Survival in a Capitalistic System
Tom Shrader explores how Joseph wisely managed Egypt through seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine, drawing practical principles for surviving life's inevitable cycles. He emphasizes that prosperity can be a greater test than adversity, challenging believers to be frugal during abundance, engaged with those around them, and faithful to meet others' needs while making wise decisions for the future.
“For every person that can pass the test of adversity, every hundred people, there's only one that can pass the test of prosperity.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Survival Through the Cycles of Life
Recorded: 2013
Duration: 39 min
Themes: wisdom, stewardship, preparation, faithfulness, adversity, prosperity, leadership, providence, facing financial hardship, managing abundance, planning for future, business leader, family provider, financial planner, young professional, navigating prosperity
Scripture: Genesis 41, Matthew 5:16, Romans 12:1-2, Proverbs
Theological Themes: divine providence, gods sovereignty, biblical wisdom, faithful stewardship, old testament application, practical theology, spiritual discernment, covenant faithfulness
Full Transcript
If you have Bibles, go ahead and open them to Genesis 41. Every series we do, after a while, I get into it and it begins to have its own personality, its own nuance. What I realized with the study on Joseph, survival through the cycles, is it's filled with practical input. This is super practical. This is stuff that you can use today.
This week in particular, I was telling somebody yesterday, it's one of those weeks where the Bible story seems incidental to the principles that we draw from it. This feels to me much more application. I remember years ago, somebody saying, and these are general statements, so they're generally true: we draw our doctrine from the New Testament and our application from the Old Testament. That's not to say there isn't application in the New Testament or doctrine in the Old Testament, but we see these things played out in the Old Testament. Joseph is that for us.
Joseph's Circumstances
He's in the midst of this up and down cycle. He's been in jail, further in jail, more in jail. When we left off last time, he had had an encounter with Pharaoh. In chapter 41, Pharaoh had had a dream. All of a sudden the cupbearer remembers in verse nine of chapter 41, the cupbearer spoke to Pharaoh and he reminds him that he, the Pharaoh, put the cupbearer in jail. While he was there, there was a guy. He says, I don't remember his name, verse 12. He was a Hebrew guy, but I remember what he did.
We talked about that last week. We said, it does not take a lot to have an impact on the people around you, good or bad. Then Joseph is called out in chapter 41, verse 14. Pharaoh sends for him. Joseph cleans himself up. He's about to have this cross-cultural experience.
He comes up and Pharaoh says, I've talked to all my guys. None of them can interpret this dream. Joseph said, well, I can't, but God gives the answers and tell me the dream. He did. He said, let me tell you.
The Dream and Its Interpretation
It's a dream about seven fat cows and seven lean cows and seven healthy stalks of corn, ears of corn and seven sick ones. He said, this is to tell you that here's what's going to happen in the future. In the future, you're going to have seven years of prosperity followed by seven years of famine. This is the cycle that you're going to be in.
We know it too. We can't maybe with clarity say that, but if you turn on or you listen to Cavuto or these guys, they're constantly trying to figure out, are we in a bubble? If we're in the bubble, where's the end of the bubble? How's this coming? How do we time it? Nobody's very good at timing those things typically.
Joseph said, if I was you, what I would do is I would get somebody, chapter 41, verse 33, a discerning and a wise man. I would give this guy power and he would be the grain czar. He would accumulate during the good time for the country and the world. He would accumulate and stockpile the grain. So when the famine hits, we'll be ready. We'll have it.
The Value of Faith
Pharaoh says in verse 38, where do I find a guy like this? Where do I find one of those? We said to you last week and the week before and this week and maybe every week that your faith is your greatest asset in all of life, in business, with your family, in the actions that you have and interactions and reactions with the people around you. Pharaoh says, where do I get a guy like this? It ends up that that guy's going to be Joseph.
Here's what Pharaoh wanted. Pharaoh saw the value of a relationship that Joseph had with God. This is true of many of the people around you. They want the benefit of God without the relationship of God. Let's put it in terms that we might use more frequently: I want the peace of God without having established peace with God.
