The Challenge of Being A Good Steward - Kevin Qualls

0:000:00

Summary

Guest speaker Kevin Qualls walks through Matthew 25:14-30, emphasizing the importance of being a good steward of the gifts God has given each individual. He highlights that all believers will be held accountable for how they use their resources and talents, encouraging them to act in faith rather than fear. Qualls concludes by urging the congregation to embrace generosity and trust in God's provision, reminding them that faithfulness in stewardship leads to eternal rewards.

Opening Remarks and Announcements
I love James' jacket. My voice is a little messed up because I was actually at the game last night. Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit all social media platforms.
It was a crazy night last night up there, but it's good to be here.
So thankful for Pastor James and getting to know him over the last year and my new role at Provision Financial Resources. It was a privilege.
I was asking James, I knew we had done a ministry grant for you guys over the last year, and he said, yeah, right out here, this little new walkway over here was part of us partnering with you guys and helping y'all make that project almost come to completion.
So it's great to just partner with churches and ministries all across our state.
And as Pastor James was mentioning, Lee Howe, we're partnering with him as well with all the things that are going on down in Nicaragua in a significant way.
And so very thankful for all that's happening there. Love Lee, and I know many of you know Lee and appreciate him as he'll come, I think, on the 18th and come to share with y'all what God's doing at the United Christian Missions. And so my background, by the way, I was a pastor.
I grew up in the Raleigh area, Apex, and my dad was a pastor at Apex Baptist Church for 27 years and went to Gardner-Webb not too far from here, graduated, business degree, went to Southeastern.
22 years as a pastor, served in North and South Carolina. Then the Lord called me. I was at First Baptist Charlotte and became the president of Christian Adoption Services.
So I was leading a nonprofit and really just, it was amazing, just a ministry to pregnant women and to care for them in a very difficult time of need and connecting those children to Christian families across our state and into South Carolina as well.
And then about a year or a year and about three months ago, the Lord called me to come to Provision Financial Resources, which is formerly the North Carolina Baptist Foundation. Some of you have heard of that. It's been around since 1920.
Just a new name we came up with a couple of years ago. And so I think I have one of the best jobs within the North Carolina Baptist State Convention. Basically, I'm raising money and giving it away. And that is a lot of fun, my friends. It is a real blessing.
In 2024, before my time coming in, the provision, the foundation had given out in that year about $388,000 to different ministries and scholarships and all the different things they do.
Financial Growth and Goals
This past year in 2025, we were in the $800,000 range.
We had more than doubled what we had pushed out to bless ministries and looking forward to crossing that million-dollar mark in 2026.
And so it is a lot of fun. And I'm so thankful for all God is doing through provision. I want to give you just a quick one minute.
I get to preach in churches all the time. And a lot of times I'm setting up tables and people coming up talking to me after the services and stuff. And I'll be available, by the way, if you'd like to learn more about what we're doing. And we can help you in any way.
We want to certainly be a resource to our NC Baptist churches and members of those churches as well.
Kind of the top three things that people are excited about right now, and it may touch some of you in different ways.
One is scholarships. We give scholarships as far as for college education to any NC Baptist church members.
So if you have, and I know how it is, I had three kids at one time that were in college just a few years ago. My youngest is graduating from Chapel Hill this year, so I got to see him last night.
But we had three at one time that were there, and every dollar matters. You know what I'm talking about when it comes to that. And so our scholarships are open right now through May 1st.
So if you have young folks that are in college or graduate school, go on our website, provision.org. You can apply for a scholarship with that. So that's a big deal.
The other is I would say we have a couple of other things that are going on that are kind of, I would say, hot as far as people wanting to learn more is wills.
You'd be surprised, and I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but you'd be surprised some people don't have a will. And so at Provision, we help folks do wills for free.
And so if you don't have a will, we want to help you get that done. And so you can come see me afterwards. I can get some information about that, but we can get those done. We have a buddy of mine that works at Provision. He lives in the Charlotte area.
