It's All About The Heart

Welcome to The Blessed Life. Why did God invent giving? Because man didn't invent it, God did. Why?

Stay tuned. God did not create giving for His sake. He created giving for your sake.

Giving more than any other activity that a believer does works selfishness and greed out of our lives. All right, we're beginning a new series called The Blessed Life. And I want you to understand that this is my life message, because it's been in my heart for years. It's been something that I've been living and I've been preaching and teaching for years. The Blessed Life now, the book, millions of copies.

I've been told 30 something languages around the world. I've given all the royalties away to this book. And so it's been it's just God uses it all over the world. Here's the reason, because there's truth in this book that will change your life. I promise you. And it'll change your marriage and change your family and change your health and change your relationships and change your job. It'll change your life. It's a blessed life, not a blessed pocketbook or blessed wallet.

It's a blessed life. And so I want you to turn if you can really to two passages this time. Matthew 7 and Luke 6.

Here's the reason, because we're going to read a passage in Matthew 7 and we're going to flip to Luke 6 quickly so we can read the parallel passage. So look here at Matthew chapter 7 verses 1 and 2. It says, judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged.

And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Now I just want to ask you a simple question. Is the word money anywhere in those two verses? No. And the context is judging. Don't judge or you'll be judged. Okay.

Now I want us to commit to short-term memory, the first phrase and the last phrase. And I'd like for you to just say it after me. Judge not and you will not be judged.

And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Say that. Now flip over to Luke 6. Okay. Now let's say it one more time. Judge not and you will not be judged.

With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Okay. Look at the first sentence of verse 37.

Luke 6 37. Judge not and you will not be judged. No, you don't have to say it. I'm sorry. Thank you.

Thank you though. Okay. And then look at the last sentence of verse 38.

For with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Okay. I want you to understand this is the parallel passage. But I want to show you a verse in the middle that in my opinion, many times the context is not understood.

Okay. So Luke 6 37 and 38. Judge not and you shall not be judged. Condemn not and you shall not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Now look at verse 38. Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over will be put in your bosom.

For with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Now let me just make a statement and this might shock you. The word money does not appear in those verses. And yet most of the time when we hear Luke 6 38, we think about money.

As a matter of fact, when we think about the word give, we think money. I was being interviewed by a magazine a while back and they said, how often do you preach on giving? And I said, every week. They said, you preach on giving every week?

And I said, yes. I think what you meant to ask me was how often do I preach on giving money? And that's about every three years. Every three years, I do a series on stewardship and generosity. But you didn't ask me how often to preach on giving money. You asked me how often to preach on giving. I can't preach on grace and not talk about giving because God still love the world. He I can't preach on marriage and not preach on giving because a marriage will not work if you're not giving. And again, not finances, not giving. You understand what I'm saying? This applies to every area of our life.

That's what we have to understand. Giving is about the heart. Here's the title of the message. I should have given it to you earlier, but the title is it's all about the heart. It's all about the heart. Jesus said where your treasure is, there your heart will be. Some people say, well, you know, they're after my money.

Let me explain something to you. Yes, God is after you're not the church. God is after you. God is after your money because he's after your heart. Your heart follows your treasure. You put your treasure in a stock. You put some money in a stock.

You'll start going on the Internet, checking to see how that stocks doing. And you never checked it before. And you never cared about it before. But you care about it now because your treasures there.

Are you following me? You want your treasure in the kingdom? You put you want your heart in the kingdom.

You put your treasure in the king. In these verses about judgment, condemnation and forgiveness. Don't judge or you'll be judged.

Don't condemn or you'll be condemned. Don't and then he says forgive and you'll be forgiven. And then he says give. Okay, what's he saying though? Give judgment and judgment will be given back to you. And here's the part. I don't hear a lot of preaching on good measure.

Press down, shaking the other and running over. Will men give judgment back to you? For with the same measure you give judgment, you'll get judgment back. That's the context of these verses.

Judgment, condemnation and forgiveness. Now you can apply it to other areas because of the laws of sowing and reaping. If you give a seed, you don't just get back one seed.

You get back a tree or plant with many seeds. And that's the way God is. So whatever you give, you're going to get more back. So it'd be better to give good things than bad things because you're going to get more of it back.

