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Well, as we are continuing our giving series, I just want to give a quick update. We had our KB grocery fund that we were giving money to as we were taking care of all the different needs in our community with immigrants, both legal and those with non legal status. We've been loving law enforcement, federal and local, doing everything. Loving in all directions. That's what we've been doing. And I want to let you know that that message even got all the way to the White House. They said, who said they're loving in all directions? And I heard back from the White House. They said, hey, we want everybody in America to love in all directions. So this inspired all the way. Yeah, that made it all the way to the White House. I just want you to know that the church gave almost $90,000 right around there and we've been giving that out to churches, food shelves, people in need again, buying supplies and doing that. And later this week, Convoy of Hope is gonna actually send a semi load. We just said, hey, we partnered. They actually called us, said, how can we partner with you? And we said, well, we'd love to bless all the area food shelves and all the people that are feeding people. And they said, well, we'll send a semi load if River Valley can distribute that. So that's gonna be happening. And I just want you to know we're multiplying what you gave and turning into more. So just wanted to give that update. So last week was week one of the giving series. Absolutely love Carl and Megan both sharing their testimony in that video and, and how much they just love there was more on that video. We could have gone for the whole service. They just loved to tithe and I love that we could show that. And then campus pastor did a great job. Great content, great heart, great job. I and some of the team were down in Australia. We were doing generosity accelerators, teaching Kingdom Builders back where we learned it, we learned it from Hillsong Church. And I had an opportunity to preach at Hillsong and say, you taught us this. We're now teaching people all around the world and your church has inspired over $500 million of giving. And afterwards they came up like we had no idea. So that's where I was. And I just love that our team preached part one. I get to do part two, and we get to build on the tithe. Week one was tithe and we talked about that. We're a tithing church. Tithe keeps the church alive. We see it as an Old Testament principle. We see it in Genesis 14 as the first tithe that's mentioned, we see in Genesis 28, Jacob saying, if you get me out of this mess, God, I'll tithe. You're my God and I'll tithe to you. And it's not law, it's pre law. We say around river valley, a heart touched by God wants to tithe, wants to say, God, 10% of everything I have goes to you to build your church, to fuel your kingdom moving forward. I wanna do that. I wanna return that to you and honor you. But New Testament grace goes up from there. So let's talk about that today. We, what about the rest? What are we gonna do with the 90%? I mean, in the 90%, you need to take care of your life needs, but you also need to find out, what are you gonna do in the area of generosity. I've said it before, many times. If you make over US$40,000, you're one of the richest 1% on planet Earth. So we've gotta figure out, what are we gonna do with the 90%, what are we gonna do with this? What God has placed into our hands. Now, the tithe says, God, you're my source and I honor you. I honor you. And then over and above that, that generosity says, what more can I do? So let me start with this. In the Bible, in the Old Testament, similar to the tithe, but not the same, was an offering called first fruits. It was similar principle, but it was a different offering. All right? Tithe was 10% on the increase of whatever God gave you. You would then title tithe 10%. But first fruits was this when the harvest would be coming in. So you can imagine you have a harvest coming in. You're thinking, oh, you know, the strawberries are looking amazing, the apples are looking great, and you're looking at your harvest, and then the first ones to get ripe, you're saying, I'm gonna give those to God. I'm gonna bring those to God. In Exodus 23:19, it says, Bring the best of the first fruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God. So the first stuff starts coming in before you've collected anything, before you've taken care of all the rest, all your needs, before you've tithed, before you've done anything. God says, like, when you see the first things coming in, I want you to take those to the priest and I want you to honor me and bring it. It wasn't a lot. Okay? It wasn't a huge percentage. Some estimates figured that the first fruits was about one and a half to two and a half percent of what your whole harvest would be. So it wasn't a big amount. So this is the thing. It wasn't about the size of the gift. It was about the sequence. Okay, catch me. Understand this. You were saying, God, I have this whole harvest coming in. And the first ones go to you. Like the very first one and a half to two and a