He will talk with you, help you, walk you through that process, but it's no cost. And I have to be careful saying free will because we're talking about free will Baptist. You know what I'm saying? No cost wills we do at Provision.
And so that's another kind of thing that a lot of people are excited about. The last one that I think a lot of folks are excited about is something called an impact certificate, which operates like a CD.
A lot of folks in our churches don't realize that maybe you have a CD at the bank, that maybe it's maturing, or who knows what the interest rate on that is. We do those same principles of what we do called an impact certificate at Provision.
And so what is cool about it is basically Baptist helping Baptists.
So as an NC Baptist church member here at Pleasant Grove, you have the opportunity to partner with us and do an impact certificate.
And for example, what that looks like, I'll give you an example of that. You could do a one-year impact certificate with the interest rate somewhere around that 4% mark. You'll get the return on that.
And then what happens is that money is then invested to help churches that are building or having church loans with us across the state. And so if they're adding on a sanctuary or they're adding on a—I don't know if that's me, James, maybe moving around.
And so—but I'll try not to move quite as much.
Like, I moved a lot last night with the Tar Heels. I'm going to just be relaxed up here today. But you have the opportunity as a church or a member of the church to invest with us and then get a return. But it's also helping other kingdom causes across the state.
So those are kind of the top three things. We do a lot more than that as well. But if you have any questions about anything, we do a provision that we can help you guys with. We love partnering with you.
And I know Pastor James is going to have another ministry grant request at some point this year. And we look forward to supporting whatever that cause is up here in Ronda. And so thank you again for being here today. Probably the biggest news in my life as—I'm a granddad now.
And it's hard to believe that that time moves fast. We have three kids, one married, one—the one that's married living up at Southeastern Seminary and graduating in May with his master's degree and going to be serving the Lord somewhere in the state, I believe, this summer sometime.
But they had our first grandchild. And if you—it's a lot different these days than it was during, I guess, my time as a child, calling my grandparents the names. You know what I'm saying? Like, mine was just simply Grandma Qualls.
And then on my mom's side, it was Grandmother White, you know? Well, no more.
You know how it is. Y'all may know. You see it on social media. Gender reveals and blue and pink.
You know, like my son hit a baseball that blew up blue, you know? And so—but my wife was like, all right, we've got to come up with some names, you know, when it comes to our grandbaby.
I think I've got a picture here of our grandbaby. Maybe it'll come up. Yeah, there he is. That's our first grandbaby.
His name is Ezekiel. We call him Zeke. And this was taken back a little bit ago. But he's one year old now. But we came up with our names.
And so I was like, all right, I don't care about that too much. But she said, let's do it. And so she said, your name's going to be Pop. Pretty simple.
She said, but my name is going to be Lolly. And so we're Lolly Pop, all right? And I'm like,
all right. Who knows what little guy's going to call us, all right? You know, he's a year old now. And he's saying, my dad died. But so she's Lolly and I'm Pop. And so here we go. We'll see. And they're expecting number two in July.
And so then my daughter, my oldest, is getting married in May. So we got a big year ahead of us in the Qualls family. But it's a lot of fun. And we love that. That baby is something else. You can't describe what it is.
And y'all know that if you're a grandparent, you just can't describe that. I'm excited about the message the Lord laid on my heart today. You can see as we move through some slides here. And I appreciate it.
Pastor James putting a little insert for you to take notes. I'm going to be sharing four truths with you as we think about the challenge of being a good steward. The challenge of being a good steward.
And we're going to go to a classic text. I'm sure you've read this text before. It's Matthew 25. Jesus, you know, shared a lot in parables.
The Parable of the Talents
And the parable of talents is a very rich text that has a lot of application to all of our lives today, especially when it comes to stewardship.
And we're going to see some good examples of stewardship. We're going to see a bad example of stewardship. And we're going to walk through this and what this looks like and what does that mean to you and me today, right?
