God has been doing a mighty work at Oak Hill Church and we are preparing to build a large educational space to accommodate the enormous growth that we have experienced. We have a vision of growing Deep in God's word and Wide in influence in our community. We want to build a church that helps people become oaks of righteousness so that God's Kingdom will expand for generations to come. *due to technical issues, we only have audio for this week's sermon.

Just like a seed must die before it grows into a plant that produces good fruit, we must die to ourselves and our desires so that we can begin to produce good, God glorifying fruit in our lives. And this applies not just to the individual but the church as a whole.

In this last sermon from our Deep & Wide series, we look back at the example of generosity set by David and the Israelites as they prepared to build the temple. David and the other leaders went first, giving generously and were followed but he rest of the people who gave what the had, everything from gold to goat's hair. All of this generous giving was fueled by a vision of a future where God's people could gather together and worship their God.

We are called to go deep in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In this section of scripture, Paul reminds us of the importance of being rooted in truth so that we are not swayed or distracted by false teachings. Our goal should be to, day by day, continue growing into "oaks of righteousness."

We addressed the elephant in the room today and began talking about money and giving. The focus came from Paul's letter to the church in Corinth where he made the point that Giving should be motivated by grace, not guilt. This should be the order: Grace comes down, joy wells up and generosity flows out.

The two main things that keep us from joyful giving are greed and fear. Greed says we will never have enough and fear says we might not have enough. When we trust God's promises to take care of us and give us an inheritance beyond our wildest dreams, greed and fear disappear and are replaced by joyful giving.

Even though we may not always see it this way, we in America are rich compared to the rest of the world. And we as believers in Jesus are rich in grace. When we see this accurately, our prayer should be "God, as you have been generous with me, help me be generous with others so that how I give matches how I live."