Generosity // Stewardship vs. Ownership

Coming soon!

I love hearing from our church family about what God has done in their hearts regarding generosity. I love hearing from people who they exemplify and they live generosity in their life. It's always encouraging. So during this series, we'll have a few more of those that I'm excited about. Also, I'm going to address the elephant in the room. It's hot in here. Okay. It's really frustrating. The air conditioner went out last week and we had someone come out and they're like, "Fixed it." Like, "You sure?" "Yeah, I'm sure." "It's working now." "Well, it's not working." In fact, I think it's working worse, actually. So pray to the Lord when they go and fix our air conditioner that they fix it. And pray that your pastor has patience and loving kindness and goodness and mercy and forgiveness that passes all understanding from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and that He does not operate out of the old man, which was crucified with Christ but now is resurrected in Him and He doesn't have to do that anymore. So also that's good for I'm going to make Bruce do it. You know, it's the safest way to do it. It's the safest way to do it. So, but you know, really we do this also so that you can get out of here and when you get to your home, you can be thankful. You can be grateful for the air conditioner that you have. It's a technique. So you're welcome.

And because you're already warm, stand with me to your feet so that I can read God's Word for our Scripture this morning. Second Corinthians chapter nine verses eight through  and it says,

Father, we just thank you so much for today. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity we have to come together to worship you, Lord, to be encouraged by your goodness to learn about your word and your heart of generosity, Lord. I just pray that these words that are spoken today will just go straight into our souls, Lord, that you will illuminate inside of us ways in which we can love you, ways in which that we can serve you, ways in which we can be transformed into your image today. We thank you for that. It's in your holy name we pray. Amen. All right, you can take a seat. You can take a seat. So I've been looking forward to this particular subject because this subject, this context is one of the things that in my journey of walking through generosity and giving and money, this idea, this concept was something that was so illuminating to my mind, it illuminated to my heart. It helped me so much in the understanding of God's goodness and God's Word. And so I couldn't wait from the very beginning whenever we were doing this. I was like, man, I can't wait to get to this point. And it has to do with the way in which we view in our relationship with things, right? So possessions, money, houses, cars, all of that kind of stuff, how we illuminate or how we relate to those things. And here's the thing, in our society, in our world, there's two mainstream views on how we relate to those objects. And really, this has historically been the two views that have been from Jesus' time and even before.

