Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning. 9:45.
[00:00:07] Good morning. My name is Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the village church. If I have not met you, I would love that opportunity. Afterwards, feel free to come up and say hello. This morning we're going to take a week off from 2 Corinthians, and we're going to be talking about who to vote for. Just kidding. Just kidding. We're not doing that. We're talking about money and generosity. Aren't you guys so relieved that we're talking about and generosity and not who to vote for? Yeah. Amen. All right, good. If you have a Bible, would you open up to Matthew chapter 20:25? So if village church is your home church, this message is for you. If village church is not your home church, we are going to be in one of the most practical and applicational texts in the New Testament and there is something for everyone. And the parable we'll be teaching out in Matthew, chapter 25. But if you're not a part of the little church, this is just a great opportunity to get a sneak peek into how we talk about things and what's going on here. So we're gonna talk about this morning is biblical stewardship. And let's define this. Biblical stewardship is the joyful privilege of managing God's resources well. And when we think about what God has given us to manage, there's kind of like four general buckets that as followers of Jesus, were commanded in Scripture to steward or to manage well. And here are the four buckets. Number one, I must steward myself.
[00:01:45] This is my body, my mind. I am responsible for this. It is a gift from God. And God is calling me to manage and steward this. Number two, and I wrote this for myself. So you can put in your core relationships. But it's my job to steward my relationships. So with my wife and with my kids and with my friendships. And if you're single, that might look a little bit different. But like your core relationships in your life, these are valuable and they're important and they are gifts from God to steward well.
[00:02:17] Number three, I must steward my life. And I wanna put this into a couple categories so this isn't too general. My money, my skills, my stuff, and my experience. This four things. My money, my skills, my stuff, my experiences. And number four, I must steward the gospel and the kingdom of Jesus. Now, all four of these things, to steward them well, we need to prioritize, making sure that they grow. But when pastors talk about growth, most people think bigger, bigger, bigger, and actually to grow can mean three things. It can be to grow stronger, to grow better, and sometimes to grow bigger. And so as I kind of took stock of my life and I look at these four things, some of these do need to get bigger. Some of them need to get stronger. Some of them need to get better. They need better foundations and consistency and disciplines in my life and my family. But for each one of us, you have these four things, these four buckets. And as you kind of pull back and look at scriptures, we are responsible for God. These are gifts from God. And our job is to grow each one of these. Now, what we're gonna do this morning is we're gonna focus as a church on the fourth one, the go and the kingdom of Jesus.
[00:03:29] Our staff and our elders have been for some time actually knee deep in preparing for 2025. And there is so much going on at Village Church. And it is our joy. It is our privilege to go to retreats and to spend time in prayer and talking and processing. And it is our deepest desire to steward well every single soul God has given us to oversee. It is our desire every dollar, every person, every staff member, every volunteer, the space, the building, our relationships with the community and one another to the core of our being. It is our desire to honor God and to bring him glory. Now, one of the realities of Village Church over the last year is as we look at a whole bunch of metrics, the majority of the metrics of Village Church have been growing bigger, which means up and to the right. So I'll kind of give you just a sn of some of the ways Village Church has been growing bigger. So new members. You just saw 23 new members installed this morning.
[00:04:36] Participants in women's Bible studies, men's Bible studies, students in Forge. How many people are in groups in general between community groups and rooted groups and men's groups and women's groups, Our local outreach opportunities, I mean, there's just so many right in front of us we partner with at least for other organizations. Our local outreach ministry under Michelle McGrath's leadership has just honestly made so many beautiful inroads through Bartlett Community Care Collective, B.C. 3. The amount of opportunities that we have to love and to support our community and local outreach are growing. The relationships are growing, and it is a beautiful privilege to be able to steward those. In terms of people giving, there have been more people giving to Village Church than in any year in our history and more money given to Village Church than in any year in vill church's history. Praise God, that is a move of God, period. It is not natural for people to give money to someone else to steward when they could spend it on themselves and their own kingdom. Now, one of the things that we really value as elders is being very transparent because there have been times when the numbers were struggling and there were metrics that were indicative of some challenges. And so we've been very honest. We get up front and say, hey, here are some of the things that aren't going well at the church. There is nothing to hide. And so it's our joy to talk about those. There are actually two specific areas at Village Church that have been kind of stagnant. It's been a little bit confusing for us, so I'll share those with you. The first one is Sunday morning attendance.
