Can you trust something that can't be scientifically proven?
WATCH
I Am, 2 of 7 from March 8, 2026
“Jesus lights up things we cannot see on our own.”
John 8-9 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon explores Jesus’s declaration “I am the bread of life” from John 6, challenging listeners to examine what truly satisfies them and to recognize how often they approach Jesus with selfish, temporary desires. Pastor Michael emphasizes that genuine belief in Jesus is more than intellectual agreement; it is a trust that changes how we live and recognizes Jesus as the only true source of lasting fulfillment and eternal life.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 What truths are we demanding that God prove before we trust Him?
💬 What attention should we be giving to the WHOLE Scripture?
💬 Who should we be turning to for direction through life?
💬 What personal ailments should we consider through a spiritual lens?
💬 Will we follow Jesus or continue to stumble around in utter darkness?
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Well, hey. Good morning, church.
Welcome. Welcome to our neighbors. If we haven't met yet, my name is Michael. I'm one of the pastors here at Neighborhood Church. And as we're starting, I just want to invite you to close your eyes just for a moment.
I want you to picture a king. So picture somebody who isn't. Listen, close your eyes. Some of y' all are looking at me like, I didn't just tell you to close your eyes. Sorry, sorry.
My bad. Excuse me. I want you to picture a king.
I want you to picture a king that has had decades on the throne. I want you to picture a king who's come to the end of his reign and all of the opinion polls are still green. All right, now, I needed you to close your eyes. You can open them now. I need you to close your eyes because I think that that is difficult for us to imagine to some degree.
For many of us, the longer somebody's in office, the harder it is for us to deal with whether we liked them when they got in or not. Like, it just seems like that kind of a thing. And I want to take a look this morning at a text that I think if I just read it to you, there could be a barrier, a wall that we might have up. And, like, oh, of course, the preacher's supposed to talk about generosity. So he went and found this one passage, and now he's just going to use this to kind of berate everybody.
And I'm going to feel guil, but I don't want that to be the wall. I don't want that to be the objection. Because the passage that we're going to look at is part of a bigger story. And when you kind of zoom out a little bit and see what's going on in the bigger story, I think it actually makes the passage a little bit more accessible for us. There's times where we come to the Bible and we're like, this is just a lot.
Does anybody ever feel like that you read the Bible and you're like, this is just. This is just a lot. I don't know that I can handle this. Right. And this is a passage that, for me, as I came to it, I was like, this.
This is a lot. A lot. And I zoomed out a little bit, and I spent some more time kind of chewing on the details and actually putting myself in the sandals of the people that are going that are in this story and kind of what it is that God is trying to communicate, not just about what the people did, but about what God was doing in the hearts and minds of the people. And that, I think is actually worth the time. It's worth your time.
I don't some of you never met before, but like, I think it's worth your time to see what God is doing in this passage. So can we do that together this morning? Got a couple of nods. Good. This is the time where we typically would bow our heads together, we'd pray, the disciples prayer, and I usually would put it up on the screen for you.
However, I didn't do that this week, so I don't have it for you. For many of us, if you've been coming to neighborhood church for any amount of time, you know you've kind of memorized this with me. In the English standard version, if you're somebody who's familiar with the disciples prayer, but you know it as the Lord's prayer and you pray it kind of in the old King James language, that's totally fine. It doesn't super matter what words we say, as long as our hearts are directed along those principles. Right.
So we may all say different words if we pray out loud. And that's okay. It's not about what the person next to you is saying. It's about what your heart is saying to God as we pray. So can we do that as we start?
Okay, I got some yeses that time, so we're moving in the right direction. Lovely. Well, let's bow our heads and let's pray together.
Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen. Amen. I invite you to turn with me to the book of First Chronicles, First Chronicles, chapter 29. It's still in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, First Chronicles, chapter 29. One of our values as neighborhood church, like, is that we hold God's gift with open hands.
And so here in January, Pastor Ryan introduced just a short series we did last week, and we'll do this week kind of unpacking what we mean by we hold God's gifts with open hands. And so pastor Ryan shared with us, like, pointed out that one of the things that God gives us by his grace and by his mercy is time. None of us has a right to demand from God time. But one of the gifts that God gives us is time. And how we use our time reflects our heart towards God.
That message is in our app. It's on our website, on our podcast. You should go back and listen to it. It's beautiful. He did not cry nearly as much as he thinks he did, but it was a lovely time.
