Stewardship Beyond Finances | Associate Pastor Chad Erickson

stand to your feet with me if god's been good to you hallelujah so good amen to see everyone out on a midweek service and midweek bible study and thank you uh thank you for making this your place of worship if this is your first time thank you for being with us in the house and i know brother nolan gave us an opportunity to kind of get out and get a get out and get about but i want to do that again in just a few minutes but uh just so thankful uh we might have already said it but pastor and sister carpenter they are they are in uh at myrtle beach uh but trust me they're not getting any beach time in uh they are at they're at a conference that our organization puts on uh annually for ministry and it's it's called deluge conference it's just it's a great time uh where pastors and wives can come together and as they come together uh there's there's there's some healing that happens and restoration that happens and uh not only that but there's some victory and some great things that take place in that conference and so pray for them they're ministering they are uh they are the the special speakers there and i know that god is going to use them in a mighty way well isn't god good isn't god good everybody get a handout if you did not uh by chance if you want to just kind of stroll really quickly to the to the doors i know our hostesses can get those for you and they can help you they can help you with that um tonight um this is going to be this be kind of a little different obviously we are we are in hollywood so uh everything's kind of different tonight and uh and being that i knew that our our set would kind of be in this shape i was looking i said god you know give me something uh that's more of a teaching spirit because i'm gonna have a hard time preaching in hollywood so see some of y'all thought that said hollywood and y'all were like think we backslid or something that that yeah says hollywood just putting that out there just in case you uh kind of read over that real quickly um but you should have a handout that simply says uh it said stewardship beyond finances and i kind of want to add and kind of want to add to what pastor he's already been in a series been in a series called money matters and i want to kind of continue that series talking on stewardship except the only thing that we're not going to talk about tonight in stewardship is finances okay so um i'm just going to throw that out there because he's going to pick that up where he left off next wednesday but there's a lot of stewardship beyond finances and money we realize that and uh sometimes it's harder it's harder to be a good steward of of some of the other things that god gives us sometimes it's harder to be a steward of those than in his money sometimes money is easy money just gotta pull out your pocket and take the checkbook out and but time we gotta be stewards of our time time what about talent a lot of talent out there that we've got to be a good steward of talent and we're going to talk about what that entails and then the third t is our testimony being good stewards of our testimony well in your hearing and you are welcome to turn your bible you can read the screen or you could read your handout because i have put all our scriptures in your hand out because there's no way that you're gonna be able to find those as quick as i'm gonna read through them first peter 4 and 10 says as every man hath received the gift even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of god first corinthians 4 1 says let a man sow account of us as of the ministers of christ and stewards of the mysteries of god and then a longer passage luke chapter 12 starting verse 42 says and the lord said who then is that faithful and wise steward whom is the lord shall make ruler over his household to give them their portion of meat and due season blessed is that servant whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing of a truth i say unto you that he will make on him ruler over all that he hath but and if that servant say in his heart my lord delayeth is coming and shall begin to beat the men's servants and the maidens and to eat and drink and be drunken the lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him and in an hour when he is not aware and will cut him in sunder and will appoint him his portion with unbelievers we see there's a very drastic comparison between the good servant the faithful servant the good steward and he who does not steward that which is the lord's correctly and so in your hearing stewards should be on finances i just for a few minutes i want to talk about these three these three types of stewardship but before we're seated i want you put your papers down put your bibles down and i want you this might this might cause absolute chaos but i want you to leave your pew and i want you to go meet somebody that you don't know all right you got to get you have to get up out of your box out of your shell we got guests that are here we have an evangelist and his wife from virginia we're so glad to have them in the house with us the john stones a brand new family minister of the gospel he and his wife and their beautiful children just moved here from washington state get to know the johnstones they're awesome people i'm just looking around i see faces come on i don't believe there's anybody in this place that knows everybody so hmm um how's my friend doing well glory start a fellowship rally in here i can tell who all my all my oranges are out here on my oranges they're still out talking they're still out touching as many people they can touch and my greens didn't even obey they just sat down my golds met one person and went sat down my blues are still hugging people you may be seated oh god is good how many how many have been through how many have been through anchor points our discipleship series how many raise your hand real high if you've been through anchor points that's that's awesome that's awesome all right so still quite a few who have not well i am going to teach this lesson that i'm going to be teaching this evening is from our ankle acre points discipleship series it's an amazing series uh some 20 or so lessons uh we split it up uh brother arts or debbie schnitzer are over our over our anchor points and they split it up into about i think it's three semesters and we break it up to where we kind of hit it hard give a few weeks off hit it hard again take a few weeks off and then finish up we have a graduation we walk you across um you get a certificate of completion for the course um i've got really really cool news um we have been trying um we have been trying to locate the author of this series okay now mind you i know