Rich & Poor

Good morning. It’s good to see all of you today. Those of you that are here in person, those of you that are streaming in online, or maybe you’re joining later on demand. My name is Tim. I get the privilege of being one of the pastors here. And if this is your first time here, maybe you’ve been checking us out for a couple of weeks. I would love to meet you if I haven’t had a chance to meet you. Along with Pastor Ben, who, opened the service will be right through those doors in the west lobby after the service. So make sure you stop by. Introduce yourself, and then just give us a little bit of what led you here today. It’s just an honor to have you here. And what you just heard was the reading of God’s Word. It’s what we hold so dearly as a church. We believe that God speaks to us through His Word, that he has the power to convict us, that he has the power through His Word to bring us close to him so that we can hear his heartbeat, that we can hear his voice, and then we can go out and live as redeemed, forgiven children of God. Amen. So we’ve been on this series for two and a half years, believe it or not, and we are at the tail end. four weeks to go. It’s absolutely incredible. And we are going to finish Strong Church.

Amen. Now, this is what I know is going to happen at the end of this week. Do you know what it is? The school district in our area, Utica Schools, is going to give all of the students and their parents a spring break. Now, there’s a blessing in this, because what’s happened over the last several years is it’s usually over Holy Week and Easter, which as a pastor, I cannot stand when spring break is over, Holy Week and Easter because we easily lose about 200 people in worship. So here’s the really cool part on the fact that it’s in March this year and we know many of you are going to head out to wherever you’re going this Friday or this weekend. We have the ability to live stream right at the beach and right at the pool or wherever. The Lord my God is calling you to go and rest and recoup. So don’t forget this. Or you can watch it later on demand because you want to end strong. You want to make sure you get in these last few weeks of Genesis with us. Does that sound good? All right, so quick recap. Last week, our main character here, Joseph, he was sold into slavery at 17. he ends up in Egypt.

And so the last 20 plus years he’s been in Egypt, and he’s now second in command through the sovereignty of God and the way that God has worked in his life, his brothers, who had sold him into Egypt, all of a sudden show up. They don’t know it, that it’s him because he’s completely changed. because he’s, you know, he’s he’s grown. And so what he does is he puts them through a series of test to see if their hearts. Now, remember this, because we’re gonna talk about this later to see if their hearts have changed. And so when you know, they end up passing all of these test, and after the final test that he gives them, he reveals himself, I’m Joseph, I’m one of your brothers. I’m the one that you sold into slavery. They’re in shock. Joseph’s a hot mass. He’s bawling his eyes out. He’s hugging and kissing them all. They’re not sure what to think of it. And then finally, they realize that he has forgiven them. And so there’s this massive family reunion.

So much so that he says, okay, now you have to go back home and get dad and tell dad and bring him here. In fact, you’re going to go you’re going to go get dad, get all the wives, get the kids, the grandkids, and anything you can possibly, pack up because they hired two men in a truck to do this. So they all go back home and they bring all of their stuff to Egypt, and 70 people make this massive move. And finally, dad and son get to see each other. Jacob, who thought his son was dead because that’s what his other sons told him. And he finds out he’s alive. He can’t wait to finally see his son that he loves. And they have this massive embrace. And that’s how we ended last week. Now, you just heard from, Christian. One of our deacons here did an incredible job reading our text this morning. now, the brothers, some of the brothers got to meet Farrell. They explained to Farrell that they’re shepherds because that’s what Joseph told them to do. And then Pharaoh because he loves Joseph. Because Joseph has just been used by God in a mighty way to rule the land on behalf of Pharaoh.

Now all of a sudden, he gets to meet this family. And not only that, but he gives them a best part of the land, which is crazy during a famine. It’s crazy that he would give them this incredible gift, considering they’re foreigners. And not only does he get to meet the brothers, but he gets to meet dad. So here Jacob comes in and Jacob actually blesses Pharaoh. Now, I wish there was more to this interaction. I wish the scriptures would give us more detail, because I can only imagine these two having this conversation. A Pharaoh saying, man, you have an incredible son, you have an awesome son. And if it wasn’t for him and him being able to interpret the dream that I had, who even knows what situation my kingdom would be in? And then Jacob’s saying, I know my son is awesome. I know he’s a great, great son. In fact, he was my favorite son. I gave him this coat of many colors, and apparently that wasn’t a good call because that’s what led him to be where he was. But thanks be to God, God worked in his life. Amen. And then Pharaoh asked him an interesting question.

