Why would God use someone as messed up as me?
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Open Hands, 1 of 2 from February 15, 2026
“How we steward God's gifts show our spiritual maturity.”
Psalm 90:1-6 and 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 by Ryan Gagnon (@RyGagnon)
SUMMARY
This sermon launches a new series on stewardship, teaching that everything belongs to God and must be held with open hands rather than clenched fists. Drawing on the Apollo 13 story, the Pastor Ryan compares the astronauts’ use of limited resources to the church’s call to steward time and spiritual gifts for the common good, since God patiently gives time and empowers redeemed people through the Holy Spirit. Spiritual maturity is seen in how we hold and use God’s gifts for His redemptive purposes.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 How open are your hands? Where do you need to open them a bit more?
💬 How are you doing with time management? What role does God play in your calendar?
💬 How has He equipped you to reach the lost? Are you listening well?
💬 What experiences has He led you through that have equipped you for a special mission?
💬 What has this morning revealed to you about your spiritual maturity?
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Welcome to our neighbors. Oh, man. Isn't it great when you're just crying already? God's so good. So we're going to be starting a new series called Open Hands today.
We're going to be spending the next two weeks in that series talking about the idea of stewardship and what that means and what God has called us to and how we are to steward the good gifts that he gives us. But before we jump into that, as is our custom, we pray the disciples prayer together. And for those of you that are regulars, you know, these are not magic words. This is Jesus directing us and how we should pray. So we want to follow that model.
So have the words up on the screen. So I would invite you to join as we pray the disciples prayer 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.
Houston, we have a problem. Who here knows that phrase? Anybody? Yeah, most everybody. For some of the youngsters in the crowd, you guys haven't seen Apollo 13, but it's a phrase many of us know.
It was said on April 13, 1970, by Apollo 13 astronauts Jack Swigert and Jim Lovell. They were communicating that an oxygen tank had blown up on their path. They were on their way to the moon. This would have been the third moon landing. Two days into their mission, an oxygen tank blows up.
And if an oxygen tank blows up in space, that's kind of a big deal. It's not a good sign, right? So this happens, and then that particular phrase is then uttered that, houston, we have a problem. What followed was a harrowing adventure. Great movie.
I would recommend you check it out. But here's what Houston had to do. Houston decided to work on a plan to be able to take their lunar module that they had and to move them from the spaceship that they were in into this lunar module, which was made for two people for two days. They needed to create a situation where it could house three people for four days while they were figuring out a way to slingshot this thing back home so that they wouldn't die. So.
Sound a little scary? Yeah. Now, the crux of the story is that some crazy stuff happens. I'm skipping a lot of it. You guys should read it up.
They got some stuff on Wikipedia. There's a Ton of books, and then the movie is awesome. But you should really dig in to figure out kind of this story is so cool. Because what it articulates is people coming together, using what they have available, and accomplishing something really incredible. Like, really incredible.
Like three people were going to die and then they didn't. Kind of incredible, and then they didn't. They couldn't just beam stuff up there. This ain't Star Trek. They had to figure out what they were gonna do with the stuff that they had.
So cool. Maybe you're friends of NASA, you're into space, or maybe not. And you're wondering, what the heck are we talking about here? The reason that I'm sharing the story with you is because it's similar to what our mission is now. It's very similar to what God has for us.
So let me just make sure we understand where we are. Church. You have God creating everything. He spoke. And there was light in the beginning kind of stuff in the garden.
We, as humanity decided that we knew better than God, and we decided not to listen to Him. And in doing so, we invited this thing called sin into this relationship. And we were separated from God. So that happened because of our choices, not because of what he did. He created perfection and we destroyed it.
So in doing so, now he looked upon us and said, they are busted. They don't know what they're doing. This is bad. They need me. And he promised a redeemer.
All the way back in Genesis. He said from the very beginning he was going to send his son Jesus as a redeemer, to pay for the sins of the entire world. Sins of your grandparents, your great grandparents and family members you've never met before, pre and post, you paid for all of their sin. Because Jesus led a sinless life. So in leading that sinless life, he lived with us, dealt with us.
As Pastor Michael was talking about earlier. Real guy, real world, no deodorant. Okay? He was here. And all of this goes down.
