[0:00] What a beautiful song. I don't think it could have been any more beautiful if I would have sung it myself right there. You sing over me. That just ought to make your heart leap out of your chest.
[0:11] The Bible is full of imagery of God singing over his people that were once his rebel. And that we are now his children. Allusion there, that song to the prodigal.
[0:21] We were in it for two weeks. So questions that you might ask yourself if you come out of the prodigal story. Never having taught like this through this portion of the Bible. I'm just so amazed at the harmony of scripture.
[0:33] Of how it presents a question and then it answers it in the next one. So as we leave and I'm thinking about the prodigal on the property. I'm thinking what does his life look like now? Just being all given completely to the work.
[0:47] I mean just in a new not working to earn his place. His dad already said you have a place on this farm. You have a robe. You have a ring. You don't have to earn it. So what would his life look like?
[0:57] And I believe it would look like diligence. I believe it would look like resolve. I think he would have given himself fully with all of his heart. But one of the lines, this is one of the things I appreciate so much about musicians that don't just know how to sing.
[1:13] But also know the Bible. Is that as we get to this passage one of the lines in that song said. Where are all the friends that I have that their money had bought?
[1:23] Right? Did you see that? It was on the top line. I knew it until I walked up here exactly how it was said. But like and you know he bought friends. Right? He did. He had the money and it lasted for a long time.
[1:35] But when it ran out his friends were gone. And we see that in life and in the Bible. The friendships that he had bought. That idea, purchasing, buying friends with money, sounds weird, doesn't it?
[1:48] It sounds kind of sinister. As we look at this passage today, I think you're going to find this idea of buying friends with money. Or using your resources, talents, and influence to gain friends.
[2:01] To be something that is not only negative. But it's something that could be commended in the story we look at. Let me review. So much of a parable. It's just making sure that you understand what the story is telling.
[2:16] Jesus is giving the parable. So we really want to make sure that everyone in here, we have understanding contextually what's happening. As I say, what is it that the people that first heard the parable, what they would know.
[2:27] That's available to us from the Bible. Then we also look at how it's lived out in the lives that we live. So it starts off just like the prodigal story. There was a certain man. This is a man that has great wealth.
[2:39] How do I know that he has great wealth? So much that the people that owe him debts owe him a lot of money. The two examples given. It seems like there's more people that owe debts to him.
[2:49] But just the two examples that are given is a large amount of money. One of them, when it talks about the oil, you know, this isn't Texas crude, which is pretty expensive oil at the gas tanker.
[3:00] Gas is pretty expensive. But this is another type of oil that you cook with. This is olive oil, right? Which isn't cheap either if you buy the good stuff, right? Olive oil.
[3:11] A hundred. We're looking at nearly a hundred gallons of olive oil in the story. It would take 150 trees. A lot of work. Not just money, but time being spent.
[3:22] Taking the olives and then pressing them. A lot of time and a lot of energy. That's one. And the other one has to do with the wheat. It said that this would be about what a hundred acres would take in seven or eight years.
[3:36] All those numbers may not be exact, but it helps you understand a large amount of money. So this man has some money. And he doesn't even deal with somebody directly. Somebody owes him that much money and he doesn't deal directly with them.
[3:50] He has a steward. I'm picturing a butler, all right? I'm picturing a guy in a tuxedo that would met somebody at the door. That's probably not what's going on. But he watched over the entire estate.
[4:03] He had the ability to make deals and buy and sell. If they would have had what animals he could have bought and sold with the power of attorney without having to go to the master.
[4:14] We've seen this in the Bible. We see it with Josiah. We see it when Isaac needs a wife that there is a servant that's sent out. That's a lot of responsibility when the guy says, yeah, today I need you to go find a wife for my son.
[4:25] All right? That's the kind of thing that we're looking at in this manager. He has a lot of influence there. But then it's reported. A report comes back and it's negative.
[4:36] You have not been managing my resources well. And now I've heard about it. And I want to talk to you about this. I'm going to let you know you're fired. You're not cutting it, all right?
[4:47] You're done. But before you go, you need to go and gather up all the numbers and bring it back to me so I can just see how bad you have left me.
