Stewardship - Part 1

For the next two Sundays.

I have the privilege of speaking to you about stewardship, so I'm going to ask you to turn to Matthew, chapter 6, matthew chapter 6, and verse 19.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention Matthew 6 · chapter mention

I have two scriptures I'd like us to look at this morning, both in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 619, and we will look at a statement in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

Do not I looked up do not in the Greek.

You know what it means Good, do not?

It's pretty deep.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is there, your heart will be also, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.

Notice, your heart follows your treasure.

And if you kindly move ahead, seven chapters to chapter 13 of Matthew, verse 44, one of my favorite parables, one short statement by Jesus the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up.

Then, in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Father, i am asking you this morning to do a profound work in every heart and mind in this assembly, lord, we are not wanting pressure to be bare born on people so that there's some kind of legal guilt ridden response, but we want genuine heart change, and grace is the only thing that will change our hearts.

So I pray for a communication this morning of grace in these texts and through these texts And, lord, i pray for transparency and openness and all the defenses that normally arise in our hearts and resist the truth of the Scripture.

Lord, that this morning they would be demolished and we would receive grace to be good stewards who glorify God in how we conduct our lives.

We bless you, we thank you for the weight of your presence on this word and we acknowledge it in Jesus' name and everyone said Amen.

It's really a privilege to take two weeks and I could be two months, but we're not doing that unless the Lord directs that way.

But this topic of stewardship is so incredibly important Kingdom biblical stewardship, and the first thing everybody hears about or thinks about when I say that is I'm talking about money, which truly.

I am going to talk about money this morning for a while.

But stewardship is not limited to money.

It's much more than money and giving, as important as that is.

Stewardship is more than how you manage your money.

It's your attitude towards life.

At the heart of stewardship is a simple idea, and it is this God is the owner of everything and He has made me His manager, and one day He will call me to account for how I managed what He gave me.

Now, this isn't a difficult concept to grasp, but when a person begins to grasp it and live as a steward of the grace of God, it is absolutely revolutionary.

It changes you in every way, And the reality of it, again, is simple God is sovereign and He owns everything, and He has appointed me to manage some of it for His kingdom purpose and His glory.

Now, obviously, this is where money comes in, because one of the most important aspects of being a steward is managing money in a kingdom fashion, and it doesn't matter how little you have, how much you have, whether you're wealthy or whether you're struggling.

If you are a Christian, you and I are called to steward our riches for the king and his kingdom, and that stewardship, if it's properly lived out, must include must include an intentional, disciplined habit of regularly giving to the work of the gospel and meeting needs.

It will include that.

Now someone asked me it happened not long ago Are you ever do you dislike talking about money in church?

And I can say too.

I said to the person without any hesitation not at all.

Number one, because I'm not teaching this, because the church some of you already are tuned in or you've tuned me out, saying the church needs money and he's putting the heavy on us.

That's not it at all.

Well, it's partially it.

We do need money, but that's not what's motivating.

I'll talk about that in a minute.

But there's another reason why I'm not embarrassed, ashamed or in any way fluttered about talking to you about finances, and this is something maybe you're not aware of, but listen to me very carefully.

The simplest reason I'm not ashamed of it is someone surmised that 15% or more of what Jesus said and taught was related to money.

15% 11% of His 39 parables dealt with money.

But this is a statistic that I wasn't aware of.

It blew my mind One out of every seven verses in Luke apparently references money.

Now, i don't know if that's totally accurate, but I read that.

Check it out.

Maybe it's more, maybe it's less, but this particular person said one out of every seven verses in Luke's gospel reference money.

Now, if that is true, we have a question we should ask at the beginning Why did Jesus talk so much about money?

And here it is.

As simply as I can say it, folks, the simple reality is there is a fundamental connection between our spiritual lives and how we think about money and how we handle money.

There is a vital connection.

I mean I want to be redemptive when I say this, but if you're here this morning and you live in continually deep debt and you're not committed to regularly giving of your money to the work of God and you constantly make unwise purchases that plunge you into further and further debt, debt, you might like to think there's no connection between my spiritual life and my finances, but you are deceiving yourself.

There is, but the best way I can communicate this is to take you on a quick glance through several portions of Scripture.

Maybe this will affirm what we've said about how much of the teaching of Jesus was about money.

