We always continue worship with our giving, and I’ve got a devotional to share with you today. Last week I talked about God being a giver. He’s got a giving heart. Today I want to talk about what it means to have a generous heart. The verse from last week said, “God so loved the world that He gave.” From His heart of love, giving flows. It still does today, always. From God’s heart of love, His giving flows. And as believers, we can be like our Father God when we come with a loving, giving heart, honoring our Father God and modeling His heart of generosity.
Proverbs 11:25 in the Passion Translation says, “Those who live to bless others will have blessings heaped upon them, and the one who pours out his life to pour out blessings will be saturated with favor.” Think about that. God’s going to heap blessings upon you when you bless others. You’re going to be saturated with favor simply by blessing others. One of our members, Joey — I’m going to call you out — Joey has a heart for how much better can it be, Lord? He looks for opportunities every day to bless somebody. He works in a retail store, and people come in, and he’ll just smile and help them, share something with them and bless them. He tells us all the time little things that happen, people coming back and saying, thank you, that really made my day. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. Big things are great; I love being a part of those. But just doing something simple.
I remember years ago, I was going through a drive-through, about 8:30, nine o’clock at night. A young girl was taking my order, and God just spoke to me and said, “Tell her that I said to tell her that I love her.” She came back and said, “Thank you, here’s your change.” And I said, “Hey, before I leave, the Lord asked me to tell you something. He wants you to know that He loves you.” And immediately she just lost it. “You don’t know the day I’ve had.” Thank God I did that. That wasn’t me. That was God flowing through me. But it blessed her so much to know that God sees you, He’s got you, and He loves you. There are so many ways we can pour out. A generous person prospers because they give from a heart of love.
Second Corinthians 9:6 in the Passion Translation — Paul says, “Here’s my point. A stingy sower will reap a meager harvest, but the one who sows from a generous spirit will reap an abundant harvest.” Some translations say an everlasting, ongoing flow of blessing comes when we’re generous in our giving. Second Corinthians 9:7: “Let giving flow from your heart, not from a sense of religious duty. Let it spring up freely from the joy of giving, all because God loves hilarious generosity.” I love that phrase — God loves hilarious generosity. And 9:8: “Yes, God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace, so that you will have more than enough of everything, every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do.”
You ever just, in a moment, reach out and help somebody you don’t even know? We were going into a restaurant, and I opened the door for my wife, and Conia goes in, and I saw some ladies coming, so I just kept holding the door and said, “Welcome, ladies. Have a great meal today.” One of the ladies stopped me and said, “You’re a gentleman. Sadly, we don’t see this anymore. Thank you.” I was just holding the door. Little things can make a big impact. Second Corinthians 9:9: “Just as the Scriptures say about the one who trusts in Him, because he has sown extravagantly and given to the poor, His kindness and generous deeds will never be forgotten.” I’ve got a young man that worked for me about thirty-five, forty years ago. One day I went in and said, “Come on, I’m taking you to lunch today. Let’s go talk.” I just saw him at a conference a few weeks ago, and he looked at me and said, “Come on, I’m taking you to lunch today.” Forty years later. He shared how much that lunch meant to him, and how it encouraged him to pursue what was in his heart. I didn’t even know it was going that deep. You never know when some little act of kindness will land.
Conia and I were out walking in our neighborhood, and some of the kids had set a lemonade stand up at the end of the street. One of the boys was the marketing director, out there on the edge of the street yelling for cars to stop. They saw us coming: “You want some lemonade?” We had some cash on us, so we gave them five or six dollars and said, “We don’t want the lemonade, but we want to sow into what you’re doing.” And this girl — I knew immediately she’d grown up in church, because she went, “Oh, bless you. I pray God blesses you abundantly.” All those kids were like, wow, they had just gotten five bucks. Little things make a big difference.
Second Corinthians 9:10: “The generous God who supplies abundant seed to the farmer, which becomes bread for our meals, is even more extravagant toward you. First, He supplies every need, plus more, and then some. Then He multiplies the seed as you sow it so that the harvest of your generosity will grow.” And 9:11: “And you will be abundantly enriched in every way as you give generously on every occasion. For when we take your gifts to those in need, it causes many to give thanks to God.” I want to say that to all who are giving this morning: the seeds you sow into Emerge International touch people all around the world. Sometimes we get a text or an email from somebody in Pakistan. Who would have thought we’d be touching Pakistan? But because of technology and God’s creativity, we can today. When you give generously, we take those gifts and meet needs with them, and it causes many thanksgivings to come back to God our Father.
