Psalm 24, I will read the text and then we will pray. This is the second sermon in what I think is going to be a three-sermon series on the issue of stewardship and giving. Psalm 24, David writes this. The earth is Yahweh's. As well as its fullness, the world and those who dwell in it For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who may ascend into the mountain of Yahweh? Who may rise in his holy place? He who has innocent hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to worthlessness, who is not sworn deceitfully, he shall lift up a blessing from Yahweh and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face. Pay heed, O Jacob. Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? Yahweh, strong and mighty, Yahweh, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift yourself up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is he, this King of glory? Yahweh of hosts. He is the King of glory. Our King, we come before you this morning with hearts of gratitude for what you reveal to us in this word today. about who you are and about our response to it. So help us, Father, to understand and help us to be quick, both of heart and of will, to do what's required of us from your Word. It's in Christ's name we ask it. Amen. In the Middle Ages, up to the pre-modern era, there was a concept, a principle, really a policy by which most kings ruled. That was called the divine right of kings. You may have heard of that or may have read of it in history books. And when it's boiled down to its most basic idea, this dogma states that kings are given authority to rule by God himself. Therefore, to resist the king is to rebel against God. And to rebel against him is, well, to be in violation of then cosmic treason, they would say. In that system, the king effectively owns everything that he decides he wants. Now while it is true that Romans chapter 13 verse 1 informs us that rulers are appointed by God, and it does inform us that we are to obey them, and that if we do not we are in rebellion to God, at least we are to obey them as far as they don't order us to do anything that disobeys with scripture, that does not mean that kings or governments own everything. Further, it is certain that kings have abused that authority, and surely there have been many wicked rulers throughout time who have either used this principle or many others to abuse people. After all, every human king is just that, human. He is subject to the sin and depravity of man. He has a fallen mind that contains things that he makes into idols, as is true of all men. He is tempted with the great temptation of power and control of others. and tempted to take what does not belong to him to use for wicked purposes. I remind you that when we talk about this, we're talking about human kings, sinful kings, selfish kings. But what if I told you this morning there is a king who is not like that? What if I told you there is a king who is perfect? There is a king who loves those in his kingdom with a perfect love. A king who already owns everything that you have and has indeed given you all that you have as a stewardship to you from him. Indeed, this is a king who has the divine right of kings because he is the divine king. We're in this short series on the foundations of stewardship, and two weeks ago we saw that we give because we have a transformed heart. God has saved us, we belong to him, and what we deserve is not to belong to him at all. What we deserve is to spend an eternity in hell. Anything beyond that that we receive is joy and blessing, and we deserve, or rather we owe him gratitude for that. But what God has done for us is provided Christ for our salvation. What he has done for us is he has called us to repent of our sins and our efforts to save ourselves. What he has done has caused us to trust in Christ alone for our salvation, and now that he has done that, our hearts overflow with gratitude for the one who has saved us from the righteous wrath of the father directed our sin. He has given us the sure reality of our eternity with him. He has called us out of lives of darkness into his marvelous light, as the scripture tells us. He has given us an inheritance, an eternal inheritance, of the person of Christ himself and to share the eternal kingdom with Christ. Our hearts can only abound in joy. Our hearts can only abound in love. Our hearts can only abound in gratitude and peace and a heart that desires to give back to God lavishly as the woman that we saw two weeks ago as she was contemplating her salvation while at the very feet of Jesus. Her heart had been transformed. If you are here this morning and know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, your heart has been transformed. And gratitude and grace should be the dominant force in your heart. And that is obviously for all that God has done. This morning I want to show you a second foundation for stewardship. And that second foundation is this. God owns everything because he is king. God owns everything because he is king. And where this shows up in a most profound way is in our worship. And so in Psalm 24, King David calls us to worship the true king from the heart out. And that is established for us in three immutable realities, all right? Three realities, so we have three realities and three points. for you, for those who are taking notes. And the first one is this, the king's sovereign ownership. The king's sovereign ownership. I