The Aim of Hospitality

Amen.

Well, good morning, Sacred Mission.

Hey, for those of you who don't know, my name is Justin, and I'm one of the pastors here.

And it's my joy and privilege to be able to bring God's word to you this morning.

I'm a dad of four kids, and uh I would imagine you can kind of share with me in this reality if you're a parent as well, or or maybe you're an amazing niece or uh aunt or uncle, and you can experience this as well.

There have been throughout my uh child's life this reality that I have come to grips with that if I give my child a gift, inevitably they're going to use it for the wrong reasons, right?

It's just it's just no matter what you give.

I don't know how many times I've had to walk through my house and see the gifts that I've given to my children used in just peculiar, uh uh uh kind of crazy different ways, right?

I I remember this one time uh one of my children wanted this yo-yo so bad.

And so we got them this yo-yo, and then all of a sudden, this yo-yo string is somehow coming down my staircase, tied up onto different things, and they're sliding these different action figures down.

It's like this isn't a zip line.

I gotta tell them this isn't a zip line, this is a yo-yo, this isn't what I bought this for you for, and now you're destroying my stuff in the process of your creativity.

Uh, and so uh but it's inevitable.

And then here's another thing that I've discovered.

Usually, when my kids use the gifts that I give them in the wrong ways, there's a high probability someone's getting hurt.

I don't know why that's the case, but you're just kind of looking like this is your fault.

Like that's not what that thing was meant to do, but you did this anyway, and now you're the one crying, and so I have zero sympathy for your situation.

Uh we can be like that.

We are children of a good father who gives us good gifts, and yours and mine's story is typically the reality that we don't use those gifts in the way that he intended us to.

And in the process, you and I can hurt ourselves and we can hurt those around us because we're not using the got the God-given gifts of grace in the way that he intended to.

So I'm hoping that's kind of what we seek to understand this morning as we dive into 1 Peter and look at what is this aim of hospitality.

So, as we start the text, Peter is going to start with this big sense of urgency.

The end of all things is at hand.

That's a huge statement that Peter makes.

And he's trying to set the tone for his audience.

He's trying to help them understand that the end is imminent and that reality should actually inform and shape the way that we live our lives.

I would argue that many of us don't live our life with that healthy sense of urgency, right?

We we assume tomorrow is going to come, we assume that everything's gonna be okay, we don't contemplate uh our finiteness or the reality of eternity as often and as healthy as we ought to, right?

We we kind of go through life as if tomorrow will always be.

And Peter's trying to establish a sense of urgency here to his audience.

Now, this isn't a end of all things in necessarily a chronological sense, right?

We don't have to uh uh think through that lens.

Uh what he's trying to help us understand more is that theologically, we are at the end of the redemptive plan of God.

We are waiting one more step in all this, and this is Jesus' glorious return, where he comes back for his church.

And so we've already seen Christ come, right?

That if we're not Old Testament uh uh uh Israel, we're not waiting for the Messiah to come as another step in this redemptive plane of history.

Uh, the Messiah has come, he he's died for us, he's risen victoriously from the grave, he's ascended to the right hand of the Father, he has sent the gift of the Spirit.

And so where we find ourselves in this redemptive history is that we are simply awaiting the second coming of Christ.

And so Peter is faithful.

He's not he's not leading us astray, right?

He's not trying to emotionally manipulate the situation, he's not over-exaggerating.

Truly, the end of all things is at hand.

See, Jesus' ministry was even marked by this statement.

He he had a sense of urgency as he was preaching and fulfilling his earthly ministry.

Throughout his time, he would often preach and proclaim this message: repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

It is near, it is imminent.

And near the end of Jesus' ministry, he charged all of those following him with this statement.

Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

And so we're supposed to live in a particular way in response to that reality, right?

It's supposed to shape and inform how we live our life.

And Peter's urging these elect exiles, as he calls him in the opening of his letter, these to whom he is writing, that their lives should be marked by this reality, that the end of all things of this world is imminent, and they should cling then to that which is eternal.

And he calls this to their attention by saying actually that their prayer life should be shaped by the reality of where they find themselves in God's redemptive plan.

That they should be viewing every day with this disciplined, alert, sober-minded perspective.

That they should actually look out into this world through the lens of which God sees this world so that their prayers would line up with the urgency of the pressing moment.

