June 22, 2025 | When the King Hands You the Keys
When the King Hands You the Keys | Proverbs Part 17
Various Proverbs about wealth, money, and resources
In this sermon, Jed Gillis reflects on why God gives us resources like money, time, and energy. The message begins with a hard but honest question: Why would a holy and all-sufficient God entrust anything to sinful, limited people? The answer is not about ownership but about worship. God gives so we can honor him with what we receive.
Through Proverbs, the sermon explores five ways to honor God with our resources:
Honor the King Who Blesses God invites us to enjoy his gifts, not serve them. Proverbs calls us to delight in what God gives, while never losing sight of the Giver. Refusing his gifts is dishonoring, but so is worshiping the gift instead of him.
Honor the Provider with Diligence God regularly provides through hard work. Diligence is an act of faith and gratitude. It means using what you have been given with steady, joyful effort. Whether in a job, a home, or a field, work becomes worship when it is offered to the Lord.
Honor the Protector by Looking Beyond Money Money can create the illusion of safety, but true security comes from God. Proverbs reminds us that trusting in riches leads to pride and destruction. Instead, we are called to trust in the Lord who watches over us.
Honor the Maker by Valuing His Creation Generosity toward the poor reflects God’s value of every person. To disregard someone in need is to dishonor their Creator. Giving to others is one way we affirm the worth of what God has made.
Honor the Giver by Reflecting His Generosity God built a world where generosity is possible. He gives so that we can give. The righteous are marked by open hands, not closed fists. When we give with joy and faith, we imitate our generous God.
Gillis closes by reminding us that God knows the risks of giving us resources, yet he still chooses to do so. Not to test us, but to transform us. Our giving, our spending, our enjoying, all of it can be worship when done in response to God's grace. The question is not how much we give, but whether all of our resources are honoring the One who gave them in the first place.
Transcript of When the King Hands You the Keys | Proverbs Part 17
Have you ever asked a question that you weren't sure you wanted the answer, or maybe you've prayed a prayer request that you, you knew you ought to pray it, but then you think, do I really want God to answer that prayer request?
Maybe you pray for God to remove your pride, to give you humility, and you start thinking about what that might entail. Or maybe you pray that God would give you a sense of your neediness, and then you think, I'm not sure I actually want to sense my neediness.
There are questions like that, and, really, I, I want us to start with a question that may feel a little bit like that this morning. Maybe a question that you say, I, I don't know if I really want to know the answer to that, because if I know the answer, it might have to shape the way that I live in a way that I'm uncomfortable.
Why Does God Give You Stuff?
So, in the simplest form, I want to ask the question this way. Why does God give you stuff? any stuff? Why does God give you resources? Why does he give you money? Why does he give you, time? , Why does he give you energy? Why does God give you any of these things? Why would an all sufficient, all wise, holy God, like we just sang about, why would he put resources in your hand? As a sinful, limited, weak human being.
And we might reflexively say, well, it all still belongs to him anyway. And that's true, but it doesn't solve the question. It actually deepens it if it really still belongs to him. Why does he trust you with any of it?
Proverbs chapter three. Has a couple verses that we read before, and we didn't emphasize this when we talked about it going through, but I wanna bring it out here. Look at verse nine and 10 of Proverbs chapter three. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce, then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine.
Now, we talked about this somewhat before, but I wanna draw your attention to one specific point, four times in two verses. He uses the word your, he tells you to honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty. Then your vats will be bursting with wine.
In other words, if the only thing we're supposed to think about our resources to say, oh, those just belong to God anyway, if that's the only thing we're supposed to think about. Why does he talk like this in scripture? Why does he ever call it yours? He rightly could have kept every dime, every resource, and he could have handled it and never entrusted it to anyone, but he didn't. Instead he gave it to you and to me, and then said, honor me with it. That's not a, a cold business transaction. Like here's some resources, hope it works out. This is more like the the king, the father handing you the keys and saying you drive.
