How Jesus Lived: Jesus Lived Simply

Pastor Fletcher preaches from Matthew 8:18-22 about wealth and living like Jesus. Discussion points: Jesus responds to these prospective followers with challenge rather than begging, after a certain point more wealth will not increase your happiness, wealth deadens our hearts and distracts us from our need for God, the point of living simply is to fill our lives more with God.

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  Scripture reader: [Matthew 8:18-22] Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. And the scribe came up and said to him, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." Another of the disciples said to him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." And Jesus said to him, "Follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead."

  This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

  Preacher: All right, good morning. It's good to see everybody this morning. My name's Fletcher. I'm the lead pastor of the church. Today we're continuing our series on how Jesus lived, and with today's message, we're calling it Jesus Lived Simply, that we're saying that Jesus lived simply. I grew up relatively poor. Anybody else? Any, any other, any other relatively poor folks out there? we, we grew up, I grew up in the deep South and kind of the poorest area of the poorest state in the Mississippi Delta. And we didn't have a lot, you know, we, we didn't drink Doctor Pepper, we drank Doctor Thunder. Anybody else? Yeah, it wasn't Mountain Dew, it was Mountain Lightning in my home. Like we were poor enough, we're eating our cereal out of bags without boxes. Anybody else? Yeah, familiar with that?

  For me, growing up, it wasn't just simple living, it was just living. Everything was simple. And so even when my wife and I, we first got married 15 years ago in a couple of weeks, we've been married for a while now. Hey. When we first got married, we were quite poor as well. We were making it, you know, the Lord's always provided for every single one of our needs, but we didn't have a lot left over. And even recently, you know, 3 years ago, my wife went back to work, and she's back in the workplace. We're finally one of those two-income families, which I don't know how you make it in Somerville without being a two-income family, but we're finally a two-income family, and now our kids are old enough to where they're all in public school. Which is, I mean, you guys, like, if you have kids in daycare, you know, it's quite expensive to be putting your kids into any type of childcare.

  And so really, for the first time in my life, I have, you know, we have more finances each month than what we absolutely need to spend. And so I'm here and I'm preaching this message on Jesus living simply, and I just have to make a confession to you all before I go into the message, and that is, up until today I've preached probably dozens of messages on wealth, dozens of messages on money, but up until today, I kind of felt like I was exempt from a lot of what I was saying. Because I've just never really felt like I had a lot more than what I absolutely needed in the moment. Now, of course, there are points of conviction in there. I'm not trying to say I was exempt from Jesus' teaching or that I felt like I was, but what I am saying is that today hits a little bit differently. Because I'm seeing my life and thinking through how does the Lord want me to steward what he has given me, what he's given us. And so I just share that as a disclosure, be like, hey, I'm right there with you. If you feel convicted, if you feel challenged by Jesus' teachings on wealth, I do as well.

  So let's dive into the passage together. The passage today includes two responses to Jesus that are quite surprising. In fact, we have two perspective followers of Jesus, and Jesus actually responds in the surprising way to each of these perspective followers. And so first we have a scribe come to him in verse 19, we'll just walk through the passage here. Verse 19, it says, and a scribe came up and said to him, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. So a scribe in these ancient times was a religious leader. It was someone who was well respected, not necessarily a Pharisee, but they're usually associated with the Pharisees of the time. And so this is a well respected religious teacher, and this feels like a very sincere devotion to Christ. Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.

  But if you read Matthew, one thing that you'll notice about how Matthew writes his gospel, is that anytime someone calls Jesus teacher, that they are not fully believing that he is who he says he is. Many people believe that Jesus is a good teacher, but they do not see him as who he claimed to be, which is the Messiah. And so while teacher is accurate, it is inadequate to describe who Jesus is. He's not merely a good teacher, but Jesus turns the whole thing upside down. In fact, he breaks every rule of evangelism because the way that he responds is basically by shooting this guy down. Because he says, and Jesus said to him, verse 20, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

  It's breaking every rule. Every rule of church growth, every rule of evangelism, as a pastor, I know this, if someone's coming to you and say, hey, I want to follow Jesus, you don't say. You sure about that? It might mean you live very uncomfortably, and in fact it might mean that you go without more than you go with. You see, Jesus has no problem, this always astonishes me. He has no problem letting people walk away. If they're not truly drawn to who he is. You see, the scribe was probably drawn to Jesus as a good teacher. As an academic, he was probably drawn to Jesus, but many times men who are interested in Jesus for academic sakes do not understand the heart behind what he was actually trying to accomplish. And so here we see Jesus turning him down.

