My Resources

Good morning. It’s good to see all of you here today. Those of you are joining us in person, those of you that are streaming in online, my name is Tim. I get the privilege of being the lead pastor, and we are concluding a three part sermon series we’ve been on the last couple of weeks called and It’s personal. And a couple of weeks ago, we looked at what that means for our lives or our lives. Our lives, or do our lives belong to the Lord when it comes to our faith? Who or what is it that produces faith in our hearts and our lives, and how do we respond to what it is that God is doing in our midst? And then today, aren’t you so glad you came today? Because today we are going to be talking about our resources. And everyone said that was so weak. Some of you right now are plotting how you can go get a cup of coffee and sneak out or go to the restroom, because that’s just be honest this morning when it comes to talking about resources, specifically talking about money, especially in a local church, sometimes it can be a little uncomfortable. 

Can we just admit that this morning? All right. And those of you that know me know I’m a straight shooter. Those of you that don’t know me, I hope I get an opportunity to meet you, to build a relationship with you, especially if you’ve been coming to Shepherd’s Gate maybe since January. Or maybe you’ve been checking us out since Easter. And the thought in your mind right now is, oh, here it comes. They baited us and they baited us and they beat us it in. And now boom! All they want is my money. And I can tell you this. I thank you for your honesty. And I can tell you this. That is not the case. In fact, for those of you that are gassed and if you are not a member of this church, we want Jesus for you and we want to watch and see what it is that God continues to do in your life. And if he would actually call you to to this place to have this be your home church where your faith and your family’s faith is nurtured and grows, what you are going to get today is a behind the scenes look of how we operate, and some of the information that I share with you in light of how we’re able to fund what it is that God has actually called us to do here at Shepherds Gate. But before I get into that,I think we all know what our most valuable resources are, right? Go ahead, help me out with this. One of our most valuable resources. Two things. 

Time, which was the loudest one, and money. And so the question always becomes, well, how do you spend your time in the second one. And this word is a little bit different. It’s not how you spend your money, it’s how you want to manage your money. You see, we’ve all been entrusted by God with the resources that we have. And if you dig into Scripture, if you see what it is that the scriptures actually teach everything that you have, everything that I have ultimately belongs to the Lord. We just get this incredible responsibility and privilege of stewarding what it is that God has given us. And I know some of you will say, well, wait, wait, wait, wait. You don’t know how hard I work. You don’t know how to put myself through school. You don’t understand that I had to build my business from scratch and and the sleepless nights and weekends, and how much I have sacrificed to get where I am at today. And no one would take that away from you. But you also have to understand that in all of those moments, that it was the Holy Spirit that was at work in your life, it was the Holy Spirit that was opening doors of opportunities and connecting dots so that you could be where you’re at today. And here’s the crazy part. We actually believe God has more in store for you, that when you learn biblical stewardship and you learn the arts and the joy of generosity, there is another whole level of living that maybe you have never, ever even experienced before. 

And I hope by the end of this that you will tip your toe in the water, that those of you that maybe have never given before, you get very little, that you’re like, wait a second, maybe there’s an opportunity. Maybe the Holy Spirit is stirring something in my heart to begin to see how I can live my life at a whole nother level. But before we get into that, let’s just go over the basics, okay? We know there’s three things you can do with money. You can spend it. Does anyone need help spending money? This morning we have counselors available after the service. We have 32,000 books you can know, but no, there’s nobody buys a book on how to spend money. Everybody knows how to spend money, don’t they? But what about when it comes to saving money or investing money? Anybody that would admit it, maybe you could use a little work on that. Maybe there’s some things that maybe you could learn or grow in when it comes to saving and investing. And what about the third one? Why is this always the hardest one? Why is this one? It just seems to be this internal struggle. Or we want to wait until we have our entire financial household in order, and we have all the investments in just the right places and everything’s trending in the right direction. And once all of those things are in place, then I will step out in faith and give again. 

