Embracing Generosity: The Heart of Giving

This is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful to be back in the land of the living.

So, let me give you a little update on my health. I was going to take a moment to help you understand because I know a lot of people are praying for my back since I had back surgery.

But it's really about my back. My back was taken care of the morning they did the surgery. What happened was—and this doesn't sound like the devil got involved—you know, I don’t know how else you would see it, but on June 4th, we were leaving to go on vacation. We were going with some friends of ours, like Craig Groeschel, that you just saw, pastor of the largest church in America, his wife Amy, and Bobby Gruenwald, who invented the YouVersion Bible app, and his wife, and a Christian film producer that you've seen his films, Phil, and his wife.

Then, actually, a Lord and a lady from England—Lord Bob is what he goes by—but they're the sweetest, kindest people you've ever met in your life, and they are very, very wealthy. They have this yacht, you know, and we've never done anything like that.

So, on June 3rd, I believe we were leaving on June 4th to fly to the Virgin Islands. On June 3rd, I was just simply turning to get out of the car, and my back, I felt, went out. What happened was the disc herniated between L3 and L4, which is, according to the surgeon—this surgeon goes to Gateway, he's been here 10 years, but he's the best. He's the best spine surgeon according to D Magazine, the best according to Fort Worth Magazine, the best according to Texas Monthly, and the best according to the Southwest Journal of the United States of America.

When they—anyway, he said to Debbie and me after the surgery, he said, "This is the worst disc you can herniate. You herniated it in the worst way." That was out the side, not out the back. Debbie said to him, "Robert never does anything halfway."

So anyway, when it herniated, this is your sciatic nerve; it pushed it like this. For two weeks, we went on vacation for a week with our friends and then for a week with our family in Florida. I was just thinking I had thrown out my back, but as it got worse and worse about halfway through the Florida vacation with our kids and grandkids, Josh was needing to fly back early for some work things. He's being a consultant and a coach now and doing just fantastic. He's got his coaching certificate and is helping pastors all over the world. He's just so gifted to do that.

But anyway, he had to fly back early, so Debbie and everyone were flying back Saturday. This was Wednesday night, and she said, "You've got to go back and get an MRI." So I flew back, got an MRI, and they read it Friday. The doctor called and said, "You need to come in so I can review the MRI with you." That's never good, you know? It's not over the phone; it's good news when you have to go in. It's bad news, you know?

So he told me, "You've herniated this disc. You're going to have to have immediate surgery." He recommended me to this surgeon who was a friend of his. When the surgeon saw my name and realized it was Pastor Robert, his pastor, he got me on Monday morning. Debbie was back then; she got back Saturday. Then on Tuesday morning, he did me as his first operation at 7 A.M.

Well, when I woke up, I knew my back was taken care of, but what happened was because that sciatic nerve was bruised, and this fragment was, by the way, 7.62 millimeters high. He had to drill a hole in the vertebrae to get to it, and the largest hole you can drill is eight millimeters, so he just barely got that fragment out. But the sciatic nerve went right back in place, but he said it was bruised more than any sciatic nerve I've ever seen in surgery.

He's also, by the way, the orthopedic surgeon for the Dallas Stars and the Texas Rangers, so he’s just a brilliant surgeon. Yet I got first place as far as the most bruised sciatic nerve.

I had forgotten, though, about your nervous system. I forgot from science health. I remembered that your nerves send pain signals to your brain, but they also send electronic impulses to your muscles to cause them to work. Because it had stopped sending electric signals to my quad muscle—if you've had L5S1, it goes down the back of your right leg; L3S4 goes down the front of your left leg, and so it affects the quad muscles.

Anyway, it had stopped sending signals to the quad muscle, so the quad muscle atrophied. Several times on the cruise with the Groeschels and the Gruenwalds and our friends, I would literally just be walking along and go to the ground. My quad muscle just couldn't hold my weight, and that happened in Florida. That was when the whole family said, "Dad, you’ve got to go back."

Even after the surgery, I woke up and thought, "I'm healed, I'm healed," because, you know, the pain's gone in my back, but that nerve wasn't working correctly, so the quad muscle wasn't working.