And so thank you for starting that off for us. And today, and as he was kind of closing and bringing up a principle, he's talking about how our abilities are also something that God has given us. We have the ability to do stuff. I'm going to pick up on that abilities idea, and we're going to talk about how our abilities and our resources are kind of also available to God. But this picture is a picture of open hands.
So can you just put your hands. Put your hands up, hold them out? I guess this is a stick up. No open hands.
The idea is this, that when we come to God, if we come to God with open hands, he can fill them with whatever it is that he delights to fill them with. If we come to God with our fists up and we're ready to fight, he's not scared of you. And that's okay. There's times where I come to God with my fists up, I'm ready to fight. And he, it's fun when you fight with God, he will bloody your nose, but he'll also give you a ride home on his bicycle like he loves you enough to put you in your place.
Okay? So we can come to God with fists up, but if we come to God with open hands, he can fill him with whatever it is that he wants, right? But the temptation is when God fills our hands, we want to close them and say, this gift that God has given me is for me. God loves me so much that he's given me this gift. And it's so precious and it's so special, and we take it and we strangle it.
Okay? But one of our values as neighborhood church is we want to hold God's gifts with open hands, both receiving from God what he's given to us and also letting him direct us with how we like, with. With how we entrust it to other people. Oftentimes God blesses us to be a blessing to other people. So that's.
That's kind of the picture, right? And here in. In 1st Chronicles, in chapter 29, I think we've got an illustration, an illustration of what it is to kind of hold God's Gifts with open hands. Okay. I didn't have to do an illustration.
So if I were going to, like, teach this, if I were going to give you. The word in my head is didactic, and that's. If I were going to give you, like, a teaching. Here's a principle, and here's a way that you should apply your principle. And I was going to unpack that from Scripture.
I would go to Second Corinthians, chapters eight and nine, because it's very, very clear. It's teaching principles. And this is what you ought to do. This is what you ought to do. This is what you ought to do.
This is what you ought to do. So that's where I would go if I were going to teach it to you that way. But about this time, it was a little bit later in the springtime last year, I actually taught those two chapters, and I taught it over four weeks. And I thought, there's no sense in me trying to fit four weeks of material into one Sunday. And so if you want to read.
If you want to go and kind of read these principles, a lot of the principles that we read in those chapters show up here as well. But instead of being didactic, instead of being like a teaching principle here, it's an illustration. Okay? So there are going to be some things and some principles that I tell you are principles, and I think they're present here in the text. It's an illustration.
But if you're like. I think you're making that up, Michael. Well, I might have gotten the principle from a different part of scripture that we see illustrated in this section. Right. Okay.
Have I lost us yet? A little bit. Okay, I'm sorry, Candy. We'll get back on the train. We're going to be in Chronicles.
We're going to be in First Chronicles, chapter 29. Now, just. Just one more. One more thing. Let me set.
Let me just set the scene, and then we'll read a couple of verses. We have King David here. And King David was a guy that everybody liked. He had reigned for decades and had been in charge. And he's gotten to the place where it's.
It's clear to him through a number of circumstances, that it's time to pass the baton of leadership to somebody else. You're going to die, and there's going to come a time where you're going to have to take what you have and give it to somebody else. And this is David's time of passing his baton. So he has called together all of his officials, all of his officers, all of his commanders, all of his stewards, all of his mighty men, his armies together, and all the seasoned warriors and his sons. He's got everybody together in a room so that he can make sure that everybody's on the same page about what his priorities are after this transfer of power.
Okay, so can you picture that? You've got an old king, everybody likes him, he's been successful, and now he's going to pass on the torch to his son. His son's name is Solomon. And the big project that David wants the people to take, to take on for themselves in the next generation is to build a palace. But not a palace for Solomon.
A palace for their God, for Yahweh, for the God of Israel. We often call it a temple. But it's interesting to me that in this passage in these two chapters, David calls it a palace for the presence of the Lord, which I think is a really, really interesting illustration. So let's look. We'll read the verses 1 Chronicles, chapter 29.
It's on page 446 in these blue Bibles. And David the king said to all the assembly, solomon, my son, whom alone God has chosen, is young and inexperienced. Oh, great. And the work is great. For the palace will not be for man, but for the Lord, Yahweh, God.