What does it mean to you and me today? And so as we open up and look at this text, I'm going to read it real quick, Matthew 25, 14 through 30.
And then we're going to go back and break it down today as we talk about the challenge of being a good steward. The Bible says in Matthew 25, beginning in verse 14, The Bible says, He also who had received two talents came and said, And his Lord said to him,
Then he had received the one talent came and said, And he said, We're talking about $600,000 was one talent that was given out.
And so one was given five, one was given two, and the other was given one. Of course, you know, diversity is a good thing. By the way, I love diversity. I love the uniqueness.
You know, as James mentioned, I just finished my doctorate, and I did it on personality profiles for fundraising. And so I understand, you know, we all have different personalities here, which is a good thing. We all have different strengths and weaknesses.
What I love that about the church is, by the way, is where I am weak, in a church setting, you know, of a good group of people, that you're going to find uniqueness of strengths and weaknesses. And so where I'm weak, somebody else is strong, which we make it, we're stronger together,
right? We can do way more together than we can do apart. And so we see diversity here also in what the master gave to the different servants. And so that's something to pay attention to as well. There was no judgment there.
But sometimes in our own hearts and mind, we may view the one who had five better than the one who had one or the two.
You know, God's math calculator is a little bit different than ours, and we'll walk through that and what that looks like and what he said to each person here.
But I think the interesting part is understanding that as we look at the responsibility of gifts in just a moment, that one day we're all going to stand before the Lord, and we should compare ourselves to what other people have or don't have. We're going to stand before the Lord.
We're not going to be able to talk about them or that person or that. It's us, right? It's what God gave us. And so, but notice here in verse 15, it says that he gave the talents.
And really the principle of that in our own lives is God, everything we have is God's. Everything you have is God's. Now, God's given you unique talents and abilities, and certainly I'm thankful for that in my own life.
And as we think about that for all of us as well, you know, the job you have, God gave that to you. Now, you may have worked hard, right? And I'm all about hard work, but God gave that to us. And so he is the gift giver.
And we see that he owns everything, and he gave the talents to these individuals, five, two, and one. So I love God understanding and blessing us and gifting his people very uniquely.
Responsibility to Use Gifts
And that leads us to the second truth that's found in verses 16 through 18 is this. There is a responsibility to use our gifts and multiply. We look back at verse 16, and we understand that they went to work.
Now, the Bible tells us in verse 19 that he went, he was gone a long time. Now, what is that illustrative of as we, if you study prophecy and in times, we understand what? That God is our master, right?
Jesus is going to come back at some point, right, after a long period of time. And we got to be ready, right?
The Bible tells us that we've got to be ready. For all of us, what that means, one of two things, for all of us sitting here at Pleasant Grove today, is that either Jesus is going to come back in the clouds and we're going to meet him in the air.
That would be awesome. Or what does that mean? When we breathe our last, we're going to be standing before the Lord. And we're going to have to do what? Settle accounts with him and how we live our lives.
But these guys, these servants here, they understood, they had an understanding, they had a responsibility to use their gifts and to do something with them. Now, this has great application, by the way. We're not always talking about money when we read this, okay?
From a spiritual gift standpoint, if you're saved today, guess what? God has gifted you. You have a gift, at least one, to use for his kingdom.
And we're either going to be a good steward of that gift and put it into operation or we're going to hold on to it and for whatever reason and not use it. We're going to have a responsibility to stand before the Lord one day.
How did we use a spiritual gift or gifts that God gave us? Just as well as the resources that God has given us. Because, again, everything is his. But these guys, they knew they had a responsibility. And so they went to work, the Bible tells us.
And so let's go to verse 19 through 26 and see the third truth as we think about the challenge of being a good steward.
Not only does we understand that God gives us uniquely and that we have a responsibility to use our gifts and to multiply them, but we also see that all of us will give an account of how we steward his gifts.
