We're gonna be in 1 Peter today, so turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter one, verses 10 to 12. If you're using a blue Bible, that one of the ushers gave you, it's page 1116 in the blue ESV Bibles that you have. And if you're willing, go ahead and stand. Let's read God's word together, and then we are going to jump in. Thank you for standing if you are able. Peter writes in 1 Peter 1, verses 10 to 11 and 12, concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you. in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which the angels long to look. Go ahead and remain standing, we'll pray very quickly. Father. We've prayed much this morning. We simply ask one more time for you to bless your word to do its great work. We're in need of that. Be with Pastor John as he ministers in Zambia and with Brian and Caden as well as they support, assist, and minister as well. Thank you for what you're doing here, what you're doing there, around the valley, and around the world. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, let me share with you to start a scenario that might be familiar to you. There is, let's say, a husband and a wife, and they are wrapping up dinner. And let's say in this particular house on any given night, the wife does the dishes and the husband gets the kids ready for bath and bedtime. And so, you know, team hubby and wife doing what they need to do to get the kids ready. And so he's gonna go change the poopy diapers and handle business and deal with all the madness and the splashing and the bubbles and all that while the wife deals with the dishes. And so on this particular night though, the kids are at grandma's. And so hubby thinks, hey, it's my night off. Good luck with the grease pans there, sweetheart. I'm gonna go watch me some football. Well, then the look comes from the wife, right? And the husband begrudgingly responds, oh, fine, I guess I have to wash the dishes with you. I guess I gotta help you with the dishes. All right, I'll help you with the dishes. And then the wife says this, right? Some of you said this. You know what? Forget it. I don't need your help with the dishes. Go on and watch your football. And then the husband says, well, you gave me the look like you want me to do the dishes. So you don't want me to do the dishes or not want me to do the dishes? You want me to watch football? You really mean that you're being supportive? You want me to watch football? Which is it? Cause I don't speak wife or woman right now. I need a translator here. Am I going to get, is this going to come back to get me later? Do you want me to do the dishes or not? And then every wife in the room has probably responded this way. It's not that I want you to do the dishes. I want you to want to do the dishes. For those of you still in need of the CHT translation, the Challenged Husband translation, what your wife and my wife are saying in those moments is, they don't want us thinking, I have to do the dishes with you. They want us thinking, I get to do the dishes with you. and we're gonna sway to music, and you're gonna scrub and pass, and I'm gonna dry and rack, and it's gonna be this beautiful movie montage, right? And we're gonna fall in love all over again. The kids are out for the night. I get to do the dishes. Who wants to watch football anyway and put their feet up after a long day? Not me. I wanna do the dishes with you, sweetheart. And I think there's enough room if we stand close to each other on a little padded mat that you ladies have in front of the dish soap sink. We'll stand on that together and sway. What is happening there is a wife wanting her husband to be serving and loving and romanticizing and fellowshipping with her, not as a blessing or a burden rather, but as a blessing. And what has taken place in kitchens and marriages for millennia is something that is very common today still, an attitude problem, if you will, that plagues our perspective in every area of our life. We can either think, I have to, or we can think, I get to. or we can be those who live the Christian life under compulsion, and not the kind of compulsion that is good, the kind that is bad, or we can be the kind of Christians who live our lives with conviction, the I get to attitude. Our passage today, though I would argue you're not necessarily gonna read this and think this, is a blessing and a gift to our perspective as believers. it will literally offer you life-changing perspective. And so let's do this. We're gonna understand the text first, run through a few key points, and then we're gonna apply this together as a body. So first, look with me at the beginning of verse 10. Peter says concerning this, salvation. The word salvation, if you want to circle it, it literally means saved or to be delivered. This is a word we've talked about before in prior sermons in our First Peter study, and so I won't rehash. You can go check YouTube for those, but literally this is where we get the Christian phrase, are you saved? Have you been saved? He says concerning this salvation, which is basically that you've got to repent of your sin. You've got to turn from your ways. You've got to say, you know, my way doesn't work. God, I need your way to work. I keep ending up on dead ends and even if I end up somewhere pretty great in the end, it never really works and I'm still empty. I need You, you Jesus, who were the Son of God, the perfect and sinless Savior, the one who came and took the wrath of God in my