The Golden Rule of Stewardship

Main idea: Choose love, and nothing you do will be wasted.

1. Sync up with God’s saving love.
2. Size up through the lens of love.
3. Seize the eternal rewards of love.

• Automated Transcription

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  Well, good morning friends. Good morning church family. It's so good to see you this morning. I'm grateful that you're well. We have had so many people sick. Anybody been sick in last couple of weeks? Yeah, a few of you well. The rest are still at home, so we'll pray for them as well. The rush kids were there. Five out of six sick at one point. Ian, wow, glad that some of them are better. Yeah, that's so anyway. But my wife has been sick this week too, so we are just entrusting ourselves to the Lord for that. I want to add my welcome to you who are visitors. I love meeting the visitors, and I'll be here or out in the foyer. Love to get to know you a little bit of your story, how we could serve you as a church. We always want to do this for you. If you're a visitor, I want to say it this way. If you choose faith, Bible, church, you get Jesus Christ from His Word. We look to God's Word that points us to Jesus. You get a family, you get your people through our growth group ministry, and you get a purpose, a way to serve, a way to impact, a way to be trained and equipped. We want you to have that, and so that fits as a really good lead in to the mini series that we're about to enter into. We start a series on stewardship from the pulpit. We're going to cover the foundations of stewardship in growth groups. We're going to deal with principles and practices. We're going to have some of our groups all together on Wednesday nights to get as many of the principles and practices, because how we use our time and how we use our resources is the most obvious and most revealing evidence of what we love. If you want to know what you love, it's where you spend your time and your resources, and therefore I'm going to begin with a passage that doesn't talk about stewardship. I'm going to get to a passage that has to do with the heart of stewardship, everything about stewardship. So turn with me to the story of the Good Samaritan Luke 1025, through 37 it's a really familiar story. What struck me in preparation and praying for this is that the story of the Good Samaritan, you have to imagine a question, as Jesus tells it, that the Good Samaritan was probably on his way to do something like he had his time mapped out, and was interrupted. He probably had something in mind with his money, and a need came up that was more significant, and he acted on it. And this was a demonstration of loving neighbor, therefore a demonstration of loving God. Loving God is going to be the root of good stewardship. Stand with me for the reading of God's Word. I'm going to take us through 25 through 37 and then we're going to apply some principles for those of you who like me, sticking in one passage and preaching through it. This is not going to be one of those days you're going to need to take notes or listen a second time. That's all great. I just want to warn you, it's a topical message. We're going to hit a number of scriptures, but this one is especially pressing on the big picture for us. Luke, 1025, behold, a lawyer, an expert in Jewish law, stood up to put Jesus to the test. Saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, what is written in the law? How do you read it? And he answered, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength, with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, you have answered correctly, do this and you will live. But he, the lawyer, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Jesus replied, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now, by chance, a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him passed by on the other side, but a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. Him. The next day, he took out two daneryi and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said, The one who showed him mercy, and Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. This is the word of the Lord, Lord God. We praise you and thank you, as we have heard from Psalm 24 the world and all that's in it is yours. We are yours, our minds and our bodies, our energy and our agendas, they're all yours, and yet we find quite quickly that we don't use them for your purposes. Very often we waste a lot of time on things that are not the pursuits you would call us to we want to be faithful. We want to be faithful with our time, with our money, our resources, the relationships, the work in our life, all of it. We want to be faithful. We need the Lord Jesus to help us. Lord Jesus, as we look at stewarding that is taking care of what you've given us for your purposes, when we look at that, we want to follow you and your example. We want to please you, and we need your Spirit to help us. So send your spirit, as I'm going to be going through a lot of different passages, help them be clear and to the point for what we need to do to properly steward to give you glory, and the rule of love is to rule all that we do. So help that be true. I pray for our mission as a church. We want to make disciples. We want to see new people come to Christ, those who know Christ to grow in their faith. This is really important series in the life of our church to be able to do that. Help Us repeat it. I think around the city there are churches making disciples too. I think of Cary Hughes and his elder team at Christ the Redeemer at the edge of the west central neighborhood. Give him clarity wisdom. Help them faithfully make disciples. Help all of us as churches, use what we have for your glory and your honor for the biggest impact on the people of our city, we ask that you would bring comfort and healing. Many are out sick. I can see it. I pray that You would give comfort and strength for them, and that you would be pleased by how we respond to suffering. Help us as a church family, be ready to help those in need among us. We ask all this in Christ's name. Amen, you may be seated. Well, the story of the Good Samaritan is about how you show God you love him. The lawyer asks a question he thinks he is going to be saved by obeying the law. Jesus exposes him, saying, you haven't obeyed it yet. That is one use of it. The parable revealed how the Samaritan used his time and his resources, and it is telling the motivation, the core is telling about all of this, the golden rule of stewardship. That's what I want to call this message. We're going to set some foundations today. Get some practice into some practices in growth groups. My wife and I have been reading the New York Times bestseller, Theo of golden it's a novel about the art of seeing people. The main character, 86 year old, Theo wanders into a coffee shop, sees the portraits of 92 locals, local people hanging on a wall. And over a year, he buys every portrait and delivers it to the subject. And at one point, the artist of all the portraits has a conversation with Theo, and he asks Theo, what do you think good art is? All the art people who really care, they're tuned in. The rest of us are like, huh, I don't know what's good art. Here's Theo's thoughtful answer for anything to be good, truly good. There must be love in it. I'm not sure I know fully what that means, but the older I get, the more I believe it, whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, law, making, medicine, music or raising a child, if love is not in it at the very heart of it, it might be skillful, marketable or popular, but I doubt it is truly good. End quote, that perspective is essential to the art of using your time. And your resources,
  