that brother art has has written a couple of the lessons i know sir carpenter has written a lesson um we've got lessons from some other people so we've kind of compiled uh this anchor points but the majority of it we have um been teaching it for years brother already you've been teaching for decades i want to say and uh just have never known where it came from well um just just by a fluke i pulled it into my into my ibooks on my ipad the other day and you know there's a place where the author comes up and the author said lisa linder and i was like i know elisa linder so anyways got to i called her husband uh they used to be out of uh long island in oyster bay uh uh pastor doug davis church there in oyster bay and um called him i said do you know anything about this i started describing he's like yes yes he said we wrote that he said a bunch of us authors got together from the church and wrote that decades ago probably 30 years ago or better had written this and it is probably the the best i've seen a lot of discipleship series it is probably the best discipleship series i've ever i've ever seen or witnessed and the great news is i got permission for us to print it and when i say print it we are going to put together a full eight half by eleven book professional book we're gonna send it off to get published to to go through the whole process i'll be imprinted professionally so we will have these from from here on and if you've already gone through the course we'll have those available if you want to buy those what we've been doing up until now is we just kind of we make copies of the sessions each week and give them out make notebooks out of them but this is going to be so much better so i'm very excited about that but this is this this discipleship course um that i'm going to be teaching tonight is is from is from uh uh this this course called it's simply called stewardship now normally we do talk about finances in this course but since pastor is on the subject and i knew that there's no way that i would ever be able to even get close to finishing tonight i figured we'd go through the other areas of stewardship outside so if you want to follow along with me i'm going to follow my notes pretty close so that i don't lose you in your four-page handout that i sent you of of scriptures but let's talk about let's talk about what is a what is a steward there's the scriptures teach us that as christians we are to be stewards or caretakers of all the resources that god has given us uh god has blessed us and if you don't know you're blessed just look around and if you don't realize you're blessed all you really got to do is is uh watch the news just for a little time watch what's going on right now across the world and you'll find out very quickly how blessed of a people you are and so because of blessing because we are blessed people uh much is required of us as stewards and as stewards we are responsible to utilize and manage our time our talents our treasure and our testimony for the glory of the lord so as we read and as we read through our opening text god promises what do we know he promises blessings for those who are faithful stewards and he promises punishment to those who are unfaithful i i don't know about you i don't want to check out the ladder i just pretty much want to say god i'm going to be the best steward i can be of what you've given me because i recognize the blessings god's given me and so in order to recognize it or to see it you've got to understand it is your job and it's my job to steward what god has done um there's it's very important as christians that we understand what stewardship is so let's kind of talk about what is stewardship well in ancient times they would have wealthy families and they would assign the management of their household their finances the care to a trustworthy servant such as joseph we we know the story of joseph who was he was over potiphar's house he was a steward of potiphar's house i'm not going to go into detail we understand that everything that potiphar had he gave into the hands of joseph and if you don't really understand a steward you probably think to yourself why would he give finances he gave all the food allowance everything coming in everything that happened in his home why would you give that to a slave well it's because joseph had already proven himself that he was much more than just a slave he had proven himself to be a servant that was faithful and trustworthy look with me on on your handout adam clark uh the adam clark commentary he says this he says the steward was the master's deputy in regulating the concerns of the family providing food for the household seeing is served out at the proper times and seasons in the proper quantities he received all the cash expended what was necessary for the support of the family and kept exact accounts and i want you to notice this next part which he was obliged at certain times to present for examination before the master when we're told of these stories when we're told about stewardship this was something that was very common in in the days of the bible in the days the bible's written to the hebrews to the jews they understood what stewardship was when stories were told about when when jesus would tell parables about stewards they understood very clearly what that meant and what was required of them for good stewards who managed their master's affairs wisely they were always rewarded kindly so stewards were entrusted with managing and caring for things that were not their own everyone say that not their own first corinthians 10 26 says for the earth is the lord's and the fullness thereof which being interpreted simply means everything is the lord's i guess if you create something if you design it if you invent it it's yours everything belongs to in first corinthians 6 and 19 says what know ye not that your body is the temple of the holy ghost which is in you which ye have of god and ye are not your own for you have been bought with a price therefore glorify god in your body and in your spirit which our god so everything belongs to god even the body that you live in the house the tent the tabernacle that you live in belongs to god so whatever he wants everything from this point forward that i'm gonna be speaking of i i don't want to refer to your paycheck or or your car or your house i don't want to refer to those things everything belongs to god we are simply stewards of what is his uh the whole movement that's been very strong lately the movement of it's my body i'll do whatever i want with it we know that movement that's happening right now uh this goes against everything that's biblical it doesn't work uh because obviously with us we have been purchased because we