Sermons
30
Apr, 2023
Together for Generous Giving
- Dow Welsh
- Luke 12:33-34
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So where do you see yourself in five years? Where do you see yourself in five years? That's a question that's often asked in, in job interviews. I saw where one guy's response, when they asked the question, he said, where do I see myself in five years firing you? Not that little confidence right there, but, but why do they ask questions like that? I mean, why does that a question that usually pops up somewhere in a job interview? Well, what they're doing is they're, they're trying to figure out who you are, you know, they're trying to figure out kind of what your plans are. Are you going to be the kind of person that's going to work hard and, and you're going to be there five years or more or are you a little different and, and you're going to be the kind of person that that comes and maybe you work hard but, but they already see that you've got kind of another work plan in mind and you may be there five years or less. They're just trying to figure out, well, what exactly is going on with this person? I think I've shared the story with you before about years ago was, was talking to a, a sweet lady in our church named Lois and she just had some surgery and she said, um, well, I'm doing ok. She goes, I, but I'm just having to take it a day at a time. And I chuckled and I said, well, Lois, that just doesn't work with me. She's like, what do you mean? I was like, well, I usually have to start over about every 30 minutes and, and there's a lot of truth to that, you know, sometimes I'm, I'm just trying to make it through the next 30 minutes to get in the, in the next thing that I'm in the middle of and, and usually I'm in the middle of so many different things. I, I can't even think so. Five years from now. That sounds like having a, a birthday party for my imaginary friend, Jim. You know, I'm like, I, I don't even know what that means. How, how in the world can I think of, of five years from now? But regardless of whether our schedule is hectic and difficult or if we have a humdrum life, we all have somewhere we want to be and maybe we'd ask it this way. Where do you want to be the most? Where do you wanna be the most? We continue our series together for good, where we're looking at, at the values of a, of a healthy local church and why are we doing that well, in a world full of bad, we want to be a church that's together for good. What kind of good? Well, the kind of good that will make a huge difference in your heart and your mind and your soul. Five minutes from now, five hours from now, five days from now, five weeks from now, five months from now and five years from now. In fact, it's the kind of thing that will make a difference forever. So, so what is this thing? Well, our message today is called together for generous giving. And we're going to be looking in the Bible at Luke chapter 12 verse 34. It's a moment when Jesus is talking to his closest friends and this is what he says to them. Verse 34 for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also, what do you treasure the most? What do you treasure the most? Jesus says, whatever that is, that's where you'll find your heart. No, no, not the the organ that's pumping blood in your body. But the core of who you are, what matters the most to you, what you love the most, where you put most of your hope, what you are most committed to. Tim Keller says this the direction of the heart then controls everything, our thinking, our feeling, our decisions and our actions. And he goes on to say what we most love, we find reasonable, desirable and doable. Those are three easy words. Right. Reasonable. You know, if we, if we love something, we go. Well, well, this is something that's, that's a sensible thing to do. I, I, I can sensibly be engaged with this desirable. This is something I want to do and, and doable, this is something I can do. I can, I can have the confidence to do this. So what do you treasure the most? Where, where is your, your heart? What, what controls what you think is reasonable and, and desirable and doable. What, what controls the way you think and act and feel and make decisions because what your treasure is. Jesus says, that's where you'll find your heart for where your treasure is there, your heart will be. Also. Eugene Peterson has a, a paraphrase of those words from Jesus. It goes like this. The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be and end up being. Now all of us have moments in life where there's somewhere we want to be right? We may want to be at the beach. You know, we may want to be at the lake. We may want to be at the mountains, we may want to be at the river. We may just want to be in the backyard, grilling out. We have places that we want to be. We, we may actually want something else in our life. We wanna may, we maybe we wanna be in a, in a new house or we wanna be, be in a, in a new car. We wanna, we wanna have a new job. We wanna be singing at the Taylor Swift concert. You know, there's, there's places we want to be, there's, there's things we want to be engaged in. We all have somewhere we, we want to be on any given moment in