"The Generous Life" Pt.3

Hi, this is John O'Zanting, lead pastor of Evolved Church, and this is the Evolved Church Podcast.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

We hope that you find today's message encouraging and full of hope for wherever you're at.

How many people in the room have house sat, dog sat, cat sat?

Anyone?

Okay, so there's a lot of people that understand what it's like to be in someone else's home and for a season have to look after it.

And 18 years ago, I moved to Edmonton and met a friend who had an uncle who had an acreage.

So friend, uncle, acreage.

The uncle asked me and this friend to start house sitting for them when they would go on their anniversary cruises.

They have two dogs and three cats and a big piece of property.

So we were like, yes, of course we'll do that.

And conveniently, their anniversary was a day before my birthday, so every year they would fall on my birthday weekend.

So birthday party at their acreage every year.

And they had a freezer full of steak, they had homemade progies made for us every year.

And uh so we had parties there.

Now, let's just put it this way we weren't bad to the house.

I was leading you on to think that we were gonna probably damage something.

We didn't actually do anything wrong.

The cats were fed, the dogs were fed, they came home and NASA to do it year after year.

But the picture that's painted is it wasn't our home.

We were in it for a season.

We were there to just take care of it.

We were there to take care of the animals, we were there to make sure that when they came back to their property, that it was still standing and that their creatures that they love so dearly, even though I don't like cats that much, that they were still there and still alive and they had been well taken care of.

And it gets us to think about the things we have on earth.

Sometimes we focus on the fact that we are owners of a lot of the things we have.

We have acquired a lot of stuff, but we don't know that we're actually just caretakers of everything that has been given to us.

Caretaker.

That's the view that Jesus wants us to see this morning.

Over the past couple weeks, we've started this series, The Generous Life.

And in week one, Pastor John would talked about how it is actually more joyful to give than to receive.

That one sounds fairly easy.

And then number two, Pastor Nicole had a really good message that was super challenging on greed.

And uh, if you weren't in the room, you really do need to listen to that message.

And then today, my topic is all that we have belongs to God.

And I want to remind you that scholars believe over 25% of Jesus' teachings are actually on either money or generosity.

We look at the red letters in our Bibles and we see a lot of the other things, but it doesn't really clue in that money and generosity is the biggest topic he talks about.

It really is.

Most of his parables actually talk about being stewards and using the resources that have been given.

That means that there's something there that we need to receive this morning.

And we're gonna look at one of those parables this morning.

It's found in Luke chapter 12 in case you want to turn there.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we invite you in to the opening of Scripture this morning to speak to us what we need to hear.

For our hearts to be open to learning what it means to be good stewards of the resources we've been given.

Holy Spirit, speak to each and every heart.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So, in its context, before we read it, this is actually from Jesus' longest teaching on money.

There is two parables that bookend one of the most famous phrases that you've probably heard.

The phrase, sell your possessions and give to the poor.

You've probably heard that in one way or another when it comes to giving and generosity.

But just before that, there's a parable called the parable of the rich fool.

And right after it, there is the parable of the faithful servant.

And these two parables are in significant contrast to one another.

And today we're gonna look at the one of the faithful servant.

The parable of the rich fool is the one with the negative story, a rich man who hoards his wealth and frankly is just a little bit evil.

And the second is a positive story about someone who serves a rich man.

This is the good one.

And that's the one I thankfully get to do today.

So Luke 12, starting at verse 35, it says, Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning, as though you were waiting for your master to return from the wedding feast.

Then you will be ready to open the door and let him in the moment he arrives and knocks.

The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded.

The disciples of Jesus are to be like the servants of a wealthy man.

And just for fun, let's picture someone wealthy in our lives, or maybe you know someone, a celebrity, a wealthy person that probably has a lot of stuff, and you've been called to be their servant and do things and manage their wealth for them.

But the twist of the story is that this servant, um, this master is less of a master and also becomes a servant.

Verse 37 continues, I tell you the truth.

He himself, the master, will seat them.

He will put on an apron and serve them as they sit and eat.

And this is the upside-down kingdom that Jesus tells us about.

The master takes on the role of a servant.

Jesus' picture of God.

God is rich and has so much, but he chose to come down as Jesus to take the place of a servant and serve his servants.