are filled with the spirit of god look with me in luke chapter 2 look at your handout this is the parable of the rich man it's going to kind of go into depth of the speaking of the me movement luke 12 and 16 says in jesus spake a parable unto them saying the ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully and he thought within himself well there we go saying what shall i do because i have no room where to bestow my fruits he said this this will i do i will pull down my barns and build greater and there will i be sow all my fruits and my goods and i will say to my soul okay so now he's even talking to himself he's saying soul thou talman himself has much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry but god said unto him thou fool this night thy soul shall be required of thee then whose shall these things be which thou has provided so is he watch this that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward god y'all see that that's beautiful right there because we always talk about well it's it's not god's will for people to be rich i don't know that's not really biblical right here because right here it simply says if we're rich toward god there's okay it's okay if there's wealth that belongs to god and is used for the purpose of god we're going to learn about it here in a few minutes but the first three verses recorded in this passage we just wrote the word i is recorded six times the word my is recorded five times god never intended never intended for us to be self-centered when it came to possessions here it is god has never mentioned in his in this whole passage right here god's never mentioned until the very end when god simply says you're going to come into an account i'm about to judge you for how you've been for what you've done done with all the stuff that you've been awarded with which you've been given been blessed with and here it is right here oh my god help us if we're going to be good stewards if we're going to realize what we have who it belongs to what it's to be used for we got to understand first of all that everything belongs to god it's it's a fundamental mental ins uh principle it's it's very simple to understand it's all about a faithful steward is what belongs to god and it's god's heritage it's our job as a child of god i want to go down christian stewardship is is it's using temporal goods to accomplish an eternal purpose and i know some of you are thinking i'm talking about money when i'm talking about this and i i know reading through this it sounds like it's all about money but again there's so much more to having the blessings of god than just finances first timothy 6 17 says charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded or arrogant nor trust in uncertain riches but in the living god who giveth us richly all the things to enjoy that they do good that they be rich in good works here's your rich right here in good works ready to distribute or ready to give willing to communicate be open-handed laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life so on several occasions jesus uses the subject of of these of his stewardship in his parables uh look with me in matthew 25 14 this is the parable of the talents it teaches us the principle of stewardship for the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country who called his own servants and delivered unto them as goods and into one he gave five talons and to another two and to another one to every man according to his several ability and straightway took his journey then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same and made them other five talents so now he has ten talents and likewise he that had received two he also gained two more but he that had received one went and digged in the earth and hid his lord's money after a long time the lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth with him and said he that had received five talents came and brought other five towns saying lord thou deliver us unto me five talents behold i have gained beside them five talents more i want you to see this in verse 21 his lord said unto him well done thou good and faithful servant thou hast been faithful that word faithful there over a few things i will make thee ruler over many things enter thou into the joy of the lord if you have a pen circle verse 21 because here is the response of the lord for anybody who does something with what god gives them because if we look down the very exact same passage of scripture is repeated for the one that had two talents and got another two talents the same exact exact word it's well done though good and faithful servant that has been faithful over a few things god doesn't say because you only had two talents and and you only doubled your two talents you know you're not gonna have quite as much and that's not what god said the lord simply says i'll tell you what since you did the best you could with what i gave you now i'm gonna give you more and you're going to have more to be faithful with verse 24 says then he which had received the one talent came and said lord i knew thee that thou art in heart man reaping where thou hast not sown and gathering where thou hast not strawed and i was afraid and went and hid thy talent in the earth lo there thou hast that is thine what he's simply saying is he's saying here it is you gave me one talent you gave me one thing i hid it and i all i'm doing is making sure that i give you back what's yours because after all this is what's yours and and nothing else is due you uh nothing else i have nothing to add to it is what he was saying i'm just going to give you simply back which you gave to me and as the lord answered and said unto him thou wicked and slothful servant thou knewest that i reap where i sow not and gather where i'm not strawed thou artest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers and then at my coming i should have received mine own with usury with interest take therefore the talent from him and give it unto him which hath ten talents for unto every one that hath shall be given watch this right here and he shall have abundance but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath now listen this goes against every bit of socialistic and socialism that we're facing today doesn't it right now it's saying take from he that hath and give it to him that hath not but this lord is simply saying if you work hard if you work hard and you do something with what i gave you not only will you have what you what i've given you and what you've made and what you've prospered with but those that won't do anything with what i give them i'm gonna give it to you i'll tell you a story uh we we had years and years ago we we had a talented a very talented