Faith IRL - Real Faith Endures - James 5:1–20

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Heat. Heat.

Well, good morning again. Listen, this year Denise and I will celebrate our 34th year of marriage. And um yeah, you can congratulate her because she's endured me for 34 years. But here's what I've learned over 34 years. Um she's kind of set up what I would call house rules or maybe we should call them Denise rules. Some of you men in here may recognize this that like mama when when life is better when mama's happy, right? And so just over the course of time, there's just certain rules in our household that I just know you're supposed to do. Like for example, when I come home, pull in the driveway and come in the garage door, I take my shoes off as soon as I walk in the back door and I immediately pick them up and take them to the closet. That's just one of the house rules. Life is a whole lot easier and better when I do that. I also know that one of my daily jobs is to make the bed, which includes putting all 22 decorative pillows on the bed the way they're supposed to go. Um, I also learned over 34 years that when you use a dish and it's dirty, you rinse it and where do you put it? in the dishwasher, right? And so really, these house rules just really make everything go better. In a way, it does show that I love her because this is a response to the love relationship that we have with one another. But I have to confess to you, she's been out of town for the past 10 days babysitting the kids in Texas. So maybe or maybe not, all the decorative pillows have maybe or maybe maybe not made it on the bed. Um, maybe or maybe not. There's a sink full of dirty dishes that need to go in the dishwasher. Maybe or maybe not. There's four or five pairs of shoes sitting at the back door when I walk in that have not made their way to the closet yet. Maybe or maybe not. But here's what I know. Her flight comes in Tuesday night at six o'clock. Mama's coming home. Okay, mama's coming home. And I guarantee you by the time mama's coming home, probably about four o'clock before I go to the airport to pick her up, all the shoes will get put up, all the pillows will get put on the bed, and all the the dishes we put in the dishwasher. Mama's coming home, so I got to make sure that's that house is ready. Anybody ever been there before? Yeah. Anybody should have been there before? Maybe it's confession time, right? Yeah. Well, here's the deal. We are wrapping up our series in the book of James. If you're just joining us with this our eighth week in this book of James, it's really a letter that James, the halfb brotherther of Jesus, wrote. And actually, most theologians believe it is probably the first book of the New Testament that was ever written and distributed. And so really, when James set out to write this letter to these Christians that were spread out everywhere, he was simply just saying this one. Hey guys, we know that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. We know he resurrected. And therefore, because we follow him, let me give you some ideas of what your life should look like. He wasn't writing it to say, "You must do these things to be a Christian." He was saying, "Because you're a Christian, you should be doing these things." And so, it's been a really good series. I hope you've enjoyed it. It's like week after week, there's just things like I need to just examine my life and see if I'm responding with my life like these things. Well, here's what happens. We're in the last chapter, or maybe we might consider it the last page of James' letter. And here's what James does in this last letter. He basically says, "Mama's coming home." Okay? Like, I've been outlining these things for you. I've been showing these things that you need to do, but mama's coming home. So, let me give you a few last things you better make sure you're doing because mama's coming home. And you're going, "Hold on a second. I've read the Bible before. I've read the book of James before. I've never seen that phrase, mama's coming home. Now, that's my connotation of it. Here's what he's really saying. Jesus is coming back. In fact, we're going to learn as we read this chapter today that Jesus, according to James, we don't know when he's coming back. And he might be standing on the door knocking. He may be about to open the door. And in our words today, mama's coming home. Jesus is here. So, we have to have a sense of urgency about us to make sure that we're doing the things that God calls us to do. And so if you have your Bibles, you can look it up. We'll have the passage up here on the screen or it's there in your handout. But we'll be in chapter five and starting in verse 7. Just kind of starting this off so you can see where I'm talking about here. Because here's what it says in verse 7. James writes and says, "Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord's return." Let me pause there and let you know this. There was a number of times when Jesus was still walking on this earth that he would foreshadow that he would die. He would be resurrected and he would come again. And so as James is writing this letter to the Christians that were living at that time, their expectation was that Jesus would come any day. Now, we're 2,000 years down the road. So you might ask, well, is Jesus delaying and returning? No, he's just setting up the perfect time. So whether it was then or now or tomorrow, the Bible is crystal clear is that Jesus will come again one day. So he said this, "Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord's return. Consider the farmers," he said, "who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen." He goes, "You too must be patient. You must be waiting. You must be looking anxiously. You must be anticipating what's going to come." And then he says this, "Take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near." Now, near is measured different in our perspective than in God's perspective. Again, this letter was written 2,000 years ago. So, you might be thinking, well, it wasn't too near then. But in God's perspective