It Belongs to God - Acts 4:36-5:11

Good morning, family. How are we? I have to talk to you about something real quick. We are going back to two services. One of the things that will happen, which is great, is that our children's ministry will have more students, more kids in each classroom. More kids means more need for help. I don't know if you know this, but there's a quota for how many kids you can handle at one time. And so we need to ask if you're willing to step in and help with children's ministry, it'd be amazing.

Here's the thing, it's not just babysitting, it's discipleship. And I want to be clear about this for two reasons. One is, we have a lot of single moms in our congregation that this is their opportunity to hear the gospel uninterrupted. And by helping in children's ministry, you're not just changing the eternity of that mom that gets in here, you're also changing the eternity of that child. And that's a big deal.

But here's the other thing, Jesus says this, "You are never closer to the heart of God than when you're investing in a child." I just think there's something super valuable about that. And so, if you're willing to help out with that, we'd love to have you do that. You can either go to Connections and they can take your information there and then they'll follow up with you this week. Or you can go to the Family Ministry check-in, and they can take your information there as well.

And here's the other thing, if the classes get too big and we don't have enough help, we're going to shut the class down and then they come in her. And you think cellphones wreak havoc on my attention deficit issues. No. I'm just messing with you. It's awesome. We are in Week 7, and I'm not bored of it yet, which is good because we're not even a third of the way through. So are you guys ready to go to work? We are in Acts Chapter 5. We're going to actually back up a little bit and get a rolling start on this, because I think that the chapters and the verses are in the wrong spot here.

I don't know if you guys know this, the chapters and the verses aren't inspired, they're not part of the original text. That was added later. Here's how they were added. There were three monks that were trying to get their version of the chapters and verses published. A monk from England was chosen. And here's the criteria by which he was chosen. This is as spiritual as it got. He showed up first. It's true story. He did it. He chapter and versed the Bible on his donkey as he journeyed from England to Rome. And I think there are a few places where the donkey jumped and he bumped and didn't get it right. This is one of those places, and so we need to back up a little bit and catch a rolling start into Chapter 5.

We're going to begin with Barnabas. We're not going to so much explore Barnabas, because we did that last week. You can go back and listen to that message if you haven't, but we are going to take a look at the comparison and contrast here and what's the problem. So here we go, Chapter 4:36 through Chapter 5:11. So here's what it says. "Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of the prophet, a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. But a man named Ananias, along with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet."

Now, I told you guys last week, there's a new Sunday school song. This is a song we learned in Sunday school. If you grew up in Sunday school, you probably know this, right? Ananias and Sapphira got together to conspire a plot to cheat the church and get ahead. They knew God's power but did not fear. They tried to cheat the Holy Spirit. Peter prophesied and they both dropped dead. What a catastrophic thing to say to a child. The chorus is so funny. It goes like this, God loves a cheerful giver. Give him all you got.

Listen, I'm going to give out a sheer of fear. If that's our story, that feels harsh. We're going to talk about that. God loves a cheerful giver. Don't kill me. It's Christian schizophrenia. That's what that is. But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God." When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. And the young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.

After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, "Tell me whether you sold the land for so much." And she said, "Yes, for so much." But Peter said to her, "How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out." And immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.

Here's the thing. There is a biblical precedent for, especially at the inception of things, God acting severely at the first offense, because God wants us to understand his heart in all of this. And that feels counterintuitive, but let me walk you through it. At the tabernacle, when they first designed the tabernacle, all the people give all of this stuff. They sacrificially give, and they bring gold, and silver, and bronze and all this stuff. And they bring it all for the purpose of building the tabernacle. And so when they get it completed and it's sanctified and it's been anointed and all this stuff, the night before Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, Nadav and Avihu, which is how you say it in Hebrew, they got drunk. And so they come to work day one at the tabernacle drunk.

