The Good Life: Direct Deposits - September 14, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6.19, Pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me, so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

I was thinking this week about different kinds of people.

Have you ever met those people, for lack of a better word, just call them Eeyore.

That they're just the kind of people, no matter what bright spot you can discover

and put a spotlight on in their life, they're just so negative.

And nothing is going to ever be good enough. Now, don't point fingers in the room right now.

We'll have an altar call at the end of the service. If you'd like to drag them, no.

Have you met people like that, or is it just?

Okay but on the flip side have you ever met someone that

is just so super optimistic nothing is ever

wrong for real in their world i mean

you could you could be going by the side of the road and see their car all crunched

up like they've had an accident and hit a tree or an animal or something you

get out now hey are you okay oh yeah i'm fine everything's good you just got

in a car accident your brand new car's totaled oh no that's that's nothing i'm good.

Let's look to the positive stuff. And they're just always looking at the positive.

Most people are scary sometimes.

But then you kind of have some people in the middle that they're super optimistic,

yet they're about the reality when things are bad,

but still they can turn something negative into something positive in a real

encouraging and edifying way. Those people are awesome.

I wish I was one of them. And I don't know about you, sometimes I get stuck in that negative track.

And, you know, it's like if Melanie and I woke up that day, she could look at

me and just say, anything I do is not going to be right today.

And she would be correct.

Sometimes we just get stuck in that rut and we need the Holy Spirit to pull

us out of there and to remember to reflect on those things that are good,

that are lovely, that are pure, that are just, and those things that are praiseworthy.

Over the next three weeks, I want to talk to you just about the good life.

Good life, that's a relative term, right?

The good life for me might not be the good life for you. It might not be the

good life for your neighbor.

But what is the good life and what is it all about? And I hope by the end of

this short series that we'll have, like I said, through the rest of this month,

that you will really be able to catch hold of maybe what you already have in your life is good.

Because what we're tempted to do, what happens to us, is we're always tempted

to look where the grass is green or somewhere else. Well, look at their life, man.

Look how beautiful it is. Look how lovely it is. Well, look at my neighbor down

the street. He doesn't have broken sprinklers.

And his yard is looking great.

Oh, I just wish I had that. Or, you know, man, look at how well their kids behave. Look at my kids.

Man, I wish you kids would behave and act like them.

We can always look to the grass as greener on the other side kind of idea.

But really, I think if we look at our own lives, we'll see that God's doing some good things.

The same is true for churches. We had an opportunity to sit with several different

pastors at this pastor's retreat.

Conference and study time that we had, that's a mouthful, at the Cove at the Billy Graham Center.

And there was pastors from India that were there, and there's people from little

podunk churches back in the woods in West Virginia.

But God is doing amazing things in each one of those churches.

The Holy Spirit is moving.

We saw a people group that are still recovering from the hurricane that happened last year.

And as we drove around one road in particular that was covered in water about

this time a year ago, the devastation is still there, but yet there's still

people that have recovered.

There's people that have rebuilt. There's amazing things going on in the community

that still feels the sensitivity toward that.

And I hear about how God's churches came in and they helped.

And of course, we told some of them, we didn't know you all and what you're

going through, But I said, our church, we were praying for you.

And they just were so grateful for your prayers, people, that not knowing them

way back, even some of them up in the mountains that didn't have flood insurance

because they live in the mountains, their churches were wiped out,

their homes were wiped out.

But yet they were still looking at how they could live the good life,

the life that God wanted them to live.

And I think you'll find a good life is not all about stuff.

Stuff maybe has nothing really to do with it.

Because really, when we get down to it, especially today, I want to read a passage of Scripture.

It has nothing to do with things, nothing to do with money. But it has something

to do with the intangible item that each one of us can possess, and that is faith.

And so this morning, I want to invite you, if you would stand with me,

as we read the word of the Lord.

2 Timothy 1, verses 1 through 7,

2 Timothy 1:1–7

the scripture says this, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God,

according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, a beloved son,

grace, mercy, and peace from God, the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing,

I remember you in my prayers day and night, greatly desiring to see you,

being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy.