So I said earlier the question is, why does God give you stuff? I could ask it this way? Why does God ever hand you the keys?
And as we go through this morning, some of what Proverbs says about our resources, I think we'll see the beauty of something we could call entrusted ownership. Your resources aren't yours ultimately, but they've been entrusted to you in such a way that you can say it's honoring the Lord with my wealth, my, produce. my barns, my vat.
What Does Proverbs Teach about Honoring God with Our Resources?
Why would God do that? Why would he give stuff to people like us? And the way we'll go about it this morning is I want to look through several different lenses. Say, what does Proverbs teach about honoring the Lord with your wealth? We'll use that specific example, although we could talk about time. We could talk about energy and the principles would apply with your resources.
In what ways do we honor God with what we have been given because God has planned it this way, so that he would advance His glory and your joy by letting you manage what's ultimately his.
Honor the King Who Blesses By Enjoying His Blessings
So the first lens is honor the king who blesses by enjoying but not serving money. Honor the king who blesses by enjoying but not serving money. Think of a human illustration. If you have a wildly rich king, and he's a good king who likes to bless his people. He opens the palace doors and he says, come, the palace is yours, the banquet is yours. The gardens of your are yours. Come enjoy all of it.
Now, if those same people come in and bow down to the gardens and forget the king. They are clearly not honoring the king.
If they come and bow down to the wrong thing and forget, the king is the one who blesses, clearly doesn't bring him honor. On the other hand, it would also be dishonoring if they refused the generosity of their king. I'm not going to come enjoy the banquet. I'm not going to enjoy the garden. I'm gonna stay in my little hut outside on the edge of town.
That's not honoring the king either. The tension is we can worship the gift and forget the giver, but we can also refuse to enjoy the gift and insult the king.
Proverbs shouts at us. Don't do either of those things. Turn over to Proverbs chapter 10.
There were many passages in Proverbs that we could look at and see this theme that God loves to bless, and that one of the ways he does it is through resources that he gives us. But Proverbs 10, verse 22, the blessing of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow with it.
The blessing of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow with it. He doesn't bless you so that you feel guilty about having good things. He doesn't add sorrow with his blessing. He blesses you so that you enjoy it and in your enjoyment you honor the king. Now you might pause and say, that doesn't sound like everything.
The Bible teaches about money. You're absolutely right. That's why we're looking at different lenses. How do we honor God in different ways? One of them is by honoring the king who blesses by enjoying his gift, but still serving him, not serving his gifts. The king really has opened his palace and invited us in.
If you think about not only the resources you think are yours, but think about the world you live in. Think about the colors you can see. I remember one time this precious older man that I knew was praying over breakfast, and I was a college student listening to him pray, and it struck me years later it struck me.
What he said is that I'm grateful for taste buds. My king gave me taste buds. Why? So I can enjoy it. He didn't have to, he could have made every food taste as bland as possible, but he didn't. He could have made every color look gray, but he didn't. He could have made us so that we don't feel a cool breeze blowing across our skin and feel good about it. He could have made us so that we don't relate emotionally to one another and feel joy, but we are swimming in a sea of divine generosity.
First Corinthians three as a climax of the chapter says All things are yours. Your king has opened up the palace doors and said, come enjoy. Or Paul said something like this in one Timothy. He said, don't set your hopes on riches, but on God, who richly provides everything to enjoy. Beware, beware of any religious teaching that tells you to not enjoy God's good creation.
Paul talks about that in Colossians. He says that those kinds of rules will not help you to fight against sin. God is the God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. So one of the ways we honor him with our resources is by enjoying what he's given.
But Don't Serve Money or Resources
But he also in Proverbs warned you that you can't serve money or resources. How do we know that from Proverbs? Well, there's this pattern. Where he says it's better to have and then he'll, he has different things he'll put there. It's better to have this than to have money or than to have luxury or wealth.
For example, if you go to Proverbs 15, verse 17, better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it. It's better to have a sparse, a not very satisfying meal than to have a feast without love. Now, if you think money is the thing you must serve, and if it's the primary goal, if it's the ultimate measure of blessing, then you can't say that verse with a straight face.