[4:58] So we go with a friend in the church recently that had moved jobs and I was asking them what it would look like. And in their business, when you say you're done, you box everything up typically and you walk out, right? They don't need you taking ideas or taking clients with you.
[5:12] And in this case, you would think that he would have just said the day is your last day, but he didn't. He said, you're fired, but I want you to go. And that's when we get to the point where the guy says, I can't hold a shovel.
[5:24] I can't beg. I am not made. I don't know if maybe in years he'd been working what you call a white collar job for all these years, but he knew that he wasn't fit for that type of work.
[5:34] And he said, I have to do something. And then he says, I am resolved. I am resolved. I have a plan. I know what I'm going to do.
[5:45] So he sits down with the man and he says, sit down quickly. That's what the Bible says in the Bible. He tells him to sit down quickly. And you always know something's up when you go to know you're buying a car and they're like, hey, sit down real quick.
[5:57] All right. I can give you a real good deal, but we got to do this real quick. Like, all right. You know, something's up. Or if you've ever been on a sale for a timeshare, me and Stephanie did that on our honeymoon because I'm such a tight wallet.
[6:09] I'm like, you know, just take us a few minutes. Then we'll go to Disney World. Horrible plan because it didn't take, it wasn't a short amount of time. But they want to rush you into something. So he says, sit down and write on this piece of paper that you don't owe this much, 100, that it's 50, that it isn't 100 or it's 80.
[6:27] Take that deduction that is here. And what he was doing is he was buying favor with those people that he's meeting with because the time would come where he would not have a place to go because he said, I can't lose the stewardship.
[6:43] He would have lived on the property. He would have lived on Downton Abbey, all right. He would have lived in the big house where the property was. He didn't, he lived on the property and he was about to lose all of that.
[6:54] And he needed a plan when that happened so that now when he leaves, he can go up and like, hey friend, remember me last week? I saved you $50,000, you know.
[7:05] Remember how I helped you out? And in that culture and even in every culture we have a culture of shame, which was, Ben, if you don't, you know, if we did this together and you don't help me out, I'll let everybody know what happened or you were involved in this.
[7:19] You ought to at least help me build a resume for a new job. That's the story that Jesus tells. And then he says, I commend him for the fact that he was wise in this.
[7:33] And that's the problem that people would call, they say that it's problematic, is because why would Jesus take that story, which seems to be unethical, and what would he be highlighting about it?
[7:43] What is it about it that should be replicated? And then he says that the children of this world have something that they could teach us children of the light, in the light, about the way that they live out their lives.
[7:56] And let's look at a few of those. It starts in verse number nine. As I said, the first eight verses is that story that I just told you again, then Jesus is going to give application.
[8:08] You know, when Jesus speaks about war, Paul will talk about, he'll compare things to war. He'll talk about boxing. And that we have examples of things that in them there's lessons to be learned.
[8:18] Doesn't mean that the practice needs to be replicated, but there's a lesson that's being highlighted. So what is it, as I said, that Jesus is highlighting about that situation that ought to be found in our lives.
[8:30] And I believe the thing that ought to be found in our lives, the type of resolve, is the same type of resolve that we would have seen in that prodigal son when he got back on the family farm. A way in which he would have lived his life very intentional.
[8:44] A way that he would have lived his lives in every resource he had in gaining friends for the kingdom. Verse number nine says, And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.
[8:57] You see this term mammon, this unrighteousness, that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitation. The first thing that we see about this man is that he is considering the end game.
[9:11] The steward is knowing that he would be called to account for and that he is using his present position to prepare for the next stage of life. Remember in verse two it says, You can no longer be the steward.
[9:24] And so he's being put on notice. He is told that, hey, I'm giving you a two-week notice. You're not giving me a two-week notice. I'm giving you a two-week notice. And so he's being put on notice.
[9:36] And remember the story of the prodigal when it says that the younger one, he came to himself. He realized, this is not where I need to be. Or then we left with the older one out there where the father is entreating him because he is angry.
[9:49] He's not coming into the home. These are crisis moments. Now this man has, I will no longer be a steward. There's going to come a time very soon where I will no longer have the resources that I have to do something with them.