When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you,

which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice,

and I am persuaded is in you also.

Therefore, I remind you to stir up the gifts of God, which is in you,

which through the laying on of hands,

for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a

sound mind. Can we say that last verse together again?

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.

Praise be to God. Let me pray for us. Father, thank you for your word.

Thank you, God, that We have this gift that you have given us within us,

this life that you have given us.

And Lord, we're not to be fearful over it. God, we are not to cower in the background,

but God, you have given us a spirit of power, of love and of a sound or a right mind.

And God, may we use that to live this good life that you have given to us.

We thank you, Father, and it's in the name of Jesus we pray.

Amen. Thank you. You can be seated.

This good life, I just want to tell you, It's all about generosity.

It's about being generous with what you have. And it's a continuous journey of growth.

I don't know if you caught that in the scripture passage there.

But Paul was saying, this letter's to you, Timothy. You're like a son to me.

And I want to really talk about your faith, the faith first from your grandmother

that she possessed, faith in Jesus Christ,

faith in God, the creator, the revelation that came down through Jesus,

and Jesus that died on the cross for everybody's sin.

And so I just am excited about your faith that first was with Lois,

and then your mom, Eunice, and how her faith was exemplified.

And now, Paul said, I am persuaded is in you as well, Timothy.

This faith that has been passed down, not like a family heirloom,

but passed down through observation, through catching and seeing and modeling

what it's like to follow, to live a life following Jesus Christ.

It's this generosity that comes from God who first gave to us the ability to

believe, to have faith at all, to trust Him, to believe in Him,

and this generous faith that continues to grow.

You know, our default is stinginess, not generosity.

From a very young age, stinginess just comes out.

You know, I won't share any because I don't have clearance to do that,

but my wife tells me all kinds of stories from the daycare about how there's some stingy kids there.

It's not just that Greenleaf daycare, by the way. I should have made that disclaimer.

Don't want to get you fired or anything.

But kids just in general, they're stingy.

You could give a kid a bucket of candy and say, I want you to share this with

your brothers and sisters if they're there.

And so what does the kid do? One for you, one for me. That's pretty fair.

That's pretty generous.

Two for you, one, two for me. All right.

Three for you, one, two, three for me.

You see what's going on with the stinginess? Hey, I'm going to take more and

more and more. Well, that's not fair.

One brother or sister only has three, but by this time, this kid has way more.

We default to stinginess.

It's something we hope that we train kids to grow out of, that we train kids

to be generous and to live a generous life.

Oh, man, depending on how we were raised, it's I got to keep all for myself.

I can't give anything out to anybody else because there's not enough to go around.

And we still have adults that think like that. the scarcity in living,

that we don't serve a God, that He's got unlimited power and resources that

He can give to us to live out the life that He wants us to live.

So this morning, I just want to briefly talk about direct deposits. Now, not your check.

I don't have any power over that for most of you all.

We think about what direct deposit is all about. It's because God has put a gift within each of us.

God has directly deposited within our hearts something, something valuable,

something that you only have control of, that you're an agent of free will.

You can choose what to do with it, but I want to encourage you to do something

with that direct deposit. it?

It all starts from our foundation.

Our foundation, as Genesis 2-7 says, and the Lord God formed man of the dust

of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,

and man became a living being.

Our foundation is that we're created from dirt. How does that make you feel?

Give you all the warm and fuzzies inside today? Yeah, you're just a pile of dirt now.

Now, ladies, you could say, well, it just says there, it's the man said,

Yeah, I know my man's dirty.

Them men are just dirty. But it's the general term for man, human beings.

All human beings, we're created from dirt.

In our essence, and who we are. It doesn't give ourselves kind of a high picture

of ourselves to think about that, but it's the truth.

From dust we come and from dust we go at the end of our life.

God formed man out of the dirt. You know, this reminds us of our humble origins, I think.

This should do great wonders to curb our pride so we don't get too lofty,

think too much of ourselves.

It highlights to me the fact that God can take the most common and the most

basic of things, and he can create things out of that with beauty and splendor.