[00:06:13] So what happened is last year we went to three services. We grew about by 100 people a week. And then over the last probably six to eight to 12 months, that sort of just stabilized. Which is interesting, because if you look at all of the people who have been coming to Village Church and the lack of people leaving, you would expect that Sunday morning attendance would begin to go up. But it has basically flatlined, which, by the way, is a little bit alarming and weird and strange. So every other ministry experiences more people, But Sunday morning is kind of flatlined a little bit.
[00:06:50] Could I give a 30 second sermon on this? I've got like 15 actual full sermons on it, but can I just give you. Okay, I'm gonna do it anyways. All right.
[00:06:59] You and I were made for corporate worship with God's people, to fellowship together, to be in the teaching of God's word, to sing together, to pray together, to teach together, to rub shoulders with each other, to lift high the name of Jesus. I mean, this is what we were made for.
[00:07:13] And as we kind of pull back, we've learned there are probably two big reasons that people are attending Sunday morning services. This is across the country, but that really has not been the practice or pattern at Village Church until recently. And two big things that we've seen, so I'll just say them very bluntly. Number one has been a spirit of consumerism. This is the poll, by the way, for every one of us, myself included, when it comes to church. This is the American Idol, if you will. That church moves from a family to just something where we take, take, take. The other thing that we are finding is really impacting people is just general exhaustion.
[00:07:56] Throw me a bone. Raise your hand if generally speaking, in life you just feel tired.
[00:08:04] This is the thing so as a church, this brings me to my second metric that has been kind of stagnant and that has been consistent volunteers. So as we have more people everywhere engaging and growing in studies, we need more, more people and volunteers. But it's actually getting increasingly harder to find volunteers. And here's what we're seeing. People are exhausted, people are tired. So as a church, we have a responsibility to make sure that we're not over programming or overdoing it and to make sure that we honor you in the season of life that everybody seems to be in. And so we're trying to figure out together like, okay, what does this look like now as it comes to churches, a tiny church? I mean it is normal. This is very normal. That when a church grows, the amount of people who serve decrease.
[00:08:52] I don't want our church to be normal. Wouldn't you guys prefer to be something better than normal and average? That as the church grows, people become more consumeristic or more distant or more disconnected or serve less.
[00:09:05] So Ville Church just has a 50 plus year history of just being engaged and being a church family. And so one of the goals of this sermon is very simple. Well, number one, I want to honor the text we're going to be in. I want to apply it and study it biblically. But another one is this. I want to challenge those of us who kind of just have this sense that, you know what, I have not been stewarding the things that God has given me. It could be money, it could be stuff, it could be skills, could be experience that the Lord has given me. I have not been stewarding it for God's kingdom. And my desire is to challenge you. And my prayer is that the Holy Spirit would, would convict you and help you really figure out like what does it look like for me to invest and build Jesus kingdom in my life right here? The other outcome that I, that I desire is I just. There are so many incredible people who have. You have committed your lives to building the kingdom of Jesus. And I want you to hear this morning, well done, good and faithful servant. I think the Holy Spirit just has so much encouragement to give so many of us in this room. You have poured your sweat, your blood, your heart out to build the kingdom of Jesus, to pour into people and to see them come to Christ and to be growing in the word of God. And I just think the Holy Spirit has so much encouragement for so many of us in this room. And maybe for some of us it's a combination. Good job. And I don't know, I'M gonna trust the Holy Spirit to help you apply this in any way he deems fit. All right? Matthew 25, Jesus is teaching a series of parables. And in the series of parables, his objective is to teach them how to live in the kingdom of God while we wait for Jesus to come back. So over 2,000 years in waiting. And so one of his objectives is, okay, while you're waiting for the Messiah to come back, here's how you live. And your job is to be good stewards of what God has given you. Matthew chapter 25, verse 14 sets up the context of this parable. He says, for it, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. So because this is a parable, that means all the objects and the people in this parable represent something deeper. The rest of it will unfold as we go. But this first like, idea here, the word it, it, what is it? It is the kingdom of God. And so he's describing the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Jesus. This is what it's going to be like. And the servants, by the way, are every single one of us who would say we are followers of Jesus. And so there's the kingdom of God, and there's you and me, the servants. And verse 15 gives us the details. He says to one of the servants, he gave five talents, to another, two talents, and to another one. So what the master's doing is he's getting ready to leave. Jesus leaves, ascends into heaven. We're waiting for him to come back, but the master's getting ready to leave. And he's got a lot of resources. And so he brings together some people, and he basically tells them this, I'm leaving. It's your job to manage this. Now, you might be wondering, what is a talent? A talent here is not a skill. A talent actually is a weight of measure. A talent is roughly 25 pounds, or in ancient Near Eastern currency, 2,000 years ago, it would be a denarii. A denarii, it would be 6,000 denarii, which is 20 years of wages for a common man. In modern numbers, this is about a million dollars.