What’s interesting is you go to Scripture and you see that there’s so many scriptures on so many different subjects. Prayer. We should pray. I think everyone agrees that prayers an important part of the believer’s life. 500 verses. How about faith? Faith is what actually saves us. Faith is what gets us into heaven. 500 verses on Faith. Well, we would expect that it. But why in the world are there more than 2000 verses from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation, specifically on money and our resources? Why did Jesus talk more about money than he did about heaven and hell? Why are most of his parables recorded in four Gospels, four different authors? Why do most of the parables talk about money? Who knows? Do you think that maybe that God knew the human heart, that this would be a struggle for people not just here in 2024, but 2000 years ago, that people would struggle with money. And this whole idea of releasing that and living open handedly and sharing what it is that God has given us. Now, I know because I’ve done this long enough, but there’s many reasons people don’t give. And here’s just a few that that come to mind that I’ve heard right. All the church preaches on in money. 

Some of you are. You’re already texting each other, turning to each other. You’re going to talk on the ride home. You’re like, see, we thought this was our church, but this isn’t our church, and we’re going to go to another church because we just left the church we came from because all they talked about was, and the next church that you go to, you’ll go to for a few weeks or a few months and guess what? They’ll talk about. Or maybe it’s the opposite end of the spectrum. You look around and you’re like, man, Shepherd’s gate seems to be doing just fine. I mean, look at you, Pastor Tim, do you have those nice shiny white shoes? Must be bankrolling living large. Look at all the programing. You go to our staff website or use our website and look at the staff page. You’re like, man, look at all the staff members. This place is incredible. It’s like Disney World, but you don’t have to pay. Will you love this place? Or how about number three? I don’t like the way the church spends money and you could go on and on. There’s so many different things that people will come up with. And oftentimes even with the third one, people will point to things or, or or they’ll begin to critique things. And if you know, if you if you’ve been around here for any length of time, you know that that if you have an issue that you should come forward with that issue, that if you call Shepherd’s Gate your home and you have an issue that’s festering in your life and you’re withholding being part of the family and communicating whatever it is that you see that maybe you think we should see, but maybe we don’t see, and you’re not bringing that forward. 

That’s on you see, when it comes to being in a family and a church family. And of course it’s messy. Of course, everyone has different opinions. Of course, things can sometimes get misconstrued, and I just want you to know that. I want you to know that you are important to me, that you can come and talk to me, that I want to hear what it is that you see and how you process things. And so I’m going to share a little bit of kind of where we’ve been as a church. We all know that we’re in this building program. And so a lot of people say, well, didn’t everyone just kind of shift from giving to the church to now just giving to the building program? And I want to make this clear because this actually isn’t the case. The business office has done the research. We have the data. The people that are giving to the building campaign are the people that already give here to Shepherd’s Gate. There isn’t some huge increase of people that they never gave before, or some huge increase of people that shifted from, you know, giving to the general fund to all this all of a sudden giving to the building campaign. But I want to personalize it for me this morning. I want you to know kind of who I am as as a pastor and as a preacher. And even though I’ve been here at Shepherd’s Gate for 20 years, I’ve had the privilege of being the lead pastor for the last seven years. And so it was actually April 2017 that I was installed as the lead pastor. And if we just rewind the last seven years, because when you’re the lead pastor, you do carry a different responsibility. 

You do have the spiritual oversight of your congregation. And if we were to win just back from when I became a lead pastor, how many sermons do you think that I’ve preached here at Shepherd’s Gate? And I want to clarify this because people have already asked questions. This is like, I don’t count Sunday morning as two or when we had three services as three. This is like one sermon on one weekend in the last seven years. Any guesses out there? 382. 1403 50. What was your exact number? 280 203 82. Ready for this? 224 sermons. Now, those of you that have been with us, this isn’t the first time I’ve talked about money. How many times do you think that I have preached on this subject that we’re handling this morning, 35 there is a knucklehead in the first service that said 224 you see, no. Many of you know this knucklehead, by the way. This is how many I’ve actually preached. And interesting, isn’t it? As you, some of you were like, wait a second, who are you? I’ve been here the last few weeks, and there’s there’s other guy that’s way younger and better looking than you. his name’s Ben, and he keeps telling us that he’s a vicar and he’s going to be a pastor soon. And so you might be thinking, oh, you must be having Ben do all the difficult talks. He must be the one that’s been preaching on money. 

