.

In fact, he loses everything. Whatever you're good at, do it well to the glory of God. Do it somewhere strategic for the mission of God. There are families in our church that have chosen to uproot from the neighborhoods they live in, comfortable neighborhoods that they've always preferred to live in, to move into under-resourced neighborhoods, neighborhoods with people who aren't like them, neighborhoods with people we're not reaching, neighborhoods that are filled with refugees so that they can live out the gospel there in those places. That's called our dwell initiative. Now, I'm not saying that's for everybody.

My family has not done that. But I'm saying that is an example of somebody who's saying, I'm going to put the kingdom of God first and the choices that I make. And if this is what God has called me to do, even if it's not where I'd normally prefer to live, it's a place where I know that I can serve the kingdom of God. So Lot prioritized the riches he could see, not the kingdom of God. Number two, Lot prioritized self-interest over generosity. Lot prioritizes self-interest over generosity. Lot chose what was best for him. Even though, in this case, he actually had to wrong, he had to wrong his uncle Abraham to do it. I mean, Abraham, as I explained, clearly should have been given the better choice. In other words, listen, Lot is miles away from a generous heart.

Lot is like the opposite of a generous heart. Lot thinks about the prosperity of one person in his choices, and that is Lot, him, himself, and his immediate family. By contrast, we have Abraham. Abraham, by contrast, number one, prioritizes the kingdom of God.

Abram's question was not, where's the best land? Abram's question is, God, where do you want me to go? That's why I pointed out to you in verses three and four that his first act upon coming into the new land was to build an altar and ask God what he wanted. In fact, the place where he went, the moment he got back into this land, the place where he went was Bethel, where he had previously heard from God, because he said, God, the first thing that I need in this new chapter of my life is I need to hear what you want from this chapter of my life.

In other words, Abraham thought about God first, and he thought about God most in every decision. You see that not only in how he makes his decisions, you see that in what he does with the blessings and the victories he gets from his decisions. In the next chapter, 14, which we're not going to take time to read this weekend, I mentioned that Lot is going to get captured by some of the kings of Sodom. And Abram is going to pull off a rescue operation against incredible odds, against armies that are much larger than the men that he has, and he pulls off a great victory. Well, in the process, he ends up with a lot of spoil from the kings who attacked him, which makes him even richer. Now, you would think Abram say, well, I mean, that's mine because, I mean, they attacked me and I was doing a rescue thing, and so I earned that, but the first thing, the very first thing Abram does after getting all this spoil is he tithes. Literally, it says he gives 10% to a mysterious man named Melchizedek who is presented in this chapter as a priest of God. He's a priest of God. Not only was God Abram's first thought in making the decision, God was the first place Abraham turned after the victory to say thank you because Abraham recognized that every blessing and all the prosperity came from God, and thus, God should get the first fruit of everything Abraham received.

He's going to get the first and the best. Now, you say, well, why would he give it to this guy named Melchizedek as a way of giving it to God? Throughout the Bible, whenever you give to God, there's always an institution or somebody or something that God says this is going to be my means of working on earth.

In this case, it's Melchizedek. In the Old Testament, it's going to become the Jewish priestly system. That was God's representative. In the New Testament, in the New Testament, you're going to see God take the local church and say this is going to be the hub of the activity that I do on earth.

My ministry, the way that I make disciples, the way that I spread the kingdom of God is going to be through the local church. So if you read through the pages of Acts, you'll find that God is working through one institution and that is the local church, which is why we say here you don't give to the church, you give through the church. You're giving through the church to the kingdom of God the way that Abraham gave to God his first and his best through Melchizedek. So Abraham prioritized the kingdom of God. Number two, Abraham prioritized generosity over self-interest. When you think about it, Abraham thought about himself third in this decision. God was first, Lot was second, Abraham was third. Because of that, guess who thought about Abraham's needs? God did. Because Abraham thought about God first, Lot second, Abraham third. Guess who took personal responsibility for Abraham?

God did. I love this verse. There's a verse that I have just written very close to my heart when we think about it, my wife and I quite often. Proverbs 19, 17, whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord. He will repay him for his deed. If you're going to loan somebody money, you're always curious as to whether or not they're going to have the capacity to pay you back. When you make a gift, when you give to somebody that is poor, God says, I actually become the guarantor of that loan.