[10:03] So now I need to do something. He's brought to a crisis moment and he considers the end game. He considers what he ought to be doing in the present situation to prepare for his future.
[10:16] Patrick Henry is one of our strategic partners in Argentina. He said something to me a few months ago that I can't stop thinking about when it comes to teaching the Bible. He said, I got to a place where I realized in Argentina that it wasn't my responsibility to just teach a lesson on prayer.
[10:32] It was my responsibility to teach the people to pray. If you've ever taught and all of you have in some way or another, you know the difference in that. It isn't just writing a sermon. It isn't just telling a story.
[10:43] It is really getting to the heart of where it's at. That's what we have here with Jesus. Jesus is telling a shocking story. It shocks their system because he's really wanting them to get awoken to the fact that they are not living in their lives in the way that God would have for them to do because they have the wrong master.
[11:03] They're living according to a different nature that was here. We will all give an account to God for the stewardship of our time, our talents, our resources, and our influences.
[11:14] We will all give an account for those things in our lives. And just like the man in the story, we should consider the end game. We should consider the end of this.
[11:26] You know, and so when we speak about money, that becomes very personal. It's a personal thing. A third of the parables that Jesus gives has to do with money.
[11:37] When you could accuse a preacher like myself or other people and you'd say, these people are really caught up with money because they have self-centered motives. Do you really believe that the creator of the universe came to earth to create a pyramid scheme?
[11:50] Certainly not, right? It just wouldn't be very effective if you're like, I'm going to come down there and I'm going to work these people out of all of their money so that I can build streets of golden heaven. There's like no logic to it, all right?
[12:02] So obviously, if he's speaking about money, he isn't doing some capital campaign. He isn't just trying to raise money. He believes that in loving and caring for people that it's somehow connected to them in a personal way.
[12:16] When I was in middle school, one of my friends I played basketball with, he decided that he was going to rob the store that my mom ran. He didn't do it in the middle of the day while she was there.
[12:26] He just kicked in the door, took the money out of the cash register. That makes for an awkward basketball practice, all right? And so when I talked to him about this, I'm like, hey, you know, that's not cool.
[12:38] You know, we kind of, money buys food and I eat food and you kind of took it, right? That's a problem. He wanted to act like it wasn't personal, right? But there's no way in which it wasn't personal.
[12:50] It affected my life personally. David, do you have any cash on you right now? Jennifer doesn't allow you to carry cash. Let's see. I didn't think she did. Coach, you got any money on you? You ain't telling the truth.
[13:00] Come on. Micah, you got any cash on you? All right, Micah, would you mind? Can I see this cash here? All right. I am not allowed to carry cash either. I'm like my other two friends here. All right. We have some cash here.
[13:12] I know. Oh, son. All right. I'm just going to go with the 20 here. They say it's the new $1 bill, you know? 20 is the new $1 bill. All right. Don't forget where I got this. All right. Thank you, Micah, for letting me borrow $20.
[13:23] I'll get it right back to you. All right. And so I have this $20 bill. And there's just something about it. As I was considering today to think about how personal money is, I really pulled back.
[13:34] Like, I can't be standing in front of the church holding money. It just seems weird. It's unrighteous mammon. It like has this weird feeling. Like, whoever's watching online, they just tune in. They're like, there's a preacher. He has money at the front of the auditorium.
[13:46] Click. Next church. All right. I know what's going on here. Stay tuned. All right. We're not done yet. All right. And so I have this. And I know that Micah works very hard what he does in the building industry and not just physically, but mentally, the work that he does.
[14:02] And especially the time that we're in right now where you have to order things. Like, before you even think about building a house, you need to order the windows. Right? All these things. All the headaches that Micah would have.
[14:12] Well, this represents time, energy, sweat that he was to give this to me. If I was to keep this from him, I'm taking minutes of his time. I'm taking energy of his time.
[14:23] It's personal. There's no way that you can't. That he has transformed his time and energy into something small enough that he can carry in his pocket. But this represents time and energy.
[14:35] Unless you grew up just minted and your family's so wealthy, you don't even know where the money's coming from. All right? That's not the case. You know where this came from, that this worked. That's something we try to teach our kids, right? When they want to buy something, they're like, well, you understand that that cost me so many hours of work.