He says, Listen, the end of all things is at hand.

So be sober-minded, pay attention, be disciplined.

And he says, Do this for the sake of your prayers.

So this reality of urgency, of where we find ourselves in redemptive history, is actually supposed to shape even our prayer language.

Every week at Sacred Mission, we declare as a church body, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

And we do that because the liturgy shapes us as who we are.

It's something that we function in with our whole being.

And it's supposed to remind us that at any time Christ could come to fulfill his kingdom here and now.

How is that shaping the way that you woke up this morning?

How is that informing the when when you review Monday through Friday and what your schedule looks like and the relationships that you're building into and the prayers that you're offering to God?

Peter then says, above all.

Right?

So so this all, this above all that we see here in the text, and the end of all things that we see at the beginning of it there in verse 7, we see this connection of the two.

If the end of all things is truly at hand, then how should we then live in response?

Well, this all should be above all.

If all of this is passing away, then above all we should live like this.

This particular way.

And here in this passage, I think Peter outlines three essentials of urgency.

Three essentials of urgency.

So the first one is love one another.

We should have open hearts to one another.

Show hospitality to one another.

We should have open homes to one another.

Serve one another.

We should have open hands to one another.

So, how's he calling us to live in response to the urgency of the end of all things being at hand?

We should live as people with open hearts, open homes, and open hands.

Let's look at this together.

Live with open hearts, love one another.

The apostle begins with the urge to keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

You see, the reason given to why we should actually keep loving one another, why we should persist in this, is because the love that we extend and show to our brother covers the sin in their life.

I think there's some language here that you and I need to work through to better understand this more clearly.

When Peter says keep loving, he's talking about a constant state of love, a persistence in this love, that our lives should actually be oriented around a resolve to be for the good of our brother.

When he's talking about keep loving one another, how do we orient our life to where our actions, right, our behaviors, our choices, our decisions are oriented in such a way that they are for the good of those around us.

And Peter connects our love, that good, to the reality of the presence of ongoing sin in the life of those around us.

When we come to Jesus, we are able to come before the throne of grace because of the righteousness of which we have received by grace through faith in his finished work.

We're not approaching God through any merit or strength or working of our own, but we approach God through the finished work of Jesus.

It's his righteousness.

And our life is supposed to be living out that reality, that righteous reality given to us through the process of sanctification.

But a Christian's life is not marked by the complete absence of sin.

The Christian's life is marked by the contending against it.

Right?

There's a difference between a brother or sister who still has sin present in their life and they're fighting with everything they have by the strength of the Spirit, by a deeper belief in the gospel, to see this righteousness of which Christ has given them lived out in their flesh, and one who embraces the sin of which they're supposed to be dead to, and white knuckles it and says, I'm not letting go of this.

That's when we start to ask some questions about the sincerity of the confession that you make.

So Peter says, There's sin still in your brother's life, and he's connecting the way of which we love them to that reality.

This is a familiar challenge that Peter himself wrestled with in a conversation with Jesus.

If we go back to Jesus' ministry, the the author of uh of the Gospel of Matthew, right?

Matthew, that's who that dude is.

He said, he records this exchange between Jesus and Peter.

It says this in Matthew 18, 21 through 22.

Then Peter came up and said to him, being Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me?

And I forgive him as many as seven times?

Like Peter probably thought he was awesome.

Like that's a lot, right?

Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy seven times.

So Peter wrestled with this.

How much am I supposed to extend grace?

How much am I supposed to keep loving them?

Is there is there a line somewhere where like I stop doing this because of the sin in my brother, the way that he sinned against me?

And you can almost see Peter like with this new awareness and illumination on the beauty of grace, he's now instructing those of whom he's writing to.

Look, I get it.

We're gonna keep loving one another because sin is gonna keep coming after our brothers and sisters.

And it's that love for them that's going to cover their heir.

So we can gather that a core part of loving one another is rooted in the forgiveness of sin, in the extension of the grace that we have received in Jesus to one another.

How do you love one another well?

Man, you walk in forgiveness.

Grace just saturates our life and our relationship with others.

You see, this is where we see our love as a cover.

And I want to be really clear.

Peter doesn't say that our love for our brother covers up.

