Nothing worthwhile happens by accident—especially the most worthwhile thing: Helping people find the Father, a family, and a fulfilling future. Living each day with Kingdom-minded purpose takes intention and dedication. We must be clear about who we are and what we value if we wish to change the world. At Cornerstone, we know who we are. We rally behind our core values that give us clarity, purpose, and an identity.

This is how we change the world.

The Church of Jesus Christ should be the most generous group of people on Earth. We will follow the example of our King, who held back nothing to rescue us. Our time, talent, and treasure are cheerfully given to expand the Kingdom of God and to impact our communities.

So we are in this series this is how we change the world pastor Brenda just knocked it out of the park the last two weeks she came out of the bullpen throw in heat she did so well. The last two weeks preaching and what we've been talking about if you weren't here, I'll just you know, recap it real quick. We're talking about our core values, the things that make Cornerstone Cornerstone, the things that are pretty unique to us as a church, and how when we do those things, when we live those out, and we make those our true core values of not just us as a church, but for us as individuals, how we can change the world when we do that. And so we looked at our first two core values. Our first one is Long live the king, long live the king. And we're, we're declaring when we say that, that it is not about us, it's about him. It's about Jesus, and that we are here to make Jesus famous and follow where he leads. That is where that's our starting point for everything we do at Cornerstone and everything we don't do at cornerstone. This right here is the starting point. It's the foundation for it all Long live the king. And then last week, Pastor Brenda talked about our second core value, which is unity is our calling card. How timely was this one? How timely was this with everything going on in the world, especially in our country right now? Unity is our calling card, we want to be known for what we are for, not what we are against. We don't want to be a church that's constantly letting people know, this is what we're against. And we're against this too. Oh, yeah, we don't like this as well. And here's the big list of don'ts, that whenever you start coming to church, we don't want to be that we want to be people who lead with what we're for. We don't want to see differences all the time, what we want to see is that our commonality, our rallying point, for every single one of us, whether we're white, or black, whether we're Democrat or Republican, that Jesus is what we rally behind, he is our foundation for everything we do. And so even if we have differences, we can have unity behind Jesus. So that was core value number two. Now, today, we're going to be jumping to the third one. And before we really get into it, I want to just talk real quick about core values. And just a little bit of a distinction that there are in values. So there's, there's really two types of values. And there is aspirational, and actual aspirational, the actual This is what I mean. And aspirational value is something that you're like aspiring to that you want to be true. But it's not. Right. It's aspirational, you're aspiring to it, but it's not really happening right now. And then there's an actual core value. And that's something that you're saying, This is what we value, this is who we are. And it actually plays out and how we do business and how we live our lives and how we handle problems and opportunities and things like that. And this is what it looks like Apple who has an iPhone who has an iPhone, Yeah, me too. Me too apple. So Apple, one of its core values is creativity. It's been a core value of theirs since 1981 that they want to innovate. They want to create, they want to push, push the boundaries and push things forward. And I think they did that. I think they're pretty successful, right? The iPhone completely changed the game. They innovated the way people look at phones now with iPad, they're changing the way people look at computers. It's just crazy the stuff that they've been able to do. That's an actual core value of there's creativity, they are constantly creating constantly trying to innovate and make things better. Now, who knows what the company Enron was not is was anyone familiar with Enron? Google? Okay. It's a pretty, pretty interesting story. Back in 2001, Enron was a gigantic company, an oil company, an oil and gas company. They traded on the stock exchange, just this massive, massive company. But in 2001, crap hit the fan for this company, and they went bankrupt. And the reason they went bankrupt is that this company that looked to be doing great that everyone thought was fantastic, was actually cooking their books. They were hiding massive losses. They were hiding the huge debt that they had. And so to the world, it looked like hey, there's this massive, awesome company and not just to the world, to their investors, to their stockholders, people like yeah, I own stock in Enron, man. It's constantly up into the right, these guys are great. They've never posted a loss. They're like, everything's great. Well, it turns out, they've been lying this whole time. And they went from trading at over $100 a stock to trading at less than $1 per stock. And like a day, when all this broke, they declared bankruptcy. People went to jail for huge guess what some of their core values were. Respect and integrity.

