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Chris
 That's why we've got to know God's word. And my theology really, truly does matter.

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Chris
 Why I love to preach God's word and why I try to do it so passionately, because it's not just facts or things that don't really matter to the day-to-day of our lives. They literally matter in everything we do, every environment we live, every relationship that we are in.

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Chris
 Well, welcome back to Further. This is Chris Carr. So I am going to serve as a co-host today with Paul Fishbach, who also preached on Sunday. And so we're going to co-host this together today. But maybe I'll get the game started here a little bit. Brenton's gone. He'll be back next week when we dive into Genesis 15. And so this will be a little bit different today. We'll probably all be wishing that Brenton is back by the time that we were done. But we'll see how that goes. So Paul, you had a big day on Sunday. You preached, and then you had a community group summit, kind of leadership training event. And we also introduced this theology survey, beliefs and practices survey, which you were kind of the driving force behind that. So why don't you talk a little bit about that with everybody and just tell them where this comes from and what we're hoping to accomplish with that.

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Paul
 Yeah, well, we're excited about that.

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Paul
 People have probably heard before different survey results that come out, either maybe from the Pew Research Center or Gallup or different things like that. And there's various ones that are done about what people believe. And a pretty big one came out last year from LifeWay and Ligonier Ministries

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Paul
 that talked about what people believe across evangelical circles and beyond. And as I read those results and looked at that as a pastor of discipleship, I wanted to

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Paul
 kind of take from that what we could. But at the same time, I thought, is our church in line with this kind of result? And so really kind of started thinking about doing a survey with our own church and obviously talked with you and the rest of leadership. And we got to put ours together. And we've obviously asked people to tell us what they believe. Yeah.

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Chris
 Yeah. So you preached at Danville. I did Burlington and Fort Madison.

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Chris
 And one thing that I talked about that you may not have is we're really going to use the results of this to develop an upcoming sermon series. And so just want to encourage everybody. The surveys matter for a number of different reasons.

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Chris
 They matter for everybody individually because it's important for us to kind of even think through where we are at. And then out of this will flow, I don't know, yet if it's going to be four, six, eight weeks. I guess it'll depend upon how we're doing.

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Chris
 But at the beginning of the year, at least is the plan on that.

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Paul
 Yeah, sermon series. I did announce that this would probably impact future opportunities that we offer for discipleship and what that looks like. And so we're excited to compile those results. We'll share those with everybody later on. And we've had a good initial response. Close to 200 people so far have already filled it out.

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Chris
 Yeah. That's good. And you've seen the results of the national surveys. They're not actually very good. They're concerning. And we're hoping that our results are going to be better. I actually think that they probably will be. I hope they will be.

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Chris
 And yet I'm also sure that we're going to find that there's some things we really need to shore up and dive into a little bit deeper.

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Paul
 Yeah, I would expect the same.

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Chris
 Good. Well, let's get into Genesis 14. And here's what we'll begin with. We've got a number of different issues that come up in the text that

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Chris
 I don't know that I say controversial, but there are certainly issues that Christians have difference of opinions on. And one of them would be in regards to war. And can Christians participate in war? And what does that mean? How should they do so? There seems to be two, in general, big picture views. There's the pacifism, that the Christians should not engage in war. And then there's really what's known as just war theory and be different variations of that. But we see Abraham here, in a sense, going to war. We definitely know from Hebrew 7 that he's killing people.

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Chris
 And of course, we see that throughout the rest of the Old Testament, where God's people are on a regular basis engaging in war. And so

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Chris
 as you kind of think about this,

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Chris
 maybe you can explain to people a little bit what just war theory,

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Chris
 you know.

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Paul
 Well, I can't say I've studied this in depth. I have more of a cursory understanding of this, but Augustine wrote about, he's kind of considered kind of one of the earlier writers about this in his writings about just war and what is a

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Paul
 Christian's response to or responsibility when it comes to engaging in warfare and what's a godly way maybe to do that. And so there are kind of, I would say maybe rules that are involved with just war theory about when Christians should engage in war or when a country should engage in war and what are the just way of going about that.

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Paul
 There's, I don't remember all the rules, but you know, it's about, there has to be good reason for that. Just reasons, righteous reasons, the war doesn't go on too long, you know, like, you know, the scope of that war shouldn't exceed what prompted the thing in the first place. And it should be over as soon as possible and all of that kind of stuff, so there's a lot of that kind of thing.