musician a very talented songwriter a very talented singer that attended this church years ago and they would not give their talent to god now they gave their talent they recorded love songs and they recorded this and recorded that and and they had all kinds of stuff going on they're putting stuff on youtube and and they were sharing on facebook on different songs but they would not give their talent to god although god had given them a great talent and i remember because the person backslid and and i remember it it crushed me it crushed my wife in a way and i remember thinking to myself what a waste of talent y'all hear me tonight what a waste of talent we're talking about somebody that could write somebody that could compose somebody that could they could they play their own music and record their own music so much talent all in one person yet they would not refuse to sing unto the lord refuse to write unto the lord and so my wife at the time it was it was it was well before she started writing music and and and she began to pray this prayer and we've told this in music conference after music conference we've told this story because this truly happened my wife began to pray and say god i desire the talent to write songs so bad she said i want to write i feel i'm getting god's songs in my head i just don't know what to do with them and she had never really put anything on paper she had scribbled some notes down but never really put on paper uh but there came a time when she said god uh if that person is not gonna use the talent you've given them to glorify you and to write songs to you she said give that talent to me and i'll write songs for you and wouldn't you know listen i i tell the truth tonight because it wasn't i'm not talking it wasn't years brother four it was it was simply weeks later that all of a sudden her mind began to open and she began to write down phrases and and phrases became stanzas and became became a chorus and then a verse and then another chorus in a bridge and she started writing songs that are now being sang across this country and i ask you how did she get that talent i simply believe it's the same thing that happened in this case i believe god said you know what i gave you a talent you wouldn't do nothing with it and so i'm taking it from you and i'm going to give it to somebody who's going to do something with it you never know you never know what you can pray for i i know musicians i i i personally i know of musicians who will tell you they've never had a lesson in their life but their desire was so strong they simply prayed and said god just just just god help me to understand music help me to understand chord structure lord help me to understand the circle of fifths lord i need to know what sharps and flats go and what keys and and god just somehow held me to understand and i know people i have friends that are very accomplished musicians today not because they took 20 years of lessons but because they prayed and god helped now listen there was a lot of work there's a lot of practice a lot went into it but god gave them a talent that maybe they didn't have before they began to pray for it but i i just believe and i know when i say the word talent uh please understand that i realize that when it says talent it's not talking about what we think about musical talent or or or abilities i know that's something that's talking about but it all goes together and i want to bring together in this in this session tonight i want to bring together the understanding that if we will do something and everything we can with what god has given us god will promote us sister fuller in in the in the uh during youth retreat when you all were up here and they had a panel session on entrepreneurship sister fuller she she made one comment that just blew my mind because it was true in what she said i thought maybe i've known this i've just never heard it said before but she said whatever you do she's talking to young people she said whatever you do get a job it doesn't matter where it is i might be paraphrased a little bit but in my mind this is where i was going with it it doesn't it might be mcdonald's it might be pizza hut it might be a greeter at walmart it could be whatever it could be uh delivering food whatever it is that you that you get a job doing she simply said do it and be the best employee doing the job that's all you got to do it's kind of like the person you know you say if you're with a friend and there's a bear chasing you all you have to be is faster than the friend right you don't have to be fast you just got to be faster than the person you're with same thing the same thing and sister fuller that was profound to me because i thought to myself how many people get jobs and they're just mediocre they just no i show up i'm on time i get there a minute early and you know i do what they ask me to do and i i clean as good as anybody else cleans and you know if it's if it's washing dishes in the back i'd do as good as anybody else does but then you always have that one employee that gets there early that one employee that stays late that one employee that gives everything they have they make sure if somebody doesn't come into work they work double shift you know you know what i'm talking about and it's always that employee sister fuller like you it's always that employee that gets promoted up the chain sooner or later and tyler irwin sooner or later they become managers and managers sooner or later they get promoted to where people want them to start their own chick-fil-as right because you're the best and i look at that with talent god with any kind of talent and that's gonna be our first one we first began to discuss uh stewardship and uh talent's the first one but i began to think to myself god help us lord god to develop in a way not that pleases us but that pleases you ask the question why did you give me the talent in the first place what was your plan well i don't want to get too far ahead of myself but but i want to begin let's let's talk about faithfulness because faithfulness to be a steward first and foremost the requirement of a steward is to be faithful first corinthians 4 2 says moreover if it is required in stewards then a man be found faithful the american heritage dictionary defines faithful as adhering strictly to the person cause or idea to which one is bound dutifully and loyal worthy of trust or credence consistently reliable i like that consistently reliable that's faithfulness right there people don't gotta wonder if you're gonna be faithful people don't have to wonder if you're gonna show up to work people have to wonder if you're gonna show up to school people have to wonder are they gonna be on the job oh no when you're