Interesting enough, Ben has been with us since 2020. And Ben, believe it or not, he’s already preached 56 sermons here at Shepherds Gate. Two of them? Yeah. Go ahead, give him a hand. Two of them on money. Now, some of you are good with money, Mike. You’re good with money. You’re good with numbers. Here’s what’s crazy is our our percentages are exactly the same. 3.5% of our sermons have been about money. And some of you were like, praise God for that. I actually said to Ben, I said, really, truly, we should actually try to get this up to at least 10%. I mean, if you want to play percentages and you look at the teachings of Jesus and what he taught and what he focused on compared to what we’re doing, and our obligation is as the spiritual leaders to make sure that we are talking about biblical stewardship. Now, I want you to look at this second one, because this really caused a lot of discussion after the second service. And actually, this is the first time that I’ve ever shared this statistic with our church. And the reason I’m sharing this with you was actually came out of a council meeting. We have a church council here. And so they’re responsible for the financial well-being and and kind of keeping us on track and, monitoring, the way that money flows here at our church. And I said, I’ve never shared that. And he said, we think our church would want to know this. Then as you look around Shepherd’s Gate, 30% of people who call Shepherd’s Gate home give. 

And I want to be very clear on this. I want you to make sure that you understand this is that when it says  30% of those who call Shepherd’s Gate home, that’s not 30% of our in-person or online attendance. It’s not those that come through our doors. This is 30% of people who have taken the new member class, who have stood in front of the congregation, who have committed themselves to being members of Shepherd’s Gate. And yet 70% of those. Have not taken that step of faith forward and saying, God, I’m going to trust you in God. I believe in what this church stands for, God, and I believe that that you have called me to be a financial partner of what it is that you’re doing here. Imagine if 50% of those who call Shepherd’s Gate home gave kind of ministry we could do here. Imagine if 70 or 80% of those, again, who call Shepherd’s Gate home again, if you’re a guest, this doesn’t apply to you. You just have to come and sit. And we’re so glad that you’re here. And we want to continue to to make that investment in you. And yet, all the while, with 30% giving, somehow this church is able to we as able to give away 17% of our funds. And I want to pause for a moment because I do want to thank those of you that are part of that 30%. I know we don’t probably say this enough, but from the bottom of my heart, thank you for trusting us. Thank you for investing in this church. Thank you for making it possible so that everyone that comes through our doors can hear the gospel and experience their faith in their life, grow. 

See, our mission is simple. Here at Shepherd’s Gate. Many of you know this. Will you say this with me? We exist to impact the world with the love of Jesus. And the reason it’s simple is because every church should have a mission statement that sounds something to this effect. The reason is, all it is, is a rewording of what Jesus told the disciples when he told them to go make more disciples and to baptize people in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. What makes every local church unique is their vision statement. Their vision statement is their unique expression for how they feel. God is calling them to fulfill the mission of the church and our vision statement since 2020 has been this that we will value everyone we meet, we will influence everywhere we go, and we will live generously with what everything we have and these words are bolded in there in brackets on purpose, because they’re just a play on words. Everyone means this is that those who call Shepherd’s Gate home do you, as an individual, feel responsibility to this church to not just attend church here, but to serve here and to give willingly and freely what it is that God has placed in your hands? Do we do it as a community? And that’s why, again, it’s in a bracket. Because as people come into our doors, do they feel that we want more people to come into our house? Do they feel that when we go out and serve them in the community, that they genuinely feel that we love them, not wanting anything from them? 

We simply want Jesus for them, even if they never actually stepped foot inside our doors. Everywhere is really quite simple. We just believe that God has called us to be active in our community and not just active in our community, but that there’s times when God will put on our hearts to get on planes. We’ll send people to other places around the world. If God opens a door that we can share the gospel. And then of course, the last one, which is often times is the hardest one. And again, it’s two fold. It’s time and money that we don’t want people just to write checks. We don’t want to be a check writing church, and we don’t even want our mission team to just write checks. We want our mission team to go out and to serve people. And so everything is our physical and our financial resources. And again, as you study the scriptures, as you see the interaction with Jesus and how he would challenge people, how he would call people up, you wouldn’t call him out, you’d call people up to their full potential. There’s an account of Jesus with a young man in Matthew chapter 19. And this is what it says, says A man came up to Jesus and he asked, teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life? Now remember that word good, here he is. He’s successful. He has money. He’s prominent member of his community. And he’s asking Jesus. 