Where we would unlovingly not address or call to accountability the sin in a brother's life that is harming them and others around them.

But to cover them is to extend to them a relational security as a stumbling saint.

It's a protection, it's a shield about them.

Do the people that you're in community with feel relationally secure with you?

Do they feel like it's okay to not be okay?

Not to stay that way.

Like I've always hated that phrase.

It's okay to not be okay.

And then they just use that as an excuse to keep on doing whatever they want to do.

Like that's not what that's supposed to mean.

It has to be this reality where it is genuinely okay to not be okay.

And here's the hope of the gospel that by the power of the Spirit of Christ in you, we don't stay that way.

And I'm here to walk with you through that.

I'm here when you are weak to be the strength beside you, to see you continue pressing on to the cross of Christ.

We cannot hope to have a strong community of saints if we find delight in exposing others' wrongs, if we keep a record of every fault, if we refuse to extend forgiveness.

No, our love for one another should create a safety and a security, a cover for a brother.

As he's stumbling toward glory, are his steps strengthened by the brothers around him who are steadying his path through forgiveness and grace.

Because you and I are gonna continue to sin.

And we need that love to cover us as we stumble toward Jesus.

Next, he says we need to live with open homes.

We need to show hospitality to one another.

So this word hospitality is two words put together, phylosenos.

And it actually means love, phyllo xenos for a stranger.

Right?

This is the essence of the word that hospitality means love for a stranger.

It is this love for a stranger that Jesus actually commends those at his right hand when he returns.

So we talk about the end of all things is at hand, right?

This is how Peter opens up the section of the text.

We see Jesus articulating the reality of his second coming and how he's going to first and foremost separate the sheep from the goats.

And the sheep are gonna be at his right hand, the goats are gonna be at his left hand, and these will enter into his blessed presence, and these will not.

And those who are at his right hand, he commends them in such a way for being hospitable.

We see this in Matthew 25, 35b.

Jesus himself saying, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.

How does he identify, recognize, and commend those who are at his right hand at his glorious return?

By those who loved the stranger, him being the chief stranger who was welcomed in.

Do our homes reflect the truth of our welcoming as strangers brought into the family of God?

Do our homes actually represent the truth and beauty of the gospel that you and I claim to have our faith in.

That we were aliens, strangers, but we were brought in.

You see, we need to work to have our homes be a response to the gospel of which you and I hold to.

And Peter recognizes the burden of hospitality.

Hospitality is tough.

Uh, some of us struggle with this more than others, but if we're honest, all of us realize whether we feel like we're really gifted at this or it's like the this thing that we just struggle with over and over again, there there is a burden to hospitality.

I praise God for one of the families in our church, the Kiphardts.

They live in our neighborhood and they will co-host different terms of mission group.

So they will host a term of mission group, and then we host a term of mission group, and it's because we've realized our home needs a rest.

Because your kids come in and they break my stuff and they put their fingerprints all over my walls, and there's food in places I never knew food could get, right?

There's just things that happen where it's like I need a rest from being hospitable to such a nature.

It's a burden, and that's why Peter says, show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

He's not dismissing the burden of hospitality, but he's having our posture toward it or attitude toward it be transformed by the purpose of it.

Yeah, it's messy, it's difficult, it's challenging.

But why do we do this?

And that's what the conversation Katie and I have to keep coming back to.

Like, why do we do this?

Why have I bought a lot of floor registers over the years?

Because people just keep breaking them.

And they're they're fragile wood.

I don't know if they're made of like uh bolsa wood or something.

I don't know why I keep buying these floor registers, but every time a child's foot steps on one, it just shatters.

And it's like, okay, I'm gonna just buy another one.

Why?

Because it's not about the burden that it is to us, it's about the respite that it hopefully brings to your soul as you come into my home and I welcome you and I give you a drink and I pray with you, and we read the scriptures together, and we share our lives with one another.

That's why.

Because there's no natural payout for this, there's only a supernatural response for it.

You see, it isn't easy, it isn't convenient to open our homes for the welcoming of others, but it is necessary as a response to the gospel in our lives.

Lastly, he says that we should live with open hands, that we should serve one another.

Serve one another.

Finally, Peter calls on the church to use the gifts that have been given to them by the Spirit to serve one another.

It's rooted in the understanding that each of us has a gift.

