Faithful Stewardship: Living for Divine Validation

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1. "We're in a series called Words Every Soul Wants to Hear. And what I've said each week is that because you and I were made by Christ and for Christ, made in the image of God and made to be like God, there's certain words that we really want to hear from our creator. There's sort of a drive within us to hear these words. And when we hear them from our creator, they do something deep and lasting in our souls." [02:25] (26 seconds) ( | | )

2. "It's a parable to make us aware that everything we do every day in our lives really matters. That there are things that we're going to never remember at all, but a loving God is going to remember. And not only remember, he's going to actually reward us. And he looks forward to doing that. And so in that context, though, he makes us aware. He makes us aware, though, that we're all living our lives with certain God-given abilities. And with those abilities come responsibility. And with responsibility comes accountability." [04:11] (32 seconds) ( | | )

3. "Every one of us, as human beings, wants desperately and needs desperately to hear from our creator. At the end of life, I'm going to tell you something. You're not going to believe this, some of you. I don't care how your friends think about you. I don't even care how your family thinks about you. I don't care how many likes you have, you know, on your Facebook page. None of that's going to matter. When you and I finally, in this life, and we are standing before God, the only opinion that is going to matter is the opinion of our creator, and you and I are going to desperately want to hear, and we really want to hear it now. We just don't quite understand it. Well done, good and faithful servant." [10:01] (40 seconds) ( | | )

4. "We need external divine validation for our existence, for our lives. It doesn't matter how many people tell us we're doing good at something, and we like hearing that. That's good, you know, to a degree. But it's the one that created us. It's the ultimate authority that we really need to hear. Your life hit the target. You did everything. You did everything that I wanted you to do." [12:06] (21 seconds) ( | | )

5. "So, God has this set of good deeds, good works, good influence that's supposed to exude from our lives. And it's laid out in advance. Yours are special. They're unique. That gives us this impetus to want to hear from God. You're hitting the target. Well done, good and faithful servant. Those unique good deeds that only you were fit to do, you come to God. You've communicated my grace to those lives that would listen to you or would be affected by you, but they wouldn't be affected the same by any other. So, there's this plan in place for us." [17:07] (33 seconds) ( | | )

6. "So, the question probably in some of your hearts is like this. How can I be sure, Randy? I mean, is there a way that I can be sure that life's end, when I'm finally standing before God to be judged, how can I be sure that He'll say to me, well done, good and faithful servant? And I'm not going to ask you to raise your hands and say, I'm sure, Randy. By raising my hand, I'm sure I'm going to hear that. Because most of us, if we were honest... If we were honest, we would say, I want to hear that, but I'm not sure that I'm going to hear that. But is it possible to be sure? Is there some way, before we leave here this morning, that you and I, every person in this room, can absolutely be sure that we will hear these words?" [28:30] (45 seconds) ( | | )

7. "So living like a living sacrifice, it's not a one-time thing. I hear people all the time say things like, well, I made my surrender to God. So what? You make your surrender to God. You got to do that every day. It's every day. It's like, Lord, today, all I want to do, I just want to do your will. Everybody that I meet, I want to help them. I want to bless them. I want to do good. If I can, I want to make you known in some way to them. It's a. It's a daily determination. I'm going to serve God today." [31:09] (27 seconds) ( | | )

8. "You take those three steps, and I promise you, and you say, what good will this do me on judgment day, Randy, because you promised something. Follow with me. I promise you, you will take those three steps, persist in them the rest of your life. You will hear, well done, good and faithful servant, because God wants us all to hear it. He's, he's given us the, he said, take the test by looking at your book. Here's the answers. You can't fail. You can all ace this. He wants us all to ace this. It's a matter of attitude. It's not a matter of ability, the ability he's given to us." [39:25] (39 seconds) ( | | )

9. "And when you and I are in the presence of our loving, sacrificially loving creator, we will know that his opinion was the opinion we always wanted more than anyone else's. And it's only his well done, good and faithful servant that really matters ultimately. In this series, there's some things that God's saying to us right now. This is future time. This is a new tense. So let me close with this. God is saying to us, if you've been following this series, he's saying, I'll always love you. We may not love him, but he'll always love us. He says, I'll never forsake you. We may forsake him. He'll never forsake us. He says, you don't have to be afraid. We may choose to be afraid, but we don't have to because he's with us. And he says, your sins are forgiven. Now he says all these to us right now, constantly every day, but this one well done." [40:59] (56 seconds) ( | | )

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