Generosity Is the Fruit of Trust | The Almighty Dollar S5 E4

Welcome to the Islands Christian Church podcast.

Subscribe to hear a new episode every week.

Thanks for joining us. We've been in the series called

The Almighty Dollar. I just want to thank you for

continuing to come to church as your preacher's talking about

money. You know what I mean?

I know that's stressful for all of us, but I think what we've,

what we've been doing through this talk, through these talks

is really inviting us into something.

God's been using it to invite us into something a different way

of living. And today we're talking about

generosity. It's if you get my weekly

e-mail, you saw that and you came to church anyway, so you

guys are the real deal. I love you.

Thank you for being here. You know, to give away something

that you could use for yourself, like to take some resources that

you could use for yourself and to give them away is a mark of a

heart that is surrendered to Christ.

Like it's the real deal. In other words, to have some

resources and to say I'm not going to use these resources for

my safety, for my security, but instead I'm going to I'm going

to unleash them to something else that is indication that you

actually trust God deeply. You guys ever when you're

thinking about being generous or giving away significant amount

of your resources. Do you ever think man generosity

feels risky? It it is risky to be generous.

Not too long ago, a friend of mine and I were talking about

this very thing and he was talking about investment and and

making investments and how making investments are risky

because you never know what's going to happen.

And I said, well man, generosity is the same way.

There's no way to be generous without enduring some risk.

If you're going to be generous, you're going to endure some

risk. Why is there risk with

generosity? Because you are letting go of

some resources that you could use for your own safety and your

own security. You're releasing control in an

area of your life. So This is why generosity often

feels risky. Now, during the series, we've

been learning some things. The first thing we learned was

that God owns it all and that we simply manage it.

And then the second week, we learned that debt often feels

like it's solving a problem in the present, but it creates

future pressure. And then last week we talked

about how having margin in our finances creates space for us to

follow God's wisdom and obey his ways.

And so today I want you to see this.

Here's the main idea I want you to walk away with.

So if you take notes, you can write this down.

You ready? Generosity is the fruit of

trust. Generosity is the fruit of

trust. When we trust God, our hearts

direct our resources in generous ray ways.

If there is trust in God, generosity will be one of the

outcomes of a heart that trusts God.

That's what I want you to get today.

Today we're talking about being generous as believers, but this

is not a fundraising talk. This is not a hard sell on on

giving to islands. I think islands is a great place

to invest your resources. People like Jason who just got

up here and talked about what's going on the student ministry.

From July to the end of the year, student ministry grew 50%

on Wednesdays. It was unbelievable what God's

doing in that ministry. There's 12 volunteers we've

take. We're taking 38 students and 13

adults to Temple, GA later in February on a retreat.

Like God is doing some amazing things.

So obviously I think investing resources at islands is a good

thing to do, but this is not a hard sell on giving money to

your church. No, like this whole series

today, like every other week is an invitation.

It's, it's just an invitation to you, an invitation for you to be

able to, to do things the way God says to do things to, to

obey God and live like God calls us to live to do things his

ways. And, and it's an invitation to

be a part of the work God is doing in the restoration of the

world. It's an invitation.

Here's another invitation. Today's an invitation to

actually live with confident trust that your future is

secure, to live with confident trust that your future is secure

with the only person who can secure it, your Heavenly Father.

Now, if you have your Bibles, we're going to look at the story

of the Old Testament, Second Chronicles, chapter 24.

2 Chronicles 24 · chapter mention

Second Chronicles chapter 24, we read a historical record here of

2 Chronicles 24 · chapter mention

a young Israelite king and a priest named Jehoiada.

Jehoiada. I actually had to write the

phonetical spelling of that here on my notes because then

practice it. I will mess it up somewhere

during the talk. Make fun of me all you like.

It's OK Jehoiada is the priest that we're going to read about

in this king. So this is Second Chronicles

2 Chronicles 24 · chapter mention

chapter 24, and let's pick this up right here.

You ready, Joash? That's the King's name.

It's the southern Kingdom, Judah, Jerusalem.

Joash was seven years old when he became king.

That's young, right? Seven years old.

He became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem 40 years.

His mother's name was Zibiya. She was from Beersheba.

Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years

of Jehoiada the priest. Jehoiada chose to watch for him,

and he had sons and daughters. Sometime later, Joash decided to

restore the temple of the Lord. He called together the priests

and the Levites and said to them, Go to the towns of Judah

and collect the money due annually from all Israel to

repair the temple of your God. Do it now.

But the Levites did not act at once.

Therefore the king summoned Jehoiada, the chief priest, and

said to him, Why haven't you required the Levites to bring in

from Judah and Jerusalem the tax imposed by Moses the servant of

the Lord, and by the assembly of Israel for the tent of the

covenant law? Now the sons of that wicked, of

that wicked woman, Athalia, had broken into the temple of God

and had used even its sacred objects of the Bales for the

bales. All right, here we go.

First thing if you're a note taker, first thing I want you to

get from this text is this. Generosity begins with a heart

for God's work. Generosity begins with a heart

for God's work. You look at Joe Ashir, he's a

young man, he's seven years old and he's king.

That's kind of a big deal, but you think so He grows up as

king. He has Jehoita there that's

mentoring him and shaping him and leading him.

But he's still the king. He gets 1314.

I have a 15 year old son. I can't imagine him being king

of anything, right? Because they don't have a lot of

impulse control. They don't always make good

decisions and they they tend to want what they want when they

want it, right? That's what they tend to want.

Is it? And so here is Jehoita's

obviously investing in Joassin, leading Joassin.

Joash could have anything, could have anything he wants.

He could demand anything he wants.

And what does the Scripture say? It says sometime later, Joash

decides that he is interested in God's work.

He has a heart for God's work. Now, it's hard for us to wrap

our heads around this because when we think of the the temple

in the Old Testament, we're not quite sure what that means.

And we tend to think of it like a religious symbol or we think

of it like something practical, like a church building.

So we have church buildings that are practical.

You know, we need a place to meet.

We can all meet in your house. You know, biblically, that's a,

that's an option for all of us. We can all meet at people's

houses. But we decided, hey, we're going

to gather into a church building and God gives us the freedom to

do that. But the church building is just

kind of a practical thing. You know, God doesn't live here.

This isn't a sacred space. This isn't a holy place.

People sometimes will cuss in our lobby and say, oh, I'm

sorry, I'm sorry, this is God's house.

And I'll be like, well, that's not really God's house.

God doesn't live here. And you know, if you cuss here,

if you cuss there, wherever you are, God is there.

It's OK. Like he knows your Custer eats

why he said Jesus to die for you.

But this isn't like this isn't a sacred space.

This isn't where God lives. And, and and we tend to think of

the temple maybe as a religious symbol, kind of like the cross,

like it's kind of symbolized something.

But the but the temple was deeper than that.

The temple in the Old Testament was the place, the actual

physical location where God's spirit met with God's people

like it was where they could engage with their God.

And so this was more, this was a sacred space.

This was where God's spirit resided for the nation's behalf.

And so for him, the when Joash decides to restore the temple,

this is something he's moved by because Athalia and her sons,

which is this wicked woman who had controlled the nation before

Joe Hash, they had gone in and destroyed the temple and created

damage and vandalized it. And so he, as he grows into

adolescence, he's like, we need to do something about this.

And what's interesting is that heart for the temple that then

generated a request for money. But notice that he didn't start

with a request for money. He didn't say, hey, we need to

gather some money and then I'll figure out what we're going to

do with it. No, it started with a heart for

God's work. Generosity always starts with a

heart for God's work. And that's what we see with

Joash. He began with a heart for God's

work. Now here's the thing too about

this story that I think we need to wrap our heads around as

Christians and believe God is all powerful and supernatural.

He can do whatever he wants, OK? He can restore the temple

supernaturally. He could have restored the

temple and brought all the sacred artifacts back into the

temple without using human beings.

He could have done this with with no problem at all.

But you see, here's the thing about our God.

Our God is not only interested in getting things done.

That's a human problem. Like we're just interested in

getting things done, checking boxes being done.

But our God is not only interested in getting things

done. He is also interested in the

hearts of his people. He's interested in what our

hearts are being formed into. He wants our hearts to be hearts

that trust Him. So for God, getting things done

is important, certainly, but just as important for God is

your faith and your trust in Him.