  And I, I have so much to learn from this because when I talk to someone about Jesus, they're showing interest. I almost feel like I need to beg them into the kingdom. But Jesus feels no need to beg. He just lays out the truth. You're not, you don't only have to listen to my teaching, you have to follow my way of life. That's what he's saying. That you don't just come to me as teacher. You must come to me and follow me in the way in which I live, and that way might be uncomfortable. Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man nowhere to lay his head.

  Now when we see these these words, the Son of Man, oftentimes we think that that's just Jesus describing himself as fully human, and that is true. Jesus fully human, fully God at the same. Time, but Jesus here is referencing a prophecy from the book of Daniel, that we went through about a year ago, we went through the whole book of Daniel, and it's wonderful, and you get to this prophecy about the Son of Man. It's one of the most profound prophecies about the coming Messiah that you find anywhere. And so he's kind of speaking on a little bit of code, but the the scribe would have totally understood what he was saying, that he's claiming to be not just a teacher, but the Messiah. And Jesus is telling him, look, my, the way I live, I'm not sure you're down for it. I'm not sure you're down to follow me wherever I go.

  See, Jesus lived for 30 years as a kind of a normal dude. I mean, not a fully normal dude, not normal dude. Normal dudes don't just go chill at the temple and let their parents travel without them, and then come back and be found at the temple just teaching the the teachers about things, but. Jesus, most part normal dude. He was a carpenter. He had a trade, he was living his life. And then you see, for the last 3 years of his life, he lived as an itinerant rabbi traveling the entire land of Israel. And Jesus did not always live in comfort. He was dependent upon the hospitality of others, of people taking them, taking him into their home, to him and his disciples into their home. He would oftentimes sleep in tents. And so you see this man living a very non-lux kind of life.

  Let that just sink in for a moment. That the creator of the universe descended to Earth, and he did not come with the pomp and circumstance that you might expect, but instead, he came into a world. Without indoor plumbing. And he lived as a simple tradesman, and then an itinerant teacher. This is not how you would expect the Messiah to come in, but our Jesus is anything but predictable.

  Another of the disciples came to him and said, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. So this sounds well intentioned as well. It it sounds like he just has some business to take care of, that this is a different man coming and saying, hey, I want to follow you, but I have some stuff to take care of. It almost sounds like he's getting ready for a funeral, right? Let me go bury bury my father first and then I'll come follow you. That's reasonable. But let me go bury my father, what we may not. Realize is that's probably first century speak for Jesus, I will follow you, but first I need to wait until my father dies, and then get his inheritance, get my 401k going, get my house bought, get, get married, get my life together, and then I'll get serious about following you. That's basically what this man is saying.

  And so the way that Jesus responds, it might sound cold and heartless, but within that context, you kinda understand better what he says. Jesus said to him, verse 22, follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead. Now, obviously a dead person can't bury anybody else, but what Jesus is saying is let those who are spiritually dead. Bury those who are spiritually dead. That You have greater priorities in life. Than seeking this world's wealth and wisdom. He's saying that those who live for the things of this world are spiritually dead, and let them have the earthly blessings. Because if you follow Jesus, he'll give you so much more to live for.

  What Jesus is saying is that you cannot delay your discipleship until you have your life figured out. How many times have you seen this? Someone maybe that you grew up with in church, but then they decide to go their own way and delay their discipleship and pursue the joys of this world, only to find them dry and unfulfilling, if they're that lucky, because we never know when the day is coming. And so Jesus says that look, you could pursue the things of this world, but they would leave you ultimately dry and unsatisfied. So come, follow me, it's an invitation.

  Friends, Jesus, he lived simply, and the call to follow Jesus is a call to not just believe in him as a good teacher, but to follow him in his way of life. Now, just to apply this to think through this a little bit more, I'm going to go through 4 thoughts on wealth, and then something like 4 applications for us today, OK? We'll see how many applications come out when I get there. We'll, we'll, we'll play that one on the wild side there. but 4 thoughts on wealth. The first thought on wealth that I want to share from the scriptures and something to help us understand this passage better, is number one, we are all, with few exceptions, quite wealthy. Now I know that there's some here who are not quite wealthy, but for the majority of us, we are quite wealthy.