In the next 16 days, I fell eight times to the tile or the wood floor or the concrete deck out back or whatever. When you fall, you just fall. You're like that, you know? Within a second, you're gone. I didn't do any damage to my back, but that sciatic nerve—all the dried blood got loose, and then when it got loose, the sciatic nerve got mad. What it does is it sends a signal to your brain, "Hey, there's blood here, blood here, blood here."

If you've ever had nerve pain—has anyone here had nerve pain? It's worse than anything. I've broken 16 bones in my body; it's worse than a broken bone. By the way, if L5S1—he said to me, "A lot of people have that herniated disc, but L3S4, L3L4 will be 10 times worse, the pain."

So I've had to take the strongest pain medicine, and then in conjunction with that, actually the stronger one than the strongest—that's what he said. I don't know how that works, but it's the one people get addicted to, and I've had to do them at the same time.

So it's been really difficult. Let me just say that I'm forgetting some things, so if I repeat myself during the message, will you just forgive me for that? Okay? By the way, I'm repeating some things, so if I—that was on purpose, that one, but it may not be on purpose later in the message.

But I fell to the ground so many times, and then I'm walking along, Debbie and I will walk to get exercise, and it will buckle on me, just buckle. It looks kind of like the cool wall people used to do in the 70s, you know? So if I'm walking back and forth and it does that, just I'm just being cool, okay?

But if you'll just pray for that, he said it's about eight weeks, and this Tuesday will be six for the first stage of healing. Total healing will be three to six months, and so he said because of where you are now, it’d probably be closer to six months.

But he's released me to come back to the pulpit, but he has not released me to go back to the office, which I don't mind that because I like to preach. Not that I don't like the office, but I don't like it as much as the preaching.

James is running the church, and he's actually more gifted than I am to do that. So anyway, I thought the Summer of Giants was fantastic, didn't you? I think I'm going to do that again next summer on my break. I take June as vacation; July is a study break, but I took June and July as recovery, and I'm still not there, so I didn't get much of a vacation.

So, are you feeling sorry for me yet? Because the whole reason I shared the health update was so you feel sorry for me and pray for me. But to hear Dr. R.T. Kendall and John Maxwell and John Bevere and Charlotte Gamble and, you know, a coach and on and on—I can't remember now. See, I told you I couldn't remember some things, but anyway, they were all wonderful. Every message was incredible.

Hang on, so let me say one thing to all of you, but especially to the Justin campus in their new building this week. So congratulations, guys!

So, all right, I'm going to begin a series that you've never heard before. It's called The Blessed Life, a brand new series. So yes, I know that many of you have heard it before, but I used to preach this series every three years because it has to do with your heart, not your money. People don't understand that Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Your heart follows your treasure; it's not the other way around.

I've actually heard preachers misquote the scripture and say, "Where your heart is, there your treasure will be." That's not the scripture; it's not what Jesus said. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If you want your heart in the Kingdom, you put your treasure there. If you want your heart in your marriage, you put your treasure there. If you invest in a stock, you'll start going online and checking on that stock, even though you've never checked on it before in your life and you never cared about it before. Once you put your treasure there, your heart follows.

So this is a series about the heart, and that's the name of this first message: it's all about the heart. It's all about the heart. God really spoke to me the last time I did this series was in 2015. I used to do it every three years, so I did it five times in the first 15 years of the church. I started again in 2020, and then this worldwide pandemic happened right after I started it, so I abandoned it and began preaching on peace in the midst of the storm and messages that would help us through something like that, you know?

So I've not preached this in eight years, and I've gone back through the material. This is my life message, but I want you to think about it. In 2015, we had about 30,000 active members. In 2023, we now have over a hundred thousand active members. There's a lot of people who haven't heard this.

The other thing is that we weren't even on the radio, and we're now on 6,400 radio stations every week. Our television ministry has grown so much; we are now on 67 times a week on 11 networks and all over the world. We're in every country of the world. We actually are on Fox affiliates right before the NFL.