So God invites the people through Joash to be part of this

restoration work at the temple, and God invites you through your

trust in him. Through your belief in Him, He

invites you into being a part of the restoration work he's doing

in the world. But not just in sentiment, but

also in sacrifice, because we all kind of want restoration to

happen in people's lives. We want things to be better in

society. We want things to be better in

our city, in our neighborhood, but we kind of want it in the

terms of sentiment. And what God is inviting us into

is not sentiment. He's inviting us into sacrifice.

And that sacrifice always begin with, begins with a heart for

God's work. Now let's look at the next part

of this passage, verses 8 through 10.

This is what it says. At the King's command, a chest

was made and placed outside at the gate of the temple of the

Lord. A proclamation was then issued

in Judah and Jerusalem that they should bring to the Lord the tax

that Moses, the servant of God had required in Israel in the

wilderness. And all the officials and all

the people brought their contributions gladly dropping

them into the chest until it was full.

Now I, I want to pause here and just go off script just a

second. So what is this tax?

I did some digging on that. Like, what is this tax?

What are they talking about when Exodus chapter 30?

Exodus 30 · chapter mention

This tax is talked about when they're in their wilderness and

it's a tax that was collected by everybody that was in the

wilderness to build the Tabernacle.

And most scholars think that that tax in Exodus 30 was a one

time tax. It was one time God said, hey,

you need to collect 50 shekels. They called it an atonement tax,

right? And so they need to collect 50

shekels from everyone and bring them.

And so we can do the Tabernacle. And so most likely what's

happening here in Chronicles is Joash is telling the people to

follow a tax when they are not obligated to follow a tax.

That tax is that tax was a one time thing that God instituted

for one time. But yet he's drawing it up and

he's going, hey, I want you all to do this as if you're

obligated to it. They're not obligated to it,

which is why I think he puts a chest out in front of the temple

instead of sending his army into the countryside to collect the

tax because they're technically not obligated to do it.

They're technically they have the freedom to either do this or

not do this. And so he sticks AI think This

is why he sticks a chest out in front.

He just puts a chest out in front of the building of the in

front, in front of the temple. And he says, well, if the people

were going to give this tax, if they're going to do this, it's

going to be done in a free will way.

It's going to be something they decide to do.

And this is the next thing we learned from this text.

You ready if you want to write this down.

A heart that trusts God gives with glad, with a glad heart.

A heart that trust God gives with a glad heart, or gives

gladly. So we have Joash not collecting

by force. He simply sits his chest out in

the temple. And the people come and they

fill up the chest. But notice the writer tells us

about the disposition of the people.

How does it say they came to fill up the chest?

It tells us, it says they came gladly, They came gladly.

They were giving with gladness. No compulsion, no force, no

urgency. Just an empty chest there in

front of the temple and then people coming happily to fill

it. And that's what generosity looks

like when trust in God has taken root.

When we trust God, the generosity looks like this.

We are happily and gladly willing to invest in the work

he's doing. Because you see, generosity is

the root. I'm sorry.

Generosity is the fruit of trust.

It is not the fruit of obligation is not the fruit of

pressure is not the fruit of a hard sell, it's the fruit of

trust. When we trust God deeply, this

is what comes out of us. This is reminiscent to me of

Paul's words, the second Corinthians Chapter 9 in the in

2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

the second, in the letter to the Corinthians, the second one,

Paul's dealing with this issue where in Jerusalem the people

are hungry and there's a famine and they're poor.

And Christians in Macedonia who are also poor have committed to

giving money to help the Christians in Jerusalem.

And so Paul has sent some people over to Macedonia to collect

that money. But guess what?

The Corinthian believers in Corinth, they were wealthy.

The Macedonian believers were poor.

The Jerusalem believers are poor.

Corinthian believers are wealthy.

I always say the Corinthian church is the most like the

American church where the richest church on the planet,

right, of all the Christians on the planet were the richest.

And the Corinthian church is the saying they're wealthy, they're

well to do. They have plenty of resources.

They, they, they, if you read those two letters, the believers

of those churches know they're wealthy and they know they're

well connected. But they had committed,

obviously in some other kind of communication to Paul, they had

committed to help the Jerusalem Christians out with a financial

gift. And here's what's crazy, Paul's

writing a letter to them to remind them of that commitment

because they're not following through.

You have the Macedonian Christians over here who are

poor and following through, and you got the Corinthian

Christians who are not following through with their commitment.

