I want to say congratulations to all the families who were here to celebrate those who were being baptized today. That was awesome. Super great. Oh man, anytime anytime someone goes public and says, “I’m a follower of Jesus and I want other people to know about it.” That’s a great day.

And so we celebrate with you, all those families, all the friends, all the neighbors and relatives and who came to watch those be baptized. We’re really grateful for what God’s doing in their life and we celebrate with you and with your family. If you’re brand new to Big Valley Grace Community, didn’t you just get baptized, man? Hey, congratulations, man. All right.

Just saying. Sometimes what you’re talking about walks right in front of you. All right. If you’re brand new to Big Valley Grace, it’s the first time that you’re here, welcome. We’re glad that you’re here.

My name is Joel. I’d love to meet you. I will be in the welcome center. Just take any of these exits out in the lobby that direction. I’d love to shake your hand.

I’d love to put a name and a face together and personally welcome you to Big Valley Grace. We’re glad that you’re here. Before we go any further, I want to take some time to pray for our nation. It was while we were in prayer last night before the service last night that America dropped bombs on Iran at three locations. And I want to take some time to be praying right now for the leadership of our nation. Okay, let’s pray.

Father God, Lord, we lift up the United States of America to you. We lift up our President Donald Trump to you. We lift up those in the war room. We lift up chiefs of staff. Lord, we lift up the heads of the military.

Lord, we lift up our brothers and sisters, our relatives who serve in the armed forces. And God, we just ask Lord that your hand of guidance would be on this nation. Lord, that you would give wisdom and discernment and insight and direction to the leadership of this nation. God, that in this time when many decisions are going to be made in a really short amount of time, God, that your covering would be on their decision-making. And Lord, I also ask Lord that you would have the leadership of this nation lead this nation towards you and lead this nation towards Jesus Christ and lead this nation towards humbling ourselves, humbling ourselves before the one who sits on the throne, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, God Almighty.

And so God, help us. Help us as a nation, Lord. We need you. We are in desperate need of you. And so please guide us.

And Lord, right now we’re here in freedom worshiping you. So help us to use our freedoms fully right now. Would we fully worship you? Would we fully lean into God’s word? Would we fully lean into being together as a church family that we would take advantage of what we have, which is the opportunity right now to worship you in freedom.

And so God, help us to lean into it. And so we pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ and all God’s family said. Amen. Well, today we continue in a series, a four-week series called The Giving Life. The first week we looked at God is the resource.

The second week we looked at our responsibility with everything that he puts in our hands. Today, we’re going to look at what our response is to God being the resource and him giving us a responsibility. On week one, it was specific in that we looked at the person of God, the nature of God, but it was broad in the sense of all that God has provided for his creation.

The second week, it was specific in the sense of us as an individual, but it’s broad because God has given us a lot of responsibilities. The complexity of what the Lord puts in our hands is pretty significant. Today, we’re going to hone it in. We’re going to get very very practical and specific regarding our response in financial giving to the Lord. My hope would be that when you walk out of here today, you’re not confused, but you’ve got great clarity on what the Bible teaches regarding our response in the concept of giving to the Lord.

But before we get into that, I want to set it up with context. And the context is going to be in 2 Kings chapter 4. So if you have a Bible, I would encourage you to take your Bible and turn to Second Kings chapter 4. If you need a Bible, we’re going to give you one today. Come to the prayer room.

We have Bibles in the prayer room. The church has purchased them. They will be our gift to you. If you need Bibles, come to the prayer room after the gathering. We want to give you one.

We’re going to be in 2 Kings 4 and then we’ll be in 1 and 2 Corinthians. But in 2 Kings 4, there’s an account that will help us really enter into the context of what’s true about our own lives. And this is what it says in 2 Kings 4:1–7. Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead. And you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.”

Now before we go any further, let’s enter into that context because what this is communicating is that this woman who is now a widow is indebted and who she’s indebted to at that time is coming to receive the payment of the debt by enslaving her two children, her two sons. Now for us in our context, that may seem like something that’s pretty far away. But consider it. How many people in the room right now have experienced an indebtedness to where creditors came for something that you had? They came after your car.

