Habits of Love: The Graces of Sharing Our Joy

0:02 So, Father in heaven, as sweet as these moments are in your presence, whether gathered here with fellow believers, whether in the secret place at home, as much as we say we never want to leave, you send us back into life. you send us out to glorify you outside our homes, outside our dorms outside our apartments, at our jobs in the neighborhood Father we want to be your lights For these men and women in this room They want to be your lights in Birmingham And so would you give us grace here in these moments As we think about how those who are filled How those who receive from you In your word, in prayer, in fellowship Become channels of your grace in our world In Jesus name we pray, amen This is my second time in Birmingham.

1:11 The first time was 20 years ago, and it was memorable. I was traveling here with John Piper, and he was speaking at Beeson Divinity School at Samford University. Have you got any Samford people, Beeson people around here? He was brought in by Timothy George, who was the president of Beeson at the time. Timothy George, outstanding Reformation scholar, expert in Luther and Calvin and church history, especially the last 500 years. And these were the Reformation Heritage Lectures, November 1st to 3rd, 2005. But the first one was the morning of November 1st. That means you got to travel in on October 31. You got to get here the night before. so in my whole life I have all of my halloweens have always been in my native south carolina or the last 22 years in minnesota except one in birmingham and for this halloween dinner because the george family they love the reformation and reformation day is celebrated on november 1st they made it into this big reformation dinner at their house. So we got to their house and all of the place settings had a reformer quote. And before we ate the dinner, we had to all go around and read our quote from Martin Luther or from John Calvin or from Zwingli. And so I have very fond memories of Birmingham is my special Halloween, the most God-honoring Reformation Halloween I've had in my life. So thank you, Birmingham.

2:54 I think this is only my second time here but I know what Birmingham needs from you because I know what Minneapolis and St. Paul need from me and my family and our church and I know what the world has needed from us Christians for 2,000 years. The way we're going to talk about that tonight is our witness, our generosity, and our service. And I'll tell you in a minute why those three. Witness, generosity, and service. And the most important of those three is witness. That's the big category. That's overarching. And witness requires words. And words give clarity and specificity. So a witness is someone who has seen or heard or experienced something that's important.

3:59 And so they've been called upon or they're taking the opportunity now to speak, to testify, to make it clear so that others would know what they've seen and heard and experienced. And witness is so important in this category of what our lives lived in the habits of grace produce. Witness is key because witness involves words, and words give meaning. It gives meaning to our generosity. Oh, we're just a kind guy. I gave a lot of money. Words give meaning to it, or words give meaning to our service when we do something to help somebody out in the name of Jesus.

4:42 But generosity in Jesus' name and service in Jesus' name have their essential part to play too. Not just enough to do witnessing with words because the generosity and the service confirm the witness and adorn our words and demonstrate a heart of love in us that shows that this Jesus whom we've seen and heard and experienced. He's changed us in here, that it's real.

5:17 We witnesses are those who have been transformed by this Jesus and his daily feast for us. We're not just bystanders on this thing. We're involved. So in this session, what we wanna do here is focus on the habits of life that we hope that God's means of grace, his habits of grace in our lives produce. We want to look at the kind of life. I don't want to change the accent of this evening from being feasting, enjoying, receiving, to now you got to go do, now you go do. We just end tonight with a to-do list. No, that's not what we're doing. By getting a vision in some broad brushstrokes of the kind of life we want to live out of our feasting in God, I hope to clarify what we're after. So what do I help you with tonight I'm going to ask some questions You have a chance to brainstorm, to pray, to dream About the kind of habits of love That may come out of a life Saturated in habits of grace And Marshall summarized those As word Prayer And fellowship That's our best effort To try to put three big categories Of God's ongoing means of grace For the Christian life together Sometimes you can make a list of, people make a list of 15 or 20.

6:40 My head starts to spin. I can't get 20 disciplines going all at once. It helps me if I can think of three. Three regular channels of God's ongoing grace in our Christian lives in word. I want to access his word and prayer and fellowship. And then we'll think together about the life that flows out. So this book they're going to give you on the way out, Habits of Grace, Marshall essentially just captured The first 200 pages Of that book And now my assignment is the last 20 pages That's all I'm going to do here in the next few minutes The last 20 pages so we want to see where this this lifestyle of the habits of grace leads to let me kick it off for you here with my favorite quote outside the bible about god's means of grace right here before we turn the corner to our our habits of love let's talk about his means of grace that we want to access in our lives through habits of grace around his word prayer fellowship this is from jc Ryle over 100 years ago.