And listen to what Paul says to them in Second Corinthians

chapter. Second Corinthians Chapter 9,

2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

verse six, he says, remember this, whoever sows sparingly

will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will

also reap generously. Each of you should give what you

have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under

compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver, and God is able

to bless you abundantly so that in all things, at all times,

having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

I mean, this passage is so loaded, right?

It's so loaded. What in the essence of what Paul

is saying is simply this, Hey, you said you would do this, but

you have the freedom to not do it.

And this is the thing I want to say to you as believers in Jesus

Christ, like our salvation is dependent upon Jesus Christ and

his blood shed for us on the cross.

If you are never generous, that has not changed the fact that

you are safe and your sins are removed.

It doesn't. Generosity is not a a means test

to know that you're saved. Faith is, it's faith alone.

But what Paul is saying is that people who know Jesus and people

who follow Jesus and people who love Jesus, they get that

they're part of something bigger than just their own lives.

That they're a part of a bigger story, and that they invest in

that bigger story that they support and they're a part of

and they give to what God is doing in the world.

And so Paul's encouraging these Christians to complete their

commitment, but he's not demanding they do so.

He's not saying, hey, you have to do this.

You said you would. He'd say, hey, this is your

choice. You get to decide.

You get to decide in your own hearts what it is you're going

to give. And the same is true for

everyone here sitting here and everyone listening and watching

online. You, it's in your hearts that

you decides between you and the Lord how generous you will be.

That's a process and a journey that you're on with God, with

your own money. I have no authority in your life

and no one does. But Haas says as you work

through this decision, to either follow your commitment or not to

give what you've decided in your own heart to give.

This is what he says to them. Be sure that wherever you land

on your decision, you give so cheerfully.

You give with gladness. Now that matters.

We, we tend to think in the world like, it doesn't matter.

Aren't you just glad I gave you this money?

Don't you just need this money? Whether I'm glad or not?

What does it matter to you? God doesn't need our money.

He doesn't need your money. The invitation to give is an

invitation to trust, is an invitation to know him.

It's an invitation to rely on Him.

He doesn't need your resources. So why does giving cheerfully

matter? Well, because when I look at my

resources and I say I'm going to share from these resources, I'm

going to give up some of those resources instead of using them

all for my safety and my security.

What I'm saying is I trust that there's a God who I can depend

on and trust in more than I can these resources.

And then that brings happiness and cheerfulness to me.

Because the reality is if you look at your resources and say

whatever you have in the bank, you think of the number right

now, you know what the number is.

Think what you have right now and you say, well, that's how I

know I'm safe because that number is this in the bank.

What you also know is money leaves quickly, evaporates

quickly, and God is faithful to the end.

And so this, this whole text is an invitation to be cheerful,

not because you're like, oh man, I'm just happy to help and

support and give to what God is doing.

No, it's because I trust that God is faithful and good and

dependable and I don't have to worry about my future.

So I can give cheerfully because I have nothing to worry about.

Does this make sense? Paul is encouraging all of us

not to give, but to trust the fruit of trust.

It's generosity. And here's the thing, man, it's,

it's hard to be a pastor because God does not instruct me to as a

pastor, as a leader of this church, God does not instruct me

to put the full court press on youth.

It does. I mean, I, I've read the Bible

and it doesn't nowhere doesn't say like pastors really lay into

your church and tell them how terrible they are if they don't

give. I mean, trust me, if it was here

I'd use it brother once a week. I don't y'all remember this

part. It's not here, right?

The Bible doesn't give me permission to.

Why doesn't the Bible say, well Steve, why don't you just tell

them that? Why doesn't the Bible say

something like pastors tell your people they better give it their

money or God's not happy with them because it's not true.

God is way more concerned with your heart than he is with your

money. If your money is not the issue.

The money, the money's not my, you know, my issue is it's not

my money. My issue is my heart.

And so my job isn't to put the full core press on people or,

you know, to use pressure to motivate them to give money.

No, pressure is never the motivation for a believer in

Christ. The, the motivation for you and

I is that we have a God who gave us grace and mercy on the cross.

And that that grace and mercy on the cross has proved that God is

faithful to the very end. And my generosity is just simply

a response to that God, you have been so good to me so that I now

happily want to give to what you're doing in the world.

I want to be a part of your work.

Generosity is trusting a God who has already given us grace and

mercy. Trusting a God who's already

proven he's trustworthy. That's all generosity is.

