God has given us many things, family and friends might be at the top of that list of gifts. Our finances are a large part of how we relate to the world around us and worship our God. This Sunday we close out our annual stewardship focus – One in Christ – with a look at our finances.
When God asks for obedience he wants it right away, not tomorrow. The parable of the Two Sons is an illustration of what the spiritual landscape was in Jesus’ day. The common people, sinners, had fallen away from God. When John the Baptist called them to repentance, they listened. The Jewish leaders said all the right things, but they refused to repent. God’s call to repentance is just as real and urgent today as it was two thousand years ago.
The last shall be first and the first shall be last. That cryptic phrase accurately describes how rewards are given out in the kingdom of heave. This Sunday we look at the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard to see how God rewards us at the end of our lives.
Is there anything more valuable than the gospel? Jesus shared the parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pear of Great Price just to explore that idea. What would you be willing to give up for the sake of the gospel? Everything?
Oh, what of that? And what of that? The sower sows his seeds of the gospel in the field of the world. What happens to that seed as it falls on different soils? Who is the one who makes it grow. We’ll look at these questions in the first lesson of our new Bible class on the parables of Jesus, Parabolic.