And is it because he looked old and just beat up by life? How old are you? Okay. And Jacob says, oh, I’m 130 years young. Anybody want to live to 130? And here. 130. And then he goes on to say, my years have been few and difficult. Like he recognizes that, that his life has been ups and downs, peaks and valleys. And that’s literally what we’ve been spending the last several months looking at a deep dive into Jacob’s life. But what’s so interesting is, is Isaac is Jacob’s father. He’s now dead. He lived to 180. His grandpa Abraham lived 175. So this guy, even though he keeps telling everyone he wants to die, has incredible genes and who knows how many more days he has until you get the end of chapter 47. So they’re still in this famine. They’re still trying to survive. And so Joseph’s strategically has planned everything out. He’s got the food rationed accordingly. And so people are bringing him their money, which was silver. And in exchange he’s giving them food. So there they have money. They give it to Joseph. Joseph then gives them food. So this is going on back and forth, back and forth.

Well, what ends up happening is, is they run out of money now there’s no more money. And they go to Joseph and they say, what are we supposed to do? You now have all of our financial resources, really, Pharaoh? Because you’re the one that’s collecting it for him. And so, Joseph, think of this comes up with this idea that they should bring their livestock, bring me your livestock, and then I will give you I will continue to give you food. So what do they do? They give them horses, sheep, goats, cattle and donkeys, which sidenote who do you think’s taking care of all these animals? Joseph’s family. Right. The shepherds. The people that would have experience in all of this. This is how God works. And so this is the exchange that’s going back and forth. Now at the end of the year, they come to Joseph and they say, guess what? We have no money. All of our livestock is now gone. There’s nothing else for us to give you. We’re going to die if you don’t keep giving us the grain that you have stored up. The only thing we have left to give you are two things our land and ourselves. Our land and ourselves. Now. Land back then was really incredible because it was passed down from generation to generation to generation.

You did not give up your land. You did not give up the deed to your land. I mean, that is like cursing the generations that came before you. But when you’re starving, when you’re in a famine and you have nothing else that you can do, you have no choice. And so it wasn’t Joseph that came up with the solution. This time. It was the people who said to Joseph, buy us and our land and keep giving us the food that we need to sustain us, because if you don’t, then we’re all going to die. Now it’s really important that, you know, in this tax that they’re not asking to be slaves. In fact, look at the next text with me because it says Joseph then bought all the land in Egypt one by one, field by field, deed by deed. The exchange is happening for food. And he reduced the people to servanthood. Or another way to look at this is crop shares. And this was very common back then, that if people got themselves in a financial situation and they had to put a lean on their property, or they would put themselves as a servant under somebody else, then then they would work to then repay that so they could pay their way out.

And so that’s exactly what we see taking place, because at first glance, it can look like Joseph is a big jerk in this situation. Amen. I mean, it’s like, what is he doing and why is he treating the people this way? But when you dig deeper into this tax, you’re going to see the way in which God is working through Joseph to sustain these people, but also to not just sustain them during the famine, but to sustain them for the rest of their earthly lives. And this is how he’s going to do it. He says to them, now that I have bought you and your land today, now that we’ve entered into this agreement, here is seed for you he received. So you can plant this in the ground and all. By the way, I know that you’ve been trying this and you haven’t had any results because there’s no rain and the ground is hard. But I know the best places in Egypt, and I know where you guys can start cultivating this and helping rebuild society so that when we get back, to what our normal life was after the famine, we all can survive from this day forward. But here’s the agreement. This is what it’s going to take. The seed that I give you, it’s going to take time for that to be cultivated into the earth.