aspirational core values. They weren't exactly living that out, right? Were they respecting their shareholders by holding back information? Were they being full of integrity whenever they were cooking their books to make it look like they were making more money so they could bring more in? Of course not. Right? That was an aspirational core value. And the reason I'm talking about this distinction today is that the core value that we're focusing on today, the one that we're going to dive into, I feel like we as a church kind of have our feet in both. In some ways, we are actually really living this core value out and we see it happening. And it's amazing, and it's awesome. But in other ways, it's aspirational. in other ways, we're not really doing as much as we could, and we have room to grow, are you tracking with me? So we've kind of got our feet in both of these places. And that's what we're going to talk about today as we, as we jump into this core value, core value number three. So we're going to be reading mostly today from the book of Second Corinthians, this is a letter, the book of Second Corinthians. It's actually a letter that one of Jesus's earliest followers, a man named Paul, it's a letter that he wrote to a church in the city of Corinth. And so he's writing them this letter, and at one point in the letter, he talks about a whole variety of subjects. But at one point, as we start getting to chapters eight and nine, Paul starts to talk about this severe trial, that a couple of believers are going through this group of believers. And what we know from history is that there was a massive famine in the area around the time that Paul wrote these letters. And so Paul is just playing with other churches with other believers saying, hey, this famine is hitting hard, people are in need, people are in distress, we need financial help, we need assistance. And so in chapters eight and nine, that's what he's doing. He's asking for fellow believers, for fellow Christians to make a generous gift to dive into financial generosity. And that's where we're going to read today. Second Corinthians chapter nine, starting in verse six, this is what Paul says to the believers remember this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously Paul saying, hey, look, if you give a little, you're going to reap a little you're going to get back a little but if you give big you're going to get back big verse seven, each of you should give what you've decided in your heart to give not reluctantly, or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver about right now some of you are going, he's talking about money today, isn't he? Now we're talking about giving, right because it's much alike, it's such an uncomfortable topic, but Paul just dives into it. He's like, hey, look, I know this is hard. We're talking about money, but with something, we need to talk about. He continues, he said, and God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written, they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor, their righteousness endures forever. Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. And through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God Paul saying, hey, look, whatever you give, God's gonna continue to meet your needs. He's going to continue to supply you and other people are going to see it and they're going to see how God comes through for you. Verse 12, this service that you perform this offering is not only the supplying the needs of the Lord's people, but it's also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God, because of the service by which you've proved yourself. Others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity and sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you, their hearts will go out to you because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks are to God for His indescribable gift. Let's pray real quick. Father, God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the truth that it contains. And God what we ask today is that any baggage we bring into this conversation, any preconceived notions or ideas of what giving looks like or what generosity looks like that we would take them, and we would lay them at your feet, and say, instead of what I think, God, I want to know what you know. I want to know your truth. I won't allow your word to convict me and convinced me of how I should be and what generosity truly looks like. We believe you for that, Father, we ask that you would help us to put any distractions aside so we can hear from you today. That's why we're here God, we're here for you. We love you. We pray this in your name. Amen. Amen. Well, hey, core value number three, core value number three for Cornerstone Church is the second mile, generosity, second mile, generosity and what that means when we talk about second-mile generosity is that our time, our talent, and our treasure are cheerfully given to expanding the kingdom of God into the impact our communities. Second-mile generosity we give our time we give our talent we give our treasure cheerfully to push the kingdom of God further and to impact our communities for the better now, this term second-mile generosity where we get that from is from Jesus, we get it from Jesus, Jesus introduced this idea. Think about this before Jesus walked into history. This was a foreign idea. We take it for granted because we live in a Christ world. We live in a world after Jesus has been here and he's taught and he's teaching and he's lived before Jesus. People didn't do second-mile generosity, you were lucky to get one mile, like people, people aren't going an extra step for anybody. So Jesus introduces this concept. And he actually introduces it pretty early on in his ministry. In Matthew chapter five, Jesus has given his famous Sermon on the Mount. And he's preaching and one of the things he talks about is this second-mile generosity he he is describing what it looks like to be radically generous is what he says in Matthew chapter five, starting in verse 41. