Hey, welcome to One and All.

Today we are getting into week three of our Marked for Life series, and we have Dawn Jackson bringing an amazing message.

But before we get into that, go ahead and grab some bread, grab some juice, because we'll be enjoying communion together after we hear what Dawn has for us today.

While you're getting ready, also make sure, grab the One and All app, make sure that's downloaded.

get in there and get the sermon notes and get your Bible to go along with that.

So you can really take notes and just dive into what Pastor Don's going to be preaching.

And yeah, let's get into it.

Thank you.

Well, church, it is so good to be back here with you, so honored to bring the Word.

And in fact, as you're watching this, if you haven't already, go grab your Bible, pull it out.

We're going to be in Matthew 25 here in just a few minutes, but I just want to open this up in a word of prayer, and then we're going to jump into things here today.

Father, we thank you for your Word that is alive, that's active in our lives, Lord.

And we just ask today, God, that you would...

Our hearts would be prepared, Lord, for the seed of your word to go deep into us, Father.

Give us ears to hear.

And then as we hear, Lord God, the desire to truly lean in and obey what you call us to do.

And we thank you for that, Lord, in Jesus'name.

Amen.

You know, back in the day, a long time ago, when I was in college, I was looking for a college job.

Now, I was going to school and I was playing sports, so I didn't have a lot of extra time and I needed something flexible.

And this is before Internet days.

And so I went into our college, had this like a job placement where you could go in and there would be different postings of different opportunities.

And I went in there and I saw, I was living in Glendora, and I saw that there was this opportunity to be a housekeeper at this place in Glendora.

And I thought, well, that will be flexible.

It'll work around my schedule.

And so I get the phone number and I make the call and a gentleman answers and he gives me the address.

And so I drive to the address and when I pull up.

I pull up to what I think they've got a picture of and they're going to show you.

I pull up to this.

This is Rubel Farms, a medieval castle in the middle of Glendora.

Now, it's not actually a medieval castle, but it looks like a medieval castle.

I mean, it's all built out of these rocks and on top of the towers are cannons that are pointing out to the local neighborhood.

Should you try to climb over the wall, there was broken glass at the top so you couldn't get in.

And I remember looking at this and going, oh my gosh, like what the heck?

So I went ahead, I got out of my car, and you had to, it's completely walled, and so you have to actually walk up to this gate where, remember this was before cell phones or anything like that, there was this telephone that was in this gated area.

And so I got on this telephone and I just put in, it said dial this number, and I did.

And a voice answered and then the gate opened up.

And that's when I met Michael Rubell, the man who built Rubell Farms.

Rubell Farms is built on some old orange groves where there was an old packing house.

And Michael is a bit of an eccentric, which is pretty obvious by the look of what he built.

And he would go and get river rock.

In fact, he was building it during the 1980s. And this is the mid-80s when I was just starting college.

And sometimes he would find pieces of junk around and he would put them into the walls of the castle as well.

When you walk through, you'll see part of a motorcycle that one of his friends crashed.

You'll see his sister, I guess, had a plane where the propeller hit a tree and got bent.

So he put the propeller in the wall.

He's got one spot where he put the gloves, filled some gloves with some concrete and a hat and made it look like somebody was cemented into the wall.

He's an interesting personality.

And my job was to clean at Rubel Farms.

And Michael, he was funny because he would say, you know, sometimes he would send me up to feed the goldfish that lived in the tank of water that was on top of one of the towers because that was the water for the castle.

And we had to make sure the goldfish were fed.

The goldfish were in there to eat the mosquitoes.

It was a really strange situation.

But there was this old rickety ladder I'd have to climb.

And Michael's thing was always, hey, Don.

Safety third, safety third.

So anyway, I worked for Michael and I would clean.

And there was this old packing house where they used to take care of the citrus.

Back in the day and he had converted it into this space that was filled with all this antique furniture and the antique furniture Most of it was wooden and it was there was a lot of it And so sometimes I would show up to work and Michael would look at me and he would hand me a can of pledge and A dust cloth and he'd say today dawn I want you to go and you're gonna dust the packing house now I got to be honest with the inside of me.