And God's like, "Don't you dare walk into my house and offer common fire." And he kills him, because God's not playing. When we confuse the sacred and the common, we get ourselves into trouble. This is one of those moments where we're at the inception of the church and we have people that are being so generous. They're being so generous, and yet what happens is they come to this space where they're like, "I'm going to pretend like I'm generous, but I'm not going to be generous." And here's the problem. Nobody asked them to give all the money. Nobody asked them to sell the field necessarily, but they sold the field and they gave a portion of the money. Now, is that where the wrong is? No, they could have given whatever percentage of it that they chose. That's not the problem.

The problem is they tried to come in and act like, "I'm giving the whole thing. Look at me. Well, this is my sacrifice" They're playing the victim. That's how I interpret it. Totally different than the culture we live in. We love victimhood in our culture. We love it. Here's the deal. And I'm not trying to minimize trauma or pain or suffering. That stuff's all real, but you're more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. That's the story that needs to be told. Yes, we're in the process and yes, we have things to overcome and yes, we should talk about those things. But those things don't define us. They just get in the way of us becoming what God's intended. We need to be what God's intended.

So they want to act like they're sacrificing, but they're not. They're stealing. They're stealing from God, not because God needed the money, but because they committed one thing and did something different. Generosity doesn't do that. And where Joseph, we have this, he came and he sold a field and gave all the money. For them, they come in and they're like, "This is all right," keeping some for themselves. That's the problem. The problem is the lie. The problem is trying to look generous, but not actually be generous. God takes that really, really seriously.

Now, here's the thing about this for you and I. We've been peeling the layers back. We've been talking about some hard stuff over the last few weeks, this Dogon book of Acts. And we're just going to keep pushing that rock up a hill. Here's the thing about generosity. Giving and generosity are not the same thing. And we have good givers. I think most of us would say, "When there is a need and I have opportunity to meet that need, I will step up and help and be happy to do it." That's giving. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's just not generosity. Generosity boils, not out of a need that I found out about, but it boils out of my relationship with Jesus. It's something that I can't turn off.

Generosity isn't me trying me to find what's the minimum that I have to do and be okay? That's not generosity. Generosity boils out of a reckoning with the goodness of God and his grace in my life. Generosity is the result of me spending time with Jesus. See, here's the thing. I had a great conversation with my friend, Anita, last week. After the service she came in, was visiting with me. And she said, "You were talking about this life and the Spirit." She said, "The problem is most people, when they give their life to Christ, they're never taught to understand that when you say yes to Jesus, your old self dies." It dies. And so the whole New Testament is all about saying, put to death the deeds of the flesh. Why? Because that needs to die so that the Spirit can live.

But so what we do in the Christian life, because we didn't know that's what we were supposed to do is that we say yes to Jesus, and we try to live a Spirit-filled life from the power of the flesh. And that can never bring fulfillment. It never brings victory. It never brings an understanding of the presence of God and how that looks in our life. So what happens is we got to figure out how we know we're okay. And we have to then ultimately reduce it down to a checklist. Here are the rules that I'm following. How do I know I'm okay? Because I'm following these rules. Because there's no life in it. The presence of God isn't experienced in me daily. It just becomes one of those things where I'm just like, I just have to ... So it becomes religious practice. Religiosity becomes the teller of the tale.

So if I don't drink, smoke, curse too, or hang around with the girls that do then I'm okay. How do I know I'm okay? Because I follow the rules. And so we create this Christian subculture and then we learn how to fit into it. And once we figure out how to play the religious game, then we do that, but there's no life in it, because we're trying to do it by the power of the flesh. And that's why the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 is so important. How do we know we have the spirit? Because it looks like this; love, joy, peace, patience. What's interesting is right before that ... And we're going to pull this apart next week more. Right before that he's like, "But the deeds of the flesh are obvious. It looks like this. When you're living in the flesh, it looks like this. And when you're living in the Spirit, it looks like this." This what he says in Galatians 5.

So we're going to talk about that. And the deeds of the flesh, it's really funny because some of them are really ... It's obvious, like sexual morality. Of course. No brainer. And jealousy and rage. Of course. Of course. Those are obvious. And dissension, and rivalries. What? What even is that? Well, we're going to pull apart some of those next week. So I'm going to apologize in advance for my poor enunciation of the Greek language, but we're going to use a lot of Greek words next when we look at that. But the unfortunate reality is too many of us are trying to live our Spirit-filled life by the power of the flesh and it doesn't work.