[14:49] That's going to cost you so many hours of work. It's how to help teach them the value of what this is. And it is always personal when you take this. I asked them. I will give this back, Micah.
[15:01] I'm just not coming over there. All right? You believe me right? Okay, he does. All right. But I asked the students there in middle school. I wanted to make sure they knew this story before we came into it because I did not want the confusion that they thought that we were buying our way into heaven.
[15:15] That's not what we want to have happen, right? The story is not earning a place into an eternal habitation, but it talks about having people receive you into that eternal habitation. And I asked, I said, which would be worth?
[15:26] What is something that I could do that you know is wrong? And Natalie said, throw something at people. And I was like, yes, that's right. I should not throw things at people. And I said, what if instead of throwing things at people, I paid somebody to throw things at people?
[15:42] Is this better or is it worse? And they said, it is the same. Or now they said, actually, it's actually worse because there's two people involved in something, right, that's going on there.
[15:53] So we can't say that our money is not personal. We can't disconnect it and say that it has no spiritual implications on our lives, that it is not an index in which we say how we spend our time and energy.
[16:10] And it can be quite negative if you're spending money for people to throw things at people. You're really weird. I want to see this, but stop doing it. But it's also very positive because I'm able to compress my life down into a currency and I'm able to invest it in places that I wouldn't be able to go and do things.
[16:25] Next thing, verse 9. And I said unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that when you fail, they may receive you. Make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness.
[16:37] Just like the story of that prodigal where it says he had made those friends in that song. And so what you don't understand and you don't see on this money is that all money has an expiration date on it.
[16:48] It all expires at a certain point. It expires in your life when you pass away and they take half of it and you pass it off to your next generation or however that is. Whatever way, but it's going to expire in its use to you.
[17:02] But not only the money that you would carry in your wallet, but your life itself has an expiration date. As it is, a point in the man wants to die, but after this, the judgment. Everything that we're carrying has an expiration date on it.
[17:16] And at this time, we ought to feel the gravity of this fact that we have a life, a body, an influence, finances, talents, abilities, all those things have an expiration date on them.
[17:30] And there's an intended purpose of what we're supposed to do with it. Because the day is going to fail, is going to come where you can't do that anymore with them. Where that's not going to happen. Just like the manager was going to have a day where he could no longer use the resources of that home that he worked in, he could no longer sit down with somebody and make a friend with giving them a discount.
[17:51] That day was about to pass and our day will pass as well. And it says there's a right and a wrong way to invest our lives as it is represented often in currency. Our lives are often represented in currency.
[18:05] We should use our money to win people into the kingdom. We should use our money to win people into the kingdom. You see why the problem, it seems shocking today.
[18:16] I intentionally wanted to say it as shocking as I can because that's the nature of the parable here is that we should use the resources we've been given to help see people enter into the kingdom of God.
[18:27] Verse 8, We are told that we are to turn our eyes towards the eternal.
[18:44] It says in verse number 9 that you may receive into the everlasting habitation. This unjust steward was worried about where am I going to live after this fails? Where am I going to live after this present position is no more?
[18:57] I need to live somewhere. I can't dig. I can't beg. I need somebody to let me stay on their couch and live somewhere. He was thinking earthly, but God says I want you to think about an everlasting and an eternal habitation.
[19:12] I want you to think about heaven. I want to think about the life to come. This man was concerned about being welcome into an earthly home and we were told to focus on being greeted into a heavenly home.
[19:24] C.T. Studd missionary says only when life will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last. We know this, right? Only what's done for Christ will last all for eternity.
[19:38] Even the things that we do in the name of Christ that are not in the hymn, they will burn up as well. Only what's been done for Christ. So the questions we ask here, what is the way that we use money that will not fail?
[19:51] Luke chapter number 12. Many of you are here with us for this. Luke chapter number 12, there was a man and he laid up treasures for himself. He had a barn and it got full. He had a storage unit, got another storage unit, got another storage unit.
[20:04] He just kept growing and growing and building barns and barns. But God said unto him, thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required unto thee. And he's saying that what you've been storing in those barns are not going to make them into the life that come.