It’s going to take time for that crop to grow. But when it comes in, you are to give a fifth of it to who, not Joseph and all those of you that are really good with math. What is the fifth? 20%. It says the other 4/5, which is what, 80%? Hold on to this. You may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourselves, your households that you’re trying to provide for and sustain as well. And your children. So they could have been aging parents, it could have been anything else that someone was responsible for under their roof. What’s so fascinating is that he comes up with this 8020 principle because at the time, the going rate for a servant to do this would have been one third. You would have been required to pay back one third until all of it was paid, and you would have been giving 33%, not 20%. This is actually an act of mercy and grace, but I want us to dig a little bit deeper into this whole principle in this whole text this morning, because there’s a difference between giving somebody a handout and giving somebody a hand up. Now, we just spent last week, our church, amazing church, incredible volunteers serving at a homeless shelter in Warren.

And these are the people that often get kicked out of other warming shelters. These are the people that really struggle in life, whether it’s addiction, mental health, whatever has come into their life that has led them to be homeless. And so our people went down and opened the doors and welcome them in and processed them through the registration, provided incredible meals to them, love them, talked to them, prayed with those that want to be prayed with so that we could just show the love of Jesus in a practical way. And there is certainly value in doing that. And the reason that we do that is because we don’t want people to freeze to death. The reason we have a warming shelter, December to March in Warren is for that reason. And I know many of you saw that in the news. You saw what happened with those kids in the minivan at the casino parking lot. I mean, how terrible, awful is that? And we just said, as a church partnered with other churches that every church takes a week and goes down, is willing to serve. What you see here is not that taking place. See, it would have been very easy for Joseph to turn into a food bank. It would have been very easy for Joseph just to say, look, I’ve got it all calculated out.

God gave me the vision. I know, I know how much we’re going to need. I know how many there there are of you. And probably this percentage will die in the next few years as many people will be born. I mean, he’s smart, dude. He would have figured it out and then people could have just came and he could have just given them the green. It’s not what he did. He said, this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to give you the seed. You’re going to put it in the ground. I’m going to continue to provide to you, for you until that, until that crop begins to surface, because I don’t want you to become dependent on just coming here and getting the grain. You see the difference? This is huge. Some of you that are business owners, some of you that manage people, some we do in our positions of leadership. Man, this is it. This is this is tax. This is for you. This helps you manage what it is that God has, in fact, placed in your hands. So let me ask you, what is it that Joseph is managing? People, people in the situation. Resources to be God’s people. An entire kingdom. An entire kingdom.

And yet he’s doing it exactly as God has gifted him and called him to do. This is also equally important. Is who is Joseph managing it for? Us both are correct. Who is he managing it for? First, for Pharaoh, everything that he’s bringing in, all of the money goes where? Into Pharaoh’s pocketbook. All of the livestock goes to Pharaoh. The land, the deeds to Pharaoh. He is not generating income for himself. He’s not building well for himself or his family or, you know, he’s he’s married. He’s got two kids now. He’s not like, oh, I’m building this trust and I’m building this thing over here. And I want to make sure that when I’m gone, my kids and my grandkids and my great grandkids are taken care of. He didn’t have the ability to do that because he’s serving under Pharaoh. Everything that he did was for Pharaoh. So what is he doing? Why is he so passionate about getting this right? Why don’t we ever see him keeping a little bit more for himself? Why don’t we see him going to Pharaoh and saying, look, dude, you’re living high off the hog. You’re because of me. Like, man, I’ve made your life great and I’ve taken care of you and all of your stuff in your estate, and I’ve saved your entire kingdom.