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Paul
 Obviously, I think Abraham here has very justifiable reasons for going to war. His own family, his nephew and family and all of them are taken

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Paul
 and it says that he's basically going on a rescue mission,

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Paul
 trying to get back his family and freedom. Yeah. So he certainly would fall under that just war theory, but pacifists might say that he shouldn't have engaged in warfare at all. Right.

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Chris
 Yeah, so a couple of thoughts. There's, you know, there's justice in going to war, there's justice during the war, and then there's justice after the war. And so are there just causes for going to war? So we think about World War II, all right? Is it maybe the easiest example here is you have great evil that's being committed. And I think one of the problems, at least, that I see with pacifism, well, there's two major problems with pacifism. One, I think that they take the passages in Scripture where Jesus says things like, you know, turn the other cheek and things like that, and they take that in isolation. We need a systematic approach to these topics. And yes, there are times where we are, times where we're to turn the other cheek. Times where God says vengeance is mine, I will repay, that's not a broad stroke for every situation and every circumstance, because there's other places, like in the Old Testament, where we actually see God

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Chris
 instructing his people to engage in war. But, you know, you take a World War II, are we just supposed to sit back while millions of people are being sent to the gas chambers, or while we have Hitler and the Axis powers that are about ready to overtake the world, and it's just gonna lead to greater and greater evil.

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Chris
 And so there's a,

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Chris
 Christians differ on this, good Christians differ on this, and I'm sure people in our church, they're maybe pacifists, but there will be just causes,

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Chris
 I believe, to go to war. But then one of the problems is oftentimes, even when there's just causes to go to war, they aren't

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Chris
 engaged in justly, and there's a lot of injustice that occurs. Okay, so not to go into controversial grounds here, but here we go, we've got had Gondin and Israel and

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Chris
 Palestine.

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Chris
 Again,

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Chris
 my opinion, I think Israel just caused just reasons to go to war, in essence, but there

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Chris
 has been injustice in the way at times that they have engaged in that. And we as Christians need to be able to call out both of those things.

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Paul
 They were provoked in the first place. And they responded to that, like you said, there's injustice that's happened since then.

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Chris
 And I'm not saying that that's overall the big picture, but almost any war, because you've got humans engaging in it, there's going to be injustice in what happens. And then there's always justice after the war, and how do we treat the, if it's the conquered or the defeated people in regards to that? And like the German people after World War I

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Chris
 would say that part of the reason that was led to World War II is because there was injustice and how they were treated after World War I. And I'm not getting into that debate. I'm just,

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Chris
 there probably is some legitimacy to some of those things, so.

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Paul
 Absolutely, like

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Paul
 you said, human beings are fraught and we are sinful in the process of that, even in trying to execute justice, there's injustice that's happening in the process of that. And so that would probably be an argument that the pacifist would make is because you can't do it in a just way to avoid it in the first place. But you make some good arguments there about the just war theory as

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Chris
 well. Well, but it's, yeah, I understand like all war, and hopefully we can all agree that all war is tragic. Yes. Right? Like it's not good. In and of itself, it's a result of human sin and evil.

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Chris
 But at the same point, to do nothing is often gonna lead to more evil. Yes. And so we've just gotta realize that, yes, when we engage in war, yes, there's gonna be injustice that's probably going to occur, but that doesn't mean we can say, well, there's gonna be injustice because not going might lead to greater injustice and

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Chris
 it's messy.

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Paul
 Yes, absolutely.

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Chris
 All right, so we'll move on and let's talk about something. Like you brought this up earlier. What's the deal with this 300 number? So Gideon 300, 318 here with Abraham. I just thought it was really interesting. The Spartans had 300.

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Paul
 Yeah, I actually haven't seen the movie 300, which I know I should. I've heard some great things about it, but a lot of CGI I hear in that movie. But anyways, yeah, the famous Spartan 300, the Battle of Troy, and then there's Abraham had 318. It's very specific here in this passage in Genesis 14. When I was studying it, it immediately made me think of Gideon and how the Lord narrowed down his army down to 300 to defeat the Medianites. And I was like, wow, there's a lot of 300s of these small bands of armies that go on these raids and are very successful. And there's probably lots more examples throughout history of that. And I just thought it's interesting how God,

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Paul
 particularly in Abraham and Gideon's examples, where he brought the victory and made it obvious that it was him that brought the victory because of these small armies. Yeah.