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles, give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. someone tries to force you to go one mile, say, Hey, I'll go to someone asks you to give say how much go the second mile, be radically generous. So, Jesus introduces this concept into the world. He lives this concept through his life, he just completely unleashed this idea of second-mile generosity. And then what we just read from the book of Second Corinthians is Paul kind of elaborating on that and showing what that looks like when the church is doing it wouldn't believers are being radically generous? Now, whenever we talk about second-mile generosity, it said that we give of our time, our talent, and our treasure, right? Our time, we schedule things out, we invest our time, we invest our talent, the skills that God has given us, the different capabilities that we have, we invest those things. But here's what I want to tell you. time and talent. We're going to talk about those things next week. Today, we're just exclusively talking about our treasure, giving God from our resources from our finances. Now money is an interesting thing, right? Like, already some people are thinking like, we're, we're talking about money. Like Can't he still have COVID and not be here so we don't get to talk about money. Are you sure you're feeling better? passagemaker maybe you still got a cough? Maybe you should go. quarantine again. because money is it's a funny thing. It's a funny thing. It makes us act weird. It makes us talk weird. But only in church. Only insurance. Like whenever we're outside just this last week. I and Jessica were having after we were feeling better having dinner with a couple. And we were talking about how whenever someone owes us money, or if like we chip in on something, we told we'd like want them to cash app us the money back or you know, Venmo doesn't give me cash. Like if I chip in and you're like, oh, here you go, here's a 20 to pay you back. I don't like it, because I'll spend it like I just want it to go into the account. It's better in the account. Because if I have the cash on hand, I'm gonna spend it like it's just gonna happen. Unless I am very, like diligent and very responsible and very which I have been recently checked this out. I've got a $50 bill still in here. This thing has been in here for like a month and a half I kid you not. And it's because money is a funny thing. Guess what happens if I break this? It's gone. It's just gone. It's gone. The second this thing gets broken. If I buy a pack of gum or something like that, suddenly, I'm going to find a reason to spend the rest of it. because money is a funny thing. It makes us do funny things. It makes us feel certain ways, especially in the church, especially in church. We talk about money in church, we're talking about giving generosity and it can get uncomfortable.

Can I be honest, real quick, all right? For some of us, we would rather you go through our phones, Internet search history, then go through our bank account. For some of us, you would rather us look through your photos or your text messages, than a bank account because it's money. That's me that's that's me. You don't need to be looking there. You don't need to know any of this. It's a sensitive topic. It's why so many churches just punt on the idea of money all year and then maybe have one sermon to kind of talk about it and get it out of the way real quick because it's uncomfortable. It causes tension. It feels awkward, but here's the thing. It's necessary. It's necessary. Do you know why? Because Jesus talked about it because Scripture talks about Do you know Jesus, he gave 40 parables 40 different stories that he told in 18 of them, either talk directly about money or use money as an illustrating source. That's half 18 out of 40. That's, that's half of his parables dealt with money and with finances and with generosity and with giving and being sacrificial in it. So Jesus is talking about it. He's focusing that much time on it, how in the world can we just ignore it? How in the world can we act like now that nothing to see here, let's not address it, we have to, it's a necessary thing that we talk about, especially if we want to change the world. Especially if we want to change our world if we want to change our world. sacrificial giving sacrificial generosity is how we do it giving changes the world, but not just any given second-mile giving, second-mile generosity. Second-mile generosity is what does his second-mile generosity is what can change our world, for the better because it's sacrificial. And it's costly. And you feel it. That's the definition of sacrifice, right? You feel something you are giving something up. And that's what second-mile generosity is, it is sacrificial, we give something up, we feel it. We need to do that if we're going to change the world. You see we some of the stuff that we're gonna be talking about today. You know, already I'm not saying anything new up here, you know, this stuff to be true. For example, we all know and we can all agree that small investment leads to a small impact, right? small investment leads to a small impact that's, that's not shocking, but we forget it sometimes, especially when it comes to generosity to God. That small investment leads to a small impact. That's what Paul said, Whoever so sparingly will reap sparingly whoever sows generously will reap generously, small investment produces small impact. As you can tell, I'm a big Browns fan. This is the exact shirt that I wore last week, so I put this bad boy on again because I'm like, I don't want any of the Juju to wash off of it like I want to. I want another win. I'm a huge sports fan. Any of the Cleveland