Discover Generosity in the Bible to Elevate Your Life

 ​ TRANSCRIPT

Today I'm going to talk a little bit about the radical side of giving, about generosity. And the thing that I've learned about generosity is that generosity really rocks. Not this kind of rocks, not that kind of rocks. It rocks you because when you actually experience it, it does something within you. It starts to shake you internally.

It starts to wake you up and can cause you to kind of like assess everything that's going on when you experience this radical generosity. You know, in 2015, there was an event that took place in a church. In Charleston, you know, they've got a photo of that church, and it was amazing. What happened was, a young white fella, Dylan Roof ended up attending a Bible study here with a group of people, learnt to befriend them, went to the Bible study, and for one specific reason, and that was he later went in with a whole bunch of guns, and he, he murdered nine of them in there.

And Dylan wanted to start a race war. It was devastating for this community, but what was breathtaking out of this was some of the statements where, when it got to the court, how these people responded to this young man was quite incredible. There was one lady the daughter of Ethel Lance that was murdered by Ruth.

She said this, she said, You took something very precious away from me. I'll never get to talk to her again. I'll never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you and I have mercy on your soul. It rattled America. How could these people experience this level of devastation and hatred and yet still love?

That's generosity. That's how it rocks us. When we experienced it, it gets something to us. Like even right now, just hearing that story, generosity is rocking. Because some of you are thinking there are some people that I have not forgiven yet. That I have refused to forgive. They've betrayed me, they've hurt me.

And do you know what's going on in your mind right now just hearing that story? What is my problem? Why can't I not forgive like they could forgive? What is wrong with me? Here's the deal. You can't give what you don't have and until you experience the love of Christ and the forgiveness of your own offenses before God and your own sins and see the magnitude of this and receive the gift of that grace, you can't offer it to anybody else.

So when you sit in that position, the reason it rocks you is because you realize I might have a problem. Maybe the greatest gift that you'll give this Christmas would be the radical gift of generosity of just forgiving someone, letting someone go. Stop. Being God and judge and jury, let it happen. Which really leads to the foundational verse of these three weeks we're going to talk about.

Which is this one that Jesus said, He said, A new command I give you. The Jews needed a new command like they needed a hole in the head. They had ten big ones and 613 coming out. They didn't need one. But He says, I give you a command, it's not a suggestion. You have to love one another. As I have loved you, you must love one another.

Well, how did Jesus love us? I just talked about it then. His love was completely sacrificial, giving generosity of His life, giving up all the treasures of heaven that He had to come down here, be clothed in flesh, take on our nature to understand what we grapple with, eventually accumulates on the cross, and He's dying for the sins of the world.

Yours are my sins. Taking the punishment that was due us. laid down his life so that he could then break forth out of that and then grant eternal life to whoever wants to come. And then he goes on and says this,

The way that we love. It rocks people. It rocks people. I told you last week about Bill. We took him in for Christmas. Cranky old man. Really cranky. Measury guts. You know, I couldn't do anything. And then Ann says, take him in. I don't want to take him in. This is going to wreck Christmas. You know, we get in there.

After a few hours. We can't get rid of Bill. He just won't go away and he's pouring out his heart. Everything changed for him. Why? Just because of a radical generosity. Just say, you know what? Just loving someone. Oh dear. Losing my hands again. There we go. Alright. A few challenges. But that was the radical generosity.

He experienced love. And it changed him, it transformed him. Now when we give of ourselves generously, and that can include our time, our talents, our treasure, when we do that, it rocks people's world because they don't know what to do. Because, in case you haven't figured it out, there's pretty much nowhere else in the world where people are taking care of others.

Where they're being really generous in their love, directly, one on one. Everybody's doing their own thing in their own time. Like, out in the junction, every week, we have hundreds. Hundreds of families go through here and we watch the mums and sometimes it's like you see a young mum and she's got this little bub and she is, she's spent, she's like, like her world's coming to an end and like we get to sit with her and talk with her, encourage her and say, I wonder what this little one, this little gift from God might be.

No one gets offended by that and that's like, you know what, just relax, just relax, it's just a season, it'll pass. And then you get people come in that's in their more twilight years, seniors, and they're lonely, and they want someone to talk to. And then you get people coming in from all walks of business life, can't understand why the governments treat people so badly in other parts of the world.