That he can take a pile of dirt and he can breathe into it life,

and flesh comes and begins to animate and move.

I mean, look at what God does with the most simplest of things.

Think about sunsets, how glorious and beautiful they are.

Sunsets are great. There's never, ever going to be one exactly like the one the day before.

Especially you get the clouds that blow through and the sun that comes through

just below the horizon as it's setting and just the array of colors that you get. Beautiful.

The splendor of just what seems ordinary to us. Yeah, we got a sky,

we got a sun and clouds. God creates something beautiful from that.

We think, in the future, how is God going to make streets of gold for us?

How is gold going to become such an ordinary material as asphalt in heaven?

That the things that people strive over, the things that they dive down into

the Bering Strait of Alaska to suck up with a big hose to try to refine this

gold is just going to be like the road.

God takes the ordinary, the common, the stuff that we try to get rid of out

of our house like dust and dirt. He takes all that and he creates something beautiful.

Something spectacular, something incredible. And I want you to know that that's

what he wants to do with you and your life.

You might feel like dirt sometimes.

You might feel like, man, I'm nothing, but you are God's most prized possession.

His most prized, if I could say it another way, creation.

As a matter of fact, Ephesians says you are his masterpiece,

created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he prepared in advance for you to do.

God's got a very high opinion of you. He wants you to have this life, this good life.

God is not afraid to work with the dirty things. God is not afraid to work with

the awful things or the mundane things.

God can use anyone and anything for his glory.

And so what are we encouraged to do today? We see again in the scripture that

it says, again, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,

into the first man, into Adam's nostrils,

breathed into this pile of dirt life.

And we've got to understand that that was the direct deposit that God gave to

us, was this life that we have.

Man, the spark of life that occurred, that continues even to this day.

It's astounding. It's amazing.

We think about what God wants to do in us. God breathed into us life.

We know that throughout history, there's several men and women that have famous last words.

I won't try to quote any today, but it usually happens.

They say this final thing, and then they breathe their last breath.

And what happens when they do that?

They expire, right? They die.

That breath is so, so important.

The breath that God has put into each one of us. That even on our worst day, we wake up feeling achy.

Man, we wake up feeling like, dude, I just want to stay in bed the rest of the day.

It's cloudy outside. It's foggy outside, but my bed is warm and cozy.

We just want to do that some days. We're just enjoying.

We got the breath of life even on our worst days and even on our best days.

And after the best workout we can have and we're huffing and puffing,

we're like, oh, oh, what a great day, man. That was a great run. That was a great hike.

Oh, that was a great walk up from the driveway.

Even on those days, we're appreciative of the life that we have,

the oxygen, the air that we breathe.

We think about that God has given us this life.

James tells us that this life is brief. It's but a vapor and then it dissipates. It goes away.

Life is so important. I think about our farmer friends here.

And I think about all the work they do to bring about the crops that we have, that we see around.

We went to the Biltmore Estate there in Asheville, a huge place,

and we felt like we were like in Downton Abbey or something.

I'm told it's Downton Abbey, not Downtown Abbey. That's what I called it for

like three years. You watching Downtown Abbey again?

Well, that's another thing you probably shouldn't be watching,

I'm guessing. Abbey going downtown. That doesn't sound good.

In all of the exploring of the Biltmore properties.

I could not believe they had one, I guess it was a field of sunflowers that

was like over three miles long that followed the road all the way up to where

the newer hotel and stuff is.

Behind that, they had a whole bunch of corn that was planted.

And everywhere you went, they had these different crops of different things.

They had a vineyard that was astounding.

And you're just like, wow, is this been around, you know, for over a hundred years.

Well, I think about the seed, the power of a seed, the power of life that's in a seed.

That before the power of that seed can be activated, some things have to happen.

Most significant is the soil needs to be broken up.

Jesus told a parable about a farmer sowing some seed.

He said some of it fell on the ground that was hard, hard packed and it didn't

do what it was supposed to the seed had life to do what it was intended to do

but because of where it was it couldn't do anything it was hard pan could not take root,

but i think about the the guys i gotta go break up the soil i gotta stir up

the dirt so that then that could be nurture nurturing to the the seed that's

placed in there along with the water but the nutrients in the soil and such.