They came after your house. They came after your accounts because you were indebted to the degree where you were in over your head. And so people were wanting from you that which you did not have to give. And so I’m guessing as we enter into this, there’s going to be many in the room who can understand, though the specifics are different, can understand what it feels like to be enslaved to debt, to be enslaved to an obligation that’s bigger than we can fulfill. In verse two, Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you?

Tell me, what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” She’s saying, “This is all we have left. We are destitute. All of our resources are gone.

This is it. We have a jar of oil.” I wonder how many people in the room can relate to feeling like all you have left is a jar of oil right now. All the resources are gone, the cupboards are empty, and you got a jar of oil. So he tells this woman, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors and empty vessels and not too few.”

So she goes to a neighbor and says, “I need a vessel. Do you have a vessel?” And then she goes to another neighbor, “Do I have a vessel? I need a vessel. Do you have a vessel?”

She’s going knocking on doors. She’s going house to house, neighbor to neighbor. Do you have a vessel? I need a vessel. I need to collect vessels.

Do you have a vessel? My kids are at stake. Do you have a vessel? I need a vessel, neighbor. By neighbor, by neighbor.

She goes and she collects vessels until she collects one last because he said, “Not too few. Not too few. Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside. So now at the private moment, mom and her boys in the house with all these vessels that they’ve borrowed from the neighbors and there is an instruction that with the jar of oil that they have that they’re to begin pouring into the vessels.

So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured, they brought the vessels. So this is her vessel of oil. And she begins, her son brings her one of the vessels. She fills it up.

Then then the other son brings another vessel. She fills it up. She’s taking this jar of oil. Then son brings another vessel. She fills it up.

Another son brings a another vessel. Hey. Hey, mom. I got another vessel for you. I brought you one.

Hey. Hey, Mom. Mom, I brought another one close. Hey, here’s another one that we got from the neighbor three doors down. Mom, here’s another vessel.

All right, the friends across the street, Mom, they gave us this one. All right, Mom, here’s another vessel. She’s still pouring out of the same jar of oil. Okay, Mom. This is the last one.

This is the last one we got. She’s using the same jar of oil as her boys are bringing. The boys are involved bringing the vessels to her and she’s filling them all up from that same jar of oil that she had. When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There’s not another.

That’s it, Mom. That’s all the vessels we collected from the neighbors. We brought them all to you. You filled all of them up. Then the oil stopped flowing.

She came and told the man of God and he said, “Go sell the oil.” Now there are vessels full of oil and it’s good oil. Top shelf oil. God just made all this oil. It’s the best oil that there is.

It’s expensive and it’s worth a lot. And now she has all these vessels full of oil and the instruction is go sell the oil and pay your debts and you and your sons can live on the rest. I don’t know how many of us in the room feel like we’re just holding a jar of oil right now, but it might be that today God is going to expand your understanding of what his capacity is. And where you think you are destitute with no options and nowhere to go, that God is going to help you understand that he can do for you what you cannot do for yourself. And where you see an obstacle that is too big to address and you see an obstacle that’s too big to tackle, God is going to show you that he is much bigger than your obstacle.

And he might start asking you to go gather up some jars. You’d go set some jars out before the Lord that he might show you how he could fill them so that you could go sell the oil and you could pay your debts. And you and your household, you could go live on the rest. If that sounds like it connects with what your experience is, I want to point you to some resources like I have been every week. And this one is called Debt-Free Living.

And it’s one of the five books that we have as a resource set in the Nook. And maybe you can relate to the 10-year-old girl who lost her dad or the single young adult who was trying to figure it out at college or the young professional or the business person or the stay-at-home mom or the employee who found themselves in a situation where they were way over their heads. It was way bigger than they could understand or know what to do and they needed God to show up. Maybe that sounds like your situation. I would encourage you, go pick up this book and if you’re in so much debt you can’t afford the book, then we’ll give it to you for free.

Because maybe you need some help and we want to help. And there’s lots of resources that we’ve put together in this series to help you address the issue if you’re suffering because of your indebtedness. The reason that I’m beginning in this way is if I don’t address what is maybe the biggest obstacle in your life, you’re not going to hear anything else I have to say today. And so I want to challenge you. Whatever the obstacle is that’s before you, bring it to God and see what he might do.