Today, I had a church member write me and said we were in a restaurant where they had a sports bar, and he said all of a sudden this guy said, "Hey, y'all be quiet," and he said all these guys gathered around the bar with their beer and watched you. I'm not saying—I'm not trying to, you know, nothing wrong with—I’m not saying anything about beer. I'm just simply saying we were reaching an audience that we probably don't reach normally. Guys send a sports bar to watch television, you know, to watch the Christian—to watch, not Christian, but to watch the football game, you know?

So anyway, our top two networks, which one is Daystar—I saw Joni right over here and Doug—with those just those two top networks, and we're about to buy more time. I was telling her that last time we were there because we're doubling our airtime budget now because the television ministry is just doing so well.

That's one of the first things we're going to do is buy the time when they start because they have such a huge reach. But our top two Christian networks—just those two networks—I want you to think about this: last year, our audience of how many televisions were turned on at least once a month for 20 minutes in the program was 26 million homes on these two television Christian networks.

So it's amazing. I need to speak this message again to our church, but I also need to speak it to the world, okay? So it's very, very important.

So we're going to talk about it's all about the heart. All right, so Matthew 7, Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is The Sermon on the Mount. Now, what you might not know is Luke 16 includes a physician's account of The Sermon on the Mount, and it's Luke 16 from about verse 20 to verse 49.

At the end of the chapter, I think 49 would be the last verse in Luke 6. But it's not the whole Sermon on the Mount, but it's part of it, okay? So I want to show you some parallel passages, and I want to help you understand because I'm going to show you a verse that's about the heart and attitudes of the heart that we use a lot about money, and I need to help you see the difference.

All right, so Matthew 7, verse 1, I want to see if you can pick up what the context or what the theme of this passage is. All right, watch. I underline some words so you might pick up the theme.

"Judge not that you be not judged; for with what judgment you judge, you will be judged." Can anyone pick up the theme of what that might be talking about? Would you say judging and judgment? Hello, everyone?

Okay, and then he says, "And with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you."

Okay, so here's what I want you to do: look at those verses and tell me, is the word money anywhere in those two verses? No, money's not there, right? And what's the theme again? What's he talking about? Judging people, right? Don't judge or you'll be judged, and with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with the same measure you give judgment, you'll get judgment back.

Okay, now I want to go over and show you the parallel passage in Luke, and this is the parallel passage. I've never heard theologians in the world say it's not the parallel passage, and if any did, they'd be foolish to say something like that because anyone knows it is.

All right, so Luke 6, verse 37 says, "Judge not, and you shall not be judged." The end of verse 38 says, "For with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you." You see what I'm saying? So that's exactly what we read in Matthew 7.

But I want to show you a verse that Luke puts in the middle of those two phrases that is normally used to talk about money, but I want you to watch very carefully and see if you ever see the word money in this passage.

All right, verse 37: "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; or you shall not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven."

Watch verse 38: "Give." Now again, don't think about money because he's not using the word money here. "Give, and it will be given to you." Now he's talking about judgment, condemnation, and forgiveness.

Dear judgment, give condemnation, give forgiveness, and it will be given to you. "Pray 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."

But most of the time when a pastor gets up and preaches on Luke 6:38, what is he preaching about? Money. But money was nowhere in that passage, nowhere.

Now the word "it" is in that passage: "Give, and it will be given to you." It is an objective pronoun, so you can put a noun in there. You know, so if you give money, money will be given back to you. You can use this to apply to money, but that's not the primary meaning. That's all I'm trying to tell you.

What's the primary meaning? The primary meaning is an attitude of your heart: judgment, condemnation, or forgiveness. Give apples, and apples will be given back to you. You know, give laptops, and laptops will be given back to you. Give your pastor coupons for Blue Bell ice cream, and Blue Bell ice cream—I'm sorry, and please don't send me, by the way, any coupons.

People, I've made a joke about that, and I get all these coupons in the mail for Blue Bell, and I actually give them to the staff because I can't give them away. One of the high-ups at Blue Bell sent me 52 coupons so I could have one half-gallon of Blue Bell a week for the year.

So I actually put them up there and told my staff, "You know, we have 600 full-time, 700 part-time or something like that, and I said, 'Whoever, just when you come up here, you can only get one per person.'" But yeah, and they just like pigs to the trough, you know, took the coupons.

