Well, welcome to Big Valley Grace Community Church. I’m glad that you’re here. Thanks to the folks who brought the cars and everything out front.

That’s that’s real fun. Go check out cars. If you like cars, there’s some cool old cars and fast cars and that kind of stuff. But appreciate time, energy, and resource of those who are willing to do that. If it’s your first time here, welcome.

My name is Joel. I’d love to meet you. I’ll be in the welcome center. Just go any of the exits out that way. Hey, I’ll be in the welcome center after the gathering.

I’d love to say hi. I’d love to put a name and a face together, shake your hand, personally welcome you to church. We’re glad that you’re here. We’re in a series called The Giving Life. It’s a four-week series, and today we’re going to be in 1 Chronicles 29 and then we’re going to be in Proverbs 27.

So, if you have a Bible, you can turn to 1 Chronicles 29 and Proverbs 27. But if you need a Bible, we want to give you one today. This room over here, our prayer room, we have Bibles in that room. If you need prayer, come to that room after the gathering. But there’s Bibles and we’d love to have you have a copy of God’s word. It’ll be our gift to you.

So, we’re glad that you’re here. Welcome. Well, I want to do a little bit of review from week one because we need it as a foundation to be able to talk about what we’re going to look at today.

So, review from week one in The Giving Life. We looked at the resource from 1 Chronicles 29. And this is King David’s perspective about who God is and how God operates. The historical account was King David and the leaders of the church brought a massive gift to God. It was an enormous gift to God for the purpose of building the temple.

And as they brought the gift, then King David then proclaimed in front of the people what he understood about God and how God works, who he is, how he works, how he operates, and what our response is back to him. The four points we looked at last week from 1 Chronicles 29 are one, bless God as the source of all true, good, and wonderful things. To say, “Bless you, God,” is to say, “God, you’re true. God, you’re good. God, you’re wonderful.

We bless you, God. And we bless you, God, as the source of all true, good, and wonderful things.” And so, anything we see, we understand if it’s true, good, and wonderful, then God is the source of it. 1 Chronicles 29:10-11, blessed are you. All that is in the heavens and in the earth are yours. God is the source.

Number two, praise God as the giver of all true, good, and wonderful things. He’s not just the source, but he also shares and he shares it with us. And he’s the giver. And so we praise God that he has decided to share that which is his and give to us. So we praise God as the giver of all true good and wonderful things. 1 Chronicles 29:13.

And now we thank you our God and we praise your glorious name. Number three, admit God is the owner of all true good and wonderful things. He’s not just the source and he’s not just the giver because even when it comes to us, he retains ownership. He is still the owner of everything. Even though we may have received a gift, he does not stop being the owner.

And so whatever’s been given to us has been entrusted to our care. And so we admit that God is the owner of all true good and wonderful things. And it’s with that perspective that he’s the source, he’s the giver, and he’s the owner that we can get to number four, which is offer to God joyfully of all true, good, and wonderful things. Recognizing that all things come from God and from God we have given to him. 1 Chronicles 29:14 says, “For all things come from you and of your own we have given to you.” 1 Chronicles 29:17 says, “Your people who are present here, offering freely and joyously to you.”

So we recognize God as the source. We recognize he’s the giver. We recognize he’s the owner. And that puts us into place to we’re able to now offer joyfully back to him. Week one, the resource.

Well, now in week two, what we’re going to look at is the responsibility. And let me describe it this way. If God is the source, that means everything’s in his hand. And if he’s the giver, that means he extended his hand to offer it to us. And if we receive it, that means it’s been taken out of God’s hands and it’s been put into our hands.

And while it’s in our hands, he’s still the owner. And if we give anything to him, then that means we take it out of our hands and we put it back into his hands. What we’re going to look at today is what do we do with things while they’re still in our hands? What is our responsibility when God places something into our hands? How do we handle our responsibility? How can we learn to faithfully manage our responsibilities well?