So I have provided for the house of my God, so far as I was able. The gold for the things of gold, the silver for the things of silver, and the bronze for the things of bronze, the iron for the things of iron, the wood for the things of wood. Besides great quantities of onyx and stones for settings, antimony, colored stones, and all kinds, all sorts of precious stones and marble. Moreover, in addition to all that I have provided for the holy house, I have a treasure of my own of gold and silver. And because of my devotion to the house of my God, I give it to the house of my God.
Three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver for overlaying the walls of the house and for all the work to be done by craftsmen. Gold for the things of gold and silver for the things of silver. Who then will offer willingly consecrating himself today to Yahweh? Okay, you got this, king. He's explaining.
This is what I really want to happen for you. I'm not going to be able to build this palace. I'm not going to be able to build this temple, but you guys are going to. And so I have done everything I can to kind of Pave the trail. I have already done everything I was able to do.
And. And I think that's important to note. Did you see that in verse two?
So I have provided for the house of my God so far as I was able. So far as I was able. Here's the deal. God's not asking you to give stuff that you don't have. I think there's times where, like when we read about God and we think about the things that, that folks have kind of instilled in us, we think God wants my everything and he even wants my things that I don't have yet.
And we put a burden on ourselves to be more generous than I think even God is expecting. But David here at the outset is saying, I provided as best as I could with what I have. And so if you're in a season where you don't have, let it be a comfort to know that God doesn't ask us for things that we don't have. There's a comfort there, but there's also a little bit of a reminder that if God is asking me for it, then I probably have it to give. Which, like, I don't think about that so much in terms of, like, monetary stuff, but when I think about it in of terms terms of his, like, patience, Lord, Lord, I don't have patience.
And he's like, I need you to give a little bit of patience here, Michael. And I'm like, I don't gotta. He's like, I'm asking you to give it, Michael.
Right, Dramatic sip. God doesn't ask us for things that he hasn't already like, that we don't have. Right? But David here is saying, I did so far as I was able. Now there are some careers, there are some jobs that are specifically responsible for God initiatives.
David is the king, and he's the king of a particular nation. The name of the nation is Israel. And Israel is unlike any other country that had ever existed and has ever existed since. Because Israel is the country that God started. Like God, God.
Not a God. The God, the God of the universe was like, I want to make a country. And the country he made was Israel. Right? Now he may bless America, but America isn't his.
But Israel is. And David is the king of Israel. Okay? And David's job as the king of Israel is to be a leader in this God initiative of making a palace. There are some careers that are specifically responsible for that.
Right? And the king of Israel is one of those things. That doesn't mean that he doesn't then invite people with different careers to participate in the work that God's doing under him. Right? You're like, Michael, you're making a big deal of that.
I didn't really notice that in the text that you're making, you're making something up. Well, the thing. The reason I draw that out is because there's the thing. That's his job. In verse two, I've provided for the house of my God so far as I was able.
And that's kind of his job. But then he goes above and beyond his job, starting in verse three by saying, moreover, in addition to all that I had to do, I also have provided what I wanted to do from my own personal resources. So he says, yes, it's my job to do this and to lead in this initiative. But more than just accomplishing my job, I also am like personally investing from my own stuff because I care so much about what it is that God's leading me to do. I put it in your notes this God's generosity towards us spurs our devotion to his work.
Verse 3. Moreover, in addition to all that I provided for the holy house, I have a treasure of my own. And because of my devotion to the house of my God, I gave it to the house of my God. God's generosity towards us spurs our devotion to his work. You may say.
Well, Michael, I see the devotion there. I see that David is saying that he's devoted to the work of God and that he is giving extra resources to that. But where do you see God's generosity to David? Oh, let me tell you now, it's outside the scope for us to spend, like the rest of the time reading all of the chapters of the Bible that go before this. But God has been generous to Dave.
Like, bottom line, God has been generous to Dave. Now, Chronicles is kind of first and second. Chronicles is kind of the Reader's Digest verse version of the Old Testament, right? So if you pick up the Bible in your Bible reading plan in January, you start reading in Genesis, you read all the way from Genesis all the way through Second Kings, you pretty much have covered the whole storyline of what it is that God's going to communicate in the Old Testament. Genesis to 2 Kings, and then you turn the page to first Chronicles, and it starts over at the beginning again with Adam and starts over telling the story again with a little bit of a different perspective.
So Chronicles is kind of like the Reader's Digest version of everything else that happens in the Old Testament. And so in First Chronicles, chapter 17, we read a story where David had become established as king. And he goes to his prophet, and he says to his prophet, I want to build a house for God. And his prophet Nathan says, that sounds like a great idea. You should totally do that.