Better to have little better to not have luxury, but to have love. Thankfully, Jesus is the king who loves to bless his people, and Jesus came to do far more than to give you resources. He came to demonstrate God's love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Or we could go to chapter 17. Say what else is better than money? How else do we know? That's not the ultimate measure of blessing? That's not the thing we serve. Chapter 17 verse one better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. Money doesn't mean much if you don't have peace, does it?
We've been there. We've, we've heard of maybe couples who, when they first got married, they had nothing, but it was peaceful and wonderful. And 30 years down the road, maybe their bank account looks a whole lot better, but they're always fighting and nipping at each other. And how many of 'em say, I just want to go back to when the cardboard box was the best furniture we had.
Because peace is better than luxury. It's better than those resources. But our king, who loves to bless us, didn't just come to give resources. Jesus came to give peace. Romans five says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ, the king who blesses more than just giving you resources.
Turn over to chapter 19. What else is better? Verse one. Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity. Than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool. Again, money doesn't mean much if you feel hypocritical and torn, like you're always trying to act in front of people to put on a good face. Money doesn't mean much if you don't walk in integrity in wholeness.
Talk to people who have lots of money, but who struggle with mental health, struggle with their spiritual life, and they feel the angst and the weight and the fragmented experience, and they say, forget it. I don't want the money. Give me this, because Proverbs is right. Not surprisingly. It's better to walk in your integrity.
But Jesus came to give you that too. He's the king who blesses. He didn't come just to give you resources. He came not just to give you physical goods. He came to give you a new heart, to bless you with integrity to the core of who you are. That's what your king came to give you.
What else is better? Go to chapter 22 verse one. A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches. And favor is better than silver or gold. It's better to have a good name, to have a good reputation. And you know what? Jesus came to give you that too. Not to make your name great, but to give you his name. We gather as Christians. We gather under the name of Christ to give you his record.
If Jesus came and gave you all the wealth in the world, but left you with your record and your name instead of his, it's not worth that trade. Your king blesses you in far greater ways than just resources.
So how do we honor him? We take the resources he's given. We enjoy what he's given. But we don't serve them.
We always remember there's something greater, there's something better. Therefore, our king's priorities should govern our budget and our calendar because our king came to give us something better than money and time. So one lens. Is you honor the king who blesses by enjoying the gift, by serving him rather than the gift.
Honor the Provider with Diligence
Here's a second lens. You honor the provider. The Old Testament calls him Jehovah Gyre, the God who provides you honor the provider through diligence and gratitude.
Turn back to Proverbs chapter 10. God's regular means. His normal means of working and providing for his people is through diligent work. That's why we get things like chapter 10 and verse four. A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent, but makes rich.
Now, we could point out all kinds of practical exceptions. We could say This guy was lazy. He got rich. This guy worked hard. He didn't. Clearly it's wrong. No, that misses the point of Proverbs. The point in Proverbs is that these are patterns in God's creation. These are the normal ways that things work. And if you want your life to flourish, you need to know the patterns in order to live in a way that fits with them.
So he's telling you not that no one ever worked hard and struggled financially. That's not his point. His point is the pattern, God's normal means is providing through diligence. The normal pattern is you plant, you water, you harvest, you have food to eat. Especially in an agricultural world like Proverbs was written into, you plant you water, you harvest, you work, and if you do those things with joy and trust, then your diligence in planting, watering and harvesting is in fact worship. It's recognizing the provider has given me this means how do we honor the one who provides? It's through diligence and gratitude.
If we were to talk, I just looked up, what does diligence mean? Steady, earnest, energetic, committed effort. That's what he commends. Steady, earnest, energetic, committed effort.
God's more concerned about the diligence of our work than what we actually do in our work.