Well, in our text that we looked at last week, 1 Chronicles 29, there’s something that we learn about David. David asked God to help his son Solomon manage his responsibility, which is really cool that it’s Father’s Day weekend and we’re looking at something like this that David asked God to help his son Solomon manage responsibility. He sees that his son is going to have a huge responsibility and he asks God, “God, my kid’s going to need help and I need you to help him manage his responsibility.” This is what he says in 1 Chronicles 29:19. Grant to Solomon, my son, a whole heart that he may keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes, performing all, and that he may build the palace for which I’ve made provision.

That first word, grant, that’s a request. He’s asking. He is praying. And he’s saying, “God, I need you to help my son.” This is what my son needs.

My son needs a heart that is given to you. My son needs a heart that is willing to obey you. My son needs a heart that is willing to obey you and do the things that he needs to do to honor you. And he has a huge responsibility and that is to build the house of the Lord. The resource has already been provided, but now he has a responsibility. God, would you help my son to do his responsibility well?

Well, God answered the prayer that David prayed. And God gave wisdom to Solomon to manage all of his responsibilities well. We can actually see that in many places in scripture that God gave Solomon wisdom to manage all of his responsibilities well. Well, the text that we’re going to look at today in Proverbs 27:23-27 is short, but it’s a text that helps us see how Solomon then shares how he learned to manage his responsibilities.

So, we now receive the benefit from the father David praying for the son Solomon to be able to handle his responsibilities and God giving Solomon wisdom. And now we’re going to be able to see the wisdom that Solomon shares that we would know how we could handle our responsibilities well also. So I’m going to read this text and then I’m going to explain it and then we’re going to pull some points out that we can apply very practically to our life. Verse 23, Proverbs 27:23. Know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds for riches do not last forever and does a crown endure to all generations. When the grass is gone and new growth appears and the vegetation of the mountains is gathered, the lambs will provide your clothing, the goats the price of a field, there will be enough goats’ milk for your food, for the food of your household, and maintenance for your girls.

So, let me explain this text. Know well the condition of your flocks. It’s one thing to have flocks. It’s another thing to know what kind of shape is the flock in. Give attention to your herds. It’s one thing to have a herd, but it’s another thing to go and do the work that’s responsible to take care of that herd.

So, you got to know the condition and you got to give attention. You got to know what’s true about what you have and you need to know what you need to do to take care of it. Know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds.

Why? For riches do not last forever. I think that’s pretty easy for all of us to understand. Riches do not last forever. There’s a rhetorical question.

Does a crown endure for all generations? The person who sits on the throne, do they sit on the throne forever? Speaking in human terms. And then there’s a problem in verse 25. When the grass is gone.

See, that’s what happens to grass. It sprouts up and then it dies. When the grass is gone and then there will be a new season and the new growth appears and the vegetation of the mountains is gathered and then this will be the result of you knowing well the condition of your flocks and giving attention to your herds. This is going to be the result in verse 26. The lambs will provide your clothing and the goats the price for a field.

There will be enough goats’ milk for your food, for the food of your household, and the maintenance for your girls. There will be enough. That is something that every one of us thinks about. Is there going to be enough? Are we going to have enough?

Is there going to be enough for what we need? And this passage is saying when you know well the condition and you give attention that there is going to be enough. And we’re going to use those three words condition, attention, and enough to then begin to give application to our lives. So number one, understanding that David prayed and asked God to help his son and then God gave his son wisdom and his son now shares this wisdom with us and understanding we have responsibility with the things that God has placed in our hands. What can we learn from how to handle the responsibility for when God puts something in our care?

The first is number one to ask God to reveal the current condition of your life. Ask God to reveal the current condition of your own life. Let me give you a little bit of a news flash. You’re no good at honestly assessing yourself. None of us honestly assess ourself well.

We all have blind spots. We all need someone else to speak into our life. And the best person to do that is God. So we want to ask God to reveal the current condition of your own life. Know well the condition of your flock.