Why don’t I get more? Why can’t I have a second house? Or why can’t I have this? And why can’t I have that? What you notice in the life of Joseph is this he is not being a good steward. He is being an unbelievably great steward of Pharaoh’s resources. Hold on to that point, because he realizes and we looked at this last week because this is what he told his brothers. God brought me here. God allowed me to be a slave, and he allowed me to go through all the circumstances and trials that I’ve gone through because my main purpose in life, the reason that God has me on this planet, was to save lives. What a perspective to have. What a perspective to walk through life with. But yet we live in a society and a culture that teaches us the exact opposite. To pursue wealth, to pursue pleasures, to pursue things for ourselves, and to build a kingdom or utopia here on earth. Instead of looking at through the lens of what it is that God has given us. And asking this question, why has he given it to us? What is it that he’s expecting us to do with what he has placed in our hands? This is fascinating because it wasn’t Joseph that went to the people and said, hey, look at what I did. Look how smart I am. I saved your lives. You owe me. No, it was the people that came to Joseph and said, man, dude, thank you. Thank you for figuring this out. Thank you for not making us slaves. Thank you for for for helping us get through this difficult season in our lives and as a nation.

Thank you for not being greedy. Thank you for not hoarding it all. Thank you that we will have future generations because of you. Now, I want you to think about that for a moment in view of your own life. Think about the resources that God has in fact, given you. Do you look at what God has placed in your hand and recognize that it’s from him? Or do you look at what’s been placed in your hand and you say, you don’t know how hard I’ve worked? You don’t know how I had to put myself through school. You don’t know the business risks that I have have taken. You don’t know this and you don’t know that, and you don’t know that, and you don’t know that. And yet when you open the scriptures and you read the Word of God, he tells us over and over and over again everything that we have and everything that we are belongs to him. We are just stewards of what he has already given us and blessed us with. Now, certainly there are times when when we have to dig in and get the education and study hard and and make that decision and do whatever it is that led to where we’re at today.

But I hope and pray to God that if you know Jesus, that you recognize that each and every day, the only reason that you are at where you’re at is because of him, and that you give him all the honor and glory, and that you don’t ever try to pin that on yourself. That’s the life that God calls us into. What would you have done if you were Joseph? How would you have handled managing all of those resources that he’s given you? Here’s the answer for Joseph. There’s three things for Joseph, and there’s three things for us. We are called to take care of ourselves. Did you know that if you are doing things that are immoral, if you are, you are bound by greed. You are bound by addiction. If you’re out there doing bad business transactions or you’re trying to to take advantage of another person that eventually is going to catch up to you, you are not taking care of yourself, and you’re not living in view of who God has created you and called you to be. You also have a responsibility to your family.

Do you know that Scripture says this? That if you don’t provide for your immediate family, you are worse off ready for this than an unbeliever? Which I don’t even fully comprehend that verse. I don’t even know how to fully teach that to you, because how bad can it get if you’re an unbeliever? If you don’t know God, then your life is completely useless. You are gone. You are completely separated from him. And so we have a responsibility to provide for our families. And then third, and this is always the hardest one, isn’t it, folks? This is always the difficult conversation. This is where people get uncomfortable. If you bring it up in church and some of you, you’re quiet this morning because you already read the card that I gave you on the way in and you’re like, I know where he’s going this morning, and you got a little bit of flair and attitude to the side. And if you’re new again, just, you know, come back for the next three weeks because I’m just going to tell you right now the playbook here at Shepherd’s Gate, we talk about these things when the Word of God brings them up, and it’s about 2 to 3 times a year that we have to have conversations with our church because we believe this is part of our discipleship.

This is part of us following Jesus, us living sacrificial lives and being obedient to God and giving to God what he’s asked us to give it to him is the same as the air that we breathe, because we believe God has put the air in our lungs. It’s the same thing of going to church and to praying and open our Bibles and reading God’s Word. This is part of the life that he has called those into as followers of his. Again, Joseph. To the people 20% to Egypt, 80% to yourself, your household and your children. And yet it’s such a difficult process to fully comprehend when we live in the greatest nation on the planet, we are blessed far more than we could hope, dream or imagine. And listen to me, folks. We become so nearsighted. We we become so fixated on the stupid things that we think are famines or a crisis. Can I give you some examples? In 2020, people lost their minds. When we ran out of toilet paper. I’d rather die than wipe my butt with anything but toilet paper. You know, stupid. That sounds. Do you know what people are panicking about now? You already know this AIG’s. Oh my gosh, we’re all going to die. What happened? Is it the bird flu? And everyone’s pointing fingers of who’s responsible for who and who did what and who did when.