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  the art of stewardship. If I could quote Theo, we could say, if there is not love in it, I doubt it is truly good. As we talk about the golden rule of stewardship, we want to talk about how love rules our planning, how easily we're interrupted. Stewardship, if you want a definition, here's a definition. Stewardship is the care we take in using the resources God has given us to accomplish his purposes. I'll say that again, stewardship is the care we take in using the resources God has given us to accomplish his purposes. And one word guarantees faithful stewardship, love. That's what Jesus told the expert in biblical law. But here's the problem with time, with money, we think it's all ours. I mean, we don't publish shared bank accounts. We have individual bank accounts. We don't publish a calendar for 600 people. We have our own calendar. We think it's ours, and we know it's limited. So we fill our time and use our resources trying to maximize, maximize our favorite things. And we have all kinds of words in our culture for trying to do that FOMO fear of missing out. We're trying to maximize everything. We hate wasting time. We hate wasting money because we want to maximize time and money to things that are meaningful or important or pleasurable to us, but we waste time and money all the time. We have words for that, wasting time and money. Doom. Scrolling.
  
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  And we hate ourselves for it. We hate when we waste time and money. I mean, we know it's limited, and yet we do it anyway. I'm wasting time, wasting resources is a recipe for soul crushing guilt and frustration. So here's the question, is there a way to use my limited resources and my limited time that matters? Is there a way to use those things that matters? And the answer is yes, there is a big idea for us this morning. Is this, if you choose love, Nothing you do will be wasted. If you choose love, Nothing you do will be wasted. Doesn't mean that's going to be easy to do, but that is going to be the Polaris the North Star for your direction. You can get a planner and a budget set up, knowing that loving well involves planning well at the same time, you can get to the end of the most interrupted day with nothing done in your planner and little attention to your budget, but you could be confident that You didn't waste anything because you did what love required, you could step out in faith to try something risky, confident that failed attempts aren't wasted attempts the hitting the love button doesn't mean that you'll automatically know exactly the right thing to do. You'll just know the right direction. So you could try something in faith, and it might be risky. You might not be sure, but you can end the day knowing that it wasn't wasted. You can be guilt free for sleeping in. I mean, you can be you can sleep in, guilt free, knowing that God given rest makes you more able to do what is important. The other hand, you can have a string of sleepless nights. I see the moms and dads holding babies a series of tragic trials can seize you, and you know that nothing is wasted in your response, when you respond in love, when you choose love, Nothing you do will be wasted. As I think about this, we want to tell to talk about time management. Next week, Redeeming the time out of Ephesians five, Brian is going to be preaching on treasures in heaven the week after that, before we get there, I have a concern. I have a concern that the people who are. Super planners and want to get stuff done. Think that a series on stewardship and money management is going to put more on your less list of things to do, and some of you need to do less. So here's a here's a book, do more better. It's a great book, Practical Guide to productivity. Tim challenge, we don't have it, but if you want to snap a picture of it's really helpful. Could make some of you do more better? Guiltier, more failing than ever. I have a concern about that. I have a concern about the do more better, or budget better. You get Dave Ramsey's plan, you put it in place, you've eliminated your debt, and you judge every person in the room who doesn't do what you do. It's also not helpful, as I think about it, let's, let's put five or six things on a list. Usually when I make it and I'm discipling somebody, I put them in a circle, and I use spokes in a wheel, and I'll bring it back to this. Here are things that are part of your life, devotion to God. God made us to relate to him. We have to take time