And, you know, I think about when I read this passage and I purposefully read

it from the New King James because it has that wording in there, stir it up.

Paul told Timothy to stir up the gift that is within you, not just the gift

of life, but the gift that comes from the spirit of God.

Paul says that I gave when I laid the hands on you, that salvation that you've

received, those spiritual gifts that were activated within your heart,

the moment of your salvation.

When we think about what the scripture says here, therefore,

I remind you to stir up the gift. NIV says, fan the flame.

I didn't like that verbiage in our neck of the woods at this time of the year,

the bunch of dry grass around.

So stir it up. Same thing as fan the flames.

Get this thing moving.

Let's go. That's what we were saying with the airplane yesterday.

Get this thing moving. I want to get back to Idaho. I won't be stuck in Chicago.

When we think about what this means, we can't expect the gifts to grow in us

unless we stir it up, unless we prepare our hearts,

unless we nurture that seed, unless we let the seed do what it's intended to do, that gospel seed,

the good new seed, that God can take something broken, someone broken,

He could restore true life to them in abundance, and they can live as God wants

them to live in relationship with him.

Paul's letter to Timothy from a jail cell, Paul's crucial message,

if I could talk this morning, stir up that gift.

Use what God has given you. I just ask you rhetorically this morning,

are you using what God gave you?

Are you using your life to glorify him?

Are you using the spiritual gifts that God gave you to serve others and glorify Him?

Are you using your gifts to help others out, to serve others that are in need?

Are you using all this for God's glory, but outside of yourself?

You see, it's important because there's three entities that want that gift.

Life is precious. Remember, God wants your gift. He gave it to you.

And the true fulfillment from that gift comes from giving it back to him.

You know, when we do baby dedications like happened last week,

we're dedicating that child to God.

In essence, the parents saying, God, we're giving this child back to you for

whatever your will and your way is for this child. Lord, we want that to be the case.

When we think that God wants us to give our life back to him,

he recognizes that he gave you life.

That he has created you with gifts, with talents, with strengths,

even with weaknesses that can all be used for his glory.

But you've got to give that back to him. You've got to yield that back to him. So God wants your gift.

Have you given yourself back to God? Hey, even if you're broken,

even if you're like, man, God doesn't want my life.

I made a mess of it. I've done this and this and that.

I haven't treated what he's given me very well.

Hey, God's the best refurbisher there ever was.

You're still under warranty. Give yourself back to God. Let him put you back together.

Let him clean those blemishes. Let him cleanse you from the inside out.

Let him do a work in your life that's transformative. It's not too late.

You see, because there's someone else that wants that gift too.

And this other entity is the one that will say, it's too late.

You've blown it. God will not want you back at all.

That old enemy, Satan, the adversary, the devil, he wants your gift too.

But he might not want it in the way that you think.

He doesn't want you to look evil.

He might even present you as a good looking person.

But what he wants is for you to use the gifts that God has given you.

He wants you to use them for yourself and yourself alone.

He doesn't want you blessing other people.

Definitely don't want you blessing God.

He wants you to have all that you can and keep it to yourself.

Remember what I said earlier?

That our default for generosity is stinginess. that's no accident.

I think it's a result from the fall. It's that sin and that sin mindset that

it's all about me, that I'm number one, and that the world revolves around this guy right here.

The enemy wants for you to believe that lie.

And we even see it in churches when we let our preferences get above the mission that God has given us.

I know you know stories about church splits because the carpet color,

because the shoes turned into chairs, because of the style of music wasn't what they wanted.

Again, revolving around me, my needs, my wants,

rather than looking to the needs of others, being about God's will,

that he wants everyone to come to repentance, being after God's mission,

that Jesus came to seek and save that which is lost.

These two things are looking outward, looking toward others and seeing what God wants to do.

When we think about a third person or third entity that wants your gift, it's other people.

See, the challenge is that other people want your gift too. They want to use your life up.