But this is simply saying give, and whatever you give, it will be given back to you. But every time we use the word give, for some reason, we think the pastor's preaching on money. But the Bible is full of giving.

Let me give you the most famous verse of the Bible: "For God so loved the world that He gave." They didn't give money; He gave a Savior, what we needed.

I was being interviewed for this magazine one time, and the guy interviewing me said, "How often do you preach on giving?" I said, "Every week." He said, "Every week?" And he said, "Oh, I know what you're talking about now. You mean you give like a little five-minute sermonette before you pass the plate."

And I said, "We don't pass the plate." We've never passed the plate one time at Gateway Church, not once since we began.

He said, "Well, but you preach on giving every week." I said, "Of course I do." I said, "Now you asked me how many times did I preach on giving, but I think what you meant to ask me was how many times did I preach on giving money?" But you didn't ask me that; you asked me how many times I preach on giving.

I said, "I can't preach on giving your life to Jesus every week. I'm going to invite people to give their life to Jesus." I said, "I can't preach on prayer without talking about giving your heart to God and giving your time and energy to God every day to spend time in prayer."

I can't preach on marriage without preaching on giving because if you're not a giver, you won't make it in marriage. Don't punch anybody right now, okay? But if you're a selfish person, you're not going to make it in marriage. You have to be a giver. It's not 50/50; it's 100/100 in marriage.

It's a hundred percent for both people. So how are we going to develop a generous heart? It's all about giving, okay? And it's about the heart.

All right, so Deuteronomy 15 tells us about our hearts. I want you to watch how many times it talks about our heart.

Deuteronomy 15, verse 7 says, "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, I just want you to notice the Lord God, whatever land you have, God gave it to you. Whatever field you have, whatever your position is, occupation, God gave it to you, or He gave you the ability to do it."

Of course, you took that ability and developed it into a skill; I understand that. But God still gave you—you could have been born in a third-world country, and you may have come here; that's wonderful. But you may have been born even without the mental aptitude to do what you do.

So we need to thank God for everything we have. But the land that the Lord your God is giving you, if there's a poor man within any of your gates, you shall not harden your what? Heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother. But you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly—that's who's talking about an attitude of the heart again—and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs.

So I got four points instead of three this week. But here's the first point: deal with a selfish heart. If you're going to be a generous person, deal with a selfish heart.

Verse 9 says, "Beware lest there be a wicked thought." I just want you to notice God calls selfishness wickedness. "Beware lest there be a wicked thought in your what? Heart, saying, 'The seventh year, the year of release is at hand,' which would be Jubilee, 'and your eye be evil against your poor brother, and you give him nothing.'"

Watch this: "And he cry out to the Lord against you, and it becomes sin among you." Selfishness, first of all, God calls selfish thoughts wicked thoughts, and He says wicked thoughts become sin among you.

And so here's what He was saying: "Don't let the thought come in your mind. Next year is the Year of Jubilee, and all debts are canceled." How many of you would like to re-implement God's economic plan? Anyone? All that canceled every seven years?

So in the sixth year, buy yourself a really nice house, okay? He said, "Don't let the thought come in your mind, 'Oh wait, the year of release is at hand, so he won't be able to pay me back.'" He said, "And here's what He called it: that's a wicked thought."

He's trying to say, "I want my children to be like I am. I want you to be generous." I can't stand it, and I don't think God can stand it when a preacher says, "Give, and you'll get."

Now, I believe God rewards, and I'm going to stop right there because I'm going to say a statement, and I like to say statements with semicolons because if I said it with a period, it wouldn't be true.

So you have to understand this first phrase as a semicolon, all right? God does not bless giving—not a period here, okay? Because then it would be untrue, but it's a semicolon. God does not bless giving; semicolon, He blesses giving with the right heart. That's what He blesses.

So when you give to get, He's not going to bless that because that's selfishness. Here's—I have a question for you: why did God invent giving?

Now, I could say create to make it sound more biblical, and of course, I love the Bible, but God invented giving. No one else did. It's all through the Bible. He's the one that invented sacrifices, offerings, tithing. God did all that; no preacher did it. God did it.

So why? I was teaching a Bible college one time, and I said to the students, "Why did God create giving?" And they all had the same answer, basically: "To support the work of His kingdom."