And then God shows up to Nathan in a dream and says, go tell Dave. No. Go tell David. No, he can't build a house for me because he's a man of war. He's shed blood.
That's not the kind of person. Those are not the hands that I want putting on my holy temple. Like, he's not gonna be authorized to build a house. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make a household out of him. I'm gonna take that desire that he has to honor me, and I'm gonna turn him into a kingdom that lasts forever.
He'll always have a descendant on the throne of Israel forever and ever and ever. Just plot twist. Or not plot. I guess it is kind of a plot twist. But spoiler alert, one of David's great grandsons is named Jesus.
You might have heard of him. And he's the king of all creation. So, like, David got included in that story, which is super cool. But that's first Chronicles 17. And, like, it's just interesting.
Like, if you become king over God's people, you're like, how do I express gratitude? How do I express thanks? But how many of us know that oftentimes when we receive a gift from God, we immediately want to clench our fists and hold onto it and pretend like it was all me?
Some of you were nodding, Some of you are not quite sure. Have you ever. Have you ever bought a Happy Meal for a kid and then asked for a French fry?
God gives desires to honor him. David, in 1 Chronicles 17, had the desire to do something to honor God, to thank God for the way that God had preserved him and protected him. Him in all of the season before he was king. And now that he is king and his kingdom is established, he says, I want to do something for God. And that desire did not come from David.
David's desires are going to get him in some hot water. This desire came from God. And God gives desires to honor him. He gives us the idea that we could do something that he would be pleased with.
Have you ever, like, thought, like, I want to do something great for God. I want to do something for God that God's going to like. Like, that idea probably didn't come from you because. Okay, I'll say for me, because you guys are probably better off than I am. But like, for me, the ideas that I have are usually about how to make me more comfortable or make me look better or make me more satisfied, right?
That's usually what my ideas are about. But if I have one, that's like, how can I tell other people about God? That did not come from me. God gives desires. He gives the idea that we should honor him, and then God gives the opportunity to work for him.
There's a story in 1 Chronicles, chapter 21, where David buys a field, and that field is going to be the real estate, the piece of real estate where the temple is going to be built. God gives David the opportunity to build this temple, and he actually gives David the opportunity to build this temple and buy this real estate. On the heels of one of David's big failures, there are thousands of people in the nation of Israel who died that week because of David's irresponsibility. And on the heels of his failure, God gives him the opportunity to buy the piece of real estate that would be where he would build this temple later on. God gives us the opportunities to work for him.
And they don't often look like what we would like for them to be, right. I want for opportunities to be the kind of opportunities where I already have everything that I need and I just have to share a little bit, right? But oftentimes God will be like, hey, you know how you don't have anything? Like, this is going to be an opportunity for you to use what you do have for my glory.
And it's really, really interesting. David comes to the guy and says, hey, I want to buy this field. And the guy says, I'll just give it to you. You're the king. And David says, I can't offer a sacrifice to God that cost me nothing.
I'm going to buy it.
God gave him the opportunity to work for him.
Like, okay, I don't know. I just. As I was thinking through this, I'm reminded that, like, David was really, really well liked. Oftentimes he was well liked in spite of his bad decisions. And I just was reminded, particularly in 1st Samuel, chapter 18, that a favorable reputation comes from God.
If there are people in the world who like me, like, that's probably something that God is doing, right? Because one of the things that I think we tend to imagine that we can do is we like to think that I can control what other people think about me. In fact, I often am more times invested in controlling what you think about me than about the kind of person that I am. I would Rather you think that I'm nice than actually be nice.
But a favorable reputation is from God. David was just a little shepherd boy. He was the youngest of his family. He was dirty, he smelled like sheep. He was a hard worker, but like, he wasn't anybody.
He was from a small family. And as he steps up and steps out for God, like, you heard the story of Goliath, I'm sure in the wake of that, all the country has a favorable reputation of him. And even as he messes up and even as he loses people, and even as he makes mistakes, he continues to have the favor of the people. And the text is explicit that that favor, that high reputation was a blessing that David had from God. God was continuing to bless him with that.
And finally, the strength to accomplish goals is a blessing from God. Have you ever, like, had a goal and you went to go do the goal? You're like, I don't got it today right?
Sometimes it is like a New Year's resolution thing. And you're like, I was really into this a week ago, and it's been a week now, so I think I'm kind of burnt out on this. Or you go and you. I don't know, you go and get married, and you make all these vows of how I'm going to love you forever. I'm going to hold you for always, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.
