Entrusted: First Things First

Morning, Southeast family. How are you? Thanks for joining us in the room. Thanks for joining us online. I know this is going to shock you, but a couple of things I gotta talk to you about before we get rolling into our sermon, but we're going to, we got a lot of content today to cover. So, I'm excited about today's message, two things. Number one, and I forgot to mention this to first service. So you get a head start. The October Israel trip is open. Now here's the other thing there. We had some people that, because of their concern about being able to go in May because of COVID, they pulled back. So we have some spaces available in the May trip, as well. Let me give you some good news. I just got a message from the department of tourism in Israel -- cause I roll like that. They plan on having their entire country vaccinated by March 12th, which means trips will be reopening in the beginning of May. Our trip is at the end of May. Now, if for some reason that date doesn't work, worst case scenario is we'll just move the date, but we are going, we are going. So if you want to go in May there are some spots available in that trip, or if you want to go in October, there's that trip has just opened. So what I want you to do is I want you to go on our website, click on the resources tab, drop down to study tours, and you can sign up for either one of those Israel trips and they are going to be dope. And cool because Israel is number one. Israel treats its tourists really well. I think tourism is the third largest industry in Israel, but especially in the, in the reopening of things they're going to, we're going to be treated really, really well. So come on, it's gonna be great. You'll watch the Bible move from black and white into three-dimensional high definition. It's pretty awesome. Here's the other thing that I want to tell you about, and then we'll get into our sermon today is the last day that we will be using the brush fire reservation system for this room. Yeah, there are a few caveats to that that I need to explain. Number one, if you have kids and you want to put your kids in the kids' programming first of all, you're in the wrong service, but we're still gonna use the reservation system for our kids programming. And here's why the reservation system for kids programming allows us to do some specific things in the week in preparation that keeps our child room experiences a little more touch-free, which is good. That's an important safety thing. So, we're going to continue to do that. But in here, here's what we're going to do because you guys know it gets frustrating. It was a tremendous idea. It looked really good on a white board. Here's what we're going to do. We're actually going to be adults. We're going to continue to block off every other row. So that will continue. And what I want to ask you, you can sit wherever you want, but I want to ask you to put three seats between you and the group next to you and what that does is it socially distances everybody. Right? So that's what we're going to do. We're every other row is going to continue to be blocked off. And I want you to put three seats between you and the groups that are around you, which if you look around is about what you've got going on now. And the reason why we use Brushfire was cause Brushfire does that automatically for you. But we can do it. I believe in you. We can do it ourselves. I do,I do it myself. And you can sit where you want at that point. Like one of the, one of the devastations of COVID was not just the economy. It took my, my church seat. Like you go back to your church seat. So, we're going to start that next week. Now a lot of people have asked me, like, when, when are we going to start children's programming in the middle service? Well, there's several pieces to that. One is we want to make sure that we're making everybody continue as safely as possible and all those kinds of things. The other thing is you know, our, our volunteer base is a little shallow right now for multiple reasons. And we thought that it would be a good idea for your kids rooms to actually be staffed rather than just turning them loose and saying, hope you survive. No, we actually want to care well for your kids. And so that's something that is actually really significant. And part of the issue is, you know, our volunteers are slow in coming back for various reasons, which is fine. The other thing is it's not just about catching COVID, that's the issue, but if you've been exposed to somebody who potentially could have had it, you also have to quarantine. And so, trying to predict how that's going to happen, because, you know, you never predict getting exposed to someone who could potentially have it, but you gotta be responsible and quarantine that's the right thing to do. And so, having a volunteer base, that's deep enough to be able to, to staff all three services is tough. So, we do the first and the third services right now, and it also gives us a chance to clean really well in the second service. So, it's coming, but it's just going to take us some time to get there. Just wanted to make you aware of that. But if you have kids and you're going to go to a service where there's kids services is available, the reservation system still applies there. With me? Okay?

