Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, New Life Gillette Church, we are thrilled you decided to listen to our teaching on your favorite podcast app. If you made a decision to follow Christ today, would you let us know by visiting? Yes.newlife gillette.com Here is this week's teaching.
I want to say good morning to everybody joining us online.
To everybody who's watching now or later, from Hills Alive to our friends down at the prison, we are stoked that you've all joined us today. As we get into the message, you might have noticed things look a little bit different. We don't normally have tables and chairs up here. We have a panel discussion today about generosity. So I have five panelists who are going to join me on stage. Would you help me welcome them to the stage?
Now, when you look in scripture, you find multiple places where we're told that the testimony of two or three witnesses is trustworthy. In fact, throughout scripture, we are told as believers to be witnesses, that what we've seen testifies. It confirms the truth that we proclaim that we are the witnesses for Christ. One of my favorite theologians, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, said something along these lines in his book Life Together. He said that sometimes the Christ in the word of your brother is stronger than the Christ in your own heart, which is a fancy theologian way of saying sometimes someone else's faith boosts your faith. Sometimes when you have a hard time believing it, you need to hear it from someone else. So that's what we are gonna do this morning. We are gonna hear about generosity and the way it's impacted the lives of these panelists. So we have two of our staff members. We have Ingrid and Seth here, and then we have Sam, Cole, and Jessa, who are going to be sharing their testimony, their witness of how generosity has impacted their lives. You guys ready to jump in?
All right, so we're gonna start right now.
Question.
So, for the panel, looking back on your journey of generosity, what was the first meaningful step that you took?
Who wants to go first? Cole, you want to go first again?
[00:02:20] Speaker B: All right, so first step towards generosity for me wasn't tithing or giving money or anything like that. It was actually serving in the youth group.
You know, I work a lot overtime. I travel a lot for work, so I'm pretty burned out. And when I get home, I just want my time for me.
And I felt called to the youth to go help out with youth group and stuff like that. And I was really hesitant on it because that would take me giving my time. And I used to be very selfish about my Time. But I started volunteering at Youth, found out I absolutely loved it. And from there, it kind of caused a domino effect in my life to really flip how I thought about my time. And so it went from my time is mine to my time that I have to spare. I want to spend it serving and giving and being generous with my time to others to help them in their walk with Christ.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: Awesome. So what I'm hearing. Tell me if I'm hearing this right.
It seems like this is true in your story, but it's also common for all of us, is that the thing we fight against as humans is entitlement.
The word would be I deserve the phrase. Right. I worked hard. I deserve to not have to do anything else on Wednesday nights. I worked hard. I deserve to be able to spend my money however I want. Right. It's that, you know, we like to talk about how the next generation is entitled, which, by the way, every generation has thought the next generation is entitled. That's a fact of history, just for the record.
But that is a human struggle.
[00:04:09] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: But the first step of generosity is this ship. The first step, really, in our discipleship is going from I deserve to God gave. Right. I didn't earn it. God gave it. And that shift changes our perspective.
[00:04:22] Speaker C: Is that.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Is that what I'm hearing in your story?
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:04:25] Speaker D: That.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: That shift, that mindset shift really kind of sent me on a. Like a skyrocket to being like, man, that. That felt so good to give my time. That time. I've been hoarding very selfishly to others. That. It just was like, where. Where else can I give. Where else can I help and help provide others with my experiences or give. Give my money to help expand the word of Christ and stuff like that.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome.
Who's next? Sam, you want to go again?
[00:05:04] Speaker C: So for us, Journey was more of a financial aspect early on.
You know, we were early on in careers, marriage, you know, had a bunch of young children and all that.
Life was going well as far as we could tell.
Thought we kind of had a good plan of how life was going to turn out. And then financial crisis hit, lost a job, got laid off, found another job, had to move, you know, just a lot of moving and jumping from one job to another until went over a year without income.
And during this time, we had started going to church, you know, down, down, pointing our life and seeking the Lord. Right. So we're pursuing that. Found a job. Making 10 bucks an hour was the only thing I could find. And trying to support big family and make rent. You know, we had already had our house foreclosed on, lost our vehicles, repossessions, all that.