If you here's what we say at Sacred Mission all the time: if you are in Christ, you have been supernaturally gifted by the Spirit to function within this body for our ultimate flourishing.

There's no one here whose presence doesn't matter, who has not been gifted in some particular way for the edifying of the church.

The only way that we don't reach that good, that health, that maturity of which Christ has called us to here and now is because some of us sit dormant on the sideline, unwilling to recognize the gift that's been given to us by the Spirit and use it for the good of others.

Each and every single person in this room to honor you in this way, to show you that your presence has worth and value.

You have been gifted by the Spirit.

And Peter's saying, now use that gift to serve one another.

You see, a grace gift that serves a distinct purpose in the flourishing of the body of Christ.

And the way that we demonstrate faithful stewardship of that gift is by using it for the good of our brother through a dependency on the giver of the gift.

Look at the way that Peter uses this language.

Verse 11 Whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies.

So if you're gonna speak, it's the words of God as you're speaking.

If you're gonna serve, it's the strength of God enabling you to serve.

And he says, why?

Why?

In order that, in order that in everything, no matter what your gift is, if your gift is preaching and teaching, if your gift is cleaning the toilets, if your gift is opening your home, if your gift is keeping the books, it doesn't matter what your gift is.

Here's the driving purpose in order that in everything God May be glorified through Jesus Christ.

It doesn't matter what the gift is because there is no gift able to be proclaimed as inappropriate or uh unimportant or unnecessary.

Maybe some of your gifts are inappropriate.

We can talk about that another time.

But no gift is able to be proclaimed as unimportant or unnecessary.

Why?

Because every gift's ultimate function and purpose is for the glory of God in Christ Jesus.

You see, there's a relationship that Peter identifies with us between the gift and the giver that means what we have to work to cultivate in our lives.

Do you see the gift given to you as something that isn't as as uh important or something that isn't as uh some public or that we put out in front?

Are we trying to understand our own identity through the gifts that's given to us?

Or are we able to submit in joy to the reality that we have been gifted by the giver himself?

And the purpose, the aim of that is that our lives would glorify him in our use of it.

You see, we have to work to cultivate that relationship.

If I'm gonna preach, I'm preaching as the words of God.

If I'm in kids' ministry, I am in there as if I'm the hands and feet of Christ.

No matter where I find myself, am I cultivating that relationship and dependency between the gift and the giver?

You see, knowing that we have been gifted by grace and that we'll be able to use that gift through grace, all for the good of our brother and the glory of God.

This is the purpose of that relationship, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

In order that we would have no glory in ourselves, but only to find glory in him.

Because all of this, our affections, open hearts, right?

Our love for one another, our homes showing hospitality, our gifts, all of this is both from him and for him.

To him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

There's nothing that we possess in this life that we can claim as ours.

Nothing.

Me and my family, we've been reading through the Psalms before we go to bed and praying together as a family.

And last night we were going through Psalm 22, and uh David's declaring that even as I was in my mother's womb, you you caused me to love you.

That from a child, an infant nursing, you put in me a desire to keep your commands.

Man, think think about what David is saying there.

That that everything we have, including this thing called faith, is a gift given to us.

It's not ours.

There's nothing we possess in this life that we can claim as ours.

Everything has been given as a gift from God.

And in that, we're called to be faithful stewards of the gifts that He has given to us.

And faithful stewardship looks like using every single one of our gifts for the good of others and the glory of God.

So, what's the aim of hospitality?

Our homes are God's gift for us to steward for his glory and the good of others.

Our homes are God's gift for us to steward for his glory and the good of others.

That's the aim.

And what would that change in you this morning if you started to look at your home through that lens?

What would it change about your week to week?

What would it change about the relationships that you have?

What would it change about the way that you try to cultivate and foster a space that actually aimed toward this endeavor, the glory of God and the good of others?

You see, all things are his and for his glory.

And because of this, this is where we see this connection in the passage this morning of everything.

All of this is about stewardship because all of this is about gift giving by the giver himself.

And so, how are we supposed to live in such a way that our lives are oriented around the good of others?