7:49 He died in 1900. He was the quintessential 19th century Christian. Awesome. J.C. Ryle. Here's what he says. The means of grace are such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God in church. Get those three. I love those three. Good job, Ryle. I love Ryle. Bible, word, prayer, and then worshiping God in church, the fellowship. wherein one hears the word taught and participates in the Lord's Supper. I'm gonna draw those in too. This is where Lord's Supper and baptism belong in this category of the church. And he says this, listen to this. I lay it down as a simple matter of fact that no one who is careless about such things must ever expect to make much progress in holiness. I can find no record of any respectable saint who ever neglected them.

8:51 The means of grace, word, prayer, fellowship. They are appointed channels through which the Holy Spirit conveys fresh supplies of grace to the soul. Anybody want that? Anybody want fresh supplies of grace to your soul from the Holy Spirit? I do. I'll take that. Fresh supplies of grace. And he strengthens the work which he has begun in the inward man. Our God is a God who works by means.

9:28 And he will never bless the soul of that man who pretends to be so high and spiritual that he can get on without God's means of grace. So God's means of grace in his word In his prayer In the fellowship of the local church That's the means of grace And now our question is What do we do With those fresh supplies of grace What's it for The filling up That comes through feasting What you gonna do with the energy you get from the feast That's our question Now one answer is Well the means of grace deepen and enrich our enjoyment of God in Christ. And that's an ending of itself. Paul talked in Philippians 3 about the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And Jesus himself prayed in John 17 that God's people would know him. They would have eternal life. That is, They would know you, the one true God, in Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

10:32 So the great end of these means of God's word, prayer, fellowship, the great end is that we would know and enjoy Jesus. And what else? What else might we do with the energy from the feast? What about friends and family and neighbors and the city?

10:58 How will habits of grace in your life affect Birmingham? If we take this seriously tonight, if we think about feasting in God's word and in prayer and in the context of the church, what does that mean for our city, for our extended family, for our neighbors, for our friends? What about the second commandment to love others as we love ourselves? Recently I came across It's a newer book On the spiritual disciplines Habits of grace is just a different way of talking about Spiritual disciplines And this is a newer book on the spiritual disciplines And it lists nine practices Of Jesus As spiritual disciplines for Christians Today So that's not as long as a 20 item list But it's nine That's long for me Here's the nine, listen to the nine Sabbath, solitude, prayer, fasting, scripture, community, generosity, service, witness.

12:05 Nine practices. The trouble with those nine, those are all good things. I appreciate all nine of those things. The trouble is they're not all alike. They're pretty different categories of stuff. It's like a fruit basket that's got some apples in it, and there's oranges in it, there's a banana in it, and there's a peach in it. It's just different kinds of fruit in this basket of nine. Or you could say, there's a dwarf and an elf and a hobbit and some men. It's a different basket of stuff.

12:41 So, for instance, alongside practices like Sabbath and solitude, what about other things like sleep? exercise, nature, music. I mean, isn't music every bit as good as solitude? even for loner types. And then what about things like the Lord's Supper?

13:12 Baptism. So we've got some work to do here. We need to triage these practices. We've got to get some order, see how they relate to each other. So let me try to do that briefly before then we go to those last three. I already told you our session is about the last three. Of those nine, two of them are clearly means of God's grace. They are God's appointed channels of his ongoing grace in the Christian life. Do you hear which one those are? He said scripture and prayer.

13:47 Bing. That's right. Those two are right. Two means of grace appointed by God, clear as day. And then there's one of them that's almost that. I think the word that's used is community okay what do you mean by community if community is just like casual Christian friends that kind of float in and out of your life then yeah that could possibly they could be a real help they could point you to prayer they could talk about what God's doing in their lives they could be a means of grace but if they're super casual probably not so now if you mean by community if you mean covenant fellowship in a local church where you're committing to be the church for each other so that you're there for each other in good times and bad times and the tough times and the easy times as well, then yeah, that is a means of grace. That would be scripture, prayer, church. So we've got the three big ones. That's good. What about fasting?

