Hey, well listen, uh, my name's Gray, and if you've been coming for a little bit and you've seen Craig and you've seen Kyle, he's like, I've never seen this guy. I get to work over at the Hunt Club campus, and I'm thrilled to be with you As we wrap up our series made for more. And over the past few weeks, we've been talking about some, some practices that, that Jesus did, some things that he practiced, and then also some things that, that he taught and encouraged us to, to do. And this morning we're gonna be looking at one openhandedness that, that I feel like sets the stage for us to really practice the other three. In other words, the, the better we are at this one, uh, the more likely we are to practice the other three as a, as a lifestyle and not just like a, a one hit wonder.

And, and to get us started in that direction, I wanna ask you this question, or just a rhetorical question, but the series is made for more. And, and I would just say, why, in other words, why, why do we practice hospitality? And, you know, why do we practice unity and, and, uh, why do we practice serving others? And maybe even a better way to ask that is, why did Jesus do that? You know, was it, was it to give him just the moral high ground?

You know, I serve people, you know, I wash the disciple's feet. Whose feet have you washed? You know, like, is is it, is it moral high ground? Why did he, why did he practice it? And, and then, then why did he, why did he, uh, teach it?

And, you know, even like I was thinking this morning, like hospitality, like Jesus was so into hospitality and inviting people into his life that he did the very thing that, that my mother always told me to never do. And that was to invite yourself to someone else's house. But like, Jesus was like, no, no, no. Like I, I, I'm so into this, Matthew, I'm coming over, you know, Zacchaeus, I'm, I'm coming over. You know, we see him practice these things over and over and over.

And what is the, what is the end goal? You know, what is he trying to get at? What, why, what are we trying to get at as we, as we practice this? Why do we do it? And, and for Jesus, it, it's one word.

It's a simple word. It's, it's impact. Like, Jesus' goal was not to gain the moral high ground by saying he does all these things. He goal was to make an impact, not only in the here and now, but to make an impact in eternity. Like that.

That was his goal. That's why he, he came and lived a perfect life, and that's why he died on a cross and resurrected so that he could impact your eternity and my eternity. But here's what's crazy is that, is that Jesus has invited us to do the same thing. That, that you and I get to impact someone else's eternity. Now, we don't die for 'em.

We don't save 'em from their sins, but we get to be a, a, a play a role in that process. In fact, this is how Jesus said it in Matthew chapter five. And, and this is one of my favorite passages because for, it just, it just makes sense to me. And I think, I think it's, it's clear and it's powerful. He says, you are the light of the world.

A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others. If they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.

If you've ever been in a dark space and then you kick on a flashlight, it's instant impact. The beam cuts through the darkness. Have you ever been in a dark room and somebody kicks on the lights? It's it's instant impact. You ever been walking out of the woods, you know, from your deer stand, and you're like, oh, you kick that light on.

It's instant impact. And that's what I love about this, is that, is that he's saying that we're supposed to make an, an impact. Now, we've been invited into this, and if you're a Christ follower, you probably get that to some degree. And, but if you're not a Christ follower, like, well, man, I, I don't know that, that that's what I'm after in life. You know, I, I don't know that I'm after to make an impact for eternity in somebody's life.

You know, I'm just trying to get through the, the next day. And, and do you, I, and this is for all of us. I, I, I wanna give you a statement, and maybe this is kind of the underlying tension. We will be most fulfilled on this side of the grave when we are living to impact the other side of the grave. Because see, even as a Christ follower, we can lose sight of what's most important, and we can begin to feel or, or find, look for rather, uh, fulfillment in money or success stuff.

But at the end of the day, we, we will be most fulfilled, like life will be meaningful and not meaningless when we are trying to make an impact on the other side of the grave, the impact other people's attorney. I'm not telling you, listen, I'm not telling you that, that to be fulfilled in this life, you gotta be a pastor or a missionary, okay? What I'm saying is, is that as you live your life, day in and day out for Christ, the things that we're talking about, the thing we'll talk about this morning, it's fulfilling. And I think if we went across the room and all of our campuses and we said, Hey, do you want to live a meaningful life or a meaningless life? I think everybody's gonna say, yeah, I think I'd go for the meaningful.

And so that, that's where we're operating from. That's what I want you to understand as we step into this right now, we're gonna be in, uh, Luke chapter 10. And, uh, if you're not familiar with the Bible, Matthew, mark, Luke, and John, those were what we call the gospels. They're the eyewitness accounts of what, uh, Jesus did, how he lived his life, and, and we're, we're gonna be reading in Luke. Luke was a doctor.