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Chris
 I don't really have anything to add. I have no idea about the 300, but I will say the 318,

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Chris
 just as a testament to the historicity of the account, because it's a specific number.

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Paul
 It's not a rounded number, right?

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Chris
 Right, right. And so we have every reason to believe that there literally were 318, because if, why wouldn't you just say, yeah, 300 or 325,

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Chris
 and generally speaking, even now today, if you have 318, you're gonna say I had around 300. Yeah, yeah. Not 318, so. Anyway, let's talk about Melchizedek a little bit more.

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Chris
 And you actually talked about him more

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Chris
 than I did, a little bit more than I did. And we both talked about how he

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Chris
 foreshadows Christ,

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Chris
 that he

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Chris
 is meant to, he's in the story to, in part, to point us to things about Jesus.

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Chris
 We both agree that he's not actually Jesus. There are people who would say, this is a Christophany, which maybe we'll get back to Christophany's here in a little bit. But I talked about, we both talked about how righteousness and peace and priesthood, but you also talked about his eternity, or eternality. So

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Chris
 for quite a few people then didn't hear this point, what are we talking about there, eternality, where does that come from? How does Melchizedek

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Chris
 point us to that in regards to Jesus? Because this is actually a pretty big point that the author of Hebrews brings out in Hebrews seven.

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Paul
 Yeah, and it really is, that's where I got it from, is from Hebrews seven, because Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews chapter five through seven, he talks so much about Melchizedek and Christ. And he points out in Hebrew seven specifically, he says that

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Paul
 Melchizedek, looking back at him, had no mother or father genealogy mentioned about him. He seems to be without beginning or end. And

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Paul
 again, you and I don't believe that was actually Jesus that showed up. So we don't say that Melchizedek himself who met with Abraham was eternal, but in the account that we have in Genesis, there is no account for his beginning or end. We don't know who his genealogy is. So that is a picture of Christ because although we know who Christ's mother and father, earthly mother and father were, we also know Christ claimed to be eternal. He claimed before Abraham was I am. And so he said he was before even Abraham. Melchizedek is a picture of Christ in that way because Christ is eternal.

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Chris
 Yeah, so yeah, it's interesting. He's without beginning of days, without end of life. It's not actually saying that Melchizedek you didn't have a physical mother or father or that he didn't die. It's just saying that like what I brought out is like, he shows up seeming out of nowhere and he leaves to nowhere. We don't have any record of his being. This is in Genesis, which is very concerned with genealogies. So it's very intentional here.

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Chris
 All the major players in Genesis have a genealogy.

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Chris
 And even not even in Genesis, but in like other parts of the Bible, they have genealogies. Yeah, Matthew starts with a genealogy. And their deaths are

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Chris
 recorded. Melchizedek

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Chris
 is a major player who doesn't have either of those things, but he does somewhere. Maybe it's written down somewhere, but it's not written down in Genesis to make the point that that's Jesus. He doesn't have beginning and he doesn't have end. And the point then, and one of the, I'll ask you, what's the point then in Hebrews of his eternality? What's the application of that?

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Paul
 The application is Jesus is a priest in the order of Melchizedek. So like him, Jesus is a priest forever. And he obviously intercedes on our behalf to God forever in his mediating work on the cross.

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Chris
 So I quoted Hebrews 7.25, "Consequently he can save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he ever lives to intercede for us." And so he's, Jesus, the book of Hebrews is all about how Jesus is greater. So it begins, he's greater than the angels. And then he's greater than Moses. He's greater than the old covenant and he's greater than the priests because the other priests,

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Chris
 first of all, they're simply human, just human beings, but they also die. Like, and there are the priests and now Jesus died, but the point is that once they die, they're out of office. Like they no longer serve. And the point is that Jesus

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Chris
 is forever. He serves as high priest forever, which means that he is our, you brought this out, one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, we don't need any priests anymore. There's sacrifices, not necessary, because the sacrifice was all time. And just the greatness of Christ in regards to that.

