Matt Chandler - Bring Your First and Best

Hey guys, so at nine o’clock, she came out way early, and we gave her a hard time. Well, I’ve been giving her a hard time, and then I’m sitting back there, giving her a hard time, and I realized I wasn’t wearing my mic. So then when she came out here, I had to sprint, or as fast as I could move, to get my mic on and run back. I had to confess, «Hey, I know I was dogging you, but I wasn’t even prepared.» So she’s amazing. Now, I know you might be thinking, «Oh no, I came on the tithing sermon day,» and you would be right. It’s fine. If you remember—if you’ve been here—on May 15th, we started what was supposed to be a three-week series on generosity and how to consider and think Christianly about our money. Then, because of the brokenness in the world, it was a good and right thing to pause and lament. And then, because of the beauty in the world, it was a good and right thing to pause and celebrate. This now brings me back to the final piece of our generosity series. But before I do that, and not attaching this in any way, on Thursday and Friday of this past week, we closed on the corner property. So we, the Village Church, now own the shopping center from Browning to Morris. And I’m not taking an offering today for that. All right? Just so you know, I’ve got to be quick about this. We met for several hours this week with a design company that’s going to help us maximize the space. When we bought this and built here about 13 years ago, we were doing multi-site—we had five campuses; we were blown up adding campuses. So we really built this as a place from which to project to the other campuses the services. We built this space for service—that’s not who we are anymore. All of those campuses have been rolled off; they’re their own autonomous churches, and we are a local church in this area of the Metroplex. So we need to rethink how we’re using this space. Specifically, if you have children, we know it’s difficult. Our priority list to the design firm was next-gen space, and we needed a more hospitable place to become the kind of people we want to be as a family. There’s nowhere to have a conversation here, and in all honesty, we need to get out because we have another group we’re trying to get in. We want a design that communicates something different than that, and so we’re already working on it. If you feel the frustration of trying to get a child in here or trying to get in and out, just know we’re aware of all those things, and we’re working to solve those problems. It’s just a couple of boxes we’ve cut some wiggle room on—not a lot—and we’re designing that. We’ll be rolling that out as we get that information. Just wanted to let you know these are the things that have been going on behind the scenes. Now, let me tell you what we’re going to do. I have 36 minutes left in my part. I want to remind you of where we’ve been and then talk about the «how» of it all. So, I want to remind you, and then I want to discuss the «how.» Here’s where we’ve been: really, as we’ve talked about money and stuff, what we’ve really talked about is the preeminence of Jesus Christ. We’ve talked about the bigness of God, if I could phrase it that way. We’ve talked about God’s greatness, and that really, the root of how to think about money is wrapped up in God’s greatness. Any way of thinking about money that tries to divorce itself from God’s greatness is perverse and leads us off the rails of God’s desire to bless our souls. You with me? So here are the things we’ve covered that I think are very significant as we start to apply the «how.» The first is, and everyone in this room—unless you’re a child—has already experienced this: money has spiritual power. When the Bible talks about money, it frames it not as a neutral thing but as something that either pulls us in and conforms us into the image of Christ or pulls us away from Him and deforms us into something outside of His kingdom. Let me tell you how you’ve experienced this. If you’ve ever made a new purchase—a new car, a new apartment, or some new clothes—I got some new clothes. Lauren bought me this shirt, and I feel like I look like a better person than I normally do right now. I’m not; I’m just not wearing my boots. It’s too hot for the Wranglers, so I just look cleaner today. If you’ve purchased something new, it can make you think you’re a better person. Have you ever gotten into that new car, or maybe a new used car? You smell that unique smell—it’s a smell that says, «I matter! I am a better person than I was before. Everyone is looking at me now; congrats on that 2022 Honda Civic!» I bet they are, right? It just… or money can become the solution to internal angst. You ever feel the urge to go buy something to ease a restlessness, even just a smidge, like something’s off? You make that Target run.