He’s heard about Jesus, and somehow he has given the opportunity in Jesus three short years of doing ministry. Somehow he has been given the opportunity to have a face to face conversation with Jesus. And so we asked Jesus this question because he realizes that one day he will die, and one day there must be something beyond this life. It can’t just be all about what we see here and now. And so instead of answering his question, Jesus asked actually asked him a question. In response, he says this why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good and who is the only one that is good. God. God is the only one that is good. If you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments. The first thing Jesus does is he points him towards the relationship that he should have with God. Does he actually believe that God is good? And is God the only one who is good? And if God is the only one that is good, that means everybody else. That is ever lived or died is why bad, sinful? So this this rich kid has to admit that he is sinful, that he is actually not good. And not only so is he saying this? Do you believe that God is good? But does this guy actually believe that Jesus is God and that Jesus is good, and that Jesus actually knows what’s best for him and for his life? It’s interesting response from this guy as he challenges them. 

Yeah, you you want you want to be good and keep all the commandments. Well, he fires back. Which ones? Which ones are the Ten commandments? Jesus replies, you shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. Honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as your self. The second half of the Ten Commandments, all the ones that talk about our vertical relationships with other people. Now, as you look at this list, as you look at your life, is anyone in here been able to keep all of these commandments? Anyone you haven’t murdered? You haven’t cheated on your spouse. You haven’t stole anything of significance. Maybe with some bubble gum when you were really young. But certainly God’s not going to hold you accountable to that. You only lie when it’s absolutely necessary and for the good of somebody else. Tim, you don’t understand my mom and dad. They’re getting older and crankier, and I’m trying to do my best to honor them. Tim, you don’t understand. My neighbor. Come spend the night at my house. Dude. Can’t even mow is grass. Want me to love my neighbor? You crazy? Here’s the not the part that’s even crazier than this is. All of us would say, yeah, yeah, we’ve screwed up. We’re sinners some of these multiple times. This is literally how he answers Jesus. All these I have kept. What’s his issue? All right. Pride. What? That seep in for a moment. To be full. So full fully yourself that you don’t even see the sinful, fallen nature within you. And you’re having a conversation with Jesus. 

And in that same prideful, boastful moment, he’s able to look Jesus in the eyes and ask this question, what do I still lack? Why would he ask that? Because at the end of the day, no matter how much money you make, no matter how big you build your house, no matter how many toys you buy, no matter how incredible you are with the stock market and investments and money, money, money, possessions, possessions, possessions, things, things, things, there is still a gaping hole in every human heart that only Jesus can fill. And no matter how hard you work or what you accumulate, we’re all going to die. And then who gets all of that stuff that we work so hard for? Part of that is true. The government. Jesus answered him, if you want to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And then check this out. Then come follow me. Watch what I do with your life. Watch what I do with your faith. Watch what happens when all of your resources are complete, neatly taken away from you. Do you have the ability to trust that I am the Son of God, and that I am good, and that I will provide for you? Put yourself in this young man’s shoes. What if Jesus came to you? And said, here’s the thing. All that you’ve worked for, all that you’ve accumulated, I want you to give it all to the poor, and I want you to come and follow me and for the rest of your life, to have the most incredible life you could ever experience. Remember, the disciples are kind of in the background here. 

They can hear the conversation that’s going on. They can see Jesus’s demeanor. They can see the young man grappling with this. By the way, remember the disciples? Peter, who left his fishing business is very successful fishing business to follow Jesus and all. By the way, he was a wealthy man because you can go and you can visit his house in Israel. And part of the reason that people believe that Jesus picked Peter was because he had a house big enough to house all of the disciples in Jesus. How about Matthew who wrote this? Remember what his profession was? Tax collector. You don’t think he had some coins in his pocket? You don’t think he had to count the cost of following Jesus? How about Judas? He was in charge of Jesus’s money. He was Jesus’s accountant. They’re all lean and in going, what is going on here and what is he? How is he going to respond? And what does this look like? And sadly, unfortunately. He didn’t take Jesus up on his offer. Said he goes away sad because he had what not just wealth, great wealth? Can we pause and imagine for a moment if he would have taken Jesus up on his offer? Imagine if you would have became the 13th disciple. Imagine if he would have showed up later in the Gospels and in the book of acts, and the way in which his life would have been completely transformed and changed. Jesus didn’t chase him down. Jesus didn’t beg him to follow him. He gave this man exactly what he needed in this moment.