I will make sure that you get paid back. When you give to the poor, I'm the one who takes responsibility for making sure that it comes back to you. Or here's another promise, Proverbs 11, 24, whoever brings blessing will be enriched and the one who waters will himself be watered. Abraham experienced that. Abraham put God first, Lot second.

And God as a result said, man, I'm going to multiply what I gave to you beyond your wildest imaginations. So Lot prioritized the riches he could see and he prioritized self-interest. Abraham prioritized the kingdom of God and he prioritized generosity.

Here's my question for you, Summit Church. Which man better epitomizes or exemplifies your approach to life? Which man, Lot or Abram, better exemplifies your approach to life?

Let me give you a few diagnostic questions that may help you answer that. The first one, letter A, what is first in your decisions? What comes first and what is the weightiest in your decisions? The closest thing I have to a life verse is Matthew 633. It is a verse that my father gave to me right before I left for college. And Matthew 633 says this, I'll put it here on the screen for you. You seek first, Jesus said, you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these other things are going to be added to you.

Now what are all these other things? Well, if you look at Matthew 6, my dad explained, he said, it's everything else you feel like you need in life. He said, son, you put God first in every decision you make and God will take care of providing you with a spouse.

You put God first and God will take care of making sure that your financial needs are met, make sure that you get the wisdom you need to pursue your career. You put God first in everything and he says that he will take responsibility for all the other needs in your life. You put God first, he'll throw everything else in that you need. What that means, if you're going to do that, is in every decision that you make, you go to Bethel. In every decision you make, you go to Bethel and say, God, what do you want from this?

What is the way that I prioritize the mission and the kingdom in this part of my life, in this decision? Here's the second diagnostic question, letter B, does God get the first and best of all that you receive? Does God get the first and the best of all you receive? Abraham is going to give God the first and the best of everything God gives to him as a way of saying it all comes from you.

Thank you. Let me tell you another Bible story really quickly that I've known for years, but I've learned to look at it in a new way because I've seen some stuff in it I've never seen before that has totally rocked me. It's the story of Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel are the two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel, Cain would eventually kill Abel.

The incident that led to that murder was this one. Cain and Abel both want to make an offering to God. Now listen very closely. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. So Abel makes an offering of his animals to God and Cain makes an offering of the harvest to God. And God rejects Cain's offering and accepts Abel's. That's going to make Cain so mad that he kills Abel. The question we ought to ask is, what was it about Cain's offering that God rejected? And if you go through the chapter, Genesis 4, and look very carefully, you're only going to find one distinction that is given about the two offerings. The distinction is it says this, Genesis 4, Abel gave to God the firstborn of his flock. What that means is that the very first lambs that were born to his flock Abel offered those up to God and said, God, these belong to you. Now if you had been watching, you might have said, Abel, how do you know they're going to have more sheep?

How do you know that's not the last of them? What if you give that to God and then there's nothing left to take care of you? Abel would have said, well, I'm going to leave God with that. I'm going to trust God.

He's going to get the first and the best and I'll trust him to give me what I need afterwards. Cain, by contrast, it says in Genesis 4 that he waited until the entire harvest was in. And when the entire harvest was in and he saw everything that he'd been given, then he made his offering to God. It never says that his offering was smaller. It never said that he just threw a little tip to God. All it says is that he gave to God last. Abel gave to God first. Cain is what we would call around here a December giver. He waits until the end of the year to see to make sure he's got everything that he's going to need and then he's like, God, I'm going to give to you out of the excess of what I can spare.

God is pleased with Abel's offering and he rejects Cain's. Here's my question for you. What is your approach? Which represents your approach to giving? Because, see, whatever you give your first and best to, whatever you give your first and best to reveals what is God in your life. Whatever you give your first and best to reveals what's God in your life.

A friend of mine says it this way. Everybody, everybody tithes to something. Everybody gives their first and their best to something. And what you give your first and your best to shows, it reveals what you treasure most in your life.

If you give the first and the best of your paycheck to improving your lifestyle, then that shows that what you deem most important in life to be comfort or status. Did you notice in verse 10 that Lot described the Jordan Valley like the Garden of the Lord? Remember I pointed that out to you? It's like the Garden of Eden. That's what he saw. There's a reason that the writer describes it.

There's a reason Lot thinks of it that way. You see, what he saw, listen to this, had a spiritual dimension to him. He thought, this is paradise. The riches of the Jordan Valley equal paradise. If I have that, then I'll be in paradise.