any given time. But it's, it's that last part that's super important. The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be. And end up being, where do you wanna end up? Where do you want to end up? Where, where do you, where do you wanna end up being, being? My sisters have been, been taking the, the days at the hospital with my dad and, and I've been staying at night. Uh, so, uh, we've, we've been there every night. Um, just, just real quick. My dad was officially admitted with severe sepsis and, um, generally speaking, he, he, he feels ok. Uh, but the infection is just, is just not going away. They're, they're trying everything they can, but it's, it's just hanging around and, uh, he possibly is going to have a, have a third procedure tomorrow. But, but so we're, we're hanging out, you know, in the hospital and, and dad and I have been having a lot of doing a lot of late night talking and, uh, we, we've been in some conversations that we've never had to be in before. You know, my dad has a system for everything that he does, particularly with his money and no one in the universe understands his system. But him, now, some of y'all are like that. Some of you have parents like that, you know. So we've been having to do some late night talking to, to try to find, you know, Josie's ways and ways and we're going to have to merge them a little bit so we can take care of mom and take care of the bills and make sure there's enough bulk cappuccino from Sam's in the house. You know, we're, we're having to kind of find some ways to meet in the middle. So we've, we've been in a lot of different conversations and, and some of those conversations have moved toward what are things going to be and what are the things going to be like after the hospital? You know, how are things going to end up after the hospital? And those are super helpful conversations, but they're also super hard conversations, they're conversations that, that require a lot of detail. There are conversations that require things to that that we really don't normally like to talk about in life, changing details and, and changing circumstances and everything being a little different. So, so where do you want to end up being, where, where do you wanna end up being because where you wanna end up being defines what you treasure, in fact, Jesus says that it is the place that defines your, your heart because the answer to that question of where you want to end up being is completely wrapped up in what your heart treasures the most. So what does your heart treasure the most? What do you, what do you treasure the most? And, and how can you gauge that? Well, Jesus set this verse down in a little neighborhood of verses. So let's, let's walk through the neighborhood just for a minute. Luke chapter 12, beginning in verse 33 sell your possessions and give to charity. Make yourselves money belts that do not wear out an inexhaustible treasure in heaven where no thief comes near and nor does a moth destroy for where your treasure is there. Your heart will be also. So what do you treasure the most? Where, where is your treasure? Well, it's amazing. Jesus seems to say if you're looking for a gauge, look at your money. Yeah. He says, if you're, if you're looking for what you treasure the most, look at your money, look at how you spend money, look at what you do with the things that you own and not even just the things you own, but sometimes just with your time. What is it that you do with your money and the things you own? What was the second house in the neighborhood? Verse 33 make yourselves money belts that do not wear out. What does that mean, that's a, that's a weird language. Well, what Jesus is saying is this, there is only one account that will never be closed. I want you to think of all the accounts that you have in life. There's only one account that will never be closed. Every single financial account in your life will be closed. Everyone, your checking account, your savings account, your money market account, your retirement account, whatever you've got on your Starbucks card on your app. Ok. All of the they will be closed. There's only one account that will never be closed. There's only one account that will last forever. And that account is your account with God. What's in your account with God? The rest of them are going to be closed, the rest of them are going to be given away to your family or whoever. But, but the one account that will last forever is your account with God. What's in your account with God? If, if it's full, then you'll spend forever as a friend of God. If it's empty, then you'll spend forever as an enemy of God. There's only two ways the account works. So right now, what's in your account with God? Have you confessed that, that you're guilty of, of breaking God's law and you've turned away from treasuring your sin and you've turned toward treasuring Jesus Christ has, has that happened in your life? Have you looked and, and put your personal trust in Jesus Christ as the only way for your sins to be forgiven. And are you right now believing in Jesus as your ultimate hope of salvation? If so, then I have great news for you. The righteousness of Jesus Christ has been credited to your