Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Ephesians 5, emphasizing the core value of giving generously as modeled by Jesus. He highlights that giving encompasses not only financial contributions but also the generous use of our time and talents to serve others. The sermon challenges the congregation to evaluate their priorities and consider how they can invest in the church and community, ultimately asking, "Where is your heart?" as a reflection of one's commitment to giving.
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If you have your Bibles, we'll go to Ephesians chapter 5 today. One thing I like about the youth doing the service is I get more time to preach, and so that's nice. But yeah, we'll turn there. As you're turning there, a couple of things to let you be aware of.
Miss Freddie Walker, continue to pray for her. She got transported back to the hospital this week and is having to, they're running some tests on her, so continue to pray for her. Also, Rodney Calloway has had bronchitis, and he's at home today recovering.
And then the last thing that I was going to mention is our Saturday evening at 5 o'clock, we'll be having our Boston Butt Benefit Dinner for the church.
And we want this to be a celebration time as a church coming together, going into our Easter Sunday. And so that's going to be at 5 o'clock on Saturday. The menu for that is chicken, pork, or Boston Butt, slaw, and green beans. Donations are accepted for this.
And as you leave today, Bob is going to be at the back, and he's going to be just getting a head count.
If you think you're going to be there, let him know just so they can begin to plan for that, buy what they need.
And then the options are going to be dine-in, you can eat here at the church, take out, and then we'll also deliver to our shut-ins if you would like to make that available. So that's going to be there this coming Saturday at 5 o'clock.
Hopefully you'll come, enjoy that time of fellowship on that Saturday coming up.
Is that right, Bob? Did I get all that right? Perfect. I was hoping I got it all right. All right, Ephesians chapter 5 is where we'll be at today. Before we get started there, we're last sermon today of our core values.
So we begin talking through our core values and talking about what that looks like. We talked about glorifying God. We spent a couple weeks there. We talked about growing together, giving generously this week, and going and serving.
I almost lost my mind there. Going and serving as well. So today, the last thought of that, of giving generously, and we're going to give practical thoughts on that today. But our opening statement in your notes there is, we will do everything we can to give as generously as Jesus did.
And as a church, this is one of those concepts that's hard to preach, it's hard to teach.
God's Generosity and Our Response
But it's a concept that Jesus modeled for us. As we talked about last week, we understand that God is the most generous giver of all. He made it a personal matter for himself.
He was resolved, and we need to be resolved and know that there's greater implications to our giving than just putting money in the offering plate. And so as we think through that, I came across a couple of opening stories.
I'd like to read some stories and some popular people in the world that maybe we wouldn't think of that gave to a church, and God received blessings upon their life.
And so the first one is a company that I probably should have stock in. I don't. But Kraft Cheese.
Have any of you ever had Kraft mac and cheese? Maybe your kids have had Kraft mac and cheese. Okay, I should probably invest lots of money here.
I already do invest money in it by buying them, but I probably should invest in their stock because of how much we give. But the head of Kraft Corporation said this. He said he had approximately 25% of his enormous income he gave to Christian causes for many years.
And he said the only investment I ever made which has paid continuously increasing dividends is the money that I gave to the Lord. J.L. Kraft made that statement.
A popular businessman who made tons and tons of money said the only thing that ever gave back to him was the money he gave to the Lord. J.D. Rockefeller. Ever heard of that name? J.D.
Rockefeller made this statement. I would have never been able to tithe my first million dollars if I had never made the tithe of my first salary, which was $1.50 a week.
He understood the importance of giving, and we also as a church must understand the importance of giving, and we're going to talk about that today.
And I came across this story of the 17th century of a German preacher called August Frankie. He founded an orphanage to care for homeless children in Germany, a place called Hale, Germany.
One of the day when Frankie was desperately in need of funds to carry on his work, a destitute Christian widow had came to his door begging for a gold coin, which would have been what's called a dact. And because of his financial situation,
he politely but regretfully told her that he could not help her. This heart and the woman, the widow began to beg and weep and moved by her tears,
Frankie asked her to wait while he went to his room and prayed. And after seeking God's guidance, he felt the Holy Spirit wanted him to change his mind. So he trusted the Lord to meet his own needs. He gave her the money that she asked.
Two mornings later, he received a letter as a thanks from the widow. And she explained that because of his generosity, she had asked the Lord to shower the orphanage with gifts. That same day, Reverend Frankie received 12 gold coins in the mail from a wealthy lady.