Whatever it is. I was counseling with a lady one time and she was a single mother and she didn't have anywhere to leave her kids. And so she brought her kids and we just let them. I said please come anyway. And she just left them with my assistant. We left the door open there and I was talking to her and here's literally this what she said. She said my kids yell at me. She said they yell at me. I don't know why.

And then she did this. Y'all stop talking out there. I don't know why they yell at me. I said Luke 6 38 give yelling and yelling will be given back to you. Good measure Preston.

Okay all right. How are you going to develop a heart of generosity? Well way back Deuteronomy 15 God tells us what we need to do.

Four things we need to do because it's all about the heart. All right so Deuteronomy 15 look at verses seven and eight. If there is among you a poor man of your brethren within any of the gates in your land which the Lord your God is giving you. Notice God's giving you the land by the way. Notice the word giving.

Notice the word giving. You shall not harden your heart. It's about your heart. Nor shut your hand from your poor brother. But you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly.

That would be about your heart. Lend him sufficient for his need whatever he needs. Okay so there are four things that we need to do if we're going to become generous givers. Here's number one deal with a selfish heart.

Deal with a selfish heart. Look at verse nine. Deuteronomy 15 verse nine. Beware lest there be a wicked thought in your heart. Notice heart again saying the seventh year of the year releases at hand and your eye be evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing. And he cried to the Lord against you and it become sin among you. Notice selfishness is wickedness in God's eyes and it becomes sin. Now here's what he's saying. He's saying um now when your brother comes and asks to to borrow from you uh you you you open your hand and willingly lend to him.

You you you open your heart to him. But don't let there be this wicked or selfish thought in you that says man this is the the year of Jubilee. That means all debts will be cancelled. In other words if he came and said hey I need to borrow some money.

My crops were bad this year and and you thought you know what six more months is the year of Jubilee. If he can't pay me back in six months then then uh I have to cancel this debt. See God implemented an economic system where all debts were cancelled every seven years.

How many of you would like to re-implement that economic system? Okay so if you thought you know I'm not going to do this because he might not be able to pay me back. You know what God said? Don't do that.

Don't think that way. And here's what he called it. He calls selfishness wickedness. He's dealing. He's telling the people of Israel this I don't want you to do this. I want you to be generous like I'm generous.

Yeah let me ask you a question. I asked a Bible college class this one time. Um why did God create giving? You ever thought about that? Because God did. It's it's all through God's work. So why did God invent or create giving? Do you really think? Now what do you think about this?

Because it's funny to me. Do you really think that God needs your money to support his work? I mean you know uh it is the light bill you know in heaven uh you know too big for God.

They running out of gold for the streets. I mean cattle on a thousand hill. He's running out of cow. I mean you know what? God needs you.

No listen. God did not create giving for his sake. He created giving for your sake. Giving more than any other activity that a believer does works selfishness and greed out of our lives. This is why I don't like much of the preaching I hear on giving because it's give to get. Give and you'll get. Give and you'll get. And let me tell you what that does. It actually works selfishness and greed back in your life.

And what do you how do you think God feels when a preacher preaches. Give and you'll get. Give and you'll get.

And people say well I want to get. So I'm going to give. I wonder if God is thinking well this is great. All of my people are catching the revelation of getting. No we need to catch the revelation of giving. Now I do want to say it drives selfishness out of our lives. We have to deal with a selfish heart.

I do want to just say just for a moment ladies that there's an area of selfishness that men never grow out of. I just want you to know okay we do not want to share our food. And for some reason you want our food.

And I don't I don't understand it and we do not want to share our food. The very first time Pastor Tom and Jan Lane sitting on the front row Jan said I knew you were going to say this sitting right there. The very first time I went to dinner with them I we were going around the table ordering I ordered and Jan said oh good I've been wanting to try that.

I I never even met the woman and she wanted to eat off my plate. And I said well you better order some because that's the only way you're going to get in. Think about it come on what does every woman say when you're at the drive-thru? What does every woman say? You say well would you like something?

No I just have some if you're willing to do it. No you won't. I'll buy you two orders of fries but you're not getting any of my fries and the fries that fall in the bottom of the bag are mine too. So point number one is deal with a selfish heart. I don't know if that's directed just to the meaning of the word selfishness, but if you want to deal with selfishness. So point number one is deal with a selfish heart.