to cultivate that relationship. And in Christianity, we call it devotions. You hear from God, from his word, and you pour out your heart to God in prayer. You have to have some time for devotion to connect well with God. Obviously, you work. God made us to work. We work. That's how he provides for us, and that's how we provide for others. He puts you in a family. You're in a family. You might have a various role in a family. You make disciples as part of God's great commission. So there's going to be an element of church in your life, because that's where God designs us to make disciples, to help us grow into Christ likeness. And then there's the making disciples outside of church where we're bringing the Gospel to people who don't know it. The last category I would call rest. So you have devotion, work, family, making disciples and rest. Many of you, many of you think that rest is a four letter word, a bad word, but God made you, and He made us with a rhythm to work every day and rest every day, and he made us in a rhythm to work throughout the week and rest a part of the week. How do I think about stewardship when I think of those areas of my life, my time, my resources, my relationships. So three things that I've been thinking about last couple of weeks that tie to this. First, we need to sync up with God's saving love. That's a purpose question. Second, we need to size up those six things through the grid of love. We're going to look at this parable. And finally, we're going to look ahead to the reward of love at the Second Coming. So there is something here for us that's very powerful. Let's start with number one, syncing up with God's saving love. The greatest philosopher in my house is my wife, and she's been saying this recently, happiness is not found in pleasure, but purpose. Happiness is not found in pleasure, but purpose, syncing up with God's saving love will guarantee you will have the right purpose. So let's do that through the gospel. Let's do that through the gospel. The gospel of God's love is crucial to saving your calendar and your bank account. They need rescue, and the gospel rescues them. Here's where we start. Number one, nothing is ours. Everything is God's. It's how the Bible starts in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. What he creates, he owns. God is creator and King. Psalm 24 verse one, which we heard in our scripture reading when we opened this morning, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. That is you, your mind, your agenda. It all belongs to God. Genesis. One, God made men and women for a spectacular purpose, Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, reign over it. Genesis two, he put Adam and Eve in the garden, and the quote is to tend and keep it. That's the first stewardship listed out in the Bible. It's God's garden. He put Adam and Eve in there to work and keep it. It belongs to God. Everything, including our minds and bodies, belong to God. I have a calendar with appointments and a bank account with funds to enable me to serve his purposes. That's what they're for. I. It, but we've all sinned. Number two, we've all sinned. We could say it with the apostle Paul, All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But let's give you a real life example to show this. We can tell about the issue of time and resources, that we're sinners because of our conflict over it. James four, verse two, James is telling his readers, you desire and do not have. So you murder. There's something you want, you covet and cannot obtain. So you fight and Quarrel you do not have because you do not ask, and you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. You have things you want, apart from God's good plan and apart from being a good steward and you are willing to fight and Quarrel even kill to get it, we are slaves to this quarreling. Have you had a heated discussion in the last month about how you're using your time or your money if you live with somebody? I bet you have it's an evidence of this reality. We've all sinned. There's a judgment coming for this. There's a judgment coming for this, how we use our resources, not using for using the Lord's resources for his good and glory, and not out of love. Turn to Matthew 25 turn it back to Matthew 25 we'll come back to Luke in just a second. But I want you to lay eyes on this. I don't have time to unpack Matthew 25 who it's for, what's going on and when this is going to happen. I want to illustrate what Jesus thought about, what we should be doing with our money and our time.
  