A quick glance at Scripture makes it clear that there's a connection between faith and finances.

Consider this John the Baptist is preaching, calling people to repentance, and the crowds say what should we do?

We want to bring forth.

Remember his Clarion trumpet call message Bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance.

Don't just come with words.

He indicted the Jewish people.

Don't say to yourselves we have Abraham as our father.

The acts of the spirit was cutting at racial and religious privilege And he said no, there's only one thing that will evidence that you truly repented fruit.

So they said okay, what's the fruit?

What do we do?

And listen to what John told them to do.

This is amazing, he said.

Number one everyone should share clothes and food with the poor.

Number two tax collectors shouldn't pocket extra money.

Number three soldiers should be content with their wages.

Each answer John gives to the question what should we do to three different groups deals with money and possessions.

But get this.

No one asked John a money question.

They ask him what is the fruit of repentance?

John says it's your attitude towards possessions and money.

Or how about Zacchaeus?

You remember him, the little Jewish guy, the tax collector of Jericho, who, as Jesus, was passing through downtown Jericho.

He was small in stature, he couldn't see Jesus, so he climbed a sycamore tree and he's looking at Jesus and Jesus Christ And there's no evidence in Scripture they had met before.

Perhaps they did, we don't know.

But he stopped and Jesus looked up in the sycamore tree and said Zacchaeus, i'm going to eat at your house today.

And Zacchaeus responds.

You remember his response Because we want to ask the question was Zacchaeus transformed by Jesus?

And if so, how do we know he was transformed?

Listen to Zacchaeus' response to the Master.

He tells the Lord, i will now give half of my possessions to the poor and if I've cheated anyone, i will make restitution fourfold to anybody that I've previously cheated.

And Jesus didn't say anything to him about money.

He called him and said I'm staying at your house, but he was repenting.

The grace of God overwhelms Zacchaeus.

And he said I'm going to show and demonstrate my repentance by what I do with my money.

Fast forward a couple of years, maybe less.

Peter is preaching on the day of Pentecost.

3,000 Jewish people respond to the gospel.

First time the gospel other than from the Lord Jesus is preached on earth.

3,000 respond and they formed the first community in Jerusalem.

And what does Luke tell us was the transforming characteristic of that community?

It said they sold their possessions and gave to everyone as they had need.

Or fast forward again.

Paul is being used by God to bring a tremendous revival to the city of Ephesus And those who respond to his message bring a cultic material given to the arts and to demonic worship and occultism.

And they burned them, and in modern value I am told they were worth many millions of dollars, the occultic material that they no longer knew they could hold on to as Christians.

And they burned it and up in smoke went millions of dollars worth of material.

Or how about going backwards when Jesus praised the poor widow woman, as he's watching them deposit their offerings in the treasury, and he says to his disciples you see that woman who just put in two coins.

She gave more than anybody because they gave out of their abundance and she gave all that she had.

And contrast that to the example Jesus spoke of in Luke's gospel of a rich man who just keeps getting richer.

He sounds like the Donald Trump of his day And he says what shall I do?

I know what I'll do I'll pull down my barns and I'll build bigger barns.

And Jesus called him a fool because that very night, when he purposed to enlarge his wealth and enlarge his barns and storehouse, jesus said you fool, this night your soul is required of you.

And Jesus called him a fool because he said so it is with him who is rich in the earthly sense but is not rich towards God.

And finally, you know, this one is probably the most famous one A rich young man comes to Jesus and says he wants to inherit eternal life.

And after giving him the law, when the man says, i have done all that, jesus took him to the 10th commandment.

He didn't quote it.

Jesus said sell all your possessions, give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven.

Jesus was not making selling all your possessions a condition of salvation, but he did know that this man's God was earthly treasure, so he told him to get rid of it and invest in heavenly treasure.

The man wouldn't.

He walked away sad, but really.

Of all the teaching of Jesus, i think that the text we read this morning in Matthew, chapter 13, one of the salient parables that Jesus gave to his disciples, i believe the parable of the hidden treasure, really summarizes what he taught about treasure and how to steward it.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

You know, when I was a new believer I heard so many sermons on the parable of the hidden treasure and they all, without exception, in my first three or four years of being a disciple, all of them focused on that two, those two words sell all for joy.