So we’re saying, God, we need your help that we would know well the condition of our flocks, the condition of our life, what we are stewards of what’s in our hands. God, we need you to help us. We need you to help us know the condition. I’m going to share with you a tool that my wife and I have used for about 10 years. We’ve used this on a quarterly basis and we’ve used it on a yearly basis in trying to assess what’s actually true about our lives and our family right now and where do we need to make progress? And I’m going to share the tool in three parts.

The first part is this. The current condition of my being. And when I use the word being, I’m going to describe it with three terms. Body, mind, and spirit. It was last year that I sold a truck. I had a truck and I didn’t need the truck anymore.

So, I sold the truck and I went on to Auto Trader and I had to put up a bunch of photos and all that. And I had to tell the condition of the truck and it made me rate it like, is this thing, you know, a clunker or is this thing brand new? Well, I got nine kids, so it ain’t brand new. Okay, but it was in good condition, like really good condition.

So, I gave it a four, right? And I said, “Hey, my truck’s a four. It’s not perfect, but this truck’s in good condition.” Okay.

Well, as we go through this, my challenge to you is to rate the current condition of your being. Is it poor or is it excellent or is it somewhere in between? I would just challenge you. Give it a rating. What I’m going to do as I walk through this is I’m going to share with you one of the lowest moments in my life in every one of these categories for the purpose of being real and making this real for you so that you can hear part of my story and that might connect with part of your story and that might help you to have the ability to you know rate the current condition of your being.

So body I was 32 years old. I was in my garage. I was weightlifting. I had weights on my shoulders. And my chocolate Lab came into the garage and jumped on me.

And I had a natural reaction where I went like that to get my dog off of me. And when I went like that, the weight because I brought my leg up, the weight crushed me and I fell to the ground. It was then the next January that I had my first spine surgery because I had a ruptured disc and I was unable to walk. That disc 7 years later moved out of my spine and into the like spinal cord area. And I was having an issue then at age 40 to where I would be standing and like an electricity would I would lose electricity to my legs and so I would just fall to the ground.

It’s the reason that this table is up here because I asked the team to put something on the stage that I could hold with two hands while I teach. I was 40 years old when that happened. I now have a cage that is in my lower spine. I know what it is to not be able to walk and I know what it is to have to learn to walk. And I know what it is to have to use a walker. That was a very poor moment in my life. That was a very low moment in my life in regards to my body.

When I graduated high school and started college, someone introduced me to pornography. And as I used pornography, it significantly damaged my mind. What went into my mind wreaked havoc on my mind. And in a very short amount of time, a very large amount of damage happened. It took a little bit of time to create a lot of damage.

And it’s taken a whole lot of time to work on repairing that damage. That was a moment in my life. That was a very poor moment for my mind. I was about 18, 19, and man, I couldn’t figure out how to make a single good decision. It felt like every decision I made was the wrong decision.

I was awesome at making horrible decisions. And I was in such a low place. And I was sitting in church and someone shared in church that God wanted to help me make decisions. And I was like, that’s exactly what I want. I want God to help me make decisions.

And my heart was opened up to Colossians 3:15. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. And I was like, that’s what I want, Lord. I want you to be in charge. I want you to rule in my heart.

I have no peace. I need your peace. And that’s a moment I can look back on in my life. And it was a very poor spiritual moment. I was in a very poor place spiritually.

Now I share some of these low points with you to be honest and be real that you might engage to consider about your own life. What would the current condition of your being be? Is it poor? Is it excellent? Is it somewhere in between regarding your body, regarding your mind, regarding your spirit?

I would challenge you. Put yourself in there. This is what the word of God says in Mark 12:30. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Heart, soul, mind, strength. Apparently, the parts of my body, the parts of my being are important to God because he actually wants me to love him with those parts of my life.

Luke 2:52, it says that Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God. And man, think about that. Jesus grew. Even Jesus grew. He grew in wisdom.

He grew in stature. He grew in favor with God. He grew in favor with man. If Jesus even grew and God wants all the parts of me to love him, then these things that are a part of my life, they must matter to God. This must be important.