of all of eternity, the second coming, Jesus is coming, and it's near. In fact, I love the way that the message puts that last verse, verse 8, it says this, "Stay steady and strong. The master could arrive at any time." Do you see where I'm getting it? Mom's coming home. He's telling us to be just as ready as I'm preparing and getting ready for Tuesday night Denise returning. We don't know when the master we don't know when Jesus will will return and we must be ready. Then he goes on in verse 9 and he goes, "Don't grumble about each other and brothers and sisters or you will be judged." And look what he says next. "For look, the judge is standing at the door." Now, I think that was a little prophecy for me this week. Okay, cuz mama's coming home and the judge will be standing at the door. I will be judged either I did was what I was supposed to and what was expected in the rules that she gave or I will be judged as a failure and she'll send me in there and do it right. And as we think about the expectations that we read about in the book of James, as we think about what real faith looks like, there is a judge. Too many times we think the judge is the person we're looking in the mirror and I get to be judge of my own life. You do you and I'll do me. But the Bible never put me as a judge and never put you as a judge. The judge over our actions if our faith is real and how we respond because we have a relationship with Jesus is Jesus Christ himself. And verse nine says, "And the judge is at the door ready to open in to do an inspection." And so here's what James does in this last chapter. We might refer to the last page of his letter. He says, "I'm going to give you four more things that need to be about your life." And as I'm studying this week, I'm going, "Are these just four things we're adding to the list of other things that we've already read about and learned about in James, or is he kind of putting like, "Let me give you these last four things with a little bit of urgency." And here's what I believe that even everything we've talked about in the book of James is important and we need to prioritize the things that we've learned. It's almost like as he signs off the letter, he's going, "But let me get your attention on these four things. Let me give to you this sense of urgency in your life. These aren't four little things. I'm just signing off because I need to conclude them real quick before I say goodbye." It's almost like he's writing these last four things going, "Listen, you need to get everything, but if you didn't do so well getting the other things we talked about, you got to make sure you get these four things cuz mama's coming home because the judge is at the door and he's ready to open it." And he is looking to see if you are possessing the outward expression of your faith, if you are expressing real faith in the way that you live. And so let me take the remainder of our time and we're going to look at these four items. Again, they're not more important than anything else we've talked about in the book of James, but I do believe he comes and says there are some urgency to these things. And so I hope as you're taking notes, you're doing more than just takingformational, intellectual notes. I hope you're taking notes that you can go home going, "Okay, Jesus, show me. Do I have urgency in these areas?" So, here's the first one he says. If you're taking notes, you can write this down. Real faith lives generously. Real faith lives generously. Let me read those first few verses in chapter 5 to you. He says, "Look here, you rich people. Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. Your wealth is rotting away and your fine clothes are moth moth eaten rags. Your gold and silver corroded. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This corroded treasure you have hoarded will testify against you on the day of judgment. For listen, hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. The cries of those who have harvested your fields have reached the ears of the Lord of heavens of ar the lord of heaven's armies. You have spent your years on earth in luxury satisfying, he says, your every desire. You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed innocent people who do not resist you. Now, when you first read this, you think James is condemning rich people. And if you're like me, you're going, "Woo, I can dodge this one because I'm not rich. Like, I don't have these big storehouses. I don't have a big fat bank account." Well, let me just let you know this. Compared to the world standards, over half the world makes less than $6.85 a day. I can pretty much guess regardless how I look at anybody's bank account here that most of us make more than $6.85 a day. If the rest of the world looks at us and views our life, whether it's our bank account, whether it's our possessions, whether it's the cars that we drive, whether it's our retirement accounts, most the world would look upon us and say we are rich. And so before we feel like we can dodge this particular point, I think we can step into this particular point. But James is not condemning having wealth. He's not condemning having possessions. What he's condemning is the accumulation of stuff at the at the detriment of the people around us. the accumulation of our possessions, the accumulation of our bank account, the accumulation of our retirement account. Again, there's nothing wrong with saving because even Proverbs talks about is wise to save. It is not wrong to have. But when I have my stuff at a detriment to the people around me, that's what James is talking against. That's the reason he says if you have real faith, then your real faith will live generously. You know, rich young guy came up to Jesus one day and said, "Jesus, what's the greatest commandment?" And what did he say? To love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your mind, with all of your soul, and all of your strength. Can I summarize that for us? Jesus looked the rich young man when he asked him this question. What's the greatest commandment? And Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your