[20:20] You've laid them up for yourself. And it even says in verse 33 of Luke 12, and it says that you give alms. He says, sell what you have, give alms, provide yourselves bags which wax not old, bags that wouldn't have holes in them, a treasure in heaven that faileth not.
[20:36] He speaks about having a treasure that doesn't fail in comparison to one that he can't take with him to eternity. One here in Luke chapter number 16, a treasure that will not fail.
[20:47] And the guiding principle there in Luke 12, it says in verse 31, but rather seek you the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. The guiding principle of how to use our life and influence is to not put it in the system that is going to fail, but put it in the treasures that will last for eternity.
[21:07] I really enjoy going to airports. I do. I think it's fun to watch people, all right? How many of you are people watchers, all right? All right. Some of you go to airports enough, it's not fun for you. It's fun for me.
[21:18] I love the what somebody run who did not plan on running that day, all right? That is just great. You know, just seeing what they're doing, running around. And one of the things, there's this guy, and I don't even know if he's really on the phone, but I see him on occasion.
[21:29] It's a type of guy, and in movies and books, they talk about him. But he's that guy that's on the phone, and he's kind of like, oh, what? The stock's at 90, sell right now, and he closes the phone. Just makes sure that everybody around him knows, I'm very important.
[21:42] I just did something very important. Slams down his phone, which with cell phones, it's not near as powerful now, is it? You know? You can't slam your phone down. But he's involved in it, and it's so personal.
[21:53] It's so intent. He is being shrewd in a positive way. He's being clever. He's being wise. He's very much putting his resources into a way to gain what he is going to do.
[22:06] You may not know this because I haven't told you in a week, but I am the winner of the Vision Fantasy Football League, all right? And there's a few of you in here that I beat, and you don't ever bring it up, and that really disappoints me. But I don't care much about football.
[22:19] I just wanted to beat some of you in here at a game. That didn't require athletic ability. And in this fantasy football, I learned a lot about a guy named D. Ernest Johnson, a running back for Cleveland.
[22:31] On this little app that I had, it told me about what his practice was, if he was injured, if he had a pimento cheese sandwich for lunch. I mean, I learned everything about this guy.
[22:42] It was available to me because I was making an investment of my time to choose them. The world knows how to do that. The world knows how to take their lives, the children of the world, as it says.
[22:54] Knows how to focus intently to gain something that they want in the next. And the children of light, we need to pay attention to that because we don't need to be haphazard about the way we do things.
[23:08] We need to be very intentional about that. I've often thought it'd be funny. I want to do the same thing on a plane. I want to be on the phone and say, what? The guy's starting a second church in Nigeria, and he's at 72%.
[23:18] All right, Stephanie, send the money right now. Click, all right? You know, I want to be that guy when it comes to the things of the Lord. I want to be able to follow what's going on with my friends and the ministry and missionaries just like I can follow the Ernest Johnson and say, I know what's going on in their life because I care about them.
[23:37] What if we entreated our investments in the ministry in the same manner? The Lord commended to them. You might say that I'm reaching here, but I don't believe so.
[23:48] I believe that what I'm telling you right now is at the heart of this parable, that in the focus and intention that the world would give to gain for this world, that we should give our same focus and resolve and intention to making preparations for the world to come.
[24:04] Many ways to be involved. The pastor says, give to the needs of the ministry of the church. The gram, the missionary says, look for partnerships and new projects. The non-profit says, I want to help your help with a certain cause.
[24:17] Greg says, bring school supplies tonight as I build a friendship with some administration at a school down the road. We should invest in having people meeting us at our eternal habitations.
[24:31] Make to yourselves friends. There's a song many years ago, many of you would know it, but it says, thank you for giving unto the Lord. I will not sing it for you the day.
[24:41] But if you know it, in that song it says, and he said, friend, you may not know me now. Then he said, but wait. You used to teach my Sunday school when I was only eight. And every week you would say a prayer before the class would start.
[24:54] And one day when you said that prayer, I asked Jesus into my heart. And all of us, let's sing the chorus together. Just kidding. Thank you for giving to the Lord. You know this song? And then it goes on about giving.
