12 Dollars A Changed Life Series

Opening Video Illustration: Chairs clip – this clip reminds us how important our lives are to the Kingdom of Heaven and to each other sitting in this church this morning. ( from sermoncentral.com.)

Series: 12 in 2012

Sermon: $12 dollars a changed life!

Subject: Spiritual mile marker “Giving”

Review of the 2012 so far:

Our 5 rocks signify the following:

January 2012 – 12 meals, 12 minutes of prayer for our 21 day time of prayer and fasting.

February 2012 – 12 minutes of Bible reading a day and you can read the Bible through in a year.

March 2012 – 12 people, 12 ways to invite someone to church.

Re-highlight the pens and the cards to continue inviting people out to church.

April 2012 – 1 person - 1 time a month - 12 meetings this year for the purpose of discipleship and or make 12 new connections with unsaved people this year for the purpose of future discipleship.

The new rock symbolizes another spiritual mile marker: “Giving”

May 2012 – This month’s spiritual mile marker challenge is to be wise Stewards of the resources God has given us in our life – we do this financially by tithing, and by giving offerings. We also do it by using our gifts – our talents and our time for the Kingdom of Heaven.

The parable of the talents which we will look at in a moment reminds us, instructs us to make sure that we do not forget that we are placed here on this earth to manage the resources God places into our hands.

Introduction:

Story from Kirk Nowery: “The Stewardship of Life.”

At 12:55 pm the mayday call crackled through the speakers at the Flight Service Station on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. The desperate pilot of a Piper A22, a small single-engine plane, was reporting that he had run out of fuel and was preparing to ditch the aircraft in the waters of Cook Inlet. On board were four people, two adults and two young girls, ages 11 and 12. They had departed two hours earlier from Port Alsworth, a small community on the south shore of Lake Clark, bound for Soldotna, a distance of about 150 miles. Under normal conditions it would been a routine flight; however, the combination of fierce headwinds and a failure to top off the fuel tank had created a lethal situation. Upon hearing the plane’s tail number, the air traffic controller realized that his own daughter was one of the young passengers aboard the plane. In desperation himself, he did everything possible to assist the pilot; but suddenly the transmission was cut off. The plane had crashed into the icy waters. Four helicopters operating nearby began searching the area within minutes of the emergency call; but they found no evidence of the plane, and no survivors. The aircraft had been traveling without water survival gear, leaving its four passengers with even less of a chance to make it through the ordeal. Fiercely cold Cook Inlet, with its unpredictable glacial currents, is considered among the most dangerous waters in the world. It can claim a life in minutes, and that day it claimed four.

Kirk adds these thoughts to the story: For reasons we will never know, the pilot of that doomed aircraft chose not to use the resources that were at his disposal. He did not have enough fuel. He did not have the proper survival equipment. Perhaps he had not taken the time to get the day’s weather report. Whatever the case, he did not use the resources that were available; and in this instance the consequences were fatal.

I wonder how many other people have died needlessly like these 4 people did? Why, because someone did not manage and or use the resources they had at their disposal. – I also wonder how many have died without Jesus -- spiritually speaking from others being poor stewards of the resources God has placed them in charge of.

Nowery states, “The stewardship of resources is a serious business; and God’s will is that we give it serious attention. This demands that we have the right perspective on our resources, and that is possible only if we have the right focus on our source (Page 118).

T.S. - Let’s read our parable from Jesus today and learn just how important Stewardship of our life and resources is to God.

The parable of the talents:

Matthew 25: 14-30:

The Parable of the Talents

14“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them.

15To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.

16The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more.