And then he allows himself to be killed. And then in allowing himself to be killed, all our sins are now paid for. He then tells us, I'm going to my Father's house to prepare a place for you. I'm going to send a helper to you, the Holy Spirit. And it will be better for you that the Holy Spirit is there than I am.
That sounds kind of crazy. So he goes to prepare a place for us. And while that's happening, we're waiting upon his return. That's where we find ourselves today. Church.
Neighborhood. That's where we are. We are now in this world of bustedness that God is in the process of redeeming. We have a problem, and he's on this salvation mission and he invites us to be a part of that.
We're going to jump in. In Psalm 90 is where we're going to flip to. If you have the blue Bibles, that's going to be on page 622. What we're going to do over the next two weeks is we're going to talk about time, talent, and treasure. Okay?
So we have this idea of open hands. Okay, everybody do me a favor. I work with kids all day, right? So we're going to get real interactive here. Put your hands out.
All right? You like how I asked you to flip your Bibles and then tell you to open your hands? All right, so hands are out. Now, this imagery is really cool. Okay?
God gives us these gifts, and now what we can do with those gifts, these good gifts that he gives to us is we can clench our fists. Let's clench them. And guess what? It's mine. No one can touch it.
We see this inclination all the time. Trick is, we see it with adults, too, but nobody wants to talk about that, right? But we're doing this. Right? But God calls us to hold these gifts with open hands.
Now, why open.
Exactly? Because God gives these gifts. You guys are doing great. You can put your hands on now. Thank you.
God gives these gifts with purpose. He's generous. He gives these things to us not so that we could accumulate more stuff, but so that he could be shown to be the God that He is. And he does that through the sharing of these gifts. Now, again, we're talking about time, talent, and treasure.
We're going to cover time and talent today. So if those of you guys are now at Psalm 90, we're going to be in verses one through six. I'm going to read that now. Moses writes, lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations before the mountains were born. Or you brought forth the whole world from everlasting to everlasting.
You are God. You turn back. You turn people back to dust, saying, return to dust. You mortals, a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has gone by, or like a watch in the night. Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death.
They're like the new grass in the morning. In the morning, it springs up new, but by evening, it's dry and withered.
Couple of things to notice here.
Moses points out that God has been their safe place since the beginning, there's no safer place that you can be than where God called you. God. He calls them his dwelling place. How beautiful an image is that. When I think of dwelling place, I think of, like, my bed with a blanket.
I'm wrapped up. It's 10 degrees outside like it's been for the last two weeks. But I'm nice and warm. God is our dwelling place is what Moses says. And notice how he says from the beginning, go back to the garden.
God created us to be in relationship with Him. He wanted that kind of intimacy that locked in ness with God. But that but sin that we did is what perverted that. So from the beginning, he was our safe place. Before there were mountains or before he even created the world, he was God.
Now I think this is kind of interesting because as humans, we really think about ourselves and we really think about our perspectives pretty much constantly. But think about this for just a moment. Before he said, let there be light, he was all powerful. He didn't say, let there be light. And then light kind of became God.
He was God before all of that. He existed forever. Pre all of that. He is God. He says, let there be light.
And it happens. So. Before he created mountains, before he birthed the world, he was God. Everything belongs to him. Can't say that enough.
Everything belongs to Him. From this clicker to the Son belongs to Him. He created it all. Every good gift comes from God. It's all his in the first place.
Now, why is that so important? Because you say that intellectually and you can think, okay, cool. Yeah, everything belongs to God. Got it. Got it.
Because understanding that changes our perspective and motivations about everything. Once you understand that truth, you know that your life is not your own. Once you can wrap your head around the fact that the breath that he allowed me to breathe just a moment ago was his too. I was even borrowing that. All of a sudden, I'm not as Precious about my 401k.
All of a sudden, I'm not as precious about my house. I'm not quite as precious about my clothes. I'm not quite as precious about. Fill in the blank. Whatever you're thinking about right now, it's all his anyway.
Everything is his Now. That doesn't mean that all of a sudden we're like Gandhi, right? Like, all of a sudden we give up all possessions. That's not what I mean. But the point that you need to understand is that it's all his.
When we talk about what he gives us, think about your hands and think about the thing that you thought about when I said blank a moment ago. And then visualize your fingers tight right around it.