Then this must be important information about my life because God is interested in the parts of me. So I would challenge you to rate the current condition of your being. How is your body? How is your mind? How’s your your spirit?

Is it poor? Is it excellent? Is it somewhere in between? The second category is the current condition of my relating. And there’s three words I would use to help explain relating.

One, love. Two, family. And three, community. Now, when I say love, what I mean by that is understanding that God’s the greatest love. If I get down into the human level, I have to ask the question, what’s my greatest love?

Well, my greatest love on a human level is to my wife. That’s my greatest love is to my wife. Last month we celebrated 25 years of marriage. And thank you. And thank you.

And one of the things that was important to my wife, we got all of our kids together. Got all everybody together. Kids, spouses, fiances, grandbaby, everybody together. And there’s something that my wife, it was really important for my wife that everybody, all of our kids would know. And she told the story of the lowest point in our marriage.

We’d been married for a little bit, had a third kid on the way, and we didn’t know how to love each other. We didn’t know how to respect each other, and we didn’t know how to talk to each other. And we were spiraling down towards divorce. And my wife wanted our kids to know that we had had a very low point in our love, in our marriage. It was a poor moment.

As a family, we’re big family. Big family. God built a big family. Big family is messy. Small family is messy.

Big family is more messy. Okay. There’s a moment super hard for us where something happened in our family where we had to take one of our children to a therapeutic residential treatment center. It is the hardest moment of my entire life was to do that. At that moment for our family, our condition was very, very poor.

Super hard. Stop being so depressed. I’m just using these as examples so that you can understand the low points of my life. All right, someone smile back at me or I’m going to get discouraged. Okay, community.

So, I found out that those who I thought were my best friends actually became not my best friends. And the way I found that out is when my best friends got divorced. And when my best friends got divorced and then neither of them wanted to hang out with me anymore, I lost. Everyone loses in divorce. And that has happened to me multiple times.

And those are moments in my life from a community standpoint, those are really hard. Those are a really poor moment. It was just this last week, unrelated to me sharing this with you, that I spent some time thinking about all the places of my community. And I just thought in these places of community, am I moving towards people or I’m moving away from people? Is my community increasing in this area or is my community decreasing?

I spent time yesterday morning. I listed off all of my kids’ names and I just asked God, “What should I pray for each of my kids? What would you want God to have happen in each of my kids’ lives?” Fortunately, like body, mind, and spirit, love, family, and community, God doesn’t leave us in a place of destitution. He restores and he reconciles and he builds us up and he takes what is broken and destroyed and he works things that are beautiful and awesome and wonderful for him.

Praise God that he doesn’t leave us in the condition that he finds us in. He brings us to a better condition. Here’s what Ephesians 5:25 says. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. I used to be of the perspective that I wanted to point out the blemish, that I wanted to bring attention to the spot.

But God did something different. He did something new. And now when I read, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” I think, “Yes, that’s who I want to be. God, make me like that.

That is the goal. I want to be like that, Lord.” He’s changed my perspective. This is what First John 4:19 says. We love because he first loved us.

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he’s a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. Five times it says love in that passage.

Now, it’s not saying you just need to love your biological brother like it’s okay to hate your sister and everybody else. Like that’s not the point of this passage. The point of this passage is who’s next to you? Whoever’s next to you, you’re in relationship with them. You got to love them.

Well, God has done some very, very deep work in me to address the places in my life that look like hate to help me understand that I can move to a place that looks like love. So, what’s the current condition of my relating love, family, community? I would encourage you, put yourself in there.

Is it poor? Is it excellent? Is it somewhere in between? Give yourself a rating. What’s the current condition of my relating?

The third section is the current condition of my doing. And I would use three terms to describe doing also. And those three terms are money, work, hobbies. My wife and I grew up learning how to handle money like the complete opposite the way. Okay.

So, what happens when two people who handle money complete opposite way, they get married? We call that a disaster. Okay? And so we get together and we literally think the opposite about everything as it has to do with money, right? And one of us is saying, “No, you need to use two lines in the checkbook.”