This is the lie that we keep falling into, is that somehow all of this stuff is for our own good, and we spend more and more time orienting our lives around our stuff and how it produces good in our life instead of submitting ourselves to the truth of Scripture and having the Spirit work in us that we might actually turn away from this world and turn to this above all things, that you might be glorified in all that I have, because it's yours anyway, and that I might labor for the good of those around me, that they might know you and glorify your name in response, is what Jesus said.

You want to see what happens when you perform good works in the midst of evildoers on the day of my coming, they will glorify me because of how you loved, how you served, how you opened your home.

They won't be able to not connect your hospitality to his glory.

That's why we do this.

Because you see, many of us we fail to steward God's gifts.

I'm my kid.

I'm even like a worse version.

They're bad.

I'm a worse version of my kid.

I just take the good stuff God gives me and I use it in all these horrible ways, and I hurt myself and I hurt other people around me.

And God's looking at me like, hey, dude, I didn't give you that gift for that.

I mean, think about the ways in which we do this.

Think about the good gifts that have been given to you and how you steward them when it comes to our finances and the gift of generosity.

How do we steward that for his glory and the good of others?

How do we use our time, this gift of time that is fleeting from us?

How do we use that in such a way?

Our health, our marriage, our children, our sexuality, all of these things.

God has said, I want to give you the greatest gift, right?

Look at mankind.

I want to give you this amazing gift of a spouse, of a partner, of one you can become covenant oneness with.

And you're gonna have this exclusive gift between you of sex, and it's gonna unite you in ways that you can't even fathom or understand, and yet we prostituted out to a screen.

Why?

Because we are the kids who get good gifts and we just use them in all these horrible ways.

That's us.

What about our home?

Man, what are the ways that we fail to steward the good gift of our home?

I got two ways I think that we do this poorly.

One way is I think that for some of us, our open home is closed to the gospel.

Our open home is closed to the gospel.

And here's what I mean by that.

Some of you have no problem inviting like a bunch of people over to your house, right?

I get the pleasure of seeing uh football Sundays, and you guys are having these parties and you're outside grilling and you've got a bunch of people over to your house.

Some of you love company.

Your door, I don't know why it has a lock on it, because people are just always coming in and out.

You you have no problem uh uh getting them a drink and making them a meal and making them feel comfortable within your living room.

You're constantly having people over.

But let me ask you a question: how much gospel conversation and ministry is happening in those times?

Because here's a fascinating thing.

I want you to study this out, I want you to look at this.

When we look at the New Testament writings, and the language of stewardship is most commonly used, it's most commonly used around the mystery of the gospel of grace.

You see, we we've we've churched this.

We've churched this in such a way where we're like, oh no, stewardship is about time, talent, and treasure.

We love, right, that that, what is that called when you have the same letter?

Alliteration.

It's of the devil.

No, it's great.

I I did it in this sermon because I'm not intelligent enough to not use it.

Here's the thing, though.

More often than not in the New Testament, when they talk about stewardship, the apostles aren't talking about time, talent, or earthly treasure.

They're talking about the mystery of the gospel of grace.

They're the revelation of Christ entrusted to them, the deposit of faith that was given to them.

I don't think you and I, when we think through the lens of stewardship, think about the stewarding of the gospel that's been given to us.

What's the greatest gift that we've been given?

The revelation of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

That's the greatest gift you and I possess.

Like our homes, right?

Our bank accounts, our children fail infinitely in comparison to the gift of the gospel that's been given to us.

And the vast majority of the language around stewardship within the New Testament is around that truth.

So our homes, spaces for the stewardship of gospel ministry.

Because if we're just opening our homes to let strangers in, as if that's the end, if that if that's like the climax of all of this work, we've missed the mark.

It's not just about letting people into your home, it's about creating a space of relationship, care, comfort, rest so that you can proclaim the gospel and steward it in the lives of others.

So we may have open homes, we may throw amazing backyard barbecues, we may have the best pool parties in the city.

But is the gospel allowed to come inside?

It would be a shame if we allowed everybody through our front door but Christ Himself.

Second thing, I think some of us, our home is just closed to others.

Our home is closed to others.

If we're honest with ourselves, a lot of us treat our homes like they exist for our own ultimate good, right?

I I'm I probably like many of you, I like watching HGTV, right?

Any nobody?

Okay, that's fair.

Uh you're getting a sneak peek into my life.

And anyway, I love watching the shows where it's just like you can make your home this amazing sanctuary space.