Two more from a friend in Sweden. And he thought that amply had been rewarded for helping out that widow. But soon the next week, he was informed through the orphanage that he was going to receive 500 gold pieces from an estate of Prince Ludwig van Warttenburg.
When he had heard this, Frankie began to weep in gratitude. In sacrificially providing for the need of one widow, he had been enriched, not impoverished.
And oftentimes when we think of giving, we think of financial. And there is a financial meaning to that. But I want us to understand this morning, God's return on investment is immeasurable.
There's no way that we can put a measure of if I give this, God is going to do this. Malachi says that when we give to the Lord, he will open up his storehouse of blessings, the windows of blessings from the Lord.
We cannot put a price tag. We cannot put a stock quota of investment of what's going to happen when we give. Our job is simply just to give as the Lord gives to us.
And so as we think through that, as we think through what Jesus has done for us this morning, I want to ask us one simple, really two questions to open up as we get started. The first is this, what do you give to your church?
What do you give to your church? And the follow-up is this, is what does it cost you? Because giving always requires a cost,
right? When my kids come for Christmas time and birthdays,
there's a cost that involves in me and my wife providing those things. It costs us something to go on vacation. It costs us something to go and do things. And so therefore, when we begin to ask ourselves, what do we give to the church? What does it cost us?
And that's really what we want to ask this morning as we get started. And we're going to read beginning. We won't stand because I've got three different scriptures out of Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 and 16. And they'll have it on the screen for us as well. And it says this,
My sermon today is not a sermon that would have been, you know, I penned it and I penned it. But I began to put the words here. It's a common theme of when it comes to giving is simply times, talents, and treasures.
Giving Our Time Generously
And today we'll begin talking about our time and giving generously of our time and what that looks like. C.S.
Lewis, a common writer, you've probably heard after him. I quote him a lot because I love his reading. I love his books.
I love the things that he puts out. But he made this statement one day. He said, The future is something that everyone reaches at 60 minutes an hour, no matter who you are or what you do. The future is something that everyone reaches 60 minutes an hour,
no matter what you do or who you are. And when we begin to think through our time this morning, church, we've got to begin to ask ourselves, What am I investing in? The Bible says that walk as we are carefully, not as fools, but as wise men, making the most of our time because the days are evil.
The New Testament exhorts every Christian to care for fellow church members and to steward that time generously. Our time is the most valuable thing we have. You may ask someone, What's the most valuable thing you have?
And they may say, Well, it's my farm or it's my house or it's my children. But when the bottom line comes down to it, our time is the most valuable thing we have. And in Romans 12, 15, as Paul is writing to the church of Rome, and he says this,
Rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those who weep.
And my question is, how can we celebrate with someone if we don't invest time with them? If we don't spend time with others, you will not be able to mourn with that person when they have loss. You will not be able to have a victory with that person when they have a victory.
Because so often, church, we are in a hurry trying to get from point A to point B as fast as we possibly can because we're running late and we don't have time for the things that God has put in our way.
Look at, if you will here in your mind, you don't have to turn there, but Galatians 6, you may want to write this down. Galatians 6, 1 and 2, Paul exhorts the Christian church and he says this, If any of you is caught up in a transgression, who are spiritual,
should restore him in a spitter of gentleness. Keep watch on yourselves, lest you too also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the law.
Restoration in our church and in our world is not just for pastors, but it is the work of the whole body of Christ. And the Bible says that when someone gets caught up in a sin, we should generously give repeated gifts of time.
Restore that person. Give them the time that they need to be able to lift them back up. And as we begin to look at our calling as a church ministry, as a church member, part of that ministry is simply giving each other time and providing that time to other people. Because, listen, I get it.
I understand time is valuable. It's valuable. I've got a young family. I've got three kids. And we had a birthday party last night. And we had people there. And time is valuable.
And part of me was like, man, I've got some other things to do. The ball game is about to come on. Carolina is about to win. Duke is about to maybe lose tonight. And NC State, we don't know what's going to happen there. And they won.
All of a sudden, time is valuable. But me and my wife, we just sort of sat back and she said, James, just calm down.
We've got people here. Like, just enjoy the people that are here. And so I had to sort of evaluate, even last night, my time and where I'm investing it.