half. It's just. It's an honor gift to you to say, God, everything I have comes from you. And my sequence is always right. My sequence is, you're first in my life. And even before we get to tithe, even before I take care of my needs, God, I want you to get this to say the sequence is God first and then my needs. It's absolutely incredible. And they would bring this to the priest, and it's actually how the priest would take care of their own needs. They would bring that into the priest. They'd say, this is the first. And the priest would wave before the Lord and say, God, they just acknowledge it all comes from you. And then the priest's needs would be taken care of that. In numbers 15, it even talks about when you're baking bread and doing this, the first loaf goes to God. And I remember when I was in Israel, we were there, and we were learning from one of the teachers, one of the guides, and we were making bread by the fire. And he said, now, when we're not around the temple and we're not around a priest, we take this first loaf of bread and we throw it into the fire and we just burn it. We just say, God, that first loaf is yours. And I was just like, so amazing. It just acknowledges he's our source and the first thing always belongs to him. So the first was there. And this acknowledgement was the key that just said, God, everything is coming from you, it is yours. And I'm a steward of it. And I'm gonna tithe to you, and I'm responsible with all that I have. Matter of fact, Romans 11:16, Paul references this. He says, if part of the dough offered as first fruits is holy, think about the throwing in the fire part of this first fruits, the dough is holy. He said, the whole batch is holy. If the root is holy, so are the branches. So the attitude towards our giving should be like this. We're the first fruits, God, everything we have comes from you. Before we even think about any of our own needs, we're thinking about you. We're dreaming about giving to you. We wanna bless you, we wanna honor you, and we Wanna do this, and we're gonna tithe. But even before, like, we just wanna be generous. Our heart is God first, a second. And there's something about when you start tithing that all of a sudden you start living this. And this first principle is even more than that. It's like, it's you first. And then it's interesting. Paul says if that first dough, that first batch of dough goes to God and it makes all the rest holy. He says, you know what? The rest of what you hold in your hands, your 90% after you tithe, that's holy, that's set apart money. That's money that is on assignment for a believer. So think about that. The money that's in our hand, the 90 that's left, that's money on assignment. And that's where Kingdom Builders comes in. In this over and above. And as a church, we've just said we wanna live differently. We wanna realize that we're in the richest 1% on planet Earth, and we're gonna live on assignment with the 90%. And as a church, we've set a goal this year of $15 million. Now, you've heard at your campus, each campus announced their campus goal. And I'm praying that you, as a campus, will be encouraged by this. We'll all do our part in this. And I'm believing that this would be the year that we go after $15 million over and above our tithe, saying, God, in this 90 that we have, Lord, we're gonna give over and above and do this to reach the world, global, local and in future Christian leaders. Again, the tithe says, thank you. You're my source. But Kingdom Builder says, here I am. I'm ready to do your will. The tithe says, who provided for my life? Oh, God did. And KB says, how will my life provide for other people? Okay. Tithe looks back in gratitude and says, God, thank you for what you've given me this year, this month, this week, whenever you tithe, KB says, I'm looking forward to be on mission with you, God. And I'm going towards the future in faith, saying, God, what I'm giving will make a difference. Now, when we talk about Kingdom Builders, I just want you to know, when we launch Kingdom Builders as a ministry in our church, people are like, whose kingdom are we building? Like, I'm like, Jesus. Like, I thought it was obvious. Like, Jesus, Kingdom, like, you know, kingdom of God. You know, like the Lord's Prayer. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Like his kingdom. That's what we're doing. So just to clarify, it's his kingdom that we're building. Okay? And 162 times in the New Testament, the kingdom of God is used. That's it. The kingdom of God. The kingdom of God. And so what is a kingdom? A kingdom is a realm defined and ruled by a king. And our king is Jesus. So it's the realm that is ruled by Jesus. And for a follower of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God is the comprehensive rule of God in every area of our life. So if we're in the kingdom of God, we're advancing his realm and his domain. And if we're children of the king, and he's our king, King Jesus, every area of our life is ruled by him. And we're called to live in line with kingdom principles. And so we're saying, God, we wanna be kingdom builders with the 90% that's there. And