So if you find yourself struggling with being generous, not being a giver. If you find yourself struggling with a lifestyle of generosity, it's because you are trying to live some part of your Christian life through the power of your flesh and you need to put that part of your life to death. We haven't even started talking about anything yet. I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry. That's the truth. And I love you enough to say, I want more for you than you trying to live a Spirit-filled life in your own power. That's miserable. And there's more. There's freedom. And when you talk about ... Romans 8 says, "We are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus." Yes we are. And when we read that, we're like, okay, where's the victor?

Won't be there as long as you try to live in the flesh. But when you live in the Spirit, when you press good news, you don't have to conjure it, you just spend more time with Jesus. Not to tick it off the list, not to say, "Well, I learned something. I read my Bible and I learned something that was interest ..." Now, I'm all for learning. I don't know if you know that I'm a Bible nerd. I love learning in the scripture. And one of the hardest things about reading the Bible for me is that I'll be reading and I'm like, "No, wait, what about the ..." And pretty soon I'm on this wild goose chase and I'm like ... And that's good. But if I'm not careful, I can miss the presence of God. And that's what I'm after.

The word is an arrow that points us to the presence of God. And so we've got to stay on that trajectory. We can use it as a textbook and not a life manual. And that becomes really dangerous. So it's not even just about, "Well, I read my Bible," check. It's about, I experienced God today. And that was beautiful. When my time with the Lord is that, generosity is a byproduct of that. It just becomes true of me. So if I'm struggling with being generous, not being a giver. If I'm struggling with being generous, there are some reasons why. And so I want to work through some lessons about generosity for us and see what we can learn. Number one, the grace of God is connected to our generosity. Now, you're saying there's a which one comes first. God's grace comes before everything. I'm dead in my sins until God's grace shows up. Are you with me?

That being said, me learning to be generous actually gives me more understanding, which leads to more access to God's grace. Doesn't mean that God gave me more grace. God's given me all of his grace. I don't understand it well. Let me read passages we looked at last week. 2 Corinthians 8, 1 and 2. Here's what it says, "Now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity." Generosity is a net result of understanding how significant God's grace is for us. I don't know of another response. God has been so generous to me, I don't know how to be anything else.

It just bubbles out. You can't help it. You can't help but be generous. God's been so good. His grace has been so plentiful in my life. How could I be anything else but generous? What happens is the longer we get into this Christian life. And especially if we're trying to live a Spirit-filled life through the power of the flesh, if we're in that camp, what happens is we start going like, I've got it figured out. I've nailed down things. And we almost assume that we're doing God a favor by being a Christian. And Hebrews 4 says that, "Because of Christ, we can approach the throne of grace with confidence." And we should. God's not trying to beat us over the head with a stick. We should approach the throne of grace with confidence.

However, many of us have retranslated that, and we try to approach the throne of grace with arrogance. And that's not the same thing. That's not the same thing. We approach the throne of grace with confidence, not because of our own qualifications, but because of God's goodness, period. And that we can do that. Like, God, thank you that you let me into your presence. I don't deserve this. I don't. What else can I do, but be generous in response. What else is there? You can't really wrestle with the grace and the goodness of God and leave that space unchanged. If you leave that space unchanged, you're not really wrestling with God's grace.

And what we do is we ... Well, I don't murder people. What's so funny is that when we look at the criteria for who's in and who's out and we look in the mirror, we're like, "I'm not a serial killer." When we look at other people, we're like, "Well, you're no Mother Teresa." So Mother Teresa is the criteria for you, Jeffrey Dahmer's the criteria for me. I don't eat people. Listen, Paul says this and I keep reaffirming it, "There is nothing good that lives in me, except Jesus." Left to my own devices, I would destroy everyone around me. That's just true. And trying to live a Spirit-filled life through the power of the flesh is me being left to my own devices, which is why they're so much church hurt in the world, because there's too many people saying they're a follower of Jesus, but they're trying to do it through the power of the flesh.

