Good morning, everyone. It's really good to be back preaching on Sunday after this six month sabbatical time that you all blessed me and Amy and our family with. We're grateful for that. God did good things in my heart. God did good things in our marriage, good things in our family. I'm gonna share a little bit more about that with you this afternoon at our member meeting at one o'clock. Before we get into our text, Amy just mentioned, and many of you I'm sure already know about the tragedy we experienced in our family. It would be two weeks ago tomorrow where Amy's older brother, 49 years old, died in a scuba accident. We were at Maranatha Bible and Missionary Camp when that phone call from Amy's parents came in. And you know, it'll be one of those life moments. You'll never forget that split second when you received that phone call and heard that news. John was 49, married to Meg, five kids, ages roughly 20 to 10, 19 to 10. So as soon as we heard the news we left camp, we headed down to Texas, a miraculous provision. We were getting ready to drive and had a friend say, no, we'll pay for you to fly. And that's not for two folks, that's for a lot of people. And it was amazing and it was very important that we got down there, get down there quickly. And before I get into First Corinthians, if you've ever been through an experience like that when you lose somebody that you love, It does make you kind of take stock and reassess, and those moments with your family are moments of really important learning, things you don't want to forget, things you want to take away. So I'm just going to share a few quickly, things that got impressed on my heart during these last two weeks, and then over the next few months, they'll come out more and more, I'm sure. But the first one, And maybe most obviously, when you lose someone you love, or especially when someone dies too soon, not too soon for God, God had this planned. But it really presses an urgency on us, doesn't it? That God knows the number of our days and we don't. We don't know how many more days we have left on this life with our church, with our family. So every day really does count. And one really practical thing I took away of how important it is in our families, that when we say goodbye to each other in the morning or wherever, one of the lessons we took away is, I love you, I love you, is a great last thing to say to somebody in case today's the day that that person who's driving down the road or you in the house gets called home to heaven. Another thing I noticed, and maybe you've seen this too in your family in times of crisis, that during all these family members and all these extended family come in and you're sleeping in all these different houses and everybody's going everywhere, and there's such an incredible spirit of charity and grace for each other. Normally, things that you would get all upset about and fly off the handle with, you know, the way your brother does this, or your sister-in-law does that, or your mother-in-law does this, and you storm out or whatever. Everybody gives such charity and slack, right? Because they know what a hard time everybody is going through. It made me wonder, well, why don't we act like that all the time? Why don't we give people the benefit of the doubt? Why don't we extend charity and grace to people that are maybe driving us nuts? Third one, and this was very specific to do with John, but recognizing the power of forgiveness in a family. One of John's gifts or virtues or character traits, he was a very forgiving person. And there had been things that happened like in any family over the years in the extended family, all right? Things where people had hurt each other's feelings. And one of these particular incidents, you know, John had a choice whether he was gonna forgive or forgive. what had happened and seek reconciliation. Okay, he was the offended, not the offender. Or as head of his family, he could have kind of doubled down on holding on to the offense and putting up walls. And his choice set in motion a whole path of reconciliation and healing for the extended family. And it made me think, you know, I wanna be that person of peace in my family tree. I want to be the person that when there is a blow up and there will be blow ups, that whatever's going on, the person could say, well, let's go talk to Rob. Not that Rob has answers, but that Rob will be a person of peace, Rob will care. Rob will try to do everything he can to help and bring healing to the situation. And the fourth and last one, and again this is a specific learning from John's life, and it has to do with something we talk a lot about here at Gospel Fellowship, but John and Meg and their family practiced this ministry of hospitality. They had small groups in their house. They had an event at their house. I don't know if it was monthly, called Crowded House. Sort of an open house, if you will, for their church family. They had joined a church plant. They were a part of a larger church in Austin, Texas. And then that church, like our vision is to do, planted a smaller church, and they were at that smaller church plant. And one of the things that the pastor said at John's service, and we had known about it before, but it said that as far as he knew, almost every single person that had since come to this church at one time