So let's break this down. The Bible tells us in 19 that after a long time, the Lord of the servants came and he settled accounts with them, just like he's going to do with us.
Verse 20, let's break these guys down. So first, the guy who had five, let's see what happened. So he received five, came and brought five other talents,
saying, Lord, you delivered me five. I've gained five more. Now, I want you to notice exactly what the master, we're going to really dig into this. What does the master exactly say to the one who went from five to ten? All right.
And by the way, if you've been to a funeral, you've probably heard these words before because these are the words, hopefully, that all of us want to hear one day. Do you all agree?
All of us want to hear this. I certainly want to hear it. The words of, well done, good and faithful servant. Okay. So we see here that the master says in verse 21, well done. Pay attention here now. Well done, good and faithful servant.
You were faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Well, awesome.
That's great. That's exactly what we want to hear. Let me pause right here for a moment and tell you this. All of us want, all of us, hopefully, in our heart of hearts want to hear that. That will not accidentally happen in your life or my life.
If those words are said to you and me one day and we stand before Jesus, that's not going to accidentally, you're not going to accidentally walk into those words. It's going to be a faith aspect, right, that we have, but also an action step that we took here on this earth,
right, in exercising our faith. And trusting the Lord with whatever that looks like, spiritual gifts, dollars, whatever, you know, you want to apply that to, that we took action steps for this to happen, for those words to happen to us.
And so don't miss that. Now, let's go to the next guy. So great.
Now, again, go to God's math. Our math calculator would say, man, this guy was the superstar. Five to, you know, especially with the dollars and amount we're talking about, what that resource looked like. Man, to go from five talents to ten, man, champion.
Some of us might say, well, the guy, the next guy that went from two to four, yeah, he did a great job, but he didn't have as much overall as the one who went from five to ten.
But let's look at what the master says and how God views that a little bit differently than how the world would view that. We see here in the one who had two in verse 22,
he would receive two talents, came and said, Lord, you delivered to me two talents. Look, I've gained two more besides them.
Now, here's where I really want you to pay attention. That's why I had you looking at that verse a moment ago. Let's look exactly what the master said word for word to the second servant. He says this. Pick it up in verse 23. Well done, good and faithful servant.
You've been faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Was there a word different said to the one who went from five to ten than the one who went from two to four? None.
What does that mean to us today? It means that the way God views things is all about faithfulness. It's not about the amounts, the end of the amounts of things. It's our faithfulness for what we gave us. And that's important for all of us today to get as we walk out of here.
Consequences of Inaction
He did not view these servants any different, even though the amounts were different. Okay? Now, as we move into the third servant, this is where things get not so good. And again, we want to be identified like the first two guys.
But let's look at the third one. It says, Then he had received the one talent, came and said, Lord, I knew you. Now, pay attention to a few of these words. They're very revealing of his thought process and his heart and his motive.
He says, Lord, I knew you. All right? That's important. I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you've not sown and gathering where you've not scattered seed. Now, here we go. The heart, the motive. And I was what? Afraid.
All right? And went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have. What is yours? Okay.
Now, we're going to see what the master said, the Lord's response to him. But, you know, this is, I guess, kind of, you can kind of compare this to an excuse. Right? Have we all had excuses before why we didn't do what we should have done? Yeah?
By the way, sometimes we get away with that here on this earth. You're not going to get away with it when you stand before the Lord. Right? This is not going to happen. There is no excuse. Right?
There's no good excuse you're going to be able to give the Lord. He's going to say, that's all right. It's okay. You did the best you could. No. No.
Because we see here, what does it tell us about this servant? He knew better. He had knowledge of what he should have done. Right? That's what the Bible says. I knew you to be a hard man.
So, he had knowledge. And then what does it say? What caused him not to exercise and follow through on what he knew he should have done was what? It's a real thing. I'm not diminishing what he said there.
Fear. Right? Do y'all have any fears in the room today? Yeah. I'm not a big fan of snakes. You know what I'm saying? Like, we all have real fears. Some of you don't want to get on an airplane. Right? These fears are real. Right?