And they, the brokenness, and they want answers. So you've got to be generous with your time, and be with people, just ask them how they're going. Enter into the conversation. I'm not going to touch too much on talents because that's what Anita's going to share next week. But the same thing with the treasure, with your wealth.

What you do with that represents God. And it can actually rock people's world. When I was a younger guy, and not long into kind of church ministry work, I had a situation where, because I was a bricklayer by trade, I'd hurt my lower back and I couldn't work. And it was during that time when everybody was freaking about, if you had a bad back you couldn't get a job anywhere, because everyone was frightened of getting sued, and all sorts of things.

So I had to promise bosses and write down on a bit of paper to say, I take full responsibility, if I can't work you don't pay me, all that kind of stuff. But no one would give me a go. But then there was one couple in the church. And their name was Bevan and Marilyn Shorts. And I had more hair there. A little bit more.

And then with this couple, they had their own business. It was a meat works. And He said, I'm not prepared to put you in that with a bad bag, but he said, you can come around and you can do our lawns. So I started just going around doing the lawns and doing the edging of the lawns. He had a massive property, so it took me a long time to do that.

And then that led into delivery driving. It's like, okay, so I went off and did, faithfully did that. There was, oh, could you help outside? And then could you come and help with the sales side of the meatworks and that? So I just kind of like worked in there. I just, but... something just happened because they looked at Anne and I and they realized, man, these guys, they're doing it tough.

And then what they did was they said we're going to give you the deposit for a home because we can tell you can, you're never going to be able to get there. And we were just, it rocked our world. And, and they said, you can pay us back whenever. And so they gave us the deposit for the very first home that we had.

And then the only one by this one in Yamanto. But something in that, their level of generosity, that just rocked everyone around that people, that they would do something like that. And it rocked our world and it formed something in us that Ann and I don't see anything as their own. We're just stewards of whatever we got and whatever God can filter through us.

That's, that's great. Now I'm sure if I, if I had time, we could go around. You guys would all have a story like that. And here's another thing for your radical generosity. If you've experienced that Why don't you tell them this Christmas, maybe write them a card, just say thank you so much for whatever that was that was so extravagantly generous that I realized it wasn't really you, it was about something God was doing.

So here's the statement, generosity is the expression of God's love overflowing of God's expression of God's overflowing love and grace from him through us to others. That's what it's about. Radical love. Radical generosity equals a radical Christmas. Now I asked the Lord what he wanted to do here because normally we would just take a short portion of scripture and I would kind of like unpack that for you and the Lord just whispered to us and when it comes to this thing of generosity people get really twitchy and it's more caught than it is taught.

So he said what I want you to do is I want you just to just like sail high above a few things and just point out a few encounters and just talk a little bit about those so that I can speak directly to my people what this is all about. And for those of you if it's your first time you go, I knew it I've come to church and they're gonna talk about money.

Yeah we are gonna talk about money because Jesus talked about a lot. Everyone talked about it. Apostles talked about it. It's a very important issue to get a handle on but here's the deal we've already taken the offering and there's no plans for another offering. So whatever I say, there's no offering coming on the back, alright?

So just relax. This is about you listening to God help you understand generosity. So here's a high fly. One day some people come to Jesus, two brothers and they're arguing about the inheritance. They say, Jesus could you please fix this up for us? You know like, and he goes, well what are you asking me for?

I'm not here to be your judge. And then he says this, he says, watch out And guard yourselves from all sorts of greed. Life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions. And then he went on and told him a story, which is the parable called, which is a, which is a story that he probably witnessed at some stage, but it had a spiritual meaning to it.

This is what he said. There was a young man. And he was a rich man and he had abundant stuff. He had a lot of stuff. And he, and he farms and suddenly there's all this massive amount of crops. And this is what he says. What am I gonna do? I got nowhere to put all this stuff. He goes, I know what I'll do. I'll tear down my barns.

I'll build bigger ones, and I'll store up all my grain, and then I'll have plenty of grain, and then I'll be able to take life easy, and just eat, drink, and be merry. I mean, he is so happy, this guy. He's thinking, wow, I am so blessed. This is about expansion, and bigger, and better, and more, and comfort, and this is all about me.