What's it take to open up those hands a bit? To acknowledge that it's all his in the first place? It's all for his glory, not mine. He works it out for my good. But everything is his.
The whole galaxy. And there's a lot of them, and he owns them all. That's the God we serve. The God we serve made that and made more of them that we don't even know about. It's incredible.
In the book Biblical Stewardship, Pastor David, Jeremiah says, there is a gift which comes to us from a royal source. Each day of our lives, bright and sparkling, absolutely untouched, unspoiled. What is this gift? The priceless gift of time. Each day we receive a fresh new supply of 24 hours.
1440 minutes, 86,400 seconds. 24 hours we have never lived before. 24 hours we shall never live again.
So the question that I have is, how we doing with that time? How you feeling about your time management skills? Y' all should be laughing more because we're bad at this, right? Who thinks it's okay, you don't have to raise your hand. But just between you and God here for a moment, who thinks they're good at time management?
Again, don't raise your hands. I saw one. Okay. If you're good at time management, that's awesome. I have a quiz for you.
Are you all ready? Okay. I want to hear your answers. Now, what I'm asking you is not your life. I'm asking you what you think the average American is.
Okay. Are we ready? How many hours a day out of 24 does the average American use on personal care and sleep? What do we think? Got 10 over here.
4. Maybe you need to get some sleep. All right, we got eight. All right. Y' all are being so polite and doing hand gestures.
I put my glasses down. Stop. 10. 10. All right.
6. 6. All right. 18. Oh, okay.
Okay. All right.
9.8 hours. Okay. Personal care and sleep. Okay. Feeling good, right?
Okay. What about Leisure and sports?
20. There's only 24 hours per day. Per day. Leisure and sports. One or two?
Okay. Five. Five. Anybody else? I got some fives, got some fours.
All right. Oh, got 10. I like it. You guys give that. You get after it.
All right. Wow. Yes. Nailed it. Nicely done.
5.07 hours. All right, now is the one that's going to start to separate the people from the people watching TV of 24 hours. What do we got? 7. 3.
This whole size not even responding to this one. This is great. 2, 4, 1. 1. Okay.
2.6 hours per day. All right. Feeling good about it. All right, ready? Ready.
Okay. How much time on your phone?
Six and a half. Six and a half. Seven twelve. All right. Four.
Okay, now real quick, you know what's interesting? It does change by the demographic, but it's not as much as you think. Some of these ulsters, they be getting it after on the phones.
5 hours and 16 minutes per day. Now that number is. Okay, whatever. But check this out. That's up 14% year over year.
And as a guy who lives in year over years and trends that trends going a little squirrely because if we went up 14% and it's. I think it's probably going to go up another 14% if we don't keep our eye on it. So would we say that we're good at time management as a people? What would you give us as a grade? 10 being we're the worst in the history of the world?
0 being we're great. 60 is not on that chart.
6.
Okay. High D. Okay. I think it's pretty safe to say we can all agree we're kind of bad at time management fair. Is that fair? Okay.
Notice that Moses wrote a thousand years in your sight like a day.
Perspective matters. Understanding how God views time versus how we view time is a big deal because four hours to us seems like, wow, that's brave heart and a half. Right? But to God, that's Nothing. James, chapter 4, verse 14 says, what is your life?
For you are a mist that appears for a little time, then vanishes. Ephesians 5, 15, 16 reads, look carefully then how you walk. Not as unwise, but as wise. Making best use of the time because the days are evil. All these passages point to a truth that compared to eternity, our time is extremely limited.
It's but a vapor. Now I can kind of wrap my head around that and I hope that doesn't sound presumptuous. I just. But I thought about this idea a lot. The idea of like the time we're on earth is a finite small amount of time and eternity is forever.
Like, I can kind of understand that. There's a pastor named Francis Chan and he did an illustration that I think really fits. There's a lot of these illustrations out there. But what he did is he took a hundred foot rope, had the hundred foot rope laid in the sanctuary of their church building, and at the edge of the rope he took a Little red Marker. And he drew three inches worth of red Mark.
And he used that to illustrate this is your life. All the rest of that's eternity. I thought, that makes sense. Okay. I can get that feel like you can wrap your head around the idea that we have a small amount of time here and the time moves quickly.