stuff. All your stuff in here, all your stuff in here, all your stuff in here, all your stuff in here. Love him with all of your stuff. And then Jesus looked at him and said, "Let me go ahead and tell you the second greatest commandment to love your neighbor." I think we can do a little additional problem there. To love God with all of our stuff means also means that we love our neighbor with all of our stuff. Real faith generously shares rather than selfishly keeps. Real faith generously shares rather than selfishly keeps. But here's the real tension of this one. It's hard to be that sharing, right? Like to honestly to live generously. I might share something, but I'm not sure I live generously. In fact, I I'll just totally confess to you as your pastor, living generously does not come natural to me when I think specifically about my finances. And there's different things we can share, right? We can share our time. We can share our our talents. We can share our energy. But when it comes to financially, that may be the most difficult part of my life and many people's life to share that to be generous with my finances. And it does not come easy. I don't know. I've I've done some kind of inner just kind of just checking. And I don't know if it's because growing up, I don't think we were poor growing up. We just grew up with not a lot left over. Like we never went without, but we never took lavish vacations, never had the newest cars, never had just all that as a teenager that I wanted. And I think I felt that. And then God calls me in ministry. And for the first most of our years being married, there was nothing left at the end of the month in our lives. You we never did without, but you're just always kind of hanging on. Denise, we made a decision if we were going to go out to eat or not. If our budget could handle it, it wasn't like, do we want to go out Thursday and Friday? Do you want to go out Thursday or Friday to eat? And we never did without, but we just didn't have a lot left over. And so this idea of living generously, especially when it came to our finances, does not come easy for me. But there's a very practical practice that we've been able to implement in our lives that helps us live generously and I want to share it with you today. And that practical just way we do it is this. We do pre-arranged percentage giving. That's a lot of P's, isn't it? Pre-arranged percentage giving. This helps us to live a life of generosity. And here's what I mean by that. We make our monthly budget and we go ahead and before the budget money ever comes in so it can go out, we go ahead and pre-arrange an amount that we're going to give away. And so for us, our generosity goes to the church. I think scripture talks about that as the first primary place. There's lots of ways that you can be generous, but we should always be generous at the church that God's called you to. And so we always set aside a percentage. Now, one or two, I could talk about the tithe and some different biblical accounts, but let's not even talk about a 10%age. It's just a percentage of our budget. And we're saying, well, we know um groceries are going to cost this much. We know there's a car payment this much. We know there's a a mortgage payment this much. We know what's coming out. We go ahead before we ever spend any money, even before that month's paycheck gets in there, we put that pre-arranged percentage in there. And then the first thing we do when the month rolls around, the paycheck goes in. Guess what we pay first? The pre-arranged percentage that we've committed to give to God's house. You're going, "Well, that's kind of crazy. What if groceries cost more? What if you have a car breakdown?" We'll figure that one out. Oh, I tell you, we as in me, Denise, and God will figure that one out. But we go ahead and prioritize that pre-arranged percentage giving. Now Denise and I are such just kind of undisiplined at times. We go ahead and through here at South Sub Church, we have gone ahead and committed that and it comes out of the bank account automatically because I know my flesh if I wait to have to write a check either I'll forget to write the check and then other things will come up or the stress of the finances of the moment will zap out my pre-arranged percentage priority giving. So we just make it go first. And so every month when the paycheck goes in, something already arranged goes out. That's how we've had to condition oursel and learn to live generously. And someone might say, "Well, Keith, that doesn't seem like it's coming from your heart." Like, doesn't it come from your heart? Like when you write the check and you feel it come out like you've kind of conditioned your bank account to it. Listen, Paul or James says this to live generously. He didn't say that you want to live generously. He just says that you do live generously. And that is a practical way that we learn to be generous. And then something else we do sometimes there's other things that come up. And so I'm fortunate enough that every once in a while I make a little extra money doing a wedding or a funeral or speaking somewhere. We will take our percentage giving out of that and rather directing it to the church because my paycheck is already going to the church. Then we take it out and we have a little cash drawer at the percentage giving that we've taken out of that. Sometimes it has $25 and sometimes it has $200. And we're going to God, show us the need. Where's that need that's not the church, but where's the need beyond the church that maybe it's somebody that needs something? Maybe we can bless somebody. Maybe there's an organization or another ministry that we want to give some money to. And so we just kind of hold it both. one is already set and going and the other one we're waiting for the Holy Spirit to direct us where we can bless people but it helps our heart stay generous. Now James as he's writing these urgencies I think one of the reasons he put financial generosity or just life generosity is because he knows that's the thing that we pull back first.