you say, well, how does God bring his kingdom to the world right now? You know how he does it? Through his church, through us. We are kingdom builders. We're the ones that go out into all the world and we help people to understand about the kingdom of God, the King of kings and the Lord of Lords, our Savior, who has died and forgave them of their sins. We rose again from the dead like we're out there being ambassadors. And so in our church, we have our tithe, which we start with, and then over and above, we do our kingdom builders. Over and above what? Just again, to be clear, over and above our tithe. We'd like you to start there. That's what we see in the Bible. And then over and above the tithe, first dollar makes you a kingdom builder. And we ask everyone in our church to participate. We just say, everybody, let's go. Let's do this together. Different amounts for everybody. And through that we see. Because you know what? All of us have money under assignment. All of us do. And so we're saying, everybody, let's participate in this because we have money under assignment that that's in our hands to be responsible for. And so I wanna show you this chart. Just go ahead and put the chart on the screen of all the different families. Last year we had 3,831 families or individuals that gave to kingdom builders. This is how we got to 12.5 million. Now you think, oh, is it just a bunch of millionaires? No, but there were two families that gave over a million dollars, two that gave 200,000 up. You could see the column. You see 111 gave between 10 and 25. And. And then look at the right column. 215 gave between 5 and 9,909. And look at that last one. 2,562 gave 999 and under. That's a lot of people on this journey that are doing this. 3,831 people. So it wasn't like, this is just for a few people. This is for all of us. Because we all have money under assignment and we're just being asked to do with what we have. Like, we're not. You say like, I couldn't do the million. No, I couldn't. I couldn't either. But you know what? Thank God for the people that can and did it. And thank God for the people that were faithful for whatever Mount God spoke to you. We're all holding this money under assignment and we're doing this now. I got to thinking, like, sometimes people think like, well, did my money even make a difference? Can I just. I just broke it down. Here's what $1,200 did. Cause a lot of people in our church gave $1,200 more. Here's a $1,200 did last year. $1,200 given to Kingdom Builders meant that 762 people got God's Word in their language for the very first time. It also meant that 200 kids got a Bible storybook to tell them about Jesus. It also meant that one church in India was started because of the $1200. It also meant that $200 was given to people that were a victim of tornadoes or. Or hurricanes or a natural disaster. It also meant that 1500 kids were fed a meal. Not in the. Like, this is all part of 1200. It also meant that over 100 people were reached online from different online ministries. It also meant that a pastor was sent to Bible college in a third world country. And it also meant that $100 was given so that somebody could be set free out of human sex trafficking. All that from $1,200. That's changing the world. So your little makes a difference. And that's a lot of money, by the way. $1,200 a lot. But that makes a difference. And so when we all pull it together, it went over 12.5 million. Now we talk about Kingdom Builders every year. And I want to just show a video where I learned a tool that we teach around here called Plan, Vision, Dream. Because people say, how do we do Kingdom Builders? Like, ty this simple. It's set 10% like, how do we do kingdom builders? Well, we do a thing here called Plan Vision Dream. And I learned this tool in Kenya and I was able to go there recently. And I want you to watch this short video and then I'll be right back. Take a look at the screen. Hey, River Valley. I am at New Life Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya. And the exciting thing about it is this is the place that started Plan Vision Dream. I mean, you can see the picture. There's the house that Clive and Mary started in. It was just a plan to work there. And then it turned into a vision where a guy came and said, hey, what's the vision? I know you are a visionary. And Clive had drawn it out. I actually found out when I was here just now. He actually was a draftsman. He actually did incredible drawings. And the guy said, I'm going to build that for you. And he did this huge addition. And then he said, clive, what's your dream? He said, I have a dream. I want to do this all over. And he said, these are the cities that God laid on my heart. The guy said, those are the cities that I have buildings in that I'm not even using. How amazing. Plan Vision Dream from Clive and Mary coming here to teach at a Bible school. Mary having a dream of like, what could I do for orphans. And it turned into multi site orphanage across Kenya. Plan, Vision, Dream. And I'm just asking you to take what you have and use it in that same way. Plan, Vision Dream. Work the plan. It starts