or another had been in John's house. that they would be hard-pressed to find anybody who hadn't been in their house at one time or another. And the other phrase that they used, this phrase in talking about John, that he had an invitational faith, an invitational faith, which meant that his coworkers, many of whom didn't know the Lord, neighbors, many of whom didn't know the Lord, that he built the kind of relationships with them that they wanted to learn more about Jesus. So thanks for praying for us. Please continue to do it. Pray for Meg, pray for these kids. Pray for John and Jean, John's parents, Amy's parents, my parents. They're still down there in Texas caring for the family. And pray for Amy, of course, and Emily, John's sisters, and all of us as we grieve. Okay, can you open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 16, please? 1 Corinthians chapter 16. We're in the last chapter. of this incredible book. Today we're gonna look at verses one through four to see what God will say to us. 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verses one through four. I'll put the scripture on the screen. You can follow along and your Bibles are on the screen with me. Here we go. It says, now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, Each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper so that there will be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, this is Paul speaking now, he's writing this letter to the church in Corinth, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. And if it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me." All right, back to verse one. Let's see what's going on. Now, concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. This is Paul's last order of business. He's written a 16 chapter letter. Now he didn't mark down the chapter things when he wrote it, okay? But maybe you think of it like a 16 page letter. And on the last letter, or the last page, he's gonna talk about giving. He's gonna talk about money and the church offering. So for 15 pages of his letter, he's been talking about the gospel. He's been talking about Jesus. He's been talking about the resurrection. He's been talking about relationships in the church, following Jesus and on and on. So money is important. Giving is important. It's just not the most important. The first 15 chapters are the most important. I think some people outside the church have an incorrect caricature of Christian churches, of Christian pastors, that we're obsessed with money. I think that's kind of one of the labels the world gives us. And now if we're honest, there have been some bad examples of this. Where every sermon, no matter where it starts, somehow or another ends up on the subject of giving. So today, I'll be preaching from Genesis, from the account of Noah. God told Noah to build a great ark, which required tremendous resources. Phenomenal amounts of wood and pitch and tar and tools. And I don't know where he got all those resources, but let me tell you, church, the great work that God's called us to do here requires tremendous resources. And I want you to know that I have faith that all the money our church needs is God's. The problem is it's still in your pockets. And off we go, right? And so we start with, no matter where we start, we always end up on giving. All right. Here at Gospel Fellowship, if there's a spectrum, if there's a spectrum of how much a church preaches about money and giving, lots of preaching about money and giving, little preaching about money and giving, I think I can confidently say we would be on the less side of the volume of preaching about money or giving. I asked Michael this week, getting ready for today, when's the last time we did a sermon on giving? What'd he say? I don't know. I can't even remember. Now there's been parts of messages here and there, but we preach on this subject when the text preaches on this subject. We preach through books of the Bible. So every time we get to a portion of the book of the Bible where it talks about money and giving, what are we going to talk about? money and giving. So, 15 pages of 1 Corinthians hasn't come up that much, so we haven't talked about it that much. But here we are. You know, here at church, Gospel Fellowship, we don't pass offering plate, okay? The offering box is over there on the resource table. There's nothing wrong with passing a plate. Churches that do it that way, it's all good. But sometimes, we even forget to mention the offering box is there. I probably told you this story, this was a couple of years ago, it was Christmas time, I think the week before Christmas, and we did our service, talking about Jesus and celebrating the Messiah, and a visitor came up to me after the service and says, boy, we love being here, love the food, it's really great, but do you guys take an offering? I'm like, oh my goodness, the offering, we totally forgot to mention the offering box. And this visitor was like, you know, it is December, You know, the two most important things for the church calendar are Jesus and giving. Right? I mean, that's December. And I'm like, wow, boy, I'm sorry we forgot. Yes, of course we take an offering. Of course this is important to our church. The offering box is right over there. So, look again with me at verse one here. Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do." Now what is this collection for the saints? This is a sermon for another day. This is not a collection for Peter, James, and John. Like saints that some people might think of. All Christians in the New Testament are called what? Saints doesn't mean that we're perfect people. It means, this word in Greek, it means we've been holy-ized. We traded our sin, Jesus gave us his holiness. So that when God sees us, we have the holiness or the righteousness of Jesus. Not because it's in us, but because it's from him. That's a good deal. Trade your sin, you get God's righteousness. All right, another day. The subject here is that an offering's being taken for the Christians in Jerusalem. An offering's being taken for the Christians in Jerusalem. The church in Jerusalem's suffering tremendous persecution. terrible economic conditions. Many of the Christians in Jerusalem, most of them were Jews who now believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah. They're facing a situation they didn't have enough food, they didn't have enough clothes, they were in trouble. Well, why are they taking an offering in Greece? This is 1,800 miles away by land. Why are you taking an offering in Greece to help the church in Jerusalem? Well, that's really what we're gonna talk about today, because that's what was happening here in this history. In the Bible, God has four safety nets. four lines of defense, if you will, for keeping his people out of poverty. And the church in Jerusalem had blown through the first three safety nets. And this is what I want to show you. I preached a sermon on this a few years ago called God's War on Poverty. God's War on Poverty. What I'm going to do in the next 10 minutes is a quick version. If you want to hear more about these four safety nets for God's people, you go to sermonaudio.com, Gospel Fellowship Church, God's war on poverty and you'll get that there. But let me walk through them briefly here. God's lines of defense against poverty for his people. First line of defense against poverty is individual work. Individual work. That's method number one to keep yourself out of poverty. Paul said to the church in Thessalonica in 2 Thessalonians 3.10, he said, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. So what's the principle? If a person can work and won't work, then they shouldn't eat. A family shouldn't subsidize their laziness. A church shouldn't subsidize their laziness. That's the first line of defense against poverty. But sometimes a person can't work. They get sick. They get hurt. They lose their job. The economy that they're in collapses. They're a part of a corrupt government of communism or socialism or whatever it might be. So there's a second line of defense. And that's family support. Family support. God tells us that families are supposed to take care of their needy family members. First Timothy chapter five, God says this, but if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he's denied the faith and he's worse than an unbeliever. That's pretty harsh language. Now again, this does not mean constantly giving money to a family member that's an addict or constantly giving money to a family member that's irresponsible. This is about meeting the real needs in our family and taking care of each other. So here at Gospel Fellowship, when we have a member of the church that's in a real financial crisis, We have an awkward, straightforward conversation that goes like this. Have you asked your family to help you? Because it's not the job of the church to help you if your family is able and willing to help you. Because the church, as you'll see, is the third line of defense, not the second line. But sometimes, right, a whole family can't help. Maybe the family doesn't have the resources to help. Maybe the relationships are broken in that family and hurting so that they're unwilling to help so that there's a third line of defense. What is it? The individual, the family, and the church. Yeah, the local church. Church support. It's our spiritual family. And that means a couple things. It means Christians helping Christians. So here at Gospel Fellowship there have been situations over the years where someone is in need and another church member helps them. Pastors had nothing to do with it, didn't even know about it until it happened afterwards. So that's a great example of the church helping the church. But it also means that the pastors, the elders, sometimes will use money given by the church to help members that are in need. And we take this super seriously here at Gospel Fellowship Church. We don't want any member of the church going into debt or going to the government to meet their basic needs. Right? Their basic needs. Food, shelter, clothing, basics. We don't want anybody going into debt for that. We don't want anybody going to the government for that. Because if you go to the government for it, that's just your neighbor's money that the government took from them and is now giving to you. And I think a lot of churches fall short in this area. Let me give you two quick reasons why I think that is. First one, is they don't plan their budgets in order to prepare for serious financial situations. In a lot of churches, the benevolence budget, if you will, is a very small percentage of the budget. And then secondly, they