We gotta go. We're gonna work through the second week of entrusted. And the title of this sermon is First Things First because my mom and dad always used to tell me this, and I've shared it with you before -- the right thing done, the wrong way becomes the wrong thing. And that was, that was really good advice because it's not just about doing the right thing. It's about doing the right thing the right way so that we can get the right results. Right? And what happens is, specifically in the world of tithing, what happens is that we often get caught in this mindset of, well, I'll give if there's anything left over and when we get to the end, I'm not sure that I have enough money to tithe this month. So, I'll give when it's all at the end. If I have any leftover, I'll give whatever I have left over -- weird. We never have any leftover. Here's the thing. There is a principle in the scripture called the principle of first fruits. And it's so important in understanding God's blessing in our life. And so what happens for many of us is that we may even be tithing 10%, which we should be doing, because that's what the word means -- a 10th. That's what the word tithe means. So 5%, 10%, you can't do that, but we're we be tiling, but because retiring at the end, making sure that we have enough, we're not receiving God's blessings the way we should we could we're cause we're doing the right thing, but we're doing it the wrong way. Like you may not have enough money to pay your internet bill, but we should never have enough money. We should never have not enough money to tithe. That's just the way -- that should be our mindset. And I know like, wait, you're saying, don't pay for internet. Like, wait, do you even live in this world right now? Here's what I'm saying. When you, I love that. What I'm saying is when you put first things first, it's weird, how it all works out. Let me tell you a story. Like this is just my own personal testimony and I could tell you, or bring up here thousands and thousands and thousands of testimonies of people. My wife and I, when we were first married, we lived on $683 a month  -- aaaah, the good old days. Like we lived on that. That's what we brought in. I made $4 and 15 cents an hour and thought I was rolling in it, right? $683. We made our bills every month were $715 every month. And we didn't go into debt. Because the first thing that we did was give the Lord his portion. We kept first things first. That's God math. And I know like, that's not supposed to work out. That's God math. When we let God be God, he does things like that in our life. And we get to share the story of his working. There's no other way for it to have worked out. There's just no other way for it to have worked out. So, you can try to convince me that there is no God, but I've seen him work in my life. I've seen it.

This principle of first fruits is actually really significant. Proverbs 3:9-10. Here's what it says. It says: “Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce.” Now, let's just stop right there. I'm going to do a sermon in a couple of weeks called MythBusters. And we're going to talk about some of the myths that are tied to tithing. And we'll talk, we'll unpack this more, but one of the myths surrounding tithing is, well, in the old Testament, all they ever tithed was they tithed their crops. It was all about grain and fruit and dah dah dah, not according to Proverbs 3, it says “honor the Lord with your wealth.” Like, your crops, yes. All of it. You honor the Lord with a 10th of all of it, all of it, all of your income. All. In fact they tithed all the way down to their spices. They got all of it. So, is it your produce? Yes. But is it only the produce? No, your money too. And people use it as an excuse. Well, I'm not a farmer, so I don't have to give. How does that, how does that even equate – “honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine”? in Exodus 23:19, here’s what it says: “The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.” Not just your first fruits, but the best of your first fruits. It belongs to God. And you're like, why? But, why? I like my pretty first fruits because God says! And we do God's things God's ways so that we can get God's results. Leviticus 23:10, which I know is one of those books that we pour over, right? It says, “speak to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘when you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.’” Sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest before you harvest the rest of it. The first 10th belongs to the Lord. Deuteronomy 21. Here's a weird one for, and again, those who think this is just about crops. Let's look at this. It says, “if a man has two wives,” this is the weirdest command, unless you know the story it's attached to. “The one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have born him children, and if the first born son belongs to the unloved, then on the day when he assigns his possessions as an inheritance to his sons, he may not treat the son of the loved as the first born of preference to the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn, but he shall acknowledge the first born, the son of the unloved by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the first fruits of his strength.” Here's what this verse means: number one, it's the story of Jacob with Leah and Rachel, right? We know all that. Jacob tried to make Joseph the first born, the behor, but he wasn't Rubin was. And it caused all kinds of strife in their family. So they made this command, but here's the thing, the idea of the firstfruits, doesn't just belong to what we produce. The idea of the first fruits is across the board. Any time that we come across the first fruits of anything that we do, it's holy it's consecrated. Whether that's the first fruits of our children, the first fruits of our cattle, the first fruits of our wealth, the first fruits of our crops, all of it, the first part belongs to God. Period. Now, again, we're going to talk about this more in a couple of weeks, but for those of you that are like, well, that's old, that's the law, Genesis 4, predates the law. This is before the mosaic covenant. And it goes all the way back to the beginning. Here's what it says. “In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground.” Now, what we want to do is pay attention here to why God looks with favor on Abel's offering and not on Cain’s. “He brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.” So Cain brings an offering, but it's leftovers. It just, he just brought it as an offering. Abel brought the first born and the fat portions of his firstborn. Do you understand, do you see the difference in the language here? It's so important for us to catch because it says the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. Why? Because Cain was doing the right thing, but doing it the wrong way. “So Cain was very angry, and his face fell” -- not like off, but he got, he got a frown. That would be weird. I'm so mad, my face Is falling off. Got no food, got no jobs, our pets faces are falling off. That's funny. I don't care who you are. That's funny. So, Cain gets really mad because God doesn't look at favor with his sacrifice. Now here's a question? Who's Cain mad at? Cain's mad at God. Cain’s so mad at his brother that he kills him. But who’s Cain's problem? Cain's problem is Cain. So he's mad at everybody, but where the problem lies -- and look at this, it says, “the Lord said to Cain, ‘why are you angry? And why is your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. It's desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.” What God says is, Cain, like don't get mad, just fix the problem. You don't need to get mad. Just fix the problem.