But, it's still not a good excuse for why we should do what God has called us to do. And fear is a powerful thing.
What does fear do, by the way? When you allow fear to really come into full exercise into your life, and again, I'm not diminishing what it is, because we all have them. But fear does what ultimately to us?
And whatever that fear is, what it does to us is it paralyzes us. Right? It causes us to not do something maybe we should do for whatever reason, because we really have a fear about that. And so, we see here that fear causes him. And by the way,
notice that, you know, when you really dig deep into the scripture, you really see faith exercise with action behind it. And that's important, because a lot of times in our, you know, in church world, sometimes we have folks over here that are all about faith. Right? The knowledge of God,
understanding who he is, but with no action. Okay? Which is a problem, by the way. All right? Because what does the Bible say in James about that side of things? The Bible says even the devil believes in tremble. Right? The demons believe in tremble. The knowledge of God acknowledging that God exists is not enough.
But then you got, on the other extreme, you got the work side, if I call it the work side, where all we do is let's just serve the Lord. I don't want to worry about all that stuff. I'm just going to be busy and do good things. Right?
But the balance of that is so important. Right? Faith produces work.
And that's the sweet spot of what I would call the Christian life. Right? It's the sweet spot of my faith and my actions. Where God wants to see me. And you see, though, that his lack of faith and then fear still led to action.
Notice it didn't cause him to do nothing completely. What did he do? He buried a hole.
He dug a hole. Right? And buried the talent in there. Right? And so sometimes we can deceive ourselves and say, well, at least I'm doing something.
Right? But if you're not doing the right thing, that's a waste of time and energy. Right? By digging the hole. And so when you think about fear, it's real. I'll give you a quick example of that.
So I was, I've not given a lot of blood in my life. You know, my mom told me, she went on to be with the Lord a few years ago. But she was a real petite lady, sweet lady, pastor's wife for like 40 years. She came, she told me,
Kevin, listen, you have small veins like me. So if you ever go to give blood, make sure you tell them. I'm like, good. That's good work. And so I never really chose to go give blood. But, you know, as I've gotten older, I have to go to these physicals. Right?
And do that. And so I don't, I'm very busy traveling to stay, you know, meeting with a lot of folks.
And so I just don't, I don't prioritize that. I'm married to a nurse, by the way. And she gets told me about this. But so about 18 months ago, we scheduled this, my physical, annual physical.
So I go to the doctor and they do all the things they're doing there. What was inconvenient about that as I was getting ready to leave, he said, now we need to do your blood. But we don't do it here at the doctor's office.
You've got to go to the hospital to do it. And I'm like, I've got to schedule another deal to go do that. I'm like, yeah.
So it was another day. So a few days later, I go to the hospital. I do it pretty early.
And I don't know if any of you have white coat syndrome, but I was a little anxious. You know, I've had it done before.
I was a little anxious going in. And so I get in there and my anxiety got a little higher because when I met the nurse who was doing it, she greeted me. Hey, Kevin, I'm so-and-so. And I'm new here three weeks out of nursing school. And I'm like,
Lord have mercy. Here we go. Here we go. So we go in that little room. And listen, I was like, my mom? My mom said, hey, I got small veins. I'm just telling you ahead of time. You know, just give me. And she's like, oh, thank you. So she hits this one. Nothing.
I'm like, it hurt. You know what I'm saying? I got my pain through her shoulders a little low. And then she goes over here, nothing. And I'm like, now I'm getting a little agitated. And she goes, here's the question she asked me. By the way, I wouldn't answer the way I did.
She goes, have you ever given blood out of your hand? And I went, no, I haven't. She said, well, let's try it. Well, she goes.
Now, I'm starting to feel nauseated a little bit. And my ears start ringing and all this. And she said, it's working. And then I passed out. I did. I passed out.