have an amount, a maximum amount. So let's say for instance, a typical amount in many churches would be $2,000 is gonna be the maximum that we would help any family that's in crisis. Well, praise God for that. But if it's a major crisis, or a long-term crisis, how far is $2,000 gonna go? Not very far, right? So that's one of the reasons why I think churches fall short in this. And the second reason is that this kind of ministry, coming alongside an individual or a family in financial crisis, from the standpoint of the pastors, is incredibly time-consuming. It's incredibly time-consuming. It doesn't work with... Let's see who I can pick on. I know Mr. Anderson here coming up. Hey, Rob, we're 500 bucks short this month. Can I head over to the offering box? Sure, Keith, help yourself. Church taking care of the church. No, not quite like that. If there's a financial crisis, we're going to be spending a lot of time with that person, with that family. What happened that Got you here. We want to understand what brought you to this point. What are the real specific needs that you have? Have you asked your family? What sort of other savings? What can you sell? What can you do to do this? And if the church does help, how do we help in a way that doesn't make you dependent or slow you down, but gives you the basics and helps speed you up? Because compassion is helping a person get independent as quickly as possible. That's compassion. Compassion is not helping a person become dependent for as long as possible. So far so good, right? That sounds good, right? The individual hard work, and the family takes care of family, and then the church is the third line of defense. But what's the problem now? What if a whole church can't take care of the needs of the church family? What if the poverty in a particular church, a particular city, a particular nation is so intense that they blow through safety net one, safety net two, and safety net three? So God's got a fourth line of defense. He's got a fourth safety net, and it's churches supporting churches. Churches helping other churches, and that's what 1 Corinthians 16, one through four is all about. that there's a collection being taken in a church 1,800 miles away because the church in Jerusalem doesn't have the resources to take care of their members that are in poverty. And that's also our vision here at Gospel Fellowship Church. Part of our vision for church planting, that as God enables us to plant Gospel Fellowship 2 and Gospel Fellowship 3, those are probably not their names, but Okay, although that'd be good to keep it clean, right? You know where you're at. Okay, but as God gives us grace to plant more churches, part of the relationship of those churches will be this kind of relationship. So that there's a network of churches built up that if we need to get to level four, safety net four of poverty defense, we're ready. All right, so Paul tells the church in Corinth, we are at DEFCON four. We need your help to help these Christians in Jerusalem. Now let's see how they did it. Verse 2. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. Okay, first day of the week. What day is that? Sunday, right? The early Christians gathered for worship on Sundays, even though many of them were Jews who previously worshipped on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Someone tell me why the early Christians worshipped on the first day of the week? Why did they worship on Sunday? Speak up. Yeah that's the day Jesus rose again from the dead. Every Sunday was resurrection day. Every Sunday is let's remember that Jesus has risen from the dead. So on the first day of every week each of you is to put something aside. So what does each of you mean? If you dig into the Greek what would that mean each of you? Yes that would be each of you correct. They were told to put some money aside every Sunday. Now this might have meant putting something aside in their homes, like their giving jar or whatever. I think more likely it meant bringing the money to the worship service because that first day of the week thing almost always when it's used is referring to the gathering of the early Christians, okay? But neither here nor there. So on the first day of the week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper. So the previous work week was done. Each person would know if God had blessed them with a little or a lot, and they could either then therefore give a little or a lot. The more God prospers us, the more we give, the less He prospers us. Those are seasons where we're able to give less. You know, one of the questions that people talk about is this question of 10%. Christians debate this, whether the Old Testament tithe of 10% remains a New Testament commandment. We could spend a long time going through it. I'm not sure how fruitful it is. Because those who argue that the tithe is no longer a commandment, if you're in that camp, they proceed to say, we should just give as much as we possibly can. So don't think about 10%. Think about incredible generosity and giving with a cheerful heart. Okay. Pastor Michael many times has used this phrase, and I think it's helpful, referring to the tithe. He talks about the tithe or 10% as like training wheels for giving. Training wheels for giving. It's just a good place to start. It's a good goal to set. It's a