2007 is when I first met him.
We first met each other and he was here.
He preached for us the Wednesday night that I had Lasik
surgery.
2007, that's a long time ago.
Amen.
We remember good things, don't we?
What a joy.
That song was a blessing.
Especially because what I'm going to tell you right now, now,
don't forget to read your Bible and pray every day.
How many days are there in the year?
Think about this meeting with the Lord 365 times, not counting
the time you spend in church.
And if you go to all those services that the church has, that's
another 208 times that you'll be in God's house.
Amen.
I'm a.
I'm one of those five.
Five to thrive.
How many of you could remember this?
Now this is a deep theological truth.
I don't hope you can remember this.
Sunday school morning worship, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and
soul winning visitation.
If you did those five things, your Christian life would be thriving.
And then we add six.
I want you to get a copy of this.
It's on the back table there.
And I am encouraging you to sign up to, to say I will commit
to pray an hour and read the word of God every day.
Now, one gentleman here, I won't give you his initials, but
he said, I'm already doing that.
How many of you are already doing that?
Do we dare raise our hand?
Good.
And what I'm asking the Lord to do is give me 1,000 people that
do this every day.
And I would like all of you to try to get people to do it as well.
But this is just expressing the love of God and the commandments
that he gives us.
There's 52 of these here.
And then when you get down toward the end, there's rewards for
keeping Christ's commands.
Listen to these rewards.
God will reveal himself to us.
He will dwell with us.
He will receive, we will receive God's love.
We will know we love God.
Some people like God, but they don't love Him.
Isn't that true?
There is a difference.
And then Christ will be our friend.
Our prayers will get answered.
We will be disciples for loving others.
We will have true joy.
We will be purified.
That will help us in this wicked world, won't it?
And then we will have peace.
And I want all of you to pray that God would send revival to you
in your lifetime.
Everyone needs to experience a true revival.
And I'm not going to talk about that this evening, but I want
to tell you, once you've seen it, you'll want it again.
I believe that God wants to send revival.
I had even a preacher one time tell me, well, there'll never be
a revival in America.
And I wanted to say to him, are you God?
I don't think we have a right to say things that only belong to
God.
I'd like to see God send revival.
And where does it start?
It starts right in your heart.
You can have a revival.
This church can experience revival and this community, Hazlett
can experience revival.
And on and on it goes.
We love it.
Take your Bibles, would you quickly, and go to the book of Luke,
chapter six.
We're going to begin at verse 30.
Luke, chapter six.
Beginning at verse 30.
The Bible tells us, give to every man that asketh of thee.
Boy, that's quite a statement, isn't it?
This is Jesus speaking.
Give to every man that asketh of thee and to him that taketh away
thy goods.
What should we do with them?
Ask them not again.
And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them
likewise.
For if ye love them which love you, what thanks have ye?
And then he makes a statement that is so powerful.
You know, sometimes we gloat about things that we do.
But it says right here, for sinners lost people also love those
that love them.
Isn't that true?
And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thanks
have ye for sinners also do even the same.
And if ye lend, you ever lend something to somebody and you never
got it back.
And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, you lend it,
hoping to get it back.
What thanks have ye for sinners lost people also lend to
sinners to receive as much again.
But love ye your enemies.
Wow.
And do good and lend hoping for what?
Nothing again.
And your reward shall be what?
Great.
It'll be great.
And ye shall be the children of the highest.
For he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
Be ye therefore merciful, as your father also is merciful.
Here to go.
Here's the two words that are big, big time.
Judge what not.
We are a critical generation.
How many?
Figure that one out.
And it's among the lost.
It's even among the saved.
It's even among the family being critical toward each other.
It's not good.
Stop judging.
Pray for people.
Amen.
And ye shall not be judged.
So if you judge not, you're not going to be judged.
Condemn not, and ye shall not be Condemned forgive, and ye shall
be forgiven.
There's some strong statements there, aren't there?
This is all, all important.
It's all important to every one of us.
These things I've just read.
But now here comes the real interesting one.
You could all quote this, probably.
Give, and it shall be given unto you good measure, pressed down,
shaken together and running over shall men give unto your bosom.
For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured
to you again.
Our Heavenly Father, we ask you to help us to understand these
thoughts on stewardship.
May we realize that our lives are not about us, but about Thee.
And for others, Lord, may we give.