Now I want to take a look at a story in the book of Joshua, in order to do that, we are to look at some pictures. And so we're going to look at some pictures, which we haven't done for a while. And I'm so excited. Here's photo number one, this is a map. I don't know if you knew that. This is a map of where the children of Israel come in after their wandering. So, they leave Egypt and hey go up to the promised land. They're there like within 11 days and they send the spies in. And you remember the story. If you grew up in Sunday school, you remember this story. What did they say when they spied on Canaan? 10 were bad and two were good, right? It's how listen. You can laugh at my Sunday school songs, but I learned the Bible that way. So, they wander in the desert for 40 years. And then it's finally time for them to come into the promised land and the camp at Gilgal, which is in the middle of that red arrow. That's going this way. And then their first attack is going to be Jericho. This is the first city that they're going to conquer. And God says, it's mine. Why? Principal of the first fruits. This city is mine. Don't keep anything. Burn it all -- it's devoted to me. And what we're going to see is we're gonna have a problem with that because there's this weird need to forget that God will do more if we're faithful with him in the long run than I can do with the stuff that I cheat them out of. We have to learn that. We're going to pick up the story in chapter six because the battle plan was really simple. Oh wait, wait, wait, we got some more pictures. Let me show you some more pictures. Picture number two. This is Jericho today. You can see it's brown all the way around, but down in the bottom of the Rift Valley is Jericho. It's in an oasis -- it's green. It's beautiful. Next picture. This is the excavation right in the middle. And you can look at that and go, well, it looks like a big dirt hill. Yep. That's really all that's there for as important of a city as it was in the Bible. Not much has been dug there, right? Here's another picture of the excavation. And this is a closer up. This is looking straight at it, but here is why Jericho is so important in the ancient world. Next photo. This is called Elijah Spring today. Still to this day, this is the spring that was bitter that Elijah threw a piece of wood in and it became sweet. Which is interesting because still to this day, people are using it. It's the primary water source for this whole area. Like God's miracles aren't just for the people of the miracle, but for the generations to come after it, if we would trust him to do It. 