teams I'm all about him, right? Like I remember back in 2016 watching the Cavs warriors game seven I remember everything about that day like everything about I remember watching it was Father's Day I remember me and my brother and my brother in law my dad all down in my dad's basement the man cave watching the final game and you know the Brian gets the block and Kyrie hits the shot. And Kevin Love gets the stop. And I mean, we're losing it like we're crying. And I don't mean that as an exaggeration. We literally cry. We're like, this is the greatest thing ever. Like, can you believe this is nuts? We were just losing it. And the same thing last week, the Browns beat the Steelers, I told Jessica, I was like, honey, someone is going to call the cops thinking someone's being murdered in our home because I'm just like, I'm screaming at the top my lungs, I'm fist-pumping. I'm scaring the kids, right? Like it's, it's nuts. It's, it's not. And you want to know why it was like that why these games had such a huge impact on me. I was invested. I was heavily invested in these teams. I'm not a casual fan. I'm not a casual fan. You can ask me batting averages for the tribe. And I can tell you a pretty close to what people are batting, you can ask me who's the best player on the Cavs? And who's their coach and I can tell you, you can ask me what kind of system the Browns run. And I can tell you because I'm invested. I'm invested I have a big investment in the team. I've watched him for years for decades growing up watching these teams, I was rocking a Webster slaughter jersey back whenever I was five years old, right? Like I'm invested in these teams. And because of that big investment, how they do has a big impact on my life. are you tracking with me? If we have a small investment in our relationship with God if we have small investment, why are we shocked whenever we have small results?

Whenever we have a small investment Why are we surprised whenever we see small things happen in our life small investments produce small impacts. Investment man the thing about investment is it's really I mean it's about trust, right? How well do you trust something if someone tells you that they have an investment opportunity? instantly The first thing on your mind is how well can I trust this person? Like are you looking to just take my money or what's going on here investment is about trust? And so whenever we invest small, whenever we invest small whenever we say to God, I'm trusting you with small, that's what we're doing. We're telling him, God, I don't really trust you all the way I'm giving you this small investment and I'm expecting a huge impact and it just doesn't work that way. And not only does it not work that way. It insults God. Because think about it what we're essentially doing whenever we do that whenever we have a small investment into God, we're telling him, Hey, God, You know what, I trust you with my past. I trust you with my dysfunctions. I trust you with my sin. I trust you with all these things, because all Hail King Jesus, right? Except when it comes to my finances, All Hail King Jesus, except when it comes to my bank account, then all hail me, I'll keep the control. All I'll tell you is where the budgets going. I'll tell you where the money is going. You handle the other stuff because I believe you're big enough to save me from my sin, but you're not big enough to help me in my finances. God calls our bluff. We may be fooling ourselves, we are not fooling him. We may be fooling other people, but we're not fooling God. God wants all of us God does not want us to be compartmentalized Christians where it's like different rooms of a house and you know, okay, here's my Jesus room, Jesus, just stay in there. Let me lock the door real quick. Okay, and then, here's my friend's room. And here's my financial room. And here's my workroom. That's not the way it's supposed to work. God does not want compartmentalized Christians, he wants holistic Christians who see that it's not Jesus, and then my money, and Jesus, and then my friends, but no Jesus in my money, Jesus in my friends, Jesus in my work career, that's what God is looking for people who trust him with everything, people who invest in him with everything, because when we invest with everything, God can do something amazing. big investment leads to a big impact. Are we going to trust God? Because God wants it all? God wants all of you. God wants all of you, he wants all of us, are we going to trust him? Are we going to invest in the way that we should? Whether I do, like whether I actually do trust in God, whether I do invest in God, it has a lot to do with how I see generosity. It has a lot to do with how I see giving how I view it has a lot to do with whether I decide to trust in God or not. So I want to ask you today and I'm asking everybody online to you don't gotta say it out loud. No, we got to put it in the comments. But answer for yourself. How do you see? generosity? How do you see generosity? How do you see it? How did you see it growing up? How do you see it now? How have you felt about it? Do you see it most people fall into one of these categories? When we talk about it in a church, when we talk about giving when we talk about generosity, you either see it as an opportunity. You see it as an obligation, or you see it as an option. But 99% of all people see it as an opportunity to trust and to trust. I'm gonna trust God, I'm gonna take this, this step of faith, I'm going to trust him with my finances. It's an opportunity, or it's an obligation. It's like tax season. Oh, yeah, God, pay my tax the church has gotta pay my membership fee. How much do I owe ya this time? Right? see it as an obligation? Or do you see it as an option? You see it as an option. You're just tipping God, like, you know, God, you've been good. You've been good recently. Here you go. Here's a tip for you.