May we care about others like we would like to be cared for.
Do a mighty work, we pray in our hearts and our lives in Jesus
name.
Amen.
Giving is so important.
Giving is generous.
Verse 30.
Giving them as you would have, that men would give to you.
Verse 31, verse 32.
Sinners love those that love them.
33.
Sinners do good to those that do good.
34.
Sinners lend to sinners to receive as much again.
So we can't take a lot of credit for what we do.
It is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good
pleasure.
We're not trying to see how many.
I did this.
I did that.
Look what I did.
No, it's not about you.
It's about God causing you to do it.
And you're not going to want to get the praise.
It's like the fellow that he went to this big.
Have you ever been to Shady Maple in Lancaster, Pennsylvania?
It's one of the biggest.
All right.
And I went there with a preacher, an evangelist preacher.
And boy, he came and he had this great big plate of salad and
all this.
I said, wow, he's behaving himself.
And then he ate all that up.
And then he went back and he got two plates, Seriously, two plates,
literally filled with fried food and all the good stuff, you
know?
And he comes walking back to the table, and I went, whoa.
I didn't say it out loud, but I went, whoa, I can't believe this.
He said, brother, this is when you don't let your left hand know
what your right hands are doing.
He's with the Lord now.
I think he went early, you know what I'm saying?
Anyway, you don't let your left hand know what your right hand
is doing, because whenever God speaks to you, you respond.
I was preaching in Brother Heath Hogue's church, and I had this
teenager come up to me and shake my hand.
And I noticed that she was giving me some money.
It was money.
I was like, you don't have to do that.
Oh, no, I get to do it.
She said.
And when I got out in the car, it was $50.
No kid has 50.
Do any of you kids have $50?
More like 500.
Right.
And I was like, wow, what made her do that?
She wanted to give a blessing.
And guess what happens?
I was there just last week, week or week before.
And I went up to her.
Now she's married and has two children.
And I said, do you remember me giving me money?
She goes, sure, I remember that.
I said, you don't know what a blessing that was to me.
And I didn't tell her this.
It wasn't so much the money as it was the thought that she cared
about me.
And, you know, people that are like that, they don't want it to
be known.
They just want to do it to glorify God.
They're not seeking their reward down here.
Now, I'll give you a million dollars if you'll put my name up
on that building.
You understand what I'm saying?
No.
It's something that we do for God's glory.
To God be the glory.
Great things he has done through who?
Through us, as we yield ourselves to the Lord.
Now, I want to take you into the Bible with some real life illustrations.
And I must say to you that I want to repeat it again.
David Green, who is the owner of Hobby Lobby, made this statement,
give it all away and God will give it all back.
And that statement, I believe, is so powerful because we understand
something, that God is the one that fills up us.
And when we empty out in our giving, he keeps filling us.
And it's a miraculous thing.
And I mean, I've heard Christians, and I've done it myself,
complained, oh, man, I'm struggling.
And you know, we're going through difficult times.
Some of those reasons that comes to us is to get us to understand
what we're not doing right.
And it's important for us to take a look in the word of God.
Go with me to the book of Mark, chapter 12.
Quickly.
Mark, chapter 12.
This is the story of the poor Widow.
Mark, chapter 12.
I want you to see this.
Look with me at verse 41.
12 and verse 41.
And Jesus sat over against the treasury.
Now, this is pretty interesting to me.
I really get a kick out of this little story here.
Jesus sat over against the treasury.
So where the people were coming to give their Money.
Jesus is standing there watching people give.
Now, what would you do if Jesus showed up and was standing
there looking at what you gave?
That'd be an interesting thought.
Well, it's happening right here.
Now.
Watch this.
It says here he beheld how the people cast money into the treasury,
and many that were rich cast in much.
And there came a poor, certain, poor widow, and she threw
in two mites which made a farthing.
And he called unto him his disciples.
Andrew, Peter, come here.
They come a gathering around.
And he saith unto them, verily I say unto you that this poor widow
hath cast more in than all they that have cast into the treasury.
For all they did cast in of their what?
Abundance.
Sometimes it's easy to give when you have abundance.
But she of her want what she needed.
Those two mites she needed, but she of her want did cast in all
that she had, even all her living.
Wow.
Now, just suppose we were to ask her after she leaves casting
in those two mites and you know, she has nothing more.
We were to go up there and interview here, sort of.