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  It's the sheep goat judgment. I'll finish with the positive. I'll start a little bit later in the negative, there were wicked people on Judgment Day standing for Jesus, and Jesus said, you're going to depart into everlasting judgment, because somebody was naked and you didn't clothe them, somebody was hungry and you didn't feed them. Somebody was poor and you didn't give to them. Somebody was in jail and you didn't go visit them. This has everything to do with how we use our time and how we use our resources. And Matthew 2545 and 46 says this. This is from Jesus, truly. I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these. You did not do it to me, these will go away into eternal punishment. There is a judgment coming for not using God's resources to help the least of these to truly love. There's a judgment coming, but there is good news. Jesus Christ came to save sinners. The love and generosity of God are displayed to sinners. Romans five, eight might summarize it this way, God shows His love for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, while we were still squanderers and stealers of God's resources, Christ came to die for us, Paul trying to help us motivate, be motivated in proper generosity. Says it this way, Ian second, Corinthians, eight, nine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, God in heaven, at the right hand of the Father in glory, though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich. This speaks of the great work of the Cross. One of the comments when I turned in the notes this week is like, man, there's all this talk about love. Is Dan going soft on us. Probably I'm talking about bloody cross love. That's how Jesus loved us. Bloody cross love, sacrificial love, humiliated love, and when he calls us into faith, we take on Jesus' sacrificial mindset to love. God raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus now. Reigns over all, sends His Spirit to dwell in His people, and gifts them for his service. All who repent and believe show their repentance by leaving sinful pursuits, leaving them behind and following Christ. So here is the question, the Transcendent Lord is going to come, and there is going to be a judgment of everything we've thought done or spent. Do you have the forgiveness you need in Jesus Christ? This is a day to repent, to turn to Him, to turn over your life to Him, and say, My whole life is yours. I'm turning living my way. I'm going to live your way. In terms of workers, Jesus comes early in the gospels to Peter, James and John. They're fishermen, and they just had a day of fishing without much success. Jesus tells them, throw your nets in one more time. They pull in this huge catch of fish, because Jesus controls the fish. And Jesus says to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they left their nets and followed him. It's a picture of repentance and faith, our salvation from slavery to sin and certain judgment was by the cross of Christ, empowered by His death and resurrection and spirit, is now to service to God, Ian, second, Corinthians, 514, here we have this very powerful statement that ties all of them together. It says, For the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died, and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who, for their sake, died and was raised so by the truth of the gospel. You are owned by God. Since all is God's, you are redeemed into his service. First, Corinthians, 619, and 20 says it this way, you're not your own. You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. I mean, think of Jesus Christ. This is part of what has launched me to this at the beginning of the year, I'm a person who loves to do lots of things. My to do list is impossibly long. I have six boxes, and I fill all of them with more than I can do in a year. And I finally was like, why am I trying to always do so many things? And I look at Jesus' life, descending from heaven, taking on that humiliation and humility as a boy. When you watch him start his ministry from the front to the end, you notice something very powerful about Jesus. He's never in a hurry. He gets everywhere just on time. He has a clear purpose and mission, and yet he is perfectly interruptible. How does he do this? Well, from the beginning of the gospel of Mark, you find his secret to this. Every morning he wakes up, goes to a quiet place, communes with God, and gets the day's marching orders. That day in Mark, he could have gotten up his disciples come to find him and say, Jesus, there's a huge line of people that you could heal, and you could cast out demons, and you could make yourself really famous. Here he says, You know what? They've already heard me, I need to go somewhere else. And so Jesus, not tied by the tyranny of man pleasing, went on to the next thing, and he does this over and over and over, all the way to the point of the Garden of Gethsemane, where he pours his heart out to God, asking for another way. God doesn't give him another way. He's arrested, he's beaten, He's crucified. And what are some of his last words? What are Jesus' last words, It is finished. He accomplished the payment for our sin by His atoning death. He did all the work God required of him. He could wake up early to spend time with the Father. He could work really hard. Jesus was okay with naps in the afternoon. He had had this huge ministry day, and he gets in a boat, and he just falls sound asleep in the bottom of the boat. And a storm comes up, and water is coming in, and Jesus is sound asleep in the boat. His disciples like Jesus, don't you care? We're going to die. Wake up and. But I mean, there is Jesus taking rest in the middle of the day. What an example. Now, it is convenient that he's the second person of the Trinity with instant communication ability with the Father. You are not that. So the dependence of that is another story, which we will get to in just a moment, but he finished his work. Peter tells us this, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace. If you sync up with God's love, Nothing you do will be wasted. Nothing you do will be wasted. Sync up with that purpose. So now we have to talk about devotion, work, family, rest. How do I figure out what to do? How do I figure out what to do in a day, in a week, in a season of life for a career choice. Again, this is very helpful, sizing all of those things up through the lens of love. God saved us, called us into his service, called us into the fellowship of the Father, Son and Spirit. So planning, using spending, is directed as we use the grid of love.
  