 And the first view during Jesus' time, this would have been considered more of a Greek view due to the philosophy of like Plato and more of his contemporaries, was the idea that in an ideal society, men and women own nothing. Nothing is owned. Everything is common. And there's many different places. Native American tribes often live this way. Many nomadic tribes historically live this way. There's still places in the world that they live that way. There's obviously the political view of something more like a communism socialism that has a government overarching view of this idea, but that people don't own things, right? That they use them, that they partake in them, but they don't own them. They're not theirs. They're either natures or creations or the states, but they're not theirs. And in Jesus' time, there was the people who had this kind of mindset. Again, they would have been more of a Greek philosophical thinker. And then there was the majority of you in Jesus' day and it's definitely the majority of you in the West today and in the United States, which is the idea of men and women are owners. Okay, they own whatever they have is there. So if you have a house, that's your house. You have a car, that's your car. You have a barn, it's your barn. And because you own it, because it's yours, you can do with it whatever you want. If you want to paint it a certain color, you can. If you want to burn it down, you can because it's your thing. It is your possession. You own it and it is yours and you have control over it. This is one of the things that, and that mindset is what ultimately very much so led to the very horrible practice of slavery and having human beings in which you own and you think that they're your property. And that's the whole mindset of I'm an owner of this human being, right? Never God's heart, never God's intention, such a broken thing. And we know historically how much brokenness that creates. So there's these two polar opposite views. One view says, "I own nothing," and one view says, "I own everything." One view says, "You don't have control of anything other than just the individual." And the other one says, "I have control of everything that's under my ownership," right? And here's the issue with both views. Both views are broken. Both views are not God's view on how we are supposed to relate to the things around us. There's a third view that is very, very much in the very core of the early writings and the first five books of the Bible that God gave in the identity of the nation of Israel and is still carried through through the teachings of Jesus and is experienced within the community of the early church, which is the idea of we're neither like we're neither nonowners or owners. The title that the Bible gives us is that we are stewards or caretakers. These are both words that are interchanged. And what a steward is, is there's many different ways that you can look at it. And I have a couple of different ways that I think about it. Some of you here, maybe you have watched some different shows. Like, for example, this is really embarrassing, but I'm going to just go ahead and own it really proud. Me and my wife like to watch like timepiece shows, like shows that are set in this particular time, okay? Like, you know, I don't know, just off the top of my head, like Downton Abbey or something like that. I'm not saying it's a great show. I'm not saying I endorse it or the more I'm just like, we like these certain things like in these timepieces, right? And if you watch some of those shows that are set in a certain time, right? These wealthy aristocrats, right? They'll own multiple houses, right? Like they've got their city house and their country estate and their French, whatever. And they got all these different houses, okay? And one of the things you learn in watching this show for history, which is why I watch it, not because it's entertaining. But one of the things you learn in this process is at all of these places, the owner or the master of these houses is often not there. But while they're not there, the house is just not empty. There's a person or maybe multiple people who are caretakers of the estate. Whether the master is there or not, they live there. They take care of the estate. They clean the estate. They make sure that it's being upkept, that everything is going on. It's utilized so that it's utilized and ready so that whenever the master or the owner comes, they find it in good standing. They are caretakers, but everything there is theirs. They live in these beautiful houses. They experience this beautiful country. They have all these access to these things. And every decision they make, they are thinking, how would the owner or the master of this estate want to utilize this estate, this thing, this whatever the object may be? And so they're not making the decision on their own. They're making the decision on behalf of someone else. And they get to enrichly enjoy all of this stuff while the master is not there. But when the master comes, it's all ready for them. And they're living this way. Another way that I often think about it, if maybe you're like, I'm not into timepiece things. So maybe you're on the other side. Maybe you're into like finances, right? Maybe some of you, you like invest. You have like a (k), a (b), an IRA, a simple IRA, Roth (k). Whatever your deal of choice, right? You're in there. And many times you invest in not just an individual stocks or individual companies. You invest in some kind of fund, a mutual fund, some kind of other file, all these kind of things that are as groups. And many of those are managed by someone. Someone owns this fund. One of the most famous fund managers, this guy named Warren Buffett, really rich. He owns Halbert. He's like this big fund. And all this money is invested in there because they say, I want this guy to be the manager of these funds. Because he's going to make these funds grow. Now, although he is the one who controls all of those resources and he invests them and moves them. It's a lot of power, a lot of things. At the end of the day, all those funds are not his.

 He's the steward of those funds. He's the caretaker of those funds. And his job, his responsibility is to make decisions based on what everyone else wants. And the thing of they want to see that resource grow. And so his job is to be thinking, how do I take care of this thing? And now, does he get paid out of that fund yet? Does he live out of that fund? Absolutely he does. Does he benefit when the fund grows? Certainly he does. But at the end of the day, he does not own that. If he took all of it and said, I'm going to take this $ billion and just put it in my pocket, he would go to jail because it's not his. It's someone else's, many other people's. Right? Stewardship is this idea of having access to and even representing someone, but it's not yours.

 And this is such a different view than nonownership. I don't own anything. Or ownership, which is everything is mine. And I can do with it what I want. And I want to read a couple of scriptures and look through some of this and address it because I think when we understand this concept, at least for me, it opens up my eyes to how I live and how I relate to my money, how I relate to my possessions, how I relate to my time. Because all of a sudden, I view it very differently. Luke chapter , verse , it says this, and we'll kind of go quickly. We won't be able to totally impact this, but Jesus is talking about stewardship and money and resources. He says,

 I want you to make sure that you, this is sidebar, but it's like crazy. Verse , it says that when the master returns, remember this is talking about Jesus in our context. Like when the master returns, he doesn't say, I'm back, serve me. What does it say? It says when the master returns, he will dress as a servant and he was at the servants at the table and he will serve those who were serving the master's house. He will be the one who serves them. This is the type of saviour that we serve, that he calls you to be a steward, but he says, but when I come, you are no longer the servant, but I am the one serving you. When people heard this message, it was mind blowing, culturally, completely crazy because servants were not served by their masters. Slaves were not served by free people. That is not how it was. There was a hierarchy. There was a system. And Jesus says, when your master comes back, he did not come to be served, but to serve.