good way to start flexing your giving muscles. So back to this each of you. This would be every man, every woman, every boy, every girl. Each of us, no matter how old. Now, kids, listen up for me, okay? All the children, kind of sit up a little straighter in your seat and give your eyes up here to me. As soon as God starts giving you money, all right, through an allowance or babysitting, shoveling snow or whatever, you want to start practicing your giving. My mom did a great job with this. Hi, mom. She's here today. Mom and Jack. First dollar I made. Okay, now we did the training wheels, we did the 10%. So we got to set aside, how much are we going to set aside for that first dollar? A dime. We're going to set aside a dime. And you know, giving away a dime's not too painful, right? It's just a dime. Now maybe when you're five, it's a little painful, but it's really not too bad even if you're five. So then you make $10, and now you're given a dollar away. Still, it's not too bad. Just sort of flexing your muscles. You're lifting little one-pound weights. It's okay. It's easy. Well, then you make $100. Now how much are you given? I know it's early. Do the math. Help me out. $10. Yeah, $10. All right. Well, now $10. I can actually buy something with $10. I could go to a movie with $10. I could do that. Well, now what? You make your first $1,000. You're talking about $100. Where I come from, that's a lot of money. $100. Now, here's the deal. See, kids, if you start flexing your giving muscles right away, right from the beginning, when you're making your first dollar, your first $10, your giving muscles get stronger and stronger and stronger. You take more happiness and joy in giving. But if you don't give, don't give, don't give, don't give, and then you get your first $1,000 check, and it's time to give 50, 100, 200, whatever the amount's gonna be, how are your giving muscles gonna be? Eh, I don't know if I can do this one. That just seems like an awful lot of money. It also, getting your giving muscles going, part of why I think God tells us to do this is to keep our hearts free of the love of money. Remember the Bible says that the love of money is the root of all different kinds of evil. And when God gives us money, if we have a giving attitude with our money, that keeps our heart healthy with it. I'm sure you've heard this illustration, right? A healthy body of water has water coming in and water going out. If you have a body of water that stuff only comes in and nothing goes out, that would be the Dead Sea. And what is the Dead Sea? dead, right? Because it doesn't freshen itself. Because it doesn't have inflow and outflow. And so part of the ways we keep our heart fresh when it comes to this whole area of money is we receive what God gives us. We know it's His. He's loaning it to us for a little while. We have it open-handedly and we want to look for ways to give it. So preparing for today, I made the decision that I'm gonna be doing a little bit of changing with how I do our giving and how I do our family's giving. I have automatic giving set up for gospel fellowship. You know what I mean? Like in my online banking, recurring donation. So it just happens. And I praise God for that. That's one thing off my list. It just happens and that's all good. We can go years, think about this, and my kids never see me go over to the offering box. What's an automatic deduction from your online checking? Rush is really not up to speed on the technology, my three-year-old. So part of what I'm going to try to do, and there's nothing more spiritual about going to the offering box, don't misunderstand me here, all right? But from the standpoint of like modeling with my kids, I'm going to try, when I remember, help me Jesus, okay? To get an envelope, put some extra giving in there, ask the kids, kids, do you have some extra giving this week that you want to do? So that we visit that every now and then, not because it's more spiritual, Right? But because I want to be able to have that sort of experience for our family and for our kids. All right, last part of the verse. Verses three and four. It says, on the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper. I'm sorry, I'm still at the end of verse two, sorry. So that there will be no collecting when I come. so that there'll be no collecting when I come." One of the principles here is the save first principles for churches. The save first principle. The church was storing up money to care for the poor so that they would be ready with the money when the time came. They wanted to avoid the emergency offering. You understand what the emergency offering is? I don't want some big collection when I'm there, Paul says. Not that it's wrong to do that, but it's wise to do this. You see that? The emergency offering is not wrong, but this is wise. This is what we are doing by the grace of God here at Gospel Fellowship Church. We have got over $100,000 ready to send out a full-time missionary and to keep sending out our short-term mission teams. We have over $100,000 ready to plant Gospel Fellowship II when the time comes. We have over $100,000 ready to help in terms of crisis benevolence needs. We're trying to practice this principle. This isn't hoarding money. This is save first and be ready when the opportunity comes. All right, verses three and four. When