I want to experience that love, joy, peace, that calmness, that serenity, those things that we see in people. You meet somebody, that's the compelling nature of living a life that's committed to Christ is the people around you begin to see your good works and they're attracted to that. They say, I want that too. I want that calmness in my life. My life is hectic. I want to be able to sleep. I want to be able to have a family that can get together and eat a meal and not be fighting. I want that. You say, perfect. Here's how you get there. You come to Christ in repentance and faith. I don't want that. So I want the peace of God without establishing peace with God.
Let Your Light Shine
We come back again and again and again to Matthew 5:16, let your light shine in such a way that people see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. The only way they'll see the good works or the only way they're going to glorify your Father in heaven is if you tell them to. It's Pharaoh who's now got Joseph there and Joseph says, listen, it's not me. It's God who gives these dreams. It's not me. So wherever you go, you become this instrument of God.
Look at Joseph, verse 46. Joseph's 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went all through the land. This is what we saw when Joseph interacted with the cupbearer and the baker. He got involved. Joseph could have stayed in the palace and sent out people to do reconnaissance work for him. Tell me what you see out there. But there's nothing that's going to replace being engaged.
The Importance of Accessibility
I was watching a lot of TV. I haven't been feeling very well. So I've been at home watching TV and I don't want to waste my time. So I watch good TV. There's a lot of it. Replay of the Holiday Bowl from 1986. But I was watching yesterday, the day Kennedy was shot. They had Clint Hill, the Secret Service guy, and the Dallas police and some others. They were talking about the problem. They used the phrase over and over again, that the president wanted to give the illusion that he was accessible.
So we can argue about who shot him. I'm just saying, here he comes at Love Field and he heads right to the fence. Secret Service is saying, we got no shot at protecting him. We're there. Clint Hill said, I'm right by Mrs. Kennedy.
This is something I came across two weeks ago, and it just blows my mind. When Jackie Kennedy became first lady, she was 31 years old. That's amazing! Younger than Haley. And he's working this. Most of you know, the bubble top that day, he said, I don't want the bubble top there. Even though it wasn't bulletproof, he says, I don't want it. I want people to get there. And if you look at the early films, Jackie has on sunglasses and he turns over and says, sweetheart, please take those sunglasses off. I want the people to see us. I want the illusion of accessibility.
Joseph's True Accessibility
Well, Joseph's not talking about the illusion of accessibility. Joseph is saying, I am accessible. It's like you in the marketplace. Every office I was ever in, I started a Bible study. Not a big deal. Dozen guys, not always from the same office. And every time in every one, about half the guys became Christians in the midst of the study. Thought they were comfortable coming to a study. So it's that engagement.
It's not enough to sit in the ivory tower and declare you're engaged. It's to be known. Joseph could have done it, but this is characteristic of him. Joseph is out in the field. Joseph is engaged with the people around him. And that's tiring and that's exhausting, but I really don't think it's optional. And you ought to be too. And I don't know what that is. I don't know if it's your neighbors. I don't know if it's your family. I don't know if it's the people at church. But that's Joseph.
The Time of Abundance
And Joseph gets out there and in verse 47, he's starting to stock this up. Here comes this surplus. Verse 49, "Joseph stored away grain in abundance like the sand of the sea until he stopped measuring it." It's beyond measure.
And now, after that abundance, comes that time of famine. Again, a principle for us, and I would hope we've learned this: it's not just a test of adversity, it's the test of prosperity. There's always that, am I going to have enough? I love the ads on TV that say, how much does it take to retire? And here's the answer: twice as much as you think.
The Challenge of Prosperity
Here's what we know. There's adversity. When there's adversity, nobody needs to put you on a budget. I talk about my mom and dad a lot. And my dad was at a bank in Davenport, Iowa. And by the end of his career, he was an executive VP, of which there were probably 100 of them, I don't know. But he was making some what we might consider decent money, not great money at the end. But up to there, he wasn't making any money.
And my dad taught us things. Here you go, here's something you haven't thought about in a long time. Remember the Christmas club? And you'd go in once a week or every other week, and you'd put in a buck, so that when it got to Christmas, you'd have 50 bucks, and you could buy Christmas stuff without going into debt. My dad would give us those little red envelopes and you'd open it up and there'd be a little cameo picture of Abe Lincoln and you knew there was at least a five in there. And then what was big for them was layaway. So all year long, it was Christmas club and layaway.