 And Jesus let that out. And that is true today for us, that we get entrusted with the stewardship and this responsibility, but there is a day in which God says that the tables will be turned and you will be seated at the table and I will be the one fully providing for you. What an amazing picture. But listen to this. This is the opposite side. But suppose the servant says to himself, my master is taking a long time in coming and then he begins to beat the other servants. This feels extreme. Both men and women and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on the day when he does not expect him and at the hour he is not aware. This is extreme. And listen, Jesus, when he talks about money a lot of times, he gets real extreme and it can seem crazy. He says he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. The servant who knows the master's will and does not get ready and does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.

 Now notice he gives this thing. He's like, it's not that the guy didn't know what he wanted. It wasn't like, I thought you wanted me to beat everyone while you were gone. We got the wires crossed. He said, no, you knew what was expected of you. And you didn't do it. Like you knew what was the heart. And then it says, but the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. So this is an opposite side. Maybe there is someone who doesn't actually know. So we got a second character. Someone who knows, doesn't know.

 For everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded. And for the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

 This is one of many different examples in the Old and New Testament of biblical stewardship. Of what stewardship looks like. Of being an agent or a caretaker or a steward of something else. And really, there's three major components of stewardship. And by the way, this concept was just as radical in Jesus' day as it is today. It was just as radical in places outside of the nation of Israel as it was in, as it is here in this room today. But the three components of big will stewardship, like three things that are just like rock solid. Although it can grow very much. It's this. The first one is this. God owns it all. God owns it all.

 All of your money. All of your resources. All of your possessions.

 All of your time. All of your attention. All of your breaths. Everything that you are is His. He owns everything around you. Everything in front of you and behind you. He owns the past, the present, and the future. God owns it all.

 It is not yours. That is why at the very beginning, in Genesis chapter , it says that He created the whole garden. He did the whole narrative. And then it says in chapter, in verse , it says, "The Lord God took man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it." To be a caretaker of it.

 God created everything. It was His. And then He said, "Take care of this for me. Work in this and take care of it in me." And the Bible, like we could read scripture after scripture after scripture of this idea of God owning everything and everything being God's. But we'll just read a couple for today. It says Leviticus , , it says, "The land must not be sold permanently because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and as strangers." If you don't know what that's referring to, everyone got an inheritance whenever they moved into the Promised Land and everyone got a section. And as anything, people could sell their land, but there was a special rule in Israel. It said, "You can only sell it for a certain time because every so often the land will return back to the original owners, the original family, because it's not any of your land anyways. It's all mine and I want to give it back to the way it was." And so there was these year of jubilees in which the things would return. And so, yes, you could buy land, you could sell land, you could rent land, you could lease land. But at the end of the day, under the rules and the laws of God in Israel, it would come back because it was already God. So, Deuteronomy chapter , , it says, "To the Lord your God belongs, the heavens and the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it." Psalms  verse , it says, "For every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountain and the insects in the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you for the world is mine and all that is in it."

 God owns it all. We are called to buy and sell and live and trade and grow and sell and harvest. We're called to do all of those things. But we're called to do all of those things from a position, from a place of stewardship, not from a place of ownership.

 Because we don't own it. It is His. And we work on His behalf to make those things happen. The second thing is, the second point, so the first is it all belongs to God. The second point is, is we're entrusted by God with His resources to do good. Just like in that story, we are entrusted with the intention of doing good, doing the heart of the Master, doing the heart of God. And the thing that we know from the heart of God by studying Scripture is that His desire is to do good things. That is His hope, that through the work of the cross and through the grace that we have in Jesus, that His desire is to do good and that people who need good will be able to receive it in their life. We get this opportunity to use these resources to be good. And so what we have to understand is many times we look at our money or we look at our time or we look at our relationships and we say, "This is mine and I'm going to use it how I want."

 But the truth is, if we believe point one is God's, then we actually, then they say, "Okay, well then God, how should I use these resources that you've given me?