Let him prove how big he is to you. Let him show you how much his capacity is to do for you what you are unable to do for yourself. But there are things he’s asking us to do. And that’s part of the woman’s experience where she had a responsibility with her sons to go and get some jars. And that’s what we talked about last week is when God puts something in our hands, we have a responsibility.

And that responsibility from a biblical standpoint is called stewardship. And this is the definition of stewardship I gave last week and I’ll share it again. That God is the owner of all things. And he’s called us to be faithful managers of all the responsibilities entrusted to us. He’s the owner.

He owns it all. We’re faithful managers. He places things in our hands, in our life, in the complexity of our lives. And we’re responsible to be faithful managers of all that he has entrusted to us. Today, we’re going to hone in specifically regarding financial stewardship.

It’s going to be very specific. I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m going to be really direct and I’m going to address it straight on. There was a booklet that you were handed when you came in. Theology of Stewardship.

Our leadership put this together. It’s very thorough. I think it’ll be a great resource for you and your household. The purpose of this is take it home, use it in your home, read through it with your family, read through it in your household. But the question that we’re going to answer today is this.

How can we become godly stewards in financial giving? Very, very focused. And my hope is you walk away from today and you’ve got clarity on what the Bible teaches about how we can be godly stewards in financial giving. There’s going to be three passages we’re going to look at. They’re all out of 1 and 2 Corinthians.

The first is 1 Corinthians 16:1–4. And this is what it says in 1 Corinthians 16:1–4. Now, concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper, so that there’ll be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. And if it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me.

So, this is how I’m going to set this up. And what I’m going to teach today is seven principles. They’re found in the theology of stewardship booklet we’ve prepared for you. But I’m going to teach these seven principles that our practice of giving is to be directed by seven principles.

In 1 Corinthians 16:1, he said, “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do.” So he gave direction. He gave instruction. Paul gave the churches direction regarding this area of financial giving, regarding financial stewardship. What we’re going to do is we’re going to look at what the direction he gave is and we’re going to see the principles that we can also operate by.

The way that we’re going to do this is I’m going to share the principle. I’m going to show the verse that it comes out of. I’m going to share a question that we can use to help us understand, apply it to our lives, and then I’m going to share from my own life with my wife Sarah. And we’re going to I’m just going to explain to you how this works for us in our marriage and in our home. Principle number one is regularly.

Regularly. That’s the first principle. In 1 Corinthians 16:2, it says, “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper so that there’ll be no collecting when I come.” So the regularity in this verse is the word week. On the first day of every week, that is the regularity in the verse.

So the principle is regularly. The question then we have to ask is how regular is my gift to the Lord? If the principle is regularly, then the question we need to ask is how regular is my gift to the Lord? And I’m going to explain to you how my wife and I do it. My wife and I bring our gift to the Lord once a month.

And the reason that we bring our gift to the Lord once a month is because my wife and I operate off of a monthly budget. And the first line item in our monthly budget is our gift to the Lord. And so we bring it at the beginning of the month. It’s the first line item in our budget. It’s been the first line item in our budget the entire time we’ve had a budget.

And we bring our gift to the Lord once a month. That is the regularity that we bring our gift to the Lord. When we were in the Built to Last campaign during our two-year campaign that we just finished up at the beginning of this year, we also gave an additional gift to the Built to Last campaign. We did that also with the regularity of once a month because of our budget is a monthly budget. So during that time, we’re bringing two gifts to the Lord once a month.

Now, there are times when our gift to the Lord is irregular, and I’ll explain that a little bit later, but I can’t answer the question for you of how regular is your gift to the Lord. You’ve got to answer that question. I’m just sharing with you what it looks like and why it looks that way for my wife and I. Principle number two, proportionately. 1 Corinthians 16:2 says, “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and to store it up as he may prosper, so that there’ll be no collecting when I come proportionately.” It says that you store something up as you prosper.

So, however God brings into your life that which you have, that’s the whole. And the concept here is that you give a portion, a part proportionately from the whole there’s a part. So, however God prospers you as a whole, you bring a part. And so, the question that we ask is, “What portion is my gift to the Lord?”