If you're a teenager or younger, or maybe you're older and you're still not sure what you want to do for your career, that's okay. But remember, God is most concerned with who you are, not what you do. God is more concerned that you have steady worshipful effort in whatever you put your hand to. Then he is that you go to a certain field. God's normal means of providing is through diligence. And so when you, when you are diligent, you're honoring your provider.
Think about the parable of the talents. You remember the story where Jesus tells this story of a master who gives five talents. That's a measurement of money. A lot of money gives two talents to another guy, gives one talent to another guy.
The guy who had five. He goes out and diligently uses the money to make five more. The guy who had two diligently uses the money to make two more. The guy who had one is afraid and doesn't do any of it.
Now, the guy who had five talents, when he works hard, when he is diligent, does he honor the one who gave him the five talents in the first place? Sure. He honors that master who provided those, that five talents for him to work with by diligently working with it.
When we are diligent, when we work, when we pursue whatever God has given us, we work with steady effort to improve it, to make it better, to do what we are called to do. In that we're honoring him as the provider. We trust you provided this and you are wise and good, so I want to use it well.
Chapter 12, verse 11 continues this theme of diligence. Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense. Whoever works his land, he says, look, take the opportunities you've been given and diligently make them better. If you have attractive land in an agricultural world, you say, how do I work this land to provide food for me?
Notice he doesn't say. Whoever keeps getting more and more and more land will have plenty of bread. The focus isn't on how do I get more opportunity? The focus is how do I use the opportunity I have well.
God made all of us, he made you to build something, to make something productive. I don't know what it is, but he's given you days. He's given you energy. He's given you money. And each one is like a little tract of land. And the question is, are you developing it well? In an agricultural world, if somebody had land and they said, well, I don't have enough food. Do you ever farm? No. Well, I have a solution for you, then. Might help, right?
When we look at our time, God's given you this week, how do you use it? Do you use it to honor the provider he's given me this time, I want to diligently pursue good things, or do we use it for something completely different that exalts us instead of God? This is the normal way God provides through diligent work.
Also Honor the King with Gratitude
So our diligence, our taking, whatever opportunities he provides for us and our attempt to produce something good through that is a way to honor the provider, but I also said gratitude. There's an interesting passage in, in chapter 27 of Proverbs. It starts with diligence, but it goes beyond that and talks about God's provision for us.
Chapter 27, verse 23. Know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds. For riches do not last forever. And does it crown endure to all generations?
I'll read more in a minute, but notice he's describing diligence. Pay attention. Know what the situation is. God's given you these resources so know, know what they are. Don't just let your herds wander around and get lost and die, and people steal them. Like actually pay attention to the resources God has given you.
That's diligence. But then he continues. When the grass is gone and the new growth appears and the vegetation of the mountains is gathered, the lambs will provide your clothing and the goats, the price of a field. There will be enough goats milk for your food, for the food of your household and maintenance for your girls.
I don't know that I'd ever really noticed this passage before. But it's interesting that what he does is he tells you, God provides for you through very normal means. How do you honor the provider? When he's giving you resources and you say, oh, I need something. I need food. I need clothing. You honor the provider by responding with gratitude, using the resources he's given, and you go buy whatever it is that you need at that point.
See that's not just doing something for me. That's actually honoring the one who provided the resource in the first place to use the biblical language here. If you had a bunch of goats and you said, I'm gonna go sell 'em to buy a field because I need this field, you say, God, you're the great provider who gave me these goats in the first place, which means now you're providing this field for me.
We honor the Lord with our wealth. In a lot of different ways, we honor the provider by saying, he is so valuable that I will pay attention, work hard, and use his gifts and thank him for it.
So that's lens number two. You honor the king who blesses by enjoying and not serving money. You honor the provider by using his provision and diligently working it.
Honor the Protector by Looking Beyond the Protection of Money
The third one, we honor the protector, the Old Testament calls him the Lord of hosts or the Lord of armies. We honor the protector by looking beyond the protection of money.