Now, I want you to just think about this for a moment. Well, you just think with me. I hope you get ahead of me and start laughing because it's hilarious when you think about it. Do you really believe that God needs your money to build His kingdom?

The guy who can say, "Let there be light," and there's light, and He needs your money? Do you really believe that? Think about it. I mean, is the light bill in heaven so high that God needs us to give today? Is He running out of gold, which is asphalt for Him? That's what He paves His streets with; His foundations are made out of precious stones. He really needs our money? No.

So why did God invent giving? Listen, God did not create giving for His sake; He created giving for your sake. He created giving to work greed and selfishness out of our lives, not to work greed and selfishness in our lives.

And that's why I can't stand it when a preacher preaches, "Give, and you'll get." "Give, and you'll get." Because he's actually working greed and selfishness back into your life instead of out of your life.

Can you imagine how God feels when a preacher preaches, "Give, and you'll get"? And so people say, "Well, I'm going to give because I want to get." And then God's thinking, "This is great! All of my people are catching the revelation of getting."

What if a preacher said, "Give even if you don't get anything back"? And everybody said, "I want to give whether I get anything back at all from God. I've already got eternal life; what else do I need? I just want to give. I just want to help people."

Did you know, by the way, when I say The Blessed Life, this book came about because James Robinson's team said to me 22 years ago, "Would you come on the program and teach about giving? Because you teach it like nobody we've ever heard."

I don't teach give to get; I don't teach we give to get. I teach we get to give. So we don't give to get; we get to give. But he said, "Would you come on the program and teach this?" And so I did.

Then they also said to me, "But before they said, and if you could write a book." And I've never written a book before, and I said, "Well, when would you need the book?" They said, "About two months."

Now, most of my books take 12 to 18 months. So I went away, and I dictated eight sermons that I had on giving into a tape recorder. That's how long ago this was.

Then I did a beginnings chapter and in chapter for 10 chapters, and then a ghostwriter who's helped me on many of my books, who is a member of the church—or maybe the church was small, and we had this extremely talented ghostwriter God had sent us—put it in reading form because I did it in speaking form, and it's different reading form. It's different, but obviously, it was my content.

So he helped me with that, and then we—no publisher would publish it. Nobody knew Robert Morris or Gateway Church. We had 100 to 200 people, you know? So we self-published it, and in the first year, it sold 250,000 copies.

Now it's in over 40 languages and sold millions of copies all over the world, and it's certified an international bestseller. I forgot how many countries it had to be in that.

By the way, we've never made a dime on it. Most of you know we gave all the royalties to Gateway Church. Just to let you know, I mean, I've never really—I’ve never said this figure, but it's three to five hundred thousand dollars a year.

So Debbie and I, by God's grace, get to give to every two to three years a million dollars to the church. Think about that. It never comes through our hands; we just have just, you know, assigned the royalties to Gateway Church.

I even had a guy ask me a while back, he said, "Do you regret it when you look at how much has gone to the church?" I said, "Not an ounce, not an ounce." I don't regret it because look at all the people that God has used this message.

So let me just say something about The Blessed Life, all right? The word "blessed" in the Greek is the word "makarios." It means happy. Think about the Beatitudes: happy are the poor in spirit; happy are the meek; happy are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, right? So it means happy.

So I want to show you some links to secular articles, science articles, mathematics articles, sociological articles. None of these are Christian, and I don't mean that in the wrong way. I'm just not putting them down at all, but they did studies that show that something is released in your brain when you're generous, and it makes you happy.

They prove these are links to show that generous people are happier than non-generous people. So let me show you this. If you want to get—let me wait. Let me not do that first. You can get your camera out. Let me show you some quotes first, all right?

So y'all take that down for a minute. So if you want to take a picture of these links, you can get your camera, and you can read the articles yourself.

Let me read you some of the quotes. There is a positive—this is Time Magazine. Now, they haven't been the most conservative type of publication, but there is a positive association between helping others and life expectancy because helping others reduces stress, so you live longer if you're generous.

This is also Time Magazine. Studies have shown that older people who are generous tend to have better health.