 How am I going to use it? What's the point?" And just before you think, and we're like, you're like, "I'm not coming back next week because we're one step away from all doing a vow of poverty. We're all going to sell our houses. You're going to ask us to invite in the timeshare." That's not what I'm talking about.

 Some of your money is meant for you and your family to live, to have a house, to have cars, to be able to have groceries, to have clothes, to do the things that need to happen. That is absolutely what some of your money is definitely for. And you know what? It's even beyond that. We're not called to live in this like vow of poverty or just like barely squeaking by. We serve a God of abundance. I love this scripture in verse Timothy chapter six verse . It says, "Command those who are rich in the present world not to be arrogant and not to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." God does not ask you just to live through life and suffer and like, "I'm eating some stale bread and water again, Jesus." Listen, maybe you've been through seasons of poor. Maybe you were on that ramen diet for a while, you know, I've been there.

 But there's something that happens. You understand? God is here to provide for you, not just for your absolute necessities, but for your enjoyment.

 God wants you to experience beauty and to experience goodness and to experience joy and to experience family and to experience feasting and celebrations and to experience. But that is in his heart. There is nothing in this that says, "And now you have to be poverty." That's not what I'm saying. But it has to do with us allowing ourselves to invite God in this process and know what is it that I'm supposed to do. I mean, here's something, you know, a lot of pastors won't preach about this because it's like not really great for like the offerings. But here's the thing, when you look through and you study like the Old Tith and the Old Testament and all the different things that they gave, one of the things that they talk about is that some people, you know, they were, for example, they would be sheep farmers or they would have herds or they would have lots of crops. And they couldn't bring, because they had so much and they lived so far away from Jerusalem, they could not bring all these things over this long journey. It was like impossible. So what the Bible, what the law told them to do was take it and take that  percent and sell it and convert it into money and then go to Jerusalem and says, "And then feast and celebrate with family and friends in the presence of God." Throw a huge party in the presence of God. That's what you're supposed to do. And that was worshipping God because he's a God of abundance. Like he gives you everything you need for your enjoyment.

 And that is the place. Now, what we have to look at, because we talked about this last week, there is this line, and we're going to get into this a little bit more here in a minute. There's this line between enjoyment and maybe luxury or surplus. There's this line between pressing into God's goodness and abundance and all of a sudden operating out of greed instead of being content. Like we have to walk through that process. Like we'll talk about this. But really, there's three major categories that things.

 God wants you to have what you need to live. God wants you to have what you need to give. And then God wants you to have what you need to be able to build. Right? So the things you need to live is what you need for daily, for enjoyment, giving and being generous and sowing to other people and other things and other causes, to churches, to people in need. That's huge. And then something to build things to save and to grow towards, an inheritance set up. Something that long term that maybe God puts on your heart. Like these are these three things that God longs for us to walk into and to be able to invite Him into his God. What do I need to live? What do I need to give? And what do I need to have to build to move forward? This is this incredible opportunity that God gives us in this process of inviting Him into it. So here's the three things. The third thing of this stewardship. And Serena actually mentioned this in her testimony part. And Gary too, of course, but he's just a husband. It's a this.

 The third point is that God blesses us not to have more, but to give more.

 God will bless you when you begin to steward well. Like here's the thing. When you steward well, God gives you more to steward. Like when you sow, these are principles of the place. Now it won't always be one for one. And when we be thing for thing, you may sow into an offering. And then you may all of a sudden get overwhelming joy somewhere else in your life. You may get many different ways because God is bigger than just some like financial formula that comes out of it. But this is a thing. But the intention of why we are generous and the reason why we keep sowing and the reason why we keep giving and we keep stewarding is because God keeps increasing us, not because He wants to raise our standard of living, but because He wants to raise our standard of giving.

 And He gives us this opportunity to be able to continue to trust in Him and to continue to see and invite Him into this process.