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Paul
 The Old Testament priests had to offer sacrifices on behalf of their own sins as well. Christ did not have to do that. He won sacrifice once for all on our behalf. He is the sacrifice. Yeah, he is both the priest and the sacrifice.

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Chris
 Yeah, I've

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Chris
 actually been, spent a lot of time in Hebrews and I think that that's an upcoming, probably sermon series at some point, although, you know.

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Paul
 Seth is excited about that.

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Chris
 Yeah, Seth's our producer over here and he's giving us a thumbs up. But it is a little daunting though, because

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Chris
 it goes in real detail at times about the Old Testament sacrificial system and trying to wade through all of that. But there's so much meat and so much, you know, great stuff there. We'll get to it before too long. So Lord willing. Let's go back to how Melchizedek points to Jesus. Anything else that you, what we bring out, we talked about the righteousness. We're actually gonna get back to righteousness this week. That's gonna be the theme in chapter 15, but he brings us peace. And then he's that mediator, which we just talked about. Anything else?

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Paul
 The other two things I mentioned were,

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Paul
 I talked about the blessing that Melchizedek gave to Abram and how Christ is also gives us, he is our blessing. God blesses us through Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

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Paul
 So I talked about that. And also

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Paul
 commentators kind of debated whether or not this was even something to even point out, but the whole bread and wine thing. So Melchizedek brings bread and wine to Abram. I see that as very significant, that that was how they were gonna celebrate the deliverance that God had provided. And then Christ did that very thing and the last supper brought bread and wine and said, use this to remember every time you take this, remember me and what I've done for you. So my broken body, my bloodshed for you. So I saw that as very significant

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Paul
 mirror between Melchizedek and Christ.

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Chris
 Yeah, it's a great connection. It's not one that I decided to bring out, but I agree with you. I mean, I don't think that that's just thrown in there. Just

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Chris
 like, hey, he brought out bread and wine. No big deal, don't think about it. And it doesn't really mean anything, but yeah. Especially, you think he's the king of Salem and Jerusalem, I mean, there's just so many connections. The Kidron Valley, which is the Valley of Shava and the stories where Jesus crossed through that valley from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem when he's being led there to Caiaphas for trial. And yeah, so not a lot of special connections.

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Paul
 Yeah, there is.

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Chris
 One thing that

[01:20:33:21 - 01:21:16:17]
Chris
 I did talk about in kind of the direction that I took part of the sermon, was talk about the temptation for Abraham to, in the story is to trust in again, the world for his provision and security and blessing. And that's what the king of Sodom was offering him. And at the end, I tie that into like, how this reveals a root idol that we all struggle with. And that is to look to something other than the Lord for our sense of kind of wellbeing, our flourishing, what's going to make us be okay, good.

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Chris
 I love the security, like we want that security. And Abraham's a great model for us in how to say no to the world and yes to the Lord and trust in him completely.

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Paul
 Yeah, you talked about how contrasting a little bit, how Abraham had matured from how we'd seen him earlier in the chapter. You wanna talk a little bit more about that?

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Chris
 Yeah, it's just, I mean, so

[01:21:45:14 - 01:21:50:18]
Chris
 one of the things I hope that we're gonna see through this is that Abraham truly is on a journey,

[01:21:51:22 - 01:22:19:23]
Chris
 right? In chapter 12, initially, hey, this guy, like he believes God and he follows him. And then very quickly, okay, he has, he falls. Okay, now, okay, but the Lord rescues him. And then we go to chapter 13, he makes a wise decision in terms of Sodom and Lot makes the poor decision. And we actually are being, now a lot, there's a lot of contrast between Abraham and Lot and their choices.

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Paul
 And I also pointed out there where Abraham actually was deferring to Lot first. I pointed out that maturity there to put others first before himself.

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Chris
 Yeah, and that's another great point. And so now we go to 14 and now there's a, God's like, another kind of test here, like where is your faith at? And so he takes a step forward on his journey. Now it's not gonna be very long till we see that he takes a step back.

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Chris
 And that's, I think that can be super encouraging for us to see that our roads are not, it's not a straight line. It's not up and to the right all the time for really anybody and that there are, certainly can be wild swings and what do we learn? Okay, Abraham, this is, he's at the high point. What do we learn from him? But I really use that to point out though, that Abraham's model and his journey, like what he's doing good here is not really the point of the story. The point of the story is where that comes from. And that's very clearly that God sends Melchizedek to him before this temptation. And you think about Paul in 1 Corinthians that God will always give us a way of escape. No temptation has overcome us that's not common to man, but God will give us a way of escape. And a lot of times I think we think that that way of escape comes like, oh, when I'm in the middle of it, when I'm in the middle of it, a lot of times it's before.