He sold all and bought the field.

And I heard sermon after sermon on selling all, the sacrifice of being a disciple.

You've got to sell all if you want to follow Jesus.

Then one day I was reading the parable and after hearing multitudinous sermons telling that this parable was about sacrifice, i read it carefully and realized there's no sacrifice here at all.

What kind of sacrifice?

Listen, here's the parable for those that didn't know it or have already forgotten the reading from 10 minutes ago.

Okay, i'm walking along in the country outside of Knoxville and I find treasure hidden in a field and the fields for sale, and the treasure in that field is worth $100 million.

But there's a problem.

I don't have the money to buy the field.

So I decide I'll sell my house, i'll sell my possessions, i'll sell my car.

I've got to raise the $100,000 so I can purchase the field where I can have $100 million.

That's the only way I'm going to make the purchase.

Would you go to that man or me in this case and say you're sacrificing so much, i am so admiring your sacrifice, that you would give up $100,000 for $100 million?

You are so sacrificial.

No, this man reminds me of a quote that's attributed to I think it's Jim Elliott, who said he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.

This man is not stupid.

He knows and is willing to endure short-term sacrifice for long-term treasure.

And that is exactly what Jesus is teaching on this portion of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6.

Jesus isn't saying When Jesus says do not lay up treasure on earth, he is not saying that you can't have a bank account or it's sinful to invest in the stock market.

In fact, jesus is encouraging us to have a treasure mentality, of storing up treasures, but He is calling us to store up treasures in the right place.

He doesn't say forget about treasure, but He says make sure that you are investing properly by making deposits in your heavenly account.

Author Randy Alcorn said it this way.

It's the best way I've heard it.

I want to take it apart this morning in its two-fold manner.

Number one here's what He said You can't take it with you, but you can send it ahead.

You can't take it with you, but you can send it ahead.

There must be in the disciple a treasure mentality that says I will have earthly treasures on earth.

God will give me the stewardship of certain riches and possessions and things in time.

It's not only money and possessions, it's time, it's abilities, it's talents and we can go into all that.

But I have to be careful and not put my ultimate value on what I have here but make sure that I am building a good account there.

And this is the mentality of the early church and it's almost gone, sadly, in the Western church today.

Consider what Paul said about rich people.

It's not wrong to be rich, it's not sinful to be rich.

There are people in the body of Christ who are rich.

But look at Paul's warning in 1 Timothy 6.

He says as for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.

Here.

It is Thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

Notice Paul's insistence that if you're rich, make sure and invest it properly and meet needs and share with others, so that you might store up a treasure as a good foundation for the future.

By the way, there's some corn coming, get ready.

Those accounts in heaven are FDIC insured.

This time it's the father's deposit insurance company Corporation.

That was bad.

Now, taking the words of Jesus, i believe Matthew 6.19, do not lay up treasures on earth, but lay up treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be.

Also is best described by Alcorn's little truism You can't take it with you, but you can send it ahead.

Let's take some time with those this morning, because it's so critical that we have our mind.

Stewardship is not just about tithing though that's an important part of it but it's about a mentality again of why I'm here and what I do with everything that's given to me and where my hope really lies and where my eyes are really glued to.

First of all, he said you can't take it with you.

I was going to say this, but the worldwide web destroyed my sermon example.

I am so upset because I was telling the pastoral staff that I was doing this message and I said you can't take it with you.

One thing you've never seen is a hearse pulling a U-Haul.

Mark was online and a minute later Mark says no, i found it.

There it is.

The hearse looks like it from 1965, and I think that's the U-Haul that I moved to Tennessee in.

So this is.

The worldwide web Again destroys a good sermon example.

But you don't see this too often.

You don't see that regularly on the streets of Knoxville.

You're not going to see it this afternoon.

Hearse usually don't pull U-Hauls.

Where's this guy going?

You know?

maybe one last stop to see his ex-wife, who knows?

But Jesus' words not to store up treasure on earth are summarized by Alcorn's.

You can't take it with you.

It really is a summary of what Job said when he lost all of his possessions.

His wife said curse God.

He said naked I came into this world and naked I will leave.

The reality is no one takes it with you.

You know, i heard that when John D Rockefeller died one of the wealthiest men ever to have lived his accountant was asked how much money John D Rockefeller left behind and his accountant simply said all of it.