[00:12:37] And so the guy is leaving the master, and he gives 1 guy 1 denarii. And how much is that? A million dollars. Okay, math time. How much is 2 denarii? $2 million. And then 5 denarii, $5 million.
[00:12:52] Again, because this is a parable, each of these things represents something. So the talent represents kingdom, resources.
[00:13:02] And let's drill deeper into this. This is any resource that God has given you to grow his kingdom. And earlier, we broke this up into four categories. And I wanna come back to this.
[00:13:14] The four resources are money, skills, stuff and experiences. Money, skills, stuff and experiences. And one of the effects of this kind of parable or this kind of message is that all of us kind of step back and we take inventory of our lives and we go, why do I have this much money?
[00:13:37] Or why do I have all this stuff?
[00:13:40] Or why do I have these skills? God, why did you let me go through that thing and gain this experience? Like, what is it? What is it for?
[00:13:49] And one of our jobs is to figure out, okay, God, there are some things that you've given me so that I can build my family, so that I can protect my family and do different things. But of these things, what have you given me that you are asking me to use to build the kingdom of Jesus?
[00:14:05] And so the question is, how does God determine who gets greater kingdom resources and responsibility? And so verse 15 tells us. It says, he gave to each according to his ability, then he went away. I just asked a question. Is it unfair for the master to give one guy $5 million to steward another guy 2 million, another guy 1 million? Well, no. Why? Because it's his money, right? And so he's free to do with his resources whatever he wants to do. But right off the bat, here's what we see. The master is wise. The master is not a fool. The master is not dumb. The master is very wise because he gave a certain amount to each person according to his ability. So as a general rule, kingdom responsibility, kingdom resources are given to people who have proven able to steward smaller amounts. Well, now, there are exceptions, but generally speaking, this is the kingdom rule. So your ability to handle kingdom resources is determined by your past faithfulness or lack of faithfulness in handing handling kingdom resources.
[00:15:27] And so each of these men, I want you to see this, each of these men in the parable are given a certain amount of kingdom resource to steward based on how well they had stewarded lesser resources in the past. Does that make sense? So if you're like God, I want more responsibility, I want more leadership, I want more this. Well, the first thing you have to do is steward the very thing you have now well into the glory of God. And so if you want more, the answer is not just go get it, because, I mean, I deserve it. The answer is, be faithful where God put you. And if you're faithful over a little, God is going to be heavily inclined to allow you to be faithful over more. Look at verse 16. Said he who had received five talents or $5 million, he wins it once and he traded with them and he made $5 million more. I don't know about y'all, but I want to sit down with this guy and hear his investment strategy. This guy's impressive. Verse 17. So also he who had the two talents, $2 million, he made $2 million more. Now this is striking, and this is not going to be a surprise to the master because these guys have already been tested. He already knows their capability to take a little and turn it into much.
[00:16:39] Something alarming and unexpected happens with the million dollar man, the one talent man. Look at verse 18, it says, but he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money.
[00:16:57] The first thing you need to notice is that this is out of character for this guy.
[00:17:04] Somewhere, somehow, previously, he had proven himself to somebody to the point where the master said to him, I'm going to give you a million dollars to steward to manage. Well, while I'm gone, make me some money back. Something somewhere happened that the master believed that this was a fair amount of money to give him. Now here's my question. What would paralyze an otherwise effective steward? Okay, look at, look at verse 19. We're gonna watch this unfold now. After a long time, the master of those servants came home and settled accounts with them. So verse 20, we have the $5 million man says, and he would receive the five talents. Came forward bringing five talents more, saying, Master, you delivered to me five talents. Here I have made five talents more. His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. I love this line. Enter into the joy of your master. Verse 22, you have the two million dollar man. He also who had the two talents, came forward saying, Master, you delivered to me two talents. Here I have made two talents more. Do you like sense the excitement in their voice? Verse 23, his master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over. This is funny a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. It's very easy to miss this little detail.