We got to do better. And the benchmark out of that is generosity ... This is the second lesson that we need to learn about. It is generosity is the fundamental lifestyle choice of a Christian. Fundamental lifestyle choice of a Christian. If we keep going down in second Corinthians 8:7, it says, "But since you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in love that we have kindled in, you see that you also excel in this grace of giving." Now think about this. He's saying it's not the end all be all catchall. You don't only be generous. That's not it. Should we be cultivating our faith in growing it? Of course. Of course, we should be. Should we be working on our rhetoric, on our speech, on how we talk to people, how we talk about God? Should we be working on that? Of course. Of course, we should be.

We'd be growing in our knowledge of God and his word. Of course, there's no question about any of that. And should we have complete earnestness? Should we have an urgency about our faith? Yes. And should we love well? Of course. Add to that we should also be generous. Why? Because this is just part of what it means to be connected to the father. It's the evidence that we're connected to him. Generosity is the evidence that we're connected with him. Can you fake it? Yeah, but not to God. And that was the problem with Ananias and Sapphira. Peter says, "You didn't lie to the church. You lied to God." Well, people have so many reasons for not being generous like, "I don't like how the church uses the money. God wouldn't expect me to give that money to ..." Really?

Do you know the story of the widow's might? She gave everything that she had to a temple system that was completely corrupt. It was supposed to take care of her, and she had nothing to live on after that because they weren't doing their job. But guess what Jesus said to her, nothing. We read it and we like, "Oh, look at her and her sacrifice." And we misinterpret it so many different ways. What we don't often consider is, tomorrow she's going to have to actually wake up and eat. Where's that going to come from? If there was ever a moment where we want Jesus to step in and grab a bag of gold out of the thing ... I don't want to get all technical on you. And go, "Oh honey, God bless you. You are so faithful. You are faithful with little, I'll give you more." Nope. He says nothing. Nothing to her.

And she gave to a temple system that was completely bankrupt. What he did say is he looked at his guys and he said, "Hey, do you see that? That was awesome. All right, let's go." You can't really believe that God would expect me in my financial situation to actually give. Yes, you are correct. In all of the people who've ever lived in the history of man, your financial situation is the one that God didn't see coming. God was like, "Oh, whoa, that one got past me." Don't play the victim. You're not a victim in Jesus. You're a conqueror. Live in that truth. What the widow did when she put in everything that she had was she put herself in a position where God could work.

Now, what do you want in your life? Do you want your own power to produce things, or do you want the one who speaks matter from nothing? I think his power's way cooler. He can do things in our life that I would never be able to conceive, and he wants to do them, but he's not going to force his way in. We need to properly respond to his goodness and his grace, and generosity is a fundamental reality in that. Third lesson. We got to get moving. Abundance is a choice, not a status. There is so much I want to say about this, because especially in our culture, we have a materialistic mindset that is off the charts and it's really difficult. And we all have our benchmarks for what success looks like in our life. And it might be a certain job title or a certain thing that you want.

Like for me ... I don't know why this was true. I don't know why this was true, but it was true. So I'm going to share this vulnerability. Don't laugh at me. You can laugh because it's stupid. I believed that a 50 inch flat panel TV, if I got one of those, I have arrived. I don't know why that was the thing, but that was the thing for me. Here's the funny thing. Of course, when those things first came out, you had to have arrived to afforded one. Now they're like 10 bucks, but now I have four TVs. The smallest one is 55 inches and the largest one is 75 inches. And my wife and I are debating, "Should we go bigger?" And by my wife and I, I mean I say to her, "Babe, should we go bigger?" And she's like, "We don't have a wall for a bigger in our whole house." And I'm like, "We don't need pictures on the wall. We need to experience our television." I don't watch TV. I experience television.

Here's the problem. If abundance is benchmarked by having some things, whatever your things are, then when you get those things, they are no longer abundance. And that's the problem. When abundance is attached to material possession, it becomes a moving target. You are always trying to move the needle. Abundance has to be a decision we make, not a status that we achieve. And our abundance comes from an awareness of who God is. I have an abundant life not because I'm the wealthiest person, or even as wealthy as I want to be. I'm not as wealthy as I want to be. I want to be more richer, but that's not where my abundance lies. It's rooted in understanding my God's streets are gold. Your streets are asphalt. His are gold. His doors are big, giant pearls.