 See, it’s earlier in Matthew when Jesus was again surrounded by a crowd that he’s doing a teaching, and he just said these simple words. He said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also, giving will always be a matter of the heart. If you try to manage giving with your mind, it’ll never work. If you try to manage it with logic and just saying, you know what, I’m going to wait until these investments, you know, bubble up or they get to where I need them to get to. You will never give it all comes back to your heart. Trusting God is the one that understands finances. He understands you. He knows what you’re going through and trusting that he will get you through every moment of life. Remember, this is the God that sent Jesus to this earth. He gave his most valuable asset, his one and only son, to walk on this earth, to experience everything that we experience. And oh, by the way, he also paid taxes. So that ultimately he could fulfill his mission on a cross to take our sins, our selfishness, our gossip, our adulterous life, our murderous words that we speak, all the things that Jesus list and the ten comments upon himself so that he could die so that he can rise so that we could be forgiven. That’s why it’s so personal. That’s why I love the title of this sermon series, because it is. Is it my wife or did Jesus say, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me? he wasn’t talking to me. He’s talking to the 12 disciples. 

Is it really my faith? Can I choose? Can I decide to follow Jesus? No you can’t. If you try to rely on your logic, it will never work. Scripture over and over again tells us it is God and His grace in his mercy that comes to us. And he produces faith in our hearts and in our lives. And he does that through the preaching of his word. And of course, resources. I know many of you. You know what my family’s been through the last several weeks. Two boys, 13 and ten, who both had wonderful trips to the hospital. First one that spent 12 days in the hospital, the second one that spent eight days in the hospital. They both had surgeries three weeks apart. And I’m so thankful to Ben. I’m so thankful to our staff because our whole world got turned upside down. I was supposed to preach the last two sermons in Genesis ten. Did that for me. Finally got our first born home Holy Week. Isn’t it interesting that the only week off that we had in between their two surgeries and hospital visits was Holy Week and Easter? Otherwise, Ben would have had to have preached Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Saturday, and Easter Sunday. I think you could actually done it, don’t you? I mean, he’s doing such a great job. But it’s interesting because somehow we got a week off and then our second child, Brady, went in on Easter afternoon, and that’s when we found out that he had the same thing. And then he went in for surgery Monday morning. And that’s when he started his eight day sin the hospital. And what’s so intriguing about being in a hospital is that it can make you go crazy. There’s so many incredible nurses and people that God has given us to to care for our kids. 

And we started getting tired. We started getting fatigued. We started wanting to get out of what I called Alcatraz. And one of the nights that we were in the hospital, Lisa and I just happened to be there together because we would rotate who would spend the night with the kids, and we met a mom pulling a wagon with a 19 month old. And I don’t think you’re supposed to make friends in the hospital. You know, they got all these HIPAA rules and laws or whatever, but we had nothing else to do. So we’re like, let’s talk to the people that are walking the halls with us. And here’s this young mom who’s on her second stay, 35 day stay with her 19 month old who’s fighting leukemia. And this is only two of 635 night stays that they get because of what they’re going through. This little kid’s going to spend 205 days in the hospital. And in that moment, I realized that God was telling us, hey, wake up, count your blessings.See that I am at work because many of you know that both of our kids were in the hospital. What you don’t know is this is that same week when the first one was in Henry, is that the check engine light came on and my wife’s car. And then as she went to get that checked out, she found out that she needed new tires for her vehicle. Then I found out that I needed new tires for my vehicle and when we finally got everybody home because it was delayed and we basically lost a month of our lives, I finally was able to go to my tax preparer and sit down with him, and he looked me in the eye and he said, Tim, I have some bad news for you. 