Now, jesus, when he says don't lay up treasures on earth, is not trying to deprive us in this life.

As I stand before you this morning, i'm a blessed man.

God's given me much I am thankful for.

Jesus isn't saying you can't own anything.

He's not saying you can't have a bank account or a stock market portfolio, but he does want us to remember the reality that we came into this world with nothing and we will leave.

And what Jesus wants us to remember always about earthly treasure is it gets old, it is corruptible, it is subject to theft and it loses its luster.

How many remember how you feel when you get the new car?

Remember that new car smell and you get in it for the first time and everything's new and the seats are pristine and there's no cracks in the dashboard and the wheel doesn't look like grease got on it, as mine presently does, and it's new and it's shiny and it has that smell.

And you have that moment where you know it's going to be new forever.

But in a few years the seats are cracking, the dashboard's cracking, the body is nicked, it begins to get old and you start having that feeling again.

Maybe it's time for a new car.

So Jesus is wisely pastoring us and by telling us not to lay up treasures on earth, not to ultimately place our value on things on earth, and one reason simply is they are temporal, they rot, they wear out, they can be stolen.

And besides all that, jesus is inferring something we all have learned, i hope, and that is nothing on earth will ultimately satisfy.

It all leaves us wanting more.

How many of you guys, when you brought the new computer home, unwisely told your wife I will never need another computer?

I remember when I announced to my wife I've got one meg of memory.

No human being will ever need more than one meg of memory.

And then we had the joke because every month when the Macworld arrives in my house, my wife would hand it to me and say let the coveting begin.

There's a side of Shelly.

Most of you don't know, but I did.

I remember what was it.

What was the first?

It was a 128K and then 256, and then we had a half a meg and then we had the one meg machine and you'll never run out.

And now many of you have one gig and you're not doing well.

That was my particular loss, but it doesn't matter.

And Jesus is telling us something that we need to know, and it's this He is reminding us that everyone that ever lived and ever will live has treasure.

Every human being has something they place ultimate value on, and in his negative admonition don't lay up treasures on earth.

Jesus is warning us not to let our value, our treasure, be in anything earthly.

This pertains to more than just money.

A woman who makes her looks her ultimate treasure will find out in time it may not last.

A person who places ultimate value on what people think of them may for a time be sufficiently satisfied that every man and woman likes them, but eventually it will come all crashing down when the opinion of the crowd about them changes, and it will.

So here's what Jesus is doing.

He's the ultimate investment advisor.

He's giving us wise investment advice.

Here it is Don't allow earthly treasures to define you.

He is telling us that the place where we choose to store up what we value most really demonstrates what our values are deep down.

So our Lord says you can enjoy earthly treasure I will bless you with it but don't put your value, don't let the value of who you are, be determined by anything on earth.

And here's how you avoid that.

You can't take it with you, but you can send it ahead.

One author gave an example that I thought was cool.

Say you're alive at the end of the Civil War and you're a northerner who's been living in the South And while you've been living in the South during the war, you have accumulated lots of Confederate money.

But you know that very shortly the war is over, the North will have one and your Confederate money will be utterly useless.

What should you do?

If you're smart, you'll cash in your Confederate money, keeping only what you need to survive for a short time, and put your money in US currency, which is about to have great value.

Now, if you understand that little parable, you understand who the disciple is in this world.

Because, as a believer, you and I have knowledge of something the rest of the world doesn't know.

Number one, the world is going to end and everything in it.

Number two, the kingdom of God wins.

And because you know that, you know that earthly treasures at the end of history will be worthless.

One of two things will happen to make them worthless.

Number one, you will die or, number two, the Lord will return.

But either way, all of our earthly treasures will be worthless.

You know what Jesus is doing.

He's acting as the ultimate market timer.

Anybody know what a market timer is.

A market timer is a person who can read the stock market and know and foresee a downturn coming.

Sometimes they predict upturns, but often they see a downturn coming, so they advise people to switch their investments in lieu of the downturn.

So Jesus tells us in Matthew 6 and other portions knowing what is coming, he instructs us to transfer funds from earth to heaven.

He's the ultimate market timer.

And, by the way, jesus is very bearish when it comes to earthly treasure and very bullish when it comes to heavenly treasure.