I already know my God is faithful.

I already believe that he's paid for my sins.

I already believe that my future is secure.

And out of a response to that trust my generosity close.

So when you trust God with your future, generosity will no

longer feel like a cost or a risk, but will feel more like

participation, participation in what God is doing in the world.

So let's read this next section of Scripture.

This is verses 11 through 14. This is what it says.

Whenever the chest was brought in by the Levites to the King's

officials and they saw that there was a large amount of

money, the royal secretary and the officer of the chief priest

would come and into the chest and carry it back to its place.

So they were like, this is multiple times, like, oh man,

it's full again, right. So the people were coming and

giving this offering. They did this regularly and

collected a great amount of money.

The King and Jehoiada gave it to those who carried out the work

required for the temple of the Lord.

They hired Masons, carpenters to restore the Lord's temple, and

also workers in iron and bronze to repair the temple.

Quick caveat here, a lot of times people will be like, you

know, they're like, why does the church have to pay people to do

stuff? Why can't people just give their

labor away for free to the church?

Well, here we have the Old Testament like this is God's

temple where God's presence is. And did it say that they

gathered off all the brick Masons and the carpenters and

made them work for free? Do they did they steal their

labor? Did God's people steal their

labor? No.

What did what does it say they did?

They hired them. Well, how did they hire them?

They hired them because people were generous and they were able

then to hire these people to come do the work on the temple,

right. Anyway, that's a that's another

side. I'm sorry.

The men in charge of the work were diligent and repairs

progressed under them. They built the temple of a of

God according to its original design and reinforced it.

When they had finished, they brought the rest of the muddy to

the king and Jehoiada, and with it were made articles for the

Lord's temple, article for the service, and from the burnt

offerings, and also dishes and other objects of gold and

silver. As long as Jehoiada lived, burnt

offerings were present continually in the temple of the

Lord. So here's the last thing I want

you to see in this text. God uses our generosity to

change things, things. God uses your generosity to

change things. When we release resources to

God, he is faithful to use those resources for his work in the

world. Notice in the story, the text I

just read, What did they do with the money that they gathered

from all the people? Exactly what they said they

would do. And that's important.

They did exactly what they said they would do.

They said, hey, we're, we've gathered this money to restore

the temple and then they did it and the temple does indeed get

restored. Notice the last sentence that I

read to you, verse 14. I think it says as long as

Jehoiah, Jehoiah lived, burnt offerings were present,

presented continually in the temple of the Lord.

It was not just the physical building that was restored, but

acts of worship were restored because of the giving of the

people of the nation. All of these people were part of

this restoration because of God invited them to be part of the

work He was doing in the world. This is what God invites you

into. In the same way, when you and I

and all of God's people give generously, real restoration

happens in the lives of other people.

God uses your generosity to createspace for people to find

healing, for people to hear the gospel, and to come down to know

their true identity and their worth.

Your generosity meets the needs of people and supplies them with

hope. Jason was up here talking about

student ministry. He's not kidding. 45 to 50

students here on Wednesday. It's chaos.

It's crazy. But those students are hearing

the gospel. Those students, some of those

students are just getting love from adults and they don't get a

lot of that. They're just getting love from

adults. They're just getting care that

somebody's listening to them. I'm here a lot on Wednesday and

I just, I know these kids by name.

You just ask them about their lives and they're just excited

to talk. Your generosity is helping

create that kind of space. When our hearts trust God,

generosity flows. And when we give to what God is

doing, restoration takes place. People are restored back to God.

Your generosity has a practical impact.

It does something practical. Now as your pastor, I don't want

to have a season of intense generosity or just a generous

moment. Like I've really worked hard as

a pastor all of my career to never be manipulative or, you

know, kind of like those moments.

I remember years ago when I was pastoring the first church I was

at as a young man, we had a teenage boy who was part of our

church who was actually a preteen who had cancer.

And we brought him up front. There's a little small church in

the country. We brought him up front, we

prayed for him and people crying.

It was just very emotional thing.

And, and the boy has gone on to survive and he's living a very

good life. And but at that moment, we

didn't know, like we were unsure, uncertain whether he

would survive. And we're praying for him.

And this family was not well off.

They're pretty poor. And I remember after we got

done, after the service, one of my elders came up to me and he

said, you had a real mark of maturity today.