account. The, the very righteousness of Jesus Christ has been credited to your account and no one can steal it and nothing can destroy it ever. Absolutely exclamation point. The righteousness of, of Jesus Christ being credited to your account changes everything in your life. Five minutes from now and five hours from now and five days from now and five weeks from now and, and five months from now and five years from now, the righteousness of Jesus Christ being credited to your account changes everything because it means this, your account is secure, your account is secure. I'm having to, to look and, and arrange a bunch of different things right now and, and I just had to break it to my dad the other night and I said, I love you, but I don't understand any of your checkbooks, none of them. You know, I said, that's just your world. I said, so the bills are going to be paid and I'm going to take care of mom and there'll be cappuccino at the house, but it probably won't be purchased the way you've been doing. You know, because there's just, there's systems of life that are hard and, and I know in those conversations we're just trying to secure things. Nothing on this earth will be secure forever. No accounts, no houses, no cars, no hobbies, no sports teams, no sanctuaries. The only secure account forever is your account with God. But if your account with God is secure, then friend, you are saved, you are being saved and one day you will be gloriously saved and nothing that happens here can ever change that. Why? Because we know the one who holds tomorrow and he is holding us is that in your account, is, is, is that kind of confidence in the account of your soul with God? Because if you're not sure right now is the time to settle that account right now is, is the time to confess that like every other human being past, present and future, you have broken God's law right now is the time to turn away from casually treasuring your sin. Even things you don't even think are sin and turning to and treasuring Christ first and most because that's the only way that the righteousness of Christ can be credited to your account. The word righteous means to be right with God. So if we do not have the righteousness of Christ, we are not right with God because we don't have righteousness of our own. We, we don't have anything to put into the account. The only way that that we can possibly be right with God is to have the righteousness of Christ credited to our account. So turning to Jesus today is imperative. If you do not, there is no change in the account. But if you do, there is security and safety forever. Don't rely on the fact that, that you grew up in church. Don't rely on the fact that your, your parents or your grandparents are, are pretty good Christians. Don't, don't rely on the fact that, you know, people say you're, you're a pretty nice guy. Pretty nice gal. No, Jesus said this for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. So what do you treasure? What, what do you treasure the most? And is it Jesus? Do you treasure Jesus Christ first and most? Listen, none of us are perfect. Christians. Ok. We're, we're not going to get everything right. But we really need to be careful in saying, well, God and country means I'm going to heaven because that's, that's not how the gospel reads. Jesus says where your treasure is, is, is where your heart is. So what you treasure really matters. So, do you treasure Jesus first? And most? If not, it, it doesn't matter how hard you work at your job. It, it doesn't matter how many times you volunteer to, to coach your kids teams, it doesn't matter, you know what a great cook you are or, or how many times people say that your cobbler is just amazing. You know, those things are all fine and good. But, but if not, if there's no righteousness in your account, if things have not been made right between you and God, if your account is empty, it doesn't matter how many good things we may do. So, it is imperative for us to say when, what's happening with my account with God and if you don't know, then turn to Jesus today and live. But what if your account is good? What if, what if you've genuinely been converted? What if you truly are putting all of your trust in Jesus Christ and the righteousness of Christ really has been credited to your account. What, what should that do in your life? Well, let's look back at the first house in the neighborhood. Luke 12 33 sell your possessions and give to charity. Now at first glance, that sounds like we should have a yard sale, right? Let's, let's just have a yard sale. Let's let's get rid of some things and we're going to take the money from the yard sale and you know, give it to the local food bank. And that's a, that's a great thing, but Jesus is actually moving us a bit deeper here. Simply put, what Jesus is saying is this, he says, be generous, be, be generous. What does it mean to be generous? Well, let's maybe first say what it doesn't mean being generous, doesn't mean don't take care of your family. Being generous, doesn't mean that you shouldn't have a savings account being generous doesn't mean that, that you shouldn't clothe your family and take care of people at the holidays. And it doesn't