Okay, I know that you're thinking that's someone else, but actually, you're older. Many of you here are. This is the magazine The Ascent: generous people were almost three times as likely to report being happy every day than less generous people.

This is the Gallup poll, and they studied 136 countries. 136 countries: people who donated to charity in the past month reported greater satisfaction in life. This relationship emerged in poor and rich countries alike—136. That's the Gallup poll.

Then the Heart Math Institute—very famous Christian publication, the Heart Math Institute—when you're altruistic, and then it tells us because many of us don't know what that means because we don't study math, lending a helping hand, your oxytocin level goes up, which helps relieve your stress.

And then these are the links if you want to take a picture or if you want to go back to it on our website. Show the links again between generosity and happiness. Those are articles. There's UC Berkeley, the John Templeton Foundation, you know, a science study, 2017.

So anyway, there are links. All right, so now let me just say one thing, though, about generosity and selfishness. All right, I just feel like I need to clear this up. I want to speak to the ladies for a minute.

All right, there is an area of selfishness that men never grow out of, and just speaking for me and everywhere. I want you to know something, all right? Please hear me: we do not want to share our food. [Applause]

And for some reason, you want our food. What does every woman say, men, when you're going through the drive-through and you say, "Would you like something?" What does every woman say? "No, I just have some of yours."

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 this first point, deal with a selfish heart, may only be for the men. Okay? All right, here's number two: deal with a grieving heart. A grieving heart. See, greed attacks us before we give; grief attacks us after we give. Greed before, grief after.

Watch it. Write in your Bible verse 10. I'm just going right down Deuteronomy 15. "You shall surely give to him, and your what? Heart." It's all about the heart. "Should not be grieved when you give to him because for all this thing—" Watch this: "If you give, if you're generous, the Lord your God will bless you in all your works and in all to which you put your hand."

Grief attacks the Satria. Let me ask you this: have you ever given like God? You felt like God spoke to you to start tithing or give a large offering or make a commitment to a building fund or something, and right after you do it, something around your house breaks?

Isn't that amazing? And what does the devil do? "You shouldn't have done that. You shouldn't have given that much money." See, greed attacks you before, grief afterwards.

Now, you know this is crazy, but I'm up here, and I've been preaching over 40 years, and a thought just went through my mind, and I should know to just let it go on through, but probably because of the drugs, I'm going to say it.

And we can edit that. We have a great, you know, editing team, so this probably won't be on Daystar, Johnny says.

But anyway, I just was thinking, you know how I like to give hundred-dollar bills away? And I was just thinking, I don't have any hundred-dollar bills, and I need a—oh, that's a hundred dollars right there. See that? A hundred right there. Look at that.

Okay, so you know what? Let's talk about this for a second. So why, when I said I didn't have any hundred-dollar bills, why did Mike get up that fast and give me this hundred-dollar bill?

Let me tell you why: because I gave it to him before the service. [Applause]

This is my hundred dollars! Now let me ask you something: is he grieving because he gave this to me? Are you grieving?

Oh, you are? A little? So, okay, I should have chosen someone else. No, he's not grieving; he's joking, okay? He's not grieving because he only gave me back what was mine in the first place.

The Earth is the Lord's and all those who dwell in it. Did you get the point? Don't ever grieve when you give back to God what's already His.

All right, here's point number three. So one was deal with a selfish heart; two, deal with a grieving heart. Here's three: develop a generous heart.

Verse 14: "You shall supply him liberally or generously from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your wine press, from what the Lord has blessed you with." Told you it was God's anyway; you shall give to him.

God said He wants us to be generous. See, we were born selfish. Children are selfish. If you have any, you know they're selfish. But we're born again generous. Did you know you want to be generous?

I'm not asking you to do anything you don't want to do. You want to. You want to. That's why I wrote the book Beyond Blessed to help manage your funds because people who don't manage it can never give it.

So we're born again. So Josh and Hannah have two kids. Grady, their oldest, turned 16 this weekend; it's his birthday. And then their daughter, Willow, is 13, right?

Okay, but when Willow was four years old here in our children's church, when she got in the car, she said to Hannah, her mother, our daughter-in-law, "Did you know there was a woman in the Bible who only had two pennies, and she gave both of them to Jesus?"