Here's what I've learned when it comes to financial generosity. If God has your pocketbook, I guarantee he has your heart. And James is putting it out there going, "Listen, mama's coming, so make sure that you're sharing generously." But he goes on and gives us another one, too. The second one, he says this, "Make sure," because mama's coming. Jesus is knocking at the door. Make sure that you um you embrace suffering. Make sure that you embrace suffering. This is not his first time in this letter that he's talked about suffering. He began the letter going, "Suffering's going to come to all of us." In fact, read with me there starting in verse 10. He says, "For examples of patience and suffering, dear brothers and sisters, look at the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We give great honor to those who endure under suffering. For instance, you know about Job, a man of great endurance. You can see how the Lord was kind to him at the end. For the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy. But most of all, my brothers and sisters, never take an oath by heaven or on earth or anything else. Just say a simple yes or no so that you will not sin and be condemned. Here's what we have to understand that real faith doesn't produce pain-free living. Real faith does not produce pain-free living. Some people have this idea if you give your life to Jesus, he makes everything rosy red. No, you give your life to Jesus, he just gives you the strength to walk through the difficulties of life. Think about Job that he mentioned. Dear God, I have some rough days, but never like Job. But God was with him and walked him through his difficult days. Here's what we need to understand. If you're going through difficult times right now, God is not punishing you. God is nurturing you and God is growing you in a way that builds your faith to be deeper and greater. There's a juniper tree found in Yoseite Park and I think we actually have a tree a picture of it. That tree was not designed by God to grow there. That's all granite around that tree and it's high up on a mountain. So the wind is just blowing. And here's what's happened. That tree is not even created by God to be twirled around like that. But the winds have taken it and just formed its image. But that tree has been at Yuseite Park hundreds of years. Why? Because instead of fighting against the wind, it allowed the wind to shape it in the very image that it was made to be in. And so many times when we have difficulties and trials and tribulations that come our way, we fight them and we fight them and we fight them and we ask God, "Why God? Why God?" And sometimes we even get so frustrated we shake our fist at God going, "God, are you there?" And in our trials and our tribulations, in our suffering, God is, I am right here with you. My desire is not to protect you. My desire is to help you persevere and grow into be the faithful Christian that God wants you to be. And so James is encouraging us because Jesus's coming is near is that we don't fight against our suffering is that we embrace our suffering. Is that we pray that deep prayer Jesus what do you want out of me? I think a great personal question we can just ask oursel if you're going through suffering, what is God producing in you? Endurance or bitterness? And God's desire is to produce endurance. James goes on the third one. He goes, "Okay, real faith also as mama's coming. Jesus is coming. He's knocking at the door. Real faith prioritizes prayer." Let me read a few verses to you starting in verse 13. He goes, "Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord." Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed sins, you'll be forgiven. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and it produces great results. Elijah was a human as we are. And yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall. None fell for three and a half years. Then when he prayed again, the sky went down. This the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops. It's obvious as James is wrapping up this letter. is going prayer is important and that's why I say real faith prioritizes prayer. James reminds us this that our prayer should be a starting point, not an emergency button. That before anything comes our way, we're going, God, I'm walking with you. You're here with me. What's going on today? As opposed to red button, stop, God, what's going on? Emergency. Emergency. Emergency. I hope we gave this book out a few weeks ago um as many of us are just using as a like a little devotional reminder during Lynn. If you did not get one of these, you can pick one up at the welcome center as you go. But it's a book written hundreds of years ago by brother Lawrence. Um if you haven't started reading it, let me give you a warning. He's deep. Not just deep in his thoughts, deep in his relationship with God. He he has an understanding and a sense of God that I hope I can only just get a percentage of it in my life would be so much better. And so rather than being a condemning book, it's really an encouraging book to show you things and and ways that we can be reaching out to God deeper. But he talks a lot about prayer and this is what um brother Lawrence says about prayer that it's a continual conversation with God, not an occasional event. Too many times we reserve prayer for the dinner table. We reserve prayer for God, before I go to sleep, let me try to get a few words in before I start snoring. There's a crisis in my life, so we need to pray. But what brother Andrew says, prayer should be this ongoing conversation with God. He he talks about this continual turning of the heart. And we're in this Lent season. Christians around the world and and many Christians are fasting. And one of the things about fasting and the spiritual practice of fasting, it's taking something out of your life, out of your um everyday routine so that routine can turn to God. But there's a great quote in this book and I want to read it to you. It says this, it is necessary, according to brother Lawrence, it is necessary to be ver it is necessary not to be verbose in prayer because lengthly prayers encourage wandering thoughts. Simply present yourself to God as you were a poor man knocking on the door of a rich man and fix your attention on his presence. And notice that presence is spelled P rese.