So naturally it came first in his decisions. Abraham, by contrast, thought of God's presence as paradise. Abraham said, God, wherever you are, that's paradise. And I'd rather be in the desert with you because that's paradise because to be in the riches without you would be hell. So I'm going to prioritize you above anything and I'm going to say I'll just go where you are because that's paradise to me. What you give your first and your best to shows what you think of as paradise, what you treasure most. What you give your first and best to shows what you trust most in your life. If the first thing you do with your paycheck is save from it, if you give your first and your best to savings, that's because money is what you trust.

You think that you are responsible to secure your future. Abel could give the first of the flock to God, even though he didn't know what was going to come afterwards, because he trusted God to provide more flock. Abraham could be generous with the land because he trusted God was going to provide him with the land that God wanted him to have. I heard about a pastor who, there was a couple in his church, who were having trouble with this concept of giving God the first and the best. And they're like, Pastor, we just don't see how we're going to, we feel like our budget is so tight we're not going to be able to make ends meet. And the pastor said this, he said, I'll tell you what, why don't you write a check out for what you think represents your first and your best to God, write that check out, give it to me. And I'm going to take it and I'm going to put it in my desk drawer. And I'm going to wait until the end of the month, I won't cash it until the very end of the month, and if at the end of the month you don't have enough money to pay your bills and meet your needs, I will take the check back out and I will give it to you. Does that sound reasonable?

And the couple kind of looked at each other and said, yeah, that sounds reasonable, we think we can do that. And then the pastor said, shame on you, because you trust me, your pastor, more than you trust God. Because that's what God said that he would do. You give your first and best to me and I'll make sure that you are taken care of. You see, I know that for many of us, the reason that you're not generous is not that you're stingy, you're fearful. That's what keeps you from doing it, you're fearful.

God is not your trust. Whatever you give your first and your best to reveals what is God in your life. Scripture says that money competes with God in one of two ways in our lives, depending on our personality.

Depending on our personality. For some of you, money is your significance. It's how you enjoy life. If you've got the right clothes, if you live in the right place, if you take the right vacations, drive the right cars, money is significance to you. So whenever you get an extra $1,000 in your paycheck, the first thing you're thinking of, what is this going to buy? Is this going to be a new flat screen TV?

Is it, you know, new drapes for the house? Can we take a vacation or whatever? That's what you think of money as. There's another group of you who are not like that. For you, money is security. So whenever you get an extra $1,000, you're like, well, that just goes into the rainy day fund so that we can be more secure for the future. So for some of you, money is significance. For some of you, money is security. In God's sense of humor, I've explained to you, those two kinds of people always get married.

You always marry somebody who's the opposite. And both of you think the other person has a problem with money. When you get the extra $1,000, you're like, what is wrong with you?

You tightwad, we need a TV. Why can't we spend it? And the other one is thinking, what is wrong with you, you irresponsible middle school student? We need to save that junk, right? And you both think the other one has a problem with money and the irony is you've got the same problem with money.

It's just coming at it from a different direction. For both of you, money plays the role that God is supposed to play in your life. God is supposed to be your primary source of significance. God should be your primary source of trust. And when God is your significance and when God is your security, then you can be freed up to be generous.

So let me say it again. Everybody tithes to something. Everybody tithes to something. Everybody gives their first and their best to something.

What is that for you? And by the way, don't get hung up on the 10%. That's what tithe means, 10%. But the way we're supposed to think of it is first and best.

First and best means something is first priority for us, the largest part of our budget. Let me tell you why I make that distinction. Because for many years, tithing for me was just a line item that came out of my budget. It was like the God tax. I paid God his tax and then I paid Uncle Sam his tax and then I had the rest and it was just for me. But doing that didn't really affect anything in my life. It was not really my first and my best because it did not affect any of my spending after that.

I know that God has convicted me. He wants me to give in a way that shows that he is my first and my best. What do you spend your first and your best on? Is it your mortgage?

Is it your savings? Is it your lifestyle? Because whatever you give your first and your best to is what you worship. It shows what is paradise. It shows what is God in your life. Here is the third question.