The danger is that money can feel like a fortress, right? You know how you feel much more vulnerable when the bank account's lower. Money can feel like a fortress, but it's a weak substitute for God's security. So one of the ways we honor the protector is to look past the protection of money to the one who gives us real protection.
If you go to Proverbs chapter 10, Proverbs chapter 10, verse 15. A rich man's wealth is his strong city. The poverty of the poor is their ruin. He says, there's real protection in wealth. There is, but it's not sufficient. The next verse says, the wage of the righteous leads to life, the gain of the wicked to sin.
See, we forget sometimes our greatest danger, and we think money is my fortress because we think it can solve all the problems of protection that we have, but it can't.
In fact, trusting money without trust in God turns the protection of money into danger. Because when you trust money without trusting in God, we have a word for that. That would be pride. So Proverbs 18, again, it reminds us there's some real protection. There's an illusion of protection at least. In chapter 18, verse 11, a rich man's wealth is his strong city and like a high wall in his imagination.
See, he thinks all this protection, my wealth is the wall that keeps all the dangers away from me. Verse 12, before destruction, a man's heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor. Money gives us the illusion of protection and security.
If we want to honor God with our wealth, one thing we have to do is make sure that we honor the protector, God, by knowing that money can't ultimately protect me, my real trust is found in the Lord of hosts.
Honor the Maker by Using Your Resources to Recognize Value in His Creation
An another lens, we honor the maker. The creator by using your resources to recognize value in his creation. Turn to chapter 14.
These may be some of the most stunning statements in Proverbs about money. Chapter 14, verse 31. Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his maker. But he who is generous to the needy honors him.
When you look at something that the maker made and you say, I'm not gonna be generous to that, you might as well be saying, look at that garbage the maker made.
We know this. If you give honor to any creator you appreciate and care for their creation. If you know someone who is a painter and you want to give honor to them as a maker, you don't spit on their painting. You point to it and you say, look at that. There's value in that. That's good.
If you go over to chapter 22, see another similar statement, verse two, who the rich and the poor meet together. The Lord is the maker of them all.
Money can give us an illusion of importance that the rich people are more important than the poor people. We honor the maker by saying, no, that's not true. That's not true because the same maker made both of them in his image.
And so it's an honor to any creator to show value to their creation. When you love the poor, when you lift the broken, when you dignify the overlooked, you're saying to the creator, what you made is valuable. I love what you made. I value your handiwork. It's one of the lenses by which we honor God with our wealth.
We enjoy what he's given. We serve him not money. We use his provision with diligence and gratitude. We look beyond the protection of money to the protector, and we use our resources to show that what the maker made is valuable.
Honor the Giver by Reflecting His Generosity
The last lens we'll look at today, you honor the Giver by trustingly reflecting his generosity, you honor God as a giver by saying, I want to be like him. I want to be a giver. I don't want to use all of my time and energy and money, all of my resources for me.
I want to be a giver, like God is a giver. You honor him that way. It's God made this world with incredible opportunity for wealth creation. Sometime go back and read Genesis one and two before the fall and just notice what he mentions.
One of the things in chapter two, verse 11 and 12, he says, here's these four rivers, and this river is where the gold is. And the gems. Like he put that in the earth before the fall to have this incredible potential for wealth creation.
Not only that, but he tells us gold wasn't spread everywhere. It was in one place, which means when God made this world before the fall, some locations had more financial opportunity than others.
Why did he do that?
So that we would have an opportunity to reflect him in giving. If everybody had all the same stuff, we couldn't reflect God by giving. There would be no point. But from the very beginning, he made creation so that his people can reflect him, can be like him in our giving.
If we turn to chapter 21 of Proverbs. Verse 25. We see the contrast of work, laziness, diligence. He says the desire of the sluggard kills him for his hands refuse to labor. All day long he craves and craves. But the righteous, those rightly related to God, the righteous gives and does not hold back. The right relationship to God.
By the way, this really isn't about money. It applies to money, but it really isn't about money. The person who's rightly related to God isn't trying to consume for themselves. We reflect him by giving. That can be giving words, that can be giving time, that can be your smile, that can be all kinds of things. But we reflect the giver. We honor the giver by saying it's so incredible that God is a giver, and I want to be a giver too.
