00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 727 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm David Smith author of who's got your back making and keeping great friendships among men. I encourage you to invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talents and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to build real lasting friendships as a man is vital to doing this.
00:00:32 And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with the leadership provided by Scott Mayer. In my life. God comes, first, family comes second, and I haven't sacrificed either of those things and serving the wider church for me comes third right now. And my business actually comes forth. And because of that,
00:01:07 I put some things aside for later in the year and even early next year. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself,
00:01:32 invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. And today's spiritual foundation episode about developing your influence. I talk with you about Matthew chapter 16 verses 24 through 28. I talk about the threefold act of sacrificial service and why we are often blind to the need for sacrifice in service. Matthew chapter 16, verses 24 through 28 says then Jesus told his disciples.
00:02:11 If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me for whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it for what will it profit a man. If he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul, or what shall a man give in return for his soul for the son of man is going to come and his angels and the glory of the father.
00:02:35 And then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Now, it's interesting because you know, I truly believe in the power of grace. I don't believe that we earn our way into heaven or that doing good acts is something that we need to do so that God will take care of us. I don't look at the world as a cosmic vending machine,
00:02:58 where if I put things in only good things come out. And yet I also firmly believe that we are called as Christians to an act of sacrificial service. I believe that calling comes not out of an obligation, but rather out of a Supreme submission to the idea that we are supposed to actually serve the way that Jesus did. And I think sometimes we've lost sight of that.
00:03:27 I know I have, when I look at my Christian walk, I've often looked at God as something that was there to provide for me. I've looked at God as something that I could pray to, that he would take care of me and all of that's true. But if that's all I've got in my view, that's an awfully narrow view of what it means to serve Christ.
00:03:51 You know, we look and we often say other people, other churches, other organizations, whether it's somebody on the other side of the aisle, whatever it is, those people are really selfish. Those people don't really do what we should do and what we do. You know, we are the ones that are sacrificial. They are not. And any time you start finding yourself,
00:04:16 looking across to another group and calling them them, you might need to turn around and look in the mirror and see, are you being a person, a sacrifice yourself? You know, we are called as Christians to be a living sacrifice. That term is used in the Bible. Paul talks about it. And if you think about it, that living sacrifice is sort of an oxymoron.
00:04:45 It's one of these things where these two words just don't go together where the two connections don't fit in our head, living sacrifice a sacrifice in the old Testament was always something that was killed in honor of God. It was something that, that death was part of the act of devotion. Killing an unblemished animal was an act of devotion to God. But here Paul is calling for us to be not offering our dead selves,
00:05:21 but our living cells to take our bodies and our minds and our hands and our feet and put them to work for God. This is an act of spiritual worship. This is an act of not just conformity, not looking at the world and saying I fit in in this way, but rather often serving in a way that just doesn't fit in with what's going on around you,
00:05:49 not just doing it because others are but doing it because Christ has called us to do it. And that is an response. The second idea here is that this idea of being transformed by the renewal of your mind, this is part of what we are called to do as Christians. We're called to not think of doing things because everyone else is doing them,
00:06:16 not do them because the world is doing them, but do them because that's what we feel called upon to do by God. And oftentimes, because of that, like tithing, whenever you're trying to get out of debt, anyone looking at that with logic in mind would go, this doesn't make sense. You won't get out of debt quicker by tithing. And yet I've seen time after time after time,
00:06:40 when people sacrificially give in a way that logic and the world would say is stupid. It actually works better in the longterm, which brings me to the three areas of your life, where you could look to for sacrificial service. The first one is financially with money. It is entirely possible to, through your gifts of money, through your ties and your offerings to give resources and out of those resources to serve those that have less than you to you.
00:07:15 We are called to serve anyone who is the other, anyone who's being abused. We are called to call out injustice and to serve those who need our service. Sacrificial service also means that we can serve second in a relational way. We can give of our time. But more importantly, we can give over our relationship with others. We can seek out those who need people in their lives and spend time with them to help introduce them to what it means to have God in their life.
00:07:53 We can look at ourselves not as too busy or too self-interested or too stuck in our own things, but find the time to do it anyway. You know, I've been called to serve a lot here recently, and it's made it challenging to do some of the things that I need to do for my business or others, but in my life, God comes,
00:08:15 first family comes second, and I haven't sacrificed either of those things and serving the wider church for me comes third right now. And my business actually comes forth. And because of that, I've put some things aside for later in the year and even early next year, because it's a sacrifice that I'm able to make and willing to make and feel called to make.
00:08:38 Right now, it won't be lasting forever, but that's the way it is today. Sacrificial service also means third that you can respond with your energy. You know, the truth is that if you look at most organizations, 90%, the work is done by 10 or 20% of the people. But the truth is whenever you look at that, everyone always talks about things that can be done by someone,
00:09:06 someone should take care of this. Someone should actually get this going the way we want it to go. Someone should fix this issue. But the problem is that anytime you say that someone should do it, you have to recognize that you are someone and maybe it's better for you to just go ahead and take care of the issue yourself. Then keep waiting for someone to do it.
00:09:34 I believe that we are called to sacrificially serve, but I believe that we are often blind to this. We often don't see the need for sacrifice because we begin to look at the relationships we have with God and with others, not for how we can take care of them, but for how they can provide for us. And when we get that out of order,
00:09:57 when we start looking at that backwards, it makes it hard to see the need for sacrifice and see what comes out of it is a much better relationship with yourself, with others and with God. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively,
00:10:27 listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode, do me a favor, go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there until next time,
00:11:02 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world..