You know, I'm just giving you a scenario here, ma'am.
Why did you give all that you had?
I don't believe that God would demand that of you.
Probably he gave you those two mites so that you could take care
of your needs and now you have nothing.
We would almost criticize her for doing something like that.
Maybe even reach in our pocket and try to give her something.
I can just see her saying, it's all the Lord's anyway, and I've
never given but what God always gave back.
Give all that you have and God will give it all back.
When you come to trust God with your finances, it is very exciting
because you begin to see God do more for you than he was doing
before you even gave it a thought.
I think God really wants us to be good stewards in our giving.
Our giving.
There's no doubt somebody could say, well, you know, Pastor,
this is going to cost a lot of money with the work over here.
And if I had it, I'd give it.
It was like my mechanic said to me, if I ever win the lottery,
I'm going to give you three V for your church.
And I thought, wow, he's only working on one right now.
He could be making money on all three.
Is there an ulterior motive there?
Maybe What I'm saying to you is we often look at it, well, I'll
do this for you.
If.
No, no, no.
There's no if ands or buts about it?
We give because we love.
We give because he first loved us.
Then the second real life illustration is found in Luke chapter
12.
Would you turn there?
Luke chapter 12.
This one is the rich man.
Luke chapter 12.
It begins in verse 19.
Let's begin there in verse 16.
And he spake a parable.
Jesus spake a parable unto them, saying, the ground of a certain
rich man brought forth plentifully.
Who did that?
Did God do that?
The Bible says the rain falleth upon the just and on the
unjust.
So God really, technically was involved in him reaping a plentiful
harvest.
And he thought within himself saying.
Now watch the personal pronouns here.
He thought within himself saying, what shall say it?
What shall I do?
Because I have no room where to bestow all of his goods or my
goods, my goods, my fruits.
He said, this will I do.
I will pull down my barns, not God's barns, and build greater.
And there will I bestow all of my fruits and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, soul, thou hast much goods laid up
for many years.
Take thine ease, eat and drink and be merry.
Let's stop right there.
What would the average Christian at Heritage Baptist Church
say to a person like that?
Say, wow, boy, you really work hard, and you've been blessed plentifully.
And isn't it great that you're going to be able to just now just
kind of lay back and take it easy and eat and drink and be merry?
Boy, I hope that I can do that someday.
Well, let's take a look and see what Jesus said right there.
Let's look and see what Jesus says.
Look at verse 19.
I will say to my, okay, verse 20.
But God said unto him, thou what?
Thou fool.
What is a fool?
A fool hath said in his heart that there is no what?
God.
That's a godless person.
That's foolish.
So really what they were thinking was, look what I have done.
It shouldn't have been I and mine and me.
It should have been the.
Look how God has blessed me with a great harvest.
It couldn't have happened had God not provided the rain and the
sunshine.
Boy, the Lord set me up for victory, and to him be all the glory
for it.
But no, it was all about himself.
It's like the rich young ruler that came to the Lord Jesus.
You remember that.
What shall I do to inherit eternal life?
What do I need to do?
I'm a man of vision, boy.
I like to get things done.
What do I need to do.
He was hoping that maybe the Lord would tell him exactly what
he wanted to hear.
But Jesus did the opposite.
Take all your goods, give them away and follow me, huh?
I don't think so.
Would you be willing to give up everything you have for God?
I was talking with a new missionary.
Going to the Netherlands is where the Knickerbockers are from.
And he came to a church where I was preaching a missions conference.
He was one of the guest missionaries there.
He said, dan, I graduated from Crown College, I went back home and
I started a business.
And he said, I've made a lot of money.
And I went to visit our family that are missionaries in England.
And they took me to the Netherlands because there was a group
of people, 200 people that called the Crown College in England
and asked if they could send them a preacher.
They were ready to start a church.
And so they went over there and checked it out.
Well, this businessman that's made good money, got a tremendous
business.
Him and his wife, they're really, at their age, they were independently
wealthy.
They went over to just see what's going on over there.
They went and looked and they saw the 200 people and man, there
was a, the power of God was all over that place.
These people were hungry for God and they need a preacher.
And so they went back home, just back to their great life, beautiful
home, all the toys, everything you could ever want, they've had,
they've got it.
And he got to work one day and said, man, I wonder if they're going
to get a preacher yet over there.
Then she started talking about it.