What Paul is doing here is describing what we call the rhythm of generosity. When you’re walking in the rhythm of generosity every day — Conia knows this — we get in the car, I thank God, and I say, “God, whoever You want us to connect with, whoever You want us to speak into, whoever You want us to bless today, give me eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand, so I can pour into somebody while we’re out.” We don’t want to get out of that rhythm of generosity. The enemy will come in and try to get you out of it: well, they didn’t give you enough, or they didn’t even say thank you. God knows. He’s got it all written down. He tells us in the book of Malachi, He has a journal of every good thing we’ve done. Even when we’re worshiping Him and blessing Him, He knows. He’s there journaling in heaven right now.
Let me close with this. Luke 6:38 in the Amplified Classic: “Give, and gifts will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will they pour into the pouch formed by the bosom of your robe and used as a bag.” That’s what they used to do — those long robes, they’d hold them up and fill it up. “For with the measure you deal out, with the measure you use when you confer benefits on others, it will be measured back to you.” So today we continue our rhythm of generosity and bring honor to our God. There are several ways you can give today. If you’re here live, there’s a QR code in the bulletin — if you don’t have one, let Pastor Conia know. You can give by check or cash; we’ve got a little basket up here you can sow into. If you’re online, go to EmergeInternationalChurch.org, and up in the right-hand corner there’s a Give button — somebody encouraged us to make it bigger, so we did. Thank you for partnering with us and with the Lord, seeing His kingdom come and His will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Let’s pray together. Father, we thank You for the opportunity to sow into Your kingdom today. We bring our seed that You’ve blessed us with, and we sow it into Your storehouse, Lord, that there may be bread and resources in Your storehouse. We thank You for opening the windows of heaven over everyone today who’s sowing and bringing them a blessing — there’s not room enough to receive it. It is an overflowing, more-than-enough blessing. Part of our expecting great things: I’m expecting a hundredfold return to come back to everyone who sows seed, Father. We thank You for it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
You know, the last few days have been amazing. Some significant things have happened this week. Kevin and Kathy’s thirtieth anniversary — that was so awesome yesterday. We told your daughters they did a really great job. It was such an inspiration of what God can do through people who surrender to Him and to one another. And last night, Kit and Heather — thank you again — Conia and I went to the Grand Ole Opry, and it was amazing. Every artist that was on honored Dolly Parton in some way. I’d never heard her before, but toward the end, her niece was there and sang a song she had written. Dolly did an album several years ago about her family, and she had told the family, “I’m going to do an album about family, so if you’ve got something you want to contribute…” Her niece said she wrote this song and then went, oh my goodness, is Dolly going to like it? It may not get cut at all. Dolly recorded it and had asked her to sing along with her. The young girl’s got a great voice. They also have a ministry; they’re part of a church, I think it’s called the House of Prayer.
But going back to what I was talking about — a generous heart — Dolly Parton was a lady who demonstrated that her whole life. We were at an event Friday, and the mayors of Williamson County were there speaking, and the mayor of Brentwood led with what a great blessing it was to have her as a citizen of Brentwood, and how she went far beyond Brentwood — she touched the world. And that’s what God wants for all of us, not just somebody high profile. You can do that. I studied this once for a talk: everybody on the planet touches ten thousand people in their lifetime. We don’t realize it. Somebody may see you be nice to somebody else and not say a word to you, but be blessed by it, and you touched them. I’ve heard near-death experiences of people who’ve gone to heaven and been shown a video of some little moment they thought was insignificant, and the Lord says, by doing what you did there, you changed that person’s perspective, and they became this because of that moment. One moment. One seed. We have no idea the power and influence God has given us that He wants to work through us every day. What we’re talking about with Dolly — her faith, her belief, the way she loved people — we can all do that. It doesn’t matter what’s going on out there in the world. We can still find somebody to go out and bless.
A few weeks ago, Brother Kevin — last Sunday in July — you were here and ministered, and you touched on a verse, Deuteronomy 31:8, and when he read it, it just went off in me. So every week since then — here we are at the end of August, five weeks — I’ve been tearing this verse apart. There’s a minister that Pastor Conia and I listen to, Brother Keith Moore. Brother Moore can take one verse and do thirty-six messages on it, and you get something out of every one. She told me this week, “You’re acting like Brother Moore — you’re just tearing this verse apart.” But there’s so much in it. The Holy Spirit will give you insight you haven’t had before.