faithful you're consistently reliable so same with us being loyal and adhering strictly to our purpose that's what we do as good stewards we're trustworthy god help me to be trustworthy i want to be honest i got a letter from the irs this past weekend it was a fat letter y'all i knew they weren't like reminding me to turn my taxes in okay i thought oh lord i've never been audited but this is my this must be what audrey looks like but at the same time i'm just gonna be honest with you i had no fear because i claimed all my income on my taxes you understand what i'm saying now now somebody else might have been sweating when they got that i i was just a little concerned because i'd never got anything like that before i thought well they and all of me in the last 20 something years i don't know why they're going to audit me now right but i opened it up in in in um just long story short uh years ago i had set up some square accounts for the church um global grounds and and uh some for the school different and and back at the time if you know what square square accepts credit card payments at the time they wanted a person's name they wanted the personal address and they wanted a personal social security number or they would not let you set up these square accounts and so at the time i'm like sure i got my i got my social security number memorized you know put it in there didn't really think anything of it and i knew you know i'm not ignorant i knew that i needed to put the church in number one and i knew i needed to put the church name in there and the church address but i thought to myself i will do it over time but we're talking years ago nothing sister masa nothing's ever come of it and so i thought we're good until i got this letter in the mail and they said you have underpaid your taxes by twenty four thousand dollars and i was like i didn't know i was that wealthy maybe somebody knows my money i don't know about and of course i got in there and saw the the three uh 1099s for the three square accounts i'm like oh finally caught up with me i should have changed that years ago right so i got it all worked out but the point is this the point is i was never i was never nervous about it you know because i don't put decimal points in other places or combos in other places and i don't shield my face from this income over here and shield my face from this income over here right so getting the irs letter it wasn't a big deal other than i just want to know what was about you know but that's but by part being faithful is being honest in everything you do to be a faithful servant to be a faithful steward of what is god's if you can't put the right numbers on a tax return surely you don't expect god to trust you with what he would give you in blessings right uh sorry i metal i met a little too much i'm sorry but let's talk you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna come back to talent i wanna start just i wanna make sure i have time for this i wanna because i wanna talk about time stewardship of our time three t's first deep time let's talk about time the bible teaches us that a span of our lifetime is short look at psalm 90 and 9 it talks about for all our days are passed away in our wrath we spend our years as a tale that is told the days of our years three score years and 10 some 70 years and if by reason of strength they may be four score 80 years yet in their strength labor and sorrow for it is soon cut off and we fly away who knoweth the power thus anger even according to thy fear so as i read so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom listen all of us live a crazy life all right we're busy we're crazy busy i don't know listen there's some places that i drive through brother orr these little towns where you drive through and you see people sitting on the front porches sipping tea that's not us at least most of us i mean i mean three three o'clock in the afternoon ten o'clock in the morning don't matter they're out there on the front porch just talking and and you know the the old days the barber shops everybody's sitting out front the barber shop just talking and just that's not our lifestyle now sometimes i wish it was there are some communities that i drive through and i think to myself man this would be the life i mean just put me oh put me right in the middle of this country setting this would be the life except that i'm way too driven and that would drive me crazy about two days later i'd be going nuts right i'll be stir crazy but all of us all of us live in this lifestyle where there's just not enough time our our lives are filled with much busyness and unless we specifically plan to give a portion of our time to god the demands and the pressures of our hectic schedules are going to keep us from giving god the time he deserves and somebody said amen ephesians 5 16 redeeming or making proper use of the time because the days are evil before attempting to be faithful in service in duty and work under the lord we've got to be faithful in our personal relationship with him listen i know this is kind of like a broken record that just keeps on turning but the fact of the matter is it's a lot easier to be faithful to god in work than it is relationship oh yes it is i promise you studying for that sunday school class or or preparing uh preparing for the fit team getting everybody together preparing food for the coffee shop or whatever you do i'm just kind of looking around security staff going and shooting at the range all those things all the work all the preparation all that is much easier than taking time to have a relationship with our god oh yes because every morning let me tell you something it doesn't matter when you set your alarm something is going to happen something is going to take place the dog did whatever the dog did on the carpet and something's going to happen that's gonna take your time away from what you had planned to give to god you were never gonna have time do you understand what i'm saying we never have time to have relationship with god it's something we've got to make and the bible talks about where i talk about in a moment but talks about first fruits right god i want to give you all my attention first that's one thing one thing growing up we did we didn't have didn't have computers we didn't have phones we uh cell phones we we didn't have tablets and devices there was no social media we didn't have to worry about anything all of a sudden now we're in this generation this culture all of us are there we're all living in this culture of social media and fox news on my ipad or or or getting turning on the television and and the news is going i've got to find out what's going on in ukraine i've got what happened overnight and so