And the other person is saying, “No, you need to use one line in the checkbook.” And some people in the room are going, “What’s a checkbook?” a checkbook is next to the record player. All right? And the rotary phone.

All right? Those three things are all sitting together on the desk. Okay? Checkbook, record player, rotary phone. Fortunately for us, the church offered a class and we came to the church and we took a class on how to handle our finances.

And you know what it did? It allowed us to set our opinions aside and it allowed us to learn what does God’s word have to say about handling finances. And it helped us get lined up. But there was a low moment as it relates to money in our marriage because there was a moment where we found ourselves totally surprised by the way to find ourselves in this situation. We were broke, no money, no cash, nothing in the accounts, and people who wanted some from us. It was a really, really low, it was a poor money moment in our life.

When I was younger, I worked on a farm. And there were some things that were pretty messed up in my head and my heart in that moment. And one day at lunch, I walked into the office of the owner of the farm and I looked him in the face and I said, “I don’t want to do this anymore. I quit. I’m out of here today.”

and he looked at me and said, “Well, if that’s what you need to do, then I guess that’s what you need to do.” And I walked out. It was a family friend who had given me an opportunity to learn how to work for him. I dishonored him. I dishonored my family and I dishonored the Lord. It is the lowest moment of my entire career, any job anywhere.

Now, fortunately, that family, they showed forgiveness to me. They showed grace to me. They showed mercy to me. And they took initiative to restore our relationship. They set the example, not me. And last week, when I saw his wife in a restaurant, she gave me a hug.

So, I think we’re cool. I think we’re cool. But that was a low moment. That was a poor moment.

I don’t talk about hobbies a lot, but God’s given me some gifts. He’s given me some gifts of creativity. He’s given me gifts in music. He’s given me gifts in art. And there’s a point in my life where I just set all those things aside.

And I wasn’t willing to use any of them. And my gifts were rotting on the shelf. My gifts were stale on the shelf. And that was a poor moment. That’s a poor moment in my life that I wouldn’t engage and use the things that God has given me to use.

I’m actually learning a new hobby right now. Last week I was practicing. Someone next to me was practicing. They did a really bad job and some curse words came out of their mouth. They said, “For the Lord’s name’s sake.”

Okay, that’s what they said. For the Lord’s name’s sake. Then they looked at me and said, “Hm, I probably shouldn’t say that around you since you work at a church. So I said, “Well, I give Christ credit for a lot of things he does. I’m just not giving him credit for what you just did because you did a pretty poor job.

Even in your hobbies, you can point to Christ. So what’s the current condition of your doing? Money, work, hobbies, poor, excellent, somewhere in between. I challenge you. Give yourself a rating.

This is what Colossians 3:23–24 says. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord, you will receive an inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Look, you can do any job. If you are able to do that job to honor the Lord, you’re winning.

It doesn’t matter what type of work you do. If you are able to do that work and you are able to honor the Lord in that work, then you are on top. That’s the job for you. And it is okay if your earthly boss does not recognize that because you have a boss that is Jesus. And there is an inheritance that is waiting for us in heaven when we honor the Lord in the way that we work because we’re actually serving the Lord Jesus Christ.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Make money and do it for the glory of God. Work, do it for the glory of God. Have a hobby, do it for the glory of God. Whatever you do, eat, drink, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

So, I would challenge you, give yourself a rating. What’s the current condition of your doing? Poor, excellent, somewhere in between regarding money, work, hobbies. Remember, what are we doing right now? We’re recognizing that God has put things into our hands and we have a responsibility of what we do when it’s in our hands. And so, we’re asking God to reveal the current condition of our own life.

Now, what do we do when he does? Well, that’s number two. We need to obey God’s instructions to properly attend to your own life. It’s one thing to have God reveal the current condition. It’s another thing to do something about it, right?