How many times are we guilty of putting our attention on his presence? P R E S N Ts, what we can get from him rather than just simply who he is. But as James is writing those few verses, he says this, the prayer of a righteous man avaleth much. And I for people say, "Well, that leads me out. I'm not righteous." Let me see if I can explain this word righteous to you. This word righteous does not mean perfect. The word righteous means aligned. You see the Bible tells us this that as a follower of Jesus our righteousness comes from the grace of Jesus not our behavior not even our obedience that's not where we get our righteousness because we would never be righteous righteousness enough to come before God our righteousness comes from his grace and his forgiveness but our righteousness as we pray comes from God not here's what I want but God, what do you want? That's why Elijah's prayer was so powerful. Not that he walked up to God one day going, "Hey God, I got this great idea. Why don't we not make it rain for three and a half years? God, wouldn't that be really cool? And I'm a prophet and I'm going to pray this and I'm a righteous man and therefore it didn't rain for three and a half years." Guess whose idea it was first for it not to rain three and a half years? God's. But Elijah was so aligned to God's heart. He knew God's heart. So what he was simply doing was not suggesting to God what he should do. He was agreeing with God with what God already said he would do. So when we get to that place as brother Andrew talks about and we are in the presence of God and understanding God and we are aligning with him. Our prayers become righteous prayers and God answers not because we had a great idea but because we're simply agreeing with something he's already decided to do. The prayer of a righteous man ovaileth much. I also love when he's talking about prayer here. He says this in verse 14. When you're sick, what does it say? Call the elders of the church and pray together. Here's what we need to understand about prayer. While prayer is in very intimately personal, it is also also extremely communal. There's no doubt in my mind that after reading the news last night, many of you prayed. Prayed for peace around the world, prayed for our leaders, prayed for our military, prayed for the other countries, other nations involved. There's no doubt in my mind. But I want you to know when we began this service and we gathered together communally, when we gathered together corporately and we prayed, there is power in that prayer. There is power in that prayer that God is hearing it. There is power in that prayer that it extends our faith, mine to yours and yours to mine and hers to his and his to hers. And while you might have walked in here going, man, these events of the world are making me a little shaky. When you gather with the saints and you agree in prayer, it doesn't mean our prayers change what's going to happen tomorrow in the Middle East. But here's what it says. But we have greater faith because we stand together.