 To be able to be purposeful and intentional in why we were able to give. Second Corinthians nine says this, verse eight says, God is able to bless you abundantly so that all things at a time, having all that you need, you will bound 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 your generosity, many things will be given to God. Here's the thing, I mentioned this a couple weeks ago. If you grew up like me, you grew up in this era where there was this incorrect teaching talking about prosperity gospel. That was like this big title, which is like you give and you get, you give and you get, you give and you get, and you give and you get and the end result of it is, or the problem with it is, is not based on a lie, it's based on a half truth. When you sow, you will reap. That is what God teaches. That is in the Bible. But the thing is, the way that it was presented when I was growing up as this God slot machine that was this multiplier effect every time I put it in, the problem is that made my motivation of giving come from greed, not from love.

 And so therefore it created brokenness inside of me, not trust in a new heart. That is what God wants.

 And so the biggest difference, because when you read that scripture, you're like, it sounds like if I just give, I get, and I give, and I get. But what it says that it says, you will be given to generously, provide for abundantly so that you can give generously.

 So that not so that you can live in six houses in six different states, not so that you can have the nicest car in the entire neighborhood, not so that you can walk around with shoes that cost $,. That's not why you gave in the offering to get it back.

 And I have no problem with cool, nice things. I don't. I believe that God wants to bless you richly and abundantly, but I believe that sometimes I remember thinking, okay, if I give $, then to , because of course my faith is really great, then I got $,, then I give $,, then I give $,, then I give $,, then I give $,, then I give $,, then I give $,, and then the next thing I can buy a car, then I can trade that car, and then the next thing I know, Bentley baby! And I don't even have to work. It's like this weird, I just got a cycle, I just keep, but then the church just keeps coming back to me. That's great! But none of that fixes my heart. None of that is what God wants. So that we can be generous. So that we can be generous. And I talked about this last week, like, you know, we have this concept of like, like, oh, well, I gave my %, so % of his mind. I gave God his %, so % of his mind.

 Unfortunately, that's not scriptural. None of it's yours. It's all his. It's all his.

 And he wants to actually give you more. He wants to give you more than you can ever ask or think of. He wants to give you the ability to have things that you never thought you could possess, and not just financially, in every area of your life. He wants you to have more.

 But when you look at it, like, yeah, God, I already gave you % of the rest of his mind, and God's like, but I actually have more for you. I have more for you. Don't be satisfied there. I have more for you. I have a greater joy for you. I have a greater peace for you. I have a greater abundance for you. I have greater love for you. I have greater transformation inside of you. I have a greater ability to give beyond what you can imagine. I have more to give to you. I want you to be the servant who can sit down at the table and be served by me. I have more for you. Will you trust me not with % and think you're done? Will you trust me with everything?

 Because ultimately when you say, God, I trust you with everything, you're not giving him money, you're giving him your heart.

 I trust you. I trust you.

 And listen, I know there's different personalities in the room. Some of you here are your savers. You're like, you save, you save, you save. Some of you are spenders. You spend, you spend, you spend. Some of you are in a marriage where one's a saver and one's a spender, and that creates tension. Some of you are like me, and it's like you're bipolar. Like one day you're a real saver and one day you're a big spender, and then you're like, I'm broken. Oh, God.

 But we're called to be stewards in the middle. And let me tell you what this creates, because maybe you're like me, cynical and rude.

 And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But what does it mean? This brings up a lot of questions. And the answer is yes. This should bring up so many questions in your heart and your mind.

 How much do I keep? How much do I give? How much should I should I sow? And to who? And to when? And how frequently? And pretax? And posttax? And what's the good standard of living in Tulsa, Oklahoma? Which is different than a standard of living in Manhattan? Which is different than in Paris? Which is different when you have two kids versus four kids? Or when you're an empty nester? Or when you're single or when you're married? It's different all of these different things. What's the nicest car I can buy but not get in trouble? How many cars can I have? How many pairs of shoes can I have? What jeans will not only fit good, look good, but not cost too much? Like these are questions that you should be asking yourself. And the reason is because the thing that God invites us to is this ability to trust Him and to ask for discernment to know His will of how to steward what He's given us.

 He wants to tell you. And guess what? What He tells you is different from me. That's why the New Testament never comes out and just says, "Just give % and you'll be fine."