And then verse 42.

The Lord replied, A faithful, sensible servant is one to whom the master can give the responsibility of managing his other household, servants, and feeding them.

If the master returns and finds that servant has done a good job, there will be a reward.

I tell you the truth, the master will put the servant in charge of all that he owns.

If he does a good job stewarding, he's gonna be given more things in his master's house.

The master will trust him with more.

But then verse 45, the other warning.

But what if the servant thinks my master won't be back for a while?

And he begins beating the other servants, partying and getting drunk.

Well, this servant begins to waste the resources.

They're the ones that are not doing what they're expected of.

They're the house or dog sitter that doesn't feed the animals, only eats the food, and leaves the house in worse condition than when they started.

They were not good stewards or good caretakers of the house.

Verse 46 says, The master will return unannounced and unexpected, and he will cut the servant in pieces and banish him with the unfaithful.

And then verse 48 gives us the summary of everything.

When someone has been given much, much will be required in return.

And when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.

So the radical idea that Jesus is laying out here in Luke chapter 12 is something called stewardship.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

In their book, God and Money, How We Discover True Riches at Harvard Business School, by Gregory Baumer and John Cortinez, they define stewardship as this: the active and responsible management of God's creation for God's purposes.

This idea was radical in the time of Jesus, and I believe it's still radical in our minds today.

Our world doesn't look at things to be responsible for God's creation for his purposes.

We want to be responsible of God's creation for our purposes.

And there are three basic components of biblical stewardship that we're gonna look at today.

The first is this God owns it all.

He does.

And in the time of Jesus, there were a couple principles that people were on for money.

It was either one or the other.

There was the one of non-ownership.

So this is what the Greek philosophers were into.

And Plato, in his work, The Republic, talked about a utopian society where all resources were pooled together, there weren't any wealthy people, everyone was working together to make society as a whole function better.

The ultimate, we don't own anything, but everyone is looked after.

Sounds like something that, who knows, maybe that could work.

We don't know.

Society as a whole looking out for one another.

And then there's the more Roman view of that time, which was the one of ownership, where if you had property, it was yours to do with as you pleased.

So for instance, if you owned a barn, you could do whatever you wanted with it.

You could store stuff in it, you could even burn it down if you wanted to without punishment because it was yours.

And I see some teenagers in the room.

If you have a barn, please don't burn it down.

You know, parents, I did my part.

If they do it, it's on you now.

But the point is this the stuff that they had was theirs.

That's how they felt.

And I think we can relate to that in North American culture.

But Jesus gives us a third model, not of ownership or of non-ownership.

His is of stewardship or caretaking.

And in the very first book of the Bible, right in Genesis, it talks about how God created the heavens and the earth.

The Hebrews' way of saying he created everything.

The universe is his creation, everything in it is his creation.

He placed Adam and Eve in the garden, and he literally breathed life into Adam's lungs.

Life itself is a gift from him.

And he put man and woman into the garden to take care of it and to work in it.

And this theme runs all through the Old Testament of God owning everything.

We're gonna look at a few of those this morning.

Leviticus 25, verse 23.

Leviticus 25:23

The land must never be sold on a permanent basis, for the land belongs to me.

You are only foreigners and tenant farmers working for me.

Deuteronomy 10, 14.

Look, the highest heavens and the earth and everything in it all belong to the Lord your God.

And then Psalm 50, verse 10 to 12.

Psalms 50:10–12

For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.

If I were hungry, I would not need to tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.

The idea all the way through the Bible, up till Jesus here in Luke 12 is that God does own it all.

Yes, we have the ability to buy and sell and manage and invest, but we are just the caretakers.

We are not the owners.

God owns it all.

And that leads us to number two.

We are entrusted by God with resources to do good.

God owns it all, but he gives us things to steward for him.

Many of us live under the assumption, and it is a false assumption, that whatever money we receive from work, from our paychecks, from an allowance, from anything we win, who knows where you're getting your money from, but we think that it's ours.

We find it on the street, we think it's our money to do with and consume as we please.

Many of us do live above the line of being able to pay off our bills, but some of us live so close to that line, and Pastor Nicole talked about so great when it came to greed, the idea that there are people living at the line of their bills and they don't even know if they have enough to pay it at the end of the month.