Let her see. Do you think of yourself as an owner or a steward of your blessings? Do you think of yourself as an owner or just as a steward of your blessings? God had told Abraham that he was going to bless him to be a blessing. So naturally when Abraham received any blessing the first question he asked is how is this going to bless somebody else? So even when it came time to choose where to live, what land to live in, he is going to give the first and the best choice of the land a lot. Lot, of course, was the opposite. Lot thought about himself first. He thought about himself most. Lot is the first American in the Bible. His philosophy of life is get all you can, can all you get, then sit on your can.

That's kind of what he's going to go through this. Again, which one better represents you? Would we describe you more as a channel of blessing or a reservoir of blessing? Because listen, according to scripture, God blessed us. He blessed you. He blessed me. Not just so we could enrich our lives. He blessed us so that through us he could bless others. So the verse we've gone in and out of now for several weeks, 2 Corinthians 9, 10. The apostle Paul says you will be enriched in every way.

That's an exciting promise. You'll be enriched in every way to be generous in every way. Why does God enrich us?

Not just to increase our standard of living. He enriches us to increase our standard of giving. What that means is that if you don't give generously, this is kind of a bold statement, but I think it's exactly what 2 Corinthians is saying. What it means is that if you don't give generously, you're actually stealing because you're embezzling God's money. Imagine how angry you would be if you made a large donation, several large donations to feed the children. And after making several large donations to feed the children, you found out that 90% of all the money that was donated to feed the children went to the CEO, not to actually feed the children.

You would be outraged and you would be right to be outraged because that guy or that woman was stealing what was not intended for them. According to 2 Corinthians, that's exactly what each of us is to God. Every individual in the church, everyone who is a Christian is kind of their own nonprofit ministry. And according to 2 Corinthians, God has made donations to you because he wants you to use them for his mission.

If we sit on them or use them for our own luxuries alone, then we are embezzling money. God blesses us to increase our capacity for generosity. That is entirely what 2 Corinthians is saying. Some at church, we also have to ask that corporately as a church body. Why has God blessed us as a church body?

Why did he do it? He did it for one reason, one reason, and that is to bless the triangle and the world with the gospel through us. What does lot style self-centered generosity look like for us? Self-centeredness, not self-centered generosity, but self-centeredness look for us.

It would be to not posture ourselves to grow. It would be to say what kind of a comfortable church should we have for ourselves and let's just figure out how to have the thing that we want as opposed to saying how can we bless more people in the triangle with the gospel? And what we have figured out, and we've figured this out now for a decade, is that our ability to reach people for the gospel is directly tied to our ability to seat people at peak hours when people typically would come visit a church and hear the gospel.

Peak hours are going to be your Sunday morning hours and at several of our campus we are past capacity. We can't fit any more people that are sitting on the lobbies. In fact, I've used this with some of our members. You've seen me do this before. But let me put up here on the screen here. I'm going to show you what our growth looks like over the last several years.

All right, so right here. You'll see on the left column, you'll see the years that we've been here. You'll see the attendance actually in numbers there and then you'll see the percentage. Now, it doesn't take an accountant to look at that percentage column and see one anomaly. Do you see it?

A little hint, it's in yellow and it has a negative sign. Now, that was 2005. A bunch of y'all, some of y'all were here in, about 1328 of y'all were here in 2005. What happened in 2005? Did my sermons get especially dull in 2005? Was that it? Maybe we lost our evangelistic spirit and we just quit caring. Was that it?

No? I don't think my sermons were any duller than usual. I don't think we lost our evangelistic spirit.

I remember 2005. Maybe we quit praying. That's what it was. We quit praying and God, no, we prayed as much as we ever have. Maybe the music got really bad. No, it wasn't either. One thing happened in 2005.

We were at our first facility, Homestead Heights Baptist Church, a facility up there on Holtz School Road and we had multiplied services there as much as we could and we'd never heard of multi-site. So we're just out of room to grow and we got to figure out what to do and so we didn't do anything for that year. We just kind of sat on it. I kept preaching the same. We kept doing the same stuff and we shrunk that year, not grew because we didn't have the capacity to seat people.

We couldn't bring guests here. It's like I'll often tell our staff, how many SUVs can you park in a three-car garage? This is not brain science. It's three. How many SUVs can you park in a three-car garage? Three. How many if you pray about it? Three. Because God doesn't fix a problem like that just by you praying about it.

He's going to have you pray about it and he's going to have you expand your career. You shouldn't have four SUVs. You shouldn't have four SUVs.