I just like ah Because the packing house like I said just had so much furniture And the Santa Ana winds will have just blown, right?

So everything is dusty.

So I'd go into the packing house and go and start my job.

Now, do you remember, you remember as a kid watching cartoons where there would be like a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other?

So I'd be in there and I'd be cleaning.

And all of a sudden, I'd almost feel like the little devil, if you will, on one side say, hey, Don.

You know what, you don't need to move the different items that are there on the shelf.

You don't need to worry about vacuuming behind that chair because you very well know that tomorrow the Santa Ana winds are going to blow again and it's all going to get dusty.

Nobody will ever know if you actually fully did your job.

But then on the other side, the side of the angel or the Holy Spirit would be this voice that would whisper into my head, but I'll know.

I just remember, I mean, I'm all of 18 years of age and I would get so frustrated with that voice.

And I know it wasn't like God was standing over me with a big stick just saying, hey, you better do it or else.

But I did, I would love to say that I obeyed and I did, and I cleaned, and I did.

I cleaned behind all the different things.

I moved things, but I wish I could say I did it because I had a great attitude about it.

But I didn't.

I was grumbly towards the Holy Spirit the entire time.

But what I've since come to find out is that in that moment, it wasn't that God was trying to catch me doing something wrong.

He actually was watching me saying, Don, if you could just be faithful in the little seemingly insignificant areas of your life.

I want to trust you with more, but I got to first see if you'll be faithful here.

I came to realize that as I was growing up or even as I became more and more of an adult because what I was learning in this situation was stewardship.

stewardship.

Stewardship is when we're the caretaker, we're not the owner, and it's so important as followers of Jesus.

You know, we're in this series called Marked for Life, and Pastor Jeff launched the series a couple of weeks ago, spoke out of Matthew chapter 24.

It was an incredible message.

If you missed it, I really, really encourage you, go back, grab that message, sit down with that.

It's a really tough passage of scripture, and it's something we all need to hear, and it was an incredible teaching.

And then last week, my gosh, last week, Pastor Charles Delaney.

He just brought an amazing word.

And how incredible to have this gentleman stand before us, somebody who has lived 72 years as a follower of Jesus, 60 years in the ministry, and he's finishing his life well.

You know, in our society, so many times we talk all about and we give so much emphasis to youth and young people.

And don't get me wrong, I love connecting with young people.

I think that's fantastic.

But my friends, the treasure, the treasures, I love them.

are in the older folk who've been serving Jesus for a long time.

And so to listen to Pastor Charles Delaney last week was just incredible because he showed us what it's like to be marked for life, to really live that life.

Well, Matthew 24 that Pastor Jeff was in, it closes at the very end with this talk about Jesus is speaking and he's saying, hey, no one knows the day or the hour when the Son of Man, which is Jesus, is going to come back.

The reality is he's coming back, but nobody knows when.

So then in Matthew 25, we get three parables.

We're not going to look at all three of them today, but basically they're responding to Jesus'teaching as to these end times.

In the first parable, we're not deep diving on at all.

It's the parable of the ten bridesmaids or the ten virgins, depending on what your version of the Bible says there.

And it's really a parable that's talking about readiness.

But then the second parable, the parable that we are deep diving on here today, really is a response to that.

And it begs the question, what does readiness look like?

If tonight you go out and maybe you're married, and so maybe you get ready at home for dinner, and you're going to go out to dinner with your wife or your husband or maybe a boyfriend, girlfriend, friends, and you get ready first, and so you're ready and you're waiting.

What do you do in that space?

Well, in that space, you're probably scrolling through social media.

You might be putting Netflix on and scrolling through channels and all of that.

Like, is that what it actually looks like to be ready when it comes to being readiness for Christ?

I mean, after all, when you've raised your hand, accepted Jesus, you've come forward, you've gotten baptized.