Well, where's the margin for generosity in that?

If you're in debt and under the line and can barely pay anything, you're never gonna be able to be generous.

So this is an important thing to remember.

None of it is ours to begin with.

We don't realize our money is actually not for us.

Well, some of it is for sure because we do have practical needs.

We do have to provide for our families, we have food to put on the table, we have a roof over our head, and it needs heat in it in this culture, in North America, specifically in Edmonton, as it's getting colder.

But also, he also wants us to be able to enjoy things on earth.

Sometimes believers believe that, well, when it comes to money, it's either you spend it all and you're on and you leave it away from God, or you give it all away, but there's no room for an enjoyment.

But 1 Timothy 6, verse 17 actually tells us that God wants us to enjoy things on earth.

1 Timothy 6:17

It says, Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable.

Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.

He wants us to have enjoyment on earth.

Eugene Peterson in his message translation goes on, and I'm gonna read a couple more verses here in chapter six.

It says, Tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow.

Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous.

If they do that, they'll build a treasure that will last, gaining life that is truly life.

You see, God isn't a stingy investor, He is a generous father who wants to bless you, He wants to give you good things for your enjoyment, but it's also not all to spend.

Some of our money is to give away to the poor.

Some of our money is to help family or friends in need.

Some of our money is to give to the church to further the gospel.

There's a lot of places for our money to go.

Some of it is actually for us to build for our futures, to take care of our families' futures, for what God has in store for our future.

Maybe it's for your business to do good things so that one day you'll be able to make something of it and turn it into something that's giving seed to the kingdom.

Dreams that are placed on your heart that one day are gonna come to pass because you're saving now.

We are entrusted by God with His resources to channel every dollar to the right place.

We are stewards.

In our economy and our world, a good model of this would be an asset manager, someone who helps people invest their money in order to bring back good returns.

And so we're gonna picture someone that has a million dollars to invest and they take it to someone to invest for them.

And that person comes back after the year's over and they bring them back$100,000.

And in that world, 1% commission is about the right amount for a return.

So they actually get it on the whole amount, so they would get$11,000.

Not bad off of one person's money for the year, but the owner of the money also gets$89,000 profit.

So it's a win-win.

But what happens when that manager loses$100,000?

Well, that's probably a tough year-end.

They still are gonna take some money back because they did do their work, but then they're probably not getting any new resources from that owner.

The person whose money is is probably taking their investment elsewhere.

That person might not have been the best.

Or worse, what if they made$100,000 but kept it for themselves and got a vacation property timeshare somewhere in the world because they felt they deserved it?

Well, in this case, that's a little bit further, and that's actually stealing, and the authorities might get involved, and that person probably isn't practicing anymore.

But the point is this we have been given resources to steward to do good things with, to bring back a return for God, but in the midst of it, we are also gaining as well.

And there is that thing that we need to see.

Because our point number three is that God blesses us to give more, not just to have more.

We see this idea all throughout Jesus' parables on stewardship.

Those who steward the master's resources well are given more resources.

But no one does a better job of describing this than Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians.

It's one of the trademark passages on generosity in the New Testament, and you've probably heard some of these verses before when it comes to money.

And in this context, he is helping a church raise money for the church in Jerusalem who is going through famine and is really in need.

He's raising up funds to help another church.

Something we actually see quite often in our context.

We love to be able to bless other churches who are struggling, we love to be able to help others, and this is the way that Paul teaches that church on how to give and the best ways to be generous.

2 Corinthians 9, verse 7.

2 Corinthians 9:7

You must each decide in your heart how much to give.

And don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure.

For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.

God desires for us to give without being coerced into just giving a minimum percentage.

He desires for us to prayerfully listen to Him and what He is stirring inside of our hearts to give joyfully.

Then He goes on to write something I want all of us to see, verse 8.

And God will generously provide all that you need.

Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.

As the scriptures say, they share freely and give generously to the poor.

Their good deeds will be remembered forever.

For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then the bread to eat.

In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources, and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you.

Yes, you will be enriched in every way, so that you can always be generous.

And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God.

So two good things will result from this ministry of giving.

The needs of the believers in Jerusalem will be met, and they will then be able to joyfully express their thanks to God.

