Rooted Stewardship: Grace, Presence, and Fruitful Living

It's a lot of work in harvest. Careful what we ask for as a church because when we say, God, bring the harvest. Bring revival. What did you just ask for? A whole lot of work. But when you're partnering with a God who's a God of abundance, how much fun is that? We live in a retirement focused culture. I just got to get to retirement where I can finally sit and do nothing. Did God make us to retire? Is Jesus retired right now at the right hand of the father? What's he doing? Yeah. He's working. [00:55:41] (41 seconds)  #AlwaysWorkingWithGod

As soon as by faith, I partner with the principle of the seed, I let go of what I have and something really supernatural happens that doesn't make natural sense in a in a world governed by the law of entropy. Right? Yeah. Stuff's breaking down. You lose stuff. You have to fight for everything you have. It doesn't make sense that if I let go of what I have, there's a life that comes up all of its own and it begins to multiply and it comes back to me. The Bible says, god gives seed to the sower, multiplies it back to us so that we can then sow even more. Wow. [00:52:16] (42 seconds)  #SowToMultiply

Jesus stewarded his his relationships. Think about this. Jesus never saw his volunteers and his followers as a way to get the work done and build his ministry. Selah. Pause and calmly think about that. Jesus saw his disciples, the one the father, the ones the father gave to him as a major part of his ministry. They weren't a way to get things done and build what he wanted, build success. They were a part of his direct ministry. He spent much of his time investing in them, pouring into them, encouraging them, cleaning them, correcting them, and protecting them from the tactics of the enemy to take their faith out. A lot of time invested in his staff, his volunteer team, right? [01:19:29] (54 seconds)  #RelationalStewardship

And the stewards standing by, who were used to giving lots of money and seeing lots of coins dropped in the offering basket because that's what helped everything go really really well. They were they thought, we'll tolerate her. Well, Jesus was standing further away than them and he sought and what did he say? There you go. She gave more than everyone else. Wasn't what was given. It was how it was given and why. Yeah. She was a better steward of resources because she submitted and surrendered her heart and yielded everything back to god even at her own vulnerability. Made her vulnerable. [01:11:16] (52 seconds)  #HeartOverAmount

What does the father actually want? What what is what does he say is successful in this season of my life? What's his priority right now? Maybe the thing I have in mind he put there but it's not for two or three more seasons because he's busy doing like plumbing work in me right now. Getting me ready to even handle that kind of success. But if I if I leverage stuff too soon in my own carnal thinking or my natural mind, I'll force success that I'm not ready to handle and then it's actually dangerous. But there's unrealized potential. Ben, you don't understand the kind of money we could make. Really? For a few years? Listen, family. Are we do we want to be successful for five or ten years and do really, really well and have something really really cool but then fizzle out because we weren't ready to handle it? Or do we wanna go fifty or sixty years vibrant in faith, full of love, and then handing the torch over to the next generation and saying, run. We'll serve you. Amen. What do we wanna do? What do we wanna do? Are we in this for the short run or the long haul? Long haul. Okay? [01:22:54] (73 seconds)  #LongHaulFaith

And it was it was really, really cool how it grew but everything starts small and it's this principle of the seed but here's here's the wild thing about it. In order for a seed to multiply, what does it first have to do? It has to leave my hand. The farmer has to let go of what he has in order for it to be buried so that it has the potential to bring back more. So, what I retain is limited. I keep it for myself, and it doesn't step over. It doesn't transition what the resource I have if it stays in my hand. It's not transformed by the power of the seed. It just stays in kind of addition and subtraction. [00:51:31] (45 seconds)  #LetGoToGrow

I come back from break. I go to class, and I'm like, dear god, I pray that she forgets. Anybody ever pray that your parents forgot what they said? You know what I mean? They never forgot. And if it seemed like they forgot, it's because they let you off the hook. But you're like, oh, they're senile. They forgot. Yes. But we don't forget. Right? And I went to she said, talk to me after class. I was literally shaking, and she brought me in clothes. And you know what she did? She said, I'm not gonna send you to the office, and here's why. Because I believe in you, and I believe you can get this. [01:06:30] (35 seconds)  #GraceThatBelieves

He came to do the father's will. Success for Jesus looked like whatever the father said. This is what I want done. What happened at the end of Jesus's ministry? Because he had all the crowds, he had all the momentum, he had all the power, but what happened to his ministry at the end? What happened to favor? It shrunk. A lot of people would have said Jesus' ministry was a failure because of how it seemed to end in public. I wonder how Jesus felt about that. [01:17:20] (44 seconds)  #FaithfulNotFamous