And what's really cool is you read the gospels, you see their personalities in the writing. And, and for Luke, he's, he's a good doctor. He, he pays attention to a lot of details. There's a lot of details in his, his, uh, account that you're like, man, you could have said this with far less words. Uh, but he, but he's a but he's a doctor.

Yes, he's thorough, and that's what you want from a doctor. And, and so he gives us this account, and it's, it's Jesus' interaction with what, what the scripture's called an expert of the law. Now, sometimes it's translated lawyer, but it's not lawyer in the sense that, that we think about it, uh, for, for the Jewish people, the, the, the law was what you find in Leviticus and, and Deuteronomy, you know, those are the books that you tend to skip over when we do the Bible reading plan. And, and so like that, he was an expert in that law, alright? So he, he knew what he was talking about.

And, and so this is an account between Jesus and him. It's a familiar story, so familiar that, that even if you haven't been around church, you probably have have heard it before. You may even use the phrase, uh, that that's in here. And, uh, because it, it, it is kind of permeated our culture. But here we go, Luke, chapter 10, and it's long.

So you gotta stay with me on one occasion. And expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. Teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus says, what's, what's written in the law? How do you read it?

He answered, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. That's from Deuteronomy. And love your neighbor as yourself. That's from Leviticus. You have answered correctly.

Jesus replied, do this and you'll live. Now, this is where like this begins to resonate with me. Uh, but he wanted to justify himself. So maybe there was something else going on in his head and heart. And you know, he, he just wants to make sure he's good.

So he wanted to justify himself. So he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor? In reply, Jesus said, and this is the parable, A man was going down from Jerusalem to je, to Jericho. When he was attacked by robbers, they stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the road, same road.

Now, a priest, you need to think in your mind. That's like, that's like a pastor. Okay? So you think about our lead pastor, you know, like, like Craig, Curtis just be bopping down the road, alright? But Craig wouldn't do this.

Uh, a priest happened to be going down the same road. And when he saw the man he passed by on the other side, he's like, I don't have time for that. So he goes on the other side. So to a Levite. Now, when you think about a Levite, you need to think about a, a worship pastor, okay?

Somebody that leads the, the time of worship with singing. So to a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him passed by on the other side, but a Samaritan. And at this point, this Jewish group that he's talking to would've gasped. They would've been like a Samaritan. Now, if you go back and listen, or if you go and listen to the podcast this week, uh, they do kind of a, a, a, a quick deep dive on, on Samaritans.

But what, what you need to know is that the Jewish people in the Samaritans, uh, did not get along. Jewish people felt like they were less than the Samaritans were half Jew, half foreign nation. And so that, like, that made them less than in the Jewish eyes. And, and, and really to think about the, the, the type of tension and animosity, um, is, is like to go back to, uh, how the white people, uh, viewed African Americans during the, the, the civil rights movement, like that, that's how the Jewish people viewed them, that that's the, the weight of this statement. So we just read Samaritan, but, but then and there they were like, Ooh, wait, what did Samaritan do?

I bet he went over there and curve, curve stomped him. Nope. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was. And when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him bandage his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an end and took care of him.

The next day, he took out two deities. That's like two days wages and gave them to the end keeper. Look after him. He said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. And Jesus says, which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?

The expert in the law replied, and I even think, I even think the expert in the law couldn't bring himself to say Samaritan. And he says, the one who had mercy on him. And then Jesus told him, go and do likewise. Now, sometimes Jesus tells parables, and you don't know who you are in the parable. And I think, you know, so there's a couple times the disciples are like, Hey, Jesus, like, I don't know if I'm the seed, I'm the sower, I'm the master.

I'm the, the, the servant. You know, I'm the king. And because, and Jesus has to come back. And, and even one time Jesus says, are you so dull? You know, and he has to kind of, kind of bring him alone, kind of coach him up a little bit.

But, but you don't have to do this on this parable, right? Like, like, it, it, it's pretty clear. Like we are to, we are supposed to help people that are in need regardless of race, regardless of, of creed, regardless of, you know, ethnicity or, or any other, you know, uh, adjective the way we could use or categorize a person. We are supposed to to help those in need. And, and this will be an easy place to like, stop.