But then comes, the connecting point. Jesus goes on with the story and says this, But God said to him, You fool! You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves, but is not rich towards God.

So the story starts, and then it has this shaking point connected to it. He's saying to them, your life doesn't consist in your abundance of your possessions. That's not what your life is about. But the other thing is, which this story does, which is in woven in the background, which you can't see, is he's letting him know, not everything that is given to you is actually for you.

Some of it is for God to use through you to help others. And when you allow God to use through you to bless and encourage others, you are becoming rich towards God, not just gathering for yourself. Now the thing about that example, which when I fly over and look at it, I go, Why did this guy not even in the, why did not even enter into his head that maybe I've got all this, I've got heaps and heaps of stuff, I'm so blessed, but it never entered his head that maybe some of that would be for someone else.

Wonder why? I thought well maybe it was fear. Maybe he was relying on this was all, all this trust was going to be about, he had to rely on his money and he had to rely on his stuff so it was, maybe it was fear driven? I don't know. He should have been trusting God, not trusting in the stuff. And then I think about, well, how much stuff do we really need?

I mean, if your barns are already overflowing, you're already, it's already gone. I mean, how many big buildings do we need? How much money do we actually need? How many houses and how much land and how much do we really need? And of course, we all know the answer to this. Just a little bit more. I, I know people that have millions of dollars, but because they don't have tens of millions of dollars, they need a little bit more.

This is the deceitfulness of riches and wealth. This is how it moves from understanding that God could use this to actually for kingdom purposes to be a blessing, to know I'm going to gather and create my own empire. You got to watch this. The other thing, it could have been just good old fashioned pride.

You know, I want the biggest silos and the biggest buildings so anybody that comes into the state can tell for sure, that's my farm over there. Maybe it's a pride issue. The only problem with that is, you know, and when you get to that, then you kind of like want to just high fly, just eat, drink and be merry.

That's all you want to do. But the thing is, when death comes calling, it's no respecter of your wealth and your status. Matthew Perry from Friends discovered that a little while back. Doesn't matter how much you've got. When God decides your breath is being revoked, that's it. It's game over. Or maybe he was just ignorant.

I don't know. Maybe, maybe no one had told him that maybe he should be more considerate of his fellow man. I don't know. But the reason that Jesus is addressing this is because the number one competitor for worship, if your heart is money, wealth, status and power. And so we gotta get this right. Another time Jesus talked to a bunch of people just said, don't store up for yourself treasures on earth where, where rust destroys and people can break in and steal.

He goes, put your treasure, for where your treasure is, sorry, your heart will be. That's where he comes down to. For where your treasure is. He said, don't, don't store it up here. Store it up in when God uses it through you for something that's got heavenly value. But he says, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

We think that where our heart is, our treasure will go. It doesn't go that way. It goes the other way. Wherever your treasure is going, your heart drifts. So here's something for us men to consider. If things are not going so well with your spouse, with your wife, or your kids, or friends, or something at work, here's what you should do.

Invest some cash into it. Go spend some money on her. Go take the kids out. Do something and you know what happens? I guarantee it every time. The minute you put the money into it, your heart goes there. If you start giving lots of gifts to the secretary,

where's your heart going? That's how easy it is. That's how subtle it is. That's the way that it works. Your heart goes wherever you invest your treasure. Sometimes people come in, and I know we've got guys online, we love you guys. I know some of you are all over the country and world. You feel like, oh, I'm not really connected with God, and I feel a bit disconnected from my church.

And I say, go invest some of your wealth into what your church is doing. And you suddenly go, man, I love my church all of a sudden. Why? Because when you put your treasure there, your heart goes there. If you want to talk about this, you should go talk to Steve Watson down the back, down there. He did all of it, all the building renovations around here, how that's impact, impacted him.

Putting his treasure, his heart, his heart is so engaged with what God is doing. So, it's worth thinking about. Your heart will go where the treasure is. So remember, I'm bouncing high and then low just to, I'm trusting God he'll speak to you. Ruthie came to me the other day. Now just so you know, I don't know who gives anything round here.

It's not my job as a pastor. My job is to stay focused on God and the spiritual health. We have great financial records. Someone knows, but I don't know who because I'm still human and if you start beaming lots of money and I've been friends with you, I'm going to treat you differently. So I don't know.