small for all of us and then it goes to Vision. You write it down, you say, God, I believe there's more in your hands. If you would give it to me, I'll do it. And watch what God does when you write it down. Then hold on to the dream. Don't live life without a dream and see if God will have that dream come true. And I'm just asking you to. I'm not asking you to start an orphanage. I'm not asking you to do something amazing. I'm just saying can we start with giving and that amazing giving together? Really, I guess it is amazing. Will change the world. It changes the world. It brings $50,000 checks to this orphanage. It sends $100,000 checks here, $25,000 checks here. And it adds up to tens of millions and over 100 million as a church. What a joy to be at this orphanage. That inspired Plan, Vision, Dream and Church. I pray we don't lose that. I pray that we stay and hold onto that. Work the plan. Write the Vision down, hold onto the dream and change the world through kingdom builders. It was so exciting to go back there. And. And Clive and Mary have since retired and they're back in England, and we sent them a video saying, thank you so much for inspiring this. Cause they just started, what's the plan? What has God already put into my hands? And I can start with that there. When you wonder, like, what can you give? What has God already put into your hands already? Start there. And then vision, which was, what's in God's hands? That if he put it in mine, I would do it. I would give it. And just like Clive wrote it down, we ask you to write that down and say, God, here's what I can do already, but there's more in your hands. And as you put it in my hands, I'll give it and you pray about it. That's believing in faith and saying, God, I believe there's more in your hands. And then dream. What's the greatest gift you could ever give to God? I would love everyone in our church to have a dream gift number of God. If you ever put it in my hands, it'd be my greatest joy to give you this gift. And you just hold onto it and just see if God lets your dream come true where you're able to give that. So we learned that tool in Kenya. And. And people then say, okay, so I understand the plan part. God's put money in my hands. But how do I do the vision part? Like, how do I figure out how much more to give that's not in my hands? What do I do? Here's what we do. We ask you to go to the Lord and just ask him for an amount. Say, lord, how much would you like me to give? You've put a lot in my hands, and this is what I could do. And comfortably I could do that out of my budget. But what more would you want me to do? And we ask you to do kind of like our theme. Speak, Lord, we're listening. Speak, Lord, we're listening. And you say, God, we're gonna do this amount. Let's just say $200 a month. We're gonna do $200 a month, God, we're gonna do that. It fits in our budget. We could do that. And then you say, God, but what more should we believe for? We encourage couples, if you're married, to go and pray and both pray like God. What more could we believe you for? Like, that's in our budget. But what's outside of our budget is there A number you'd like us to give if you would put it in our hands. We say, go pray separately and then come together. And it's so fun as people are exchanging, like, I got a number, you got a number. I think my number's bigger than yours. And they're like, and they share it and they. And so many times it's like the same number, which is amazing. And then people say, what if it's not the same number? We all say the bigger number is from God. So just go with that. No, no, no, no. Here's what we want you to keep praying and, and come to a consensus about your generosity. There's no strong arm tactics here. We want you to just hear from God, which is absolutely incredible when you think about it. We're asking God to speak to us about generosity. Not the tithe that's already been predetermined. 10%. But we're saying God in our generosity with the 90%, here's what we could do, just fitting in our budget. But what more could you put? And you're asking God to speak to you. I think that's incredible. I don't know any other religion that has divine guidance when it comes to actually in the area of giving. It's interesting now. So how much is it and what you do? And there's no strong arm tactic. You're hearing from God. It's really a free will offering. It's a free will offering. Nobody at River Valley is forced to do this. It's a free will. And I wanna say this. In the Old Testament, there was free will offerings when they were building the TABernacle. In Exodus 35, it says, and everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work on the tent of meeting. For all its service and the sacred garments. It was like everyone that was willing, it wasn't tithe, it wasn't required. It was like, we're gonna do this for God. We're gonna build the tabernacle. And everyone that's willing, go ahead and do what's in your heart. That's how kingdom builders is. In Deuteronomy 16:10, it says, Then celebrate the festival of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessing the Lord your God has given