How do you see how do you see generosity? Is it an opportunity? Is it an obligation? Or is it an option? We know what Paul said. He wants people who are giving cheerfully verse seven, each of you should give what you've decided in your heart to give not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. That word cheerful the Greek for it literally means hilarious. Someone who is happy to be giving someone who's excited to be giving someone who sees giving us an opportunity for God to show off, and to do something amazing. That is what God wants. That's how Paul described second-mile generosity. That's the kind of second-mile generosity that Jesus lived in his life. Now, many of us, we may feel you may feel that giving in generosity is an obligation or an option. That's how you've always felt about it. Whenever a pastor gets up and starts talking about money, it makes you feel a certain way, like Oh, geez, here comes the pity party, and they're trying to make me feel guilty and they just want money so they can raise their salaries and guess what money is they can do all this stuff that they don't need to do. And you see it as an obligation and fine, I'll just, I haven't given it a while. So I'll write a check today and then I won't give again for like five months, and then I'll throw you know, 20 in the offering plate. It's an obligation, right? Or it's just it's an option. It's something you just you're just throwing the tip down. If that's how you feel. But can I tell you today that giving and true generosity is not a feeling it's a decision? It's a decision And it was always supposed to be a decision again, that's what Paul says each of you should give what you have decided in your heart, not what you felt like at the moment. What you have decided, what you have thought about what you have prayed about. Giving is not a feeling generosity is not a feeling it's a decision. It's a choice. And that is a very big distinction between the two between a feeling and a decision. Because decision gives generosity depth. A decision gives generosity depth in a way that that just doing something on the spur of the moment, or just because you feel guilty at this time, just doesn't do and this is what I mean, husbands out there. Have you ever gotten your wife or significant other Valentine's day gift or an anniversary gift or Christmas gift? That was like an afterthought? From the chuckles I'll assume that yes, there have been a few of those gifts given Guilty as charged right here to where you're like, Oh, crap, I gotta get something for him. And so you stop off at Walgreens on the way home and you try to make it look like you've thought about this for a long time. But you clearly have not to like what you just came up with within the moment you got this gift. You're like, yeah, I kind of forgot. It's kind of an afterthought. But Happy Valentine's Day, here you go, right? Or sorry, here, Merry Christmas. Or if you've given something and it's out of obligation, and the person who's getting the gift can just feel that you felt like you had to get this for them. It just feels different, doesn't it? But how about whenever someone truly decides to give you something. When someone truly decides and they put thought and they put planning and they put action into a gift, like the times and I get better at it. But the times when Jessica has like mentioned something and she's only mentioned that like once or twice, right? But I picked up on it, I'll put it down on my phone. And then like months later it will be an anniversary or Christmas and I'll get that thing for her. Even if that thing is not an expensive thing. It's a little $20 you know something? It means so much to her. Do you know why? Does the decision give generosity depth? Because at that moment, Jessica knows I decided to do something for her. I didn't do it out of obligation. I didn't do it as an option. I didn't do it on the spur of the moment. No, I decided I listened to her. I put it on my phone I planned I found what she liked. I decided on it. It shows there's value in the relationship. It shows I listened to her it shows that I love her. God wants the same from us. God doesn't want your afterthought gift. God doesn't want your guilt-giving of hell yeah, it's been a couple of months. All right, let me pull out the wallet. God does not want that it is a relationship.