But... They always tell me things when things are going on. She says, the other day, this was amazing. She said, there was this businessman guy and he came in. He goes, God's just told me I have to start giving more. And I'm going, Oh, wow. That's awesome. That's great. How did that happen? Well, it was a very deep spiritual moment.

Well, he was out jogging. He was just jogging. Out doing his exercise, going about life, and the Holy Spirit just whispered to him, I need you to be more generous. I need you to give more, because it's not about you. It's about others. And I thought, that is so cool, because there's actually a story in the Bible about that very thing.

High, now we go low. Little fellas up a tree trying to see Jesus and his name was Zacchaeus. He was a tax collector. Nobody liked him. Nobody likes him today. I don't know what it is. It's just the way it is. And he's this tax collector and everybody dislikes him and Jesus goes, oh. Zacchaeus, I'm coming over your place for lunch.

Bring all your disenfranchised friends over here and we'll have a lunch. And they can have lunch together and they're having this wonderful lunch and I don't know what happens. I'm telling you now, but every pastor in the world would love to know what Jesus said to this guy in this meeting. And there's a very good reason why Jesus didn't put it in there.

Because he knows every other pastor in this world. So what? I don't know what happened, but suddenly Zacchaeus jumps up and goes, Hey! I'm gonna give half of everything I own to the poor, and the other guys are going Settle down. Settle down pedal. You're making us look bad. We do the 10%. Remember nothing more than that?

No. And he, and they're trying to quieten him and he's going, no, no, I'm gonna give half. Wow. This is, this is, this is, this is terrible. They're all thinking to themselves, they're making us look bad. And then it gets worse. Then he goes on a little bit further and says, and if I've ripped anybody off. I'll pay them back four times.

The other guys are going, Ripped anybody off? You've ripped everybody off, buddy. This is going to go really bad for you. Really bad. But then Jesus steps up and goes, Wow, salvation has come to this house. Not the building. To Zacchaeus house. Something shifted in his heart. It was incredible. It rocked everything.

Wow. That's amazing. But that's what happens. Someone jogging along can have that very same moment where suddenly it's like, wow, this is not all about me anymore. You've actually given me the ability to do stuff to help with others and that invests in heaven. Oh man, I got to keep going. Let me just bring the, now let's let's take another story, come back down.

Now let's look at that because that was kind of very extravagant. Some of you are going like, oh man, half of everything I own, I can't give all that away. Let's take, let's flip it around. Jesus is sitting watching the offering one day. He's just watching the offering, just watching it. Oh and all these people are bringing in large amounts of money and it's great and now whatever and he's looking to go on whatever and then in comes this widow and she puts in two copper coins.

The equivalent of a few cents and then Jesus runs over to the disciples and says, guys, come and check this out. And then he says, they, this is, I says, I tell you this poor widow is given more than all the other dudes. And they're going, are you nuts Jesus? Can you not count? Look at that big pile of money over there.

She's just put it, no, no, no. And then he says this, they all gave out of their wealth. But she, out of her poverty, put in everything that she had to live on. Why? See, it's not the amount you give, it's the heart behind it. Her heart was so invested in whatever God was doing, she wanted to be a part of it. All she had was two copper coins, a few cents.

The other guys are chucking in bunches of stuff. But their hearts weren't involved with it. They weren't emotionally connected with it. It's amazing. So there you're going to see from Zacchaeus, he's, he's given large amounts now, but from the right heart to he's going, man, it's, it's not really about that.

It's not what you give, it's the heart behind it. Money and wealth will either be your servant or it'll be your master. If it becomes your master and it becomes an idol in your life, God loves you way too much to not destroy that idol. Because he's far more concerned with your eternal security than he is with your short term happiness.

That couple that I showed you before, Bevan and Marilyn, they are very wealthy people but they are so incredibly generous and everything they have is available to God. And yet I've known other people that there's a reason why they have a lot of money. They are tight. You know, they wouldn't share anything with anyone.

They wouldn't spit on you if you were on fire. That's how tight they are. Well, it's a hard issue. It's a hard issue and I need to bring this thing to a close. Let's go up, come back down one last time. This is now for a community. So we're talking about a community like our church, like any other church thing.