And then there’s always the real on Instagram of some guy buying way too many eggs. And then people are getting in fistfights and trying to take him down in the aisle before he gets to check out. And so we blame him, but then we blame the guy that’s throwing the punches. But then we blame Costco for letting the guy have so many eggs on his cart. Folks, we’re not in a famine. Yeah, our economy’s been this and inflation’s rocked. Many of us. Those of you that have been here you know this last year was one of the worst years for my family. I’ve told you the stories I’ve told you the kind of the financial obstacles that we have gone through in our little home. And I know many of you have told me the same thing. But yet time and time again, we have to come back to is our faith and hope and trust in the government is our faith in hope and trust in what we can do? Or is our faith, hope and trust in the one true God who promises he will provide for each and every one of our needs.

Amen. Because now I want to make one more turn, and I want you to look at this from the perspective of this local church, Shepherd’s Gate Church on 23 Mile and Shelby Township, that God has called us as a community of believers to be a part in. And again, if you’re a guest, this does not apply to you. Okay. You’re just here getting an inside look at who we are as a church. This is for those that call Shepherd’s Gate their home, which is my first question. Is Shepherd’s Gate your home? And if it is, has this church made an eternal impact? Those words are used on purpose. Has it made an eternal impact on you and your family? Have you been blessed by the ministry that has happened here? You can see that the Holy Spirit is where you can see that you have grown closer to God and in your faith. Then what is the biggest barrier for so many of the families who have gone through the membership process? Some of you, you’ve been here for years and you’ve never taken that first step. You’ve never realized the blessing that comes when you trust God with everything that he has placed in your hands. What is that? Help me out. Help me understand what it is and why there’s so many people that call Shepherd’s Gate home afraid to take that first step. Now, before I get into that some more, can I just share some good news with you this morning?

Can I just show you the way that God has blessed this church? And again, he gets all the praise and the glory and honor for these things. Last year, last year we had the highest Mother’s Day attendance, the highest Father’s Day at ten, and the highest outdoor worship attendance, the most baptisms. And we ended the year with the highest Christmas Eve attendance in the entire 45 year history of our church. That’s nuts. That’s God at work. That’s God calling people here. That’s God trusting us with other people’s souls that he knows that we’re going to preach the gospel, call people repentance, and watch as the Holy Spirit works. Faith in their heart, in their lives, and even ending the year with 17% increase in in-person worship. Look at what God has done, and look at what it is that God has done through you. Because so many of you invite people to come, to hear and to see what it is that we do as a church.

Here’s some other good news. Anybody else want some other good news? Like, yeah, as long as you don’t talk about giving us files. So here’s some other good news. And this first one, we’re not even sure why it happened. Like, I still am working with the team on this. We just had our largest Ash Wednesday attendance in the history of our church, which I know we don’t know why, which is incredible. And we’ve already started this year with a 2% increase. So that’s in addition to last year. Right? So now that’s 19% over two years. Our kids are busting at the seams. Have you ever noticed there’s a lot of pregnant ladies, a lot of ladies pushing strollers and a whole lot of babies needing to get baptized and a lot of toddlers, a little kids run around. Hopefully you’re happy about that. Hopefully you’re not leaving the church and going finding some church with a bunch of old people that doesn’t have a nursery. We should be excited about that. Should we not, like young families are coming to our church? All of these positive things. I firmly believe that we’re going to beat it this year for Holy Week Easter. I think we’re going to have our largest attendance ever. I already told you about spring break. I think that’s going to be a factor, but I think it’s going to be the movement of God that is taking place. And because you guys are boldly inviting your neighbors and your friends every thing at this church, I can go on and on and on and on and on.