in relationships, decisions, actual decisions, give generosity, depth, give it wait. Give it value. So decide. Don't give out a feeling. Don't give the how you feel moment by moment. Give by what you decide to give what you decide, in your cheerful heart to give to God, not an occasional tip. Not a regular but reluctant tax, but a constant consistent trust in God and saying, God, I love you and I trust you. Here you go, God, I love you. And I trust you. Here you go, God, I am relinquishing my control. And I am truly saying your Lord of all, here you go. You truly are my king. I'm listening to you in every area. It's yours. I trust you more than I trust me. And when we do that, when we do that, whenever we truly do second-mile generosity, and we start trusting God with our money in a radical way, God uses it. He uses it to bless us and to bless other people. Again, this is what Paul says, Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for your food will also supply it increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way how many ways every way you will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. And through us, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God God in Paul is saying, the more you give, the more you get. Now, this isn't prosperity, gospel stuff. This is straight from the Bible, saying hey, look, the more that you give away, the more God is going to enrich you and bless you for you to give again, for you to just continue to be an open hand saying God please use me if you were with us. Last year towards the end of the year we had a sermon series called thinking to the bank talking a little bit about gratitude. And one of the things we talked about is how whenever it comes to God and the Kingdom of God, things are upset Write down the way that you normally think they would work. They don't work that way, they work the opposite. And so in math, what happens when you subtract from a number does that number get bigger or smaller? Smaller, right, you guys pass the test, congratulations. Whatever you subtract and just get, it gets smaller. Like, of course, that's how it works in the world. That's, that's how the natural works, but not so with God, not so with the kingdom of God. When we give, when we give from second-mile generosity, Paul and Jesus are saying, we will be enriched in every way so we can continue to be generous, that God will see us through that he will provide for our needs. And so it's miracle math, the more I give, the more I get. The more I give, the more I get, the more that I trust in God and I give of myself, the more he gives me confidence, the more he gives me, assurance that he's gonna see me through. It's miracle math. When we trust in God, God uses our second-mile generosity, we give, we get, we rinse, and repeat. We give from a radical, generous heart. And here in just the last few moments, I want to go over just a few things. And I hope, I hope you've been listening to the whole thing that I've just been talking to here my head roar, as my dad used to say. But man, if there's just one thing that you pick up on from today's sermon, and pastors love to say this, there's only one thing you walk away with today. But I'm saying if there's one thing that you remember from today's sermon, it's these miracles are not found on the mandated mile. Miracles are not found on the mandated mile. Why don't you put that in the chat if you're watching online, because just to help remind you, just to clear it, that miracles are not found? On the mandated mile. The mandated mile is what Jesus is referring to. In Matthew chapter five, Jesus says, If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him to you may be reading that going if anyone tries to force me to go a mile, they will catch two fists to face. I'm not going anywhere, and what are you talking about forces me to go a mile. But in Jesus's time, ancient Israel was under Roman occupation, the Roman Empire completely just swallow them up took over. And so in Jesus's day, a Roman soldier could come along on the road, find you minding your own business and force you through a mandate to go at least one mile with him, carrying his supplies, helping him out in any way that he needed, he could force you to do that for up to one mile. And so what Jesus is saying is, hey, if anyone comes up and forces you to go one mile, go to if anyone comes up in uses the mandate that you have to help them go one mile off, or to go another one with them.