It's out of the book of Acts. Luke, correct? The book of Acts says this, all the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own but they shared everything they had. Well that would change a whole lot. Imagine if we didn't all have to have cars and we didn't all have to have holiday homes and we didn't all have to have boats and jets.

What if we all shared? They could divert all that money into other areas. Not just saying. This is, but this is how it was for them. So this was a pretty radical community. They just all shared. They bought one mower between ten of them and when it broke down they just bought another one. Wasn't very good for Bunnings but it was good for them.

So anyway, let's go on. With great power the Apostles continued to witness in the resurrection of Christ. Great grace was working. Great power was taking place. Some persons, now here we go. Then from time to time, from time to time. Have we got that verse up there? Maybe not. Let me know if it changes. From time to time that, oh that was clever, those who own land and houses sold them.

Oops. Now if you've had lots of houses and land, just take note of this, it's only from time to time. It's not all the time. It's just time to time. Not all the time, just time to time. And they own land, houses, it's plural. So they weren't selling the one that they were in and giving everything to the poor because that would make them poor and now they're part of the problem.

So these are ones that have got greater capacity and do certain people have great capacity to do this. And they take it and they put it at the disciples feet. This is very important. Never ever put money directly into another person's hand. If you want the blessing of God, pass it through a third party, whether that's the church or whether that's Love the City.

Because it says what you give in secret, you get rewarded on. If you give it to someone directly, whatever Sam says to me, that's my reward then. It's not very much, but that's my reward. But if I give in secret, now I get a reward from my Heavenly Father. He also gets a reward because he doesn't know who to thank other than God.

Because when it passes through, we don't tell them where it's come from. Your Heavenly Father has given this to you. So it's really important that you, you just protect yourself in that, in that space as well. So anyway, what happens is one guy, he's Barnabas. He's called the site of encouragement. He sells some, sells some land or whatever it is.

And he puts the money at the Apostle's feet. That's what it says. He brought it and he put it there, right? Now this is... So this is marvellous. This is everybody. Everyone's on mission. We're all in the same place. We're all going the same direction. People saw themselves as steward. They all shared everything.

God's grace was working powerfully. It's wonderful. People that had greater gifts of capacity were giving. But everyone was contributing. The whole thing was in. And then something sinister happens in the area of money. And it's a good warning for us to just catch up on. Ananias and Sapphira were a couple that saw Barnabas bring the funds and put it at the Apostle, Apostle's feet.

So let me read on. Ananias and Sapphira decided they would sell a piece of property. Now with his wife's full knowledge they kept back part of the money for themselves, for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the Apostle's feet. This is what goes on. Peter says to Ananias, how is it? That Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some money that you receive from the sale of your land.

Now, listen to this. Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? Yep. After it was sold, wasn't the money yours to dispose of? Yep. What made you think of doing such a thing as this? You've not lied to just human beings, but to God. And then it gets real interesting. This is a very, this would make for a very interesting family gathering if this happened next.

When Ananias heard this, he fell down dead. And great fear seized everyone that was going on. Some young men came, I just wanted to come to church. No, you need to take him out and bury him. So they went out and buried him. Then three hours later, his wife comes in. She got no idea what's going on. And so he says to her, he says, Oh, so tell me, is that, is that the price that you got for it?

Oh yes, that's the price. We agreed on that together. Yes, yes, that's the price. How could you conspire to test the Holy Spirit? Listen, the feet of those that just buried your husband are coming at the door. And they will bury you. And then it says, at that moment she fell down dead. And I don't know why, but it finishes up with this, and great fear seized the whole church.

I don't know why.

Wow! There's some things to learn in here. Here's the ridiculous thing here. Ananias and Sapphira could have sold the property, walked up to the apostles and go, I got a hundred thousand for this. You can have 50 and then they'd have got celebrated Walked off with their 50 would still be living but something happened was going wrong in their heart and it twisted and it shifted and Something became an idol within them and I think Here was the deal.

This is why God decided to make such a big thing of this. I Think Ananias wanted to be seen to be all in like Barnabas Well, actually, secretly, not be all in. I think there was some show ponies. They actually wanted to be seen. They saw what God did through Barnabas. Saw what was going on. They wanted people to think they were exactly the same, but secretly they were not.