mean that you should just give money to anyone and everyone that asks, being generous means don't be stingy. It means, don't, don't hoard your money. It means if, if you got two hot dogs just give them two. Right. If it means you got a plate of bacon then just, you know, give them the whole plate, it's ok. You keep a piece for yourself. It's fine, you know, but, but don't be stingy, don't, don't hore don't, don't just spend your money on yourself. Don't, don't just say, well, we don't want to waste that. Listen, everything on this planet is going to waste so be wise. Don't, don't be wasteful, but we need to be cautious that in saying, well, I don't wanna waste it that really we're, we're being greedy unnecessarily instead of being generous. Don't be stingy. Don't, don't hoard things, don't, don't just spend your time and your energy and your money on yourself. Be generous with who you are, be generous with what God gives you. I know sometimes we, we don't remember this, but your ability to see is because of God, your ability to hear is because of God. Your ability to speak is because of God. Your ability to use your hands and your mind and your body is because of God. You have no bootstraps without God you are not able to earn anything without God. So there's never a moment where you can stand somewhere and say, I've earned all this with my own two hands. That's a lie. You have no hands without God. God fearfully and wonderfully made you, you, you are precious in the sight of God. It is stunning that any of us exist. And if we exist, everything we're able to do is because of the grace and mercy of God. Therefore, anything that we have is because of the grace and mercy of God. So we take God's generosity to us and we are generous. We're generous with our time. We're generous with our, our money. We're generous with our, our energy, we're generous with our encouragement. We're, we're generous with our attitude, we, we're generous with, with who we are. And that's especially true in the life of the church. When it comes to being a, a healthy local church, it is imperative that we are generous that we, we have a generous mindset. See, we, we want you to be together with us. We, we want to be together in this. We wanna be together for good and, and being together means that, that we want you to and, and we really need you to be generous with who you are. Be generous with your time and your energy and your, and your attitude and your encouragement and your money, be, be generous with who you are now. Do we say that? Because we're, we're greedy and needy. No, no. We say that because here's what we want to do. We want to treasure Jesus Christ with you. It's, it's not needy and greedy. It's treasure. We wanna be a group of people that we're treasuring Jesus Christ together because when we are treasuring Jesus Christ together, that's not just a choir song. When we're treasuring Jesus Christ together. We become the kind of people that in the pew and in the hospital, we begin to say, I really know the one who holds tomorrow and he is holding me and nothing will change that. See, that's what we wanna do together. We're longing to treasure Christ together. So when we say we want you to be generous, we're not saying, well, we want your money so we can keep lights on. No, we, we want you to be a part of what God is doing here. So, you know, my sisters are taking the, the days I've been taking the nights and, and so, um I think it was last Sunday night. Yeah, last Sunday night was our, our first night overnight in the hospital. Uh the nurses had come in to, to do the middle of the night vitals. I think it was about 2 30 in the morning. And so they're, you know, doing the vitals and, and taking the medicine and stuff. So I'm up and, and I'm looking out the window, we're on the ninth floor of the hospital facing the Savannah River. Um, it's just, it's just gorgeous. The, the downtown skyline of Augusta at night is, is just great and, uh, I haven't seen any sun sets yet because I'm not there for that. But man, the sunrises have been amazing. The best part of the sunrises is every morning. I've pulled out Google Maps and I figured out exactly where the sun seems to be coming up and it's coming up over Me Rancho Mexican restaurant in Clearwater, South Carolina. Now, the reason that's important is that's my parents' favorite Mexican restaurant. So the first morning I said, hey dad, I said the sun's coming up right over me Rancho and this is good. So, so I've had some, some beautiful views out the window. But, but on that first night, you know, I'm looking out at the, the beauty and the, the stillness of, of, of downtown Augusta and immediately what was going through my mind was last Sunday because, you know, it had been that morning and I was just thinking, gosh, this morning was, was so great. You know, last Sunday at our church, it was, it was a sweet time of worship. You know, our, our baptisms were, were just precious. I, I don't think I've ever had a, a time in, in almost 30 years now where, where I had people that were baptized an hour and a half later, just still tender and joyful and teary about their baptism. So it was just a sweet time. Our, our whole service was just