And so prayer is intimately private. But prayer is also communal.

Real faith refuses isolation and invites the church to help carry the burden. That's not just about world problems. That just that's not just about someone facing cancer. You could be having relational problems. You could be having financial problems. You could be having just personal emotional mental problems. And rather than staying isolated, here's what real faith says. Come to the body of Christ and come together. When James says this, confess your sins one to another that you may be healed. He is not advocating that we come up here going, "Well, here's the five things I did yesterday. Here's the 10 things I did yesterday." No. When we confess our sins, we can go before all God Almighty ourself. That expression, confess your sins one to another that you may be healed, is more talking about living a life of transparency and community. And don't go at it alone. Go at it with the people that God has placed in your lives. That's one of the reasons around here that you will hear us talk about join a group, join a group, join a group, join a group. Because many times it's in groups that you really get to know people. Church is wonderful, but we sit in rows not looking at anybody. The only person you might be looking at is the person in front of you, and you're looking at the back of their head. That's not transparency. But when you're in a group and you're sharing thoughts and you're sharing troubles, and you're sharing problems, that is life on life. And that is where God produces healing in your life. Let me close with the last one. Real faith initiates restoration. Remember, James is closing out his letter. He's going, "These are urgent things, okay? These are important things." Now, not the other ones weren't important that we talked about, but these are important things. And he goes, "Real faith initiates restoration." Look at verse 19. My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back from the wandering will save that person from death and bring about the many forgiveness of sins.

I am afraid that too many times we're not we're more about policing people than pursuing people. And when he says wandering, he means that person that takes a little step away. He means that person that you just sense something's not going right and rather than pulling into the church, pulling into the body of Christ, they're beginning to walk in isolation. And sometimes that isolation is because they're embarrassed. Sometimes that isolation is because they're so hurt. Sometimes that isolation is just so lost and they take a little step and a little step. But too many times as a body of Christ, we're like, "Well, it's not really my business. It seems like something's going on, but they've never said anything, so I don't want to go over there and say anything." Here's what James says. We're living in the last days that Jesus is standing at the door and he's knocking and he says, "Brothers and sisters, his commandment was not to unknown people. His commandment was to the family."

And when someone from the family begins to veer off, it is not our our business to judge them. It is our business to embrace them.

You know, if I'm out my driveway playing with my grandkids and I told my one-year-old and my four-year-old, you got to stay in the driveway instead of close the garage door. and my one-year-old granddaughter starts wandering towards the street. I would never step back going, "That's not good. Hope she's okay. I can see the trouble coming down the road. There's the car coming down the road." That little girl takes a couple of steps and I'm taking three big steps and grandpa is going to reach down and grab hold of her and save her from a life of problems. And what James is saying as followers of Jesus, real faith says we don't look that don't look good. That we risk our own self. We risk a person's perception. we risk a person maybe not reaching back to us. He says you reach out and you grab them.

That real faith initiates restoration. So as we wrap up this book of James, it's chock full of good stuff for us. Probably more stuff than we can implement, right? But he finishes with a sense of urgency

that it's easy to think, "Oh, Jesus is coming back someday and it might be in my lifetime and it might not.

It might be in two or three lifetimes from now." What James is saying is our urgency is not based on the calendar of when he comes. Our urgency is based on the calendar in the fact he will come and that we live our life with real faith. Not because we're trying to earn our salvation. It's our response to his salvation. generosity,

embracing suffering as a way that God's using it to mold us, prioritizing prayer not as this act we do, but more as a way of life

and restoring those who need to restored. And so I'm just going to ask you to bow your head where you are.

I want you to ask God a question. Probably all four of us need to rep prioritize all four or we all need to rep prioritize all four of those. But ask God a simple question. God, which one today do I need to live with more urgency? my generosity,

my embracing struggles and trials in life,

prioritizing the presence of Jesus in your life through prayer

or restoring others.

Which one?

And and you may get that one in your mind that the Holy Spirit lays on your mind. You're thinking, "Oh, that's so difficult. My budget doesn't seem like it can handle it. My compassion doesn't seem like it could reach out to that person.

My time doesn't seem like it'd have time to pray."

Here's what I want you to be motivated by. because he first loved us. Remember, we don't do it to earn salvation. We do it as a response.

So, I'm going to invite you to stand now. And we're going to end with a song, part of a song that we sang earlier. And I'm going to invite you as you think about that thing, the thing of urgency that God has laid on your heart, hold it out to God as an offering and sing this song that reminds us it's an overflow of our heart that we present our offering.