Servant Hearts: Giving, Listening, and Community Care

Or maybe you've been a church member for a long time, but you've never picked up the towel and the water basin and said, okay, God, where's some feet I can wash? How can I help? How can I sit with someone else and listen to them and love them and care for them? That's what God's calling us to do. Guys, I tell my class to write this down. We just finished this this last week. I do a thing on listing in my class and my A lot of my students are here. They can tell you exactly what I tell them. The number one thing I tell them to write down on top of the page is listening equals love. [01:17:56] (42 seconds)  #ListeningEqualsLove

In other words, so often what we do in church, or what we do in life is we look for these positions of power. In reality, Jesus came with a towel wrapped around him. He was anointed by the father, fully God, fully man. He had all the power, but he chose to to give that to us through a towel in a basin. He chose to show us that by us giving up ourselves. Over over scripture it says, a man gives up his life, he will gain it. Right? When a man is willing to die, the bible says, Paul tells us, then he's willing he's able to what? Live. It's what he says to us. Tells us that over and over again, don't be like this. [01:11:11] (41 seconds)  #ServeLikeJesus

And the one man in this world that I respected almost as much as my dad humbled himself enough to wash a 13 year old kid's feet. I've never got over that. Never have. That's what doctor Hawkins is talking about here. This is who we are. We can't be looking and go, what's best for me? We gotta be looking for what's best for the kingdom. And that starts by us being servants. All of us. [01:14:49] (30 seconds)  #ServeForTheKingdom

A lot of times we're scared to talk about giving because we're afraid people will say, well, that's all you talk about in church. No, no, no. We're talking about being grateful. What does that look like? What's the overflow of that of what we do? And the overflow of that with our hearts is that we give back to God. And part of that is we give with our finances or time or whatever that may be. But I just challenge you to do that. I challenge you to to allow God to move in your heart like it says, not by compulsion, not because we have to. Nobody's twisting anybody's arms and nobody's checking to see what everybody gives or anything like that. That's completely between you and God. [00:27:58] (34 seconds)  #GratefulGiving

And I know, because he's done that with me over the years. He's done that with Debbie and I over the years and with so many others. And what we've been telling, we we know what's our theme here, guys? Nobody falls through the cracks. Nobody falls through the cracks. We start within the church. How do we do this? How do we listen to certain things? What does this look like? And then how do we take this outside? [01:09:45] (24 seconds)  #NoOneLeftBehind

I love you. Thank you for caring and picking up our arms. Thank you for carrying us. The the last couple weeks been really difficult, and so many of you called. It's been there to hold us up and do that kind of stuff like that. And and Debbie would give the same testimony. We just appreciate. Like I said, if we can bottle that up and just take that to this community, take that to each other, don't walk out quickly, it it blesses my soul to see y'all praying together. But that's just the beginning of this guys. That's what this is all about. That's what the church is for. Doctor Hawkins said something about a month or two ago, [01:26:39] (36 seconds)  #PrayAndStay

And you've called us father to be like you, to go, to step across, to love, to listen, to care. And father, we as a church, we're asking that you would use us to transform this community around us. Transform the church inside here and the church outside of here. Help us to be the church wherever we go and use us God for your glory we ask. [01:20:06] (32 seconds)  #TransformOurCommunity

and we made a commitment at that point. God really laid on our heart to to stay faithful, to to give to the church, to tithe, the missions offerings, and things like that. And you know, those two or three years that went on, we never missed a meal. We never missed anything like that. God took care of everything. And it began to build in us this this idea of living grateful. What does that mean? Because every gift we have is given by God. Right? And so I just I I A friend of mine who mentored me for a long time just challenged me. He said, David, you cannot out give God. [00:27:26] (32 seconds)  #CantOutGiveGod