My dad taught me Christmas club. And it seemed so stupid to me. I'm going to go in there and I'm going to put 50 cents in there. But it made sense when Christmas came. My mom saved dimes. I don't know why dimes other than pennies weren't big enough and quarters were too much. And she saved dimes and she'd get them. And then she'd pour them out on the table and we'd get those green wrappers and we would roll dimes. And then she would take them and she'd put them in the freezer. That's where she kept them. And we always kidded her about cold cash. Other than now I look back and I say, that's how they had enough for four boys.
The Greater Test
And here's what Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish historian says: for every person that can pass the test of adversity, every hundred people, there's only one that can pass the test of prosperity. Because you have a card and you get what you want and you give it to the person at the checkout and it clears and it says approved, it doesn't mean you can afford it. Or it doesn't mean you should get it. This time of abundance is a time of real challenge for everybody. And I'm probably, in this case, preaching to the choir.
I saw it yesterday, I've been ahead of the curve on this baby, $1.6 trillion in student debt. It's bigger than the housing bubble. Half of these loans are in default. And at least when you defaulted on your house, we got your house, we can't get your degree back. You got all this stuff coming. You're borrowing 300 grand to get a degree to get a job that pays 30 grand. It doesn't make sense.
Understanding the Cycles
And Joseph is saying, and I'm guessing it had to be a tough sell by about year five or six and they're going, this is never going to end. I bought this house for 100 grand and I sold it for 150 three months later. Remember that? When you were trying to buy a house and it was listed for 200, so you shot him an offer, you thought you were shrewd at 205 and then they got one at 215. And then five years later, that same house was listed for 180 and they fired an offer at 100 and a quarter. That's that cycle.
Joseph brings wisdom and understanding in the midst of the world around us. And that's the commodity we have. I was walking with the boys the other day, Monday. They had Monday off. So they called and said, let's go for a walk. And my foot's been bugging me. So I said, I'll go as far as I can. And we went a little bit and we're sitting on a bench and we're watching the ducks. And I asked Braden, what are you reading? And he's nine. And he said, I'm
I was reading a book with my grandson Yale titled "I Survived Nazi Germany, 1944." It's a little heavy. I said, "Really, that seems kind of intense." He said, "It's part of the I Survived series. Have you ever seen this?" I said no. He explained, "Well, they're books written—they're fiction and nonfiction. That's always dangerous. But they're fiction and nonfiction. It's I Survived Katrina, I Survived Pompeii."
So I said, "Yale, what are you reading?" He said, "Well, it's random." Yale's seven, and he is random. I said, "It is random. What does that mean? What are you reading?" He goes, "Well, I don't remember." I said, "Well, what's it about?" And he said, "I don't remember, it's random." So "random" apparently is now code word for you don't have to answer anything.
I said, "I just read that one president out of all our presidents was single." Because they're into presidents. I said, "I can't remember who it was." They got back to the house, and when they got back, they said, "Where's your phone?" Well, in 30 seconds, they'd gotten the answer: the one president that was single was James Buchanan. Knowledge is not the issue as much as wisdom.
The Wisdom of the Steady Plotter
In the book of Proverbs, the author writes about that person who saves and describes him or her as a steady plotter. Well, who wants to be that? Look at me, I'm a Greyhound. I mean, I'm built for speed. I'm not a steady plotter.
And Joseph brings that great perspective to us. Joseph goes out and says, "Here's what we're going to do. We're going to save, we're going to get all this together." All of a sudden, verse 53, the famine comes. The plenty years ended, the famine began. Just as Joseph said, there was famine in the land, but in the land of Egypt, there was bread.
So when all the land of Egypt had famine, the people cried out to Pharaoh for bread. Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, "Not my problem, go to Joseph. Whatever he says, you do it." Joseph, in verse 56—interesting, I circle the one word that jumps out at me as something that would be hard for a lot of people to pull off. When the famine spread over the face of the earth, then Joseph opened all the storehouses and he didn't give the food to the Egyptians. He sold it to the Egyptians. The famine was severe in the land. People of all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph because the famine was severe in all the land.