What is this state of readiness now actually supposed to look like?

Are we basically just to chill until we die?

Don't sin too bad?

What are we to be doing?

Well, that's what Matthew chapter 25, verses four.

...to verse 20 or verse 30 actually shows us.

And this is the parable, it's often known as the parable of the talents.

Now when you think of talent in our English language, we often think of somebody who's got a, I don't know, maybe they're a great juggler.

They're talented.

Or maybe it's a talented ball player.

Or a talented vocalist.

But that's not what talent means here.

Talent here is actually, represents basically a sum of money, and we're going to unpack that in more detail after we read through it.

But it's not, I just want to make sure you know, and I'm going to read actually from the NIV, that's going to call it a bag of gold.

But it's the same parable if you've ever heard of the talents.

And I want to encourage you, if you've heard this parable before, which probably most of you had, try to hear it again from the first time.

Try to lean back and just sort of be really sensitive to what the Holy Spirit wants to say to you out of this passage.

So here's what it says.

It says, again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them.

To one, he gave five bags of gold, to another, two bags, and to another, one bag, each according to his ability.

Then he went on his journey.

The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more.

So also the one who had two bags of gold gained two more.

But the man who received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master's money.

After a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them.

The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five.

Master, he said, you entrusted me with five bags of gold.

See, I have gained five more.

His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant.

You have been faithful with a few things.

I will put you in charge of many things.

Come and share your master's happiness.

The man with two bags of gold also came.

Master, he said, you entrusted me with two bags of gold.

See, I've gained two more.

His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant.

You've been faithful with a few things.

I will put you in charge of many things.

Come and share your master's happiness.

Then the man who had received one bag of gold came.

Master, he said, I knew that you're a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.

So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.

See, here is what belongs to you.

His master replied, you wicked, lazy servant.

So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed.

Well, then you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers so that when I returned, I would still have received it back with interest.

So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has it.

has 10 bags.

For whoever has will be given more and they will have an abundance.

Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.

And throw this worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Powerful parable here told by Jesus.

So let's unpack it a little bit and I want to just give some more context around what we just read.

We already talked about the fact that if in your Bible it called it a talent, you know, it's actually symbolic.

Like in the NIV, it says a bag of gold.

And what it actually symbolizes is this.

It represents for us the responsibility he gives us in light of our giftings, our skills, our abilities, our resources, our influence, and our time.

You see, we are God's created creatures living in God's created world.

So everything that we have, everything that's here belongs to him.

Everything.

So the authentic Christ follower lives with the attitude that everything he or she owns belongs to Jesus and is to be used as an investment into the kingdom of God.

Everything.

You see, what he's invested into us, it's not some gift that we just choose when and where we're gonna pull it out as if like when we were little and if you brought your toy out to play with your friends and then you got mad and you're like, I'm gonna take my toy and go home.

No, it's an investment in that he has an expectation that we're gonna actually use this.

He's relying on us to use it in building his kingdom.

Now, what's really important to note on this is that the talents or the bags of gold were given according to ability.

Jesus recognized, as he told this parable, that different people have different capacities.

So it's really important for us to know one person is not better or more important than the other person.

We don't compete against each other.

We each have our own lane that we run in.

The person who was given five was not better than the person who was given two.

You are not better than the person who's sitting next to you or less than the person sitting next to you.

It's not a question of how much we have, but how well we use what we have.

And so those first two were given different amounts, yet they received the same commendation.

Because my friends, What this parable is all about, it's about stewardship.

It's faithful stewardship.

What has been entrusted into our hands is precious to our Savior.

So on that question, what do we do while we are ready?

In this state of readiness, what are we to be doing?

What does it actually look like?

It looks like faithful stewardship of all that he has poured into our lives for the purpose of advancing the kingdom of God.

Not our little K kingdoms, but the capital K, kingdom of God.

And Jesus is very clear that when it's all said and done, each one of us are going to stand before the Lord to give an account of how we invested into the building of his kingdom, how we stewarded our time.

our finances, our influence.