want to direct your attention back to verses one and two of Psalm 24. Again, David writes this psalm, which is really a song. And he says, the earth is Yahweh's, as well as its fullness, the world and those who dwell in it. for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. This is a psalm of praise. It was written by David as the king of Israel. Now we don't know the exact occasion for which David has written this, but it was very likely written either at the time that he brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem or on an anniversary of that occasion, or a festival perhaps commemorating that occasion. The Ark of the Covenant was really, for the Israelites, a figurative representation of God himself, of God's presence. Wherever the Ark was, it represented God, and he was believed to be wherever the Ark of the Covenant was as well. It also looks forward to the time when the true king, God's Messiah, will enter Jerusalem to rule as king forever. So David both has a near fulfillment of this psalm and a far fulfillment of this psalm in mind. So as such, it is a royal psalm, and it calls the reader to worship God in the full splendor of His glory. And it calls us to think of Christ's entrance into Jerusalem to sit on David's throne and to rule the kingdom that has been promised to him by the Father. Keep those thoughts in mind. Those are going to come back to you later in this message. Now, verse one begins with a powerful declaration, a powerful declaration. And David writes and he tells us that the earth is Yahweh's. It belongs to him. He owns it. It is not, as the environmentalists would have you believe, Mother Earth. It does not have its own separate existence. The earth is in fact owned by God. And just as a king is sovereign over all the land in his kingdom, so Yahweh is sovereign over the earth and really over all of his creation everywhere. There is no corner of this planet that does not belong to Him. It is set apart and to be set apart for His holy purposes, to fulfill His will, His desires, and it will in the end, upon this earth, everything that He desires will be accomplished. And one day our Lord is going to come back and take it back with force. And we will see His dominant ownership over it. So it's not just earth that he owns, David writes, but everything that exists upon it. Again, look at verse one, the earth is Yahweh's as well as its fullness. Everything in nature, everything that has ever existed upon the earth, every invention of man is made with material that has been borrowed from the Lord, and in fact, the wisdom to invent it. Every animal, every bird, every flower, every building, car, house, possession, all wealth, rocks, trees, every speck of dust is the property of Yahweh God. He is owner of everything. And the text goes even further in that. Again, verse one, the earth is Yahweh's in all its fullness, the world and those who dwell in it. He says, and those who dwell in it, all people belong to him. They are his. We are His. Christians are very much His in a special way, but all are His in the sense that He has created all, therefore He owns all. We as Christians are His as a special possession. We are His people with whom He will spend eternity. And the point here is that everything on this planet is His. everything here is under his sovereign domain. And this is explicitly stated all throughout the rest of scripture. Just a few examples. Exodus chapter 19, verse five, it says, so now then, if you will indeed listen to my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples for all the earth is mine. Deuteronomy 10, verse 14, it says, behold to Yahweh your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it. Psalm 50 verses 10 to 12, it says, this is God speaking. He says, for every beast of the field is mine. The cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains and everything that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you for the world is mine as well as its fullness. In Psalm 89 verses 11 and 12, it says the heavens are yours. This is a sweeping declaration. It is unlimited in its scope. Now, why is that true? Why is verse one true? Well, it's because verse two says this. This is David in a poetic way telling us that God is the one who created it. He owns everything because He made everything. Genesis chapter one verse one tells us that when God first spoke the earth into existence, that water covered everything and then in chapter one verse nine of Genesis, on day three of creation, God separated the water from the land and the dry land appeared and out of or above the water, it came into existence as it does today. This is God's ownership, God acting as king. God forming the earth, God filling the earth by sovereign decree, by his right as king. It speaks of God's creative and organizing work. He made it, he formed it, he organized it, and when he spoke the earth obeyed him and it still does. Psalm 135 verses 6 and 7 We read part of this a while ago. It says, whatever Yahweh pleases, he does in heaven and on earth, in all the seas and in all deeps, the one who causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain, who brings forth the wind from his storehouses. It is his. Everything man has invented or made or built has been done with material borrowed from God. which is to say, he still owns it all. This is a statement of God's supreme ownership and his rule over everything that exists. So David is