you. The Feast of Weeks was one of three major pilgrimage festival like celebrations that the Jewish people would do. It was 50 days after Passover, which is our Pentecost day of Pentecost. They would come together and they would celebrate what God had done and they would bring an offering. And it was free will. It was like, how much do you wanna bring to this? Because you're just bringing a gift to God in proportion of saying thank you to how he's blessed you on your life. And so everybody's doing different amounts. It's not a competition. But some of us are sitting there with so much in our hands. We're like, God, I have so much. And we bring a large amount. We're just like, God, we wanna do this. If you were to talk to the people on the left hand column of the chart that I showed, they would all say, we're just, we're just being thankful for what God has put into our hands. We're just being thankful. It's not a show off. We're literally just saying, God, we've been blessed and we wanna do this for your glory and for your honor. Everyone would say that, but sometimes we're suspicious of those that have more. But we're all saying, God, whatever we have, we just do it for you. In the New Testament, there's free will offering. 2 Corinthians 9, 7. Each of you should give what you've decided in your heart to give, not reluctant or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. There's something about getting this divine direction and feeling good in your heart, like, this is the amount we're gonna give because we know we can do it. This is the amount we wanna give if God puts it in our hand. And by the way, this is our dream goal of what we'd love to give if God ever placed this in our hands. So when it comes to kingdom builders giving, let me give a couple of things here that I wanna just teach to you as a church. First of all, it would be this. Have a loose grip on generosity. Have a loose grip. Proverbs 11:24 and 25. There is one who scatters and yet increases all the more. And there is one who withholds what is justly due. And yet it results only in poverty. A generous person will be prosperous. And one who gives others plenty of water will himself give plenty. Now the word scatters when it talks about scattering seed in the Bible there it's actually talking about a farmer that has seed and he has this seed in his hand. And it's saying, hey, I have this precious seed and I can either keep it or I can sow it. And how many know seed in the barn? Looks really secure. It looks really secure. But the Farmer has to say, you know what? This seed needs to be scattered. This seed has to go. Some of you in the splash zone, all right? This seed has to go. This seed has to be scattered out. I've gotta be able to throw this out, and I wanna see what God has given me. And I'm gonna turn this into a harvest. I'm gonna do something with this. And the proverb is saying, like, scattering. Like, don't hold it tight and keep it in here and grip it with a death grip. This whole thing is saying, like, have a restraint. Don't have a restraint. Just throw it, throw it, throw it. When it talks about those who withhold it, it's saying, oh, I'm gonna keep it in here and I'm gonna give a little bit out there. That's restraint. And the whole principle of this is, take the seed, Take what God's given to you in the 90% and have an attitude that God, it just can flow out of my hands. God, it's yours. You gave it to me. And guess what? That right there is more secure in your kingdom. Because you know what? Seed that's held in the barn just stays in the barn. But seed that is sown has, like a forever potential. It has the multiplication potential. It can go. And see, God's economy is agricultural way before it's mathematical. He's like, will you sow this? Will you do this? The Bible never says, the problem with generosity is how much we have in our hands. It's just the fact that we hold it so tight. So many of us are so blessed in this church. And God's not mad that you're blessed. God's not blessed. And God's not mad that you have a lot. He's like, not mad, but he's like, are you gonna be loose? Are you gonna hoard it in there? Or are you just gonna be like, oh, God, I've been blessed to be a blessing. I wanna live out 2 Corinthians 9. I wanna live out so that I can be generous on every occasion. He's saying, that's what I want. It's not a problem with how much you have. It's. Do you just keep it so tight and so church. I'm challenging us to be generous. Like the farmer that scatters it all around out there and says, God, I have a loose grip on what you've placed in my hands. Another thing I wanna speak to us about, kingdom builders. I was thinking about this. This is gonna be a great sermon. If I slip and Fall, isn't it? Right here? Praise God. All right. It's all good. We are partners in this, okay? Kingdom Builders is not just for those people or for a few people. It's for us people. All of us people. Matter of fact, you should have your Kingdom Builder's book. It's like on every. There's one per family. We want everybody to have this. Every single person. And I'd love for you to even to be holding this as