  When I was a poor seminary student, and I mean poor, I was working like 30 hours a week for our church while also taking seminary classes and making $1,000,000 a year. that's called abuse. And, once I told, my boss's boss about it, they gave me a generous raise to $18,000 a year. that was also a joke, because it's funny that still 30 hours a week is not very much. that's not very much for that amount of work, but. When I was a poor seminary student with, you know, less than $1000 to my name, I heard a pastor say, put it like this, and it helped me. And he said, if you woke up this morning and you chose which shoes to put on, you are within the world's wealthy.

  That just kind of puts it in context that our perspective in Somerville, Massachusetts is warped. You just need to realize that if you walked here to church this Sunday, OK, you walked by a lot of history, a lot of homes that are older than 100 years, and you also walked by every single house you walked by is selling for like over a million dollars. This is a wealthy area. In fact, many people have said, in fact, I think Bernie Sanders is famous for saying this, that the United States is the most wealthy nation in the history of the world. You know, some scholars are debating on that, but whether it is the wealthiest or just one of the wealthiest, it is true that we live in wealth. Not only that, but Massachusetts is the wealthiest state in the wealthiest nation. And not only that, but Somerville is a very wealthy community.

  Of course we have poor. Somerville has our problems. We have many people who are struggling in poverty. And as a church, we want to come around that, we care for the poor, and that's an important value for us. But our realities are a little warped when our neighbors, you know, are driving Rivians and Teslas and cargo e-bikes that cost more than my first car and my second car combined. Yeah, we try to drop off our kid and you just can't even get past the sidewalk because there's 40, cargo e-bikes dropping off children at the, at the preschool every morning. Nothing against cargo e-bikes. Let's, let's. I'm just a little bitter because I don't have one. Let's, we love the, the environment here. Yeah, it's good.

  I'm just saying that our perspectives are warped. And I'm reminded of that every time I go to visit my family in the Mississippi Delta, because it's like people live differently in other parts of the world, and sometimes it's just really helpful to be reminded of that. Second, the first is that we're all with relative exceptions, few exceptions, rather wealthy. The second point to share about wealth, second thought here is that it's not wrong to be wealthy. It's not wrong, it's not morally wrong to be wealthy. I've had to tell myself that so many times. and to be reminded that just having a few things isn't wrong. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not up here wearing Gucci, OK, not yet at least, you know, I'm kidding. Strongly on that one.

  One of the most popular Bible verses that you hear get quoted all the time is money is the root of all evils. Have you heard that one? Yeah, that one was in the book of First Opinions, because it's not in the scriptures anywhere. First Opinions isn't a book in the Bible, in case you're wondering. The verse that they're trying to quote is 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 10, where it says, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. But it's not saying that money itself is the root of all evils, but rather the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils. Many different kinds of evils.

  But the Bible is is full of examples of wealthy men and women who live their lives in strong devotion to the Lord. You can go throughout the Old Testament, you see, example after example. In the New Testament, we have several examples. Some of these tax collectors that Jesus calls to himself are quite wealthy. In the, in the city of Philippi, a woman becomes a believer named Lydia, who is a wealthy distributor, a wealthy merchant of purple goods, which we just see as that is a very luxe kind of item to, to be able to, to distribute. And she actually houses the Philippian Church in her home. And so she's she's wealthy, she's leveraging her wealth for the kingdom.

  Now it is true that the that Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all that he owned and give it to the poor. But Jesus did not tell that to every single prospective follower who came to him. He looked into the rich young ruler's soul and said, this is what you need to hear. This is what you must be willing to give up in order to follow me. And so sometimes Jesus does call us to that. He could, but for the majority of us, he's, he's not necessarily calling us to live like the rich young ruler.

  The third thought about wealth is that more and more wealth does not make us happy. More and more wealth cannot make you happier. In 2010, a study was released by two like Nobel Prize winning economists from Princeton, OK, people that you can respect. And they released this study saying that once you get to $75,000 your happiness increases until your income is around $75,000. But after that, you pass a point of diminishing returns and more money. Just gives you more problems, OK? After 75,000. You're not any happier, or at least you're marginally happier for every dollar that you make more than that. Now, I will, I was going to do this whole thing and then I went online and typed in, what's the inflation rate between 2010 and 2025. To me, 2010 was like last year, OK? Like I'm old now, and that just feels very recent memory. That was 15 years ago. I was married in 2010 and. It is now 75,000 has turned into 111,000. Sheesh, OK, that's a lot of inflation.