But if you did, you would need to expand your garage to be able to keep all of them, right? How many people can we reach with the gospel? It is directly tied to the ability to seat people at peak hours and so what we've done as a church is just said there's some things that we know that God has for us in order to enable us to be able to better reach the people that are all around us and to be able to continue to grow. How could we not respond to God's generosity that way? Y'all, the end of this whole story is that God multiplies Abraham beyond his wildest dreams. And Abraham's story is going to illustrate something that we call kingdom economics, something that so few people in the kingdom of God actually understand.

Here it is. Whatever you prioritize before God, you're going to lose. But what you give God the first and the best of, he multiplies for eternal significance. Leave it on the screen there for a minute because I want to, let me break that down for you. Whatever you prioritize before God, you lose.

You see that with a lot, don't you? He prioritized riches. He lost them all. C.S. Lewis had a great way of saying this.

Now it's C.S. Lewis so it'll hurt your mind a little bit so just hang with me. He says this. He says, in life, there are first things, God, and there are second things, everything else.

Here, listen. When you put first thing first, when you put God first, he throws in second things abundantly. But when you put second things first, you lose not only first things, your relationship with God, you also lose the second things.

Does that make you dizzy a little bit? Say it one more time. There are two things in life. First things, second things. First things, God.

Second things, everything else. When you put first things first, when you put God first, he throws in second things, everything else abundantly. But when you put second things first, you lose not only your relationship with God, the first thing, you also are going to lose the second thing.

And if you're like, it still makes my mind hurt, just think about Lot. Because what Lot does is he prioritizes the Jordan Valley and so it's there and it's all destroyed in front of him. George, you know the number one contributor to divorce is not infidelity. The number one contributor to divorce is money issues and couples have money issues because they prioritize money above God and above family. Ironically, when you put money first, you even lose your capacity to enjoy the blessings of money. This is maybe one of the greatest ironies. A little verse, Ecclesiastes 5.

It's one of my favorites in the book. Ecclesiastes 5, 10. He who loves money will never be satisfied with money. The one who loves money is never going to be satisfied with it. They say, as some older people have told me, that one of the afflictions they have dealt with in growing older is I know some who say they've lost their taste capacity. They can't taste the distinctions of food.

Maybe you know somebody like this. They say, I could buy the most expensive meal in the most expensive restaurant and I might as well be eating a loaf of Spam because it just tastes the same to me. What happens when you prioritize money and you treasure money is you lose your capacity to even be able to enjoy it. But when you put God first, He multiplies you like He did Abraham.

God increases what Abraham had and He blessed the world in the process. Here's how the writer of Proverbs will explain it. Proverbs 3, 9, and 10. Honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first.

You see this? Honor the Lord from the first, like Abel did, of all your produce. And then, and then, your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine or grape juice for you Baptists.

How do your vats overflow? Is it because you invest properly? Not according to that verse. Investing is great. Scripture encourages it.

Because you save and that's great too. Scripture encourages that. According to that verse, it's by giving God the first and the best of whatever He gives to you because whatever you give to God, He multiplies.

Y'all told me you see this all over the Bible. The little boy with the five loaves and the two fish. Gives it to Jesus and Jesus takes it and He feeds 5,000 hungry men with it. The part of the story we always overlook is that that little boy went home with 12 baskets full.

Right? Imagine that boy walking back into his house. He left that morning with a Jewish version of a Lunchable. He showed back home with the entire Golden Corral buffet and says, Mom, look what I got. Here's my five loaves and two fish.

Here's another story that people don't know nearly as well. Elijah the prophet. In the middle of a famine in Israel, goes and stays with this widow and her son, her grown son, and they have such a famine. They have just enough flour in the canister and just enough oil that they can make one cake and Elijah the prophet of God says to the woman, what are you gonna do with that oil and that flour? She says, her exact words, I'm going to make a cake.

My son and I are going to split it and then we're going to starve to death. And Elijah, the man of God that he is says, make that cake and give it to me. And you're reading the story and you're thinking, what a jerk.

How do you say to a widow, give me that cake? Elijah's not being a self-centered jerk. What Elijah's doing is he's putting her in a place where he says, God wants to know if you'll give him the first. And what happened is when she did that, God multiplied the flour so that for all the days of the famine, she never went to that canister when there wasn't something in there.