And then somebody gets sick, and you're like, this is hard. This is a lot harder when someone's sick than it was when we were all dressed up nice and had our fancy clothes on. I don't know that I have the strength to follow through on what I promised.
But David, in 2 Samuel, in chapter 22, he writes this song. He kind of was a musician, kind of an emotional dude. And he writes this song as he's leaving the office. And one of the things that he says is that my strength came from God. My ability to fight came from God.
My ability to stay true to the promises that I had made. He came from God. And he asked this question. And in the first draft of this sermon, I left all these verses out, okay? But I couldn't get away from verse five.
So look at 1 Chronicles, chapter 29, verse five, that last sentence. Who then will offer willingly consecrating himself today to Yahweh? So David gets up, he says, here's what I did. This is what my job was. This is how I've contributed personally.
And so my question is, who wants to buy in? Who then will offer willingly consecrating himself today to the Lord. Now, here's what's crazy. I went on a little bit of a rabbit trail. And so maybe you can tell, like, the Bible nerd is coming out this morning consecrating himself.
Like that seems like a Bible word, right? Like consecrated. What does that mean? To be consecrated? This word, consecrated, is the same word that we use for ordination.
So a priest is somebody who's ordained. They're set apart and purposed to be in the service of God, right? So usually you don't, like, ordain yourself. Other people ordain you. But what's crazy to me, the reason this stood out to me as we were looking at this and looking at this series, is that that the word for ordination means filling your hands.
I was like, what? I got to go back and I got to do some research. The word for ordination and the word for consecration here is filling your hands. So if we were reading it, really, who then will offer willingly filling hands for himself today to the Lord?
When priests were consecrated, they would take a ram and they would sacrifice the ram and they would wave it before the Lord, and then they would place the offering in the hands of the priests. The priest doesn't offer anything that he wasn't already given. And the sign that they're set apart for God is by what is placed in their hands, not by what they do for themselves.
You see why I couldn't shake that? This week our hands are filled. By willingly dedicating ourselves to God, who then will offer willingly? That sounds like my hands are empty. That sounds like I've given things away.
Who then will offer willingly allowing his hands to be filled himself today to the Lord?
I just wonder what ideas for ministry we've kept to ourself. What, like God dreams, we kind of keep quiet because I don't want anybody to think I'm weird. I certainly don't want anybody to ask me to do anything. I'm just gonna keep this to myself. What ideas for ministry have we kept to ourselves, my friends?
Our hands are filled when we willingly dedicate ourselves to God. God.
And that's what the people do. So in verses six through eight, they freely give free will offerings to build the temple. All that assembly there. They take up this big collection. There's a whole bunch of money that comes in.
And look at verse nine. Then the people rejoiced because they had given willingly. For with a whole heart they had offered freely to Yahweh, Lord David the King also rejoiced greatly. Did you know that there's a profound joy in willingly sharing God's costly work? Let me give you that slide.
I'll go back to that one. Did you know that there's a profound joy in willingly sharing in God's costly work?
Oftentimes, if somebody brings an opportunity to me, my first question is, what's it going to cost me? And I tend to think that participation in something that's costly is going to diminish my quality of life or my energy or any of that kind of stuff. But there's something that God can do when we willingly offer ourselves to him, that as we participate in his costly work, he brings us a profound sense of joy.
And I'm acutely aware that we live in the most prosperous country that the history of the world has ever seen.
That, like the pleasure and the privilege of taking a warm shower, is something that most of humanity has only daydreamed about. That coffee, a cup of coffee, was the drink of royalty.
And yet we give it away for free.
And we are the most prosperous people in the history of the world. And yet we are mentally fragile, emotionally ill, longing for fulfillment, distant and isolated from one another. And I wonder if perhaps by taking God's gifts and assuming he owes them to us and closing our fists around them and only using them for ourselves, if we have not robbed ourselves of the immense sense of joy that he might give us when we share willingly in his costly work.
Because how we receive and share gifts from God shows how whole our heart is.
It's not about your money. I don't care.
But your money tells me something about where your heart is. Did you see that?
Then the people rejoiced because they had given willingly. For with a whole heart they had offered freely to the Lord.
The way that they received from God, the way that they gave back to God showed whether they were using part of their heart or all of it.