Boy, watch out when the wife starts talking.
Woo hoo.
The holy Spirit of God is moving right there.
And they said, let's pray for them over there.
And before long they were like, I think God wants us to shut
down our business and go on deputation and go over there and
pastor that group of people, people.
And he's almost ready to go over there.
Is that amazing or what?
You say, what a wasted life.
Oh really?
I could talk to you about a wasted life.
I could tell you story after story of people that have lived their
life like that man right there.
And I want to tell you, it's so sad.
I was talking with a pastor just the other day and he said, you
know Dan, I used to have a thriving business.
I built houses.
And I said, do you wish to go back to that?
And he said, you know, I have no desire because the ministry is
so much more rewarding.
And I'm not saying Any of you that are in secular work ought not
to be there.
I'm simply saying to you that God wants to use you in his great
work.
He's counting on you to make a difference.
Many hands makes light work.
Amen.
And when everybody gets involved and there's a unity among
us, you can't stop what God is doing.
You would never want to stop what God is doing.
And so we see here a rich man, but God called him a fool.
Then I want to give you one more real life story, and that is
Luke Chapter 19.
This is the Chief Publican, Luke Chapter 19 tells us about Zacchaeus.
Now, he was a wee little man, and a little wee man was he.
He climbed up into a sycamore tree for the Lord.
He wanted to see.
But as the Savior passed that way, you sung the song before.
He looked up in the tree and said, zacchaeus, I'm going to your
house today.
He probably almost fell out of that tree.
Amen.
What now?
I want to tell you something.
He was hated because he was a gentile, but he was working for the
Roman government and he was stealing money.
When he'd say, okay, your taxes are $100, they were really
only $50.
And he just cleaned out $50 out of your account for himself.
And no doubt he had a nice beautiful place and everything was
just going great.
And everybody started looking.
Oh, you got to see what they say.
It's pretty, pretty interesting.
Watch this with me.
Now, when he sought to see Jesus, he's up in the sycamore tree,
verse 4.
And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw Zacchaeus.
He said, zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide
at thy house.
And he made haste and came down and received him joyfully.
I'm sure that a lot of people were looking around.
Oh, it tells us this right here.
And when they, the multitude of people saw it, they all murmured,
saying that he was gone to be a guest with a man that's a sinner.
How dare Jesus go to his house.
He's a stinking thief, we know he is.
You can't trust those publicans.
Now they're mad at the Lord.
How many ever gotten mad at God?
None of you, right?
Sometimes God allows things to happen.
You go, what?
You can't understand it.
These people couldn't understand it.
And so they're murmuring.
So there Jesus goes into their house.
Let's see what happens.
As soon as he gets in there, you know, I want to Tell you one
thing about the Lord.
When you get in his presence, you're going to find out real quick
what he wants.
And notice what it says here.
Verse 9.
And Jesus said unto him this day, oh, let's go to verse eight.
Let's get the message.
And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, they're not in the
house no time at all.
And he says, behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor.
And if I have taken anything from any man by false accusations,
I restore him what, fourfold?
If I stole a dollar, I'm giving four back.
If I stole 10, I'm giving 40 back.
And Jesus said unto him, this day is salvation.
Come to this house.
For as much as he also is a son of Abraham, for the Son of man
is come to seek and to save that which is lost.
Here's what happened.
Repentance came into his life under being.
Under the Lord Jesus presence.
Have you ever had that happen to you where you became convicted
by being in his presence?
Sometimes the presence of God is not fullness of joy at the moment,
right?
Sometimes it's.
I used to call it a whaling expedition.
God's dealing with me.
God has put his finger on my problem.
And why did he do it?
Because he wanted me to repent.
And that's what happened.
Zacchaeus becomes a Christian.
Well, we already know what the murmurers think.
But Zacchaeus stops by one of the murmurers.
Hey, how you doing?
I'm all right.
Well, I want to tell you I've been robbing you.
Yeah, well, I want to give you four times what I took from you.
Would that be okay?
Hand it over, buddy.
You know what it caused those people that were murmuring?
It caused them to go, wow, Jesus got to that sinner.
Never forget you're a sinner when you start thinking too highly
of yourself.
God can't use you when you're nothing.
He becomes everything.
I am crucified with Christ.
The Bible says, nevertheless, I live, yet not what I, but Christ
liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh.