If you turn to chapter 11. Again, this is a pattern of God's creation. If you want to walk in wisdom, you can't ignore it. Proverbs 11, 24. It says one gives freely, yet grows all the richer. Another withholds what he should give and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched and one who waters will himself be watered. The people curse him who holds back grain, but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it. Whoever diligently seeks good, seeks favor, but evil comes to him who searches for it. Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.
There's this interesting phrase in the middle of there. It says, the people curse him who holds back grain, and why would you hold back grain? One of the things they would do if you had a lot of grain is you wouldn't sell it all. We still do this, by the way, sometimes you wouldn't sell it all because you want to get a higher price, so you keep it and you make it scarce.
That drives the price up. Instead of thinking, how do I do good for others? Instead of a mindset that says, I want to give. I want to give. I want to not just consume, I want the best for me, you hold back grain.
I'm so glad that Jesus didn't drive up the price for his love. He gave it freely. We honor the giver by being like him and giving.
Why Does God Trust Us with Resources, In Spite of the Dangers?
Money casts powerful illusions. If you haven't picked up on it as we go through, there are dangers. In the resources that we have, in the money we have, we're tempted to feel self-sufficient in the pursuit of our own glory and our own priorities. We're tempted to trust in riches. We just read. Those who trust in riches will fall.
There's dangers. We're tempted to set our hope on our own resources, but God knew all those dangers. Think about all the stuff that comes from money, all the dangers, all the sins you struggle with that come from money. God knew every single one of them, and yet God still gives resources to us. Why?
I go back to my question, why would an all sufficient, all wise, all powerful God give resources to limited sinful humans? Why would he do that? Why would he say, honor the Lord with your wealth? Why would he even pretend like it's yours? Why would he hand you the keys and say, you drive?
Because there's something important enough to God that he risks all of those dangers in order to accomplish his purposes, because he's not after your dollars. He's after you. When we manage our resources, it's not a transaction. That's not the point. It's an expression of honor and trust and worship.
It's not a transaction of currency. It's a relationship of worship and grace. And it's so much more than just giving. That's not the point. The point is that God wants you to manage all the resources he's given in a way that everything you do honors him.
Sometimes I think we get the idea that we can, we can give a certain amount of time or money or energy to God. Okay, I've honored God. Now I do whatever I want with the rest of it.
God's not interested in that. God wants you to honor him with all of the resources you have, which includes enjoying them. We already said that earlier. That's one way you honor him. It includes using it for your provision 'cause the provider gave it to you. It includes the protection that comes from money. You say, I can go to the doctor because I have the money to do it. Great. Use it and thank your king for it, 'cause he provided it. It includes far more than just the religious use of our money. God's not after just that. He wants you to reflect him in all of it. It's our character as we relate to God, when we give, when we provide, when we enjoy, when we invest, when we manage in everything we do with our resources.
Honoring the Lord with Your Wealth is an Act of Grace
Honoring the Lord with your wealth is an act of grace. And I wanna close by drawing your attention to two Corinthians chapter eight. If you wanna turn over there, you can. I won't read all of it. I'll summarize it. You can go back and read it. The situation is there was a famine down in Jerusalem and Paul and the apostles had been collecting gifts to meet the needs that were going on in Jerusalem.
And as they're doing that. You had people from very wealthy places who were giving money. You also had people who were not very wealthy, who were giving. And the way that he talks about this here is fascinating. He says, the church's in Macedonia, verse two, in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.
For they gave according to their means, as I can testify and beyond their means of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.
Think about that. They're saying, please let us, and Paul's going, no, no, no, you guys, you guys don't have enough as it is. Please let us be part of it.
Now, I don't know about you, but when I read that, I think I must not think about this like the Macedonians did.
Notice a a word there though. He says, begging us earnestly for the favor. That's interesting. We'll come back to that in a second. He goes on and he says, yes, okay. They gave first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Verse six. We urge Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace.