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  It means that all of what you spend, your time on, your resources, and rest in are all to be directed in love. There are some very poignant verses the apostle John, who is the apostle of love. First John refers to this over and over again. In if you love God, you're going to love your neighbor. First John 317 through 18 says, If anyone has the world's good, it's goods. And he sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him. How does God's love abide in Him, Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and truth. So we love by using our resources meeting needs. What's the greatest need? Well, the love of grace, the love and grace of God in the gospel. So if we were to take our life like a bicycle wheel and spokes inside, we are living in light of the gospel of God's love, bringing the Gospel of love to our world, our time, our resources have to go into that. And God has promised to meet our daily needs as we do it. I think one of the questions that we were thinking about on my team this week is this reminder about God's supply. The Apostle Paul would say in Philippians 414, God will supply all your needs according to His glory and riches in Christ, Jesus, or Psalm 50, would say he owns the cattle on 1000 Hills. God calls you to his service and supplies your need. I think this, the story of the Good Samaritan, is really helpful. Turn back to Luke, and let's walk through this the good the Good Samaritan story is about a lawyer who thinks he can do good enough to earn salvation. Jesus wants to expose the bankruptcy of his ability. That's what this whole thing is about. Verse 25 says, This man comes to him, a Jewish expert in the law, and he says, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus is back to him. Well, what is written in the law? How do you read it? You tell me which he was eager to do, he answered, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. When Jesus tells that story, Jesus says, these are two greatest commandments. In fact, when Jesus explains it in Matthew's version, and he gives that answer, the loving your neighbor as yourself, is the demonstration of loving God. This guy gets it right. Jesus says to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live now. You have to understand this about the law from the Old Testament, the first reality about the law, whether it's the 10 Commandments or the two commandments, is that they expose our inability to fulfill it. They are a tutor. We're supposed to love God with everything in us, and who's done that for five seconds, love your neighbor as yourself, who's done that? Consistently, no one we find when we hear those commands, we are undone, which this guy didn't get. The second ways that it's used, the law of the Old Testament, or laws of here, like the 10 Commandments, or these two commandments, are good ways to regulate a church or a government. They were used in the Old Testament like that. But they are also demonstrations of how you do love God. Once a person does trust Christ by faith. These are your train tracks. Love God, Love your neighbor, and you can please Him. And so we have this story. The man is desiring to justify himself, see, I've done enough, I can earn my way into heaven. He wants to ask a question, in case he's missed any of the details, who is my neighbor? He's trying to double check, do I have the bases covered? Now, it was common in the day for religious people to think that their neighbors were the other religious people. In practical terms, it was the religious Jews who thought other religious Jews were their neighbors and other people were not. So Jesus is taking this opportunity. This guy really thinks he's going to get obey his way into heaven. And so Jesus shows the Good Samaritan, shows the story to expose the man's failure. So Jesus says a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. It was a true need. It's not a panhandler. This is a guy who's left for dead. Now, by chance, a priest was going down on that road. Now, a priest is the person under the Old Testament who is supposed to represent God to the people in the temple. Priests were in the temple acting as the mediators, representing God to the people. And here's the person from the temple who is to represent God to the world. I The guy is in the ditch on this side, and the priest goes on the other side of the road as far from him as possible. Why would he do that? If he is a man who is supposed to represent God? Well, one is he. He didn't want to take the time, he didn't want to spend his money. He already had plans for his time. He already had plans for his money. He was on his way to do ministry, and he couldn't be interrupted. The fact is that under Jewish law, if you helped somebody in that kind of situation, they would temporarily defile you, especially if they died on you. There was a rule about defilement, and he could not stand the idea of being defiled, and so he ignores the need.
  