[00:18:46] How does the master describe $2 million and $5 million as a little?
[00:18:55] The master's a billionaire.
[00:18:58] This is jump change for the master.
[00:19:01] And so it's not like his entire kingdom is going to be ruined in his entire empire if one of these guys doesn't handle this thing. Well.
[00:19:10] And so for the Master, he's looking at this and he's like, I'm going to give you $5 million. And the guy's like, Whoa, $5 million. And the master's like, literally, it's nothing compared to the vast extent of my wealth. But sure, be excited about it. There you go.
[00:19:22] I also want you to pay attention to something else here. This phrase comes up twice.
[00:19:27] Enter into the joy of your Master. These seven words are loaded with meaning.
[00:19:34] I want you to see four things here.
[00:19:37] Number one, God is very happy. In the parable, God is the Master.
[00:19:46] This is going to be actually really important because as we get to the $1 million man, and the correspondence that happens between the Master and that one talent, one million dollar guy, this is going to become really important. But one of the things that Jesus is establishing in this parable is that the Master is happy at the core. The one talent man, you're going to see this. But he believes the Master is cruel and curmudgeonly.
[00:20:11] And the other two guys, the two talent and the five talent guy, they're like, he's not cruel. And Camud, what are you talking about? He is so happy and kind. We love working for the Master. What are you talking about?
[00:20:22] And yet the one talent guy has this view of the Master. You'll see it unfold, though. That is really negative. And Jesus wants you to know this, that the Master is kind and happy and unbelievably generous. Any view of the Master that is not. That is off.
[00:20:41] I want you to see this. Number two, God's presence. It's not just God himself, but his presence is one of joy. The people who work for the Master, the servants in his kingdom, the people of the kingdom of Jesus. If we could apply this, this is not a curmudgeonly group of folk either. And so if you had the opportunity to go see into heaven and to see what it's like there, no one's going to get there and be like, wow, those guys look bored. Wow, this is terrible. He really oversold himself. God is like, honestly, like, let's go back to earth. You're not going to find that the servants aren't just in the presence of a joyful master. The servants actually get the privilege to participate in the wealth and the resources and the abundance of the Master's resources. Number three, we just see this, that God wants to share his joy. He's not stingy. God's not like, oh, my gosh, like, God wants to give his resources to his people to steward. And he wants you to be blessed by that in the process. I love the generous, happy, joyful heart of the Master. And then number four, God invites those all who actually love him. He invites you come to me and I will let you steward some of my resources. Now, he might not give you one talent at first, he might not give you two talents at first, but if you prove faithful with a little, the Lord is excited to bless people with more kingdom, responsibility and resources.
[00:22:11] So here's what happens when people read what happens to the one talent man. Often they can get really upset. And the interesting thing is the text tells us everything we need to see about this guy. So look at verse 24, and I want you to pay close attention to this man's view of God.
[00:22:28] Verse 24 says he also who had received the one talent. He came forward probably sweaty, filled with dirt, because he had to go dig up the money, saying, master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. So I was afraid and I went and I hid your talent in the ground. Here, have what's yours.
[00:22:55] In the abundance of words, the heart is revealed. I want you to notice four things that are coming out of this man's mouth. Notice number one, this man's distant view of God. This is where biblical languages help, because he says this in verse 24, I knew you to be a hard man. And news kind of funny because it implies here that he didn't have firsthand knowledge of the master. What he knew about the master he had heard from other people. And it would appear that somehow somebody referred this guy to the Master. And so the master was probably taking off of somebody else's kind word. No, you can trust this guy. But this guy came in and he has a different. He has a distant view of God.
[00:23:43] And number two, I want you to notice the man's low view of God. Verse 24 he says, I knew you to be a hard man, and wouldn't you love to know where this guy got that perspective from?
[00:23:55] And number three, notice the man's resentment toward God. In verse 25 he says, Here, have what's yours.
[00:24:04] Why would you build someone else's kingdom if you resent them? And of course he didn't, because he did resent them.