a family as I read this verse and explain it. Philippians 1:3 5. Paul says, I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership. In the Gospel, from the first day until now, he uses the word koinonia for the word partnership. And if you've been in the church for any amount of time, koinonia is a word that means fellowship. I don't know how I learned this as a teenager, but in our church, our pastor must have done a sermon about koinonia. And every time we get together in small groups or, you know, potluck or whatever we're doing, we'd be like, oh, the koinonia is amazing. I mean, it's a Greek word meaning fellowship. But the word koinonia in its original sense is a word for business partners. The word koinonia actually carries with it a financial connection. It's for people that say, hey, what if you and I come together and we pool our resources and we actually start this venture together and try to make a profit? Hey, what if we fund that ship that's going out on a journey, and we fund it and we get the spoils of it. Let's go into koinonia and become partners together in this financial project. That's what the word originated from. It's perfectly fine that it means fellowship, but the fellowship was actually, we have skin in the same project. We're interested in the same thing. We. Let's partner together and reap the return together. Okay, so when Paul uses this in Philippians that I'm so grateful for your koinonia, your partnership, he said, when you gave, we became partners in this. When you gave, you didn't just throw money and say, see you later, Paul, you became a partner. And so when we look at this book with all the projects and all the ministries in here, this is your partnership book, Kingdom Builders. Is you saying, I'm in this as a partner with you? I'm in here. I'm sharing the cost. We're venturing on this together. And we're doing this. And can I just say this? We don't fund missionaries. We stand with them. Okay? We're partnered. Like, when we do our standing ovation, it's because we're saying we're not just a funding agency for you. We're. We are koinonia with you. We are partners with you. When we do our Kingdom Builders book and our projects, we're saying we are koiniya with you. We are partners with all these projects, and it's a joy to be able to do this. We're not spectators. We're participants in this. We don't just, like, you know, give to projects. We enter their story. When we give the Kingdom Builders, you know what happens? Like, our fingerprints are all over the world, just saying, God, we love you. And they told me. They said that this would make a stand. I'm gonna try this. When we give to Kingdom Builders, our fingerprints. Can you see it? Are all over. I don't know if you can see it on the book. It won't work. All right. When we give to Kingdom Builders, our fingerprints are all. Becca's like, great job. There you go. When we give to Kingdom Builders, our fingerprints are all over the world saying, God, we're koinonia with them. We're partners with them. We're there in India. We're there in Thailand. We're there all across Africa. We're there for whoever has need. That's why it's so important that everybody gets one of these books and takes it like, we want to do this. We're all in this together. It goes from being their ministry to ours. And what a joy that we get to set as a goal, as a church, $15 million. And I'm praying that all of us, all of us will look at the money that is under assignment to us. It's under assignment. It's holy. It's set apart. The first part, yes. It goes to God we honor. We have that attitude. The first fruits of everything we have comes from you. And we want. It's a joy to give to you. But God, with the 90 we have left, God, we wanna be Kingdom Builders. We've been blessed to be a blessing. We've been given so much, and I pray that we just say, God, may we be partners with all those ministries that are counting on us this year to advance the kingdom of God. Lord, I pray right now that you would speak to us. You'd speak to us. Speak, Lord. We're listening. That's our theme. And as we look at giving to kingdom builders this year, Lord, it's gonna be different amounts for all of us. But I pray that we'd simply just work out that plan starting there. God, what can I do on a regular basis to advance your kingdom and to give to become partners Koinonia to reach this world for your glory in your name, Lord, what can we have for a vision? Number of God believing you for more and just pray about it in faith believing you for more. Thank you for what you've already placed in our hands. But God, could we believe for more. And God, we thank you for this divine guidance that even lets us dream you may we have a loose grip on the seed that is in our hands and sow it into the kingdom. May we give generously on every occasion and may we realize we're participants in this together with you God, for your glory and for your honor. We're believing right now for 15 million and you're gonna use your church to do this. And we're asking God to help us to change the world for your glory and for your honor. In Jesus name we pray. Amen and amen.