So he says here's what you do Store up treasures in your heavenly account by learning to manage properly your earthly account.

You know financial planners.

If you go to them, will tell you if you're going to invest or think three months or three years ahead, think thirty years ahead.

But Jesus has some more profound question.

I want to ask it to you this morning What will your investment be like thirty million years from now?

Say I said to you this morning I'll give you a thousand dollars today to enjoy and spend on anything you want, or you can defer the gratification of the thousand and I'll give you in one year ten million dollars and then every year after that I'll give you ten million more.

How many of you would take the thousand today, or how many of you would delay gratification in the moment in lieu of what you're about to inherit in the future?

You would be foolish to take the thousand.

It is worth it to delay gratification so that you can receive the riches.

Yet that is exactly what we do as Christians whenever we grab on to earthly things that can only satisfy for a moment and forgo something far more valuable in the future.

So here's the question How do we store up treasures in heaven?

One of the most important ways is by making regular deposits in our heavenly bank account, which is FDIC.

In short, god has ordained the system of giving as the main means of making regular deposits, and this makes sense.

Another parable Suppose you're living.

Your home is in France, but you're living in the United States for three months and you're having to live in a hotel And you are told that when you get on the plane to return to France, you can't take anything with you, but you can send money ahead to your French bank account.

How many of you would spend money while you're in the US on expensive furniture and expensive wall hangings and all kinds of decorations?

No, if you were smart, you'd be sending money ahead to your French bank account and living wisely in the hotel because you can't purchase anything that you can take with you on the flight home.

Now, the apostles who wrote the New Testament had this mentality When they thought about money and they talked to the churches about money they weren't talking about.

We need money in the church.

You need to respond.

They were concerned with something much more important.

For instance, paul is in jail in Rome and one church sends him offerings the Philippian church.

We find this in the fourth chapter of the book of Philippians And Paul praises the Philippians.

He says you guys sent more than once.

You sent, i'm paraphrasing you sent a love gift to me when I was in prison And Paul is ecstatic about the gift.

But get this.

He doesn't say I am so needy.

Oh, you met my need.

He's not like a grimy, you know self-willed TV evangelist who just wants more from people.

You know what he says.

He says I am glad, but I'm not glad about you meeting my needs.

I am excited about the fact that there's profit that's going to increase to your account.

That's what excites me.

And if you're a Christian in this room this morning, every one of us has a heavenly account.

So the question is are you making regular deposits into your heavenly account so you are laying in store a good foundation for the future?

Now, you won't do this.

You will not do this unless you're convinced of several things, but one of them is very important, and that is your heavenly home, is your real home.

One of the things we've lost in the church, i think totally is the whole idea of being a stranger, an alien, an exile, as the New Testament uses freely to describe Christians, men and women who are passing through this life, who aren't looking at this life as a place where we settle down and try to amass as much as we can, but we are men and women who move through life as exiles and strangers and pilgrims, and we have our eye on our real home.

We're like Abraham who is looking for a city whose builder and maker is God.

I appreciate living in the United States.

I love living in Knoxville.

I have a nice home.

God's blessed me.

But this is not my reality.

There's something else I'm looking for, and everything I do in this life should reflect on where I'm going.

It's more than heaven as a place I mean biblically.

It's much more than that, but it's real and you won't make regular deposits into your heavenly account if you're not convinced that they are being held in deposit for a rich reward.

Now some of us, when it comes to reward, get sheepish and think it doesn't matter.

I'm saved, i'm going to heaven, that's all that matters.

But that's not true.

Biblically, jesus, in many of His parables, makes it clear that faithful living, where I'm investing what God has given me in the kingdom, the parable of the talents, the parable of the workers, many of these parables all reflect the idea that there are levels of reward and that Christians who are faithful remember what Jesus said to the rich young ruler go tell all your possessions, give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.

In fact, god is so fastidious about this that He tells us that the smallest acts of kindness God is keeping a record of, to reward those who do it.

Jesus said if anyone gives even a cup of water to one of these little ones because he's my disciple, i tell you the truth he will certainly not lose his reward.

In Luke, jesus says it this way if you're not trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will entrust you with true riches?

and this text, along with many others, makes it clear that we, how we handle earthly treasure, determines the depth of our heavenly treasure.