Show you so many slides about all the other ministries that are happening here at Shepherds Gate. All of these other things are headed in the right trajectory, except for one area and our church. Any guesses what that area would be? Answer. How would you know? Giving opening up our wallets and our pocketbooks. And again, I’m not a pastor that’s afraid to talk about this because dig deep in Bible talks more about this than anything else. Here’s a snapshot of our general giving here at Shepherds Gate over the last four years. Now let’s start with the positive $1.8 million is unbelievable. It is a blessing. It is a miracle that God gives us. And then we managed those resources to do what it is. And people are always amazed at what it is that we do as a community with our budget, especially what it is that we give out into our community here over and over and over and over again. But I’ll also tell you this, and I told you this last year, and I know it shocked some of you. This 1.8 comes from 30% of the families that call Shepherd’s Gate Home. And people are like, that can’t be right, like it is. That’s what it is. And I know some of you here, you’re thinking this. You’re like, oh, wait a second, I know, I know, Pastor Tim, we’re in a building campaign.

And so people must have shifted their general fund giving to feed forward, which is our building campaign fund. Doesn’t that make sense? And that seemed like it would make sense. Can I tell you that our business office already ran the analysis, already created the spreadsheets, and what they found is that’s absolutely not true. The 30% they give to the general fund, or the 30% that are giving to feed forward. See, I just believe, as one of your pastors, that we have an opportunity this year to grow in this area of our discipleship. By the way, do you know, what do you notice? It’s about 5050 that are clapping because the people who do give, they’re clapping because they want you to realize the blessing that comes when you learn the biblical principle of sharing your resources, of tipping your toe in the water. I’m not here to give you a tithe message or a percentage, but we’re not even talking about that. We’re talking about people that call this place home. They come here week in and week out. Again, some of you that have been here for years, what does it take? You know what it takes. For God to do something in your heart. Amen. Said that at the beginning of the message I can give you all the stats. I can show you all the pretty PowerPoint.

It’s on the planet. Until God Almighty does something in your heart and moves you toward this incredible opportunity. The life of following Jesus, this stewardship of what you have begin been given. When God awakens that in your heart, in your life, buckle your seatbelt, get ready to watch living life this side of eternity and another whole reality, my friends that give. Am I correct or incorrect? Right? I’ll put it this way. We believe as a as a church that God created us. Amen. We believe we open our Bibles and whatever the text says, good, bad or indifferent, you know, we’re preaching it and we believe that this is God’s Word to us. Amen. Every time we see a baptism, it is not the pastor, it is not the water. It is God that’s at work in the baptism. Amen. You’re about to receive Holy Communion when you come forward and you receive that in faith. It is not me. It is not the server. It is not anybody else in this room but God Almighty at work. Amen. We believe in what he’s done on the cross. We believe he’s the one that hung on the cross, took our sins, breathed his last breath, came out of that tomb, declared victory over sin, death, and the devil for us, which we’re about to celebrate in a few weeks for Holy Week and Easter.

We believe that. Amen. And we believe. Ready? Don’t don’t caveat that the Holy Spirit’s the one that gives us faith. He’s the one that not only gives us faith, he sustains us in the faith. And if we believe God can do all of these things, why don’t we believe that he can work in our finances? Why is this the one area that so many people hold on to? And you, so many said it earlier? It’s two reasons fear and you know how to get rid of fear. Turn off the stupid television. Number two. It’s greed. Yes, go look up greed. Google greed Bible. You’ll read a million verses on your way home today. And that’s the area that God wants to break in our lives. Generosity breaks the stronghold of greed in every human heart and God. May we be a church that is willing to listen to your word, to respond to your word, to be enlightened by you as you impact our hearts that will stop hoarding it for ourselves or thinking we got to create whatever we think we need to create on this earth and instead live like Joseph who said, this isn’t for me, this is for Pharaoh, because this is where God has placed me, and wherever God has placed me, I’m going to be a good steward of what he’s giving me in this moment, in this time, or, by the way, go to this level. The people, the people did as Joseph told them to do.