I don't know that's directed just to the men or to all of us all right. Here's number two deal with a grieving heart. Grieving heart. Now he's talking about money. He's talking about giving. Verse 10 you shall surely give to him give to him and your heart should not be grieved when you give to him because for this watch for this thing giving with the right heart the Lord your God will bless you in all your works that's amazing and in all to which you put your hand. If you learn to give from the heart with the right heart God will bless you in everything you do.

That's what he just said. See we need to understand this is a heart issue but selfishness attacks us before we give and grief attacks us after we give. You ever given a large amount or made a commitment and then something breaks and the enemy comes immediately say see you shouldn't have done that he comes in and then and grief because we gave.

Now you know I'm sitting here here I am preaching this message and I had this thought just go through my mind and after 30 years of preaching I ought to know to just let the thought go on by but here's the thought I had I just thought to myself I I'm going out to eat after the service and and I don't I don't have any cash I just had that thought just go through my mind you know I'm just wow look a hundred dollars okay I'm gonna start saying those thoughts more often. Okay no let's let's talk about that for a minute all right why when I said I don't have any cash why did David get up that fast and give it to me let me tell you why because I gave it to him before the service. It's my hundred dollars okay now okay now he's not grieving that he gave because why because it was mine. See see the reason that we grieve after we give is because we thought it was ours and the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. So when we give back to God what is already his then we don't grieve over it.

So deal with the grieving heart here's number three. Develop a generous heart. Develop a generous heart. Look at verse 14. You shall supply him liberally generously from your flock.

Watch from your threshing floor and from your winepress. Now watch this from what the Lord from what the Lord has blessed you with. You shall give to him. God wants us to be generous. We were born selfish. We are born again generous.

We just have to renew our minds. You think about it you really want to be generous. Now we read Luke 6 a moment ago if we were to go back and read the context again and back up a little more and we're not going to do that right now but you can do that. You go back to around verse 30 here's what it says give to everyone who asks of you and from him who takes your coat give him this too and it's just a whole context is lend to people even hoping not to receive anything in return.

What he's doing is dealing with the heart. It's the first thing we have to try to teach our children. I want you to think about that. What do you have to try to teach your children that is so hard to teach your children? Share. Share.

No we share. And what happens a little neighbor boy comes over to play and the neighbor boy picks up a toy. What does your boy do? Drops the toy he's playing with runs over and says I was playing with that. I was playing with that.

Right? And the neighbor boy said okay so he goes over and picks up something else that your boy runs over. I was playing with that too.

I was playing with that too. Do you realize what God is saying to all of his children? When are you going to grow up? When are you going to grow up?

When are you going to become like your father that's so loved that he gave? You know I heard a story of my son Josh and daughter-in-law Hannah told me a while back they have two children Grady who's seven and Willow who's four and they got in the car Hannah picked them up from church and Willow said Mommy did you know that there was a woman in the Bible that only had two pennies and she gave both of them to God? And Hannah said yeah that's that's a wonderful story. And Willow said I want to give something to God. So Hannah said well pray and ask the Lord what he wants you to give.

And so you could see her she closed her eyes Hannah was watching her in the mirror you know she closed her eyes she did like this and then she said what? And then she said little baby? No not little baby. Oh Betty baby.

Oh yeah you can have Betty baby I don't like her. Okay that's cute that's kids learning about giving but some point you got to grow up. Some point you say Lord what do you want me to give? And say that's great that's what I'll do that's what I'll do. So we want to develop a generous heart.

Here's number four. Develop a grateful heart. Develop a grateful heart. Back in Deuteronomy 15 look at verse 15. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. Then he says this. Therefore I command you this thing today.

You know what he's saying? I command you to be generous. I'm commanding you and you know on the authority that I'm commanding you is that everything you have came from me.

You need to remind yourself every now and then that you were slaves. You know every now and then I get a reminder. I leaned over to John and to David right before I came up and told them because it happened to me yesterday. I was hard going to sleep last night.