And so they conspired to lie. I am so glad that God doesn't do this anymore because I don't have anywhere to bury you outside. It's just car parks. In those days it was cool, just wrap them up, find a hole, put them in it, there you go, that's it. It's a lot different today, it's not so easy. There's paperwork and there's rules and there's regulations.

But the principle is it's a hard, yeah, it's a hard issue. It is a hard issue. That's what it's about. God is an abundant God. He's the creator of the heavens and the earth. He doesn't even need your money. He can do whatever He wants. But he chooses to work through human beings. That's the mode that he's chosen to do it.

But he wants the giving to come out of the right heart. It's got to come out of the right heart. The right heart, right motive. When I think about the people that started with us at our church at the beginning and what we went through, I'm gonna read one final portion of Scripture. And I get a bit emotional about it because some of it resonates with this.

because it was difficult. It was difficult times for a number of years. But about this church here, I reflects to some degree on how I feel about you people. He says, now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace of God that was given to the Macedonian churches. Here it is in the midst of this severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty, welled up in rich generosity.

For I testify that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability entirely on their own. Wow. And I remember those early days that we just were struggling in so many areas and people gave. And they wanted to be a part of it. They just said, look, what are we going to do? We want to be a part of this.

And they would give and there was just so much need. And that, and they would give even beyond. But not because I forced them, and not because I had a big campaign. We don't even do campaigns. We just let people know this is what God's doing, and we rely on the Holy Spirit working in your hearts. And it's the same now.

I know God's given us the 30 year vision. I'm, when I was 45, what are you giving me a 30 year vision for? I'm 45, I'm not gonna be around. He says, no, no. 10 years to rebuild and reshape. Next 10 years, now we're going to start about multiplication and momentum and movement. That's going to require more giving again.

But I know once, people are sitting here right now that are going, what's the next move? When are we going? When is the shifting? Well just relax. There are some things coming. It's in the pipeline as we move down this track, but it's the heart. It's always the heart It's not the amount. It's always the heart.

You know, I've had some people say I'm not giving any money to churches So that's good because I don't want it If it doesn't come through a heart that's in love with God, I don't want it because there's no blessing on it I'd rather have a few dollars from people that love the church love the people and want to make a difference So could you imagine what would happen?

If a house in our city, that happened. If people that profess to follow Christ became radically generous in all areas, time, talents and treasure, and they just listen to the Holy Spirit. And they realise, you know what? We actually don't need ten homes, let's get rid of one. We don't need all this money. We could downsize, we could do...

Or I've got a space in my house no one ever uses anymore, it's just sitting there, maybe we could make it available. to someone that maybe that's doing it tough. I mean, when that starts to happen, everything begins to change. And radical love, plus radical generosity, equals a radical Christmas. And I am so grateful to God for having the opportunity to lead here, such an amazing group of people.

And I know so many of you are online today. You just, you use the, you use the Hillcrest fight. I get it, I get it, I know. But you're resting up and I get that. But I mean, there's so many generous people. That love our church, love the people and love the community and just are willing to give, sacrificially give and That's really the heart of the matter.

Let's pray together Father I just thank you for this wonderful group of people that we get to to be with and just love on and and Love the community through and it's just amazing Lord, but would out of all I just I kind of shotgunned everything today, Lord, I feel that's what you want me to do so that Holy Spirit, you could speak to people about whatever it is you need to speak to them to help them understand that this wealth thing, we got to get this in the right place.

It's a servant. He must not become the master that's the tyrant. And so Lord, I pray that you would help us to remember that, man, we got, we're called to love one another and to love the people around us. and avoid the trap of thinking it's always got to be getting bigger and better and things like that.

And remember that's not just this. Some of the stuff's for us and some of the stuff is for you to deliver through us to invest into heaven. And so Lord, I just thank you and I know that you continue to lead us and I'm praying that this year through Radical Christmas. In all of our communities and workplaces and everywhere we go that they would experience the love and the light of Christ Just simple by having their world rocked by someone that's displaying a radical Generosity that causes them to rethink.

Well, maybe God does see me Maybe God still cares about me and like we said at the start Lord We we are your body and that is There is no way this is going to happen unless it happens through us because we're your hands and your feet and your eyes. So, Lord, I just thank you for the way that you lead us and guide us.

In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.