But remember, as I'm saying our, they're not really ours, they're his, that he invested into us.

Our abilities, our opportunities.

How did we steward all of that for the greater good of the kingdom of God?

Now for all of us, and myself included, this should be very sobering.

The fact that we're gonna stand before God and personally give an account.

That's pretty sobering.

It goes from just a whoa moment, right, or a wow moment to a whoa moment.

Just like, I mean, that's pretty amazing and pretty like, whoa.

And for some, maybe as you're hearing that, it's actually inspiring some fear inside.

You're just like, oh my gosh, I might get in trouble.

I better get myself to work.

The reality is if that's where we're going to start, that's at least the starting place for obedience, right?

It's sort of like the five-year-old who obeys his or her parent and puts away his Legos.

Not because out of love for the parent, but because he doesn't want to get in trouble.

At least there's obedience.

And sometimes in our walk with Christ, that might be the place where we're starting.

That's where I was when I was working at Rubell Farms.

I wasn't dusting behind everything and moving chairs and vacuuming behind things because, oh, I was just so grateful.

No, I was doing it so that, you know, I didn't want to get caught.

And I also knew the Holy Spirit was watching me.

But it was still obedience.

We got to start where we are.

But there are more mature motives, actually, for obeying.

And we're going to unpack that here in a few minutes.

So as we all are sobered by this, recognizing that there will be a day when each one of us gives an account, a personal account of our life.

Let's take a look, first of all, at the first two servants in that parable.

With both of those servants, they go right to work.

It says that specifically to the first one and it's inferred into the second one.

There's no hesitation.

They jump right in it.

And there's no sign that there's fear in their hearts.

You almost get the feeling when you read the whole story that there's like this excitement.

Every evidence of understanding the importance of stewarding their responsibility.

They got to work.

Now, someone might be listening right now and thinking, but wait a minute, Dawn.

We're not saved by our works.

We're saved by grace.

And I would say, absolutely, we are saved by grace.

There's absolutely no way we could ever do enough to earn our salvation in the favor of God.

There's no way.

We are saved by grace.

Grace.

But the reality is it doesn't mean that we take it so far as to say that we just chill and there's nothing left for us to do.

I love what Dallas Willard says here.

He says, grace is opposed to earning.

It is not opposed to effort.

Let's just let that sit in.

Grace is opposed to earning.

Yeah, we don't earn it, but it's not opposed to effort.

Working hard is commendable and it's expected.

Now, I've done some work with folks that have been addicted pastorally and in the coaching realm that are addicted to performance.

In fact, that's a lot of my story back in the day.

I was very performance-driven, very much caught up in the do, do, do, do, do, do, do, all that stuff.

I was just doing all these different things.

And there is a time to step back and go, wait a minute, who am I being in all of that?

And it is important to take a look at how we're being and who we're being.

In fact, even in 1 Corinthians 13, it talks about, hey, if you even hand yourself off to your martyr, but you don't have love, right?

It says nothing.

So, yeah, who we are actually being is super, super important.

But it doesn't stop there because out of our being needs to come our doing, right?

Jesus didn't say well-being or well-done good or well-being or well-been good and faithful servant.

He said, well done, good and faithful servant.

We are supposed to be getting some things done.

It's really important.

And working hard is actually a reflection of our faithfulness and our gratitude.

We're not working for it, for salvation.

We're working from the fact that we've been saved and we are so grateful.

We want to be a part of seeing the kingdom of God grow.

But that third servant in the parable, the parable of the parable Bible says that he was afraid and I was reading some commentaries about that and they were talking about you know he may have been you know in this story afraid he might lose the money and maybe afraid of what if I actually mess up.

So what he did in burying the money for safety actually wasn't uncommon back in those days.

Oftentimes people would bury money at least it was safe and you wouldn't lose anything.

But He had the audacity to tell his master, I know that you are a hard man.

So when the master responds, the master says, you knew that I am a hard man?

Now understand this, the master's not agreeing with this servant.