great, you know, so it's, you know, 2 32 45 whatever is in the morning. I'm looking out and I'm like, man, God, you, you are just really working in our church. You, you're just really working at Holland Avenue Baptist Church. This, this is just really exciting. I was kind of getting excited and so I was like, you know what, I'm just going to, I'm just going to email that to Tammy and Lindsay. You know, I'm just going to send them an email right now that says man, God is just so working in our church and then I stopped because I thought, you know what if Timmy and Lindsay have notifications on their phone for emails? I mean, I know how much they really like listening to me, but they may not want to hear anything from me at three o'clock in the morning. You know, may maybe I'll just wait, but every part of it is true. And I'm glad that in the middle of the night, God just helped my heart to see, you know, I am working in the church now. I really am. So we don't ask you to be generous because we're greedy or needy. We we ask you to be generous because we really believe that God is working in the life of this church. We, we really believe in the in the work of the gospel here. And so we're asking to be generous with time and energy and money as an investment, an investment in an account that will never end. Not, not the church, not the campus, not the building, but the work of the gospel here at this church because it is the work of the gospel that will never stop, it will never stop. So what we do here is, is not religious, it's not ceremonial, it's not even Baptist. We are doing something for the Kingdom of God. This is the work of the Gospel. So what we do here is being deposited into an account that will never end. So if you are already generously volunteering, thank you. Continue. And if you're not, we, we'd love to have you love to have you start finding your place where you can volunteer and make a difference for the Kingdom and the church. If, if you're already giving money, great. Thank you. And, and if you're not, we, we'd love for you to start. We'd, we'd love for you to engage in the investment of what God's doing here. And again, throughout scripture, we would love in that investment for you to enjoy the blessing of what it means to give to God from what He has already given to us. We aren't greedy, we aren't needy. We just love that we have the thrill of treasuring Christ together. And, and what does that mean? Well, it means that as believers, one of the reasons that we engage in life in the church is because we're trying to help each other. Remember that we are secure, we're trying to help each other. Remember that the righteousness of Christ has been credited to our account. I don't know about you, but I, I can forget that. Right. I mean, we can, I mean, we have moments when we're sitting in the hospital and I mean, like what's rolling through our mind is not the righteousness of Christ. You know, we have moments when we're sitting in the, in the tax office in April where then the righteousness of Christ is not rolling through our minds. You know, we have moments when we're arguing with our spouse or dealing with rebellious kids or, or anything else in life where the first thing in our mind is not always the righteousness of Christ, but, but that's why we gather together. That's why we join together. We, we, we gather to try to help each other. Remember, wait a minute, the righteousness of Christ has been credited to our account. We know the one who holds tomorrow and he is holding our hand. Ok. Ok. It is, it is well with my soul. But see, we also treasure Christ together and, and we're generous together because we want to help people that don't have that confidence. We want to be sure that the Gospel leaves campus, not just to stay on campus but it, it leaves campus and we help other people find what it means to be right with God. Other people find what it means to, to receive Jesus Christ, to have the, the righteousness of Christ credited to their account so that they can feel safe and saved and secure forever. We want to be generous with the gospel from our church because God has been so generous to us. But again, you know, you may think, well, I'm not feeling God's generosity in life right now. You know, my family is in the middle of a health crisis. I'm not, I'm not feeling God's generosity or, or I'm in the middle of some difficulty in my marriage or with my family. I'm, I'm not really feeling God's generosity or man things at work. You just don't understand. I'm not, I'm not feeling God's generosity or, or school is, is crazy stressful. I'm not really feeling God's generosity. Listen, all those things are real. All those things are important, but none of those things have accounts that last forever. The money belts of our hardest circumstances in life do not last forever. The only account, the only thing that matters is our account with God does that mean we just blow off everything in life. You know, we just sell our house and sell our cars and we, you know, move to Jerusalem and we wear a to and you know, sit out by the Jordan River and you know, just, just do nothing. No, that's not what it means at all. It, it just means that when it