I knew the enemy was trying to attack me too because this series was beginning. But Debbie got an email from a friend of ours we went to high school with and she said you know love the first conference watched on the internet all this but hate to bring bad news but we've lost two more of our class members. She named two guys. Both guys I did drugs with. One of the guys I started on drugs. And she one of the guys died from a drug overdose.

Another guy committed suicide. I'm lying there last night thinking thank you God for redeeming my life out of that. For redeeming me from that type of a lifestyle.

These guys now 35 years since high school and still what a horrible life they must have had for 35 years. Thank you God. You know the Lord just reminds me it's not hard for me to give. You understand I didn't have anything. I was a slave.

You didn't have anything either. No matter what you had you didn't have anything if you didn't have Christ. A while back my pastor and his wife were had heard me share our testimony on giving and in this series I'll share our testimony and giving and by God's grace Debbie and I've been able to give like many cars to people we were able to give our first home away. We've just been able to give very extravagantly and we love to do that. And I shared that testimony in the church and we went to dinner this pastor's wife and the wife said to Debbie I have a question for you and both of us knew the question because we've heard it many times. She said how did you feel when your husband said he wanted to give away your house? And Debbie said I felt great.

I felt great. She said you have to remember that Robert and I were married before he got saved. And every time he's wanted to give something extravagantly I think thank you God. Thank you God for my new husband. And then the pastor asked her a question she'd never been asked. He said why do you think that Robert is so generous?

And I'm not trying to set myself up as an example. I know many many people are very generous. But he said why do you think that I mean he just has given so extravagantly retirement savings all these things over the years. Why do you think he's so generous? A tear came down her cheek and she said because he's never gotten over getting saved. He's never forgot where he came from. And he knows that everything we have came from the Lord.

I know you feel the same way that I do. We never get over getting saved and because of that you're a giver. God's given you a new heart and we want to give. Don't let the devil mess with your mind and tell you that you're not a giver. I want to encourage you when the Holy Spirit leads you to give to your church or to a missionary or to some person in need give as God has given to you.

Hey thanks so much for watching. I'll see you next time as I continue this series The Blessed Life. Your life will be transformed for the better and you will be positioned to make an even bigger impact for the kingdom of God. We would like for you to have a copy of these life-changing messages. Right now for your gift of any amount we'll send you a digital download of Pastor Robert's signature series The Blessed Life and we'll include his message The Seven Words of Christmas. We'll also include the Christmas story resource guide and if you give $85 or more we'll include our brand new Christmas devotional Emmanuel God with Us. Pastor Robert's book The Seven Words of Christmas and a set of three beautiful Christmas ornaments with the words peace hope and joy and for a gift of $155 or more we'll also include our new comfort and joy blanket and a beautiful leather-bound comparative parallel bible complete with scripture from four popular bible translations.

Visit us today at pastorrobert.com to request these resources and as always thank you for your continued support of Pastor Robert Morris Ministries. As I look back to April 2004 we were dead broke. We had $500 in our bank account, six to seven thousand dollars in bills. My focus was on stuff. Without me even knowing it my focus was on my 401k, the car that I drove, the income that I made per year.

I was raised in a very successful family and my focus was all of those things. I didn't even know that my focus was off. I found myself second row left side of the sanctuary listening to Robert Morris's Blessed Life series. I remember just this penetration by the Holy Spirit. Something that just moved me.

It felt like a supernatural heart transplant of some kind. At the end of the sermon I looked at my wife, reached into my wallet, pulled it out and said honey from this point forward we're going to be a tithing household period. The way we've been running our finances my way hasn't worked. When I looked at my wife and said that I noticed she was crying, I was crying. We prayed in our seat. We went and prayed with a couple elders up front.

We dropped 10 percent of what was currently in our bank account in the back in the offering. We were led to do that. At some point a man's going to make a decision and a heart change has to happen. I can think about what it's done for me but as I look at my now 11 year old and 14 year old and the conversations that I have with them that I now recognize fully that those are the true riches in life. That that's where the riches are. Not what you drive.

Not where you live. I think that's the freedom that the Blessed Life gave me. I'm so thankful that back in 2004 that the Lord swept up our family. Got me on a completely different target. 180 degrees from where I was focused.

And certainly I'd like to say thank you to Robert for writing the Blessed Life book. Because for the Rubin family in McKinney, Texas our lives are changed. Try it. Try it.

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