So, know the condition of your flocks, but also give attention to your herds. So, we actually need to do something and we need to obey God’s instructions to properly attend our own life. Give attention to our herds. Let me share with you two things that my mind had to shift in.

The first is this. If the whole of me is in Christ, so are the parts of me. If the whole of me is in Christ, so are the parts of me.

Colossians 3:3 says, “For you’ve died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” So if the whole of me is in Christ, so are the parts of me. Body, mind, spirit, love, family, community, money, work, hobbies. If these are parts of my life and I am hidden in Christ, that means all those parts are in Christ also. So if the whole of me is in Christ, so are the parts of me.

The second is if the whole of me is owned by Christ, so are the parts of me. If Christ is the owner of my life, the parts of me are owned by him also. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

If the whole of me is owned by Christ, so are the parts of me, which means my body, mind, spirit, love, family, community, money, work, hobbies, those are owned by Christ also. Those things, those parts of me are in Christ. And those parts of me are owned by Christ. So if we’re asking God to reveal the current condition of our own life, and then we need to obey God’s instructions to properly attend to our life, the question we need to ask is whose instructions are we currently following? Whose instructions are we currently following related to our body?

Am I doing it my way or am I doing it God’s way? What current instructions am I following regarding my mind? Am I doing it my way or I’m doing it God’s way? What current instructions am I following regarding my spirit? Am I doing it my way or am I doing it God’s way?

When I deal with my wife in my greatest love relationship, am I doing it my way or am I doing it God’s way? When I show up to work, is my perspective I’m gonna do it my way or I’m gonna do it God’s way? When I’m hanging out with my friends, when I’m in community with other people, is it all about being my way or is it about God’s way? When I handle my money, am I doing it my way or am I doing it God’s way?

When I handle my work, am I doing it my way or God’s way? When I handle my hobbies, am I doing it my way or God’s way? Any of these things, mind, body, spirit, love, family, community, money, work, what’s my perspective? Is this about what I’m going to do or is it this is what God wants to do? Because if all the parts of me are in Christ and all the parts of me are owned by Christ, it’d probably be good if I’m listening to whatever he has to say about how I’m supposed to handle it.

So, I would encourage you to keep it simple. And here’s how you can keep it simple. Just ask this question. Am I faithless or faithful? Am I faithless or am I faithful?

As it relates to the instructions that I follow in all these categories, am I faithless or am I faithful? 1 Corinthians 4:2, moreover, it’s required of stewards that they be found faithful. So what is the person’s responsibility when it’s in your hands to deal with you’re a steward, you’re a manager, what’s your responsibility? Your responsibility is to be faithful. Faithful with what God puts in your hands. So we ask the question in these areas of my life.

Am I faithless or am I faithful? Now I want to talk about this word steward. We don’t use that word a lot in our current context but it means to be a faithful manager. And so I want to explain that term. Okay.

Stewardship. This is what stewardship is. It is recognizing that God is the owner of all things and has called us to be faithful managers of all the responsibilities entrusted to us. That is what stewardship is. God is the owner of all things and he has called us to be faithful managers of all the responsibilities that have been entrusted to us. RC Sproul, he’s with the Lord now.

He’s had a really big impact on my life in his teaching and in his writing. This is what he says about stewardship. Fundamentally, stewardship is about exercising our God-given dominion over his creation, reflecting the image of our creator God in his care, responsibility, maintenance, protection, and beautification of his creation. Stewardship. God is the owner of all things. He’s called us to be faithful managers of all the responsibilities entrusted to us.

Now, I want to give you an example, one practical example, and it comes from this book, Your Money Counts, now more than ever. It’s one of the resource sets we have in the in the on-campus bookstore. Okay. And this is a stewardship example regarding the area of money. So understanding everything I’ve shared so far.

These would be three beginning steps in addition to what I’ve already explained. These would be three beginning steps of how you could begin to faithfully manage your money. Okay? And if you want to know more about these, pick up this book. It it takes the biblical verses and it helps explain it. Okay?