And I have access to that because he's my daddy. I have access to that. Now. I also have a father who is good and kind and understands that if he can give me too much it will squelch me. I'll tell you a story about why you're not a millionaire. I have a son who really struggles with social anxiety, and it's been a journey for us, like debilitating random panic attacks over the years. He had to drop out of high school because he couldn't walk down the halls. And the thing is he was so worked up in anxiety. He would sit in class and he wasn't able to retain information because his anxiety levels were so high. He's brilliant

So he dropped out when he was a sophomore. Two years goes by and we're like, "You need to work on your GED. You need to work on GED." Finally we were like, "You need to work on your GED or we're kicking you out." And he decided to go take the test. Hear me. He missed the last two years of high school. He didn't take them. He walked in to take his GED test and passed with advanced college placement scores the first time he took it. He's brilliant. He's a brilliant kid. But because of his just realities of where he struggles, we were like, I know that we're going to have to help him in ways that we didn't have to help the other kids in order to get on his feet. So we did. We gave him some things that we didn't give to the other kids and tried to help him along. And it backfired. He started making some decisions that we were like, "I love you, but we can't support this." So we took all of that away. Crushed me as a dad. Crushed me as a dad.

He flourished. I was like, "What happened?" I was like, "Who even are you?" He's like, "Dad, I guess I just needed you to force me to do it on my own." I was like, "I wish I would've known that then I wouldn't have lost all this, and I would've slept a lot better. And I wouldn't have worried." God knows exactly what you need to help you flourish. So when we beg God for things so that we can have abundance, we may be missing that abundance doesn't come from those things. And if God did give us those things, he knows that it would crush us. It would minimize us. And God made you with this tremendous potential that he wants to invite you to take hold of it.

And so he will do exactly for you what you need to become everything he's intended you to be. We just have to trust that that's enough, but it's not what I want. I want to read Matthew 25:14-30 is a famous parable, but there's a particular piece of it that I want to pull out and look at. It says, "For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one, he gave five talents, to another two, to another one." Now, before we get too far in, into this, we often go, well, the guy who got one talent got gypped. One talent is 20 years wages. So no, it's not five talents, but it's also not five bucks. I'd take it if somebody offered it. I want a talent? Yeah, I do. I do. I'd go buy another TV. A big one. I'd get a big one.

"To each according to his ability. And then he went away. And he who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me five talents, here I have made five talents more.' And his master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.' And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me two talents, here, I have made two talents more.' And his master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'

By the way, is he rewarding that they made money? The answer to that question is no. He's not rewarding that they made money. He's rewarding that they took his money and stewarded it well. They put it to work. The problem with the guy with one talent isn't that he lost money, because he didn't lose money. It's that he didn't steward it well. "He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.' But his master answered him, 'You wicked and slothful servant.'" That means lazy. He probably wanted to live off of unemployment. Go get a job. That's a pet peeve of mine. I don't know if you've picked up on that over the ... Go to work. I'll never get ahead. Not if you don't go to work.

"You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed, then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers at my coming so I could have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the 10 talents." Okay, wait, what? God's blessing the haves. "For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." And here's the thing about this passage that I want to hone in on. What is it that he takes the one talent and gives it to the one who already had 10 talents? What is that?

Take the money and push it aside. The lesson that Jesus is trying to teach here is he who has will have an abundance, but he who does not have even what he has, will be taken away. Have you ever noticed that there are just people that see blessing in everything? They just see blessing. And then there's the other people, those people who ... You could give them a white piece of paper with a black dot on it and all they see is a black dot. They brighten the room by leaving it. They're just negative. And I'm not talking about people who are like, "Man, I'm really struggling. Real life sucks." That's a different thing. These are people who are perpetually there's never enough. It's never good enough. It's never right. It's never okay. They see the negative side of everything. Even if somebody came and said, "You look really nice today." "Oh well, I'm fat." "Okay, well then I'll never give you another compliment."