So we were barely making ends meet, right? And God starts speaking to me on tithing, and I'm like, of all the times this is going to happen. You know, it's like we literally do not have it.
But, you know, talking to my wife, we were having conversation at home. I really think God's calling us to do this. She's like, well, you know, rent's due on Friday.
You write that $40 check to the church and give it to them. They don't need it. But, you know, that's on you if you feel the need to do it. And just know we're $40 short for rent on Friday. And I'm like, okay, well, biggest $40 check I ever wrote in my life. On Sunday. Stepping out in faith, you know, just thinking, okay, maybe some unexpected overtime is going to come through this week. I don't know how this is going to look. So I'm getting nervous.
Thursday I get home from work, there's a check in the mail. I didn't know anything about this stuff at the time. You know, that's 100 testimonies that we could talk about later. But check in the mail from a livestock auction company in some Podok town we never heard of. Didn't know anything about it. But sale barn check for selling two cattle dressed to me at our address. Nobody had our address because we had bill collectors after us, right? So this check was more than I made in a month at the time. And I'm just like, oh, you have no idea how much we need this. But I've got to do the right thing. I'm going to call them. There's a mistake, Something's wrong. So I called the auction company, explaining to this lady over the phone, you have no idea how much we need this.
But it's not mine. I need to give it back.
And she convinced me I needed to read Psalms 50:10. And that's where it says, for all the beasts of the forest are mine and the cattle on a thousand hills.
And I'm just a wreck. I'm still a wreck now, but, you know, at the time, it just completely destroyed my life. I mean, just in a good way. Wow.
[00:08:12] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Praise the Lord. Yeah.
I hope that what you hear from these stories is that this. When we talk about money, the reason why we do a four week series on generosity is because it proves God's faithfulness.
When you trust God as your provider, it Changes everything when you can surrender that area of your life. And, you know, the thing stood out to me now and in first service about yalls story of tithing is, you know, I hear all the time, I don't have enough money to tithe. I'll tithe when I have more money. I just want you to know you will never in your life have enough money to tithe.
Nobody will. Every dollar I've ever made has had a job.
Every single dollar, right? This past week I was fishing, and yesterday I was on Craigslist looking at boats, like, maybe I can find a used one, you know, like I just find a rusty one, you know, patch it with flex seal. I'll be fine. And like, every dollar, every dollar I've ever made, like, you make more, you have more stuff to buy, you make more, you have a bigger car and a bigger house, right? That's how it works. You will never have enough money. But it's not about how much.
It's about God's faithfulness. It's about God's faithfulness. And when you surrender, when I surrender this area of life to the Lord, he proves his faithfulness. He proves that he is good. That's why we talk about it.
[00:09:45] Speaker C: All right?
[00:09:46] Speaker A: God doesn't need our money. And we said this a couple of weeks ago, but there are way better ways to fund a ministry than, you know, tithing.
If the church was about making money, we'd do it a different way.
But God proves his faithfulness when we trust in his provision.
Somebody else. Jessa, you shared in first service. You want to share again?
[00:10:06] Speaker E: Sure.
So I'm Jessa, I'm Seth's wife.
We have five children.
And anybody who has children knows that they steal your money.
And so the more you have, the less money you have. And we found that out after we had had our fifth child. Our fourth had some health issues and ended up in the Children's Hospital in Chicago for four nights.
And I thought he was going to die.
And I praise the Lord that he didn't. He's a great kid.
But we owed a lot of money to the hospital and we were still paying off our youngest. He was owned by the hospital still. So we had hospital, hospital, hospital bills. And during that time, I remember God speaking to us saying, you know, you need to start giving. I want you to live generously above and beyond your tithe. I want you to support a missionary.
And I looked at my checkbook that said, you know, negative money. And I told God that's probably not going to Work.
I can write the check, but it might balance.
And so we decided that we were going to be obedient and see what God would do. And we learned this lesson that you can follow God. You can be a follower of Jesus and not be generous.
Because my salvation does not rely on anything that I do. It is all God. But I cannot be a mature Christian if I don't give generously.
Because giving accelerates spiritual growth.
And generosity breeds maturity.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Generosity breeds maturity. That's. Yeah, clap for that.