I felt, you know, I was like, man, I got to call my wife. She's going to get me on this. This is not going to be good. But I had the apple juice and the cookies and doing all that.
And I walked out, you know, with my bandages and everything. And I called my wife. She said, we can't take you anywhere, can you? And so, but here's the deal. Let me tell you. I'm going to relate this. So that was 18 months ago.
About six months ago, guess what came in the mail?
I got a phone call and a card that says, time for your annual fiscal. Guess who hasn't gone back?
Why haven't gone back? Now, I know I should. I'm 54 years old. I need to go back. But I don't want to go through all that mess again because I just have a little bit of fear. Right? Because fear causes you to do some things that aren't logical. Right?
And it does the same thing in your life. You have fears and it causes us to maybe not make the best decisions. That's what happened here in this situation.
This servant knew better, but he allowed fear to control him. And it caused him, it caused him big time. Because you're going to see exactly what was said here. It leads us to our fourth truth. There are consequences for not being faithful and bearing fruit. Check this out.
So in verse 26 says, but his Lord answered and said to him, you wicked and lazy servant. Man, this is strong.
You knew that I reap where I've not sown and gather where I've not scattered seed. And he gives him a wisdom here.
You should have deposited my money with the bankers. And at least I would have received back my own interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten. So ten went to eleven. Ten went to eleven.
Here's strong words here. For everyone who has, more will be given. And he will have abundance. But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And man, sad words here.
And cast the unprofitable servant in the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is serious stuff. There are consequences for not being faithful.
Now here, let me tell you the good news. Some of us are, you know, we're hearing this. And, you know,
this is between you and the Lord. This isn't about anybody else and what anybody else has. One day, the Master is coming back. We will stand before him. And it's not going to be talking about anybody else and what they did. Or giving excuses.
We might give excuses, but it's not going to hold water. Just like this excuse right here.
And so we're going to give an account of how we managed what God gave us. And there's a lot of list of things there. Right? It's not, we're talking about a bank account only. But it is going to be talking about resources. And what God gave you. Because it's all his.
What did we do with that? Right? Right? That faith in works is so important.
Encouragement for Change
Now, here's the good news. You may have walked in here today. And, man, 2025 was a rough year. And you look back. Maybe you haven't been doing what you should be doing. Maybe because of fear. Listen, it was a rough week. If you're paying attention to Wall Street, there's a lot going on in the financial world. Right?
And some of us allow that to, you know, gold and silver, man, flying up, boom, crashing. Bitcoin, boom, bam.
Stock market goes over 50,000 for the first time ever. Like, there's a lot of stuff happening. And sometimes we allow that to, like, am I ever going to have enough? Am I going, you know, and all this thing. God just wants us to be faithful. Because it's all his.
But here's the good news. No matter what you've done to this point in your life, you have, as long as you're breathing, you have time to, of course, correct this.
You have time to fix this. And to be like the first and second servant here. To be found faithful with what the resources and do something with what God has given us. I want to close with this illustration. Pretty unique illustration.
Very personal to me and my family. My dad grew up a big Mickey Mantle fan.
He got to see Mickey Mantle play. You know, he lived in eastern North Carolina. But would drive up to D.C. and see the Senators. Watching the Senators play. The Yankees.
So he grew up a Mantle fan. Well, that passed on to me. I'm a Yankee fan.
I know I don't have that accent. Y'all can tell, right? I just passed on to me. And I pass it on to my kids. So my dad had this idea when my son turned five, let's take him up to Yankee Stadium.
So we fly up to Yankee Stadium. And that's just, you know, my son's first flight. He's five years old. He's the one that has Ezekiel now. And so we go up there. And we go into the stadium.
And, man, it's just, you know, awesome. And we get, you know, the hot dog, a Coke. And he wants a peanut M&M's. And so we get all that. And we're sitting there watching the game. We're eating our hot dog and our drink. And my dad's there. My uncle's there.