Hannah said, "Yeah, I read that one time. I've heard about that." And she said, "That is amazing, isn't it?" And Willow said, "I want to give something to Jesus."

So Hannah said, "Well, why don't you pray and ask Jesus what He wants you to give Him?" So Hannah said, "I was watching in the rearview mirror. She's in the back seat in a car seat, you know?"

And she said, "So Willow went like this," and then she put her hands up like this, and then she went, "What?" Just wondering if you've ever had that. "What? You want me to give what to the building fund? What? Are you crazy?"

And then she said, "Little baby Lolo." "Oh yeah, you can have her; I don't like her."

Okay, that's cute when you're four; it's not cute when you're 40. Do you know what I think God is actually saying to all of His kids? Now, this is a little tough. I think He's actually saying, "Grow up."

And do you know the difference between a mature Christian, a mature believer, and an immature believer is generosity? I'm telling you, mature believers are generous; immature believers are selfish.

And here's the last one: number four, develop a grateful heart. Verse 15 says, "You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you or bought you back from being a slave. Therefore, I command you this thing today."

I just want you to know He is commanding His children to be generous. He said, "Therefore, I command you to be generous. I'm commanding you to do this to help other people."

I'm commanding Him, and He said, "Let me tell you why I'm commanding you: because you had nothing. You were enslaved, and I bought you back."

Okay, so you may not have been enslaved in the natural; most of you probably weren't. I don't know if anyone here was, but you were enslaved to sin. The Bible says we were slaves to sin, and He bought us. He purchased us with His own blood.

So this first applies to us. You need to remember, here's what He's saying: that you were a slave to sin, and I redeemed you with the blood of my own Son. Therefore, I'm commanding you to be generous because everything you have came from me.

When most of the time I do television interviews for other places, and Debbie does it, you know, she doesn't like to do television interviews. If she knows a television review is coming up and they want both of us, she schedules a root canal.

So that's just not her thing, you know? So what I've done now, I've learned, is I book an interview like two months in advance, and then I tell her like two days in advance, you know, so she can't get out of it.

But she's been asked this over and over on television, you know? And this is what the—when we're talking about giving, and we talk about one time, and I'll share it in here how we gave our house away.

So they'll ask her, "How did you feel when Robert told you he wanted to give y'all's house away? How'd you feel?" And here's her answer always: "I felt great. I felt great."

And they say, "Why did you feel great?" And she says, "Well, you have to remember that Robert wasn't saved when we got married, and I prayed that he'd get saved, and God answered my prayer. So every time he wants to give something extravagantly to the Lord, I thank God that I have a new husband."

"I have a new husband." And one time, one time one of the interviewers said, "Why do you think he gives so extravagantly?" And this was her answer: "Because he's never gotten over getting saved. He's never gotten over it. He remembers what he came out of."

I'm just telling you, if you'll remind yourself how God saved you, you won't have a problem being generous.

I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes. I want you to just take a moment and just ask the Holy Spirit, "Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me through this message?" Just ask Him.

And in a moment, at every campus, we're going to have people at the front who want to pray with you. I want to remind you also that if you come forward for prayer, it doesn't mean you're a big bad sinner because we just want to agree with you.

You might need to pray about something completely different than what I even preached about today, but don't ever come to church with a prayer need and leave without praying with someone.

So, I mean, many of you should come to the altar many, many times. Again, it doesn't mean you're joining the church. If you're not a member of Gateway, it doesn't mean you're joining the church. It just means you're coming for prayer.

So if you need prayer for any area of your life, and maybe you need prayer in this area because you might have grown up in a very poor home, and it's been very difficult for you to be generous, but you want to be.

So maybe you just need prayer in this area. But if you need prayer for any area, then after I pray, then we're going to invite you to be able to come at every campus for prayer.

All right, Lord, I want to tell you thank you, thank you, thank you that we can all—nearly all of us here can agree with that last verse: we were slaves to sin, and you redeemed us.

Lord, I pray that Gateway Church, all of us, will be more generous in the future than we've ever been so that everyone can live a blessed, happy life. In Jesus' name, amen.