He's actually calling him out.

Because he said, if you actually believed that, then you would have at least put the money where it would have been safe in a bank and it would have gotten at least some interest on it.

He's calling him out and he's saying, you're just mad.

making excuses, and he calls him lazy.

He said, your comment, what you've said is a smokescreen for laziness.

And in the parable, laziness is actually equated with wickedness.

Ouch.

You see, those first two servants, they knew the heart and character of the master.

And I would propose that the third servant did not.

The first two embraced responsibility, and they ended up experiencing the generosity of the master.

The master says, come and share.

Come and share, you know, in my kingdom.

The third completely squanders the opportunity and then even loses what he did have.

My friends, we have to be careful and beware of squandering what God has put into our hands.

And I just want to give you a couple different ways that we can be generous.

that we might easily fall into squandering.

And the first is right out of this parable, and that's the issue of laziness.

Sometimes we're like, well, am I lazy?

Am I not?

Probably the best way to find out if we're lazy is to listen to what comes out of our mouth.

The master called the servant out for his excuses that he made.

In the book of Proverbs, I love how the Proverbs, it'll talk about the lazy person and uses the word sluggard.

That's like a crazy word.

I don't know, it just sort of makes me laugh.

And in one verse in Proverbs, it says this in Proverbs 22, 13, the sluggard says, there's a lion outside.

I'll be killed in the public square.

What's the context there?

Well, rather than going out and working, The lion, this sluggard, this person has come up with an excuse as to why it's not a good idea for them to go out and be responsible.

Excuses, right?

Now, is there a chance of getting eaten by a lion?

Well, I suppose so, but it'd be like you and I saying, if I actually go out and go to work, I might get in a car accident.

It's like, the chances of that are so minimal.

That's just an excuse.

It's a smoke screen.

What's coming out of our mouth when...

You know, it's talked about in regards to like actually helping to build the kingdom of God, using our finances and our time and our treasure and our talents and all the things that make us ourselves.

What are we actually saying?

Back years ago, I was trying to qualify.

I had just gotten into distance running, and I was trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

So I'm a part of the Glendore Ridge Runners, and I was over.

Those days, we were running a lot over at Azusa Pacific's track.

And on track night, sometimes it would be really hot.

And sometimes it could be really cold and rainy.

And oftentimes when we were running and doing stuff, I was the one complaining about, I can't go very fast today because it's too hot or it's too cold.

And eventually I started to listen to myself and I began to listen to everybody else.

And I was the only one making excuses.

Everybody else, they were just getting it done.

And I realized, wow, if I'm making excuses in this realm, where else am I making excuses, right?

In fact, I had one of my running friends tell me, Dawn.

You know, I was on a temple run and he said, when you finish, did it hurt?

And he wasn't talking about being hurt.

It's just that when you push hard, sometimes it hurts a little bit.

He said, if you didn't hurt, you didn't do it right.

And it just really learned sometimes it costs us something to really engage, really go after things rather than making excuses that are just smoke screens actually for laziness.

So we got to check ourselves on that and make sure we're not using excuses to avoid doing what he has called us to do.

Now, I think the other area, and this is not actually in the parable, but if just stepping back and thinking about this a little bit, what holds us back from stewarding well?

And I think it's distraction.

You think about this.

Actually, there's a social critic.

His name is Neil Postman, and he said this.

He said, we are amusing ourselves to death.

He was speaking about current culture.

Ronald Rollheiser, he said this.

We are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.

Wow.

Now, of course, the first thing that probably comes into all of our minds when it comes to distraction is social media.

And while I read through different stats on that, I didn't bring those numbers here.

You can Google it.

You can see a lot of time does get wasted.

And just as we're scrolling, comparing our lives to others and just mindlessly scrolling, and that does happen.

But it's not just there that we need to look.

When it comes to distraction, we can be distracted by some things that are actually good, like our hobbies.

You know, and how are we with our hobbies?

Are there boundaries around those?