  But still, the illustration holds that there is a point that more money does not make you happier. Scientifically, from looking at these studies, that more money is not the answer to your happiness. Or as Jesus would put it, one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.

  Fourth thought on wealth and then we'll get to a few application points, is that wealth often causes spiritual blindness. Wealth often causes spiritual blindness. There's a reason why Jesus oftentimes preaches and says that the that the poor. are more likely to come into the kingdom than the wealthy. In fact, most of Jesus' teachings on wealth are about this point. That wealth often causes spiritual blindness. When you are wealthy, it is easy to distract yourself, to numb yourself to your deepest needs.

  Hear what Jesus had to say. Matthew 13. As for what was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful. He's saying that wealth can choke out the work of the Word and the Holy Spirit in your life. Matthew 19, Jesus said to his disciples, Truly I say to you, only with great difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew chapter 6, Jesus says, no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

  Jesus wants us to know that wealth is like a anesthesia for the soul, that is causing us to not see our great need for him. But Jesus came. To save sinners and to save those who have need for him. So what do we do? What do we do? OK, so we're here, we're all relatively wealthy for the most part, some of us more than others. I'm not looking at anybody, OK, but. What do we do with our wealth? What is the call of Jesus on our life? OK, follow me here. Go to Ephesians. I just wanna read this passage and I'll get into my applications. Like I said, I'm gonna play this on the on the wild side here.

  Actually, it's, it's in First Timothy that he shares this because Timothy is the pastor of the Ephesian Church, the church in Ephesus. 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 17. This is exactly where we're at. This is what he's telling us. He says, as for the rich in this present age. Us, for the most part, those of us who chose which shoes to put on this morning. But then more than that, charge them not to be haughty. Nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, so no amount of money that you give is exempting you from serving anyone else. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

  And so there it is. That is Paul summing up all of Jesus' teachings to wealthy people, this is how they are to live. They are to not be haughty, not look down upon anyone. Nor to set their hopes on the on the uncertainty of riches, because it's here today, gone tomorrow. But on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. Do good, be rich in good works, generous, ready to share. And that is what the Lord has called us to. It is so important to take Jesus' teachings on wealth very seriously. But friends, if you take the teachings of Jesus and divorce them from the accomplishments of Jesus, you're left with a hollowed out gospel. You're left as that scribe coming to Jesus as simply a teacher, but not as the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Messiah. If you take the teachings of Jesus, without the accomplishments of Jesus, you're left with a hollowed out shell of what he meant. You're left with something that looks a lot like the what the secular world might practice as minimalism.

  Have you guys, undoubtedly you have someone like on your Instagram feed or an annoying cousin or aunt somewhere, preaching the gospel of minimalism. Like you just need to get rid of your stuff and it'll make you happier. And that's basically the premise, quality over quantity, less things, don't buy as much, buy organic and, and, and free trade and everything that goes with that. But friends, minimalism is fine, but it doesn't capture the fullness of what Jesus came to give us. Jesus didn't just say, go and give away your stuff, OK?

  He tells this parable of this guy who's going through a field, and he stumbles in the field, he stumbles upon a a treasure of immeasurable wealth. And what does he do? He goes and he sells everything that he has. And then he just lives more happily because he has less things. No, he sells it all so that he can buy the treasure and get the field. He wants the the field with the treasure in it. And so as we live more simply, the goal isn't just to live more simply, but it is to get God to see that our possessions distract us from Him often. That when we bow down to Saint Bezos on prime day. And we, and we click buy, buy, buy, that's giving us these little dopamine hits. That are distracting us from our true needs, our spiritual poverty that we have. Jesus offers us so much more than what minimalism can have.

  Hey, look, minimalism is good. Anytime, I think it's based off of Jesus' teachings, and anytime someone lives closer to Jesus' teaching, that's a good thing. Like I also don't want people going out and murdering people because they're not Christians. It's like, no, I want you to follow the teachings of Jesus, but if you do that without the accomplishments of Jesus. You're only getting half the story. Jesus offers us so much more than that. He offers us relationship with God, acceptance from God, joy with God, and contentment.