But the thing I couldn't wrap my head around when I was working on this series.
Why does God give us time at all?
Why? He doesn't have to. He's the God of the universe. He created us. We're the ones who spit in his face.
He doesn't have to give any time at all. And the time that he gives us could be shorter.
There's no contractual obligation here. He could just be done. God's perspective is eternal. He isn't just looking at the long game. He is the long game.
He created us. He knows more intimately than anyone who we are. He sees value in the world he created. We introduced sin into the world, and now he's in the process of cleaning it up. So if you have one of those questions, I would recommend go to the Bible, because God tends to cover that stuff.
So if you read 2 Peter, chapter 3, verse 9, it reads, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
God provides redemption opportunities through his patience. So why does God provide time? Because we need it. He knows who we are. He knows how busted we are, how selfish we are, how stubborn we are, how we are all about ourself in almost every moment.
And he provides time. Time to work it out.
You're not guaranteed it, but he's patient with us. And his patience provides opportunities for redemption. But don't pretend that his slowness is actually slowness. Everything he does is intentional.
We are sheep that have gone astray. He knows that he is the good shepherd. And in his patient, loving kindness, he pursues us in redemption. He doesn't have to give it to us, y'. All.
He does it in a moment. It can be gone.
So now we've talked about time, talked about our hands and this imagery of God's good gifts, time being one of those. And what does your calendar look like with God?
What part of your day to day are you holding on to that God is being clear and is directing you in a different path? And you're like this, and you're going, this is my time.
This is my life. This is how I have afforded opportunities to meet with you, God. Don't you dare ask me to do something on a Tuesday.
Meanwhile, he was patient with us. Meanwhile, he had every authority that could ever exist to call game and you be done. And he didn't do that.
And now we're like this week to week, are we holding God's gifts with open hands? Understanding that this 24 hours that we get is so precious?
Let's continue and let's talk about talent. We're going to be flipping over to First Corinthians, chapter 12 in your Blue Bibles. It's page 1196.
So in church vernacular, you'll hear the term talent. Right? Time talent. Treasure.
That together.
Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray.
Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except the Holy Spirit. Now, there are a variety of gifts, but the same spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all.
And everyone to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for common good. Let me repeat that. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the spirit of utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit, to another faith, by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing by one spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. All these things are empowered by one in the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
So a couple things to really understand here. Notice that God gives us these gifts through the Holy Spirit. Those are gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, prophecy, discernment, tongues, and many more. We're not going to go into all of those for time purposes. The point that we need to understand is how he gives these good gifts.
He gives them to us. Couple of points. God is generous.
My clicker's not clicking. Can we click? Thank you. God is generous. He doesn't have to give us these gifts, but he does.
Again, the moment that we start to think that God owes us anything, we're wrong. He doesn't owe us this, but he does. He is generous with his gifts. He gives with purpose. His gift is designed to uplift the church body and equip us for the ministry mission he has us on.
Did you see. See that part about the common good, those gifts that he gives, the abilities that he has given to us and the talents that he has given us are all with the idea of lifting up the body for the work of ministry. Remember what he's doing. He's bringing about the salvation of the world. And part of that is what's happening in this room right now.
And he is the author. His gifts are manifestations of Himself. This is such beautiful imagery. Each of those gifts are components of the Holy Spirit working in the lives of believers to minister. Just using a quick example of wisdom, right?
There's been many times in my life, for those of you guys that know me, you know I'm not that smart. I'm just really not. I'm not saying that like. Like, oh, no, I mean it. This is not.
I'm not. I'm not that guy. But the amount of times that God has said something so clearly through my lips to someone that needed to hear it, that I didn't know, I didn't understand, it didn't make any sense to me. But the Holy Spirit spoke because God was doing it. And then the other person being directed by God was in the place where they could receive it.
Because the other side of this is we can get really smart. We think and we can really pretend like we really know what that person needs to hear. But if we're not being led by the Lord through love, what are we doing?
We're just spouting off. That doesn't help the body. That's not the common good.
But he gives these gifts, he gives these talents, all with the goal of redemption. Redeemed people are empowered people. What he has called us to, we are not capable of. Just really sit on that for a second. What the God of the universe has called us to, we can't do without Him.