The first is this. Avoid debt. Something I’ve never had happen to me. I have never had a couple come meet with me in my office and say, “Pastor, we are in so much trouble and we just can’t get along because all our bills are paid.

It’s never happened. It’s never happened. If too much debt destroys, probably be a good idea to avoid it. Maybe it’s time that we start acting our own wage.

Number two, seek counsel. None of us is as smart as we think we are. We all need God’s perspective and we all need other people around us to help us understand God’s perspective. We need to seek counsel. The Bible talks about a concept of a three-braided cord.

So, one strand breaks easy, two strands break easy, but when you put three together and you braid them together, hard to break. Well, we need God’s counsel and we need the counsel of his family. So, we need to understand God’s word and we need people around us to help us understand God’s word. So, we need to seek counsel.

The third thing would be absolute honesty. It is being completely honest about all the money that comes in, being completely honest about how all the money is handled, and being completely honest about how all the money is going out. Because you know what God is not going to bless? God is not going to bless a lie. He’s not going to bless lying. And so, we’ve got to be absolutely honest about our finances.

Now, those are just three steps. There’s a whole lot more. You want to pick up the book as a resource or you want to take our Crown Financial class, our compass class, you’ll learn more. They’re both they’re both based on the same content here, but that at least gives you a taste of what would it look like to actually obey some of God’s instructions.

Now, there’s more, and we’re going to talk about more of that next week, but this is a taste. If I understand that I have a responsibility to steward my money according to God’s instructions, what do I do? Now, we’re asking God to reveal the current condition of our own life. We need God’s help to obey God’s instructions to properly attend our life. And here’s the third thing, and I’ll end with this.

Number three, we got to trust God’s capacity to adequately provide for our life. We got to trust that he has the capacity to do it. The text does not just say, “Know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds because the text also says there will be enough goats’ milk for your food.” There will be enough. And we’ve got to trust God’s capacity to adequately provide for our lives.

And I’ll close by sharing this example. I’ve worked at this church for 22 years and we have we’ve been a family of 11. My wife and I have nine children. It does not make mathematical sense that I have worked at a church for 22 years and that we have been a family of 11. But the reason that it doesn’t make mathematical sense is because it’s not a math problem.

It’s a God problem. God built our family and God provided for our family. And let me give you one example. That’s a really big one. My oldest son, he’s married.

He now has a kid. When he graduated college, he graduated college debt-free. My second oldest son, he’s finishing his classes right now, and he’s ready to finish his classes and graduate college debt-free. My third oldest son, he has one more semester. He has the finances to do it and he’s planning on graduating college debt-free.

My fourth oldest son just finished his first year in college and he paid for his entire year before he started. It doesn’t make mathematical sense that we’re a family of 11. The numbers don’t make sense, but it doesn’t matter because God is not bound by numbers. Because he has shown to our family there will be enough goats’ milk for your food. But am I as the leader of my home humble enough to ask God to reveal the current condition of my life?

And am I humble enough as the leader of my home to obey God’s instructions to adequately attend to my life? And am I humble enough to trust God’s capacity to provide because he is completely able to do so. All glory to God. No glory to me. All glory to God. He built my family and he has provided for my family and my family is an example of what God can do.

Father God, Lord, thank you so much for the opportunity to come together and to worship you and to get into your word. Lord, we need you desperately. And so God, help us to be honest. Help us to deal with you. Help us to have you work in our lives.

Help us to be encouraged that you don’t leave us in a place that’s poor, but you work on us. You work on the condition of our lives and you build restoration and reconciliation and you redeem. And God, I’m so grateful that you didn’t leave me in the condition that you found me, but that you have done a significant amount of work and that you’re continuing to work on me. So God, I love you. Help me to love you more.

Lord, we love you. Help us to love you more. We want to honor you. And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ and all God’s family said. Amen.

If you need prayer, our prayer team will be right here. If you want to go have some popcorn, go have some popcorn. There’s cool cars out there. Happy Father’s Day. We love you, church family. Have a great weekend.