And if you just pick and choose verses from a passage like this, it can sound very close to the prosperity gospel, which is a uniquely North American heresy that says we give so that we can get, and it stops there.

If you give to God, he will bless you and give you more, which ultimately means that the motivation for giving and generosity is greed, not love.

We need to be giving with the motivation of love.

There are two really important words that separate that prosperity gospel from what Paul wants us to see.

Did anyone hear the two words?

There it is.

So that says, you will be enriched in every way, so that you can be generous on every occasion.

The prosperity gospel isn't really a lie, it's just a half-truth.

It's missing out on the most important part.

When we give and we are good stewards of what has been entrusted to us, God often does give us even more.

Our harvest, as Paul describes it, may come back in the form of more money.

It may come back in the form of more opportunities to do good things or great works.

It may come back in the form of more relationships that God entrusts us with.

It might even be just providing us with good health for a long time because we've been good stewards of what we have.

But it does say that there will always be a net gain for us.

There's that common phrase you've probably heard, you can't out give God.

But the purpose isn't so that it can make us rich.

Instead, it's just to make us even more generous.

Not to build bigger houses and bigger garages so that we can accumulate more stuff.

It's there so that we can channel and steward God's resources to the right place.

As James Merritt put it, God blesses us to raise our standard of giving, not our standard of living.

So a little recap before we move on.

God owns it all.

We are entrusted with his resources to do good, and God blesses us to give more, not to have more.

When I was preparing for this message, I was listening to a podcast on generosity, and in it, one of the pastors was talking about how he was invited out to a meal with some other guys.

And uh they asked him this question that probably caught him off guard at the meal, and they said, Pastor, how much is okay for a pastor to make?

Like, how much money is okay for them to take home for their income?

And he was caught a little off guard and blindsided because it's like a trap question.

And so his response first was, Well, how much is okay for a Christian to make?

And that's a little bit closer to the truth.

But often Christians ask themselves, how much should I give?

How much should I give?

And then they started talking about maybe the question to be asking is, how much is okay for a Christian to actually keep?

And that's where you start.

Not about the calculating of, well, 10%, the tithing as a central practice, not about the math of getting to 10% or 11% or 12%, but maybe it's actually talking about God, how much should I keep from this?

It's easy to think that, you know, I give my 10% and the other 90% is, or yeah, the other 90% is ours to do with whatever we want.

But if everything belongs to God, that actually means all 100% of it's already God's.

10%'s a great starting point, it's a great spot.

But what about asking God about how much he actually wants us to keep of what he's given to us?

There's a famous dichotomy.

When it comes to money, we have on one side the savers, and on the other side we have the spenders.

And I'm sure everyone in this room can figure out where they are on the scale.

But on the extreme ends, a saver is someone who's motivated more by fear and a need for safety and security than anything else.

On the far other side, our spenders are really motivated by greed and the lust for more.

I don't think any of us are fully on the edge of these scales, but we're probably on one side or the other a little bit.

But that third option comes back to that word that God talks about.

We don't need to just be a saver or just a spender.

We need to be a steward.

Someone who has an act of following Jesus and being discipled by him is working at channeling God's resources for good.

So then this raises all sorts of questions that we can start asking in our lives.

So, okay, how much should I give?

How much should I keep?

What do I give?

Where do I give it?

Who do I actually give it to?

Can I trust that person I gave that to?

What's an appropriate standard of living?

Where's the line between enjoying our life before God and wasting his resources?

Can I buy that really nice new truck?

I mean, 0% financing, it's a great deal.

Too good to be true.

How many pairs of shoes is one or two or ten too many?

Is another Lego set really something I need right now?

Or this one, how many black sweaters should I wear and own?

Right, Pastor Nicole?

But truthfully, we can all ask ourselves these questions.

And there's really no simple answer.

It's really complex.

Some of you have kids that you actually need to provide for.

If you just start living too generously and you can't give to your kids and provide them with their needs, well, you need to rethink that because you do have a responsibility to your family.

But then you still need to be asking these questions.

And even though they're hard and there isn't actually a truthful, full answer in the New Testament, as much as we'd love it to tell us, okay, what's the formula?

How do I do it?

We need to still be asking these questions.

It's when we start asking the questions and inviting him into the process and talking about these things that we start to realize, oh, I actually do need to think about money more.