We’ve been exploring the powerful presence of the Lord. I’m reminded of a verse in Matthew: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” That phrase, in their midst — I’ll give you the short version: it means He’s right there in the middle of us. He’s all around us. He’s in us, through us, and He saturates the space when we’re there in His name praying together. And when you join online — Kit and Heather — He’s there too, right in the middle of you. Right now I’m getting chills thinking about that. He’s right here in the middle of this. All of our livestream viewers — He’s right there with you right now. His presence is always with us. It is so powerful. It’s one of the greatest promises He’s given to us. Jesus not only saved us, He promised to be with us always. And do you know what “always” means, Pastor Conia? In Hebrew and Greek, it means always. To the end of time, and beyond.
So let me read this to you again. Deuteronomy 31:8 in the King James: “And the Lord” — Moses is going, He said it to me, He said it to Joshua, He said it to anybody — “And the Lord, He is the one who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” He was speaking this to Joshua and the children of Israel because he had told them, my time’s over, I’m going home, and you’re going to go into the promised land. What a promise. But that promise is true for us, because our promised land is just ahead of us. You never know. Dolly crossed over this week. She’s rejoicing.
We’ve looked at all the promises the Lord spoke through Moses. Now we’re going to explore the instructions. He makes some promises, and then He starts instructing: do not fear nor be dismayed. The Hebrew idea behind “do not fear” — and we’ll get to “nor be dismayed” next week. “Do not fear” or “do not be afraid” is in Scripture 365 times. You think, why would God say something 365 times? You’d get it after the first one, right? Afraid means this: impressed with fear. Have you ever been impressed with fear? It doesn’t mean you think highly of it — it means it’s pressing. It’s pressed upon you. Fear is trying to get in there. The enemy’s pressing on you. It means to be apprehensive, anxious — a lesser degree of fear, not the kind where you hear a big boom and you jump. No, we’re talking about a strategy of the enemy to rob you of what God has for you. God is telling Joshua and the children of Israel: don’t let fear rob you of what I have for you. That’s what happened forty years before with their ancestors. Fear presses you to believe that the worst is possible. We were having this conversation yesterday about somebody who, whatever’s going on in the world, they see the worst — doomsday and conspiracy theories; they know them all. Fear presses you to believe the worst is possible. If it works through your emotions, it tries to fix your mind on the negative and convince you mentally that the message of fear makes sense and is the reality.
This is exactly what happened when the twelve spies went to search out the promised land. Ten of the twelve came back with a negative report. The first thing they said to Moses: it’s indeed a bountiful country, a land flowing with milk and honey — here’s the kind of fruit it produces. The cluster of grapes was so big it took two of them to carry it. And then they said this: but, there it is — but the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Caleb goes, wait, be quiet — let’s go at once and take the land. God’s empowered us; we can conquer it. And the ten said, no. And they went on: the land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. Wait a minute. You just said it was a bountiful country flowing with milk and honey, and now you’re telling me it’s going to devour me? And the ten who didn’t agree with Joshua and Caleb went through the camp, through the millions of people, and planted that seed of fear and doubt that caused them to turn back. And they lost what God had prepared for them. The fear created a mindset fixed on the fact that they couldn’t succeed in the conquest — even though God said they would succeed and that He would go with them. They totally dismissed what God said and believed the message of fear. That’s been going on since the world began. That’s exactly what the enemy did with Eve. And then Eve went, Adam, look how good the fruit is. Adam knew better. Adam could have stepped in and stopped it, and he didn’t. So here in Deuteronomy 31, forty years later, God is telling them again: I will be with you. Don’t do what your forefathers did and miss out on all I have for you.
So number one: do not fear is a command. But when you look it up in the Hebrew, the word command can also be translated instruction. It’s not only a command, it’s instruction in the way to move forward. Don’t hesitate. Don’t move forward in fear. Don’t get anxious. I’m with you. Step forth boldly. The word instruction means direction. God is saying, this is the way. It’s order. I’ve got you. I’ve got this. Come forth in confidence. It’s a mandate: this is the way it’s done. It means informing the understanding in that which was before ignorant to you. You didn’t know. You didn’t know the way. It’s giving understanding in how to move forward successfully. God said, if we’re going to go take this land, don’t fear. Trust Me and come in confidence. He’s telling us the same thing every day about life. Don’t get up in fear. Don’t get up worried about things you can’t control. I’m in control. Trust Me. Walk with Me. Psalm 32:8 in the Amplified Classic: “I, the Lord, will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with My eye upon you.” It’s like the toddler learning to walk or open a door — we’re right there with them. Turn it, take another step, come this way. God says, I will instruct you, I will counsel you. He’s right there with us to give direction, to give understanding in how to move forward. I love this quote: do not allow what is ahead of you to determine what is within you. Because we get up every day facing unknowns. A friend of mine from Sweden, I worked with him back in the eighties, went, “My goodness, all you people in America do is think about food. When’s lunch?” I said, “What do you do in Sweden?” He goes, “We just eat and go live life.” But anyway — God is already ahead of us. God’s already in our tomorrow. He already knows what you’re going to face tomorrow. So trust Him. There is nothing ahead of you that is greater than the God who goes before you. Take that and meditate on it. I don’t care what’s coming today. God’s greater, and He’s already there.