Because oftentimes, we're too busy to weep with those who need us to weep with them. Our sports games come up and time takes over that. We're consumed by studying for exams.
And we don't have time for the person that's sitting there in the courtyard at school that just simply needs us to stop and talk with them. We're consumed with the things that are around us. And we don't have time to meet them. Because we don't have the time to budget that.
So the question we have to ask ourselves is this. Can you buy time?
We can buy a lot of things in life. We can go out and we can buy a new car. We can go out and buy a new house.
We can go out and buy things that we want. But can we buy time?
Ultimately, the question is, is are you seizing the opportunities that God has given you? Ephesians says this. Fools squander their time. But wise people will budget their time effectively.
Wise people budget the time and the opportunity that God has given them. God gives every single person here the amount of time that you need to accomplish the things that God has designed your life to accomplish.
If you're going to live to be 70 years old, God says I'm going to give you the amount of time to do everything that I've ordained in your life. And foolish people will squander that time.
They'll say, God, I'm not going to do what you want me to do. I'm going to do what I want to do. And we begin to squander the time that God has given us.
That's where the Bible says here that fools will squander their time because their days are evil. You see, we have a responsibility to use our time according to his priorities.
This can best be done by simply doing what I like to call a time budget. A time evaluation of what you're doing and how you're using your time. Because your plans must be made in subject to what God's will is for your life.
And we have to ask ourselves, am I planning ahead? Am I making a time budget?
Me and my brother were, my brother was over last night. And we were talking about some things we had going on. And he said, hey, have you seen this cool feature on your iPhone where you can merge your calendar with someone else's calendar? And all of a sudden, you've got your calendar.
And he's like, I've got my wife's calendar.
We've got a family calendar. And all of our things are planned out. And we've got birthday parties. And we've got doctor's appointments. And we've got vacations. And we can see where we're at. And I'm thinking,
you know, that's really cool. But how often do we have that? And then we fill it up with stuff. And then we don't have time for other things. I'm a busy guy.
We were up here even this past week. And we were talking, me and Caleb were talking about my schedule and some things that I do. And all of a sudden, we begin to look at our life. And we say, man, sometimes we do get over busy.
We do get too busy for just the everyday things. And as the Puritan Thomas Watson says, time is a talent to trade with. How are we investing our time to profit our church?
How are we spending our time ultimately reveals what our heart is for. Where our time goes, there your heart goes also.
And when you begin to evaluate your life, when you begin to evaluate where you're at, and you begin to look at the time that you're spending, you begin to see where your heart is at.
I did this study a couple of years back when I was a youth pastor at our former church. And I began to, we were at a winter retreat.
And I asked our kids, I said, I want you to get your phone out. And I think I may have shared this before. Get your phone out and look at your screen time.
How often you're looking at this device that's in front of you. I had one teenage girl who's came here before. She had 14 hours a day. Not a week.
But a day on her phone in front of her face. That's a lot of time. How many hours are in a day? 24.
Jade got it. She was right. 24 hours in a day. So that means 10 hours of that day she didn't have a phone in front of her face. That's a lot of time. That we're sacrificing on the altar of self.
And we have to ask ourselves, where is our time at? Because ultimately where we spend our time, that is where our heart is attached. Right?
Those who are married in here, you'll know this. The longer you spend with your wife or husband, what is it?
The more you're attracted to them. The more you love being around them. The more you want to be around them because you're spending time with them. And you get to know them. And you fall in love with them.
And eventually that falls into an engagement. And then you get married and you start having kids. And the longer you're together, hopefully, Lord willing, the more you grow together.
And church, this is when it begins to ask ourselves our question of where we're giving our time. Because our time ultimately reveals where our heart's at.
Giving in earthly treasures involves far more than just simply writing a paycheck on Sunday. Or writing a tithing check on Sunday and saying, I'm going to give this to the Lord. It's a whole lot more than that.
It begins with our time. And then it goes into what's called our treasure, our talents. Our talents. And Luke chapter 12, it begins to talk through this. And Luke chapter 12, Jesus is giving a story here of what happens when talents. He's giving a parable of the talents. And let me flip there.
I didn't have this in my notes. The rich man, the ruler comes and he gives the talents out. And he says this in verse 47. Luke 12, 47.
And the servant which knew his Lord's will and prepared not for himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew him did not commit these things worthy of stripes and was beaten a few stripes. I think I'm in the wrong verse here.