If the principle is proportionately and it’s a part of a whole, then the question we ask is, “What portion is my gift to the Lord?” Here’s how this works for my wife Sarah and I. Whenever our income goes up or down, which our income goes up and our income goes down, that’s how it works in our home. Income comes up and income goes down. Whenever income goes up or income goes down, we take what is true right now and we multiply.

If this was true for an entire year, what would that mean for our total income for a year? And then we determine what percentage of our total income do we want to give as a gift to the Lord? We get that number and then we break it into 12 so that there’s a gift in each budget every month. That is how my wife and I determine our portion that we give to the Lord. Now, you might be going, “Hey, I’d like some help in figuring that out.”

Well, we got this cool resource that our team made. We just got this this weekend. My wife and I have never even had a conversation about that. We’re just bringing this to our church. It’s a proportionate giving chart.

Screen it’ll go up on the screen. These are available at the information center. I’m looking forward to having a conversation with my wife about I just explained to you how we’ve done it, but I’m excited to use this tool. What this tool does, it shows annual income on one side and then it shows 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 plus percent and it just breaks it down. What would a weekly gift look like?

I think it’s kind of a cool tool. I’m excited to talk about it with my wife. We’ve never used a tool like this before. What we’ve done is what I just explained to you. We take the total income.

We determine a percentage that we want to give. We break it into 12. And that’s how we know what our monthly gift is. The next passage that we’re going to look at is 2 Corinthians 8:1–7. We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia.

For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. And this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord, and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace also.

This passage is helping us understand that it’s an act of God’s grace when God’s people supply the needs for one another in God’s family. Financial giving, stewardship with our resources, that is an act of grace. The principle that we pull out of this passage, number three, principle number three is sacrificially. Sacrificially. And it comes from verse three. 2 Corinthians 8:3.

For they gave according to their means as I can testify and beyond their means of their own accord. What this does not mean is that they had no resources. So they went and put it on a credit card. That’s not what it means when it says beyond their means. What it means is this.

They didn’t have much and what they had they actually need. And they took something that they actually needed and they gave it to someone else. It was beyond their means and it was a sacrifice. It was a sacrifice. So the question that we ask is what sacrifice is my gift to the Lord?

If the principle is sacrificially then the question is what sacrifice is my gift to the Lord? Here’s how that practically works for my wife Sarah and I. Like I shared we have a monthly budget. The way that I have set up our monthly budget is this. The monthly budget is ordered by category in order of importance.

So at the top of the monthly budget is the most important category which is why our giving to the Lord is the first line. And then as you go down in the categories of our budget, it decreases in importance. So when you get to the bottom categories of our budget, those are the least important parts of our budget. So when it comes to say how can we make a sacrifice? Well, what we need in the information is what are we going to sacrifice so that we can do something to be generous and give to the Lord.

Well, if I don’t have a sense of what’s the order of importance of how I spend my money, then I’m probably going to sacrifice the wrong thing and I might sacrifice something that is more important than something else. Because you know what human nature is? Human nature tends to be where we like to spend our resources on the things that are least important. It’s kind of just the way we’re hardwired. And so it takes some discipline.

It takes some organization. It takes some effort to consider how do I spend my funds? What are the most important ways that I spend my funds? And what are the least important ways? Because it helps me identify where I can sacrifice.

So the question is, what sacrifice is my gift to the Lord? The next passage we’re going to find four principles in, and this is 2 Corinthians 9:6–8. The point is this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he’s decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion.

For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. Principle number four is generously. Generously. It comes from 2 Corinthians 9:6.

The point is this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. It is a farming analogy. The more seed you put in the ground, the more opportunity you’re going to have for harvest. Okay?

Well, you take that, you say the more that you express generosity in the way of giving, the more opportunity you have for harvest to be bountiful, to be generous. So the question that we ask is how generous is my gift to the Lord? How generous is my gift to the Lord? This is practically how it works with my wife Sarah and I.

This is it’s very simple how generosity begins. It’s not complicated. It’s very simple. This is how generosity begins in our lives. God stirs up our heart.

God stirs up our heart. Do you know that I never know when God’s going to stir up my wife’s heart to be generous? I never know. I never know when that’s going to happen. But then God stirs up her heart and she wants to be generous.