saying, look, if you're going to worship God rightly, you must first know, you must first understand, if you're gonna approach his courts for worship, you must know that he owns everything and everything that is in existence is for his purposes. And so you must worship with that focus in view. Oh, and by the way, at the end of the psalm, he's coming back to take what's his. We'll get there. So you must understand Yahweh's ownership of everything. You must begin to grasp how immense God is and how small you and I are. He is Lord over every work of His hands. He has given everything its place. Now, what does that mean practically? Well, David is calling us to consider that worship begins with the understanding that everything belongs to God. There is nothing that is not His. That includes every single thing that you and I possess. The King is sovereign and to understand His sovereignty is to understand that the King owns it all. Now let's delineate this personally. Your house, your car, Your spouse, your children, your job, your church, your possessions, your time, your abilities, and your money are all given to you as a stewardship from God. It is not yours, and it really never was. You are a steward. And so the question then becomes, will you use wisely what the Lord owns and what the Lord has entrusted to you? Will you be faithful as a steward with that stewardship? Will you use it for his kingdom purposes to bring him glory? Or will you use it for selfish purposes? You've been temporarily entrusted with what you have. It all exists to bring him glory. It's not for your and my personal kingdom. And that extends to every area of life. And it is especially true of our finances. Either you will worship and serve God with your money, as God intended, or you will worship your money. There are only two options. Luke chapter 16, verses 10 through 14, Jesus said this. He said, He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much. He who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? If you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? And he says this. No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. And then the passage ends with this. Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to these things and were scoffing at him. Pharisees who worshiped money and not God thought this was something to scoff at. If you are like the Pharisees, scoffing at this, perhaps it has revealed an idol within your heart. Idols must die. You must worship God with all that he has entrusted to you. God owns it all. He has the right to it all. and we give because he owns it all. The beginning of right worship is to understand that God owns everything because he created everything, which means he is sovereign. That's the king's ownership. Second this morning, I want you to see the king's holy requirement. The king's holy requirement. This is verses three through six, look at it. David writes, who may ascend the mountain of Yahweh, who may rise in his holy place, he who has innocent hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to worthlessness and has not sworn deceitfully, he shall lift up a blessing from Yahweh and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek your face. Pay heed, O Jacob." And by Jacob, he's talking to the nation of Israel, to the people of God. Well, verse 1 began with that dramatic statement of God's ownership of all things, doesn't it? Verse 3 begins then with a piercing question. And the answer to that question is crucial. Since he is the sovereign creator, the question is, who is fit to be his worshiper? Who is acceptable? Which is to say, who does Yahweh accept as his worshiper? What kind of preparation must take place to qualify someone to approach Yahweh? Here, David talks about the mountain of Yahweh. That's a reference to Mount Zion, which is Jerusalem itself. Jerusalem sits on top of that mountain. This is the place where God's great throne was. Historically, it was where God sat enthroned above the Ark of the Covenant in the innermost chamber of his temple, and before that, the tabernacle. This was the place known as the Holy of Holies. This is surely the place that David was thinking of. And at the same time, David knew that a day would come when Messiah, when God himself would sit upon David's throne in Jerusalem in the fulfillment of all of God's promises to the nation of Israel. And using restatement, David asked the same question in another way. He says, and who may rise in his holy place? That's just the same thing asked another way. And yet the way it is asked puts tremendous emphasis on the holiness of the Lord. He is a holy God. The place where he resides and is from, the place from which he rules must be holy. Holy simply means set apart. And specifically set apart for a special purpose. Which is to say that Yahweh himself is set apart. The place of his worship is set apart. that is to be set apart from all that is ordinary. It means that he and all that surrounds him are set apart for a special purpose. It means sinlessness, yes, but more than that, it is to be set apart for him and to be set apart to him, and then we need to add this word, only. Only. So if you're going to approach Yahweh, if he is holy, then you must be holy. You must be set apart also. And the question is, well, how holy? How set apart must the worshiper of the Lord be? Well, look at verse four. David writes, he who has innocent hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to worthlessness and has not sworn deceitfully. David tells us here that this holiness must exist on two levels. The first is that he mentions is external. He says, he who has innocent hands. Some of your translations may say clean hands. It means the same thing. The hands are the part of the body that most often express action, aren't they? This is the purity of our outward actions. This is a man who lives a life of holiness. It is a set-apart life that is holy before Yahweh. This is the Old Testament way to say exactly what the Apostle Paul said and what we saw when we were looking at the book of Ephesians several months ago. In Ephesians chapter four, verse one, Paul writes, therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling to which you have been called. In essence, Paul is saying, listen, you need to live a holy life in light of the fact that you have been called to salvation. You must live holy in light of the calling to which you've been called. God has called you to salvation. He has called you to the gospel. Now that you've been called there and that you've embraced that by faith, you must live a life that is consistent with that holy calling. It is a life consistent with the holiness to which Yahweh has called you. The holy life really mentioned here, interestingly enough, is a shortened version of another psalm that David wrote. He's essentially repeating and summarizing Psalm 15. That psalm elaborates a bit more, so I want you to keep your finger here in Psalm 24, and then flip back a few pages in your Bible to Psalm 15. You should look at this. Psalm 15, verses one to five. Again, David asks this piercing question. He spends the whole psalm answering it. Oh Yahweh, who may sojourn in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy mountain? Sound familiar? He who walks blamelessly and works righteousness and speaks truth in his heart. He does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend. In whose eyes a reprobate is despised, but who honors those who fear Yahweh. He swears, which means he promises, he swears to his own hurt and does not change. He does not put out his money at interest, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things. will never be shaken. That's summarized. That idea from Psalm 15 is now carried into Psalm 24. So who may ascend into Yahweh's mountain? Who may ascend into his holy place? Those who live a life of holiness, David is saying. In other words, those who worship Yahweh by the way they live. Not just worshipers who show up in church on Sunday morning, but worshipers who worship Yahweh with their whole life. For the Christian, for the one who has truly placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, there is no differentiation between the secular and the sacred. There is no part of our life that is secular. There is no part of our life that is separated from God. We are worshiping people. That is what we are fundamentally, and we worship Him with our whole life, and that is exactly what David is saying here. But it goes deeper than that. So you have the external, Second, you have the internal. He who has clean hands and a pure heart. That's the inner man. That's the soul. This is the purity, the holiness of the heart. See, what David is telling us is that someone who just has external actions, who thinks they are saved by their actions, by their works, is still not qualified. Why? Because our actions must reflect what is truly in our hearts. That's how the Pharisees got it wrong in Jesus' time, wasn't it? They thought if we just do the right outward things, if we go through the motions, if we say the right incantations, then God will surely receive us. Oh no, God wants the heart. He wants the heart. And the external actions reflect the heart. So when someone is living a righteous life, it can't just be because they're going through the motions. It must be because it reflects a heart that is righteous inside. Our actions must reflect what is truly in our heart. So this is a person who is made holy from the inside out. It means the heart belongs to Yahweh. Now understand, beloved, that when David talks about the heart, he's not talking about what typically we think of the heart as in modern Western culture today. In modern Western thought, the heart is our emotions, isn't it? We talk about our heart all the time. Oh, I love you with my whole heart. While that might be a true statement, The Bible talks about something different when it talks about the heart. It talks about our thinking. It talks about the core, the essence of who we are. Just an example, Genesis chapter six, verse five, it says, then Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That's your heart, biblically speaking, what you think, who you truly genuinely are, the core of your existence. And the worshiper who is fit to be with Yahweh has a pure heart. And if this person's heart is pure, if they are set apart to Yahweh, there is no other God in that heart. And there is nothing else that robs the affections of Yahweh God or rises above the Lord in importance. We understand that this is not talking about a man of sinless perfection, that's impossible this side of heaven. It refers to a man who lives a holy life that flows out from a pure heart. What does verse five say about this person? Verse five says, he shall lift up a blessing from Yahweh and righteousness from the God of his salvation. It says he shall