For unto him is given much. I'm right. For unto him much is given. Of him much shall be required.
And whom men have committed much of him, they will be asked of more. We have to ask ourselves, when we begin to look at our talents, we begin to ask ourselves, what are we here on this earth to do?
We spent two weeks, three weeks talking about our gifts and how we can give those back to the Lord.
And this is what this is ultimately talking about. It's talking about what we have prepared for the glory of God. And our glory of what God has created for us. Our service, our mercy, our helping, our administration. These are all gifts.
And as I was thinking through that, even as I was reflecting on a couple of weeks ago, as I was thinking about the gifts and how we have the gifts to serve and to serve in the church, this thought came to my mind.
Not every Christian possesses every spiritual gift, but all Christians possess some gifts.
And as we give these gifts to the church, we begin to build up the church. Right? Some people are really good at organization and some people are really good at just sharing and teaching and others are not. And so we have to ask ourselves, what is the gift that God has given me?
Why do spiritual gifts, what do they have to do with each other with talents? While not every spiritual gift is a talent, but many spiritual gifts are rooted in your talents. Think of it like this. Some people have the knack of just getting things done. Right?
If my wife is, she's an ultra planner when it comes to partying.
We got to see this in full effect with Hudson's party last night. And all week long, and I'm just going to share a little about it. All week long, you know what she's doing? She's looking at her phone and she's looking at the weather.
And how's the weather going to be? Are we going to be able to have this party right? Are we going to be able to have people over? Are we going to be able to do this? Is it going to be muddy?
Are people going to get, are they not going to come because of the mud? Are they not going to come because of the weather? And all of a sudden you begin to go back and forth and she's got things planned out. And she's got things taken care of.
And you begin to realize that people that have this overly organizational ability may have the spiritual gift and the talents of serving in administration. And tracking records and serving in those needs.
And they may just have the gift of just simply helping one another. And we have to ask ourselves, what are these talents that God has given us? What are the gifts that God has given us in order to arrange the body of Christ so that every member meets the needs of other members?
You see, I'm one person in a room full of about 100 people.
I cannot meet every single need in here. I wish I could. I really wish I was Superman and I could be at every single one of your homes every single night and do things with every single person in here. But physically, I just can't do that.
And so we have to ask ourselves, how can other people in the church reach the needs of other people?
In order to flourish, the body of Christ needs every gift of the Spirit in order to grow. And we ought to treat our talents as a clue to the spiritual gift that we have.
And ask ourselves, what am I going to discover from my gifts? And how can I give it to others so that I can build other people up? Some people like to be in crowds.
Other people only like to be in small situations. And you've got to begin to ask yourself, how can we build up the church with our talents?
Stewardship of Talents and Treasures
God has given us time. God has given us talents. And then last of all today, God has given us treasures. These are our finances. These are what God has given us in order to meet the needs of others. Matthew chapter 6, verses 19 through 21. Very familiar passage.
The Bible says, Do not store up for yourselves treasures in earth, where moth and rust is destroyed, where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves do not break in, nor do they steal.
For where your heart is, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
The question we have to ask ourselves. The question we have to ask ourselves this morning as we read this is, what do you treasure in your heart? What is the treasure that's in your heart that you began to go through?
Not all earthly treasure is bad that Jesus is talking about, but Jesus is also not condemning material possessions. All he is simply asking is this, what is your ultimate loyalty to?
If your ultimate loyalty is to your bank account or to a ball game or to whatever else it may be, that is where your heart is.
You began to ask yourself. Maybe you've seen this in people's lives where you began to see where one day they were on board with one thing and then that's where they were at and everything. And all of a sudden, something happened and their heart began to change, right? For me, personally,
we'll give a sports illustration, right? I'm a Dolphins fan through and through. I've got the jersey. I've got the, I mean, they draft a quarterback and it's the greatest quarterback that's ever been drafted, right? They draft an O-line and there's never been a better offensive lineman out there than that O-line that they draft.
Because that's what I like. It brings joy to be able to watch those things. And oftentimes, even a diehard fan, even when the things are bad, they'll look at the optimistic side of it.
And we have to ask ourselves, how often is that with our spiritual life? See, treasure that is for the world is not limited to material wealth, but it can include anything that the world has to capture our attention.