14:39 Where does that go? I don't think I put fasting on its own. I think I call fasting an appointed assistant because fasting always goes with prayer. fasting is a way to intensify your prayers you got your normal prayers your daily bread prayers you're praying every day for stuff and something really big comes along and you feel like I need a megaphone for this prayer I need a turbo booster on this prayer this is an unusual prayer I need to intensify it and that's why God gave us the gift of fasting and modern people aren't especially good with this. We're not going to talk about fasting here tonight. Just a little reminder before we move on. Do you have prayers that when you're especially needy and you're looking for some extra help in your prayer, that's why God gave fasting, to fast and pray.

15:39 Put that together as a megaphone with your prayers. What about Sabbath and solitude then? I think I would call these assistance to the means of grace. If the means of grace are word and prayer and fellowship, Sabbath or rest and solitude getting alone could assist you in those things. Solitude could assist you if you get alone with your Bible and you have some time for focused prayer. and Sabbath, resting, take that on Sunday in the New Covenant, that could assist you in meeting together with the body of believers for the reality of church. And I think we could put things like sleep and exercise and music and nature into this category of assistance.

16:34 Do you think about that? When your joy tank's really low, do you consider that maybe you just haven't had a good night's sleep in a while? Maybe the holiest thing you could do is get some rest and then wake up and read your Bible. Or if you haven't moved this human body in a long time and your blood's not circulating, it's not getting fresh neurotransmitters to your brain, you might want to go for a little walk or get out in nature or engage some music. These are nice assistants. But in and of themselves, these are not the means of grace. Nonbelievers enjoy these things. You don't need the Holy Spirit. And Jesus doesn't get glorified necessarily just because you like music or like to rest or have learned the acquired taste of exercise or nature. It's very normal.

17:26 These are assistants. All right, so from our list of nine, that leaves three more now in our ordering process. And this is where we finish up. This is the rest of our time here on these last three, on generosity and service and witness. And these three are different than the other six. I can't borrow a finger over there. These three are different than the others. The others can assist us in the reception of God's grace flowing to us in his word, in his prayer, in prayer, and in fellowship. but when we start talking about witness and service and generosity, we're starting to make a pivot where the first thing here isn't reception but giving. It's a different posture.

18:21 So receiving God's word and being in prayer and engaging in the fellowship of the local church begins with a different posture than when we serve and witness and give. Now, the transition happens in fellowship, right? We come to the body of Christ to be filled, to be helped, to receive grace. And then in the process, we become that means of grace to others. So there's a pivot here. And the image Which Marshall used So helpful Related to these means of grace Is that tree of Psalm 1 A tree planted by streams of water So think about that tree Putting its roots down Having that stream nearby It's got all of the nourishment All the nutrients It's got the water that it needs It is ready It is being fed by God's word by prayer, by fellowship.

19:20 It's being filled up with the water it needs. What is that tree gonna wanna do? Very naturally. grow tall and spread out branches. It's very natural. And in the doing of that, in growing tall, in spreading out branches, eventually bearing fruit, that tree's gonna send its fruits down even deeper. It's not gonna need less water, but more water. So the intake of that water leads to the bearing of fruit as that tree stretches out. And that's what we want to do and be and live in the Christian life as we feast, as we enjoy God's means of grace, that we don't become this dead-end cul-de-sac, but that we have our roots deep, we receive from God, and that he works in and through us by his Spirit to bear fruit, fruit in witness fruit in generosity fruit in service for others so what I want to do is look at some a few key texts on each of those three and then ask a few questions for you, I'm not going to tell you what to do I'm going to ask some questions and you can think how this might apply to your situation all over Birmingham different seasons of life you have different particulars and see how God might be pleased to lead you in cultivating habits of love as outflow of these habits of grace.

20:58 So witness, generosity, service. You could call this mission, money, and energy. You could call this the commission, the dollar, and the clock. That's what I'll call it. And that's what we're getting that. So number one, the commission. Jesus works through his disciples to make more disciples. That's the commission. He works through his disciples to make more disciples.

21:29 There's at least two commissions from Jesus in the New Testament. You got the one at the end of Matthew that we're very familiar with. Maybe most of us think about the Matthew, end of Matthew commission. There's also one in the book of Acts. Acts chapter 1 verse 8. Jesus says to his disciples, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses. There's that word witness. In Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. So the Acts 1 8 commission to be witnesses, to put words to what's happened to us, what we've seen and heard and experience in Jesus. And then Matthew 28 commission. Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

22:27 And behold, I'm with you to the end of the age. So two commissions, and there are two aspects to these commissions. There's a witness, a word aspect, and then there's a disciple-making aspect. Witness is empowered by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us to tell other people about Jesus and his gospel. We witness to what we've seen and heard and experienced. We tell others about him with a view to them knowing him, trusting him, believing him, following him like we do. But then there's this other part in Matthew 28. There's not just the baptism part, conversion, baptism, name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There's also this teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you.