Jesus said this to His disciples — John 14:27, from the New Living Translation: “I am leaving you with a gift — peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” There it is again. Jesus is echoing what the Lord said to Joshua and the children of Israel. Proverbs 3:5-6 in the Amplified Classic: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” He will instruct us — give us direction, order it, show us the way. He is ahead of you. He has prepared the best way for you. He is the master trailblazer. I used to love this growing up: my brothers and I would get out in the woods, and if there was no deer path to be found, we’d just make one. Or if the farmer said the corn crop’s not going to make, we’d get out in that cornfield and make paths all through there. My uncle used to say, my gosh, you guys are better than my combines.
Second: do not fear is grounded in God’s presence — and that’s what we’re focusing on. God is with us. He gives Joshua the reason not to fear: the Lord, He is the one who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you. Five things right there you can walk in. And there is a progression as we embrace this: God goes before. God is with. God will not leave. Therefore, do not be afraid. I don’t care what you’re dealing with in life. You may be going through something that looks awful — what are we going to do, what’s the outcome going to be? It’s all right. God knows. We just need to focus on Him, seek Him, worship Him, and listen for the word He has for us. Isaiah 41:10: “Fear thou not, for I am with you.” You can get up every morning and go, thank You, Lord, for being with me today. Thank You for surrounding me with Your favor as with a shield. And Matthew 28:20: “And be sure of this: I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.” The biblical antidote to fear isn’t courage in yourself. It is confidence in God’s presence. It’s confidence in the fact that I know He’s right here with us.
When I’m driving out through the countryside and the boy comes back in me and I’m having fun going around the curves, and Conia’s going, honey, what are you doing? I’m fine. I have to share this: we were out driving yesterday, and Conia and Heather are sitting in the back, and Kit and I are up front. I’m coming around a curve, and Conia goes, “What are you doing? You’re throwing me all over.” Kit turned around and goes, “Heather, are you in her seat now?” And I said, Kit and I are fine up here — we’re just enjoying being boys. But God is with us. God was with us right there.
Third: do not fear does not mean you will have no trouble. God wasn’t promising Joshua an easy journey. There would be battles, opposition, uncertainty, responsibility, and moments when Joshua would have every human reason to feel afraid. Instead, God was promising: you will never face those things alone. We have to remind ourselves when we’re going through a hard situation or the unexpected has happened. The enemy’s going to pop up and go, how are you going to do this? You’re all alone. Nobody cares. No — God is right there with me. And I’ve learned through the last years to speak to that: Devil, shut up. God said He would never leave me nor forsake me. He’s with me always. So, yeah, I may not have the answer right now, but my Father God has the answer, and He’s going to show me. Biblical faith doesn’t deny the reality of the problem. It declares that the presence of God is greater than the problem. Jesus, in John 16:33: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation.” Can you imagine what they felt like? What? “But be of good cheer” — be of good cheer for tribulation? And He ends: “I have overcome the world.” And so if you’re with Me, tribulation is going to come and go, but I’m going to get you through it. God is saying: do not allow the reality of what you see to become greater than the reality of who I am. He is always bigger and greater. That’s what happened with the generation that came out of Egypt — what they saw in front of them became bigger than their God and deliverer.
Fourth: fear is being told it does not have the final word. The enemy comes with, what if you fail? What if you lose? What if you can’t do this? What if the people there are stronger than you? What if you don’t know what comes next? God answers those questions, not by giving a detailed explanation of the future, but by giving a promise: His presence will always be there. His power will always be there. His protection will always be there. Deuteronomy 31:8 from the Amplified — the first time I’ve read it from the Amplified: “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will march with you.” They were going into battle after battle to conquer and receive the promised land, and God goes, I’m marching right along beside you. Something that came out of the Roman military: often when they went into battle, they would attach themselves to another soldier. One would be looking this way, and the other soldier would be looking behind. And they’d turn and look at each other and go, I’ve got your back. God’s got our back. He’s before us, but He’s got our back too.