And when we begin to go through life and we begin to allow the earthly things to capture our attention greater than the things of God. My challenge often to anyone I talk to, teenagers, young people,
particularly on cell phones more than older people. Now, I know some older people that are attached to their phone as well. But my challenge often for us is this. Look at your screen time. Are you giving that much time to your word of God?
Are you giving that much treasure to saying that God's word,
his infallible breathed word to me, am I cherishing this as much as I'm cherishing my phone?
Am I cherishing it as much as I'm cherishing the relationships of the people that are around me? Because God says that where we lay up treasures is where our heart is ultimately at.
And so why would it be foolish to lay up earthly treasures? Well, there's a couple of reasons here. Even in Jesus' day, worldly wealth was insecure. Right?
The wealth goes up and down. And especially in Jesus' day, they didn't have the national system of money where everything was level. And so it was insecure.
One day you may get one value for the money that you had, and the next day you may have less. And so he's saying here, don't just live based on what's going on in our earthly currency.
And yet even today, wealth is still insecure. Right? Oftentimes, the gas prices will go up a little bit more than what we were owning. And it's as insecure in that area. And oftentimes, we'll begin to look at wealth, and we'll see that it's an inability to satisfy. As a historian and someone who loves history, I like to read biographies.
Allie says all the time. Those would put me to sleep. I find them fascinating.
But oftentimes, as I study Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and some of these other guys that I like to read after, the question will be asked, when will you have enough money? And almost all the time, the guy's answer is, when I make one more dollar. Because monetary gains cannot satisfy us.
Ecclesiastes chapter 2, 1 through 11, talks about how these are the things that will not satisfy us. The life of the worldly choices are vanity above all vanities.
And then really, the last thing we can ask ourselves is this. Many have suffered from making foolish choices with our financial gains. And many times, as we look through Scripture, we can see that treasures are vulnerable.
They can be taken from us. As it says here in the Scripture, that some can be broken in, and thieves will steal and destroy.
We had lunch this past week. Me and Stephen had lunch with a pastor in Elkin Valley Baptist. And we were talking, and I did not know this story, about how someone had hacked into their bank account for the church. And someone had stolen $800,000 from their bank account.
I'm sure you guys knew this. It was probably all over the news. But I'm just, as I was thinking through that, and as I was planning the message today, I was thinking, man, how insignificant monetary things can be in life.
Because, of course, people can come in and steal. And we don't see that as a physical stealing now. Maybe it's a cyber stealing. But we often will put our life at stake on those things.
And that's where the Bible says that's where our heart is. So the question we have to ask ourselves is, if foolishly to lay up earthly treasures, how can we lay up heavenly treasures? How can we invest in a heavenly future?
Verse 20 simply is saying here that we cannot earn heaven by good works, but that we should seek the kingdom of God. And obey the kingdom principles.
Look here, I'm not going to look because it's a lot here, but chapter 5, verse 1 goes all the way from there of Matthew to right where we were just at in 6, verse 18. And all of this is the beatitudes of Jesus' teaching.
The beatitudes of how we should live our life, who we should invest in, how there's poor and there's needy, how there's people that are seeking a Savior. And we have the opportunity to tell them about a Savior.
That's the kingdom principle that Jesus is saying that we should invest in, that we should have this desire to give to those needs.
Just as we give to Annie Armstrong and we be able to see, I thought that was so awesome when I saw that video this week. They have different videos for every week.
And I saw that video and it was about a guy who planted a church and how all these kids were wanting to come and the kids are leading the service. And I played it and it was on Youth Sunday. Like I didn't plan that.
Trust me, I did not plan that. But it was just, wow, this is awesome that people are invested in the next generation.
And I shared this with our Sunday school this morning. We have a faith because someone else sacrificed for our faith. Someone else sacrificed for us to hear the gospel.
And someone sacrificed for that person to hear the gospel. And the line goes all the way back because we're talking about martyrs and people being killed for their faith and persecution. And how often the church is not being persecuted and the gospel is not being spread.
And Jesus says here, if we want to lay up heavenly treasures, it's simply giving to the things that God says is valuable. It's the invest in resources for spiritual good.
And then the last thing that I sort of wrote down in this is this, why is heavenly treasure superior? Well, simply put, heavenly treasure is safe.
No one can bust into heaven and steal the reward that God has laid for you.
No one's going to be able to go and say, no, actually that was my reward.