23:26 That doesn't happen in a moment Like a conversion Or like a baptism That's a process What would Jesus' disciples have understood When he said to them That they should make disciples These are the guys he had called To be his disciples Matthew 4.19 Follow me he said and I'll make you fishers of men. He didn't do that in a moment. That wasn't like a quick baptism. That was a process. That was three plus years of investing himself in their lives, being with them, watching them, giving input, giving counsel, teaching truth, sharing life together. he made his ongoing investment in them that he might form them, might change the shape of their souls, form how they think, how they desire, what they long for.

24:33 Here's what I mean when I think about disciple-making. I'll give you a definition. Disciple-making, the way I'm talking about it, is the process in which a maturing believer invests himself for a particular period of time in one or just a few younger believers in order to help them grow in the faith, including helping them also invest in others who will invest in others. It's so great to say this in Birmingham because my life has been personally impacted by disciple makers who came out of Birmingham.

25:17 In the late 70s, early 80s, a church here in Birmingham called Briarwood started investing at Samford University, sending out ministers to disciple students just like this to make disciples. and that ministry grew and flourished, bore fruit and a team went out from Birmingham to Augusta, Georgia another to Atlanta eventually one came to Greenville, South Carolina and I benefited from the ministry of campus outreach in Greenville, South Carolina 20 years ago and then I moved to Minnesota 21 years ago 22 years ago with a campus outreach team to bring this same vision of disciple making to the college campuses in Minneapolis and St. Paul. And we love quoting 2 Timothy 2, verse 2. You guys know that one?

26:14 Paul says to Timothy, his disciple, what you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. You got four generations there. Go by in a blink. You got Paul, Timothy, faithful men, and then the others also. And what's implied is others also, and others also, and others also, all the way down to Birmingham, and all the way to Greenville, South Carolina, and Minneapolis, and to this room. So what does this have to do then with witness and mission as habits of love, through which we not only pour ourselves out, but we benefit. Why would people talk about witness and service and mission as disciplines or as means of grace? How do we benefit from these?

27:11 My short answer is this, that witness and tell someone about Jesus and disciple-making, when you invest over a period of time in someone younger in the faith, these are two way streets in really profound ways when you witness and when you make disciples you not only expend your own energy that you've gotten from feasting in the word and in prayer and in the local church but you also taste such sweet joy in the pouring out of your life. One of the greatest joys in the world is telling someone about Jesus. And another one of the greatest joys in the world is seeing the life of someone you've invested in, say, for a year or two or three years.

28:09 And you've been there in all the hard times, had the hard conversations, had the awkward moments, and to see that they're doing well in the faith, it is spectacular joy. Paul talked about it With the Thessalonians as You are our glory and our joy And the Apostle John 3 John verse 4 Says I have no greater joy Than to hear that my children are walking in the truth That's really Intense language I have no greater joy I'm like I'm going to grieve John You really want to say that? What about Jesus? Isn't Jesus a greater joy than your children in the faith? He would say, these aren't in competition. These joys aren't competitive. They complement.

29:01 It's my joy in Jesus that made me invest in these children. I rejoice in them because it's glory to Jesus. I see his work in them. I'm rejoicing in him as I rejoice in them. These all go together. Not competitive joys. So questions for you to ponder then on witness and disciple making. Who in your life right now So this could be work Home Neighborhood Teammate Who in your life right now Needs your witness Or your discipling A couple categories If it's an unbeliever Who needs to hear your witness And be invited to embrace Jesus then very simple first step but very important.

29:54 Pray for him. Pray for her. Start right there. Asking God. Pray that he would crack a door for a witness. Sometimes we ask for too much. Open the door. It's like, oh, well, the door wasn't open. Why don't you pray for a crack? If there's a little crack, why don't you try to put yourself in the door by the power of the Holy Spirit? I see a little crack. No excuse here. An open door sounds like an excuse to me. Let's pray for a crack. And when you see the crack God opens, just go in. With all your awkwardness, with all your missteps, let me just tell you about what Jesus has done in my life, who he is, why I trust him, why I love him. And if it's a younger Christian you're thinking of, also begin in prayer. I think the best disciple making begins in prayer. and consider how you might prioritize time together with this younger brother or sister and perhaps eventually meet regularly to invest in them.