They want to be in partnership with you in business, in life.

They want you on their team.

But a lot of times, another way to say it is, they want you,

but they don't want your dirt.

They want your gift, but they don't want all the baggage that comes with it.

There's some people I know, they've sacrificed much in their careers because

they chose the high calling of being a father or a mother.

They dedicated their time to the family, to their children.

As a result, they weren't able to take some positions they wanted to.

Why? Because those other people that wanted the gifts of these persons did not

want to allow time for the mom or the dad to be with their family.

They wanted to use them up in their business acumen and their skills and their talents.

Other people are clamoring for what God has given you.

So when we think about all this, I want to let you know that that true freedom

in this and using your gifts and celebrating their gifts, your gifts,

comes from putting both your gift and your dirt into God's hands.

Like I said before, give God all of you, every part of you.

You don't have to get all fixed up and everything to come to God.

You don't have to solve all your problems in order to come to God. You just come to God.

And say, God, here I am. I know I've messed up in life. I know I messed up my

kids, my marriage, my job.

I know I can't even go to the grocery store without messing something up.

Now, here I am. God wants you just like that.

If you don't have any of those things, guess what? He still wants you.

He wants you to give your gift back to him.

Say, God, here I am. You've given me this direct deposit, this life,

these gifts within me, this personality.

Well, you've shaped me in this way, God.

So I just want to give myself completely to you. That's when true freedom comes. You know why?

Because I'm not a pawn of the devil anymore. He's not telling me what I should do with my gifts.

I'm not a slave to other people telling me how I should live and how I should use my gifts for them.

No, I just, I answer to God. I say, God, here I am, all of me.

Would you take me and use me?

Use what you've given to me? We think about the mighty freedom that comes from that.

We're freed up to live as God wants us to live.

We're freed up then to pursue the things that God wants us to pursue.

I want you to know that an object a lot of times is valued, is determined,

I should say, by whose hands it's in.

Not long ago, I went down to Family Dollar. I bought a basketball.

So I don't know if you've ever seen Melanie's truck. It's got some dents in it.

Learning how to drive in McCall, California girl. Learning how to drive in the icy snow.

And FedEx truck parked right in the middle of the road around a curve that's blind.

Anyway, I said, well, it's been five years. Let's see if we can fix that dent.

So I got this basketball. I put it in there and I pumped it up and a little

bit of the dent came out. I said, well, that's pretty good.

Didn't fix the whole thing. But then I started thinking about this basketball.

Yeah, I love basketball. I used to play a little in my day.

With this basketball in my hand, it's not even worth the price I paid for it

because I don't know if I could make any shots anymore.

You take this basketball, though, you give it to one of our students on the

high school basketball team. They could do a lot with it. It's worth a lot more to them.

Take this basketball, put it in the hands of a college basketball player, a pro player.

Boy, that basketball becomes so valuable that if they put their autograph on

it, it's worth thousands of dollars.

You think about the old story of the fiddle or the violin in the master's hands,

how it's just an instrument by itself.

It can't do anything alone, but when you put it in the hands of a master,

that can play beautiful music on it, how priceless that becomes.

I think about even in the Old Testament, a staff,

how valuable a staff was, especially to Aaron before Moses, or with Moses before

the Pharaoh, and how when that thing was thrown down, it became a snake.

How valuable was that? Just a stick.

But God used it in a mighty way. And think about something just as ordinary as a sling,

like a slingshot given to a little shepherd boy who picked up some rocks,

went out and faced a giant that was making fun of his people,

more than his people that was making fun of his God.

And what did God do with that slingshot. Took down the mighty giant and.

Are you in God's hands today? You're valuable to Him.

You're going to be valuable to other people when you place yourself in His hands

in the center of His will. That's when the good life starts to happen.

When you say, here I am, God, take my life and let it be consecrated,

separated, Lord, to Thee.

Say, God, here I am. Hey, everyone in here has problems.

Some of them are huge.

Some of them are small, but everyone's got stuff that we deal with.

When we're in Christ, when we've given our lives to God, He's going to be there

to make us the valuable person that we are.