[25:05] You didn't know me, but you gave to a missionary and now I'm here. It's an incredible picture. I have a picture here of Juan and Jason, if you wouldn't mind showing. This is Jason. Juan wrote me this week.
[25:16] He sent me a text message and he said, I led my friend to the Lord, is what he said. He told me when he met Jason earlier on his internship and he said, this is my friend that's coming to the church.
[25:27] And then he wrote me and he said, he's about to end his internship and he said, my friend accepted Jesus. I don't have a picture of it, but on Thursday night, victorious friend that came to church that has now become our friend, Austin, in the office right over here.
[25:44] He accepted Jesus. And so not just the missionary and the pastor, but you and your own financial stewardship. The money that you'll spend on the meal to invite your neighbors over or the money that you'll give to a coworker around Christmas time or that trip that you'll go on to serve somebody else or the materials that you will purchase or the education for your children that you will give is you making wise investments for a world to come.
[26:11] I have some close friends in here that as a family have a ministry budget. It doesn't mean that God doesn't have access to their entire budget. It doesn't mean that they can't get more than their budget, but it means that every month they consider what is some ministry that we can do as a family with this ministry budget.
[26:28] You know what I believe? That they were being wise stewards, just like the steward in the example given in Luke chapter number 16. And that Jesus commends that type of intentionality.
[26:39] Our spending and our investing are reflections of our heart. Verse 11. If therefore you have been faithful and unrighteous, Mammon, who can commit to you the true riches that are here?
[26:51] How do you care about the eternal things? Some of you in here may say, but if I would have won that billion dollars this week in the lottery, then I would really be able to do something.
[27:02] But Jesus preempts that. And he says in verse number 10. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
[27:12] That that billion dollars just makes you more of who you already are. That person in Illinois, I don't know what they're doing today. They're probably moving out of Illinois, but they want a billion dollars. And they are going somewhere.
[27:25] And if they were not generous before, they're not generous now. Whatever their intention in life was has only been accelerated. But it isn't going to alter who they are. So before you say, I would be more wise steward if I had more to benefit from, if I had more resources, Jesus says in verse number 10, if you have little and you don't handle it faithfully, if you had much, you wouldn't handle it faithfully.
[27:48] Faithfulness in small matters matters in a big way. If you're faithful in the least, faithful in much. And so Jesus preempts this kind of excuse that we could make.
[28:01] Jesus wants us to understand that our use of money may be a small thing, but it's not a trivial thing. That it isn't all that you are, but it is a reflection of who we are.
[28:11] The way we live and spend demonstrates if we truly believe anything, everything, any of us, if we really believe that everything we have belongs to God. That man who is faithful, which was another man's, the picture, none of that stuff that he was using was really his.
[28:26] He used his master's resources to gain friends for a future date. And so we're constantly having to make a decision over self or God, over ourselves.
[28:38] No man can serve two masters is how this ends. I first thought of it from the area that you can't serve two masters because you don't have enough time. That is not really what's at the heart of it.
[28:48] A person might could have two different masters if the masters were aligned in their nature and what they wanted to get done. Two men could go into a business together and the person could have two bosses in that regard.
[29:00] But what you can't have is two masters because the master of God and the master of money are different in nature. God says love and give and serve and sacrifice.
[29:13] The God of this world and money says take, live for yourself, only think of yourself. In that regard, you will never be able to serve two masters when they're opposed.
[29:24] My nephew, I have a video which would not be allowed to show, but you have to see this. It's hilarious, all right? He makes these little, Oliver makes these little videos, Dear Journal kind of things going on. And he made one the other day and he said, which is better, God or my neighbor Everett?
[29:41] Which is better, me or God? It's God. God is always better, all right? He was in this whole soul searching. He's taking the things of this world and putting it down beside God and saying, no, God is better.
[29:56] Some of you need to follow after Oliver's example. You need to take the things that you're saying, what is better? No, God is better. You can't serve two masters. We should be deliberately choosing God over self.
[30:09] The problem is that we love the world and that we use the Lord and that's backwards. We love the world and we use the Lord, but we really should love the Lord and use our resources to bring people to greet us when we enter into our eternal habitation.
