Call to worship:
15 As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children's children,
18 to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.Psalm 103:15-19
Gathering Video
Questions for reflection:
1. Do I think that God has a price? Am I transactional with Him?
2. Am I attempting to speed God up?
3. If God were to ask me for __________ could I and would I give it to Him?
4. Am I generous with my wealth and what percentage of it goes to Kingdom priorities
Corporate Prayer:
Our Father in Heaven,
We thank you for this season that reminds us of who You are and what You've done. We ask that by the power of Your Spirt, we'd be enabled to behold Your Son and rest well. Shape us and use us for Your glory and the good of those around us.
In the name of Jesus we pray,
Amen
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Notes//Quotes//Slides:
Matthew 19:16-30 - Faith
“It is wrong if eternal life is an additional “acquisition,” if one wants the spiritual as a complement to all the other good things one has—physical, financial, social, and the like. “I am a successful businessman, a good father, and respected in my community; now I want to be a success with God as well.” Service clubs sometimes seek such well-roundedness in their members, but the idea of eternal life as the acquisition of an upwardly mobile person is offensive to Jesus. Eternal life is not spiritual real estate for a person on the make.”
— Dale Bruner
“It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest. Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ, but there is a dreadful attrition rate. Many claim to have been born again, but the evidence for mature Christian discipleship is slim. In our kind of culture, anything, even news about God, can be sold if it is packaged freshly; but when it loses its novelty, it goes on the garbage heap. There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is a little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness…Everyone is in a hurry. The persons whom I lead in worship, among whom I counsel, visit, pray, preach, and teach, want short cuts. They want me to help them fill out the form that will get them instant credit (in eternity). They are impatient for results. They have adopted the lifestyle of a tourist and only want the high points. But a pastor is not a tour guide. I have no interest in telling apocryphal religious stories at and around dubiously identified sacred sites. The Christian life cannot mature under such conditions and in such ways.
—Eugene Peterson
“Americans profoundly underestimate how rich they are compared to the rest of the world. The average U.S. resident estimated that the global median individual income is about $20,000 a year. In fact, the real answer is about a tenth of that figure: roughly $2,100 per year….What explains these misperceptions? Human beings draw heavily on their own local, lived experience to make judgments about the wider world. As individuals’ own incomes rise, and therefore the incomes of those around them, so too do their overestimates of the global median income.”
— Gautam Nair, PhD political science at Yale University
Questions:
1. Do I think that God has a price? Am I transactional with Him?
2. Am I attempting to speed God up?
3. If God were to ask me for __________ could I and would I give it to Him?
4. Am I generous with my wealth and what percentage of it goes to Kingdom priorities