  Friends, Jesus didn't come just to show us the best way to live. He came to do something for us. He accomplished something on our behalf. He lived a perfect life, that's true, we follow him in that, but that perfect life was achieving something. Salvation for our souls, and he died the death that we deserve. We would follow him to the death, but none of us will bear the consequences that Jesus did, if we are found in Christ. By dying the death that we deserve, being risen from the dead, Jesus has opened the invitation for everyone to trust in him and to be hidden in Christ, and to have life with God eternally. Internally. So we are hidden in Jesus and God loves us like he loves his very own Son. And so we can talk about wealth and we can talk about what you do with it, but unless you get this, that the reason why we are following Jesus and trying to live simply is so that we can be attuned to our spiritual need and so that we can get more of what he accomplished on our behalf. You don't get it because you are a better, better at following him. He's given it all to you already, and because of what he has given to you, you follow him. It goes in that order. Does that make sense?

  OK. Let's talk about some of these points of application of mysterious number. First, you have to follow Jesus. Trust him with your life, that it it has to be both, that following Jesus is not just obeying his teachings, and it's not this easy believism of I'm just going to accept him as my savior and live however I want. But it's both. You follow him with both. That's what it means to be a Christian. Second, I want to introduce you to a book. I have 10 copies, scratch that. I have 9 copies. I've already given away a copy this morning. Of God and Money: How We Discovered True Riches at Harvard Business School, written by John Cortinez and Gregory Ballmer. And so, I, if you wanna go deeper into Jesus' teaching on wealth and on money, this is a great resource for you.

  This, this book actually comes with a little bit of a story because John Cortinez, the first author on the book, was a member at City on a Hill when he was at Harvard Business School, and back in 2014 when he wrote this book. And so we heard about it. He, he was in the business school, he took a class on, on religion, while at Harvard, they had the ability to take classes at the divinity school, so he went and took a, a class on wealth at the divinity school, and his life was changed, and he ended up. Changing his career direction, trying, now he lives, encouraging other people who are wealthy to give away more of their money, and he wrote this book with one of his friends that was doing the same thing.

  And actually, I'll, I'll, I'm gonna take a little bit of credit for something in here, OK? I get to do that. I, I don't get a, a, a name, you know, he doesn't drop my name anywhere in here, so I'm just gonna tell you guys. but when he, but when he was writing this, he gave me like a pre-publication copy, and I was like, that's cool. Do you want me to send this to like any of my seminary professors to get you like more, they, they can like send it out or whatever. He's like, yeah, let's do it. So I introduced him to my, my, New Testament prof, Robert Plummer. And, Rob wrote him afterwards and like, hey, I would love to help you think through the first two chapters. So Rob gets an acknowledgment in here. And, but not the guy who introduced him to Rob, OK? But for the first two chapters, Rob Plummer is helping him understand like the, the biblical story of it as a, as a New Testament scholar. So I thought that was really cool. So I would pick this up. There's 10 copies. I really don't wanna leave with any copies. So, seriously, if you're interested, if you'll read it, grab the book on your way out, we could always buy more.

  Another application point for us today is that we need to reevaluate the way we're spending and living. Just consider the way you spend your money. I know it's, it's easy to forget, to not even think about it because things are easier and easier to buy these days. But are you, is the way that you're spending your life showing that you find Christ to be your treasure? Is the way that you're spending your money showing that you find Christ to be your treasure. Or are you looking for treasure in this world alone?

  Another one is that you can let your wealth reflect your values. And I love this quote from Martin Luther, the, the old reformer, he said that people usually go through three conversions. That you go through first, a conversion of the head, where you believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Then you go through a conversion of the heart, where you're devoted to him, and then you go through a conversion of the wallet, where you actually devote your life to Him.

  And lastly, we need to consider this old fashioned word that we use called stewardship. OK? if you grew up in church, I kinda grew up in church, I started going to church when I was in high school, but it was like you would have stewardship Sundays, and I just never really understood what stewardship was. But it's this idea that God owns everything, that everything we own belongs to God. And so he has called us to be a steward of his possessions. That we're to use them in ways that reflect that they belong to him. And I, you know, our church has a lot of twenty-somethings in it. Whoop whoop. Alright, let's go twenty-somethings, OK. When you're twenty-something, I, I feel like, you know, some of you are just barely holding on to your twenty-something card here. You're, you're almost there. Not, not to look at anybody that had their birthday last week or anything like that.