Rethinking My Father's Wisdom
There's the beauty of it. I've been rethinking my dad. For a lot of years, it's not that I didn't respect him. It's that I wasn't drawn to the steady plotter. I look back now and I say, here's this guy from Melrose, Iowa. Sandy and I went when we were in Iowa this year, and we drove down to his hometown. It's a town of about 250 people.
We went to his boyhood home, which is gone. There's a slab, and I know it sounds like exaggeration, but that slab's about 15 by 20 feet. That's where he and his five brothers and sisters were raised. He came out of there and never, that I'm aware of, took any risk other than I guess the act of going from Melrose to Davenport. What doesn't seem risky to me must have been a big risk. I look at his life and I look at these basic principles that I thought were his—and they were his, they were his common sense and wisdom—but it's what the Bible teaches: a steady plotter.
The Power of Compound Interest
I had one of the CPAs at church do a little calculation. If you took a Starbucks skinny mocha java—hold this, all the stuff—let's say it's about five bucks, and let's say you're going to have one every day. I say to you, you can have one each weekday and weekend day. We'll take two weeks of vacation where you can have one every day. So for five days a week, 50 weeks a year, if you take that money and you save it for a period of ten years and compound the interest and you start at age 20, at age 65 it's something like $141,000.
Especially if you're young—I mean, it's the time to teach this stuff. Especially if you're young, you have the value of compound interest. You don't have to make a big deal. These are principles that work. I had a buddy who always said this: "A fast nickel beats a slow dime. I'd rather have that deal and get it in and get it closed. I don't want to be risking it." Wisdom is scarce.
Wisdom Is What's Scarce
I found a quote from the librarian at Harvard. I thought this was great. The librarian said, "We have too many books. We got books everywhere." This is before the onslaught of all the digital stuff and all the stuff that's in the cloud. We've got information. What's scarce is wisdom.
Now let me throw out a big challenge for which I don't have a solution. In this room we got a lot of gray hair, and we got a lot of dark hair that's gray underneath it too. Here's what I'm saying to you: you've got wisdom. One of the most frustrating things I see around me is an army of wise older people who are taking that wisdom and not having any outlet for it. I see a generation who's craving some sort of nurturing.
I saw the other day something like 37% of children in this country are living with their married biological parents. Think of that number. You got boys and girls running around that have never had their dad present. I listen to these college coaches—I was watching a thing on recruiting the other day. They said recruiting is so much more difficult now because you're not dealing with just the kid and his parents. You can't find one of the parents. Not that it's a search—he's just not making it. There's a mom, and then out of nowhere here comes a dad and an uncle and a hitting coach and a fielding coach. It's so complex.
When Dean Smith died, what did Michael Jordan say? "He was like a second father to me." James Worthy said, "He was the most influential person in my life." Those opportunities are out there to bring that wisdom to the next generation. I have not yet figured out how, but I know they're there.
Of you that have that wisdom, there's a whole world that desperately needs it. Somehow, the challenge is to provide that.
The Great Famine and Economic Crisis
Chapter 47, verse 13: "Now there's no food in all the land because the famine's very serious, so the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished in the famine. And Joseph gathered all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the grain which was bought, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house."
"And the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, and all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, 'Give us food. Why should we die in your presence? Our money's gone.'" And Joseph said, "I don't have enough. Give me your livestock."
This looks really harsh, but now Joseph is actually doing something that's very generous to them. He's saying, "This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to trade you the food for the livestock. I'm going to trade you an appreciating asset for a depreciating asset." Investment 101: never invest in anything that eats. That's how you don't end up with horses at Turf Paradise and all the stuff that goes with it.
Indeed, they take it. "They brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for their horses and their flocks."
The Final Exchange
When the year was ended, they came the next year: "We will not hide from the Lord that our money's all spent, our cattle is our Lord's. There's nothing left for my Lord except our bodies and our lands. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land, and we and our land will be slaves to Pharaoh. So give us seed that we may live. We'll plant this. We'll start all over again."
So at the bottom of this, based on what God had shown and Joseph had obeyed, he ends up in a position that he would have never dreamed of. Remember, we talked about a couple weeks ago—we want to rush ahead. Joseph said to the cupbearer, "You get me out of this." If the cupbearer would have done what Joseph wanted him to do, he'd never be here to be in the place that God was going to use him.