And there are days where I just feel so fractured and broken and it feels like everything in my brain is static and I can't just get any kind of clarity. And it may be in those moments that God's, as God like, approaches me with opportunities to share, that I say I can't share because I'm not clear. And he says, no, like, you'll find your clarity. Because it wasn't until they had given willingly that they rejoiced. They didn't rejoice at the opportunity and then give it.
Doesn't say they were excited about it, about their king coming. And saying, hey, you guys want to give a little bit more? But it does say that when they had decided to give willingly and given that, there was a profound sense of joy that they celebrated together.
How we receive and share gifts from God shows how whole our heart is. So as is appropriate, Starting in verse 10, David now directs his attention from the people there to the Creator of the universe. He prays and he says some things that I think are important for us to hear this morning. So let's read them together, starting in verse 10, 1st Chronicles 29:10.
Therefore David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly. And David said, blessed are you, O Yahweh, the God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is your yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.
And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.
But who am I, and what is my people that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you and of your own we have given you, for we are strangers before you, and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding. O Yahweh, our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house, for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own. I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness.
In the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered all these things. And now I have seen your people who are present here offering freely and joyously to you, O Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers keep forever such purposes in the thoughts and the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts towards you. And grant to Solomon, my son, a whole heart that he may keep your commandments, your testimonies and your statutes, performing all, that he may build the palace for which I have made provision.
God made everything. I don't know if you know that. He made everything. Not just some things, not most things. Everything.
All the things. All the things that were made, he made them.
And usually the things you make are things you own.
So God owns everything. He made time, which if you need something to chew on a Little bit like, just think about being a being that is outside of time and then inventing time and then placing creation into a space time continuum. Like, he made that.
He made a reputation for himself, for his people.
He invented the way that things work. He made it possible for us to walk on two feet.
The balance and the coordination that needs to happen in your brain for that to work is kind of incredible, regardless of the fact of, like, the mechanism that if you lose a pinky toe, you have to relearn how to walk. Like, every part's important. He designed our abilities and he gives them to us.
And every resource that we have at our disposal, he owned first. And when we give it and dedicate it back to him, we're giving him what belongs to him.
That's what stewardship is. Stewardship is taking somebody else's resources and using them for the purpose of the person that gave them to him. A good steward uses it for those purposes. A bad steward takes them and uses it for whatever purposes they want to.
If you went to a restaurant and you ordered your food and you came and you ate, it was great, lovely. And you give. You put your credit card down, your debit card down, and they walk away with your debit card. Anybody else get a little bit nervous when they do that? It just makes me nervous, I don't know.
And they come back and say, great. How would you like to pay for your bill? Say, well, I just. I gave you my debit card and you took it. And he said, yes, I took it and I paid for everybody else in the restaurant.
How would you like to pay for yours? I would say, you have been a poor steward, my friend, because I gave you my debit card with the purpose of paying for my bill. And you have taken it and used it for your own purpose, which is gaining favor with everybody else in the restaurant by paying for their bill. Right? That's what stewardship is.
Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord. You are exalted as head above all. A generous heart remembers who God is and thanks him.
Generosity doesn't start with you being convinced that you have enough. Generosity doesn't start with you thinking about yourself and, you know, where you're at in the fiscal year or anything like that. Generosity starts with remembering who God is and thanking him for who he is and what he has done and what he has.
But I wonder, like, when we think about God, like, when he comes up in conversation or when we come to church, or when we hear about God's stuff, like, out in the world, what strikes hearts when we think about God?
Because there are, for some of us, like, as we think about God and we think about God's stuff, there's an anger that stirs in our heart. There's a frustration, there's an anxiety or an unhealthy fear, like, as we think about God. And some of that may be appropriate if you're far from God, if you're living, you know, rejecting him, like, it's probably appropriate for you to feel that way. In fact, if you're somebody who's being a bad steward with what God's given you, like, it might be appropriate for you to feel those feelings. I like, just as I had to pull it up on my phone because I remembered this was in my notes.
And then it wasn't in my notes, but in Isaiah, chapter one, like, this image of open hands, God's correcting the people of Israel after, after David. And later on In Isaiah, chapter one, in verse 15, says, when you spread out your hands, like, okay, good. We're holding God's gifts with open hands. We're trying to receive something from God. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you.
Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves and make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good.
Seek justice. Correct opposition. Bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. Oh, I thought if I just hold God's gifts with open hands, he's just going to keep filling it with more and more blessings. That's not automatic because God actually doesn't care about your stuff.