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  So likewise, verse 32 a Levite. Here's a person who's supposed to represent God in the villages. Priests were in the temple. Levites were in the villages. They had the task of reading the Bible to people, helping people understand God's ways and will and His law. When he came to the place and saw him, he passed by on the other side. Here's the same thing. Here's the person supposed to represent God to people in the villages, and he can't be bothered by his schedule. Can't be bothered by his money, and he's concerned, most likely, that he's going to be defiled. Verse 33 is now where Jesus turns the story. But a Samaritan now, Samaritans were people who were half Jewish and half from pagan nations. They had a unique way of worshiping that was false. They worshiped God in false ways. There was huge prejudice from Jews to Samaritans, and from Samaritans to Jews, they were mutually hateful of each other. A Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion on him. He went to him, bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. What did he do? He used his time. He used his resources. I'm sure he had somewhere to be that afternoon. I'm sure he. Was saving his money for something else, but the pressing need was far more important, as he saw somebody who was suffering. Next day, he takes out two denarii that's two more full days of wages. Gave them to the innkeeper, saying, Take care of him. And whatever more you spend, I will repay it when I come back, and so Jesus asks the expert in the Jewish law, which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? And he's not just asking, who's the neighbor? He's asking, who loves God? Because the second is like it should love you Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself, that is how you demonstrate your Love for God. And
  
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  he said, The one who showed him mercy, he couldn't even spit out the words Samaritan Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. Instead of responding to Jesus, saying, I am undone. I have not obeyed your law. Instead of doing that, he justifies himself. Is Jesus saying, This is how you get into heaven? No, he is saying, This is how you show saving faith. You love God, and you use your time and your money for those who have a greater need than you do, and who really acted like he loved God, the Samaritan. How does this apply to us? Next week, we're going to talk about budgeting time in our growth groups. We're going to talk about budgeting money. But budgets aren't means for self righteousness. They're tools to love. Planning how you spend your time and money is as much a labor of love as is sacrificially meeting a surprise need. There are some of you here who are super planners, super budgeters. You're time people. You're the kind of people who say, you know, we start on time and we end on time. That's how we love people starting on time and ending on time. Do you know a person who's the start on time, end on time? Person start on time got to end on time. Well, who are we really loving? The person who wants to limit their love and time? Sometimes the need overrides our plan, and we have to set our plan aside. But some of you are comfy on the couch reading a book all afternoon, people, now I'll talk about when that's good next week and our rest part of our time, but that's that's all you'd want to do. I'm just a comfort person, so all of a sudden a need comes that would make you really uncomfortable, like a guy laying in a ditch. You can't do it. Love is going to get you up off the couch when devotion to pleasure is too high, love is going to let you interrupt your schedule when the planner in you is on overdrive, our calendars and our bank accounts and our budgets must not be excuses to withhold love.
  
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  So think about this circle. Think about this list our priorities in stewardship, devotion, first family, church work. All of these things come in and and I think of them as as movable spokes on a wheel. We have time. Let's, let's do one more story. Just it's the next one. It's the Mary and Martha story. Martha and Mary story on my heading. This is a parable to busy people who want to get things done and feel the pressure from other people to get them done. That's who this is to they went on their way. Jesus entered a village a woman named Mark. Welcomed him into her house. She has a relationship with Jesus already. Her brother, Lazarus, is the one who's going to get raised from the dead, so there's already a relationship. She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with with much serving. She was very busy. Her to do list was very long. There were all these people to care for, and they all might have expectations on her to deliver, adding a little for color. She went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone. I mean, I have all of this to do. Tell her to help me, but the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. Mary chose to be with Jesus.
  