place, and then you rose from the dead to prove that you've got this death thing conquered, and now I believe in you, I trust in you, I throw my life on you, and you give me eternal life, and even better, or before that, I get to live a life of purpose here on earth in you. That salvation is what Peter is referring to. that it's not some insurance policy. It's a whole new way of life. Concerning all that, that the old you is gone, the new you is in full effect, and the blessings of salvation that are available to you. Concerning all that is what he's saying. And those are all wrapped up in verses three through nine, really. It's the inheritance that you have. It's the rich mercy of God. It's the lavish grace. He's basically said, hey, spiritually speaking, you are loaded. You are the upper, upper, upper class. grace upon grace that you didn't deserve, no matter what you're going through, you are saved. Ephesians 1, 7, in him you have redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ. You've been forgiven and according to the riches of grace that he lavished on us, lavished. That's what Peter is starting out this passage with. an understanding that salvation is a really big deal. And what he's about to explain is something that you and I need to understand, which is salvation is a really big privilege. It's a huge privilege. And so in a sermon that's literally titled, My Christian Privilege, I would be remiss if I didn't first start by saying this, you cannot take advantage of the privileges that I'm gonna walk you through, or even the applications of being a Christian, if you have not first laid down your pride, repented of your sin, kind of the old church word, and that's just the way it goes, it ain't no fire and brimstone, it's just at the end of the day, at some point, every human has to come to a point, a fork in the road, my way or God's way, repent of my sin, turn to Him, or keep going my way in pride and think, you know, God thinks I'm a good guy, I'll figure it out in the end. You've gotta make that choice at some point. You don't have the Christian privilege of salvation. If you have not said, Jesus, I wanna live for you, and I'm going to live for you. The Bible says in Romans 10, 13, that all who call upon the name of the Lord in that way will be saved. And so this morning, if you've not yet done that, Taking advantage of that privilege, I invite you to do that. People talk a lot today about privilege, don't they? You hear this on the news and different blogs and whatever, even in the Christian world, they talk about white privilege and suburban privilege and gender privilege, privilege, privilege, all over the place. Here's the deal, guess what? Jesus doesn't care about your skin color, your zip code, or your gender. Male or female, it don't matter. Jew, Gentile, it don't matter. Everybody gets the privilege of salvation. if they will simply come to Him and say, I believe. I'll do it your way. I want that, and if you want that today, I don't care if it's during the service, and you don't walk down this aisle and sit right here and commit your life to Christ, we'll have altar workers that'll walk down, I'll stop the sermon, I really don't care if today's the day of salvation for you. At the end, there'll be people down here to pray with you, and one of us will be at the door in the lobby, anywhere you go on this campus, if Jesus is doing a work in your heart, and after this sermon you say, I want the Christian privilege of salvation, we'll walk with you. And so before we go any further, understand that that has been made clear. People think that heaven is kind of like this mountain top that all the trails just lead to, but Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, the life. No one's getting up that mountain to the Father except through me. And so in the end, at the end of all things, you're playing a game you'll never win if you're trying to get to heaven without Jesus. And so the first point, in the text and in the passage and the sermon is that my Christian privilege is salvation by grace through faith when I repent of my sin and I follow Jesus Christ. That's the Christian privilege you get. That is the Christian privilege that I get if we will throw ourselves on Jesus. Peter says, concerning this salvation, now that we understand, the prophets, in verse 10b and on to 11, who prophesied about that grace that was to be yours, they searched and inquired carefully. Inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory." Some of you are thinking, okay, you had me at the salvation, repent, all that was clear. What in the world is this talking about? Well, let's look closer and I'll explain it. It's very simple. In the end here, Peter is saying that there were prophets of old. And they got literal, verbal prophecy, revelation from God on high, saying, here are promises about the future. Here are promises for people. Here is hope in a Messiah. Here's hope in a Savior. This is like those passages at Christmas we read from the book of Isaiah. And it says, unto us a child is born. Unto us a son will be given. His name will be Wonderful Counselor. He will be Emmanuel, God with us. And we all sing these songs and think, oh, well, I guess this is just a modern day thing. No, this has been predicted and prophesied for millennia. That's what Peter wants them to understand, that there are prophets who back then prophesied about the grace that was coming. It appears here, just to kind of dig deeper with