They didn’t go, ha ha, we’re keeping 100% Na 9010. You want 8020 because it means we’re going to live. Fine. We get to keep 80. You only want 20. We’re going to do what you tell us to do, and then we’re going to come back and we’re going to thank you for saving our lives. Let the words speak to you today. So let me just put it this way, okay. Imagine with me. Again, people that call this place home, if everyone who called Shepherds Gate home just gave something. Just gave something. What could God do? And the most important thing is what he can do in your heart and in your life. The most important thing that can happen. Because guess what? We know and trust God is going to be at work. Whatever the budget comes in, whatever whatever ends up happening this year, next year, the following year, God’s the one that will figure out how to sustain this church, because he’s the head of this church and he always has. This is for you. This is a benefit to you. This is to watch God open an area of your life that you have run from and been resisting from for far too long. It’s 2025. No more excuses. Let’s be honest before God and see what it is that he does. And I get it. This can be an uncomfortable conversation. Some of you, you’re like, I knew it. This is our second week here.

We’re never coming back. I’ll tell you this. Go to the next church and next week, next month, next year, you’re going to get a giving talk. Every church eventually will lead to this because that’s what the Bible says to do. Hey, come back the next three weeks, get to know us and learn more about us. Because what’s the alternative? If those that give and support us, what happens? What happens if they just stop the services? That I mean, I can still show up outside. We won’t have a sound system. I can just yell, no more hot dogs for the outdoor services. Kids don’t get crayons for the kids. I mean, we’re like, where does this go? Or do you know, there’s another option? And you’re like, oh, there is sweet. There’s another option ready for this? I can sell my soul to the devil. You ready? And this is how I would do it. Today’s announcements are sponsored by Home Depot. It’s springtime folks. Go get your gardening tools and everything you need. There’s not a church on the planet that I know that would ever even entertain this idea. So what I want you to do in this moment is grab that card that you you got on the way in. Go ahead, grab it.

In part of this and doing this exercise is to prepare our hearts to receive Holy Communion this morning. It’s the same card I gave you last April. If you’re wondering, those that have been around the. Same questions I just got done asking you again. You’re a guest. Give it back to the usher on your way out. Thank you for being here. Keep coming and checking us out as a church and seeing if God would have you call this place home. Those of you that are members. Will you please take this card home? And will you please find a quiet place in your house and will you go over this card and pray and invite God into this situation and see what it is that he would lay on your heart? Married couples, listen to me. You’re married. Do this today. Do not say you’re going to do this tomorrow or next week or next month because it’s not going to happen today. Find time and go and sit someplace in your house and go through this card and ask God, the Holy Spirit, to lead and direct and to guide you as a married couple if you’re not praying together, guess what? Today’s the day. Today’s a great start to praying together as a couple and inviting God into that financial situation in your home. Because listen to me. Maybe you’re here and you’re like, there’s no way I can’t give anything.

You’re nuts. You don’t understand how much debt we’re in. Yeah, we live in the big house. We drive fancy cars. We got all the the cool clothes our kids are on, all the cool sports or whatever the heck it is. But, Tim, if you actually knew and you saw our finances, they’re a complete wreck. We are living in a pit in a financial prison. Listen to me. We have trained financial coaches and counselors here at Shepherd’s Gate who are unbelievable when it comes to helping you turn your life around, helping you set a budget and they will do so completely confidentially. If that is you, you reach out to the office. You ask for me, you ask for Ben. You ask the front office enabled direct you toward the person to be able to help you walk that financial journey with you. But again, as we receive this incredible meal that God gives of himself, the seed that he gives us to help forgive our sins and strengthen our faith. All comes from him. Everything that we have and everything that we are. And it’s by his mercy and his grace because of what he’s already accomplished on the cross. And by stepping out of that tomb and declaring victory over sin and death and the devil and every one of our diseases and sins, we now can walk in newness of life.

And so will you in this moment. Will you by your heads and close your eyes with me? And if this is your first time here, the first time for a communion service, this is where we allow the Holy Spirit to convict our hearts. We’re going to move into a time of confession. If you’re watching online, you two can confess your sins and receive God’s forgiveness this morning. And Heavenly Father, we open up our hearts, give us the courage and strength to confess the sins that you now are convicting of us, convicting us. And so we do that now. Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for my friends that are here and those that are watching online. Thank you that you have heard all of our confessions this morning, and because of your son, Jesus Christ, because he was nailed to a cross. You do in fact forgive us of all of our sins, and you cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.