The next round of T shirts we put out, that's what we're putting on. Generosity breeds maturity. This is. Thank you so much for sharing that, Jessa. That is incredibly powerful.
This is. You know, I've come to believe over the years that generosity, that our finances are a linchpin issue in our discipleship. That for most of us, me included, it's the last thing to go in surrender.
But it's the thing that undergirds everything else in many cases. I'm pretty convinced that if I can learn to surrender, that if I can learn to surrender the thing that pays the gas bill, then I can learn to surrender anything, if I can learn to trust God with the thing. Because that's the thing money is in our culture, in our world, as human beings, all the way back to Cain and Abel, when they killed another over resources, all the way back. Our finances are linked to our sense of identity. They're linked to our sense of security. They're linked to how we view ourselves, how we view other people, how we view our future. Most of us, when we think about our future, we think of a financial reality in which we'll be able to afford certain things, right? When we think of our safety, when we think of giving, we're giving away the thing we buy the car with. We're giving away the thing that we pay the bills with. It's linked to our security. But generosity, the reason why it breeds maturity is because. Because generosity proves that I am not the source of my security.
I am not the source of my identity. I don't earn my future, that God is the source of my security. God is the foundation of my identity. God is the one who has written my future. My days are numbered and held within his hand, not my own. And generosity teaches me to unhook my future and myself and my identity from the things I have and earn and attach them to God who gives generously.
That's why. That's what we see when we practice generosity. That's why it breeds maturity. Because when I see that it changes the entire way that I view the world.
Let's move on to the next question.
What has been the greatest challenge in learning to live generously?
Somebody who hasn't shared yet.
[00:14:12] Speaker F: Yeah, I'll talk about this one.
I think the biggest challenge, living generously is coming to the realization that everything that I have was.
It's not mine. Like it was given to me as a gift from God. I came, you know, empty handed into this world. I'm going to leave empty handed when I go out. And so realizing that God is the source of everything has been a huge one. I mean, you know, James talks about every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. So like, we all know we live in a changing world and we all know we need things to survive. Right. And Chad, I thought did a great job last week talking about it's not bad to have to have stuff, like stuff is fine.
But when our stuff has us, that's when it becomes an issue.
And when we're constantly working for the thing and it's holding onto us rather than living open handed and just saying, God, this is yours, like, I'm just here to steward it for you, help me to steward it well, and surrendering that. I mean, we just, we keep talking about obedience and surrender. That's what this whole series is really about, is the idea of obeying the calling of God and surrendering everything to Him. And so when we can surrender and say, hey, you know what? You've given me this, you've given me the ability to make this money, to do this job, whatever it would be. And like this is yours, like I'm giving it back to you joyfully and like willingly.
Yeah. Just really when you realize that it's his and surrendering, surrendering it all back to him just really changes. Yeah. I think your, your heart.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:02] Speaker D: So trusting. Oh yes.
Trusting in the Lord has been, I think one of the, our challenges in a way because when we trust in him, we have to, we have to walk by faith.
And I feel like the first part of learning that is to tithe it is to give generously, not just of your finances, but also of your time. Right.
But then also affects how you are with the rest of your life. So your health, your children, your marriage, everything. Because if you can learn to surrender that part of your life, then you also can learn to surrender the rest. And that's the whole point. We have no control over anything.
And that was One of the realizations that you know personally and I know, my husband and I both actually had to come to was there are things that are beyond our control, but they're not beyond him.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: So, yeah, surrender, obedience, trust, right? It's the human issue, right? It goes all the way back, like we said to Cain and Abel, and it goes all the way back beyond that to Genesis 3. Because when the enemy tempted Adam and Eve in the garden, what did he tempt him with? Be in charge.
No one else gets to tell you what to do. No one else gets. If you eat of this tree, you don't have to listen to anybody else. You're in charge, right? Surrender, trust.
Control is the human condition, right? And we try to hack it.
We try to get it in all these different ways. We try to prove that we've earned it and that we deserve it and that we can control it. And it always goes back to, we are created beings, so we live within creation.
I can't control hardly anything beyond my own actions. And honestly, I can't control them nearly as much as I would like to think I can.