 Because He's after so much more than that. Not just in quantity, but He wants all of you. And He wants you to ask Him about everything. "God, how much should I give? How much should I give? Where should I go? Where should my kids go to school? Private or public? This or that?" Because He knows what your kids need. More than like, "Well, I can save this much money if I put them into this school versus that school. That must be what God wants me to do." Maybe, maybe not. You have to ask God. You have to discern. It doesn't matter what the system says. It doesn't matter what the most time value money over  years put into compound interest daily. That doesn't actually matter. What matters is God. What would you have me do so that you can transform me and to listen to God with this desire?

 I want to close with this because, like I said, the New Testament specifically doesn't give us this, like, "And here's your magic answer."

 But there are six core principles, and there's probably a few more, but there's six that we're going to look at today. They kind of give us some guidelines about what it looks like to give, to be generous. And by the way, remember, this is like, this is in the assumption. That's probably true for most of us in the room, although I don't want to assume it's true for everyone in this room. This is with the assumption that your very base needs are met. Like, in the church, in the New Testament, like, if you didn't have a place to stay, if you didn't have food to eat, if you didn't have water to drink, if you didn't have clothes to wear, guess what? The church that didn't take care of you until you got to a place where you could do that. This is not like, "Hey, I know you've got nothing, but I still need % of your nothing or else."

 When you're at a place where it's bad, that's a season, and God longs to transform you and to lead you out of that place into a place of His abundance and goodness.

 But for the majority of the people in the room, that's not where you're at. You're somewhere else.

 Maybe you're really far away from that place, or maybe you're like, "Just barely. It's like I got $ extra a month." Okay.

 But there's six questions, six guidelines that we can see from Scripture, and these are on the U version notes.

 But here's the first. One, it is regular, meaning it's not sporadic. It is planned.

 First Corinthians , too, it says, "On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money." It's regular. The second thing is, it's proportional. Continuing that verse, it says, "In keeping with your income, saving it up, so when I come, no collections will have to be made."

 This is Paul raising some money for people in Jerusalem from another thing in Macedonia because there was a big famine, and so he's like, "Hey, let's set aside some resources to be able to do this."

 The third thing is that it should be sacrificial. That should be sacrificial.

 Giving should regularly be something that when we give, there should be a little sting of like, "Oh man, you should ask yourself, what could I do with that money?"

 And maybe when you're young, you're like, "I could have gotten one cheeseburger with that money."

 And sometimes you're like, "It maybe would have been better, that cheeseburger maybe would have been." I remember someone's putting $ in an offering and thinking, "No, you can't buy a burger for $ anymore." But I remember doing it and being like, "I think I could have received more from the burger, God."

 Not sure if that's right. But maybe some of you are really far away from $, and that's not what God's asking you. And you're like, "Oh, but that could have been a car. That could have been a car payment. That could have been a thing. That could have been that lake. What?" Sometimes it's sacrifice. It's sacrifice to give.

  Corinthians , , it says, "In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity."

 What a wild combo. "Their overwhelming joy and extreme poverty welled up inside of them to produce rich generosity."

 "For I testify," this is Paul saying, "they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability entirely on their own." He was like, "I didn't coerce them. I didn't force them." This is just what they did. "Their overwhelming joy and extreme poverty resulted in rich generosity so that they could give to you."

 The fourth thing, voluntary. Voluntary. Not under coercion. Not out of being forced. Not just because I stand up here and I put a back bucket in front of you. Not because someone makes a really sad, "Sorry, it's in the arms of the angels" play.

 It should be voluntary.  Corinthians , , it says, "Each one of you should give what you have decided in your heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion."

 Which means you need to make space and time to discern and invite God to know, "What should I give?"

 It should be voluntary. The fifth one is it should be joyful. It should be joyful to give.

 God doesn't like grumpy givers. You've all heard that. He loves a joyful year. He doesn't want your grumpy money.

 If you're like, "I only can give money and I'm grumpy after," then keep it. Keep it and ask God to transfer from your heart.

 Because all you're doing is just wasting your... He wants your heart. So press into it. Joyful.

 And the sixth one is it needs to be motivated out of our apprenticeship or our following Jesus.