Like that's the that's the whole thing about these shows.

How can we make you desire and idolize and envy these sanctuary spaces that you can just come into and just rest and relax and have this fortress of comfort and self-care, right?

That that's that's the whole point of the show.

And then you go out to Home Depot and you try to do something, and um, it's always not as good if you're at my house.

But it's it's at least three-fourths of the way there.

But here's what we do we really look at our homes as this like fortress of which we get to enter into to remove ourselves from the rest of the world.

And and suburban culture is one of the worst realities of that.

And we talked about this at the beginning of the series, but we have uh auto open, like my garage door can open as I'm approaching it so that I can just walk inside without even trying, and then it closes behind me, all intelligent and stuff like that.

And I got cameras and deadbolts, and I've got everything I can to keep out the world around me so that I can enter into this space and I can just be about me.

And we we use our homes in such a way that it's antithetical to the gospel itself.

As if somehow we've been the ones who have built this, we've been the ones who have labored so hard to create this, we've been the ones who have who have been able to create this space, and we don't invite other people into it.

But then some of us also, it's not it's not simply that um we like see it as this fortress or this this castle of which we've so fine-tuned for our comfort.

Some of us, we don't steward God's gift well enough to where we would even feel comfortable having other people into our home.

And I'm just gonna speak to that for a moment.

But is your home clean and in order to be able to invite someone in without shame and guilt and say, sit at my table?

We're not asking for perfection, we're not asking for white glove service, right?

We're asking, do you feel a sense of I couldn't even invite people into my home because of the way that I have not cared for it or steward it in such a way to be able to be hospitable?

Or maybe you've built no margin in your calendar to be able to invite someone over and to eat with them and to break bread with them and to share your life with them.

This is what we talked about in the generosity series.

Uh, Paul really pushes on the church to be able to be generous when the time calls.

Have we built margin into our finances?

To where when the opportunity to be generous uh comes, we're joyfully able to give and meet the needs of our brothers?

And the same with our homes, as our calendars have margin.

To where when the opportunity comes to invite someone into your space, that you've got the margin to do it?

Or are we so me focused that our bank accounts reflect no margin, our schedules reflect no margin, because anytime we find a space, we fill it with something else that serves us rather than serves those around us.

You see, we we all really struggle with this notion of stewardship, of seeing the things that we have as a gift from the giver.

But thanks be to God.

We have a greater hope than our failures and mistakes, our sins and shortcomings, and we find it in Christ alone.

The hospitality of the gospel is in the open arms of Jesus.

This is the image and portrait of hospitality.

You see, if we're called to live with open hearts, open homes, open hands, it's in a response to the reality that Christ died with open arms.

You see, his arms were not closed to us, but in mercy, they were open and stretched across crude timber to welcome us in as his sons and daughters.

And God's mercy on that cross.

God had every right to destroy us in our rebellion and sin against him.

His wrath kindled against us.

But he demonstrates his mercy by not pouring that wrath out on you and me, but pouring it out on his son as he was nailed with open arms to a cross.

And that is so that you and I can be welcomed in to the family of God.

You see, we're emboldened to keep the doors of our homes open to others because we've been able to see and witness the mercy of God poured out for us on the cross of Jesus.

Why can I let go?

Why do I have to not live white-knuckled with the gifts given to me by the giver?

Why do I not have to live in such a way where my heart's closed to my brother, my home is closed to the stranger, my hands are closed to those in need?

Why am I able to live open?

Just look at Jesus.

Because he held on to nothing, but he'd emptied himself with open arms so that you could have a place to call home.

So here's my prayer for us, Sacred Mission.

That we would steward God's gifts through open hearts, homes, and hands.

That we would steward God's gifts through open hearts, homes, and hands.

As we leave here this morning and as we prepare ourselves to respond in worship, can we just try to wrap our brain around none of this is ours?

None of this.

My children are not mine, my wife is not mine, my home is not mine, my career is not mine, my bank account is not mine, none of this is mine.

So I can't live life like this.

I don't have the right to.

I don't have the freedom to do that.

I have the response-filled obligation because of the gospel to open my hands and let go of all of it.

You see, it's all a grace gift given to us for his glory and for the good of others.

So let's seek how you and I can be stewards of these grace gifts.