For Jen and I, at least for me, the challenge personally has been to try to use generosity to hack God, to try to figure out how, like, if I do the right thing, then I'll get what I want from God, to treat it like it's a puzzle, and if I buy in, then I'll get the right outcome.
I remember when Jen and I, we decided to make the transition from youth ministry. I'd been a youth pastor for six years at that point to become missionaries.
And if you don't know this, missionaries generally make money by fundraising, which means you get paid by going to people and saying, will you please give me money? It's awful.
It's horrible. It's the worst way to make money.
So, by the way, if you want to give generously above and beyond your tithe, just find a missionary. Don't wait for them to ask. Find a missionary and support them monthly. You will make someone's year if you do that and save them having to ask you for it. It's an absolutely incredible thing to do. But the thing about being a missionary is that you generally have to start your work before you're fully funded. Like, you don't have three years to build up your funds before you quit your job and start missions work. We just started and for the first year weren't fully funded. You know, we had 20% of what we needed. The thing is, when we left our job in Michigan, we sold a house and we had a pretty decent equity check from that house. And I remember thinking, yeah, we're obedient, right? We're obedient. And look, God has blessed us, God has blessed us. So we're going to be set up for success, we're going to put this money into a savings account, it's going to grow, we're going to be good, we're going to fundraise quickly and everything because we're being obedient, right?
That is not how it worked.
For the first year of trying to fundraise, we were not fully funded.
So guess what we had to use to live that equity check.
And we watched for the first year of buying international plane tickets, which are not cheap to go do missions work, and paying for our training and paying for our rent and our food. We watched every single penny of that equity check that we got for selling our house disappear from February to December.
And I remember thinking, it's December, we're coming up on Christmas and we don't have it in the account to pay rent and to buy food and to buy Christmas presents for our two year old son.
And I'm not sure what exactly we're going to do until we checked the mail one day and we got a check from Jen's uncle who I don't think we had even asked to fund us a check. We had no idea was coming, that was $1,000 that paid our rent and our food and was able to provide Christmas.
And the thing I learned is that you can't hack God.
That's not how obedience work. You don't use generosity to buy more money. It's not a pyramid scheme. It's not. If you give this much and recruit two people, you'll be wealthy. That's not how it works. God's provision isn't wealth, it's enough.
God promises to give us enough when we live in obedience to him. You know, and I got a text recently from someone who was basically saying, you know what?
I've tried the whole God thing. I'm doing everything right and life's not working out. And you know, I'm not even sure if God's real. And that would be an accurate way to think if the Bible was full of people who did the right thing and obeyed and then life got better.
But the Bible's not full of people like that. The Bible has the book of Job in it.
Though he slay me, still I will trust in him.
That's from the book of Job.
The Bible is full of God providing in the nick of time at the last minute. Because that's what trust is. We want God to prove that he'll provide so that we don't actually have to trust. But if he's proven that he is providing, then it's just an investment. It's not trust. It's not dependency. What God wants from us is trust and surrender. And that's the greatest challenge of being a human. Because I want to be in control and I want to get what I deserve. But that's why we don't want God to be fair, because none of us actually want what we deserve. What we want is the generosity of God given to us over and over again.
Amen.
Let's move on to the next question.
Where have you experienced God's faithfulness through your giving?
[00:22:46] Speaker B: So last year, I had a Alaskan hunt planned and already paid for it. Everything like that.
Bought new gear, bought flights, cost a pretty penny. I was good. I was like, yeah, that's no problem.
Then my shoulder and arm started hurting and I went into the doctor and I had a torn bicep.
I was like, well, I can't get it fixed right now because I leave for Alaska in a few weeks. And then I have other obligations for an outfitter to guide hunters, so I won't be able to do this until December.
And so Alaska cost me a pretty penny. I burned some PTO and sick time to go up there, burn some PTO to guide and help other people's hunts burn.
And then I came into December and I was sitting there, I was like, well, I'm pretty sure I'm out of time off and I'm going to be out of work for three months. So the recovery was three months.
And so I was like, well, no matter what, my tithe is not going to go away. Like, I'll eat ramen noodles and whatever meat I have in the freezer, but college diet. Exactly.