lift up, he shall receive, to carry. That's what that Hebrew word means, to lift up, to receive, to carry a blessing from Yahweh. It means to possess this blessing. In other words, there's this blessing that is his and it is from Yahweh and it means that Yahweh God, our Lord, looks on him with favor. Now what all does this blessing encompass? Well, it's the righteous life of holy integrity that verse four speaks of, but it includes the rest of what verse five speaks of. Look at verse five. And righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is a righteousness that comes from God. See, this person understands that they have no righteousness of their own. They have only a righteousness that has been given to them by God. This is the Old Testament statement that those who are saved receive righteousness from God. This is talking about imputed righteousness. Righteousness that has been imputed to us. That's not just a New Testament concept. The person these verses describe is this way because he has received righteousness from Yahweh. Now to our mindset, we almost need to read verses four and five backwards because David is arguing not from the inside out, he's arguing from the outside in, isn't he? The person who can stand before Yahweh is externally righteous. Why? Because they have a pure heart. They have a pure heart because they've received a blessing from Yahweh. And the blessing is a righteousness that has been given to us by the God of our salvation. So you want to worship Yahweh? You want to stand before His throne? You must have a righteousness that comes from Him and not be trusting in your own, which is to say that you are trusting in Him by faith to supply your salvation. This is the gospel, isn't it? Righteousness must be given to you. You can't earn it by your works. And you must trust in Him to give it to you by faith. So then in verse 6, the generation he's talking about, he's not talking, when he says this generation, he's not talking about a people who live in a particular time. He's talking about a type of people. People who are all of the same type. It's the type who seek Yahweh. And the ones who seek Yahweh are those with clean hands and a pure heart that they've received from the Lord. And so what's the base level of what we're saying here? Well, it's this, you wanna worship Yahweh? Then everything you are and all you have from the heart out, your inner righteousness, the thoughts of your heart down to the works of your hands must be set apart, must be holy to Yahweh. See, the same way that he owns the world that he's created in verses one and two, he owns your heart and the righteousness which is in it as well. and therefore the works of your hands are his as well." This is the people who worship Yahweh with all they are. We could say that they worship Yahweh by the dedication of every part of them and all they possess. That's what it's saying. That's the king's holy requirement. Third, I want you to see the King's glorious arrival. The King's glorious arrival. This is verses 7 to 10. David writes, lift up your heads, O gates. Be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? Yahweh, strong and mighty. Yahweh, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O gates. Lift yourselves up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is He, this King of glory? Yahweh of hosts. He is the King of glory. This is an amazing conclusion to this psalm. It's the climax of the psalm. It's the crescendo of the worshiper's song. And as we said earlier, this picture is a victorious king returning to his capital city. And as the king and his worshipers approach Jerusalem, The chorus shouts out as they're approaching the city. Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors. What are they saying? They're saying, O gates, you're not big enough. Gates of the city, you're not grand enough. The King of glory is coming in, and you must expand, you must enlarge, you must lift yourselves up to accommodate the magnificence of His glory. David here is speaking, he's treating the gates as if they're personified. Stretch yourself. Make way. Or just get out of the way, gates. Do not hinder this king's arrival. And then the response comes from within the city. Who is this king of glory? It is Yahweh. Omnipotent Yahweh. The king who has known no defeat ever. nor ever will. And then David repeats this for emphasis. This king is too great for his glorious arrival to be proclaimed just once. The king's advent must be magnified. The king's advent, his arrival must be glorified. Now in David's day, when we started this psalm earlier, we said that this was a reference to a time when likely the Ark of the Covenant was entering Jerusalem. That represented the arrival of King Yahweh to them. Not just the earthly king, but the heavenly king. But David knew, as the author of this psalm, that this was a royal psalm about Messiah. So I want you to think forward for just a second, past the arrival, that the people would have been thinking about who read this psalm for the first time. past this arrival into Jerusalem of the Ark of the Covenant which represented God's presence in David's time, think forward a little bit to Jesus' time. To a time when the King of Glory actually did walk through the gates of Jerusalem. Now, which entry specifically am I talking about? Well, I'm talking about the triumphal entry. This is very interesting. Ancient rabbinical historians tell us that in