We got bad weather coming in, you know, it's like, hey, I get it. I need to go help people and thanks for giving me that. I'll, I'll get on, get right on that, you know, tomorrow. But what happens so often as we read even the scriptures, and then we look at people in life is we're focused on the outcome. See, the, the outcome of this story is that the Samaritan helped someone who was in need.

And it's easy for us to go, yeah, that's what, that is what I want to do. I, yeah, I can do that. But we never think about the process like we live in, in our world, in our day and time, social media, like, we get to see everybody's outcomes, right? And it's, and it's really easy for us to go, oh man, I wanna do that. And yeah, I wanna do that and, and I wanna do that.

And, and we get, we, we, we, we, this is the statement I use. We, we like the idea of something, but not the reality of it. See, the reality of it is, is the process to get it there, to get us there. We see this in sports and young kids all the time. They see these professional athletes, oh, I wanna do that, but they don't get to see the, the time and the energy put in throughout, you know, years.

They don't get to see the process. They just think they get to show up and be Michael Jordan. I, let me give you an example of, of re li liking the idea and the reality. Uh, and our hunt club family's heard this story before, but, uh, years ago, I, I made the statement in front of some gentleman that I like, I would like to ride a bull. You know, we were just talking, they were talking about rodeo.

And I said, man, I like ride a bull. I had no idea when I said that statement that they could make that happen in 48 hours. And as we were driving an hour and a half to get me strapped onto an, you know, a bull, I was like, Hmm, that seemed like a really cool idea when I was standing in the church atrium. I don't know if I like the reality of it. I did ride the bull.

So often we look at things and go, yeah, that's what I'm after. But we don't look at the process. And so what did the Samaritan do? Is he, he helped him, but, but how did he do it? If I could give you like, just one word is the word for our topic is, is open-handed that, that he lived a life that was open-handed.

Now the, the opposite of that would be living a life where, where my, my fist are, are clenched tight. But, but, but he lived a life where, where he could be open-handed and, and, and give things generously. Lemme show you what I mean. Verse 33, there's three things that he gave. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came to where the man was.

And when he saw him, he took pity on him. In other words, he gave generously of his time. Like he, he saw him and he is like, Hey, well, let me, let me help him. Let me give, and you see it all the way through. Let me give of my time to, to do this then, then this is else.

This is how else he did it. He went to him and bandage his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put on the man his own donkey, uh, put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an end and took care of him. So clearly he had some type of ability or talent to, to treat, you know, wounds, to do triage out on the road. And we can say that he gave generously of his abilities, or he gave generously of his talents.

Again, this is how he did it. What did, what did he do? He helped him. Well, how did he do it? Well, he had to give generously of his time.

He had to give generously of his ability, his talents. And then verse 35, he says this, the next day he took out to Dari and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him. He said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense he gave generously, because we like to iterate of his treasure. How did, how did he do it?

He, he was willing to give generously of his time, of his abilities, his talent of, of, of his treasure, of his, of his money. And so open handedness is simply this right here, giving generously of our time, talents, and treasures to advance the kingdom of heaven. That's what he did. Or that rather that's how he did what he did. And see, we can, we can say, man, I, yeah, I'm going to help people.

But when you start talking about giving generously of my time, talent, and treasure, you know, how we help and what that looks like, you know, begins to change pretty quickly. Listen, I will tell you, I'll be a hundred percent honest, man. My, my time. I am stingy with my time. I don't like for people, I don't like for my schedule to change.

I, I, I don't like for people to blow me up and be like, oh, whoa, let's go do this. Lemme tell you how stingy I'm in my time. I won't ride with anybody anywhere. I'm not gonna get stuck somewhere. 'Cause you can't end a conversation.

I'm serious. I you can ask our staff, no, I'll drive you, ride with me, but I'm driving. I'm stingy with my time. And here's, here's, here's what I want you to see. Like we talked about how this is the, like, kinda like the foundation.

Like we, we talked about hospitality, man, you can't practice hospitality. I can't practice hospitality. If I'm not generous with my time and my resources, my, my talents, my treasures. I, you can't, you can't serve others if you're not willing to be generous with your, your time and your, your talents, your abilities and, and even your money, your treasure. Like, it is hard to exist and live in community, like real community and, and be unified in Christ if you're not willing to share the life that, that, that you have, which includes your time and your talents and your treasure.

Like this, this is, this is the foundation. If we get this right, we can make a lifestyle out of the others. Because listen, we, we, we could do a, a message Craig did last week on service and have something like love your neighbor. And you go, all right, I'm signing up for love your neighbor, and you do love your neighbor. And then you're done.