Now, you remember their battle plan was to go out and they marched around the city once. And then they go back to their camp and that's day one. And they do this for six days. And then on the seventh day, they're going to march around the city, seven times, seven times blow their trumpets and the walls come tumbling down. Right? Here we go, let's pick up the story in verse 15, chapter six. “On the seventh day they rose early, at the dawn of the day, and marched around the city in the same manner seven times. It was only on that day that they marched around the city seven times. And at that seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “shout, for the Lord has given you the city.  And the city and all that is within it should be devoted to the Lord for destruction.” Really clean command -- first fruits -- this belongs to God. It's not ours. “Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live.” And I'd love to talk about that. That's another sermon for another day, but, “she hid the messengers whom we sent. But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction,” make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction. Why? Because when you keep the things that are devoted to the Lord for destruction, you, you become a thing of destruction. And by the way, God is not playing. That's really mean, God, why are you being so mean? It's the same principle that we talked about last week when Haggai was prophesying, when they took all of God's things and built their own house with it. It's the same principle. You don't use God's things for your life. God's things are God's things. And when we let that happen in our life is when we open up all the good things that God wants for us. “…and bring trouble upon it. But all the silver and gold, and every vessel of bronze and iron, are holy to the Lord; they shall go in the treasury of the Lord.”

Now let's pick up the story in Joshua 7, “But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things.” Now I want to hear, I want you to hear this. And we don't like this as Americans. We don't like this as Western independent thinkers. We don't like this as people who have an egocentric view of the universe. The people of Israel broke faith. How many people did the wrong thing? One! The whole nation broke faith because of it. When I don't do with God's things what God says for me to do, guess who pays the price? All y'all. The whole nation. I just wonder, I don't know --  I'm not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I wonder if at least part of the condition that our country is in isn't because too many people who call themselves followers of Jesus are not doing what he says to do, and everybody else is paying a price for it. You to, well, that's really stiff, man. I mean, isn't it just hyperbole? Well, let's read the story. “Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan, the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. And the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.” By the way, that's called the people, the plural people of Israel. “Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai”, which is spelled Ai, not very creative, “which is near Beth-aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, ‘go up and spy out the land.’ And the men went up and spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Do not have all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not make all the whole people toil up there, for they are few.’” There's not very many of them. It's this little place, not a big deal. I mean, we just routed Jericho. I mean, we could do, we could like a stiff breeze blow Ai over. We don't need to worry about this. “So about 3000 men went up from there to the people. And they fled before the men of Ai, and the men of Ai killed about 36 of their men.” So how many men lost their life? 36. Because of who's unfaithfulness? Achan. Oww, that's not fair. And his, those men, their children won't have a dad anymore. And their wives don't have a husband anymore. And they're like, there's a of suffering that's going to be happening because of Akins and faithfulness. And we go, that's not fair. That's the price you pay for being in God's community. Maybe we have to take it a little more serious. “…about 36 of their men and chased them before the gate as far as Shebarim and struck them at the descent. And the hearts of the people melted and became as water.” The whole nation was fearful. And, “Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of Israel. And they put dust on their heads. And Joshua said, ‘Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us? Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say, when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name?” The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Get up!’ Sounds like my mom, typically that-- get up! That was followed by stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about. By the way, that's poor parenting. Let me just offer that. That's called unempathetic parenting. ‘Get up! Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned” -- who sinned? Just one guy. Who's paying the price for it? The whole nation. When you take the devoted things and use it for your own life, everybody pays for it. Like, that's no joke. “They've transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them under their own belongings.” It's not one man. It's not Achen. It's not just one guy. Everybody's part of this sin. “Therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for destruction. I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. Get up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow; for thus says the Lord, God of Israel, ‘there are devoted in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you.” I mean, there's so much. I would like to say about that. We, as followers of Jesus will not be able to stand before the enemy until we allow God's things to be God's things. And we stop trying to negotiate with him about how we're going to deal with it. Or worse yet, we keep trying to take his things and use them for our own. We're getting in the way of our own blessings. We're getting in the way. “In the morning therefore you shall be brought near by your tribes. And the tribe that the Lord takes by lot shall come nearby clans. And the clan that the Lord takes shall come near by households. And the household that the Lord takes shall come near man by man. And he who is taken with the devoted things shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he's done an outrageous thing in Israel.” So Joshua rose early in the morning and brought Israel near tribe by tribe, and the tribe of Judah was taken. And he brought near the clans of Judah, and the clan of the Zerahites was taken. And he brought near the clan of the Zerahites man by man, and Zabdi was taken”. By the way, is there ever a point where Achan is like, don't say nothing. You think he's going to get out of this? Where's this repentance Just, don't just pretend like you're doing it. Just, just for two, like we did it, right? So where's this repentance? We don't see it. We don't see it by the way. Some applications there for you and me when we don't let God's things be God's. “And he brought near his household man by man, and Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken. Then Joshua said to Achan, ‘My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give praise to him. And tell me now what you have done; do no not hide it for me.’ And Achan answered Joshua, ‘Truly, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel…” Now, was he sorry, because he’s sorry, or is he sorry because he got caught? Like, he had every opportunity to deal with this. When the 36 men got killed in Ai and all those guys came back and everybody was afraid, he could have gone and said, guys, this is my fault. I did it. He could have owned it and everything would have been fine, but he didn't. You tried to just keep on like, I don't know, be quiet. We'll just ride this out. …this is what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar…” What is that, anyway? Oh no. Oh my goodness. The cloak from Shinar, right? Like who wouldn't want to take that? We don't even know what a cloak from Shinar is. And that's the problem with chasing things that are God’s and trying to use them. Like, it doesn't matter anymore, but it mattered to him in that moment. And he traded his life for something that, in today's world, means nothing. How silly is that? We won't give the Lord his things. His first fruits, we won't tithe them cause we're like, Hey, but if I, if I, if I tithe, then that takes money. I can't have my, whatever, my thing, my widget, whatever my widget is. I promise you that, that widget, that whatever it is, that car, that house, that trip that whatever it is won't matter in lieu of God's blessing. I mean, it's just “a cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and I took them. And see, they're hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.’ So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent; and behold, it was hidden in his tent and the silver underneath. And they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel. And they laid them down before the Lord. And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan, the son of Zerah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold, and the sons and his daughters and his oxen and donkeys and sheep and his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, ‘why did you bring this trouble on us?’ The Lord brings trouble on you today.” And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. And raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor. 