[00:24:12] Unfortunately for this one talent guy, the stories of the master, they weren't true. And so he treated the master out of his reputation from people who didn't like him, instead of out of the reality of who he actually is, which is loving and kind and generous at a really, really good master.
[00:24:30] But number four, I want you to notice the man's really weak excuse. He says this in verse 25. I was afraid.
[00:24:38] Why? Why did the one talent man hide the money? Was he really afraid? Look at verse 26, the master perk of being God. You know, you see, like everything. You know, everything he sees past excuse right into the heart of this one talent man. He says in verse 26. But his master answered him, you wicked and slothful servant.
[00:25:07] What the man self identifies as scared, God calls it for what it actually is, lazy and evil. And it's interesting, the man tried to gaslight Jesus.
[00:25:23] You're the problem. I didn't do it because I'm scared of you. No, actually, the real issue, and God knew it, was that he was lazy and he was evil. Now, one of the challenges in kind of modern American culture of teaching anything Jesus says, to be honest, is that he is so blunt, and he is not at all worried about whether or not you're gonna like him or like his ideas. And so he drops really strong truth bombs in a way that just kind of like, cut the room in half. So we're gonna cut the room in half. And I need to be faithful to the text. So I love Jesus and his opinion of me more than you. So I have a couple things I wanna show you from this text, and we'll just kind of summarize it like this. God sees it as evil to not invest our resources into God's kingdom while we're alive.
[00:26:11] He calls him wicked and slothful.
[00:26:15] Okay, so why does a statement like this feel irritating for so many of us? Because let me help you understand, sin has hardwired me and you to feel irritated by anybody that threatens our kingdom.
[00:26:37] The reason that we get this like, this isn't like, apparently an objectively true statement.
[00:26:43] And yet I'm like, ooh, that's harsh. Jesus is just blunt. And here's the deal. There's a battle in your heart and my heart, and it's the battle between my kingdom, the kingdom of self, and the kingdom of God. And my sinful nature is wired to protect my kingdom. And when a preacher or the word of God or Jesus or somebody, or prophets of old, they stand in front of you and they call out your obsession with your kingdom to the exclusion of the kingdom of Jesus, we go, how dare you? Who do you think you are? And this is how people have responded to Jesus. And most anybody who calls on the floor of their obsession with their own kingdom. And so Jesus looks at a group of people and he's just like the people who do this, who literally build their kingdom to the exclusion without even a little bit of investment or thinking. The people who dig the resources God gives them, puts them into a ground and just lifts from themselves he calls lazy and wicked, or lazy and wicked and slothful.
[00:27:40] So all three men, you have three guys here, all three of them knew the job. Take the money, invest it, make more steward. Well, verse 26 is interesting because the Master continues to rebuke the one talent man. And what you're really seeing is that he's rebuking this guy because the guy decided despises the Master.
[00:28:01] Verse 26, he goes on, he says, you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed. Okay, let's just play your game. Let's just assume everything you're saying is true. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers and at my coming, I should have received what was my own with interest. And so, I mean minimally. Okay, God expects interest, which, let me just apply this in real life. At the very least, if you won't use your own time and resources to build God's kingdom, at the very least, stand behind and champion those who are on the front lines. At the very least, do the minimal amount and be the biggest cheerleader you can possibly imagine for those who are trying to build the kingdom of God. Total failure here, which is what this one talent guy is, is doing nothing. It's not even getting interest. It's not even the bare minimum. Now I want to show you like a little even more directly, another piece of evidence of how much this one talent guy hates the Master.
[00:29:06] It was more work for this guy to go find a secret field and to privately bury a million dollars than it would have been for him to take the money, go right to the bank, give it to a banker, and say, do whatever you want from this. I just need interest. When my Master comes back, he took an exponentially harder route. He wanted to make sure that he didn't give the Master a dime of interest.
[00:29:33] This one talent man and the Master are at odds with each other. Not because he's a poor manager, but because the one talent man hates the manager, hates the Master.
[00:29:44] Verse 28, I mean, this describes the hard reality for those who will not support the work of the building of the kingdom of Jesus.