We could, we could do a message on generosity, financial generosity and, and do like a be be generous push. And you'd be like, all right, I gave, but, but what we're talking about is like beyond like this one time thing, but a but a lifestyle of openhandedness. And see, Jesus does what Jesus so often does, and he, he adds a or he takes it a level deeper. Now, this is in another, this is in, in the, uh, Gospel of Matthew. And he's talking about, you know, uh, money and worry and all.

And he, and he says this, he says, listen, don't store it for yourselves treasures on earth where MAs and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store it for yourselves. Treasures in heaven where miles and vermin do not destroy. And where thieves do not break in and steal for whoever or for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. Now this passage is one of my favorites, uh, because it, it may again, it just, uh, I'm simple minded. It makes sense to me because when, when you talk about storing up your treasures in heaven, like, I mean, what does that even look like?

I mean, do you throw it really high? Like how, how do you, how do you store up treasures in heaven? And, and, and it's really simple, is that you think about what's gonna be in heaven, people souls, everybody's spends eternity somewhere. And so in order for me to store up treasures in heaven, I, I've got to invest my time. I've got to invest my, my, my resources, my treasure, my talent into people.

And as I do that, and God uses that and they place their faith in Christ, and I'm investing and storing up treasures in heaven. But, but this is what I want you to see is verse 21 for go back to 21 for where your treasure is. There. Your heart will be also, see, to this point, we've been talking a lot about doing things and Jesus says, Hey, that's great. But what you gotta know is that all of this is connected to your heart.

And then we can say this statement, the position of our hands, whether I live in such a way that is open handedness or a closed fisted, is a reflection action of the posture of our hearts. The great theologian, bear grills, um, he's not a theologian, uh, said that I, this, I I love this. He says, running water. This is how he conveys this same thought. Running water is nearly always a sign of life and health within an environment.

Stagnant water, on the other hand, promotes disease and can be deadly. Water is water. Time is time. Stuff is stuff. Money is money.

Abilities are abilities. Like it, it, water is water. But how it moves can be the difference between life and death. How it moves, not how we hoard it and keep it to us. And we become stagnant.

And I bet you right now, if I say, Hey, uh, can you think of anybody that's stingy and greedy? There's probably somebody comes to mind. And, and, and, and that's what they do. They, they hoard. And it never flows out.

It doesn't mean that that, that we need to be about giving everything away and we give all our time away. This isn't like Oprah, like everybody gets a car. It's not, it's, it's not that. But it's that we understand that stuff, that time that it flows through us. 'Cause we have open hands wanting God to use us.

And Jesus says, Hey, listen, it's a heart issue. He say, I, I can look at your hands and tell you the condition of your heart. So I wanna give you three, three shifts that we can make with our hearts. But they're not only shifts. Because once you make the shift, it's, it's something that you have to continue it monitor, because we will always gravitate the other direction.

And the first one is this, we have to shift from self to others. Now, I want you to go back and, uh, we're gonna read this in Luke 10 31 and the highlighted word, I need everybody to say it, okay? All of our campuses hunt club, you better participate. Verse 31, A priest happened to be going down the same road. And when he saw the man he passed by on the other side, the priest saw him 32.

So to a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, yeah, saw him passed by on the other side, 33. But, uh, a Samaritan, as he traveled, he came where the man was. And when he, he took pity on him, they all three saw the same thing. It's not like the first two guy, the first two, the Levi and the priest came by, and the the beat up man was like, Hey, I'm good holding a sign that said I'm good. And then when the Samaritan came by and said, help, but they all, they all saw the, the same thing.

And, and let me, this is kind of like the difference in, in listening and hearing those of you like moms and dads and even, you know, our, our, our students and kids can do it, but uh, you know, you can, you can hear a lot of stuff. It doesn't mean you, you listen, right? I mean, some, some of you, you got families like, like mom, you, you got enough kids to feel a basketball team plus one. And, and I've been in conversations with you, and it is, it is a circus around you. I mean, you're locked in.

And look, there ain't enough Adderall in this state to help me focus in that situation. Like, I'm just like, oh, what, what, how do, because you, you can, you can hear it, you know what's going on, but you're listening. All three of these guys saw the same thing. And it's the same thing with our eyes that we can have vision, but if we are not intentional, if we are not attentive to the things that we see is practical blindness, and we cannot see the needs around us if we're focused on ourself. And so we have to shift from self to others.