you, that his audience is aware of what a prophet really is. And so he doesn't bother to explain their ethnicity. He doesn't bother to explain that they are reliable. And no logical person under the power and direction of the Holy Spirit, which would have been Peter as he's writing this letter, is going to talk about something that isn't 100% reliable and true. And so the source is reliable. He's encouraging persecuted Christians that it's reliable. Accurate prophets that they could count on. Why? What's he showing them? He's showing them that they don't stand on a heritage alone. This is nothing new. You know, people who think that this, you know, organized religion is some modern construct, is some social construct we've just created as a revenue stream and then to give y'all a little hope so you can kind of have a purpose in life. But we stand on and here sit now in and on top of a heritage of faith that reaches back thousands of years that has been prophesied literally and has been and is still being and going to be fulfilled literally. The grace that these people are living in, the sufferings of Christ, the glories to come, all of that, they were now and you and I are now living in a much fuller sense. The Messiah they prophesied about hadn't come yet. Would he come in 100 years, 10 years? Is he here now? It's not like the Old Testament prophets were sitting there going, okay, so be a little stable, and this guy named Joe, and this gal Mary, and then she'll have a baby bump and always wear blue in the nativity scenes that everyone will have one day, and this whole thing is gonna look like this, and then the camels and the wise men. It's not like they had every detail nailed. They were given a glimpse, a view, revelation from God to prophesy of the Messiah to come, But it's not like in the Old Testament they were saying, you know, Lord Jesus, I believe in you. You're the only way, the truth, and the life. I'm gonna pray the sinner's prayer and get saved. People often ask, well, how do they get saved in the Old Testament? Well, the same way that you and I still get saved today, by grace through faith. We see with Abraham, God says it was reckoned to him as righteousness. It's reckoned him as faith. Why? Because he went not knowing where he was going. God just said, go, and he obeyed. He followed the progressive revelation he had been given up to that point. What's Peter's point in looking back at the prophets is, well, look at your life now. You've got prophecy unveiled. And if I were to even take that and cross the time bridge to you today, I would tell you, look in your lap at the storyline that unfolds right before your eyes. Look at how much you and I now have. Look at the privilege of seeing prophecy fulfilled, that you don't have to wake up every day kind of wondering, you know, is this Christianity thing for real? Is this Jesus thing for real? You and I may ask how long, oh Lord, until you return, but we have so much more than the Old Testament prophets. And they themselves, Peter says, even inquired. What that means is, like in Daniel chapter 12, 8 and 9 and verse 13, and in Habakkuk 1, 2 to 3, and Isaiah 6, 11, and other places throughout the Old Testament, God would come and He would reveal something to the prophets, and they would look back up and say, wow, when is that going to happen? Ha, who will it be? What will this be like? They would actually be allowed. They were a hundred percent infallible, accurate prophets. They weren't like, you know, shotgun prophecy. They throw 20 of them out there and one of them kind of hits a little bit and like, oh, I guess I'm a prophet. No, these guys were going into the hall of fame for prophets batting a thousand. They always got it right. And they would ask God. Like Daniel, how long? How long till we see this all unfold? This is incredible. What's this all gonna be like? And like for Daniel, there were these interesting moments where the messenger of the Lord or the word of the Lord would come and tell them, you know, these words are shut up for a little while. They're bottled up and they'll be revealed at some point. But for you, Daniel, you just do your job. You just tell him what's coming now, and then you sit down, go rest for a little while. In other words, go die and relax in the presence of God for a little bit. And then I love this. And you shall stand in your allotted place at the end of days. You know what the messenger of the Lord just told Daniel? Hey, do your job, predict the future, and then listen, you'll get your 50 yard line seats when the show goes down one day. I'll make sure of it. You'll get your place to stand and watch what I'm gonna do, but for now, you prophesy. And when it comes to pass, people are gonna say, wow, look at the accuracy of our God. Isaiah, how long, O Lord? Habakkuk, wondering when the wicked will be destroyed and when it's all gonna work out. How long, O Lord? Even outside of the prophets in Luke 3, 15. Remember John the Baptist came and he's wearing camel hair and eating grasshoppers, crazy man running around the desert, shouting the Lamb of God's coming. And people are saying, who is this guy? Is this the Messiah? Is this like Elijah coming back from the dead? This guy's really bringing it. This must be one of those. The questioning, wondering, and even John the Baptist, after ending up in prison, he's about to lose his head. He's deflated. Matthew 11, verses two and three, John sends out people to ask Jesus himself, are you the