Ready for this, Paul? He said, you all the federal government, more money. How many hate paying taxes? And it could have been so easy to say. God, where are you? God? Didn’t you know that I’d have two kids that have the same thing within three weeks time? And all these doctors and nurses have never seen this before, and they don’t know how this is even possible or why this would even happen. Thanks for giving me a week off for Holy Week. But man, what’s up with the check engine? Like, can you have like, let that thing wait for a few months? God, what’s with the taxes? How in the world do we owe the tires? Okay, fine. That’s on me. I should have been keeping track of the tires. And what would have been so easy to do is to withhold what money? The money that we’ve committed. The money that we so freely give here at Shepherd’s Gate. And that was never a discussion in my house, because there’s no way in the world because we’ve been through too much together, that we would ever stop trusting God to lead and guide us as a family. Here’s my challenge for all of you today and the reason we gave you a card. First time we’ve ever done this as well. I ask you if you would go ahead and grab that card. And I know some of you, you might be hesitant to fill that out because you think we’re going to collect it on the way out. I can just tell you now, put you at ease. We’re not collecting the cards on the way out. This card is for you to take home if you’re single to to to pray about this and to see where the Holy Spirit would lead you. 

If you’re married, we’re asking you to come together with your spouse eyeball to eyeball. Have the conversation and see what it is that maybe God would put on your heart. Simple questions. Do you consider Shepherd’s Gate your home church? And is this a church that you enjoy, that you want to come to you? That you want to be part of what is happening here at Shepherd’s Gate? Because, again, people will see. We’ll use the excuse, oh, the church is just a business or the church just needs my money. I can tell you that’s the furthest thing from the truth. The amount of people that we have overseeing our finances and the people that are in charge of it are absolutely incredible. I can give you one example. If we actually looked at Shepherd’s Gate as a business, we would stop doing outdoor services. Do you know why? Every time we do an outdoor service, our attendance goes up and our giving goes down. Financially, outdoor services are terrible for our bottom line. Do you know what we planned last week? All four of our outdoor services coming up this summer, because we know that you’ll invite friends and people from our community to come, and we love to see what it is that God can do with the power of an invite. Inviting somebody to come be part of our community. Again, as I said these next two weeks, don’t miss next Sunday and the Sunday after. You will truly see who we are and how we spend our resources here at Shepherd’s Gate. But we can’t do it without you. We can’t do it without the financial partners that that God has called to come together. 

Because I just believe church, that the best days for Shepherd’s Gate are ahead of us, not behind us. I believe there are more people in our community who are unchurched in church that need to know the love of Jesus. I don’t know why, but they’re tearing down all of the woods by us. Did you notice that? And new homes are going up in every direction, and I believe God is positioning and placing us in this community in this spot for a reason, so that we can connect people to eternal life. And I want to be part of a church where generosity is unleashed on an unprecedented level, that we can finally break this 30% barrier, that we can just move on into the future and watch more and more lives being changed because we were willing to sacrifice. We are willing to open up and say, God, it’s yours, and I’m going to be obedient to you. I’m going to step out in faith, and I’m going to give what it is that you’ve put on my heart to give. Amen. Amen. I want to close by saying this as well, because I know maybe you’re here today. And your heart is heavy because you’re saying, Tim, you don’t understand the financial situation that I’ve gotten myself in. Tim, you don’t understand the financial situation that I’ve gotten my family in. 

And maybe you’re in debt up to your eyeballs. Maybe you’re living paycheck to paycheck, and you’re scraping by and you’ve maxed out credit cards in your life. Literally. You would love to give, but you can’t even get out of the situation that you’re in. Hear me? Today we have financial coaches here at Shepherd’s Gate. We have people that are absolutely incredible about coming alongside couples and individuals in confidentiality. No one will ever know, and they will help you, and they will begin to structure a budget and they will begin to help you with your finances. You see this here? This is my email here at the church. This is my personal cell phone. If you don’t have it, you should. Everybody at Shepherd’s Gate has my cell phone. Sometimes I’m good at responding. Sometimes it takes me a couple days, but I would reach out. If you want to talk, whether it’s you’re in a financial situation or you have some issue with the church and you’re not coming forward, or you have an idea about unleashing generosity in church, I would love to hear your feedback. I would love to talk to you and figure out what that looks like. So again, as we close, just imagine with me this morning a place. Where everyone lives generously according to what it is that God has laid on their heart. What could we do and what can we see? And what is it that God would lead us to do in the future? Amen.