Those are hard words: "Wait upon the Lord." Somehow I need to understand that God's timing is perfect. I don't always see it. I don't always get it. I don't always understand it. I want what I want, and there's nothing wrong with expressing that to Him, but I want to always submit it to the Lord. So I'm Paul with a thorn in the flesh, and three times I pray that God will remove it, and He doesn't. At that point I'm saying, "God, it's Your will, it's Your timing. He'll never leave me, He'll never forsake me."
Joseph as a Christ Figure
Now in interpretation of Scripture, we often see in the Old Testament these pre-figures of Christ, these Christ-like figures. It's not a one-for-one—they're not Jesus—but we see the principle. Joseph is one of those. He is the Redeemer, and this is a picture of what God wants from us.
He doesn't want all your money, and He doesn't want all your livestock. He wants your body. It's Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2: "Present your body as a living sacrifice. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
The most miserable people I know are not non-Christians, but they're people who say they're Christians but they're not living that way. There's that battle. Joseph said, "Here's what I want: I want your body."
Sports Illustrated Stories
Here's what got me—I've been in Sports Illustrated three times, which is amazing given my athletic prowess.
The first one: there was a golfer. The chances of you knowing this guy are zero. His name was Bob Wynn, and he looked like Ken Harrelson, "The Hawk." My brother and I got into Bob Wynn at the Quad Cities Open. We were just into this guy—he was a cool guy. There was a story in Sports Illustrated because he had a good tournament about Bob Wynn, and there were these two kids that followed him all over the golf course. That's one.
The second time was the ASU-Iowa game here. It was the last one here. Those of you who are ASU fans will remember this—it was a 42-minute rain and lightning delay. The Hawks came out of the tunnel. The Hawks swarm onto the field—that's how Iowa comes onto the field, holding hands. It's called the swarm. Coach Ferentz said we didn't even swarm right that night. It was 28 to nothing before you could say "University of Iowa."
Well, a friend of mine was the AP photographer, and that week he said, "Hey, you want to get down on the field?" I said I'd love it. So I saw him there, and he said, "Here's your field pass," and he gave me a camera. So at the end of the first quarter, when it's 28-nothing and it's just terrible, he said, "Have you got any good pictures?" I said, "Well, I haven't taken any pictures." He said, "Well, take some pictures."
So I go over to the cheerleaders, and I mean, I'm done with it. I got Sparky and cheerleaders flying. Then Kirk Ferentz—I love Kirk Ferentz—so I went over to get some pictures of Kirk. He's blowing bubblegum, he's so frustrated. So I'm snapping pictures. So I give him the camera back.
On Saturday night he calls Monday and said, "One of your pictures is going to be in Sports Illustrated." So on the 50th anniversary of Sports Illustrated, there's a little picture of Kirk Ferentz with a byline that says "Tom Schrader, AP." So that's the second time I'm in Sports Illustrated.
The third time: the University of Arizona is coming up to play ASU, and they call and said, "Can you do the chapel for the U of A?" I said I'll be happy to. They need it, because when this game's over, they're going back to Tucson, so they're going to need a chapel or two.
So I go in and I do Romans 12:1-2. The guy is doing a story—I didn't know this—on U of A and says, "In the pregame chapel, the young pastor," this is to contrast with last week at Grand Canyon where the school paper said "the white-haired 65-year-old," "the young pastor challenged the team: give your bod to God." It sounded bad when I said it. It sounded worse when you read it in Sports Illustrated.
Embracing God's Call for Total Commitment
That's what this is - Joseph is saying I want all of you, and that's what God is saying to you. I don't want your money, I want you. And with you comes your money, your heart, your time, your energy, your effort. That's what I'm looking for.
I have five takeaways here.
Number One: Commit to Be Involved
Ignoring the lives of the people around you is not an option. I had a call last week, and when I saw the idea I just said I don't need this. So I got my finger up to push decline and I remembered everything I've been teaching you, so I pushed accept with regrets.
"Hello, yeah, Tom can we get together?" I said I really don't feel well. "Can you tell me what it's about?" "Well my whole world's falling apart." I said now mine is too.
So we got together and I knew the last thing I wanted was to go do this. I came in and the guy had a bottle of water and I said can you open the water? I can't get it open. He said sure and opened it and spilled half of it, and then poured his guts out. I drove away saying God thank you for trusting me enough to put me in this guy's life.