one? Because I thought you were going to overthrow Rome, man. I thought we were going to do this together. I was going to be your vice president. I thought you were coming to kill them all and establish your kingdom now. I'm here in prison, they're gonna cut, she's gonna cut off my head. I thought you're the guy. Wondering, inquiring, is this what it was? I thought you were bringing grace. I thought you were bringing power. And so certainly they wondered and inquired and in the end, Watch even now as the cloud of witnesses, as God's plan unfolds, not just for Peter's readers in the early church, but even now through you and through me. Peter goes on and says it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves. You know, the prophets weren't superstars, they were servants. They were there to give people hope and literal declarations that would come to pass. Peter's readers are being told, you're an insider like never before in history. The prophets looked. They saw, they heard, but in the end, you're living the promises of hope. You're living out the promise of a savior. You're not living before the cross. You're living after the cross. Even the picture just before the cross, Jesus paints for his disciples. He says in Matthew 13, 16 to 17, But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see, but they didn't see it, and to hear what you hear, and they did not hear it. Jesus' faithful disciples, they lived pre-cross, post-cross. They see the establishment of the church comprised of every nation and tribe and tongue. Now you are living prophecy revealed. That is what Peter is conveying and getting across to these readers. You live in the age of grace. Now you don't have to come and kill little lambies at the foot of the altar to make God happy. He just says, repent and believe. It's the free gift of grace. You get to come all you who are heavy laden and he'll give you rest. Peter doesn't want to stop at the prophets though. He takes that extra shot. It's the last word but in a good way. He says this, look at it real close there at the end of 12. Things into which the angels long to look. Things into which the angels long to look. Circle a few words or underline them or highlight them if you're one of those Bible circling, highlighting type of note taker people. Things, okay? Things. All the beautiful privileges of salvation, much of what we've talked about, and much of what we haven't. I could go on and preach you seven different sermons on the blessings of salvation, but trust me or trust the Bible. It's there. We could study it another time. He's referring things. All those amazing things are what the angels long. The word is a strong desire. This is an urge. They are trying to get in there and look, and he uses the word look, and you can circle that. That means to stoop or bend over. Imagine the phrase, I'm bending over backwards to try to see this. I'm peering in, I'm on my tippy toes. That is the word being used here. This is the same word used in Luke 24, 12, when Peter himself is stooping in to see, is the body really gone? He raised from the dead. He's not in here. Where did he go? They are stooping. That's the way that the angels are watching all this unfold. They're looking at you and what you get and the privileges you have that way. You know, Peter's audience at the time could have been thinking, you know, we're being persecuted. The world thinks we're ridiculous. We're scorned. And yet, They get the promise and the joy of Peter telling them, you are the object of heaven's affection. God is paying attention to you. So much so that the prophets are looking going, wow, who's this grace gonna fall upon? And the angels themselves, who by the way, did you know are not saved by grace through faith? They're not saved from sin. They're not like you. You are the image of God. Angels aren't. They're created as messengers, servants, for the purposes of God. They're watching you. And oh, I know some of you wanna get to heaven and like the little movies, you know, when the bell rings and the angel gets its wings and you're all excited to see what the angels are like. They are watching you now, peering in, stooping over, thinking, unbelievable. We sing about the holy God. We are witnesses of his glory, only to the effect though that he even gives us wings to cover our eyes because his glory would melt us if we actually saw it. That holy God loves those He's saving those. Amazing. Wow. Not only that, look at how he declared it through the prophets and now it's coming true. Oh, there's no God like our God. Oh, there's no word like our God's word. Oh, there is no execution of divine decrees like our God's. Look at his plan. Look at the people. That's what the angels are doing. Look at the way that you gift them and love them and use them. Oh, what it would be like to be the object of the divine creator's affection. Oh, to have the wisdom. Oh, to have the plan and purposes they do. Wow. And this is all over the Bible, all over. 1 Corinthians 4, 9, Paul explaining the exhibition of being an apostle. You know, people today think being an apostle's real cool. You're gonna be the head honcho and run a church and be a hot shot, doing miracles. Here's the deal. He says, apostles, we're last of all. We're scorned by all men. We're the tip of the spear. We're the ones being thrust into the battle first. He explains, I think God has exhibited us apostles of last of all, like men sentenced to death. Because we