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  She made a deliberate choice to be with Jesus. If we look at how Mary used her time and Martha used her time, who does Jesus commend He commends Mary, who prioritized him, not serving, not pleasing everybody, not putting a mountain of pressure on your shoulders to deliver something that most people don't even expect. Now I'm just riffing on all of you, faith, Bible, church, people who feel like you never do enough, and everybody is always disappointed in you. Some of you are out there. I know you. She took time to rest at the feet of Jesus. That's how you love him. We size up through the lens of love, and when we do, nothing will be wasted. Now an illustration here is helpful for us. If you're married and you get in the car, after you turn on the car, there is one thing that you have to do first. What do you have to do first? After you turn on the car, you have to get the temperature set. There's two of you in the car who have different expectations about temperature. One of you runs hot, one of you runs cold, always, or it's reversed. You get in the car and you have to figure out what temperature are we going to be in? I learned a long time ago that the husband who loves sacrificially as Christ led the church, we're going to get the temperature to where she thinks it's comfortable. Here's the problem. In the winter, it's different than the summer. It's always changing. As matter of fact, it changes through the car ride. Could you turn up the the air? You turn it up too high? Could you turn it down now you turned it off? Like, come on. You gotta whatever it is, like, your hands are right there. Just like, make it like you like it. So you, you turn it up, it's freezing. You turn it up to hot, but she doesn't want it as hot, because it always changes. That's okay. That's life. The needs change. So love changes and adapts. So don't be surprised that you make an attempt at love, but it's not received really well. Is the Lord pleased with any attempt to love? Yes, even if it's not dialed in, you're going to spend your whole life dialing in. Those priorities are not fixed. Priorities in a given time, devotion or family or work, they shift, they change. You have to make daily adjustments. You have to make seasonal adjustments. So revisiting Love is a constant requirement, and sometimes making the other person comfortable is not the goal of love. We have to speak the truth in love. So sometimes love requires us to do what is best for someone else. Difference, which might mean saying something that's challenging, or allowing a discipline, allowing a consequence. If you're a parent, you have to be like God the Father. God the Father disciplines those he loves, and you might need to discipline the children that you love. Love always does what's best, and that's always changing, which is another reason to meet with Jesus every day, because the demands of love are always changing. But if you set the North Star, your Polaris as love, you will generally go the right direction, and the Lord will be pleased with that. Finally, let's let's finish on the crescendo that Jesus does in Matthew 25 I want you to think about seizing the eternal rewards of love. God redeems us to serve Him. We have a mission, he provides for us, and one thing we need to recognize is that one day, he will reward our plans and our acts of love. God sees them and rewards them. Let's
  
  51:22
  use a negative example, and let's use a positive example, negative example, Acts, chapter four, at the end of Acts, chapter 4000s, in the church in Acts, many have come from far away, and at some point, the people and believers are being built up, and there's a real financial need. People who were local started selling their property, giving the proceeds to the church to make sure everybody in town could be fed. A sudden burst of generosity takes over the church. A man named Levi sells a piece of land. He brings it to the apostles. He lays it at their feet. He is named Barnabas, the son of encouragement. And another couple, Ananias and Sapphira, all of a sudden, get bitten by the bug of philanthropy. I want to be a philanthropist. I want to give significantly. So they have a piece of property, but they want to be recognized, but they want to keep some of the money. So in Acts chapter five, they agree to sell a piece of property, withhold some of the money, go into the apostles, and just like Barnabas, we sold our property. Here's the money, and the Spirit tells Peter they're lying to you. Peter says, How could you lie to the Holy Spirit of God? Wasn't the money. Wasn't the land yours before you sold. It wasn't the money yours before you gave it. Like it was perfectly fine for you to say, I'm giving half and I'm keeping half. I think we need this half. What God wanted was a generous heart. But you came in lying. You came in lying, wanting to look good. I think there's something important for the American church goer to think about. One thing that I really like is my bank account isn't up for you all to look at. I like that. I like the fact that I don't look at your bank account. My calendar is a little more visible because I show up places I don't want to look at your bank account. You don't want to look at my bank account, which leaves us with a great deal of anonymity, and sometimes anonymity lacks accountability, and we can lie to ourselves that we're generous or we're giving, and yet don't don't give. There is something that all of us will have to deal with that my life, my time, my resources, my relationships, are all God's. And I need to be able to go to God and say it's all yours. I Yes, I want to use it as you wish. And then follow through. I was talking to a young single guy. It's like, boy, I really resonate with that said, you know, it's not a bad idea as a young single guy to have one person who's looking at your bank account and one person who's looking at. Your calendar. I mean, I'm married, I have that person. I have that person because anonymity allows us to deceive ourselves and maybe even deceive others that we're really generous people, or we're really giving people, when, in fact, before the Lord were lying to them or lying to others, that's a negative example. What happened to Ananias and Sapphira. They were struck dead. For that, I'm not saying you're going to be struck dead. Let's look at the positive side. Let's look at the positive side, love for God and anticipation of God's reward would have guarded Ananias and Sapphira. They will guard you. One of the books I recommend for everybody, Richard Baxter's the Saint's everlasting right. Rest is all about crossing the finish line into God's presence. It's a life changing book for me. He writes this about the Last Judgment and the wicked who kept for themselves and their pleasures. Says, when the wicked compare, this is on Judgment Day, when the wicked compare the value of pleasures of sin with the value of the reward of God. How vast the disproportion will be and astonish them. They gave up their pleasures in life, and they were rewarded with eternal pleasures in glory. I kept tiny, worthless pleasures in life, and have forfeited eternal glory.
  