And what I want you to know is that miracles in your life are not found in that first mandated mile because you know what that mandated mile looks like for us today. When it comes to generosity, that mandated mile is all the stuff you have to use your finances on. your mortgage, your rent payment, your cell phone bill, your car gas, that's all the mandated stuff that's all the stuff that not Roman soldiers are forcing anymore but life is forcing upon you choices is forcing upon you being an adult is forcing upon you all these things that's how far you have to go You have to do those things with your finances that's the mandated mile but that second mile is not you have to it's you choose to you decide to once you get to that point you're saying No no, I'm not going to just after I've walked that one-mile hoard everything for myself, I am going to decide in faith to step forward and trust and rely on God. I'm going to be generous. I'm gonna give in yes it's scary. Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's uncertain. I want to tell you I still to this day when me and Jessica tie whenever we give there's still that moment of hesitation as I'm typing in the number online and I looked at myself and I think it's a pretty big number look a lot better in my bank account than going outright like it would look a lot better coming in and then going out. And I still to this day, cuz it's scary. I'm not up here trying to tell you, you know what, just give it's the easiest thing in the world, be generous, because it all it always works itself out instantly. And you never have to be worried about anything. It's a step of faith. It's a step of faith is saying, I'm going to invest in God, I'm going to trust in God because He has never let me down before and I'm going to trust him in every area of my life. So I can truly call him Lord, so I can truly call him king because I'm listening to him. everywhere, yes, it's scary, but it's worth it. It's worth it. So that first mile that's the mandated mile. The second mile, that's the Miracle Mile. And what I want to tell you is, there are some of you in this room, there's some of you watching online, who you have not seen, tasted, or felt a miracle in a long time. You've been waiting, you've been hoping that God would move in certain ways, you've been hoping that certain habits in your life would change, you've been hoping that situations in your life would be better that your son would come home that your boss would ease up a little bit that all of these things, you've been hoping that these things would happen. But you stopped walking. You stopped walking, you got to the end of that first mile of trusting God, and you just stopped and said, this is good enough. But everything that you're hoping God can do everything you're trusting, and you're hoping and you know, he can do lives in the second mile. And if you stop at the end of mile one, you're never going to see it, you're never going to sniff it. You're never going to taste it. You're never going to have it in your life. Do you understand? Are you following me? We're praying for the moves of God, but we're standing still. We've got to step in faith into that second mile, saying, I know it's scary. I know, I may not know where some of my finances are coming from, but God, I'm trusting you. I'm trusting you. I'm going to be generous, not just so I can change the world, but I can change my world. And trusting you God, that miracles will be found in the second mile, keep walking. You want to know who walked the second mile. If you're a believer, you're King did. Your Lord did, he walked the second mile and the third, and the fourth, he walked it all the way to the cross. He wants it all the way across for me and for you. To give us new life to give us a new way to usher in the kingdom of God. He went the second mile. Who are we to stop short?

Who are we to say no mile one, just a mandated mile. That's good enough for me. I'm going to stop here. Jesus went to the cross for us. So if you're having a hard time, you've come up to that mile marker and you're having a hard time taking that next step. I want to tell you to embrace the gospel. truly get into scripture. Truly pray truly ask God to man just open up what you did for me, Jesus, I really want to, I just want to feel what you did for me because I'm telling you the gospel, the gospel, what Jesus did what he went through for you, not for the collective us. But for you. For Jacob young what Jesus did for me whenever I realized that the gospel is the greatest catalyst for generosity. You want to become a generous person realize exactly what Jesus did for you realize exactly what he laid down for you How generous he was. For you. The gospel is the catalyst. For my greatest generosity, Jesus spared nothing. So neither will we. We are declaring that as a core value of our church that Cornerstone Church will spare nothing to be radically generous and to step in faith into the second mile. In fact, you guys know why you're here today. Everyone watching online, you know why you're here? I'll tell you. Because other people at Cornerstone Church went before you and walk the second mile. Because people named Dean and Bernice Stevenson walked the second mile. Because Norman Ernestine Jones walked the second mile because Jim and Bonnie Stettler walked the second mile. That's why you're here. That's why we're able to do what we do because of people who saw the example of their king and said, if he can do it, I'm going to do it. If that's what Jesus did, and that's what he's calling me to. I'm going to truly make him Lord and King of my life. I'm going to walk the second mile. You and I right now are sitting in other people's investments. Not a small one, a big one, a sacrificial one, a second-mile investment. So if Jesus did it, and they did it, what in the world is stopping us? Let's be generous, not out of aspiration, but actually generous. Jesus paid off for us. Let's start paying him back.