30:57 Just starting a friendship with someone who's younger in the faith isn't an obvious peer. It pays dividends. They see it. They know this is different. Why is this person taking an interest in me? I have a friend who's older than me and more mature in the faith. This is wonderful. And they will be eager if you take a little initiative to meet with them, get coffee, increase time together. So number one, the commission. Jesus works through his disciples to make more disciples. Number two, then the dollar.

31:30 Jesus frees our fingers to give generously in his name. This is not just general random acts of kindness. Freeing our fingers to give generously in his name. So as we cultivate habits of grace and our hearts are regularly fed and filled by God's word and through prayer and in fellowship, we become the kind of people who want to give. And that's mainly because Christ himself has given himself for us.

32:07 One of those expressions then is generosity. The giving of our possessions. Giving of our finances. and this is a very significant evidence. One of the great evidences of a changed heart is wanting to have generosity, wanting to give, wanting to bless others as I myself have been blessed by Jesus. Freely you have received, Jesus said. Freely give. The great reason for Christian generosity is that Christ himself gave himself. 2 Corinthians 8, 9. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ That though he was rich Yet for your sakes he became poor So that you by his poverty might become rich Our generosity Is not An effort at all To pay him back It's not what we do in Christian giving Rather We give because his giving Changes us It changes us on the inside And he keeps giving to us Let's go.

33:22 I love the way that Paul summarizes Jesus' teaching in Acts chapter 20 verse 35 if you're reading through the book of Acts you got a red letter Bible you're expecting a lot of red letters in the Gospels it's a little surprising at the end of Acts 20 like I thought he ascended and now Paul is giving us what I think is an outstanding summary of Jesus' ethic and it's especially clear about Jesus' teaching in the book of Luke. Luke and Acts go together. Here's what Acts 20, 35 says. Remember the words of Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Questions for you. How tight are your fingers with your finances? do you know the joy of giving to others and trusting God to provide for you and the reward of fellowship with him that comes through sacrificially and joyfully giving?

34:30 has God met your needs of this life and given you access to share and give generously in Jesus' name? and then how might he call you to some sacrifice it's one thing to have excess and get from your excess there's another reality biblically called sacrifice and that's where you make some particular sacrifice of possession or finances that you otherwise would be enjoying for the sake of some act of love, meeting others' needs in Jesus' name. So the commission, Jesus works through his disciples to make more disciples. The dollar, Jesus frees the fingers of his disciples to give generously and sacrificially in Jesus' name.

35:26 And then finally here, last one, the clock. Jesus strengthens our hands to dedicate time, energy, and attention to serving others in his name. Jesus strengthens our hands to dedicate time, energy, and attention to serving others in Jesus' name. Your clock is even more precious than your dollar. You know that, right? Many of us in the modern world have so many possessions. access to money but we have the same number of hours in the day as they had 2,000 years ago 200 years ago we all have limited resources with our time and with our energy some humans have more energy than others for sure but it's limited humans only have so much energy and we all live in the year 2025 when there is a crazy war for your attention.

36:43 This is one of the biggest battles going on in the world, right? The biggest companies in the world used to sell oil. Now they sell human attention. Get you to scroll on these things. Suck you in, keep you in the scrolling because they can't put ads in front of you if they don't have your attention. And so human attention is so valuable. So Moses says in Psalm 90 verse 12 Teach us, O God, to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom And 1,500 years later the apostle Paul says to the Ephesians Look carefully then how you walk Not as unwise, but as wise Making the best use of the time Because the days are evil So Moses and Paul agree We need wisdom Wisdom is needed to know how to Manage Is that the best word for it?

37:44 Steward Leverage Use Our time Our attention Our energy And there's an important warning from the book of James I remember this moment so clearly On this trip with John Piper to Birmingham 20 years ago. I'm there to be the traveling assistant. I've got the schedule and got the contacts and all that. And he's just working on his messages. Some point he asked me about the schedule and I, you know, very good assistant. I got everything ready here. Tell him the schedule. And I made some kind of comment about what we were gonna do the next day. And he says, if the Lord wills. I remember the gleam in his eye and smile and smile. He was being sweet too. That's from James 4. James 4, 13 to 15. Come now, you who say tomorrow or today we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.