become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. The angels are even looking on saying, wow, look at how these humans would be willing to lay it all down for our God. They're getting it. They're seeing what we see all the time. They're walking in obedience. And now we're in a whole new way that angels look, not just, oh, what it would be like to be the object of grace, but incredible the way that some of them respond and are willing to do anything. And they believe, but yet they've not seen him. This is amazing. Only our God could cause such power to unfold through the lives of mere men. In Ephesians 3.10, Paul says that the church is the manifold wisdom of God, and it gets put on display for all the world and the heavenly places and rulers and authorities throughout the world. What is he saying? You are showstoppers. The church is the showstopper. Everyone looks on and says, unbelievable. Look at them, committed, loving, singing, serving, giving, fellowshipping, preaching, counseling, discipling, confessing over and over and over again. His plan is unfolding. His power is unstoppable. Our God, who is like our God. God. That's what the angels are saying. And so point number two is this. My Christian privilege is that prophets and angels long to see what God is doing in and through me. I don't mean to be clever and making it rhyme, but if that helps you remember it a little more, then so be it. The angels and the prophets, they long to see what God is doing in and through me, through you, people walking in the plan of God. Brothers and sisters, it is a privilege to be a Christian. I wonder if you see it that way, your gifts, your life, your background, your story, a privilege to be used for the glory of God, not rules to be loathed. In light of a passage like this, what if no matter what we were going through, we were not I have to kind of Christians, we were I get to kind of Christians. What if we looked at the privilege of salvation and suddenly we decided we're gonna walk around with an awareness of this short time in which a heritage of faith and even heavenly angels are looking down upon and we are gonna live it to the fullest for the glory of God. I wanna apply these with you. And so I'm gonna give you what I call the big six. The big six. These are applications for us as a church. We're gonna run through them fast. Bullet point, they're in your outlines. There's passages associated with them. They are New Testament commands, but in the end, we're not called to do these with compulsion. We are called to do them and live them with conviction. And so this is the call for you this morning. Are you an I-have-to kind of Christian or an I-get-to kind of Christian? In the end, all believers are going to go to heaven. You're going to get there and you're going to either have been a consumer or a contributor. You'll have either sat around down here, no offense if your name is Debbie or Sally, but as a Debbie Downer or cynical Sally, dragging the system down and spewing your preferences and your opinions, what you don't like, as though this were some new thing that heaven needs your opinion on. No, brothers and sisters. Heaven's been clear, God has been clear. And so it's been well said in the world and on sports teams and through coaches for many, many decades that attitude determines altitude. You ever heard that before? I think that can be applied to the church and the way a church lives. Attitude determines altitude. How far we go, how high we go in his strength for his glory is determined by the way our perspective is as we approach our privilege. And so let's test these out. Ready? Number one. I'm gonna drive some of you crazy with this list. Number one, I get to attend church weekly. Woo! I get to attend church weekly. People are dying for their faith. Some people can't even meet in China. We come in, I gotta be here today, I guess. Wife dragged me here, husband dragged me here. I wonder if you've heard one of my favorite ministry jokes. You probably have, maybe you haven't. A wife once looked on as her husband was wearing down throughout the week. At Sunday approach, she wondered if he'd have any motivation to attend church. On Sunday morning, she'd gotten up, gotten ready, heard the alarm go off several times. He kept hitting the snooze button. Finally, she walked in and said, honey, you need to get up and go to church. He pleaded from under the covers, I don't wanna go to church. She fired back, oh, you are going to church. Give me three good reasons, he argued. Well, she began, number one, it's Sunday, you need to get up, get dressed and go to church. Number two, you're 43 years old and need to stop acting like a rebellious teenager. And number three, you're the pastor and you're preaching this morning, so get up and go to church. You know, I wonder if you and I have ever felt that way. I'm sure you and I have maybe felt that way. So what if we just commit together to a renewed perspective? To just crush the I have to and start walking in the I get to. I get to go see all these people. I get to go fight for parking and still smile, because you can't road rage at church. I get to come and sing and worship. I get to be encouraged. I get to go and gather with the saints. Number two, I get to disciple others faithfully. from growth groups to marriage classes, equipped courses, prayer ministry, one-on-one Bible studies, men's and women's ministry. The chance to make disciples is never-ending. The chance to be sharpened as iron, being