If you handle treasure on earth faithfully, christ says in Luke 16, god will give you the true riches, eternal riches.

Now remember something else your heart follows your treasure.

So if you want a heart for God, make sure you're putting your treasure not an earthly treasure, but in heavenly currency.

And, by the way, god isn't looking for donors who un-cheerfully put the money in the plate and say okay, i did my duty.

Glory to God.

God isn't looking for donors.

He's looking for men and women who are immersed in a kingdom lifestyle of giving and depositing in their account for the future.

Not to say it's wrong to spend money on yourself, it is not To take care of our basic needs.

Everybody in this room has to do that.

But after that, are you and I wise stewards who are making regular deposits in our heavenly accounts?

The question, even greater than depositing in our accounts, is are we living this life as pilgrims with an eye towards eternity?

I want you to take your pulse right now.

I mean why you sit there.

I want you to ask yourself this question Do I have the eternal view of life or am I limited to the earthly view And I want to say unabashedly that if you're not committed to regular giving to the kingdom of God, you can say that you have an eye on eternity.

But it is doubtful, because the man or woman who does will constantly, regularly and committedly be laying up in store for the future.

I don't have any problems saying that.

I don't feel ashamed about it because I'm the lead elder in the church and we're talking about money.

This is biblical.

This is discipleship 101.

This brings glory to God.

Next week I'll talk more basic about in the final message, about how God has designed giving as a major means of making regular deposits in our heavenly account.

But for this morning, the question I want you to remain with where is your focus?

Is it on the eternal view of why you're here?

You know I'm going to be 59 this month.

I can't believe it.

I was so bummed out yesterday.

I was, i was thinking about it And I'm told that there's people near 60, they start going through this.

So those of you who've passed over give me some encouraging words.

The thing that blew my mind is and you guys who are almost 60, say what I heard you don't know any.

We're going to lay hands on Pat suddenly.

But how many of you?

you know, i feel 18.

I still think 18.

But my body's telling me I'm almost 60.

And the thing that blew my mind yesterday is I can't believe, how did I get here?

I remember my school days.

I was thinking about events that happened in my life when I was in my teens and now I'm almost 60.

I'm sorry.

I'm not wanting sympathy, i'm trying to make a point that no person in this room under 30 will agree with.

And it goes so fast and it's almost over.

And I know that our brother Dan was not expecting to leave this world And most of us aren't.

And yet it goes.

And that's where Scripture says life is a vapor.

It's like the morning dew it's here and it's gone.

That's why Jesus' words, as I close, are so salient, so important, so pastoral.

Do not store up treasure on earth.

Don't be defined by any earthly value, whether it be money or looks or popularity or identity, in the things of this world.

Find your value in heavenly treasure and who Christ is and that you are regularly building, an account that you know will wait for you.

And whether you live 40 years, 80 years or the Lord comes tomorrow.

You know that one day you will receive that account and enter the eternal riches of God.

Stand with me.

I'd like you to do something, rather than call you down to the front, just where you're standing.

How many of you would honestly say, as I close in prayer this morning, i'm not a good steward and I really need to become a good steward And I've heard this word and I want to change my stewarding.

I want to live as a steward, as a man or a woman who manages what I've been given by God.

How many of you, just where you're standing, would raise your hands this morning and say That's me.

Would you Look at that?

Don't be ashamed, keep it up.

Keep your hand up While I'm praying.

I want our prayer team to come down and I'm going to pray for everybody holding up their hands.

And I'm not holding up my hand to identify with you.

I'm holding up my hand to be with you.

I was convicted in preparing this whole week that I need to be a better steward of the riches of God, and you see, every hand that's raised in this room and there are many And I pray, father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, that you would convict us and you would give us faith, true faith, to obey you and not continue in poor stewardship habits.

Lord, i pray that everyone whose hand is raised, regardless of how much they have or how little they have, would be committed to regularly and faithfully giving of their finances to the work of God and to the kingdom of God.

Lord, you know what needs to be changed in every person whose hand is raised.

I ask you not only to convict us, but change us at heart level this morning.

Change us by your grace so we are good stewards of all that you give us, so we are regularly depositing into our heavenly account.

Father, teach us what stewardship consists of.

In the name of Jesus, amen.