I read that and I'm like, man, harsh punishment. God's not kidding. When you talk about how you're supposed to steward his devoted things, he's not playing around. And by the way, before we go with, “the old Testament, that's the old. Now we're in a…”. Well now listen, the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament. It's the same God. And he does not change. He does not change. Like, we need to take it seriously when God says this -- whatever this thing is that you have -- like the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. So everything that you have is God's, it was all given to you by God. I know that many of us will go, I worked hard for it. I worked for it. I earned it. The Bible says, who gave you the ability to make wealth? Who gave you the ability to think? Who gave you the ability to breathe that breath you just took? That belongs to God. It's all his. So when he asks for some of it back and we don't do that, we're setting ourselves up for failure. But far beyond that, our church, our community and our nation all pays a price for our lack of faithfulness. Man, may it never be said of us that we got in the way. May we be people who understand that God will do more with your 90% than you could ever accomplish with your 100%. He'll do more because you've invited the blessing of God into your life. Like we're robbing ourselves, we're hurting ourselves and then crying out God show up in the country. And he's like, I would, but you won't be faithful. If I showed up and did all kinds of miracles, you won't steward it right. So why of the world would he do it, man, if there was ever a time where we need God to show up in our country. I grieved for our country this week, what have we been… Listen, where do we start? Where do we start this process? Yes. There's things we can do. There's conversations. We can have there's projects that we can be involved in. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All those things. Yes. But where we begin as we let God's things be God's things we don't try to keep them for ourselves. Maybe it's time for us to trust the Lord with that.