38:44 Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, young assistant, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. We don't know what tomorrow is going to bring, much less next week, next year. And so as Christians, we steward our schedules.

39:17 We look at the clock in a fundamentally different way than the world does. I'd like to take Paul's sweeping statement in 1 Corinthians 6 and apply it to time. He says, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit whom you have from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Or you could say, Christian, Christian, Your schedule is not your own. The clock is not your own. Your energy is not your own. You are bought with a price. Glorify God in the way you manage your calendar, the clock. So closing questions for you.

40:13 Are you more prone to be selfish with your time and attention or careless? We're going to go fall on both sides of that. There may be some here that need to increase their care. Others that need to increase their faith, their love. Are you more prone to overschedule or underschedule? next question what is your present calling in life or callings your particular job you have right now your marital status you have children or not what are your callings and think first and foremost about the good you can do for others in your present callings than dreaming about all sorts of good outside your callings first.

41:16 I think most of us have this often bring a natural grass is greener kind of perspective to neglect what are actual callings in the moment and think about, oh, I could do that good thing that's a random thing or do that good thing. No, no, God gave you a job to do good. Your job is an avenue where you're hopefully, if it's a righteous job and you're not making money in some evil way, hopefully you're doing good for others. That's what people are paying you. So you would do good. So think first about your calling in your family, in your church, in your job as avenues for doing good. And how your schedule might be managed to do good where God has called you, first and foremost. When you do schedule your time, do you put in the big rocks first? I don't know if you've heard this metaphor before. if you have a bunch of rocks, big rocks and pebbles, and you've got a jar.

42:12 And you put all the pebbles in first, and you try to put the big rocks in, and the big rocks don't fit. But if you have the right size rocks and jar, and you put the big rocks in first, then you can put all the pebbles in, and they go around the big rocks. It's a really wise way to think about how we manage our lives and our calling. What are the big rocks that God's given you in your life, given the callings you have, not aspirational, actual callings in your life. What are those big rocks? It's faithfulness to steward those, to put the big rocks in first and then let those pebbles come in. They'll fall into the right places. More practically, or specifically, do you make the most of the morning?

43:03 I got two mornings in mind here. There's a first morning when you get up and feast. And then there's a second morning when you start your work day, start the schedule, start what you're going to be doing the rest of the day. And in that second morning, it's wisdom, wisdom, make us wise. It's wisdom to tackle the big things, the hardest things first. Because as the day goes on, people might need your help. They might ask you, there may be an unplanned opportunity to help, to love and serve others. So if you're thinking ahead here with wisdom, if we're going to be the kind of people who can flex, who can have margin in our lives and aren't so overscheduled that we can't help other people. We want to think about what are the big aspects of our callings that help others.

43:59 Let's schedule those in. Let's get those done first. And then let's leave margin. Let's leave flexibility later in the day so that when unscheduled needs come up, there's opportunities to love. There's opportunities to respond to others. So last question, do you schedule in margin and flexibility for meeting the unplanned needs of others as they arise. Brothers and sisters, you can't pour out if you don't fill up. So again, I want the accent of our gathering here together tonight to be the feasting, the filling up, the feeding. You can't pour out well without filling up. and that's why we have this second session those who fill up want to pour out trees that are located by streams of water love to grow tall and stretch out branches and bear fruit and the pouring out of our finances and our time and our attention and our energy and our very lives and disciple making are not only expressions of our joy in Jesus, but they are also occasions for enriching our joy in Jesus, for growing it, deepening it, strengthening it.

45:26 And when we pour out, God never leaves us empty. He fills us up again, whether in the act of love itself or in the reward that we receive in greater nearness to him because of our pouring out. Let's pray together. So Father in heaven, I do pray first and foremost that these people would be a feasting people in your word and in prayer and in the ongoing grace you provide through the local church. I pray you would continue to stream your ongoing grace Fresh supplies of grace into our lives And Father as you do that Would you make us the kind of people Who very naturally, habitually From hearts of love Want to pour ourselves out in words In the investment of our lives In our finances In our time and energy So that others might be blessed That you might be pleased Just as you stream your grace to us Through your word and prayer and fellowship that we would be channels of your grace here in Birmingham and beyond.

46:37 In Jesus' name we pray, amen.