many things if we're not careful we can give other things our first fruits of our time checking our emails checking facebook messenger checking things that don't even really matter my god help us to give god our first fruits lord i want to be disciplined in my life i want to be disciplined my wife and i would be getting up early we want we want to walk the street we want to walk and we want to exercise and make sure we have good time for prayer my body belongs to god i got to take care of it i got to pray to have a relationship with my god i gotta read my bible to have a relationship with my god to understand my god right all these things they all have to do with good stewardship of our time and once we have that under control and i don't know if we ever have it under control it's always going to be a fight but we always got to do we always got to make sure we do it we got to discipline ourselves to do it then the next thing that comes in is service to our god in service to the kingdom hebrews 10 25 says not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together as a manner of some is but exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching and this is not just talking about church services although my god be faithful to bible study be faithful to revival brother mark brown coming up be faithful be here monday and tuesday i know you'll be here wednesday because you'd be here anyways but what about monday and tuesday we gotta that's time who has time to be here nobody but because god is faithful and god is good i'm going to give god as much of my time as i can because you know what if you give god the first roots of your time he'll begin to bless your time i've heard the statement people say well we've all got the same amount of time in a day well that's true but some people's time is blessed and some people's time is cursed what is that what does that mean that simply means that that one person goes to work and sits at a desk here another person sits at a desk right here you've given your first fruits of time to god you've been blessing his kingdom you've been working at the church you've been working you've been going to church you've been praying in the mornings and everything goes right for you this person over here has the same amount of time you do in the office eight hours of punch time and they can't get anybody to answer a phone call they can't get through to nobody nobody's answering their emails their whole day is shot they've wasted all day two people had the same amount of time but one time was blessed and one time was cursed i want my time to be blessed god help us let me tell you something volunteering our time this is this is a very very important in the kingdom of god we are a group of not just worshipers we are a group of workers workers that's that's what we do we come to the house and hey listen i know i'm preaching the choir a little bit here because when we have a staff meeting and a staff meeting simply means our staff is anybody that does anything whether it's choir whether it's greeting whether it's a parking lot whether it's security whether it's in uh the praise team everybody is considered a ministry staff if you sign our ministry handbook and when we have our ministry staff meeting it looks like this it really does i mean we probably have i don't know we probably had 300 350 people here in a staff meeting because our church believes in getting involved but let me tell you something oh god for those of you who just might just come here and say you know this is my place of worship you better start you better start being a good steward of time because a part of being a worshiper and a part of being a child of god and being in the kingdom of god is giving time to god's kingdom amen god help us to give time in the first fruits of our time let's go into the second t talent i'm moving quickly everybody has been given talents and abilities and this this right here this bothers me sometimes because a lot of people think of talent as musical ability uh they think of talent as as um uh man like artistic stuff they're talented in the arts you know they uh they're in the choir they're a great singer they're a soloist there he's an awesome drummer he's talented but let me tell you something talent goes so so far beyond that when we're talking about talent being a good steward of your talent we got builders in this place that are artists as builders i mean this this pulpit right here this pulpit right here was built in an artist's back shop brother randy cogdale he he has he has a shop that is is filled with machineries that i i wouldn't be able to figure out how to plug in no let's turn on or use the tether there's so many talents out there that blesses the kingdom listen uh this pulpit right here blesses me as as much as any song or more than any song i've ever heard saying the lady that's in the nursery right now that's watching children that's watching some of your children you're in here listening to the word of god and studying the bible together they might be changing your child's diaper or wiping your child's nose but they're they're they're a steward of their time because you know why that's their talent they enjoy that i don't understand that but they they they're thinking all day wednesday oh my word i could just see little baby charlie and i get to see little baby susie and i get to see this baby and that baby and they're they're so excited because everything inside them are our daycare teachers they love those kids like they're their own it's a ministry it's a talent i don't have it right i go there my sister's gonna go there about five minutes and then and hold a baby but something starts smelling bad i'm like i got i'm back to my office i'm out of here the talents are so white we have we have some of the greatest towns even in the bible acts chapter nine dorchester or tabitha used her towns to make coats and garments for the needy the household of stephanus uh where the bible says they addicted themselves to serving the saints anna exercised her talents in prayer and fasting of the lord the first deacon the book of acts chapter six the first deacons exercised their talents in ministering to widows and orphans everybody has a talent you just got to recognize it and i'll give you i'll give you a little hint it's probably what you do for a living it's probably what you do for a living because you wouldn't be doing it for a living hopefully if you didn't enjoy it if you didn't work hard at it if you didn't perfect your skills that's what the church man i think to myself god and i know this is a huge facility i know that this is not your average church i know that that a church of 200 would be a much smaller facility and and stuff