They just dishonor everything that's good around them. There are some people, they just see the good. And I'm not talking about people who are particularly optimistic. They choose to focus in a direction. He who has will have an abundance. He who doesn't have, even what he has will be taken away. You get to pick which one you choose to focus on, but I guarantee you what you're looking for, you will find. That's one of the reasons why generosity is birthed out of our time with God, because with God, we regain a good perspective on the world. When I don't spend time with God, and I look around the world that we live in, I can get pretty scared in a hurry. Are you with me? I can get pretty messed up in a hurry, because there's a lot of crazy stuff going on that I'm like what the ...

It's like David and Psalm 73. He's like, "I look around the wicked prosper, what's going on?" He said, "And then it was oppressive to me until I went into the house of the Lord. And then I understood." That's why generosity rooted ... A lifestyle of generosities rooted in our time with the Lord. So I have some implications for us about old Ananias and Sapphira. Here's the first one. You cannot fool God. You can fool people, but you're not trying to fool me. When we choose not to be generous, we're trying to fool God, and you cannot fool God. Galatians 6:7 says this, "Don't be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever one sows, that he will also reap." This is not the Bible teaching karma. This is just the reality.

If you sow generosity, you reap generosity. If you sow stingy, you reap stingy. It's just the way it is. You're free to choose, but you're not fooling anybody. Implication number two. Everything we have belongs to God. We are simply the stewards of it. Psalm 24 says this, "The earth of is the Lord's and the fullness thereof: the world, and those who dwell therein." Everything on this planet belongs to God. That air you breathe, it's not your breath. This bugs me. I don't even have time for this. Bonus material. When people say I did my time in ministry, it's time for me to stop and hand it off, you are not dead yet. That breath, isn't yours. Your life doesn't belong to you.

And those of us that are still trying to figure out how to be adults and be Christians, because nobody ever really showed us, we need your help. Don't quit. Well, I used to do that. I ain't doing it anymore. I ain't doing those hard things anymore. You don't have to. I just feel like that's wrong. Implication number three. If you're a follower of Jesus, generosity is not an option. Galatians 5:25, which is right after that fruit of the Spirit. Here's the works of the flesh, here's the fruit of the Spirit. Right after that here's what he says, "If we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." In other words, if you say you're a Christian, act like a Christian.

And again, I'm not talking about don't drink, smoke, curse, chew. Sure, whatever. What I'm talking about is the things that actually are biblically the definition of what a Christian should look like; kindness, patience, gentleness, generosity, forgiveness, all these things that we're called to. Last implication. Abundance is a mindset. Abundance is a mindset. It's not a status. You don't achieve abundance, you choose to live abundantly. And we can have the confidence to make that decision based on who our God is. Luke 12 says this, "And he said to them, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of their possessions." Abundance is a mindset. We can choose to live abundantly.

You want to know how you know if somebody has chosen to live abundant life? They're free to be generous. Because if I live in an abundance from an abundant God, there's no reason for me to hoard. There's no reason for me to be stingy. As we move into our communion time, communion is this reminder of Jesus laying it all on the line. He held nothing back. And we want to find out, what's the littlest bit that I can give to him and be okay? I think maybe God is worthy of more. Maybe he's worthy of more than that mindset. What's keeping us from being generous; generous to God, generous to our, in our life, just a mindset of generosity? What's keeping us from having an abundant mindset? Let's take a minute and just talk with the Lord about that as we prepare hearts for communion.

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 him together. And then after the dinner he took a cup and he said, "This cup, this is a blood of the covenant, which is shed for you. So whenever you drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me." Let's remember him. Let's pray. God, you are the giver of all good things. You are the source of abundance. You're the source of generosity. You're the source of strength to overcome. You're the source of it all. And so Lord, we just want to admit that there's times that we try to do this on our own power. That never works Lord. And we want to come to you and just reestablish that you are the source of all of that. God, we offer our lives to you, knowing that you want only good things for us. God help us to trust that what you see is good, in Jesus name, amen.