 We're not doing this. We're not giving in generous because it's philanthropic or because, "Look, how many... my tax break or look, I can post it on social media and everyone will praise me because how great I am." We are doing it because we are followers of Jesus and Jesus loved you so much that he gave his life so that you could have everlasting life by believing in him. And because God, our Father, already gave us the greatest gift and invites us to be like him, then we say, "I want to apprentice after you and give because that is the heart of God and I want to steward what's been given to me well because I want others to come to know the heart of God." Because just like Corinthians says, that others will come to know how great God is because of the generosity that I practice. They don't need to know who I am.

 I'm of no consequence. I will not transform their life. I will not change their life. I will not heal their life. I will not fix brokenness, but God will.

 I will.

 And here's the thing as we close. I know that sometimes I've been there.

 And I mean like recently been there, not like years and years ago.

 Sometimes we like to invite God and we discern and we ask God many questions about what we should do and what we shouldn't do in many areas except for money.

 And most of the time, at least for me, it's because we actually don't want to hear what he says.

 Because what if he tells me to give more than I want to or to stop doing something that I like? And if you're like that, if you're like me and you feel that way, to me this verse is the great comfort. Luke chapter  verse  is just a few verses before that parable we heard earlier where Jesus says, "Do not be afraid little flock. Your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom."

 If I really believe everything I have is his and then I ask him what to do with it and he tells me to do something that my first reaction is, "That's crazy!"

 Then in my heart, I'm struggling to believe that he really loves me and that he's my father provider and that he's already given me the kingdom.

 What I'm really saying is, "But God, don't you see I'm trying to do something here. I'm working here and you're getting in the way of what I'm trying to accomplish for you."

 But see, the thing about money is it doesn't have to make logical sense for it to create fear. It doesn't even have to line up with your beliefs. That's the problem is that we can believe, "Yeah, God provides," and then we can be absolutely petrified to step out in faith.

 And I have not arrived in this category.

 Not professionally, not personally. I have not arrived in this place.

 But what my hope is for me and what my hope is for you is that we believe that our shepherd has already told us the sheep that his father has given us the kingdom.

 That everything I have is already yours and all that I have is his.

 And if he asked me to give up my time, then I give up my time knowing that he will make it up to me. If he asked me to give up my money, I will give up my money knowing that he will provide more in when I need it and how I need it. If he asked me to start a relationship or start a relationship or be generous or invite people to my home even though that means I have to cook more, or I've got to clean up something or I've got to freak out and pick up the laundry off the floor, like if I've got to do all those things, he will take care of it because he's abundant and he's after my heart. And so I can spend my days not worrying about, "Am I managing my money? Am I managing my time? Am I managing my relationships? Am I managing all these things?" Instead I can spend my time saying, "God, show me how to live today. Show me how to live. Lead me. Be my shepherd."

 It's a transformative way of thinking. It's a radical view on your wealth, on your possessions, on your things. It is different than the world and people will tell you you're crazy when you tell them what you're doing.

 I'm giving this up. Why? God told me to. You're crazy. And you may be like, "I think I am crazy actually. This feels crazy."

 But this is what God wants for us. Let me pray and bless you this morning and then we'll dismiss. Father, we thank you so much for today.

 I thank you for the heart of a loving, providing father that we have in you. Lord, thank you that you invite us to be stewards and part of the inheritance, Father.

 And that while we're here on this earth and we're stewarding the things you've given us, our time, our talent, our treasures, our attention, Lord, help us discern and invite you into the process

 so that we can know how to live, so that our heart cannot be ruled by greed. Instead, it can be overwhelmed with your joy and your contentment and your generosity, Father God.

 Lord, help us live a lifestyle in which we can live civilly, give generously and be content with what we have.

 Lord, if there's anyone here who's in hearing these words that's creating struggles or guilt or animosity or fear or tension, come against it in the name of Jesus.

 Your heart for us is to be provided for so that we can experience all good things. That we can celebrate in your presence. Help us invite you into the process of our lives.

 In your holy name we pray. Amen and amen. Church, we love you. We're so thankful for you. If you need prayer for anything, the prayer team's down here. If you need healing, if you've got questions about salvation, they would love to be down there and just connect with you. If not, you can be dismissed. You can pray for two things this week. Either pray that the air gets fixed or it gets colder next Sunday. I'm good with either. All right. Have a great rest of your Sunday. I will see you next week.