  57:08
  That's going to astonish them to think of the low delights of the flesh, or the applauding words of mortals, or possessing heaps of gold compared comparison of giving up everlasting glory,
  
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  service to God, generosity to the needy, support of the world wide, work of local churches is part of what we do, and The Lord will rescue the Lord. The Lord will reward. Look at Matthew 2531
  
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  it says, When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people, one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, Come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me righteous. Will answer. I'm saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you and naked and clothe you. When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the King will answer them truly. I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it for me, they will enter into the glory of the Father. You might ask some questions. I really want to love. I've prayed about it. I've thought about it. I attempted, and my attempt was rejected. If it was directed at Jesus, it's never rejected. What if my attempt to love fails? What if it doesn't produce what I want? If the attempt is genuine, Jesus receives it. It's not the product of being a good steward that matters. It's the faithfulness in seeking the Lord of love that matters. So let's say you're a planner. You're a junior in high school, planning. What trade to pursue, or college to attend, the golden rule of love is going to be essential. What am I going to pursue? How will I use it? I'm. Love God and love the people in my life. Let's say you're a comfort seeker. You know the warm drink, long book, a binge watch series, that's what you love most. Love will check the laziness. It will help you understand the difference between rest and wastefulness. Are you an indecisive perfectionist? I mean, you can't decide what to do, because every action has a downside, and every downside paralyzes you.
  
  1:00:35
  Love will free you.
  
  1:00:38
  Love will free you have multiple options to love. Kevin De yount's book might be for you just do something. Are you a budgeter? Dave Ramsey's principles have made you financially free. But to what end? To what end love will change how you budget. This isn't sentimentality. Jesus gave us bloody cross love and love. What we do is for someone else's best, at great cost to ourselves and God supplies all our needs to do that.
  
  1:01:26
  There's three prayers. You might write these down. You might say, Lord, I'm giving you my calendar and my bank accounts. I love you and I want to use this money to love you and love others. Can you give God your bank accounts? Can you give him your calendar? But what if he wants to send me to Africa? That's usually the if I give him everything, he's going to want me to be in pain. Guaranteed it. Guarantee it. No, your father loves you. He loves you, giving you my calendar, my bank accounts, help me second I have limited resources. Help me prioritize and be consistent. Help me prioritize and be consistent. A conversation I had with Libby this week, we kind of dove into that, you know, that little set of priorities. You can't do them all all the time. So there's a difference between consistency and constant. Consistent you keep at the priorities. Constant is you're trying to focus on all of them at once, or one of them at once, and you can't do that. So what God's calling you to do is be consistent, and you might have to change the knobs as the need becomes apparent.
  
  1:03:02
  Finally, help me step out of my comfort comfort zone with time and resources. Help me step out of my comfort zone with time and resources. When emergencies come up, don't be afraid if you don't dial it in exactly right. You can get wisdom. You can reflect. You can go forward. You can be a little smarter. You can learn. Can learn. But if you choose love, nothing that you do will be wasted.
  
  1:03:32
  One time, David Livingstone, who was missionary to Africa, brought the Gospel to more inland African nations than anybody in the 19th century, was often asked about the great sacrifices that he made to live and minister in Africa. He wrote this anxiety, sickness, suffering or danger now and then may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink. But let this be only for a moment. All these things are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in us and for us. I never made a sacrifice of this. We ought not to talk when we remember the great sacrifice which he made, who left his father's throne on high to give himself for us, who being the brightness of the Father's glory, the express image of His person and upholding all things by the Word of His power, when he had, by himself, purged our sins, sat down On the right hand of the Majesty on High God's love calls you to that place and living by the rule of love, which is always going to mean sacrifice, will never be a sacrifice. Let's pray, Father. Thank you for. For these words, thank you for how much the Scripture gives us. So help us conscientiously, consciously, thoughtfully, daily, weekly, seasonally, evaluate what we're doing, how we're spending your resources and help us live by the rule and freedom of love Christ's name. Amen

Dan Jarms

Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.

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