You've seen the kid in school and someone loses a water bottle or a Stanley cup, as Jade was telling me on the way to church today. And all of a sudden the teacher gets up and says, well, we've got a lost and found.
And two little girls stand up and say, no, that's mine. Well, they both can't be both of them, right? There's only one.
And they begin to argue and they begin to complain about who's is which. That can't happen in heaven because God says he is the author of what happens in heaven. And it's incorruptible.
As the Bible says so often, even in verse 20. But heavenly treasures pay great dividends. Matthew 6, 33,
various other passages of scripture, Proverbs 19, 17, all reveal. And even in Revelation 14, 13, reveal the treasures that God has for us is so far greater than what we can give to ourselves.
The Heart of Generosity
And so the question we have to ask ourselves as Terry comes and we start winding down a little bit and go into our invitation is ultimately in verse 21. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
I've said it for the last, I didn't look at the weeks, 10 or 12 weeks as we've been preaching through our core values. God doesn't care about anything but your heart.
He cares about where your heart is this morning, church. And ultimately as we get down to the thought of giving, we have to ask ourselves, where's your heart at today?
Is your heart in the mindset of giving so that we can glorify God? Giving so that we can grow together? Giving so that we can go out and serve those around us? And giving so that the world asks the question, why are you giving like that?
It doesn't make sense. You're not getting anything in return in the earthly mindset.
But yet we have the question to be able to answer is this, I give because my Savior gave. As we're thinking of the Palm Sunday and Jesus coming into Jerusalem, he's been worshiped. He's been magnified.
They're laying the palm branches down. They're singing Hosanna, Hosanna, the King has come. The King has come to deliver us. And they're worshiping him.
And it didn't take but four days for them to turn against him and say, crucify him. Crucify him. We don't want him anymore. He didn't do what he promised. He didn't do what he wanted to do. He didn't do what we wanted him to do. And we don't want him anymore.
And on that Friday, they crucified him. And in that moment, as we begin to talk about over the next seven weeks,
Jesus made some statements. And Jesus began to give some words of encouragement on that cross that's going to forever impact and change our life. Because Jesus gave more than we'll ever give.
He gave up everything. He gave up heaven. He gave up his throne in heaven to come down and to live with us so that we will one day live with him. In church this morning,
God has given each and every one of us a measure of time, a measure of talents, and a measure of treasures.
But what are we doing with it? Are we taking it and we're pulling it all together and we're saying, look, look, I've got 120 years. I lived a long life. I'm the oldest person in the world right now. Look, I'm the richest person in midnight.
I've got all these things and I've got more kids than anybody else.
And all of a sudden, we've got these things that God has given us and we're not giving it back to anyone else.
He wants us to turn our spiritual profit and say, I want to turn it for every person in the world to be able to receive the same spiritual gift that I've been received. And ultimately, he's told us to invest in his plan A, which is the church.
The plan A, which is the church, the body of Christ. He says, that's what we must be investing in.
And ultimately, the question we have to ask ourself is, where will you start today? It's a personal challenge for each of us. We've got time. We've got talents. We've got treasures. But what are you doing with them? And ultimately, as I've said almost every single week, where's your heart at?
Because your heart reveals your motive in everything.
You see, I don't go on a vacation or plan some fancy little getaway with me and my wife because it's what I'm supposed to do.
I do it because I love her and I want to cherish her and I want to spend time with her and I want to do these things. As me and Cole were even talking about the other day, how they went and they went and he just got away because he loves his wife.
And I love my wife and I want to do these things because I love her.
And I love her in the same way God is saying, where's your heart at this morning? Do you love the way I love?
Are you loving in a worldly sense that doesn't have any type of heavenly meaning to it?
So this morning as we conclude this thought of giving generously and looking at our core values, the question we have to ask is, where's our heart and how are we investing?
Closing Prayer and Reflection
Lord, we love you. Lord, I thank you for this day. I thank you for your gift to us. I'll never understand it. I'll never fully comprehend it. But God, we know that you gave. Jesus gave.
He came. He could have been a ruler. He could have been an authoritarian. But no, he came to serve and wash men's feet.
God, this morning I pray that you'll help us to have that same attitude. Lord, help our hearts to be mended with your hearts and our actions to be mended with your actions. And so that everything we do ultimately will give you glory and honor. It's in your name we pray. Amen.
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