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Chris
 And we have to make ourselves available to that and recognize what that is, which is what Abraham, he grabs ahold of it. And then he really

[01:23:57:11 - 01:24:28:06]
Chris
 says the same thing to Sodom that Melchizedek has said to him, "I have pledged my hand, I lifted my hand to the Lord, the possessor of heaven and earth." Well, those are not his words, those are Melchizedek's words, the priest. And so even I think it gives a great example of like, here we're using the word of God to fight our battles. Yeah, absolutely. So let's hit the Christophany thing real quick, just get back to that.

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Chris
 What's a Christophany?

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Paul
 A pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. So before he was born as we see from with Mary and Joseph. Yeah.

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Chris
 Yeah. And I said, on Sunday, I love a good Christophany. This is not one of them, but I love a good one.

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Paul
 So you don't see one here, you don't see one in the Old Testament.

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Chris
 Yeah, I think Joshua,

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Chris
 before they go into Jericho,

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Chris
 there's this angel of the Lord that appears to him. Oftentimes it's the angel, not always, this is where it gets difficult, but repeatedly in the Old Testament, we see the angel of the Lord appears to people. And many times the angel of the Lord is the Lord himself. Sometimes it's just an angel.

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Paul
 So why is he called an angel? If it's the word?

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Chris
 Well, the word angel just means messenger.

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Chris
 That's all that the word means, it's a herald or a messenger. And so when we think of angels, we think, yeah, a lot of times we think of, you know. Particular type of creature. Yeah, well, or yeah, they got wings,

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Chris
 some

[01:25:44:18 - 01:25:45:07]
Chris
 of them do,

[01:25:46:13 - 01:25:53:17]
Chris
 apparently. But maybe the best known example is Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. And there's a

[01:25:55:04 - 01:25:58:02]
Chris
 fourth one that looks like the son of God.

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Chris
 Do

[01:25:59:17 - 01:26:09:22]
Paul
 you think there's a Christophany in the upcoming story here where Abraham receives three visitors and is told that his wife's gonna be pregnant?

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Chris
 Probably, yeah.

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Chris
 Even in chapter 15, we see this flaming torch going through animals that have been cut in half.

[01:26:21:13 - 01:26:22:20]
Chris
 Everybody's like, what are you, what?

[01:26:24:10 - 01:26:42:08]
Chris
 And I just give a little preview. It's not this Sunday, but next Sunday. It's weird, it's strange, but it's one of the greatest illustrations of the cross in the Bible. And just what God does there and covenant and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so Christophany, like you said,

[01:26:43:16 - 01:26:49:20]
Chris
 Jesus has always existed, will always exist. He only became a human around

[01:26:51:11 - 01:26:57:13]
Chris
 probably six BC, not to get into something else there, but our calendar's probably a little off.

[01:26:59:03 - 01:27:19:15]
Chris
 But there are times where he takes on a physical body in the Old Testament and shows up. And normally they're in big moments like where God is revealing something or saving in a special way. So here's what I wanna end on.

[01:27:21:08 - 01:27:28:00]
Chris
 Let's talk about tithing for a second, okay? So- Everybody's favorite topic. Yeah, everybody's favorite topic for sure.

[01:27:29:16 - 01:27:41:22]
Chris
 So when Abraham, when Mark is a that comes out, Abraham, it says, gives them a 10th of the spoils. And the 10th of the spoils would have been, 10th is 10%.

[01:27:44:12 - 01:27:48:17]
Chris
 And it would have been the first 10%, the best, okay?

[01:27:49:20 - 01:27:49:20]
Chris
 So

[01:27:51:03 - 01:28:04:21]
Chris
 we, well, let's say, what do you think that this means for us today? That's kind of an open-ended conversation. And if you, this is my question, but if you wanna throw it back at me at any time, I can. But what do you think?