Not out of a way to get more, but actually out of I need to steward what I have just a little bit better.

And as I start to ask these questions daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, maybe there's a part where the Holy Spirit starts to begin to speak to you.

And if you never allow the Holy Spirit time and you never ask these questions, you might just stay stuck where you've always been.

The New Testament calls us to discernment, to listen deeply to God, to listen deeply with the singular desire to know and do his will.

We talk about his will a lot when it comes to what we should do with our lives, where we should go, but when it comes to money, it's kind of avoided sometimes.

So even though there's no simple answer, there are six basic guidelines that Paul lays out for us in his two letters to the Corinthians that I'm gonna leave you with this morning.

Number one, our giving and generosity needs to be regular, not sporadic.

He writes in 1 Corinthians 16, verse 2 on the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money.

1 Corinthians 16:2

Number two, our giving needs to be proportional.

Each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income.

Meaning the more money you make or have, the more you should give.

There's no exact percentage, but if you're way higher up on the scale, you're probably giving a higher percentage than the person lower on the scale.

If you're barely able to fund your basic life necessities, you're still called to generosity.

But it's going to look a little bit different than the person with a successful business that has hundreds of employees and is way further down the line.

God's call is still the generosity for all of us.

We just need to figure out what it looks like for each and every one of us in our lives.

But the basic principle there is this the more you make, the more you give.

Number three, our giving needs to be sacrificial.

They gave as much as they were able and evened beyond their ability.

2 Corinthians 8 verse 3.

2 Corinthians 8:3

It needs to hurt a bit sometimes.

If it never hurts, is it really generosity?

Like if we just have so much, so much excess that we don't even notice when we give, is that actually being generous?

I mean, it might be, but I don't know.

I don't have that excess that some people have.

But if it doesn't hurt, does it even count?

There's been so many great discussions already coming in small groups from these questions that are coming up, from greed, from being a joyful and cheerful giver, that start to make us think about the purchase we're making and whether that ends after this month or not, who knows?

But it's been really like forcing me to look into my own heart and learn about ways that we can change our habits.

Thinking of the when we're buying something of like, oh, double checking, maybe we should just we can afford this, maybe we should give this to someone else instead.

There's been talks, even as staff at lunch throughout the week, and joking about do we really need to go buy that coffee?

Do we really need to do this?

Like it's actually asking real questions when we think about the things we buy on a day-to-day basis and realizing maybe there actually is the ability to sacrifice something that we do on the norm to give to someone else.

Number four generosity in giving needs to be voluntary.

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion.

Which means we need to make space to pray and to discern, and then more space to pray and discern some more, and to listen and to listen, and to listen.

It doesn't always come fast or easy.

Number five, we need to be joyful.

For God loves a cheerful giver.

It's a line we all know.

But on the other side, God doesn't need or want grumpy money.

If you're giving, but it's out of a grumpy mindset and you're just giving because it's one of those principles you've always done.

God doesn't need it.

God already owns everything, He has unlimited resources at his disposal.

He doesn't need our grumpy money.

So we really need to think in our hearts why we're giving and come to that place where we can give cheerfully.

Come to that place where we're motivated properly.

And that's the sixth one.

We need to be motivated by apprenticeship to Jesus.

Not out of religious duty, not out of philanthropy, but out of God, I want to be your disciple.

We say that all the time.

How can I be discipled?

How can I learn more about what it means to be a disciple?

Well, that should also be our motivation for generosity.

Jesus was very generous.

Jesus gave up his life for us.

And if we want to model our lives after him, we need to live that generous life too.

We need to be willing to sacrifice and give, knowing that that is how we actually train in kingdom living.

2 Corinthians 8 verse 9 said, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

2 Corinthians 8:9

So even though there are some questions that we are asking, even though we don't have all the answers, we don't just have to fly blindly.

There are guidelines for us to follow.

But it still takes work, it still takes having our hearts in the right place.

Because the lack of a clear rule to follow means we have to listen to the Spirit of God in our heart to regularly come to a quiet before God and ask him, Father, thank you for the gift of these resources.

What do you want me to do with them?

Do you do this ever?

Do you listen to God when it comes to this?