Or are they sort of taking over our life where we are squandering the time and the opportunities that God has put into our hands?

It can also be with the worries and the cares of the world.

or perhaps where we have our ladder and we're trying to climb in the world of success and we're so fixated on that that we're missing the opportunities that God actually has around us.

And there's no problem in being successful in work or anything like that.

It's just, are we living distracted lives?

Do we see the opportunities that he actually has around us?

What are your key distractions?

I mean, I have limits on my social media, on my phone that go off.

when I'm on too long, because I need something to pull me back out so that I don't just continue to scroll.

What is it for you?

What are the cares, the hobbies, the fears, the habits you need to have awareness around so that then you can have an intentional action plan to stay on mission with Jesus?

Just reminding us all, the main point of that parable was stewardship, how we steward what he put into our hands.

So I want to pull it back just a little bit here.

to the bigger picture of the gospel story and reminding us all that our Father spared no expense to redeem our lives and bring us into his family and then entrust us with his resources to work with him in building his kingdom which we then get to enter into and enjoy.

So let's reframe a little bit this whole idea of serving, but not from fear, but out of relationship.

Obedience out of relationships and gratitude.

When I was a little girl, I was my grandfather's shadow.

I loved this man.

Everywhere he went, I went.

He was a World War II vet.

He'd actually been a tail gunner and a B-24 bomber that was shot down and crash landed in the Pacific.

He survived.

They all survived the crash and got into rafts.

They fought sharks all night.

He would tell me these stories as I was growing up, and I would just sit mesmerized because for me, my grandfather was larger than life.

He was my hero.

I'd sit next to him at the dinner table when he would come home when I was really little.

I'd want to greet him by dancing on his feet.

He'd put my little hands in his hands and my little feet on top of his feet.

We'd dance around the kitchen.

I loved hanging out with him.

He was a drummer.

And when he would go to practice his drums back in the back bedroom, there were some twin beds back in that same room.

And so my brother and I would go back there and he would be drumming and we'd be jumping and dancing on the beds.

Until my grandmother would come in into that room.

Now, my grandmother, I loved her, but she was strict.

And she would have nothing to do with dancing and jumping up and down on the beds.

And I just remember, like, the door would fly open and in would come my grandma.

And we would all freeze, including my grandpa.

And we would get a tongue lashing for being out of control.

But the minute that door was closed, my grandpa started to play the drums again.

And he'd look up and he'd grin at my brother and I.

And we were just like, no, that was our sign.

It was all right to start dancing on the bed again.

And so Grandpa was cool.

One day when I was about six years old, he was going outside.

I said, Grandpa, what are you doing?

He's like, I'm going to mow the grass.

I said, can I come?

Can I help?

And he said, of course.

And so he brought me with him and he pulls out the lawnmower.

And I'm barely tall enough.

Like my hands go up onto the handles of this lawnmower.

And we're looking at the backyard.

And he sets me right underneath him.

I got my hands up there.

He puts one hand on either side of mine.

And together, we begin to mow this grass.

And we're going back and forth across the grass.

I remember at one point, he let his hands off.

And I, of course, was way too small.

I could not move the lawnmower on my own.

And I remember getting mad at him.

And Grandpa, put your hands back up there.

And so he did.

And so there we were.

And we're doing the job.

And when the job was done, he's like, Don, look what you did.

And when my parents came to pick me up, he's like, come here.

Look what Don did.

She mowed the backyard.

He gave me all this credit.

And I'm like, okay.

Well, years later, as a young adult, in my devotional time, the Lord brought that memory of being with my grandpa and mowing the grass back up.

And he said, Dawn.

That's the relationship I want to have with you.

And I began to think about that relationship, about how I always wanted to be in the presence of my grandfather.

It didn't matter what he did.

It's just wherever he was is where I wanted to be.

And how in that mowing of the grass, I never was concerned with the size of the job because the reality is he was the power and the strength that was getting the job done.

I was just there with him.