sharpened by iron, is never-ending for the Christian. There's always someone new who needs a mature believer to walk with them. There's always somebody mature who is looking for somebody to walk And so instead of just using all of these avenues, you know, nearly seven days a week of ministry as though they're just entertainment and just to hang out, some of you for the free food, I'm with you, we cater really good at the church, but in the end. What are you doing? Why are you there? What's the conversation like? Are you talking about, you know, your preferences or you don't like the shirt that I wore on Sunday and all that stuff. Just toss all that on the shelf, go to Chick-fil-A on another time and talk about all that. But for now, redeem the time, dwell on the word, put your nose in the book, get on your face together, seek the Lord, pray for the lost, pray for the church, pray for others, pray for your pastors. I get to, we get to disciple faithfully for a short time. We get to grow in the Lord. Number three, I get to serve with my gifts uniquely. You know that you're a thumbprint? The Bible literally says that. 1 Peter 4, 7 through 11, we'll study that in our 1 Peter series. You're a thumbprint. And man, I know you won't like this, I'm gonna only use it once just to give you the visual all the way. You're a snowflake. You're a snowflake. You know that no two snowflakes are the same? No two thumbprints are the same? You do you better than anyone on this earth. Not one of you is gifted the same. There is a hybrid, there are many lists of spiritual gifts. In fact, people get this wrong. They go to one passage and they count them all up and say, well, that's how many spiritual gifts they are, so you take a test and I guess you're whatever. No, you are all a unique hybrid blend from the sovereign Holy Spirit pouring into your life saying, I've called you to do this. Nobody else can do this better or like you. You're a member of the body and playing your role. People say, oh, the church always just wants something from me. No, the church wants something for you. to use your gifts, to use the unique thumbprint that you are, to leave an imprint and a mark on the church. And I'll end with this in this point, false pride can get some of us, can't it? We say things like, you know, I am such a good communicator. I don't really want to because if I did, you know, Kosti and John, they wouldn't have jobs. You know, some of you maybe have said this, you know, I'm such an amazing singer. It will only distract. If I grace everyone with my voice for four straight services, I run piano keys like Mozart. It'll turn into symphony number 40 if I get up there. Surely nobody will even want to hear the preaching. They'll just want me to keep playing the piano. And people will come up to me after and say how amazing I play, and then the focus will be on me and not Jesus. Listen, some of you need to get over your lofty view of your own self-importance. We are a church, we are, look around, a church of gifted singers, musicians, preachers, artists, quilters, teachers, painters, businessmen, educators, lawyers, strategists, and beyond. There are numerous gifts that would blow your mind and they do blow your mind every single week and you glorify God and you thank your brother and sister for using their gift because we get the privilege of serving. We get the privilege of using our gifts. He gave you the gift, all you need to do is worry about giving him the glory. People are gonna say you sound amazing, because you probably do. Just say praise God, thankful to serve. If you get John and I fired and you're the preacher, good for you. I'll come up after to the door, shake your hand, and say thanks for bringing the word, brother. Good for you. Praise God. Praise God that he gifted a church. Praise God that he gifted a children's ministry, a choir ministry, a prayer ministry with people who lay themselves down. Praise God. Number four, I get to give my money generously. I get to give. We saw this at Christmas. You people are unbelievable. You unloaded generosity on Redeemer, African churches, breast cancer survivors, and women in great need, prison ministry. Here's the deal. The wallet's back here in the old rear end, isn't it? And the heart's right here. They seem a little far apart, but they are inextricably connected forever, amen? Your money and your heart are tied together very tightly. Jesus said it in Matthew 6, 21, where your treasure is, your heart is. We do this in our home. You ought to do it as well. This is just a Bible thing. You look what Jesus said. Basically, your cash and your convictions are gonna mesh. They're gonna match. You look at where you spend your money, I'll tell you your convictions. You, I'll give you my login right now. You go log into my Chase account and look at the ledger. You're gonna see some in and out on there, guaranteed. You're gonna see a date night on there. I hope you see Redeemer on there. You're gonna see convictions. When we look at the privilege of giving, I think some of us forget there ain't no U-Haul behind the hearse. We ain't taking it with us. And we get the chance to give. We get the chance to live generously. And Jesus said that my heart and my money are connected. He wasn't talking about giving your time. Some people say, I'm gonna give my time, I'm gonna keep my money, and that's good with God. No, it's not. And here's why I'm pressing on this, because today, there is so much confusion about money, and you got these crazy preachers telling you, if you don't give 10%, you're robbing God. In the Old Testament, tithe was more like 23 to 33%. Scholars have made that very clear. So I'm talking about no tithe. 