And I'm really proud of you. And I said, OK, I'm, I'm 23 at

the time. I mean, I'm a kid.

And I said, OK. And he I said, how?

He said, well, this ring that was about half the size amount

of people in there. He said this room was in the

palm of your hand. Everybody was crying and

bawling. You could have easily said, hey,

we're going to pass the plate for this family.

And you probably could have collected tons of money from

every person in here because they were emotionally in the

palm of your hands. It would have been easy to do.

And you refused in that moment to manipulate the people God has

called you to pastor. And that was a defining moment

for me to have that elder say that over me.

Because that's not to say that I've never ever used

manipulation or that it doesn't shame doesn't sneak in because I

mean, at the end of the day, I'm human and I have fear like

everybody else. But it was so encouraging to me

and I've used it my entire ministry career because I don't

want to have a people that I pastor and shepherd that have

intense moments of, you know, generosity or a single moment of

generosity. Actually, I what I care about is

all of us, our hearts being formed to be like Jesus Christ.

And we're all in different places on that continuum.

Some of us are man. Our hearts are formed by Jesus

and you're giving money like crazy.

Amen. Thank you.

We love you. And some of you are over here,

man. And that that hasn't happened

yet, but you're leaning into Jesus and you're coming to

worship and you're reading your Bible.

And you know what? I'm faithful for everybody on

both ends of the spectrum because God is drawing the

hearts to him. He's doing the work.

I'm just shepherding and pastoring people that God is

working in. Does that make sense?

So I want to just encourage you today, wherever you are on that

spectrum, like I give tons of money away.

I mean, I haven't really ever given any money away, my money

away in the name of Jesus. Wherever you are on that

spectrum, what I want for you is just to trust God with your

future. Where do you have $10 million in

the bank or $0.70 in the bank? I just want you to trust God

with your future. That's all I want because I

believe that when you trust God with your future, you live with

more peace, you live with more confidence, and as a result, you

give some money away and God uses that to do work in the

world. So if generosity flows from a

heart that trusts God, then Stephen, the question is very

quickly, how does that trust grow?

And this is going to sound backwards, but you have to trust

me. If you want your trust in God to

grow in your heart, simply you have to practice the generosity.

You just have to start. It's like going to the gym.

You just got to start. Like if you want to have a heart

to trust God, you just have to practice generosity.

When we choose to give, even when we're not fully sure we're

ready to give, that experience challenges us.

And what God often does is meets us in that fear and shows us

that He's faithful. If we just step out, we just

start now. What does that mean practically

for you? I would encourage you to pray to

do it. Paul said.

To decide in your heart, Lord, how am I going to invest in the

work you're doing? Pray, spend some time with God.

God, I want to be a generous person.

You've been generous to me. How can I be generous?

And then as you pray, Paul says, decide in your heart, make a

decision, decide. You know what?

We're going to do this, whatever that is for you.

Decide in your heart beforehand and then follow through on that

commitment. It's very simple.

In that process will actually train your heart to trust God.

It'll work and that trust will grow, and then eventually

generosity will no longer feel like it's something you're

trying to do and you're putting forth effort to do.

As your trust grows in God, generosity will become something

that flows out of you naturally. It's a part of your spirit.

So generosity is the fruit of trust.

Generosity is not the fruit of good preaching or hard words

from your pastor or anything like that.

Generosity is the fruit of trust, and the only way to begin

that path to trust is to start being generous with something.

A little pray. And if you make that step and

you decide to be generous, God will bring restoration to

people's lives. He promises to do what He said

He would do. He promises to use your gifts to

change people's lives. Can He do it without you?

Certainly. But He's more interested in your

heart, trusting Him that he is and just getting tasks done.

So you stay with me. I'm going to say I've been an

addiction over us. I hope today that I have invited

you into something because that's been my hope.

If you've noticed I've not said anything like give to your

church or here's how you give to your church.

I just want you to trust God and be generous, whatever that looks

like. I'm inviting you into something.

Let me say this prayer over us, Father, form in US hearts that

trust you fully. Remove the fear that keeps our

hands clinched close. Lead us to join the work of

restoration you are doing through lives shaped by

generosity. Thank you for inviting us into

your work. As we go today, remind us every

day that in your open hands we are safe.

Amen. Hey guys, we love you.

If you want to join us for the Connect event, we'd love to meet

you. See you back here next Sunday.