[00:29:54] The Master says, so take the talent from him, the one Talent God, and give it to him who has the 10 talents. For to everyone who has, will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And in verse 30, the million dollar man gets exactly what he deserves. The Master says, cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness, into that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And here's the image that this idea of gnashing of teeth is just expression of fury and rage. This is the gnashing of teeth. Even as the one talent man is being dragged away, the resentment in his heart toward the Master is coming out, even to the point where he should be saying, I'm sorry. Will you forgive me? He hates him so much, and he hates his kingdom so much that he gnashes his teeth all the way to hell. And so here's kind of the eternal principle, one of them from this text. Those who refuse to build or support God's kingdom go to hell because they do not love God.
[00:31:05] This guy isn't going to Hell because he does not know how to manage his resources. That's not why he's going. He's not going to hell because he made a mistake. It's not why he's going. This guy's going to hell because he hates God.
[00:31:21] And this is what's ironic.
[00:31:24] Who is God objectively filled with joy and generosity and abundance and life?
[00:31:33] And this guy has this stubborn view of the Master that he got apparently from somebody else. It wasn't from firsthand experience, because all the people with firsthand experience of the Master were like, he's amazing. It's a delight to be his servant. And this guy got bad information about the nature of the Master, dug in to the point where it sent him all the way to hell. This is a heavy passage, isn't it? And at this point, like, again, for some of you, you're like, okay, I don't want to be the one talent guy, right? For some of us, we're like, all right, Holy Spirit, you are convicting me. I have been. I have been building my own kingdom, and you are kind of on the back burner. For some of you, the Holy Spirit is like, hey, I am so proud of you. Well done, good and faithful servant. And again, I trust the Holy Spirit to be the one to challenge and convict and equip you with God's word. And so as we do that, I want to transition and I want to share with just three. So what's. I had 30 but I boiled it down to three. It's every Sunday.
[00:32:38] Identify number one. What stands between you and investing in God's kingdom?
[00:32:46] And I'm talking four categories. I'm talking money, skills, stuff, and experiences. God's given you all this stuff. And the question is, like, what is standing? Like, you may even know. I know that I have these things or this thing. And I was made to use this to build Jesus kingdom. And you're like, I'm not doing it. Why? Let's get down to this. What is standing between you and doing that? And I think for most Americans not investing in God's kingdom, here's a simple reason why. Because what God assigned to ministry, we have reassigned to ourselves.
[00:33:21] And at the end of the day, I think for whatever motivation is there, this is kind of the net result.
[00:33:27] It's my stuff, it's my experiences, it's my money, it's my skills, it's my empire.
[00:33:35] And Jesus is challenging this. He's saying, your empire, you have an empire, great. But it's not the most important empire.
[00:33:43] Jesus, anything that is not under his authority, it's off. And the Master's like, I have the greatest kingdom in the entire world. Your kingdom, it's small, it's trite. It's gonna die and go away. Mine lasts forever. Invest in something that is eternal. And I love just the invitational spirit. Listen, you can spend money on you and your family. You can take your kids out and buy the presents and do all this. I'm not saying. What I am saying, though, is, first things first. Build the kingdom of Jesus because it is the only eternal kingdom. And when Jesus saves you, he saves you into his kingdom.
[00:34:19] I want to get even more practical. And so at number two, let's talk about village church as a family.
[00:34:25] Help our elders. Steward Village church well, by prayerfully filling out a 20, 25 giving card. If you're new with us, you're like, what is that? The vast majority of village church knows what this is. All the people who've gone through our new membership class, you know what this is? Before we talk about that, there is something that every time we talk about money, I end up saying the same thing. And I want to say it again here.
[00:34:50] The only people that we want to give are those of you who want to give. Like, if you're here and you're like, I don't want to give. Cool. That's a you and God thing. That is not a you and me thing. The only people that we want to give are those of you. Who want to give.
[00:35:07] I would like to talk to those of you who, for probably a myriad of reasons, are like, yep, I go to a local church. I have no intention of giving. I have no intention of serving. I will be a consumer. I just want to give you a challenge. Forget about Village Church.
[00:35:20] You were made to be obscenely generous and to build the Kingdom of Jesus.
[00:35:25] So forget about village Church.