would be much probably more residential as far as building goals as far as maintenance goes i realize that sometimes we got to call companies in here because we don't want anybody falling off the roof or whatever what have you but there's a lot of stuff that happens in this building that we as the body can take care of because we have the talent to do it amen i'm just looking around i'm just noticing we brother joel mayo talk about him for a minute now he's he's multi-talented he's mullentown but but his talent in in learning to fly an airplane what a talent that is to be able to he's flown ministries he's throwing myself he's flown past her to places different uh services and funerals and all kinds that's that's a talent but not only that he's learned he's learned spanish and he's one of our our translators in our spanish ministry so i'm just looking around there's so many talents this place is filled with talents and i hate to think about people that only think about music and singing god help us to get beyond that we have got to be able god help us man there's children's ministries in this place there's home bible study teachers that's a talent we have our deaf ministry over here that's a talent to learn to learn how to sign that's a talent uh we have a jail in prison ministry to be able to reach people who are incarcerated that is a talent you gotta you gotta be able to to talk to them and empathize with them and get into their life and understand what they're going through people that go on hospital visitation the bookstore ministries a talent sales come on youth ministry ushers and greeters nursery workers already said a production team our translators our baristas how many are thankful for our baristas man a good cold brew with some extra sweet cream i mean come on that makes everybody happy thank god for people that understand we got listen this is a cool thing i'm kind of i'm kind of following a rabbit trail over here but but we have young we have young people that are learning they're they're getting on youtube they're getting jobs in the community learning how to make coffee and learning how to make not just coffee but good what i call good coffee some of y'all some people think black coffee is good that's okay but i'm talking about like that like the specialty stuff man they hand it to you and there's there's all these cool little whip things going around and caramel here and chocolate drizzle there that's cool that's a blessing that's a talent because you know why they're raising money for missions because all proceeds go to missions so so they're on youtube learning how to make this this frappe frappy frappy what would a brother garnet say whatever he said they're they're they're learning how to make all they're they don't know how to make all these things but what's it doing it's blessing the kingdom of god we've got missionaries with food on their table because some kids watching youtube and learning how to make special drinks god help us to recognize our talents and in the stewardship of our testimony i'm not going to go much farther than this the third t in our nrt's testimony oh god matthew 10 and 8 heal the sick cleanse the lepers raise the dead cast out devils freely you have received freely give my god we've been given the light of truth the last thing we need to do with it is to do like that wicked servant and dig a hole and bury it somebody came in witnessed us somebody came and told us to god somebody had enough guts to face rejection when they told us god help me to see my test i've got to be a good steward of my testimony if you haven't shared your testimony in a while you're not a good steward of your testimony my god how many how many millions just in this region how many millions of people have never heard this great truth that we hear every service from this pulpit god help us to share our testimony and when i say that i'm also thinking of carl dillinger's i'm also thinking of you that brother padres that are that are sharing your testimony with everybody you can find and and you walk up to somebody and you get the subject and you move the subject into talking about the lord i love that you'll learn how to talk to talk to where you can be talking about grass seed and and what kind of grass seed are we gonna sow and what's the best fertilizer for that and all of a sudden the next thing you know you're talking about putting seed on good soil and putting seed in the thorny soil and and somehow you move you move your conversation right into talking about the word of god that's a beautiful thing and that's being a good steward of your testimony but i wanna i'm gonna i'm gonna skip so much i'm gonna go to my conclusion proverbs 3 9 says honor the lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increased and when we when we read this we always think about money possessions i get it but i believe that god will bless anything we honor him with and if we will give our first fruits of that thing i believe i listen to me i believe that god will bless that thing now let me tell you something i believe god blesses in the same category that we give him our first fruits now follow me on this because this is very important if we honor god in our first fruits of our finances guess what he's going to bless our finances if we honor god in the first fruits of our time he's gonna bless our time if we honor god in the first fruits of our talent he's gonna bless our talent but here's where it gets a little tricky and this is the place where people mess up and when it comes to stewardship a person can't think that they're going to give their first fruits in their time and somehow get blessed in finances okay i want you to think about this because people this is this is kind of a mindset sometimes because especially people that give time and time's a beautiful thing people that come and volunteer their time uh and i'm not gonna i don't want to start i don't want to make it too specific but but but come and work here at the church doing whatever there's so many things that are done here at the church and they'll think to themselves i'll tell you what if i worked a job for six hours i would have gotten paid 75 so that was my tithe believe it or not people do that but you're not you're not going to be blessed for your first fruits and time through finances it doesn't work that way now god will bless your time and i and some people that i know they give a lot of time at church they are some god has made them succeed with a lot of things they do because of the time they give the church but you can't mix those two things you can't come up here and say i tell you what i'm a praise team member we gotta be here we gotta be here two hours early every service and and