And the Lord began to speak to me and what it really looks like to join him in building his kingdom, not my kingdom, about leaning into his presence and just wanting to be wherever he is, doing whatever he's doing and letting his power work through me to do things that are far too big for me to do.

People who know me and my own strength be like, how are you doing all of that?

It's not me, it's the power of the Holy Spirit.

And my friends, that's what it looks like when it comes to actually stewarding that which God has put into our hands.

Because our Father is always at work.

There are things He has going on in your family, in your neighborhood, in your schools, in your workplace.

There are opportunities, and He has invested into you these abilities, these skills, these responsibilities.

But really, actually, as you go, you're leaning into His power, where He is the power behind all of that.

to work in and through you, to reach people who are lost, people who are hurting, people in need of the good news of Jesus Christ.

And sometimes we might step back and say in our own self, hey, but I don't have what it takes.

And this would actually be the third thing that would hold us back and would keep us squandering what he's put in our lives, is when we believe the whole thing where it's like, I'm not enough, I don't have what it takes.

That's shame talking to us.

And the good news of the gospel is you don't have to be enough in and of yourself because he is enough and he works through you.

through you.

You just got to be available.

We just got to take almost like the story of the boy with the fishes and the loaves.

All he had was a little lunch, but he was available and he offered it up into the hands of Jesus.

And when we allow Jesus to work through our lives, he will do mighty exploits and we will see so much happen.

But we've got to be willing and be like those first two servants who are willing to go to work, to show up.

And actually, I think those first two, it was probably very joyful because we've been called.

First of all, just think about how amazing it is.

What an honor that God would even choose us and entrust us with these opportunities.

He wants us to go to work with him.

That's an honor.

It's so amazing to me.

So today, here's what I want to do.

I want to leave you with four very specific things that you can do starting tomorrow morning when it comes to stewarding what God has and what he's invested into your life.

And the first would simply be this.

When you wake up tomorrow, maybe wake up five or 10 minutes early so you got a little bit of extra time to actually do this.

And let your first conversation with Jesus be this.

Jesus, and this would be number one.

Jesus, what are you doing today?

And can I come to work with you?

And then just sit and let yourself hear him say yes.

Let yourself experience his joy that you want to work on building his kingdom.

Hear the yes.

And then the second thing would simply be this.

As you're sitting before him, Pray through your day with an awareness of all the places you know you're gonna go.

There may be some unexpected opportunities that come your way and that's awesome.

But you're probably, if you got kids, you're gonna interact with them maybe at breakfast or dropping them off at school.

And that is a God-ordained time to pour into their lives.

If you're going to school, Jesus is already there.

Maybe you're praying about what that's going to be like or at work or at the gym or the grocery store or in your neighborhood.

But go through your day, the meetings you're gonna have, the conversations you're gonna have.

And pray through those, Lord Jesus, give me eyes to see what are you doing here and how might I use what you've put in my hands in that meeting situation, in that encounter with that person, when I go visit here, whatever it is for your day.

Pray ahead of time and walk through your day with what you already know, with where you're going to be going.

Then point three on this.

responsibly steward what is placed in your hands for the sake of the kingdom.

Live with that.

And you know, throughout the day, sometimes this might sound goofy.

It's what I do.

Sometimes I need to be reminded because I have great intentions in the morning.

I've had my coffee.

I've often gone for a run.

I've got all this energy.

I have my quiet time.

I'm going to do this.

And then I get caught up in the distractions of the day.

So sometimes what I'll do is I'll take my phone and I'll put alarms in, time when my phone is going to go off.

And then I'll just write next to the alarm what it is it's reminding me of.

Like, you could just write stewardship and have some alarms set throughout the day.

It just brings you back out of the distraction of the day, the busyness of the day, to like, wait a minute, I'm stewarding here.

How am I, what my opportunities might God have put in my hands right here, just for awareness sake.

And then number four, as those opportunities come.

Thank him for the opportunities.

Thank him for it.

Show your gratitude because, my friends, it truly is.