[01:28:06:00 - 01:28:20:01]
Paul
 I'll just point out a couple observations. Number one, this happened before the law of Moses. So before the tithe was even talked about there. So some would use this as an argument to say the tithe is something that God wants us to do

[01:28:21:06 - 01:28:38:09]
Paul
 because it was before the law. And now that we're after the law, crisis fulfilled the law, we should continue to tithe. I can see that point of argument. I see this as more of a descriptive rather than prescriptive passage, where I don't see this as telling us this is what we have to do.

[01:28:39:12 - 01:28:52:04]
Paul
 But that being said, when you look at giving in the New Testament and under the New Covenant, we are exhorted over and over and over about the blessings of being generous and giving. And

[01:28:53:15 - 01:29:19:11]
Paul
 the more you sow, the more you reap. And so if you sow sparingly, you reap sparingly, sow generously, reap generously. So I think we should be very generous. Second Corinthians nine talks a lot about giving and having a cheerful heart as a giver and all of that. So I don't know if you were wanting to go in that direction, but yeah, your thoughts on the tithe there.

[01:29:19:11 - 01:29:23:11]
Chris
 Yeah, no, I would be in a similar place.

[01:29:27:02 - 01:29:41:02]
Chris
 I've taught this on numerous occasions. And so I should say that there are Christians, good Christians who disagree with this and see it differently. But nowhere in the New Testament is tithing commanded.

[01:29:42:16 - 01:29:47:19]
Chris
 But at the same time, Jesus doesn't also undermine either.

[01:29:49:05 - 01:30:07:18]
Chris
 And I think where we really have to, and Jesus really doesn't talk about it except for like in one or two places, like even mention it. So where we really need to go is I think to Paul and specifically second Corinthians eight and nine is the key passage where he talks about generosity at length, but

[01:30:09:11 - 01:30:12:20]
Chris
 we're not commanded as believers to tithe. And yet

[01:30:14:10 - 01:30:22:21]
Chris
 we really have to ask, have we been blessed more or less than the Israelites who were commanded to tithe? And the answer to that is

[01:30:23:22 - 01:30:26:01]
Chris
 nobody can die. We've been blessed more.

[01:30:27:05 - 01:30:32:07]
Chris
 And so as people who have received incredible grace,

[01:30:33:15 - 01:30:53:19]
Chris
 Paul calls us to grace giving and it's in response. And second Corinthians eight and nine, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus "that although he was rich for your sake, "he became poor that out of his poverty "you might become rich." Do we really truly believe that? And then Paul's whole argument in the rest of eight and nine is, well, if that's true, then that will make you generous people.

[01:30:53:19 - 01:30:55:20]
Paul
 And he calls us to excel in the grace of God.

[01:30:55:20 - 01:30:58:13]
Chris
 Yeah, right. And so here's

[01:30:59:20 - 01:31:21:10]
Chris
 really how I view this that 10% is a good starting place. And I think when we make it a law like believers have to tithe, what I actually see happening is one, is people just give because they feel like they have to. And then two, they have a tendency to stop at 10.

[01:31:23:03 - 01:31:29:08]
Chris
 And it's like, oh, I've given my 10th, I'm good. And the reality is that all of it is God's.

[01:31:29:08 - 01:31:30:21]
 (Laughs)

[01:31:30:21 - 01:32:42:21]
Chris
 And so it's like 10% is like, I think for anybody who is maybe a new believer who is trying to get started in giving, 10% is a great goal. It's like, hey, we wanna work towards that. But if we get to the place where we just say, okay, 10% and I'm good, we just have to ask ourselves, is this expressing the generosity to God has expressed to me? And Paul says in Acts, it's better to give than to receive. Those are the words of Jesus. And then like you said, again, 2 Corinthians 9, he who sows bountifully will reap bountifully. And this is really back to tying to Abraham's story, do we believe and trust God that he will keep his promise there? And Abraham's respite, I think what we should see maybe more than all is Abraham's generosity to God through Melchizedek. Because that's really what it is, is in response to God's blessing. And that's what giving is supposed to be. It's not to get God's blessing, it's because we've received it.

[01:32:42:21 - 01:32:47:21]
Paul
 We both made that point on Sunday. Go back to the point you made earlier about

[01:32:48:23 - 01:33:10:15]
Paul
 Abraham's gift was first of all, it was the best, it was the first. And even in our own giving, we typically think of this as just the money, which that's one thing. But are we giving our best of whether it's our money, our time, our possessions, or are we just giving what's leftover? And is it the last 10% or is it the first 10%

[01:33:11:16 - 01:33:12:16]
Paul
 or beyond that?