[00:35:28] Find anywhere and give extravagantly to build the Kingdom of Jesus somewhere and find ways to take your time. Like, if you're just like, man, me and the local church have too much baggage. Find someone somewhere that's building the Kingdom of Jesus and just start building the Kingdom of Jesus somewhere. And so forget about this place. If that's you. Now, if you're here and you're like, that's not me. I'm here. This is my church. Let's just talk, like, really candidly about how you can help us. So as leaders, we're just getting a clearer and clearer sense of where we need to go in 2025. So excited about it. The process of just figuring out what the Lord is doing, where we're going with our elders, our deacons, our staff, and it's really a delightful process. But here's the deal.
[00:36:15] We need to know how much money to budget. And in January, we have a budget congregational meeting. It's going to be thrilling and exciting, and I can't wait for you to be there. Right?
[00:36:25] But, like, what if you had to set your own personal budget without knowing what your salary was for the next year? Could you do it?
[00:36:33] Take some guesses. So we started last year kind of working together. And so what we asked everybody to do is to prayerfully figure out, what are you going to give to village church in 2025? We can get this in and we can build a budget off of the money that we're pretty positive that we know we're going to receive in 2025. And so this has been profoundly helpful. Our last budget process, we did that with these numbers. And. And so what we're doing is we're asking you, would you do that again if you already turned in a 2024 card last year? We're asking everybody to redo this for 2025. And so we're asking every family or person to make your 2025 giving commitment. I unashamedly will stand up here and say, I am so excited with our elders and our staff to steward every single penny to build the Kingdom of Jesus to the absolute best of our ability. So we're Going to take the next month, five Sundays from now, December 5th, is when we're asking everybody to turn these in. I'll show you a picture of what they look like. This is the front. It says intentional ministry requires intentional giving. And then here's what the back looks like. And I want to draw your attention to this. It says, over the course of 2025, I intend to give villagers the total amount. So this would be the total amount that you're planning on giving. And then what's really helpful is to know how you plan on giving so weekly, monthly, annually. And so if you give a large sum of money every year, but you do it one time per year, that's really helpful information for us to know when money is coming in, etc. And so this is super helpful data for us so that we have the ability to stand before you and Jesus with a clear conscience as we set aside a budget and salaries and ministry budgets and everything for the following year. Hopefully, God willing, to the glory of God. Does this sound good to everybody? If you've got questions, come talk to Pastor Steve. He'd love to talk to you about all that. Now you can talk to any of our elders, you can talk to myself, any of our staff. We would just love to help you and answer any questions that you have on that and in advance. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your kindness, your participation, your generosity.
[00:38:42] This is the kind of data that we need to love, lead and plan as effectively as possible. My last so what number three.
[00:38:51] Enter into the joy of your master through faith in Jesus.
[00:38:58] I'm not sure what your view of God is. I know that every Sunday there are people who are not Christians who are here. Sometimes your family drags you or your curious and I don't know what your view of Jesus is, but I can tell you you're in a room with hundreds of people who have known him personally. And we have known him to be kind and generous and abundant in love and mercy and forgiveness and grace. And we would want nothing more than for you to lay aside the lies that you may have heard about who he is and to get to know Jesus for who he truly is. One of the things I love about being a Christian is that you don't become a Christian by being good. You can't do that.
[00:39:39] The way you become a follower of Jesus is by telling him you're sorry for your sins and believing in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus for your sins in your place. So if you're here and you're Just like you know what? I know that Jesus and I are not okay. And I need to get on. I need to like, figure things out with him. Your first step, your first step might be to tell him you're sorry and ask him to forgive you. That you believe in the life, death and resurrection. I love this everybody who sincerely asked Jesus for forgiveness, 100% of them receive forgiveness, the gift of the holy Spirit and the absolute hope of heaven. And I could want nothing more for you than to be reconciled to our good, kind, generous master. Amen. Ville church. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, I want to just say on behalf of our Ville church family, thank you for the privilege to steward this local church.
[00:40:32] We want to do this to the glory of God. We also understand that this is just one part of your kingdom. And there are local churches and nonprofits that are people that are doing incredible things all over the world. And so God, we are part of a much larger team. And Lord, our desire is to bless. Our desire is to build and to grow your kingdom. And so God, would you continue to give us the opportunity to, to see spiritual fruit, to see lives transformed. And God, it is our joy to together with you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, proclaim the word and the gospel and to bring the good news of Jesus to as many people as we can. And Lord, we've been able to see incredible fruit. And our desire is just to see your kingdom grow one soul at a time. Lord, we love you and we thank you for all of this and we pray this in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.