We got nothing, y'. All. We cannot save the world. We can't even get off our phones, remember?
So how on earth are the people who can't even get off their phones going to speak the words of life that are gonna bring somebody from death to life? It ain't us.
Ephesians 2 reads, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. It's one of my favorite verses because it's God saying, I got the whole thing. You right, Us, we are God's workmanship. We are his project that he has created, all with the idea to listen to him, to follow him, to do the other Works that He's already set up. God's in control of it all.
He created, then redeemed, then equipped, then directed us toward good works that he prepared already. He did it all. Empowered people are redeemed people. But it ain't about the people. It's about the God that we serve.
God has given us good gifts to steward well, some of those gifts include time, talent, experiences and abilities that uniquely qualify us for the good works that he has prepared for us to do. Notice the way that this has gone down throughout history. God has a plan. Satan enters in, tries to introduce the idea that God doesn't know what he's talking about, or God's lying to you, or God's holding something back from you. And then what ends up happening is we fall into sin and we don't believe that God is good.
Then God introduces Himself back into the situation, takes our busted boneheadedness, redeems that too, and writes an even better story. This is what he has been doing forever. What happened in the garden happened to us this week. Same thing. We were going through our lives.
We believed a lie, we sinned, God introduced Himself back and we repented of that sin. And then God used that repentance and those boneheaded choices to equip us to speak to the next person who's doing the same thing. That's how God is working. He's willing to use our own selfish choices to continue his story. He takes those experiences and he uses them for the work that he has prepared for us.
He takes the drug addict that's gotten sober and equips that person to speak in wisdom to life to the next person that he's saving. To the single mom trying to figure it out, not understanding why nothing makes sense. He uses the past experiences of others to live and guide and open their hearts to her. To the rage filled person that can't help but see the fault in everyone else. He sends them people that have walked that lonely road and know what it takes to put that anger down.
God doesn't waste anything, even our failures. The God we serve.
Ocala, we have a problem.
Our oxygen tank is blown and we're going to die without a miracle.
We serve a God that takes the supplies available, which is the people. He redeems them, he equips them and he uses them for the eternal work of salvation. We are the right gifts for the job because he orchestrated it, not because we're good church and neighbors. I mean it when I say I love you all dearly, but look around the room. If I was to pick a team to meet Ocala with the gospel, it ain't us.
And I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about me. I would not pick myself for that team. But look around the room. This is the team of people that God is equipping to introduce our neighbors to meet and follow Jesus.
And redeemed people are empowered people. How we steward God's gifts shows our spiritual maturity. So think about your hands. Think about these gifts that he's given us, and think about how well you're stewarding those. And remember, stewarding is just a word that means to manage or administrate.
How are you managing the gifts that God's given you because you're responsible for that. He will never leave nor forsake you. He's right there by your side. But he has given you these gifts with the goal of you sharing them.
Couple of questions. How open are your hands? Where do you need to open them? A little bit more. How are you doing with time management?
What role does God play in your calendar? How has he equipped you to reach the lost? And are you listening? What experiences has he led you through that have equipped you for a special mission?
What is this morning revealed to you about your spiritual maturity?
The God of the universe is making stuff happen because that's what he does.
He will do it with or without us. He offers us to be partners with him. He offers it, but he'll tell his story with or without us. He is redeeming creation. Let's follow him together.
Well, Father in heaven, thank you so much for your word, Lord. It just breaks us apart.
Thank you that it does that. And at the same time, Lord, thank you that you don't leave us broken.
You knit us back together, you pat us on the butt and you say, get back out there.
Help us to be good stewards of the gifts that you've given.
Help us to grow in our spiritual maturity of understanding that we can trust you for everything.
We can trust you with our lives through salvation. We can trust you to meet the needs of the day through daily bread.
You are trustworthy, Lord. If there's someone in the sound of my voice that doesn't know you, Lord, crack them apart.
No flowery language, Lord. Just a meeting with their Creator. Help them to see you as you really are.
A God that is all powerful and yet still loves them, knows everything they've ever done and will ever do and loves them anyway.
That offers salvation.
Your words, Lord.
We submit ourselves before you and we thank you that we get to worship you together. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