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 are the two chapters you wanna read later. You wanna talk about New Testament giving. Paul says you give joyfully, excitedly, you give generously, not under compulsion. excitedly what you purpose in your heart, which means it's a get to attitude. And then he says that Jesus became poor so you could become rich. He's talking about Jesus being so generous and lavish with his grace, that that's a model for our giving. And the Macedonian Christians at that time, when Paul's talking, are broke people that are begging him if they can give more. So it ain't about no being rich and no being poor, it ain't about percentages, it is always, and hear me clear, always about your and my heart. That's what God wants. He doesn't want your 10%. He wants your heart. And so we do well to live with the, I get to attitude in our giving. And one final point on that, the reality is, you know, if I'm a millionaire and I'm given a certain percentage, cause you know, I think the Bible says, I might be robbing God. I could give more and live on less and still be loaded. And some of us are going through hard times. And for you to give, you know, three or 4% of your income, you're stretching, crying. This is like widow's might, sacrificial. You know what the beautiful thing is? Both work together. God uses the first Timothy six rich, rich in good works, generous to share, the broke and the poor who are always with us. And they all come together because the church is the rich, the poor, the black, the white, the left, the right, from everywhere and in between. And they are people of God being used together to showcase his glory to the world. That's what we are. And so are we, and I get to kind of church. Number five, I get to preserve unity consistently. Another privilege that results from our salvation is unity. Jesus prayed for it in John 17. And don't you think if Jesus prayed for something, we should probably aim for it? He prayed that the church would be unified. In Proverbs 6, 19, God literally says, I hate discord. I hate division. I will not tolerate it. You don't wanna be doing the thing. that God says he hates. Over and over and over, we need to be putting on love, forgiving one another, walking with one another, being gentle, bearing one another's burdens. Some people are just tough to deal with, I know. Some people are just critical, I know. We gotta love them. You can't hit them, you can't kill them, you can't do none of that. You gotta love them. The Bible don't even say you have to like them, you just gotta love them. That's the call. That is the call. We call this on our staff, closing gaps. Movie 300, remember the phalanx? They keep it tight. They check their ranks, picture the enemy circling Redeemer week after week, looking for gaps. You know what a gap is? They didn't say hi to me on Sunday. I bet they don't even like me. I wonder if they've been talking about me behind my back in growth group. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna tell the pastor. You know what, this church is just, I'm done with this church. I've been done with it. You know what? This happened two years ago and we don't close the gap. Meanwhile, the person was just thinking about their kid or needing coffee. They went to church, they're at brunch and they're not even thinking about you. We create caricatures in our mind and we talk about people and gossip and divide and go, when in the end, the gaps open and Satan goes, perfect, right there, I'm going in. Close gaps, go to your brother, go to your sister, go to people, go to pastors, work it out, get over it and move on, there are bigger things to do, amen? We gotta serve the Lord. I get to preserve unity consistently. Number six and finally, I get to proclaim the gospel to others. Boldly, I get to. We're only here a little while. It's been a week since Kobe and several others died. I knew John Altobelli, the coach, baseball coach that was on the helicopter with him. And my life flashes back to a season of time. I almost played for him. And I start thinking, wow, life like that, husbands, wives, daughters, people, this is happening in our lives every day. I get to share the gospel. I got one shot, one life, one chance. So I ought to do it. I ought to stop what I'm saying at the table sometimes and just look at the server and see a soul. I ought to be buying a car or at the grocery store, picking the same line each week so I can see the young gal with the pain in her eyes and she had a ring on and now she doesn't. Probably was a tough divorce. I don't know what's going on, but my wife and I compelled, we ought to ask her if she's doing okay. Every opportunity to be throwing the rope of the gospel to people. I get to proclaim the gospel. What if we simply were used by God to plant seeds of truth that would change lives and give others the privileges that we have? You can add more to this list as the Holy Spirit leads you throughout the week. There's certainly more you could add, but In the end, we talk about changing our lives and changing a church and changing a city, changing a valley, even changing the world. It all starts with a change in our perspective. Are you and I and I have to kind of Christian or are we and I get to kind of Christian?