That's an interesting phrase too, because grace just means favor like it's God's favor to us, so they beg. Give us this favor of being part of it. And so Paul says, yes, it's an act of grace. Complete that act of grace. He continues in verse seven, as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace, also.
He calls their financial stewardship, their generosity, an act of grace. How is that? 'cause we, we sometimes forget, we think that grace is all about God giving us just forgiveness we didn't deserve. That's part of grace. But part of what God does in grace is he lets you be like him.
That's some of God's greatest grace to you. If you look at that list in verse seven, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in earnestness, in love. God knows the best thing for you is if you are loving like he is loving. So he graciously not only forgives you for when you're not loving, but in his favor towards you. He says, yes, I'll transform you to make you more like me. I'll help you be more loving.
God makes you more like himself by his grace. So I want to answer my question from earlier. Why does God give you stuff? Because if you didn't have any resources to give, you couldn't reflect the giver in that way. You couldn't participate in grace the same way if you had nothing to give.
And God is willing to run all the risks of giving us resources that we may misuse, that we may trust, that we may do all these things. He runs all of those risks to say, my grace in transforming you to be like me is worth it.
Because he continues in verse eight, Paul says, I say this not as a command. He's like, I'm not commanding your will to say you give. He doesn't give them sob stories for why they ought to give. He says to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine for, you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you, by his poverty might become rich.
He says, Jesus had all the resources and he gave, even though you were poor and had nothing that you could stand on for yourself, he gave you that grace and you, because God has given you resources, you get to be like him.
God is fundamentally a giver, not a hoarder. We see this all over scripture. The king we serve is fundamentally a giver, not a hoarder. And the best favor he can show to you is to transform you to be like him.
When you manage your resources, your time, your money, your energy, all the resources you have, when you manage those things, God has given them to you so that you can use them as a worshipful participation in grace.
You can provide for your family because your provider has provided for you, you reflect him.
You can enjoy the good gifts that your king has given you because he enjoys them and you reflect that.
You can give because the infinite giver has given to you. And without that, you would have no resources to give.
He has radically honored us by giving us the ability to be like him. We can't make something out of nothing. We don't have that ability, but we can take the resources he's given to us and we can make things.
We can't provide out of nothing. God could, he did repeatedly. Here's a rock. No water. Oh, there's water. What do you know? Like God can provide in ways that we cannot, but he's given you the ability with the resources he's given to provide.
He's honored us by letting us imitate him like that, and we cannot be like the giver if he doesn't first give us resources that we can give.
Don't settle for safety, when you're invited to participate in grace. Don't settle to feel safe when God says, I'm, I love you so much. I want you to experience all of this grace of being like me. When you provide for yourself or your family through diligent work, you are participating in God's grace because he is allowing you to reflect him.
Praise God for that. Thank him for it. Enjoy it. God is building his church. And when you give to build up his church, you are participating with him. You are giving as an act of worship that values his work and wants to be like him in giving in grace.
When you give to meet the need of someone else, you're looking at the maker and saying, I love what you made. You're honoring the creator.
So in all the things that God has given you, let Jesus be your investment advisor, not just for the 10% of your time and money that feels religious. Let Jesus and his priorities reorganize your spreadsheet for your time, and your money, and your words, and your energy. Jesus wants to guide you in wisdom, to enjoy his gifts, to experience his provision, and to be a giver like the infinite giver.
Will you take the next step of wisdom today? Will you sit with God and say, God, sometimes I don't know if I even really want the answers to my prayers. But will you pray and say, God, I just wanna be like you. I want to enjoy, like you enjoy. I want to provide, like you provide. I want to create. Like you create. I'm limited. I can't do it like you do, but if you give me resources, I wanna make something good. I want to give, because you're a giver.
Will you take the next step into worship and grace in the resources God has given you?
I'll invite you just to close your eyes and bow your head and let's pray together and then we'll sing.