And so I went in, got surgery done, and a week or so after surgery, I was kind of bored at the house. And I was looking in my work app and I was like, man, let's just see if I have any sick time in PTO left.
And I don't know where it came from, but I had around 40 hours of sick time. So that's one week. I had about 40 hours of PTO and that's two weeks.
Said, okay, cool, let's burn it.
And then a random Christmas bonus check came in. It's like, that's awesome.
That's December taken care of. The month I really couldn't do anything.
Well, then January rolled around and I started talking to my boss and I said, hey, I got one arm and so I can do things around the shop. Can I work part time?
So, yeah, go for it. So I work part time and made a little bit of money there.
And then came February, and I was out of my sling and I was feeling pretty good.
I started talking to my PT and I was like, hey, I feel good. If I get released from the doctor, can I go back to work full time? She said, yes. So I went to the doctor.
Doctor said I had recovered extraordinarily well and gave me the go ahead to go back to work. So in that time, yes, I had lost money, but I had been provided the amount I needed to pay all my bills to live comfortably.
And then also along with that, I was a month ahead of schedule on my recovery.
So just, I really feel that time or that that stance I took, like, my tithe is sticking, and that is, I'll do anything but give up my tithe. I really feel like that helped in that season of recovery for me.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Amen. God honors God's faithfulness. God is faithful no matter what. But God honors our obedience. And once again, you can't hack God, right? God didn't give you, like, you know, a year's salary and a cruise to the Bahamas, right? He gave you enough to pay your bills through the time, right? God is faithful.
We can trust him. But it's not trust if it's proven. It's not trust if I can see how it's coming.
So because God wants us to trust him, he almost. My dad is a pastor, and he likes to say God is never late, but he's almost never early.
He's right on time because we have to trust him. Let's move on to the next question. How has practicing the tithe shaped your relationship with Jesus?
[00:26:57] Speaker D: I'll go.
[00:27:01] Speaker E: So in our growth, in our giving, we've tried to become more mature. And maturity is really knowing this, that God doesn't want something from you.
He wants something for you. Okay? God isn't up in heaven going, oh, man, we paved the streets with gold and now we have to pay the bill. I need your money. Okay?
That's never the case.
God has everything already. He wants your heart, and he knows that where you put your money, your heart's going to follow.
So when we think about giving back a tithe, I want you to flip the script on that a little bit. I want you to remember that Nothing you have is yours. That you are only the steward of what God has given you. And he has given you 100% of it. And he is not asking you to give 10% back because he needs it. He's letting you keep 90% of what he's given you. And if we can just give back to God 10% of what he's given to us, it will change your faith. Because again, giving breeds maturity.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Anybody else want to share on this one?
[00:28:28] Speaker C: I'd just say that it really just understanding that God has a giving nature, right?
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, right?
If we got what we all earned.
Romans 6 says the wages of sin is death. So ultimately, if we all got what we deserved, works wise, we couldn't do it.
We've earned death. It's the gift of God that's eternal life. And therefore just trying to pursue the heart of the Father.
Just understanding that when we give and receive, it's with an open hand. You close your hand, you can't receive anymore. You also can't give.
So ultimately all the possessions we could have in the world are going to mean nothing, right? So just, just not holding onto any possessions and wanting to latch on to something, just being ready to give it away tomorrow. Because at the end of the day it means nothing.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: You said something in first service that just stuck out to me.
I don't want to own anything. I'm not ready to give away tomorrow.
That we want to talk about obedience. We want to talk about Jesus, right? Who gave away his life.
And this generosity is the heart of the Father. Generosity is God's character. Something we have to understand is that God never asks us to do something he didn't do first.
God never asks us to do something he didn't do first. Now you might be saying he doesn't tithe. He gave his son.
He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish. God gave his first and best. That's why in scripture Jesus is called the first fruits, the firstborn of creation and the firstborn of the dead. He is the first fruits. We give the first fruits in the tithe. God gave the first fruits in his one and only son. God never asked us to do anything he doesn't do himself. He is not the general who commands people to go die from the safety of an office. He is the one standing on the front lines with us, not asking us to do anything he doesn't do alongside us.