  But when you're a 20-something, you are learning what it means to be an adult, OK? I'm almost 40, so I can tell you that it's like your father figure here. Sometimes I feel like I'm more dad than I am pastor at this church, but that's OK. I can be dad. in fact, sometimes I feel like the best thing that we could offer as a church would be like an adulting class. Just like, hey, can I just show you how to make a budget? Or better yet, can I show you how to cancel a credit card? I know you know how to open them. Let me show you how to cancel them. We, we just need to do some simple things as stewards, OK? And I'm just gonna make this super simple. If you're spending more money than you're taking in from month to month, it's time to check it. It's time to stop that. You can't live off of someone else's wealth. That's not being a good steward of what the Lord has for you. He's called you to steward what he has given to you at that time.

  If you're just in outrageous debt, it's time to cut up the credit cards, or to ask for help. Some of us, the best thing we could do is to ask for help. The church is here. We would love to help you if you're in financial dire straits. There's a benevolence request form, that you can fill out. I think it's on our website. If not, you can email the deacons@CoaHSomerville.org, deacons@CoaHSomerville.org. I think that we just need to take a check, you know, at this point. I, we, we, Megan and I, we, we, it's not like we're like super duper wealthy or anything at all, you know, we're just at this point that we've never been at before. And we could probably make it without keeping a super detailed budget at this point. But I still, every expense that we make, I go and categorize because I want to see where our money is going, because I believe that it's not ultimately mine, but it's the Lord's. And if I'm spending it in frivolous kinds of ways, if I look at that and say, man, that dining out budget, it's going nuts. I ordered DoorDash way too much this month, something like that, I need to think about what that says about my heart. And so I just need that weekly check. I do it every week on Friday. I go through and categorize all my expenses.

  If you know me, if you've ever had this conversation with me, you know, I'm an avid You Need a Budget user. YNAB OK. Any other YNAB-ers out there? OK, there's a few very responsible humans. Ho, hold on, hold on. Can I get the first children to raise their hands and the YNAB-ers, you know, it it kind of goes together, first child, YNAB. But a YNAB is very, very helpful. And if you're just looking for a way to steward your finances, it might be a good option.

  Jesus lived simply, and he gave up the comfort of heaven to dwell among us. He laid aside riches and became poor, so that through his poverty, we might become rich. So friends, we follow Jesus in simplicity, not to earn his love, but because we know that the things of this earth are temporary treasures, but that Jesus satisfies eternally. And so I just want to lead us in a prayer before I'm gonna introduce communion in just a moment, but. Before we move to the table, I wanna lead us in a prayer, and this is gonna be a really simple one. I just wanna give you a little meditation this morning. And I'm just going to tie it to your breath, OK? This is, it might be weird for some of you guys, but it's just praying, OK? Everybody breathes, as far as I know, and we, when we breathe in, I want you to say, God, you are more than enough for me, in your heads, OK, not out loud, cause you can't speak and breathe in at the same time. And then when you exhale, say, I have everything I need.

  So when you inhale, God, you are more than enough. Exhale. I have everything I need. Let's just try that for a moment. How is God calling you to be more faithful with your finances? Would you, would you open your heart to, to hear him speak to you this morning? Is he calling you just to be more of a grown up, to take a step into generosity, to take a step into just managing and stewarding your life? Maybe you need to ask for help. Someone to help you review your budget. Maybe God has something for you with your wealth this morning, and you just need to listen to him. And maybe he just wants to impress upon you how much he loves you, despite you being a complete mess.

  On the night that he was betrayed, Christ took a loaf of bread and he tore it. He said, this is my body broken for you. And he took a cup, and he said, this is the cup of my of the new covenant. Do this in remembrance of me, my blood shed for you. So each week we come to the table, to communion, the Eucharist, Lord's Supper, whatever you wanna call it, and we're reminded that Jesus is more than enough. That he is enough for us, that he can teach us to do all things through Christ Jesus, but the secret of that is that it's all about contentment. That he can give us contentment and joy apart from any material blessings that we may or may not have. I would invite you to stand as we prepare our hearts to come to the table and to worship him in song.

  Father, you are more than enough for us. We can be content with whatever you have given to us. God, I pray for those who are poor here, that they would find everlasting joy in Christ. And we pray for those who are wealthy that they would find everlasting joy in Christ, that you would teach us what it means to follow you, no matter where we are in this earthly time. And God, that you would be faithful to your many promises that you would provide for us time and time again. God, I pray that we would take steps of obedience and following after you, and trusting in you. Christ, would you, would you bless us this morning? We pray that anyone who doesn't know you might receive you into their life today. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.