Once you start to be involved it's never going to stop because need is a black hole.
Number Two: Be Frugal in Handling Your Abundance
I remember my dad when we used to meet up at La Posada - some of you were there. My dad would come. He loved to go to that study. He loved to sit up at the bar and look around. I was teaching one day and it was on finance. We're all done and he said I think you got trouble buddy. I said why and he said you said live within your means, live on less than you make, and people were writing that down. He said I think you got trouble. If they don't know that, I don't think you can teach it.
Live within your means.
Number Three: Be Careful When You Exercise Authority
Joseph's in a position of almost absolute control and yet you see a gentleness and a kindness there. I'm teaching at Arcadia on parenting in a couple of weeks and there's really very little in the scripture on parenting, but to fathers He says fathers don't exasperate your children, especially the dads. I think there's just a tendency to do that.
I've watched it and part of that is coming home is tough. Home is a lot tougher than work. You're at work and you're going hey I want that stuff. Where is it? Atlanta. It needs to be in Dallas by three and I don't want to hear you can't get it there. If you've got to put it in a bus and drive it 500 miles an hour get it there. Dallas here it comes and when it gets there I want this distributed and out. You got it? Work's easy.
You get home and you go hey what's that thing in your ear? That's tough and so what do you do? There's that tendency to turn that on. Be gentle with the authority God gives you.
Number Four: It's Okay to Make a Profit
I think sometimes as followers of Christ we get the idea that maybe I'm exploiting somebody. No, it's okay. Wayne Grudem wrote a little book - and when I said little book I mean it's like a hundred pages - called Business for the Glory of God. I am surprised every Christian business guy doesn't carry that around with him because every chapter covers capitalism and profit and all the things you think. Money is good. Now it can be abused. Capitalism is good. Now it can be abused. It's okay to be in a position where you're making a profit.
Number Five: Be Faithful to Meet the Needs Around You
Be faithful to meet the needs of the people around you. There are people around you with real needs. They're not imaginary and there's a tendency to go well you know you did a lot of stupid things to get yourself there. That's not always the case.
Let me do this - we haven't done it in a while. I tend to be a conservative evangelical, conservative politically, conservative economically. I tend to be that and I tend to attract people like that, so that's probably many of you, maybe not all. The problem with people like us is we tend to not have a heart. It's the old Rush Limbaugh anybody can do anything - well that's a bunch of hooey. I tried to drive on Michael Jordan. Didn't work. I tried real hard.
Not anybody can do anything. Not everybody has an equal chance in every way. Not everybody's equally gifted or talented. There's people around you who are in difficult positions not because of decisions they've made, just because of life.
Discerning Our Calling to Meet Needs
Every need around you is not a calling, so I have to be careful. I can't just meet every need but I need to be really careful to not become jaundiced and assume because somebody's hurting they've made stupid decisions or they haven't tried or they don't work or they're lazy or they just haven't followed biblical principles. And even if they had, that's not a death sentence. You need to be faithful to meet the needs of the people God's brought in your life.
I'm teaching right now a four-week series on the sovereignty of God and it's the sovereignty of God in salvation, but it's bigger than that. It's the sovereignty of God in bringing you here today. It's the sovereignty of God in placing you in the neighborhood you're in or you're on the treadmill or you're on the elliptical machine and God drops this person next to you and all of a sudden they begin to open their heart. Now here you go. You've been to 15 Bible studies on reaching out to the community around you. You've read and you've prayed. Now you're on the elliptical machine. Let me help you out - that guy, that gal, is an answer to your prayer.
So those are five things. Here's the big deal next week: What do you do when somebody has screwed you over, taken advantage of you, there's no question about it, they're guilty, guilty, guilty, they know they're guilty and you can get even with them?
Getting Involved Without a Program
We know the saying, "I don't get mad, I get even." What do you do when you can't? We'll look at it next week.
Father, thank you that You've saved us and You saved us not just to get us to heaven but to leave us here on earth and to use us in a way that brings honor and glory to You. Let us be instruments that You use to make this world a better place. Let us get involved with the people around us. We don't need a program. We don't need to start a ministry. All we got to do is live this. Let us do it. We ask it of You in Christ's name, Amen.