[30:26] Please forgive me. I'll take a few extra minutes here. I have in my notes, slow down. Look at an example here of the diligence of a planning manager.
[30:37] Consider the day, how intentional you are about planning for eternity. Think about how you're living your life. Are you living as if this is all there is? Or do you recognize that one day, verse 4 says, I am resolved what to do, is what the man said.
[30:52] I am resolved. That is not a word that we use commonly, resolved. It's a real shame that we don't. So let me help you have an understanding of how that word is used throughout Scripture and it should be used for us.
[31:04] In 2 Thessalonians chapter number 1, verse number 11, it speaks about God working in and through you and doing what would be a work of faith with power.
[31:15] That there is a step you have to take. A getting on an airplane to go to Nigeria is a decision, a resolve that's going to be made. But they also know all is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One comes down, unless the Holy Spirit works in and through them.
[31:28] So where does the resolve come in in this verse? Wherefore, also we pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power.
[31:42] It is by the power of God that we will fulfill our good resolves and our works of faith. A determination to live in faith and to do the works that go with it.
[31:53] So what kind of resolve do we need to have if we are going to live as good managers of the life that God has given us? Live as good stewards of what God has given us? How are we going to do this work of faith that God has given us to do?
[32:07] Philippians 4.19 says that God will supply all of our needs according to His riches and glory. Resolve says that I can trust in His provision. 2 Corinthians 9.6 says, But this I say, He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.
[32:25] I resolve to live a life of faith, trusting that He knows what is best for the life for me to live. If you ever played any sport, every sport will tell you this, especially true with football coaches.
[32:38] They would tell you, leave it all on the field. You've been playing all season long. This is the end of it. This is your last chance. Just leave it all on the field. Christian, before I pray for you in the day, could I encourage you to live a life where you just leave it all on the field?
[32:54] Because we're living in a day, and we want Jason to greet us there. That kid that we saw that one had. Your investment allows us to be greeted at heaven by people that we haven't yet met.
[33:07] Today people are entering into the kingdom all around the world because your investments financially through missions giving. And I'm so grateful. But you know that's not the only way in which your life is supposed to be invested.
[33:19] Invest it, not just in giving it, but invite people over to your home. Give the gift with the gospel book and with it as well. Use all resources that you have completely.
[33:31] Be like that manager who says, in my present position, this is the opportunities that I have, and I have to make plans for the future. Christian, with the life we've been given in 2022, with all the resources we have, we need to be resolved that when I enter into heaven someday, there's going to be people there greeting us based on the way we invested our lives.
[33:53] Heavenly Father, I thank you for this story, Lord. Thank you for sharing it with us, Lord, so we could see it and have it today. Father, I know it's just as applicable in my life today as it was when you first gave him over 2,000 years ago.
[34:07] Lord, I pray for my brothers and sisters in here, Lord. I pray that there would be great resolve in their hearts. Lord, I pray that they would make an altar today, here at this church or in their seat or at their home, or Lord, where they meet over a table this afternoon, and they would really consider if we are living in such a way, Lord, that we're leaving it all on the field.
[34:28] Every head bowed, every eye closed. If you're listening today or watching online, if you do not know Jesus, we want a friendship with you that would allow us the opportunity to share more, whatever the price is for that friendship.
[34:43] Wherever you want to meet at whatever time, our life is giving to building friendships. Some of you teenagers that are in here, you're back in school, you're going to make friendships this year.
[34:55] Is it just so another person thinks you're cool? Is it just to be popular? Or will you say that I'm going to build friendships so that I can make bridges to share people about Jesus?
[35:07] Awana workers, kids workers, there's a purpose for which we do what we're doing. We want to see people come to know Jesus Christ, and we want to give it our all.
[35:19] Look at how you can manage your life. Look how you can shift things. Ask God to give you wisdom of how to live your life out in a way that would honor Him. Heavenly Father, I pray for those today.
[35:31] Lord, I pray that they will find a place in their life, Lord, and they will consider, that they will do an audit of their lives and ask themselves if they are managing as you would have us to manage. In Jesus' name I pray.
[35:44] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.