The second shift we have to make, we have to shift from owners to stewards. James one 17, every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of the heavenly lights, who does not change, like the shifting sins. There is nothing we have that God did not give us. And when we operate as owners, man, we're much more likely to close our, this is my, I work for this, I work for this house, I work for this car, I work for my paycheck. I, I work hard.

And James is like, well, yeah, but God gave it to you. He gave you the ability. And so we're, we're, we're not owners. You don't own, listen, some of y'all, you're gonna bow your chest out, get mad at me. You don't own anything.

Oh, I do. I'm Dave Ramsey. I pay for my house in cash, okay? Don't pay your taxes. They'll take that thing from you before you can pay 'em, right?

We're stewards. And when we're stewards and we pay far more attention to what we're doing with somebody else's stuff, it's not something that we've been given. It's more that we've been entrusted with time. We've been entrusted with resources, our treasure, our abilities, our talent. And so we have to shift from an owner mindset to I'm a steward of the blessings of God in my life.

And here's the third shift, we shift from mayhem to margin. Now listen, I I, I didn't choose mayhem just because they both started with MI chose it because that's, that's often in my life what I, I feel like it, it can be. And The reason we have to shift from mayhem to margin is if there is no margin in our lives, there'll be no opportunity for ministry. There. There just won't.

And in our lives, mayhem in my, in my brain, mayhem looks like a pinball machine. We wake up in the morning, we pull the plunger back, we let it go, the ball goes through, and then it's like, and, and we're doing all we can to maintain And listen. We give the priest and we give the Levite a hard times. Like, man, those are, those people work at the church. They should have been the first people there.

But, but if, if we kind of flesh this parable out a little more and it, it is a parable, but if they were a priest or a Levi, man, those are, that's a big deal. Lots of responsibility, important people. And there's a great chance, well, well, well, 'cause their life revolved around the synagogue. There's a great chance that they were on their way to the synagogue. They were going to prepare for church.

And I think Christians and church staff, how often were working so hard to prepare for church and we're missing ministry opportunities all around us on our way because there's no margin. There's no margin for interruption, there's no margin for ministry. And look, you can't serve people if you don't have time for it. You can't be a part of house church if you, I ain't got time for that. I ain't got no margin.

Be a part of a community. You can't practice hospitality if you don't have any margin. If these are shifts we have to make. And as we do them, I'll take you back to the, the, the very first statement that I gave you. That, that what we find is fulfillment.

That as we make an impact now, now, and it impacts eternity. That, that, that we are, we are fulfilled in that in a way that nothing else can. So I wanna give you, we've done this at the end of every message, just some practical steps for you, okay? The, the, the first one is, is be open handed and faithful tithing. Like, ah, I knew it.

They're asking for money. Lemme just tell you this. I've, I've been tithing since I can remember. Okay? My, my first job, I was cut, I cut grass, my mom would load, push mower, we eater and blow her up in the back of a Buick saber in the trunk and drop me off.

And a church cut the church yard, pay me a hundred dollars. And I had to tithe at then it was, I had to, you got tithe off that a hundred dollars, you gotta give $10 back. And it just blew my mind. I was like, this is so complicated. Why don't they just pay me 90?

Like we just cut out the middleman. But that's not what it was about. It was about being open handed. It was about being generous. It was about letting things flow through.

And maybe that's for you. And all right, I'm gonna commit to that maybe for you as being open-handed and meeting immediate needs, You work to create some margin so that when you see a need, you can step into that moment or maybe be open by open-handed in and above or beyond your normal giving. In the early two thousands, uh, I was attending First Baptist, this church downtown, and that's when our legacy pastor Jeff Clark was casting vision for this building and where we are right now. And, and we were committing to give a certain amount and, you know, as college student. Um, and I was like, I'm gonna give 20 bucks a month.

And I did 20 bucks a month. And, uh, and then we moved away and never got to see the building built until years later. It came back. And, um, my $20 may have only paid for the toilet paper holders, but I'm invested in something bigger. Your story and what God's doing in your life gets to be my story Because I invested in it.

And that's the opportunity that you have when we live open handed. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning, and God, we pray that as we, uh, maybe survey our hearts and God that you would, you would begin to release and loosen our hands so that your good gifts pass through us and make an impact here and now and in eternity. And God, we thank you for your incredible generosity to us in giving us your son. And we pray these things and his son's name, I mean, and your son's name, amen.