comes to the, the difficult things in life, we try to remind our hearts in that moment and together, we try to remind each other that when we've been there 10,000 years, see, we, we can't fathom that now because right now is so hard right now is so stressful right now is so anxious. But when we've been there, 10,000 years bright, shining as the sun, what we will feel the most is the deep intensity of the generosity of God. We will be living in full and free and safe and secure and joyful in the generosity of God, in and through Jesus Christ. And that's why today we can say I once was lost. But now I'm, I'm found I once was blind, but, but now I see amazing grace has found me and that matters five minutes from now and that matters five hours from now. And that matters five days from now and five weeks from now and five months from now and five years from now. In fact, it matters 10,000 years from now. Where do you wanna be 10,000 years from now? If we've experienced the generosity of God, there's something that happens to us. And what is this thing that happens to us? Well, we become something and what do we become? We become generous, generosity begins to happen in our life. Saved. People are generous people, saved. People are generous people. Why? Because their treasure is Jesus because their greatest treasure is secure and safe. So all the other stuff that will pass away doesn't become a treasure to them. Their, their treasure is Jesus. Their heart is with Jesus. So that sounds spiritual. But, but what does it look like? I'll be honest, over the last two or three weeks, as I've prepared for this message, I've been really frustrated as I've tried to do a lot of research because all of the research that I found a lot of the commentaries that I look through in a lot of different passages and a lot of articles. Every time the word with generosity comes up with Christianity, it's always about money, it's always about money. And I, I remember thinking, well, man, this is so much more than money. I mean, yeah, the, the money is a huge part of it according to Jesus, it's a gigantic part of it. But, but even according to Jesus, there's so much more to generosity. So, so what does generosity look like in real life? I'm just going to give you four quick things. Kristen weather is a wife and mom. She lives in Illinois and she gave four just kind of creative ways. Uh categories are really for us to be generous um with, with just a little bit of description. Her first one was this invest your time find a way to invest your time. And she said a number of things, she said, listen to a friend that's hurting, just, just listen to him and, and then direct them toward God's word. She said, find a, find a small group at your church or Wednesday morning or, or Sunday morning or some other time. Find a, find a small group and, and participate, you know, go be, be a part of that group, engage and pray and encourage. She said, invest in someone who needs encouragement. She even said at times, if it's your kids or your grandkids don't do anything else. Just, just focus on them, you know, just focus on them. I will say that the joy of, of uh over the last few years, I've, I've had to stay at the hospital a lot with my dad and one of my favorite parts of the hospital with my dad is just the only time he didn't wanna watch TV. I love it. You know, in fact, I said, hey, you want to turn the TV on, you wanna watch some. Nope, not just not interested, you know, he, he's just, he's just unengaged with that and, and, and seems to enjoy the conversation more so, so maybe cut the TV off this week, you know, and let me tell you something, if your TV plays all the time in your house and there's someone on your house has someone else that lives with you it's going to feel weird, right? Because that, that's another member of your family. OK? But, but run with it, you know, learn, learn how to cut the TV off and, and talk and if you live alone then then talk to God, you know, let that be a prayer time or call someone and encourage them, but find ways to invest your time. It's extremely generous to invest your time. Secondly, she says, leverage your work. She said be diligent at your job because that's a way to be generous to your boss, generous to the people, you work for, generous to the people you work with. You use your work as an act of generosity. And she even said this, she goes, if you're training somebody do a good job, you know, one of the greatest things any of us can do is to create a successor, you know, to, to have someone who knows how to do what, what we do. That's, that's a very generous thing to do for the people around you and just real quick, I'll make a pitch. If you have kids, be generous and kind make plans, don't, don't make them have to come up with everything, you know, be kind, just just make plans. Look, you got time right? You know, cut Fox News off and, and help plan something, you know, that will be a benefit, you know, for your kids third. She says extend your service, um set up a a meal for a new mom and dad or, you know, have a, have a, you know, doordash deliver something to the house, you know, just, just find a way to go outside what you normally do to serve. Someone