Jewish tradition, this Psalm, Psalm 24, always was used for worship at the temple. In other words, it was recited, it was sung at the temple. Guess what day? The first day of the week. What is the first day of the week? It is Sunday. When was Jesus' triumphal entry? Sunday. So Psalm 24 is being proclaimed by the Jewish temple priest, likely at the same time Jesus himself is coming through the gates of Jerusalem. So the scene you have at his triumphal entry is Christ mounted on a donkey, ascending the approach to Jerusalem, coming up Mount Zion. And the people outside the city who are saying the words of Matthew 21 verse 9, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And from inside the walls, the temple priests are unwittingly shouting out the words of Psalm 24, verses seven through eight and verse 10. Lift up your heads, O gates. Be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? Yahweh, strong and mighty. Yahweh, mighty in battle. Who is he, this King of glory? Yahweh of hosts. He is the King of glory. Now that's a marvelous thought. But David is not writing about the King of Glory entering Jerusalem to be crucified, is he? David is writing about the King of Glory when he will actually take his throne. Actually possess all that is rightfully his. And when Jesus entered Jerusalem on that Sunday nearly 2,000 years ago, it was not to reign, but to give his life as a ransom for many. So this is not what David is writing about. He's writing about another entry, isn't he? He was symbolized by the ark entering Jerusalem, the presence of Yahweh seen symbolically entering on that ark. He was foreshadowed by Jesus entering the city in the days before his crucifixion. But the arrival David has in mind is when Jesus, Messiah, King, victorious, after his great military campaign of the Great Tribulation, of the campaign and battle of Armageddon, After he defeats Satan and all the armies of the world, he will renew the earth that is his, and he will then enter Jerusalem as the king of glory. And no city's gates are high enough or can lift themselves up enough to accept the magnificent presence of Christ when he finally takes possession of all that is his that he mentioned in verse one. That is the full expression of what David has in mind here. Who may worship that king then? His people whom he has died to save, the people to whom he gave righteousness, the people who have clean hands and pure hearts because they received those hearts and actions from their king, and then he will possess everything, all of our worship, all that we are, all that we possess. That's the worship this psalm ultimately points to. And that's when we will enter Jerusalem with our King. And that is when we will say, lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? Yahweh, strong and mighty. Yahweh, mighty in battle. Yahweh of hosts, He is the King of glory. He possesses it all. Our worship now is to reflect all three of those realities of our King. He owns everything. All that we have and all that we are are set apart to His service. And part of our worship now is to look forward to that time when our King takes possession of all that is rightfully His. And so the question I want to ask you this morning is, does your worship rightly reflect those realities? Is it from out of a heart and is it seen in your actions? Have you set apart as holy all that you own to the King's purposes and service because everything already is His? This is his privilege of ownership. This is his divine right as King of Kings. The fact that he owns and has true rights to everything that exists means that he has right to use whatever he has temporarily loaned to you and me. He has created it and he has the right to take back what belongs to him. He has loaned to you. Clothes to wear, air to breathe, food to eat, water to drink, a place to live, a wife or a husband if you're married, children if you have them, intelligence and skill to earn money and money itself. You and I must remove the notion that anything we have actually belongs to us. It does not. because everything we have has been given by him to be used for his glory. And so the question is not, how much of my money should I give the church? The real question is, how much of God's money can I have the privilege to invest in his kingdom work through the local church? This is to take his money and to use it in his service. When we review all that we have, even our finances, as belonging to God and begin to give sacrificially, even extravagantly, it places us in a position of dependence upon him. First foundation we saw two weeks ago, we give because God has given us a transformed heart. The second foundation we give because God owns everything. The third foundation, Lord willing, we'll see next week. Let's pray. Our Father, everything is yours. You've told us that over and over again in your word, everything. Nothing truly belongs to us. Father, impact our hearts with this truth this morning, that our God is King, that our God has divine right to everything, and that the right, just, good, and pure act of our hearts is to give as a cheerful giver, as scripture says, for we know that you love that, that's what your word tells us. Father, help foster that attitude in our hearts today, that Christ may be glorified as we look forward to that time when he will enter the gates of Jerusalem as the great king who possesses it all. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.