[01:33:12:16 - 01:33:15:16]
Chris
 Yeah, I'll just add this.

[01:33:17:09 - 01:33:45:19]
Chris
 So I wanna go positive in an area for growth for our church. The positive is that we are growing generosity and we're all in for the one and that's certainly being shown. We had the great news last week that because of the generosity, we should get through the next couple of months here without needing to take any loans to complete all of the projects. And we very well may be able to make it through the entire journey without doing that, which is huge.

[01:33:45:19 - 01:33:46:19]
Paul
 That's an amazing place, God.

[01:33:46:19 - 01:33:55:05]
Chris
 And that's God's blessing, but it's people's generosity and people taking the first step and increasing their generosity and all. So that's really great, super thankful for that.

[01:33:56:21 - 01:34:13:15]
Chris
 We talk about surveys though. We know nationally, evangelical Christians give roughly 2.7% of their income, which is concerning on its surface, but it's actually a somewhat significant decrease even from the last five or six years.

[01:34:14:17 - 01:34:20:01]
Chris
 It's not going up, it's going down. And if you go back a hundred years, it's way down.

[01:34:22:05 - 01:34:32:19]
Chris
 Good news, we at Harmony are a couple of percentage points higher than that, which is again, good. And yet

[01:34:34:09 - 01:34:46:18]
Chris
 it's still significantly below that 10%, which means we have a lot of room to grow. And at the end of the day, this is really, I'm pretty confident that this has been your experience,

[01:34:47:20 - 01:34:48:12]
Chris
 Paul, but

[01:34:49:23 - 01:36:04:00]
Chris
 it's actually, it is better to give than to receive because the blessings that you come from it, and we can see this in our church right now. Like, so, I know I'm going on here. I love this hosting thing, which means like, but I will wrap up with this. Last night here at the church, I was here for an elder meeting and the building is just like hopping in full, here at the Burlington campus. And we've got our mom's ministry kicked off last night. We've got all kinds of tables full of moms, many from our church, but many like, are coming from outside church. I came up and I tried to get in my office last night. I couldn't even get into my office. I had to have tables moved and all because we've got our bridges out of poverty ministry. And like, that's, and Monash and her team, just doing such a fantastic job and ministering to people in real need, seeing them experience transformation. This is only possible because we have this facility, which people sacrifice to give this facility. It's only possible because people are being faithfully giving and it's making it different. Like people's lives are being changed. And it's not just a few people. We're talking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. And it's happening literally almost every day.

[01:36:04:00 - 01:36:08:22]
Paul
 Amen. We're seeing that happen down in Fort Madison too, with the new facility

[01:36:10:00 - 01:36:15:13]
Paul
 starting throughout the week. You know, they've got more and more stuff going on at that new facility because it was provided.

[01:36:15:13 - 01:36:33:22]
Chris
 Yes, celebrate recovery. I actually, again, I preached on there, packed full bringing in chairs. Like I was standing in the back getting ready to go up and we got to get chairs because there's not enough room here in the auditorium. And don't get worried here. Like you just build this facility and the other way bringing in chairs. We've got more room to put chairs

[01:36:35:01 - 01:37:07:01]
Chris
 in there. But if that's a problem, it's a really good problem. So I just encourage all of you Harmonites, keep up the good work and God's really, really blessed. And with that being said, it was fun. Paul, thanks for joining me. And we'll be back next week, Genesis 15. And our passage this week leads us to probably the most significant verse in the Bible. And I say that- That's quite a statement. It's quite a statement. People are like, "Well, you say it all the time."

[01:37:07:01 - 01:37:07:23]
 (Laughing)

[01:37:08:23 - 01:37:17:01]
Chris
 But I say that because Genesis 15.6 is the verse that Paul bases his whole doctrine of justification by faith on,

[01:37:18:03 - 01:37:26:11]
Chris
 which is the central doctrine of the Bible. So I think, yeah, we can go with that. So thanks Paul. Thanks Seth. And Brendan, we'll have you back next week. Thanks everybody.

[01:37:28:21 - 01:37:29:06]
 (Upbeat Music)