else extend the way you serve. She even said help someone who's overwhelmed in life by running errands. We, we've had several people in our church here recently that just had some, some health and practical difficulties. And I've just been so thankful for just people randomly in our church. It was not an announcement. Everything doesn't have to be an announcement. If you see a need, just go meet it and these people heard needs and they just met it and some of those things have been running errands for people. It's a, it's a huge thing, extend your ways of servicing. And then the fourth thing Christian says is share your possessions. Um give somebody a ride if, if they need a ride, let let somebody come over for a meal at your house. You know what, whatever you can do, share, share what you have in a very practical way. Those, those are just small pictures of being generous. Listen, save people are generous people. They are safe, people are generous people. So maybe when you saw the sermon title today, Generous Giving. Oh gosh, here comes asking for money. Look, I've been here eight years. You've never heard a single sermon for me on money. I don't, I don't preach on money and maybe I should, maybe we should have some guilt trip sermons on, on money. Maybe I will. I don't know. But you know what? Here's the thing I love God. I'm just assuming you love God and I just trust God to take care of things. And I've been at this 30 years and God seems to always take care of the money. So you're probably not going to hear a lot of brow beating from me on money ever. And maybe that's bad, but here's the deal. I love you. I love God and I trust you and I trust God so be generous as God leads you. So there's, there's no guilt trip today. We don't have sign up sheets on the way out that you got to sign up to help in the nursery next Sunday. All right. Um But find some way to serve, be generous with your time. Be generous with your money. Look, we, we have these offering boxes at the at the doors on your way out. Uh You see the QR code and the in front of you, you can go online. Um There's envelopes, I mean there, there's multiple ways if you wanna give, that's great but but no guilt trips on giving. No, no guilt trips on volunteering. Just kind of a plea to be generous. Why? Because it's what Jesus called us to do. We want to be together for generous giving because Jesus called us to do that. He, he longs for us to spend our time and our energy and our money together, treasuring him together. We, we have two types of nurses in the hospital room. We have the blue nurses and we have the, the uh Garnett nurses and the, the blue nurses are like the, the medical nurses and the Garnet nurses are the everything else nurses. And so the Garnet nurses are the, you know, the bathe you and, and, and clean you up and those kind of nurses. And so we've had just a, a real sweet one. Um, named Mary Mary's just been great. She's been our, our night time person and, and she's just taking great care of my dad. And so, um, two or three nights ago, she came in and I was in the hallway and when she came in for a shift, I just saw she had a totally different haircut. I mean, man, her hair was just done up. I mean, she, she had had her hair done and so I looked up, I was like, Mary, I said, your hair looks great, you know, and she's like, thanks. I appreciate it. I was like, that's, that's fantastic. She goes thanks. And so, you know, it's 30 minutes, 45 minutes later, something like that. We're, we're in the room and dad and I are standing there talking and, and Mary comes in, I said, dad, I said, Mary got her hair done. And my dad said, oh, I know I already told her earlier and it was just kind of that funny moment where I was so thankful my dad has taught me how to be generous. He has. He's just taught me how to be generous. Uh My dad's great with money. He he not going to waste money, but he's generous. Always been extremely generous with the church, always generous with, with all of us and our family, always generous and, and kind. My dad, I've never known my dad to not be generous in the hospital. He's always kind, uh always remembers all of our nurses names. He's, he's just generous and it, and it makes a huge difference, you know, I mean, I know it sounds arrogant but everybody likes me and my dad, you know, I mean, we're, we're the kind nice people on the hallway, all, all the nurses like us, you know, I mean, it's, it's good, you know, we enjoy it, you know, and, and, and, and it's a thing. So I say that, you know, somewhat jokingly to say this, the reason we want to be together for generous giving is it's not just with nurses in the hospital, it's not just with each other in the life of the church, but even outside of this church, our generosity has the ability to change the accounts of people for eternity, your generosity, my generosity, it's not a small thing. It's a gigantic thing that God has graciously and lovingly called us to not do but to be, let's be generous for the glory of God. One more thought again, Peterson's rephrase of the words of Jesus. The place where your treasure is, is the place you most want to be and end up being. So I ask us again, where do you want to be?