Did you know that my wife never knows when God’s going to stir up my heart that I might be generous? She has no idea when that’s going to happen. But then God works and he stirs up my heart to be generous. And then you know what we’re able to do? We’re able to come together and share with one another.

Hey, God stirred up my heart to want to be generous. Hey, God stirred up my heart to want. And then we’re now encouraging each other to be generous. And I want you to know, it’s fun and it’s enjoyable. And I’m always excited to be challenged by the generosity that God stirs up in my wife’s heart where she’ll bring, “Hey, there’s a need here or there’s a thing going on at the church or there’s a missionary or there’s a person who needs some help and my heart has been stirred up to be generous.

What might God have us to do? That’s an exciting conversation to be a part of. So the question we ask is, “How generous is my gift to the Lord?” Principle five is purposefully. 2 Corinthians 9:7, each one must give as he’s decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver.

So the key here is that there’s a decision that happens in the heart. What is the purpose? How purposeful is my gift to the Lord is the question that we’re asking. Something’s been decided in our heart. What did we decide?

How purposeful is my gift to the Lord? This is how it works for my wife and I. We give to the Lord for this purpose. We want to express our love to him. We want to show him honor.

We want to revere him. We want to worship him. We want to obey him. We want to show gratitude for what he has done in our lives. We want to increase our faith.

We want to as a son and a daughter of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords bring a gift to our dad and say, “Dad, we love you.” Practically, we use the online recurring giving feature at bigvalgrace.org and our gift comes to Big Valley Grace Community Church. But make no mistake about it, my wife and I don’t give to Big Valley Grace Community Church. My wife and I give to the Lord. That is who we bring our gift to.

For 22 years, I’ve been on staff here and I’ve brought a gift for 22 years. We’re not excluded from participating because it’s our Lord. And we’re bringing a gift to our Lord. So that’s a little bit of the purpose of why my wife and I bring a gift to the Lord. So how purposeful is my gift to the Lord?

Principle number six, willingly. Willingly. 2 Corinthians 9:7, each one must give as he’s decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. So that word reluctantly is very important. God doesn’t want it if it’s reluctant.

He wants it if it’s willing. So the question we have to ask is, how willing is my gift to the Lord? And this is the commitment my wife and I have made to each other. We are not going to twist each other’s arm. We’re not going to do it.

We are not going to force each other to make a financial gift and bring it to the Lord unless we are in agreement, in unity, together, of one heart, of one mind, of one purpose, and we’re willing. We’re not going to force each other to do something that we don’t want to do because God doesn’t want it if we don’t want to do it. He wants us to be willing. So, how willing is my gift to the Lord? Principle number seven, joyfully.

This is where it gets fun. This is where all the fun is. 2 Corinthians 9:7. Each one must give as he’s decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. God loves it when we’re joyful and we’re cheerful and we’re happy when we’re bringing a gift.

So, how joyful is my gift to the Lord? How joyful is my gift to the Lord? It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. We’ve already looked at the principle of sacrifice. Sacrifice is called sacrifice because it’s hard.

It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, but it can be joyful. 52 weeks a year, I’m coming to church. I usually sit through three gatherings, which means I’m in a lot of moments that we call the moment of joy. So, my monthly budget works to where we bring a gift once a month. But I want you to know, every time we enter into the moment of joy, I open up my hands. I’ve already given my gift.

My gift is automatically happening every month because my wife and I have set it up that way. But I come into the worship gathering, come to the moment of joy. Oh, that’s a great moment because I’m reminded about the gift I’ve brought to the Lord. My wife and I have brought to the Lord. Our household has brought to the Lord this month.

And I get to experience that multiple times in a weekend, thanking God that we’ve been able to bring him a gift. My wife and I love bringing the Lord a gift. It’s exciting to bring the Lord a gift. It’s exciting to bless God and it’s exciting to bless his people and it’s exciting to bless those who are in need. That gives us a lot of joy.

We love bringing a gift to the Lord. And because I’m a staff member, it’s not an excuse to not bring a gift to the Lord because why would I want to miss out on the opportunity to be joyful and bringing a gift to the Lord? Where I work is irrelevant. I don’t want to miss out on bringing a gift to the Lord because it’s joyful. So these are the seven principles.