Steven's on one. Five-year-old Steven. So I think five-year-old baby Steven here is there. And so we finish the hot dog and drink. And he's opened up the, you know, you know the box, what I'm talking about. You know, like $5 a box, right? Even back then. And so the box of peanut M&M's. And he's eating M&M's.
And I lean over to the game.
And I say, Steven, can I have an M&M? He didn't answer me. And I'm like, hmm. And so I was like, maybe he didn't hear me, right? The game's going on. And so I ask again. I say, Steven, can I have an M&M? And he looked at me. And he went, no.
Now, my dad, his pastor, sitting beside me. I'm like, all right, I got to handle this in the right way. And so I just said, I said, I thought about what should I say. And I said, I decided to go with this question. I said, who bought those M&Ms?
Like that kind of thing, right? You better give me one. And he did. But here's the lesson from that,
right? How many of us are like baby Steven, five-year-old Steven, holding on so tight to what was being given to us,
not realizing, because what Steven didn't realize as his dad, I had the ability to buy him 100 boxes of those M&Ms if I chose to.
And God, our Father, has the ability to bless us with anything immeasurable, right? But we're holding on so tight, right, where God just wants us to just do this, right?
And as we do that, he will do more. Now, I'm not a prosperity gospel guy, right? I don't believe that. But I believe there's something important when it comes to trusting the Lord because he owns everything.
And we need to be generous givers, gracious givers to the Lord, cheerful givers, the Bible says, and not hold on to what God is doing. And I believe that with all my heart. Lord, if every member of this church will embrace that and not be like five-year-old Steven over here, eh,
no, I don't want to do that, right? For whatever reason, no.
No, we need to open our hands and realize that God can give all that he chooses to give to bless this church,
individuals in this church as well, to see just the floodgates. What does Malachi 3 say about it? Test me on this, right? The storehouse. I will open it up, right?
And so my prayer for you today as we wrap this up today, as we think about the challenge of being a good steward,
if we want to hear those words, and that day is coming for all of us quickly, right, as we continue to age and move forward or until the Lord comes back, that if we're going to hear those words, well done, good and faithful servant, certainly there's the knowledge aspect of understanding that.
But there's going to be some action steps that we have to take. You're not going to hear it by accident, my friends. It's going to be something.
It's going to be execution of a plan of some sort, but really trusting the Lord and living by faith for those words to be said to us.
Closing Prayer and Invitation
And my prayer is that those words will be said to each and every person here at Pleasant Grove as we trust the Lord with all our heart and watch him do amazing things here in this community, in our lives, and really impact a lot of folks across our world as we trust him.
And so thank you for allowing me to be here today. I pray that message just touches your heart.
And again, I'll be available if you have questions about anything that I can help you with here at Provision. And we love partnering with what you guys are doing here at Pleasant Grove.
We look forward to whatever those projects are in the future that we can come and be alongside of you. But I'm going to pray, and then we're going to have our time of reflection, and Pastor James will be down in front of that time as well.
So let's bow our heads as we pray. Father, I thank you for this day. I thank you for the privilege of worship. I thank you for this incredible scripture. Reveals so much truth.
And Lord, the consequences are devastating for the third servant who did not act in faith, who knew better and chose disobedience and wrong action steps, and the consequences were devastating for him.
I pray for each person here that we'll be like the first and second servant. Lord, that we'll be found faithful. And Father, that we'll be obedient to you.
And the action steps that we do take, Lord, will honor you in all that we do.
So Lord, thank you again for giving us opportunity in the future, whether no matter where we walked into here today, and what's happened in our lives from a financial standpoint, from other areas of stewardship.
Lord, that we will make those changes that need to be made that will honor you in the days ahead, and to watch you do amazing things in our lives and in this church,
and touch others with the gospel, Lord, because of that. So Father, bless this time of reflection and invitation, and we give that to you. And we thank you again for your son Jesus, and we ask these things in his name. Amen.
Thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove. Please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week.