And she never went down and used up all the oil. It just kept multiplying there. What God takes, what he puts first and the best, he multiplies. My primary prayer for you in this part of your discipleship during this season is not, no, it's not that we get the resources that we need as a church to go forward. Oh, I trust God with that. God's going to take care of this church. He doesn't need you.

He doesn't need me. My primary concern is not that we got financial needs for what we're trying to do. My primary prayer for you, Summit Church, in this, is that you learn to give God the first and the best of your life and that you see yourselves as only stewards of what he has given to you and that you begin to offer up more and more of your life to be multiplied. That is my primary concern, and I will say this. I say it just about every time we talk about something like this, and I mean this with every fiber of my being. This is not rhetoric.

It's not spin. My primary concern is that you learn to give God the first and the best. If you feel, for whatever reason, you got trust issues, a bad history, and you feel like, oh, this is just manipulation because you're trying to get money, my request to you, my request is that you give your first and your best, but you give it somewhere else. I do not want to let some past bad experience get in the way of you giving your first and best to God and for you learning to think of yourself as a steward. So if there are problems and you feel like, man, I can't really trust you or this place yet and I feel like this is all manipulation, I understand.

Maybe you got a bad experience, and I hope that God will heal you of that over time. But let's just say that in this time, you give your first and your best, you give God the priority, and you choose to do it somewhere else. But I want you to move past the question.

This has been my prayer. I want you to move past the question, how much do I have to give? I want you to move to the question to what am I not giving and why am I not giving it? Because for years, the only question I ever asked when giving is, how much do I got to give?

God, how much until you'll finally leave me alone? So I started out with 10%. I'm like, okay, God, that's the tithe, boom, I got the tithe. And then I became a pastor and I'm like, well, I got to, you know, maybe, you know, so I doubled it to 20%. First years we're married, we're going to give 20%. And then every time we'd be like, okay, now we got the rest that's just for us.

A kingdom disciple is somebody who sees everything that God has given to him or her as a seed to be used for multiplication in the kingdom. So the better question is what am I not giving and why am I not giving it? And by the way, there's some perfectly good answers to that. Obviously, God gives you some things that he wants you to use to bless your family and take care of your family and he gives us richly all things to enjoy. So there are many things that you'll say that's why I'm not giving that. But when you start asking the question, what am I not giving and why, you might discover that there are many things you prioritize over God's mission and there are many things that you trust and depend on more than you trust and depend on God. You see, that's what this card that we have given and talked about every week, that's what it's all about. Is we'll want that for you to represent your first and your best and to represent that you recognize that everything that you've been given is something that God made you a steward of. It's something on loan from him to be used in the blessing of the world.

Two last things and I gotta land this plain. The opposite of kingdom economics is where many of us are and that is in debt. We're unable to give.

Right, you can't move. Being in debt is not a sin but a lot of times the reasons that we got into debt were sin. We weren't patient, we were discontent, we didn't trust God. We wanna help you with that. We offer this thing here called financial peace. It's a class.

We offer financial coaches that will help you set up something that will do more to help your life in this area than anything else. It's a word that when I use it, some of you are gonna break out in hives. I'm gonna use it anyway. Budget. I know but budget is not just for the type A hyper plan people. A budget is something that you use to begin to think about what you're doing in life and where you're going and what it looks like to honor God and to be responsible. You don't need a sermon. You need the financial piece or the class or you need the coach and we wanna offer that. You can figure it out at your campus.

I think it's in your monthly guide. Lastly, last thing I'll say is you cannot, you cannot participate in kingdom economics until you know the king. You see, there was a reason that Abraham could do all this and it was because he trusted God. He knew that God had made him a promise and that God was gonna keep that promise.

He knew that because God had showed him, remember last week, that God was gonna be responsible for his side of it and God was gonna be responsible for Abraham's side of it. You and I know that God has made us a promise. Jesus Christ died to remove all the condemnation of our sin and everything that would separate us from God and Jesus said that I will never leave you or forsake you.

In fact, I am so committed to this that even when you fail, I'll pick up where you fail and I'll finish what I started. We know that he who began a good work in us will complete it and we know that God who did not spare his own son for us will also freely give us all things and take care of every need that we have and because we trust the king, we can offer up everything in our lives to him because we trust King Jesus. Have you trusted Jesus with your whole life? If so, are you ready to take the next step and trust him with your finances? You can obey like Abraham when you know you're loved and held secure like Abraham and Jesus invites you to that kind of relationship if you will receive it.