He's always, always, always, always, always after what's happening in your heart. And if you're generous towards God with everything that you own and you keep your heart to yourself, you are shooting yourself in the foot.
And there may be times where we look at verses like that and we're like, I can't do all that. That's a lot of expectation. What's interesting to me, I didn't know that this verse was tacked in there. You know how sometimes you come across a verse that you know, but you didn't know what it was in context? This is one of those.
For me, this is the next verse. Come now let us reason together, says Yahweh. Though your sin are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. Oh, when I read that, When I read that, I remember Jesus.
I remember his blood has washed me clean. And so if I think about God and there's anger and anxiety and fear that's stirring in my heart, like, let me encourage you to turn towards Jesus, that he is the one who can fix what's broken in you.
What stirs in our hearts when we think about God? For David, it's gratitude and wonder, awesomeness and praise.
How we receive and share gifts from God shows how whole our heart is. And did you notice, like, as we were going through, all the strength and all the stuff that we give to God, we got from him, the song goes. All you great men of power, you who boast of your feats, politicians, entrepreneurs, does the earth seek your counsel on how fast to spin?
Can you keep your heart beating steady and sure?
Even if I like focus in on my breathing, I can't actually control my heart rate. And if it stopped, there'd be nothing that I could do in and of myself to be able to get it started again.
And so even the strength that we have to live and think and breathe and move even this moment is a gift from God, and we're blessed to be able to use it for his work. A generous heart remembers who God is, and a generous heart remembers who is God.
I remember who God is. He's the glorious maker. And I remember who is God, which is my way of saying it ain't me. Because left to my own devices, left to my own imagination, I'm a person who's going to assume most of the time that I am God and that my life is about me and what I want and what I want to do. But a generous heart remembers who is God and then surrenders to him.
But who am I and what is my people that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you and of your own, we have given you. Verse 17. I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness. In the uprightness of my heart, I have freely offered all these things.
And now I have seen your people who are present here offering freely and joyously to you.
A generous heart surrenders to God.
One author in Scripture asked the question, what do you have that you did not receive?
And if you received it, why then do you boast as if you did not?
But how we receive and how we share gifts from God shows how whole our heart is. And I think here's the question for this morning. Kind of binds them all together. The thing I've been driving towards. What does our sharing tell us about the health of our soul?
What does our sharing tell us about the health of our soul?
Because the soul is kind of a goofy thing. We all got one. But, like, I kind of wish there was a dashboard, right? Or you just like hit the belly button, the chest pops out and you see the barometers, right?
I don't know that I could actually bear to know for sure. But God does say over and over, not just here. I think we've got an example here. There's teachings elsewhere if you're not sure. Like, we can go through the principles in other parts of Scripture.
But our sharing important not because God needs our stuff. He already has it. Our sharing is important because it tells us something about the condition of our heart. What does our sharing, what does our generosity tell us about the health of our soul?
2 Corinthians 9, 6, 8. Say this and I'll close here. The point is this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
My friends, how we receive and share gifts from God shows how whole our heart is. Let's pray together.
Lord, I just talk with you to myself real quick. You know my insecurities. You know that I care about what people think about me and about what I said. And so, Lord, I pray that yout would cleanse me of that. My purpose in speaking today is not to make anybody in this room like me or dislike me, but the purpose is to share what you have said in your Word.
And so if there's anything that I've said that's been my own opinion or has been untrue, God, I pray that those things would be forgotten quickly or rebuked and corrected.
But Lord, where your Word has been proclaimed, would you not let us make excuses for why not to listen?
Lord, you alone know our heart and you alone know what we need for every person in this room. It's beyond me to know the spiritual status of every soul in this room.
And so, Jesus, I Pray that you would be at work in these hearts, that you would shepherd your people, that you'd give correction where correction needs. That you'd give comfort where we need it.
Lord, if there's a. If there's a heart in here that's anxious and angry and fearful towards you, Spirit, I pray by your mercy that you would convince them that Jesus offers life and health and love, that he's trustworthy.
And, Lord, if there are hearts that are just full of wonder and gratitude and awe, Lord, I just pray that you'd encourage and strengthen and uphold.
That we could trust you with our time, that we could trust you with the abilities that you've given to us, the strength, that we could trust you with the resources you've entrusted to us.
Give us a clear picture of who you are, maker of heaven and earth.
It's in your name I pray. Amen.