I arrive, verse 3, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. And if it seems advisable that I should go also, then they will accompany me." So now Paul shifts from the giving of the money to the taking care of the money, to protecting the money, to making sure nothing happens to it, to make sure that it actually gets from the church in Greece to the church in Jerusalem. So he says you need to confirm multiple trustworthy people, people that are known by the church. people that are approved by the church, who are going to take this money to Jerusalem. Paul says, hey, if you want me to go, you want to add another layer of accountability to this, I'm happy to do it. And why is all this here? Because no one's above temptation, no one's above greed, no one's above stealing. You're like, well, I'm above stealing. No, you're not. Neither am I. You know, Paul could have said, when I come, you give me the bags of monies. I leave quickly. Urgent need in Jerusalem. Don't worry. I take it to build my house, a God's house. I will give you a report when I come back as the Lord provides in two or three years." He could have done that, but he didn't. No one's above temptation. No one's above greed. God says when it comes to money, church's money, we need accountability. You've got to have multiple people working on this. You've got to have transparency. My video is of some stories of some churches where this did not happen. Here we go. We begin tonight with an Oklahoma pastor accused of fleecing his flock. He allegedly embezzled so much money, church members were forced to close the doors. Kirsten McIntyre just returned from Beckham County where the investigation is ongoing. Kirsten? And Kelly, I'm told the church of the Nazarene and Sayer had been around for about 80 years, but these days the doors are locked. And the district attorney says one man is to blame for that, the church's former pastor. Zeman is accused of stealing from the church's building fund and also mortgaging the church parsonage. Some estimate he swindled at least $125,000 and maybe more. There's a lot of people that have been devastated because of this. And Mr. Zeman, as far as we're concerned, is a con man. and that people should be aware of what he does. It was broke. The church was just flat broke. And now, some Dallas church members say that they have figured out why their church was struggling financially. That is where we begin tonight. I'm Kaleigh O'Kelley. And I'm Doug Dunbar. From shopping sprees and liquor purchases to car repairs, even hotel stays, we were first to tell you about the felony theft arrest of Dallas pastor Wade Davis. Now tonight, we've learned he's accused of pocketing half a million dollars of the church's money. It was like a gut punch. I mean, it was absolutely heart wrenching. Williams says the depleted fund was meant for repairs to the church and programs to help addicts and the needy. But a year before his arrest, Davis, who was hired in 1998, denied the allegation in a letter to the congregation saying, I am not guilty of committing any crime. I have not broken any laws. Members say the pastor then moved into the church and changed the locks to drive away his critics who have been meeting for months at a funeral home, while Davis was still preaching here last Sunday to a handful of loyal supporters. Parishioners here at Community Bible Church say they trusted Barry Minkow. Even though he was already convicted twice of fraud, they say the sentence is too little and there's nothing that's going to stop him from doing this again. I would have liked to have seen some remorse and restitution, an apology to the people that he hurt. Pastor Scott Lauther isn't satisfied with Barry Mienkau's five-year prison sentence. Mienkau was once the senior pastor here at Community Bible Church in Miramesa and was trusted by many parishioners, including Debbie Roller. He used the congregation, the people. He developed relationships with people so that he can benefit himself in the long run. Minkow stole more than $3 million from the church and its congregation over 10 years. He opened up fraudulent bank accounts in his name and took out loans. At his sentencing, he declined to speak and kept his head down as victims read emotional statements about how their lives are forever changed. Isn't that terrible? That's so sad. Makes me mad. I had to send, I talked to a couple of my internet accountability partners this week. I have Covenant Eyes on my computer, it tracks where I go, so accountability partners get my reports. And I had to let them know, you might see some odd Google searches, pastor stealing money, pastor defrauds church, as I was, you know what I mean? I wasn't researching how to do this, I just was looking for some videos, all right. We take this whole issue extremely seriously here at Gospel Fellowship. Let me give you a couple of the things that we do. to try to have transparency, to try to have protection and safety for God's money here. One of the things we do is that the offering every week is counted by two people, two people that have been affirmed by the elders. The results of the offering gets emailed to all the elders and all the deacons. The second counter confirms the email that the first person said, that yeah, those numbers are right. And then Kevin Weber, our accountant, once