Have we given ourselves to Him? Have we said, God, here I am.

Use me. Because we know that when we're used, we're blessed.

We can't help but be blessed. In God's hands, our lives are transformed into

something that can change the world, into something that brings salvation to

other people when we share the good news of who Jesus is.

God brings about that transformation in a person's life.

The good life is this. It's realizing the direct deposit that God has put inside

of you, giving you both your gift and your dirt back to God.

He can use it for his glory.

So I just wonder this morning, have you given your life to God?

First and foremost, have you asked Jesus Christ to be your Savior?

And take care of your sin problem first.

Every single person has one. This guy up here too.

There's a time in my life when I had to lay down those sins and say,

God, would you forgive me?

And I know what the scripture says that when I did that, when I confessed my

sin and said, God, I'm a sinner.

I'm not deserving of your love. I'm not deserving of your grace.

I'm not deserving of your mercy.

I'm just a pile of dirt that's broken, not good for anything.

When I confessed all that to God, it says that God forgave me of all my sin.

He breathed into this shell of a boy at the time, his spirit.

He gave me the true life, the abundant life that he wanted me to live that comes from Jesus.

Have you done that first and foremost, given your life to Christ,

to ask him to forgive you.

But then the second part is have you went all in with that and say,

God, you saved my soul, but here's my whole body for you to use however you want.

You want me to go serve someone with the skills that you've given me?

You want me to go and just be with someone and listen to them?

Do you want me to go and to bring a meal? Do you want me to go and just want

me to rake up some leaves?

Whatever you want me to do, God, I'm willing.

That's the part where God, he just really starts to move because he knows he

has permission to use you for his glory.

But in the midst of that, we get blessed.

The blessings of God come our way. When we get to be front lines,

when someone accepts Christ as their savior, when someone says yes to God for

the first time, when someone with tears in their eyes says, thank you.

We didn't tell anyone we were in need, but you brought this wonderful gift to us of this great meal.

When we go on and on with the blessings that God wants to bestow upon the world,

and He wants to use you to do that.

That's the good use of this direct deposit. So, have you stirred up the gift within you?

Are you willing to let God do that within you this morning?

I don't know where you're at in your walk in life with God, but now's a good

time to think about that.

But as the events of this past week unfolded, especially on Wednesday with Charlie

Kirk, I watched the video clip at the beginning just to see the joy on his faith.

Wearing a freedom shirt, the joy on his face as he threw out these hats and

as the people were there.

Folks, life is short. It really is. What are you doing with it?

Charlie submitted his life to God, was going through all this.

He testified to his faith, testified that day to his faith in Jesus.

I'm not saying we will all be martyrs, if any of us.

But I think that there comes a point to where we just say, God, here I am.

Whatever happens, I know I'm secure with you. I know you'll take care of my family.

So God, what do you want? What do you want from me today?

Pray for us, I'll invite the praise team to come up with our closing song,

which is Battle Belongs.

Just ask yourself, am I stirred up to use the gift that God has given me?

Lord, would you search our hearts this morning?

Lord, we know there's some brokenness and there's some grieving.

Lord, there's some understanding we don't have from events this week.

But Lord, even our own personal lives, just us inside our homes,

God, we know there's things that only you can fix.

Lord, if they're going to be fixed. And so, God, we just ask that you would

help us to trust you even in the midst of that.

That, Lord, first we trust you with our salvation. That, God,

we know only you can forgive sin. And, Lord, you're willing to do it if we'll only ask.

Lord, this morning, is there someone here that needs to ask forgiveness for those sin?

Lord, we know that there's some of us that are, and we've been waiting to jump

in and waiting to get involved, but the timing's just not right, but Lord, you beckon us.

Come on, jump in, get in the game.

I've got a great plan for your life, a great will, a great mission to be accomplished.

Lord, I just pray that for those that are hesitant, that God,

they will submit, they'll yield to you, Lord, because you can turn their life

around truly into the good life and that direct deposit that you've placed in them.

God, be with us now as you search our hearts, Lord, as we sing together,

as we proclaim your praise.

Draw us close, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.