I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself
for me.
There's two words with I in the middle, pride and sin.
We need to confess our sins to God.
Amen.
Don't harbor any sin or iniquity in your life.
Get rid of it.
Because when you get rid of it, all of a sudden, God becomes
so real to you.
Zacchaeus was a different man after that.
Amen.
Just like God Changed your heart, saved your soul.
What a thrill it is that God would deal with us as he does.
And I'm so thankful that none of us should ever want to get in
a position like Zacchaeus was.
Maybe some of you were there before you got saved, but it's different
now.
He changed you to glorify him and to serve him and to give to him
and to live for him.
It's now wonderful.
The greatest word in the Bible, other than Jesus and God and
the Holy Spirit, is the word in my book.
Wonderful.
He's a wonderful counselor.
He's the mighty God.
He's the everlasting Father.
He's the Prince of peace, and he's mine, and I am his.
Could it get any greater than that?
Oh, I must say to you tonight that God wants to do a mighty, mighty
work in your Life this year, 2025.
I believe that God can use you in a greater way than he's ever used
you before.
The more you open up to God, the more he opens up to you.
And as you say, lord, everything I have is yours, and I
give it all to you.
Amen.
During COVID my wife and I had 12 weeks of meetings that didn't
exist.
And we came home and we thought, what are we gonna do to
make up a difference?
And so we took 82 items in our house and we sold them on Marketplace,
and we made $2,200.
That's not bad.
And I don't remember any of the stuff we sold.
There was this one box of stained glass stuff that I bought
for $10 at a yard sale.
And I told Ann, I'm gonna put $100 on it.
She goes, you'll never get a hundred dollars for that.
And some guy called me said, don't sell it to anybody.
I'm on my way, and I've got a hundred dollar bill for you.
I'm just saying to you, how many have stuff around the house
you don't need anymore?
But it's there.
Yep.
Now, I can get in trouble when I start talking like this, because
stuff is really precious that you haven't seen and don't even know
where it is.
And you bought other ones, other stuff because you forgot where
it was.
Hello.
And, you know, it's interesting.
Usually there's always a hoarder in the house, maybe secretly.
But what I'm saying to you is, what could you do toward this building
program if you just took everything you didn't need?
Some Stuff you don't even want, or if your wife doesn't think
you need it, think about how much that you could give toward this.
And it would go into something that is eternal, something that will
make a difference now.
Oh, I want to.
I challenge you to ask the Lord to help you to give as you've
never given before.
Go to great heights with God and let him prove himself real to
you.
It's interesting.
Mr.
Green of Hobby Lobby, he made a statement to his son, mart.
He said, 90% is greater than 100% son.
And his son said, what do you mean by that?
How could 90% be better than 100%?
He goes, oh, 90% without God is more than 100% without God.
Can I read that again?
90% with God is more than 100% without God.
Wow, that's a powerful statement.
And it's interesting because when they had a lawsuit that they
went before the Supreme Court, and how many remember some of the
story of the Supreme Court issue?
But he came to the place where he says in his book, I found out
that my Hobby Lobby was not really mine, it was God's.
And the future of Hobby Lobby depended upon God, not me.
And that he won.
And it made a huge difference, and it bolstered his faith, and he
was able to see God bless him so much that Hobby.
You ladies have been really helping Hobby Lobby out.
I mean, they are multimillionaires.
That business is.
And he even says in his book, I am not interested in any of the
Smiths or the Greens.
I'm not interested in any of the Greens becoming independently
wealthy.
So what they do, they get together.
Mr.
Green meets with his family, his wife, his children, his grandchildren.
Now they're even getting into great grandchildren.
And they have what they call board meetings where they decide
how they're going to spend millions of dollars.
I think that's kind of cool.
Isn't that something?
And he says, it's so wonderful to see our children and grandchildren
understanding that we can work for God.
And what God's given to us, we can give it back.
And God keeps giving.
We give and then he gives more.
Pretty interesting, isn't it?
What I'm saying is that God wants to really be in charge, and
the sooner the better.
It will make such a difference in your life that you'll just be
thrilled that your life is fulfilled.
Many people live their life and they do a job just to do it.
And it's sad.
You know, they say if you love your job, you never work a day in
your life.
And it's true with Christianity.
When you have Christ likeness and you're dead to self, there's
no end of what God can do.
Let's pray together.
May we?