I got some implications for us. Number one: God is not kidding when he asks us to use his things, his way. God commands for us to steward his things, his way.  It isn't like the Pirate's code, right? More suggestions and guidelines than actual rules. He's not kidding. And everyone around me pays a price when I'm not faithful. And I know we don't like that, but that's the price of community. And the thing is when you said yes to Jesus, when you made Jesus, the Lord and savior of your life, that decision makes all these other decisions for us. Like, we don't have to get down the road after we've said yes to Jesus -- you're the boss, Jesus, you're the Lord and savior of my life -- I don't have to wonder and go, I don't know if I'm going to tithe or not because that decision to make him the boss makes that decision for me. And if I, If I'm still, that's why Jesus can say my yoke is easy my burden is light. Why? Because you don't have the make of those decisions -- you made it already. You made it when you said, God, take over my life. God, take over my life. Doesn't just mean, get me out of hell and get me into heaven. That's not what it means, only. It means all these decisions on how I conduct myself in the world. How I steward my resources, how I treat people, whether or not I'm ethical and honest, all of those things, those decisions are already made. And when I choose to wrestle with that and choose another path, it never works out! I need a breather…

Implication number two, many people miss the full blessing of God because they're trying to do God's things their own way. But again, I want to stand on this principle, the right thing done the wrong way becomes the wrong thing. And that's the problem. Cause we’re like, fine, God, I'll do your thing, but I'm going to do it my own way. Well, he's the God of product, but he's also the God of the process 

Implication, number three: God's worthy of our first and our best. And when we tithe of the first fruits, the way that God asks us to do, we're telling our own heart that's true. That's why we can give joyfully. Not because we're happy to get rid of a bunch of money that we could have put somewhere else. But because it reminds us of who God is for us. And because we've taken that God, the creator and ruler of the universe, and we've just unleashed his power in our life because we steward of those resources properly.

Implication number four. Okay. When we're faithful, we'll open the door for God to do more around us and through us. Like, we get access to God's stories to God working around and you go, Oh my goodness, that's God 100%. There's no question. Listen, if you've been walking with the Lord for a long time and you're like, man, I've seen God do these incredible things. Your people like, how do you know? Be In the circumstance? There's never a question when God shows up. There's never, there's all kinds of different ways that God speaks in the scripture. But I can tell you this one thing that's always true is that when God speaks, they know it's God, like there's all kinds of things that God does in our life that we can open the door to if we're going to steward or his resources correctly. But we get in the way of our own blessing. When we, we try to hoard, we try to Keep it. We try to it's devoted things like, man, that feels wasteful, it feels wasteful to have that be devoted to   things. It's not your call. It's not your money. You can call it wasteful all you want. It's not yours. Say, go do this. You're like, God you're being wasteful. God could bear you in a hundred dollar bills tomorrow. You know that he doesn't need your bank account. I pray for you that he will do that. Yeah. Let God be God. Put first things first do God's things God's way. And when we do, we will start to usher in a move of God that is bigger than anything else. We could come up with Our own hearts in our homes, in our church, in our community and in our nation, which all needs God so much right now.

I think it's so critical for us to wrestle with this as we move into this communion time, like, aren't we going to let God be God? Or are we going to keep trying to acknowledge God, but do 20, 21 our own way? Because I promise you, it's not going to get better. If God doesn't move in a profound way in this nation, it's not going to get better. We open up the door for his movement when we steward his things, his way. I would just invite you to consider what your role is in that. As we prepare hearts for communion, let's talk to him right now.

On the night, Jesus was betrayed. He took bread and he broke it. And he said, this is my body, which is given for you. So whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance of me. Let's remember the God of the universe this morning as we take this together. And then after the dinner he took the cup, he said this cup, this is a new covenant of my blood, which is shed for you. So whenever you drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me.

Let's pray, Lord. We love you. I thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for your patient endurance with us as we knock the edges off of our flesh, to be more and more and more like you. Lord, I pray that you'd give us the courage to do with your things what you've asked us to. Thank you for this incredible responsibility of stewardship. May we steward what we've been entrusted with well. In Jesus name, amen.