Regularly, proportionately, sacrificially, generously, purposefully, willingly, and joyfully. And you might be thinking, well, where do I start? Great question. I’m going to tell you right now. So this is my action plan.

This is my action plan to become a godly steward in financial giving. It is three parts. You decide which part you’re at. I would have no idea where you are. Okay?

I have no idea where you are. You decide where you are in these three parts. Number one, if I’ve never brought a financial gift to the Lord, then my first step is to start. It’s that simple. If you’ve never brought a gift to the Lord, then your first step, just start.

Bring a gift to the Lord. You’re making progress if you do that. Number two, if I’ve never decided the amount that I will choose to bring as a financial gift to the Lord, then my next step is to identify a part. If you’ve never even considered how much of a gift do I want to bring to the Lord, then that’s probably where you need to be right now. You’ve brought a gift, but you never really considered how much to bring.

Well, why don’t you determine a part a part of the whole? Consider what the whole is and identify a part. Bring that as a gift. Number three, if I’m desiring to grow as a godly steward in the spiritual act of bringing a financial gift to the Lord, then I need to ask God to increase my heart. That’s what God’s wanting.

He’s wanting my heart. He doesn’t need my cash. Week one, we looked at he’s the resource. He’s the one who built this whole thing. Planet, stars, like, he’s not looking for my cash.

He doesn’t need my cash. He does want my heart. Okay, God, how can you make my heart bigger so that I’ll want to give you a bigger gift? And if you want a challenging resource to look at, like I shared, I’m looking forward to the conversation. My wife and I are going to have regarding this proportionate giving chart.

I think it’s fascinating. I’ve never used a tool like that before. I’m fascinated by it. I’m looking forward to having the conversation. I don’t know how God will use it in our home, but I’m looking forward to the conversation.

Now, back to the jars. I don’t know what situation in your life got you to the place where you felt like the widow with her two sons and all you had was a jar of oil and you were fearing enslavement. But I can share with you a moment that happened in my life. It was in 2017 that my wife and I welcomed three children into our home on the same day and we became a family of 11.

And as a dad, I felt like I was the one responsible for holding the jar. And it was a huge weight. Because I knew I had to take care of my wife Sarah and my son Gavin and my son Angel and my son Merrick and my son Iser and my daughter Savannah and my son Julian and my daughter Katie and my son Kian and my daughter Gia because God had just brought 11 jars into my household and I had no clue how he was going to fill them. But I was confident we were supposed to have the 11 jars. It was really clear God was building our family.

But man, I was concerned that mama’s jar was going to be full and the boys jars were going to be full and the girls jars are going to be full. And God showed me he can fill the jars. And then he filled them again. And then he filled them again. Go sell your oil.

Pay off your debts. You and your kids go live on the rest. It has been a wild ride to watch how God would bring 11 vessels into our home and how he has faithfully provided to make sure they all had the oil that they needed. To where he took care of each kid. He took care of each kid.

He took care of each kid. I don’t know what the big thing is that you’re facing. Just want to challenge you not to face it alone. You got a big old God who can do anything. And he’s way bigger than whatever you’re facing.

So, let’s encourage one another. Let’s gather up some jars. See how God might want to fill because Joel and Sarah and Gavin and Angel and Merrick and Iser and Savannah and Julian and Katie and Kian and Gia are just one example of how God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

I want to invite our offering team forward as we prepare as a church to give. If you need some more helpful resources, you can go to our website, bigvalgrace.org, bvg.org. Use the theology of stewardship resource. It’s helpful. There’s multiple ways you give.

There’s people are going to bring some baskets by. You can text give. You can give online. But let’s enter into this wonderful moment of joy. Thanking God that we have an opportunity to bring a gift to him.

Father God, Lord, we love you. We want to keep loving you more. Thanks for being a good dad. Thanks for being a good daddy. Thanks for being a good father.

Thanks for showing us the way. Thanks for increasing our faith. God, thanks for showing up in the situations that seem like the darkest. And you just bring your light, your infinite light, your infinite resource shows up to our place where we feel devastated. And God, you have everything we need.

God, thanks for being who you are. Lord, we love you. We’re excited to worship you. May this be an acceptable act of worship in your sight. We pray this in Jesus name. And all God’s family said.