I’ve shared this story before, but growing up, my brothers and I — Mom was concerned about how much we wrestled and tussled in the house, trying to prove who was strongest and breaking table legs. An old family friend said, “Oh, them boys are just showing how much they love each other.” Mom said, “They must really love each other.” But when we were out in the neighborhood, if I got in an argument with somebody, it never failed: I would hear a voice behind me. One of my brothers would come right up and go, I’ve got your back. My best friend and I were playing one day at the end of the driveway and got in an argument. He started telling me how he was going to rearrange my face and all this stuff. All of a sudden I heard behind me, “I’ve got your back.” And I looked, and my little three-and-a-half, four-year-old brother is standing there like that. My best friend looked at him and just started laughing, and then I started laughing, and he was still standing there like that. We forgot what we were arguing about and started playing again. To this day my youngest brother tells me, I saved your life. And I always say, I could have taken him with one hand behind my back. But God has our back. He will march with us. “He will not fail you, let you go, or forsake you. Let there be no cowardice or flinching, but fear not, neither become broken in spirit, distressed, dismayed, and unnerved with alarm.” In 1949, Ira F. Stanphill wrote the song “I Know Who Holds Tomorrow.” In the chorus he said: “Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand.” That says so much. You don’t need to know everything about tomorrow, because you know who will be with you there in tomorrow.
Fifth: fear must surrender to God’s presence. It can’t exist in God’s presence. The promise is the Lord goes before you, and that changes everything. Confidence for the children of Israel was not supposed to come from Joshua. It was supposed to come from God, who was going before Joshua. So again: do not let fear convince you that you are facing tomorrow by yourself. That’s a lie. God is before you. God is with you. God will not leave you. God will not forsake you. Therefore, do not fear. God’s presence is the foundation of God’s people, and we are all a part of God’s people. Courage, faith, and trust flow out of our relationship with Him. When we’re in His presence, His courage, His faith, and His trust are present right there with us. There’s nothing to fear. Fear is a lie of the enemy, a scenario he fabricates to rob you of what God has for you. Do not fear what is ahead, because God is already there.
I want to close with this — Proverbs 3:5-6: “Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind, and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.” Even where there’s never been a path before, He’ll go, come on, here’s the way. So I want to encourage you, and I want to challenge you: even if it’s only five minutes, take five, ten, fifteen minutes every morning. You don’t have to read your Bible — just sit with the Lord and go, Father, thank You that You are with me today. Is there anything You need to tell me? Get your pen and your journal and get ready to write what you hear the Lord say. The way we build relationship is coming and talking and spending time with one another. I know somebody that does it while they’re still laying in bed — that’s how they start: Father, I’m going to get out of this bed, but thank You for this day. Thank You for going with me today, and I open my heart to You. Spend time with God. God is with you, and He loves hanging out with you. Amen.
Father, we thank You for Your word to us today: to let go of fear, to let go of the lie of the enemy that tries to bring us down, to keep us from where You want to take us, from all that You have for us, from being all that You created us to be. So, Father, we surrender ourselves to You today, and we thank You, thank You, thank You for surrounding us with Your powerful presence and walking with us every day as we go through this life. Amen. Pastor Conia is coming with some closing thoughts and a prayer. God bless you.
There was a key in there that really stuck out to me that Pastor David said: they weren’t supposed to trust in Joshua. They were supposed to trust in God. And it wasn’t even the ten spies they were supposed to be trusting — they were supposed to be trusting in God. And then I thought, they had forty years in the wilderness to get to know who God was after that, because they didn’t trust Him. So finally, forty years later, they decided to go on in, only to discover with Rahab that those people were already way prepared for them. Those people were terrified for forty years, waiting for the people that were coming to overrun them. God’s already gone before us. He’s overrun our enemies before us. And we get to choose whether or not we go in based on what God said, or whether we hold back based on some bad information. So get to know Him. If you’re here, in your bulletin on the left-hand side, it’s got all the things that have led up to today. Go back and look at those and study them out. Because when you know who God is, then when He says, “Don’t fear,” you’re like, okay. But if you don’t know who God is and He says, “Don’t fear,” you’re like, I don’t know. Go find out who God is today. Father, thank You for this time together. Thank You, Lord, that You bring us together, and You have already prepared the way before us. We thank You for fellowship, for every person in every church everywhere today that is worshiping You. Thank You that our voice is among them. And Lord, remind us every moment of every day that You are with us. In Jesus’ name, amen. Be blessed this week.