we stay late and we gotta go and sing services on saturday and we gotta be here for for for weddings we gotta be here for funerals and and and god that's my tithe it doesn't work that way now he's gonna bless your talent you give god your talent you give god he's gonna bless you he's gonna he's gonna put you in places you've never thought you could go and and to god be the glory for that but that's not financial first fruits we got to be careful each one god is only going to bless you in the category that you give him the first words now however if you begin to give every category to him in the first round of your time of your treasure of your talent of your testimony if you begin to give him your first fruits in all those areas oh my word that's where you some people that you you look or you look at you're like they're so blessed how why are they so blessed they're so blessed because they give god the first fruit of everything they're good stewards of everything god has given them and because they're good stewards of everything god has given them guess what they get more get blessed with more get blessed with more i know i i got a whole host of people here that can say amen they could testify to what i'm saying because god has done it for you because you have proven him and he's proven himself faithful god help us lord god you cannot bless something we don't give to you romans 14 12 says so then every one of us shall give account of himself to god luke 12 48 for unto whosoever much is given of him shall much be required i have these in your paper you can follow along a faithful man shall abound with blessings the liberal or the generous soul shall be made at he that lendeth unto the lord he the lord will pay him again bring the tithes into the storehouse i will pour you out a blessing give and it shall be given unto you give thine alms in secret and thy father shall reward thee openly seek ye first the kingdom of god and all these things shall be added unto you thou hast been faithful over a few things i will make you a ruler over many he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully talking about being a good steward that every one of those was just simply being a good steward of what god has put into our lives so i want you to stand with me and i i want to end with this with this poem it's on your paper you can read along or you can listen i don't know who the author is i wish i did but it's just it's a simple poem but it's so true simply says the more you give the more you get the more you laugh the less you fret the more you give unselfishly the more you live abundantly the more of everything you share the more you'll always have despair for only what we give away enriches us from day to day stewardship i want you to bow your head matter of fact just lift up your hands to heaven right now come on let's pray in this place god help us to be good stewards pray that prayer of me god oh god everything that you blessed us with god i i just believe lord we're blessed for such a time as this i i believe lord the sky is the limit lord with this training center about to start up lord the sky is the limit of what you're gonna do through first apostolic church i believe lord you've given to us financially i believe in you given us talent god i believe in lord you've given us time lord i feel like you've given us the time to do what we need to do to win souls god help us be good stewards of what you've given us oh god i don't want to be an unfaithful servant god i want to be like joseph god i want to be dependable i want to be honest lord i want to be faithful to your kingdom come on pray these prayers with me this is what i pray god help me o god and never take lord for granted what you give oh god is nothing that i have earned it's nothing that i deserve i'm not entitled to anything you've given me god lord god i'm nothing i'm a nobody lord you've put me in a place lord where all i am is a servant i'm a slave as joseph was a slave and god i just want to be a good steward of what is yours i feel your holy ghost right now because i believe god that you're tugging on people's hearts you're tugging on people that have talents that have been holding back god you're tugging on people oh they're skilled they've got skills that you bless them with lord you've opened their mind to understand brilliant skills yet they're not doing anything with it for your kingdom god i'm praying right now in jesus name that they will give their first fruit of their skills of their talent to you lord god their time god i believe in lord we have volunteers that will join our team they'll they will join up with us and help us to win the loss god we need volunteers in every ministry god oh god our ministry leaders are telling me lord they're having to schedule people over and over again because their teams are not large enough to schedule out services god i pray that you would touch hearts god and tell people to be here give their time give their first fruits and time give their talents give their skills oh in jesus name lord even in finances god i know i didn't teach about it tonight but god i pray that our first fruits and finances lord god if we'll keep an open hand god anything that comes in our hand if we'll use it for your kingdom lord you will not stop but you'll continue to give more and more and you'll bless more and more if we're worthy servants if we're able servants and for faithful servants you'll continue to bless us if we continue to bless your kingdom lord i want to be rich toward you not towards myself not what i have lord not what's in my home not what's in my driveway god i want to be rich toward you lord god when i die i don't care what people say i have or i don't have lord i just want people to say he was faithful to the kingdom he was faithful with his tithes and his offerings here he was faithful to church he was faithful with his time he was faithful with his talent he shared the gospel he was faithful with his testimony got up praying in jesus name that's what i once said over me lord god would i leave this earth that i was found faithful if that's your desire clap your hands unto the lord and just give him praise in this house hallelujah oh god i believe that's our desire i believe that's the desire of this church lord god we want to be stewards and not just stewards but faithful stewards of your kingdom in jesus name and everyone said amen amen and amen come on on friday night these kids are going to blow your mind i promise if you've never seen a spring program or if you have this is a new one you're going to like this one american ideal it's happening seven o'clock friday night god bless you love you all you're dismissed in jesus name have a great rest of your week