It is such an honor to be entrusted with his resources for the purpose of building his kingdom, which we there are invited to enjoy.

At the end of it all, my friends, our hearts desire.

is to be like those first two servants.

And when we stand before Jesus, not have it be a scary thing, like, oh no, but actually like them, you can hear the enthusiasm in their voice.

Look, master, look what became of my five bags of gold.

Now there's five more.

Look, master, look what became of the opportunities you put into my life, the abilities that you gave me.

Look, you gave me these, look what happened.

And to have Jesus look at you and say, well done, good and faithful servant.

Come and enter into, share into my happiness.

My prayer is that for each and every one of us.

That's what we end up experiencing and that day that we give an account.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, I pray God today, and with this word, that we walk away from this, Lord, with a heart that is just so grateful that you would invite us into building your kingdom, with a recognition of what you have put into us, Lord, what you have invested into our lives.

And then with eyes open for opportunities, Lord, to go and to be used by you in building your kingdom.

Opportunities with our finances, opportunities with our time, opportunities with the skills and the talents you've given us, opportunities with our influence.

God, opportunities in all those different ways.

Lord Jesus, may we honor you with those.

So we thank you for that, Lord, in Jesus'name.

Amen.

That was such a good word from Pastor Dawn Jackson.

It just reminded me to be so thankful for what Jesus has given me, like what I have that I might not realize is a resource that I really have or an influence that I have that I can use for other people.

And as she was talking about building the kingdom of God and being part of God's kingdom and living for those kind of purposes, if that's something that's not familiar to you and you're kind of trying to figure out what does that mean to you, be a Christian that's living for God's kingdom.

Well, if you haven't made that decision to be a Christian and to let Jesus be Lord over your life and direct your steps, and you want to figure out what this living for the kingdom thing is, then I would encourage you to hit the button below or go to oneandall.church.com.

And someone from our team would love to walk with you through what it looks like to make a decision to become a Christ follower.

We're going into a moment for communion.

So if you grab some bread and some juice, make sure you have that ready to go.

And Pastor Don took us through Matthew 25.

And I actually want to go one chapter after to Matthew 26, because this is where Jesus has the Lord's Supper, what we call communion, for the first time with his disciples.

And they're having a Passover meal.

And Jesus is telling them a lot of things that are going to be coming in the next few days that are going to be incredibly hard for the disciples to understand.

But in the midst of this, he gives them this gift that we now have.

as a covenant, as a reminder of Jesus's sacrifice.

So here in Matthew 26, starting in verse 26, it says, now as they were eating, Jesus took the bread and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body.

So go ahead and grab that bread.

And as you take it, just...

Eat this bread in thankfulness for out of all of the things that Jesus gave us, his sacrifice and his body is so incredibly important.

So go ahead, take that bread in thankfulness for Jesus'sacrifice.

And then in verse 27, it says, And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for the many for the forgiveness of sins.

So go ahead and take that juice.

And just as Jesus gave thanks when he took the cup, let's also give thanks for the blood of Jesus that was poured out for us as a sacrifice for our sins.

So take this cup and thanks.

And let's pray.

God, thank you for your sacrifice.

Thank you for this active communion that has us slow down and eat and drink and remember what you have done for us.

God, we are so grateful for your sacrifice and for all of the many gifts that you give us and all the things that we have to steward and all the resources that we have.

God, thank you for all your blessings.

Amen.

Well, I hope you enjoyed listening to the message with us and getting to take communion together.

If this experience was new for you, maybe you're new to One and All, we would love to get connected and kind of walk you through your next steps.

And you can let us know about that if you head over to oneandall.church.new.

And one of our pastors would love to just reach out and get to know you a little bit.

We have lots of other resources to offer, like our conversations on YouTube.

where you can listen to Pastor Drew sit down with our weekend speaker and just go deeper into the content.

It's really fun, especially if Pastor Jeff or someone else ran out of time in their message to say something.

You really get to hear everything the speaker wanted to say in those great conversations videos.

Well, until next time, one hope, one life in Christ.