That's the God we serve. We've got one more question. We're already overtime, but, I mean, I go overtime every week. So, you know, here's the last question. What would you say to someone who is hesitant to take their next step in generosity? Maybe just. Maybe just one of us. Answer this question.
[00:31:02] Speaker F: Yeah.
What I would say is this. It seems obvious since we've been talking about it, but just do it.
And I would say this. Try it. Actually, try it for. I've set a time limit, like 60 days, 90 days, and give it a shot. Because, I mean, like Sam said, a hundred other stories, like there is story after story after story.
Or, you know, in Malachi, God talks about, test me. He says, test me in this one and see if I don't open the floodgates of heaven.
And that doesn't mean, like C.J. just said, that doesn't mean that you can't hack it. You can't give. And God will give, you know, a certain percentage back. You're not going to get, you know, the cruise to the Bahamas. What he does, though, is he continues to pour out things in your life that maybe you need fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience. Maybe you struggle with something and suddenly you find that that struggle is easier to deal with. For whatever reason, you don't know, because God is faithful to continue to see or to continue to change your heart. And as we surrender that to him.
And one of the things that, you know, going back to the Sermon on the Mount, just real quick, you know, Jesus talks about the Father, you know, ask, seek, knock. And when you ask, when you seek, it's going to be given to you. And he says, if your Father, who is like you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your kids, like, how much more is a perfect father going to give you the gifts? He knows what you need. He knows everything you need. And he is waiting for you to just surrender it to him and ask him. And he will continue to be faithful and come through.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: Amen. Amen. Guys, can you help me? Thank our panel for sharing this morning.
Their witness to God's faithfulness, I hope, has stirred faith in all of us. You know, I've got a pastor friend in Rapid City who says, often run from zero.
The worst thing you can do is nothing. President Teddy Roosevelt said, the best thing to do is the right thing. The best option is the right thing. The second best option is the wrong thing. And the worst thing to do is nothing.
Run from zero.
That's what I would encourage you to do. As we close today and we're going to end in worship in just a minute. But is don't do nothing. Whatever the next step is for you, run from zero. That's why we've set up the Life giver program at New Life where if you set up a recurring donation of 20 dol a week or more, then you're a life giver. You are helping people come to know that Jesus loves them unconditionally and he died to give them new life. Maybe your step today is to give something. Maybe your step today is to go from being a life giver to a tithe, giving the first 10% as God instructs us and as Christians have practiced throughout generations.
Maybe you are tithing and honestly you make enough that the tithe isn't a sacrifice anymore. The tithe just doesn't.
It's not really that generous because it's easy for you to do. And the next step for you to do is to take a radical step of generosity. Because generosity is not an amount. Generosity is not a number. Generosity is sacrifice. That's what it is. That's why Jesus, when he saw the widow come in and drop two pennies, he said, she gave more than all of the wealthy because they out of their wealth, gave little. But she, out of her poverty, gave all she had.
Generosity is a sacrifice. So what is the next step for you? The only wrong thing to do is nothing.
What is the next step? Run from zero.
We could tell stories for the rest of the day. I could tell you the story of my grandpa when he had seven kids and he was broke and he was in seminary and he told God, if I just had a dollar, I could buy milk and flour and make biscuits and gravy and feed my kids. And he went to the post office and he found a dollar in an unmarked envelope in his post office box. I could tell you stories of my parents. I could tell. We could go around this room and we could testify over and over and over again of people who have seen God provide. When did they see God provide though?
Right on time.
Because it's not faith, it's not trust. If I can see right, I walk by faith, not by sight.
God asks us to trust him. And when we trust him in this sensitive, uncomfortable area of our lives, I promise you, I promise you, I promise you what we find is freedom. Let's pray.
Jesus, you are good and you are kind and you are faithful and you are generous and you give to us unceasingly. You gave to us the best, the highest value, the most valuable. Thing.
Your son, your life. God. You gave that to us. God, would you make us generous. That we would see the world change through our generosity. That we would see lives transformed through our generosity. That our lives would be transformed through generosity. Because we are trusting that you are our provider. That we do not earn and we do not hold and we do not hoard. But you, the generous God, give to us so we can give faithfully to the world around us, where we see your faithfulness and be challenged to become like you in generosity. We love you. We love you, Jesus.
Amen.