the funds are actually deposited, deposits, gets deposited, confirms that all those numbers were right. Two people need to sign off on large expenses. Pastors can't directly access the church's funds. I can't go to our church bank account and withdraw money. They won't give it to me, okay? I mean, the pastors have credit cards, right? But there's limits on the credit cards and there's fraud coverage for the credit cards. If we have a rogue pastor that goes off an unauthorized expense, though there's fraud coverage for the church and all that. We have transparency with our donations and our expenses. The members vote on our budget. We can always tell you where we're at with different budget lines. Here's how much we plan to spend on sound and tech. Well, here's exactly how much we've spent. You can see how much the pastors get paid. That's an unusual thing for a church. Most churches have personnel and then some big number. You say, I wonder what those people make, right? Yeah, I get paid $2,175 per month from Gospel Fellowship Church. He's like, he told us how much he made. Yeah, that's how much they make. It's like public knowledge for the members of our church. So you don't have to be, I wonder what those guys are making. They just take the offering box. They take it in the back. They divvy it up. If it was a good sermon, they get extra and all that stuff. No, not the way it works. My dad. My dad was not a Christian, was a secularist, and he, as I was called to be a pastor, he was sort of okay with that, sort of not, but he was very fond of telling me a joke over and over again. He said, you know, he says, God definitely calls ministers to sometimes change churches, but it's always to a larger church with a larger salary. That was just a common joke he had, I don't know why, but all right. So listen, this transparency that we try to practice here at Gospel Fellowship Church, it creates trust or a lack of trust. In other words, as we are transparent about the way we use the funds that you give, If there's things you don't like about that, well, then you say, well, I don't like that. And we ought to talk about it. And if it comes to a point, if a person's in a church where they don't trust how the leadership is handling the money of the church, honestly, I don't see how that person could stay very long in that church. How could you function in a place where you and your heart don't have trust and confidence that the money that you give is gonna be used honestly, ethically, and appropriately? Okay, let me wrap up with a very brief practical challenge before we pray. I'm embarrassed that I don't remember the source for this. I did not come up with what I'm going to share you. I heard it from some other pastor in a sermon. And if you're listening right now, pastor, I give you full credit. And I'm sorry I don't remember your name. But this message that I heard, I thought it was great. They talked about how there's three essential virtues for the Christian when it comes to your money. Three essential virtues for the Christian when it comes to your money. The first one is diligence. Diligence. Hard work. If you want to be faithful with God's money, you've got to work hard. Number two, essential virtue for the Christian when it comes to money is generosity. You've got to learn to have a generous heart. And number three, essential virtue for the Christian when it comes to money is frugality. which is being a good steward of what God has given you and not spending it recklessly or needlessly. I want to encourage you, take this list, evaluate yourself. Rank yourself. Which one of these virtues has God given me the most of? Which one of these virtues has God given me the least of? Ask your family members to rank you. I did that with my kids. We all kind of talked about it together. It's a wonderful dinner conversation to evaluate each other in this area of finances and our attitude toward money. But my challenge to you is to take this list and have it spark some thought in your own heart, some prayer, and whichever one you find lower on your list, that becomes an action point in prayer. God, help me be more generous. Give me a more generous heart. God, help me be more diligent. Help me be more frugal, whatever it might be that you'd have a prayer action point with that area. Let's go ahead and pray right now, and I'll put you to work right away. Why don't you take just a moment, take 30 seconds or so, talk to God about this list. If there's one that leaps out to you of, oh my goodness, that's one I need to grow in, talk to God about that and ask Him for His help. Go ahead and pray to Him now. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this incredible example in this history of what happened in the early church, that a church 1,800 miles away saved up money to send to these Christians in Jerusalem that were in such dire straits. I pray, God, that you'd build a network of gospel fellowship churches that can do exactly that. I pray, God, that our church would be faithful, Responsible, diligent, humble, above reproach in every area when it comes to being a steward of your money, because it's not ours, it's yours. And I pray that that same spirit would press into all of our families and press to each one of us as individuals as well. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.