We're gonna do a survey that you can all fill out in your own hearts, but if picture a piece of paper, pass around with three options on it, you have to check one of these.

Number one, I do not listen to God.

I don't really go to him with anything.

Number two, I listen to God, but I don't really go to him with money questions and listen to him about that.

But I do listen to him, just not about generosity.

And then there's the third option.

I listen to God about money and generosity, and I ask him, is this for me or is this for me to give away?

Many of us don't listen to God because we're scared of what he might say.

We're scared that as we give away our money, we're actually giving away some of our happiness because our happiness is tied to the things that we have.

We're scared that it might hurt, we're scared that we're not gonna have enough.

But that means we're forgetting that God is more than just our Heavenly Father, He's our provider.

He promises to take care of us and give us enough for every season.

He loves you, He wants to give you more.

Which is why Jesus says in the same passage we read in Luke, do not be afraid, little flock, for your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.

God isn't a stingy investor out to maximize his profit margins.

He's a loving father who wants to bless you and form you into a son or daughter who is like himself, generous and joyful.

And it's our honor to actually get to steward these resources that we have.

I'm gonna get you to stand in the room this morning.

And I'm gonna invite you into something this week.

To radically rethink your relationship to your money, to your resources, to stop thinking of yourself as an owner and start thinking of yourself as a caretaker, as a steward, and to begin the lifelong journey of learning to listen to the voice of your loving, generous, joyful father and provider.

And there's so much practical things that can come from this.

There's homework that can go along with this.

And I think we I want to challenge you to start asking questions about finances in your life.

Start bringing other people into this generosity in your life.

Because when you keep your finances and money hidden, there's no one that can ever speak wisdom and love and encouragement into you to challenge.

Because for all you know, you're just bad with money.

Some people, they just don't know how to manage their money well.

It's not that they're trying to be wasteful or that they're trying to be greedy, they just were never taught how to properly handle the things that have been given to them.

But there are people in this room, even that are very wise when it comes to that.

There are people that God has given a gift to that know how to properly steward and manage and be generous.

And if that means for some of you in this room, it means finally creating a budget and looking at your money that comes in and not waiting till the end of the month just trying to pay off your bills, hoping that they'll be enough, and then the next month hoping they'll be enough.

There's actually a way to start figuring out how you can get there and actually have some margin to give and to be generous, and even margin to save and start getting ahead in life.

But it comes to doing what we say we're gonna do.

It comes to doing what we say we're gonna do.

Inviting God into our hearts and asking him those questions.

So if you can all close your eyes and just think in your heart, maybe one of these six areas that maybe you need a little bit of work in.

Maybe this morning you realized you don't really give that regularly.

You give occasionally, you give sporadically, but it's not a normal part of your life.

Or for maybe there's others in this room that you need to start learning to give proportionally.

You've given the bare minimum right now, but God's calling you to so much more.

For some, maybe it's the sacrificial giving.

You're feeling in your heart right now that the Holy Spirit's telling you to start thinking and start seeing the things you can give up and sacrificing so that you can be more generous.

Or others in this room, maybe you've only ever given out of a sense of duty and you feel like it's almost forced as if I'm a Christian, I have to do this.

Maybe you need to start feeling the idea of giving voluntary, becoming a joyful and cheerful giver.

Or maybe you just haven't had that motivation that it's actually part of discipleship with Jesus.

We want to be his disciples, so we also need to give him our money and our generosity.

So as we close in prayer, just think about where you're at in your life, the questions that you have in your heart, and take it to the Holy Spirit.

Heavenly Father, we invite you into this room, into our hearts, to challenge each and every one of us to a new way of thinking when it comes to our finances.

When it comes to generosity, that we would realize that we are stewards and that everything we have is yours.

Help us to see that we get the honor and privilege of making decisions to put money in different areas.

Would you help guide us?

Would you help us be more discerning of your spirit?

Would you help us just to learn to live a little bit more generous?

We thank you that you are a part of our lives and that you want us to have enjoyment on earth.

We thank you that you sent your son Jesus to model the path of generosity.

Just be with us as we continue to worship.

Thank you so much for listening to today's message.

If you're ever in the Edmonton area, hop by for a visit.

And if you need any more information, visit EvolveChurch.com.

We hope to see you soon.