Contributing To The Necessity Of Saints - Phil Kaufman

To read I was thinking about as Leland was talking here.

Every time I come over here, I think about the

cycle of life, a few more gray hairs and a

few more people slowing down a little. And then I

think about the when we left the little ones that

were toddlers, and now are you know, eighteen twenty whatever

they are growing up. Time goes on the other evening,

just for interest's sake. The other evening I was we

were eating supper, and my wife had some kind of

a wild rice stew or something that it was really good.

But I told her every time I think of wild

every time I see wild rice or think about wild rice,

I think of Elden Burkie thirty five years ago. Elden

and I built rice wild rice ponds down by Coburt.

He drove the tractor, I drove the earth scraper and

wild rice, and my mind just keeps going back to

that someone that's not here anymore, and a lot of wisdom,

a lot of things I learned from Elden over lunch hour.

Cycle of Life. This morning, I want to read this chapter,

and the verse that sticks out to me. They want

to read and talk about is verse thirteen. Let's just

read the chapter, and then we'll go back to it.

Romans chapter twelve. Let me see you there, for brethren,

by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies

a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God, which is a

reasonable service, And be not conformed to this world, but

be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that He

may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect

will of God. For us say, through the grace given

unto me, to every man that is among you, not

to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,

but to think soberly according to this God as dealt

to every man the measure of faith. For as we

have many members in one body, and all members have

not the same office, so we being many or one

body in Christ, and everyone members one of another, having

then gifts differing according to the grace that is given

to us, whether prophecy let us prophesy according to the

proportion of faith or ministry. Let us wait on our ministring.

Or he that teacheth on teaching, or he that exhorteth

on exhortation, He that giveth, let him do with simplicity.

He that ruleth with diligence, He that showeth mercy with cheerfulness.

Let love be without dissimulation or that which is evil,

cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affection one

to another, with brotherly love, in honor, preferring one another,

not slothful in business, for written spirits, serving the Lord,

rejoicing and hope, patient and tribulation, continuing instant in prayer,

distributing to the necessity of the Saints, given to hospitality.

This discussion today, distributing to the necessity of the Saints.

I was thinking about that, and one of my tasks

at our churches is deacon work, and I take care

of the money and write checks to wherever we have

decided we're going to send it and help people where

we can. And so I've been thinking about contributions. We've

been talking about contributions, and I keep thinking how that

contributions are contributing and distributing are a lot the same.

And so today I'd like to change the worst verse

a little bit to fit what I have in mind,

and I'm I named it contributing to the Saints. So

for description of this though, distribute means to divide, delivered,

spread something out among people. And then contribute is to

give or add something to a common cause, time, expertise,

or money. So I gave this message at home, and

I needed to make a little bit of disclaimers, and

one of them is to be clear that this isn't

a This isn't making a case to fill up our

offering basket, although that's not a bad byproduct. But this

discussion is not about about money necessarily. I think it's

good to give. I think it's good to help we

can with the extras we have or with the money

we have, and sacrificial giving also. But the question, the

real question that I am facing myself, and I'd like

to maybe share that with with you, is what are

we contributing to the saints? What do we do to

contribute to What do we do to help the saints?

And this, this this idea of saints has to do

we think about it as our church, but I would

I would expand that there's a host of believers around

us that need help, that need all the things that

we're going to talk about today, and and and I

think we can take it either way, but you can

think about it as your church also. But one thing

that happens when we when we think about contributing to

the tow to the Saints, contributing to our own church,

is you think about the vulnerability that happens when you contribute,

when you when you when you give something from you

to someone, to your brother, down the down the down

the bench. You know the things that begin with that.

You give something, you share something you and then they

take it and maybe blow it, maybe they do something

that is strange with it, or or they take it

wrong maybe and those things go through our mind and

we say, well, you know we're gonna protect this. I'm

not going to give much or I'm not gonna share

much because they make a mess out of it. Anyway.

Called didn't give much room or allow many verses that

I found about holding back because somebody is gonna mess

it up. So today we'll just talk about the giving part,

the contributing part. Just for a little more clarification on this.

The church at this time consisted when this was written,

early church was written consisted of both Jewish and Gentile backgrounds,

and they were all learning how to live in unity

with all these backgrounds and how to help each other.

So that we had the progressives and the traditionals, and

the different cultures and different background different religious backgrounds, and

they were all kind of going to they were all

going to the church and trying to help each other.

We'll get into that a little bit later, but think

about that as we keep going. So as you read

down through this chapter, we'll just hit a few high points,

but we learn how the life of a h of

a saved believer works out and what it looks like.

So the the chapter that it's talking about contributing and

and and giving and and all the things that talks

about in this chapter, our results of a saved person,

our results of Christ in our life are transformed by

versus uh. One of the first verses there talks about

being transformed. So this isn't something we just go out

and do and say, well, we're gonna feel good about this,

and and you know, philanthropy is the thing to do.

This isn't about that. This is about sharing because Christ

has worked in our lives and changed us. Verse one,

it talks about presenting your bodies a living sacrifice, says

wholly acceptable one to God, which is your reasonable service.

Contributing has to do with your reasonable service. This isn't

something that's really extraordinary. This is just what's expected from

a saved person. And it can only be done by

transformed mind. It can only be done, it can only

be You can only share as Christ head in mind

when our minds are transformed. On down, it talks about

not to think of himself more highly than he ought

to think, so humility and giving, humility and contributing and distributing,

and that it says we are members of one body

in Christ. But it says we have different gifts. Excuse me,

we have different gifts. We're all made up differently, we

all have more different things to contribute than the other

person does. Talks about love without dissimulation or without disguise,

true love, accurate love, stuff that comes straight out. That's

exactly the way. It is, authentic, not like excuse me,

not like Anonius and Sapphira. And then on down a

little more, talks about being kindly, affection not slothful, but

diligent in your giving. This is this is the chapter.

This is this is what comes down as as we

go through the chapter and it and it attributes or

it contributes thoughts to the idea of contributing. So a

couple of things to think about here as Christians, as

as believers that are saved and we're sharing sharing with

other believers. We only can give what we have. We

share from our own experiences, we share from our own intake,

whatever came into us. That's what we excuse me, that's

what we have to give. We can't give something you

don't have. So that has to do with that has

to do with positive or negative. So if we're feeding

on negative things, then that's probably what we'll give. If

we're feeding on positive things, that's what we'll give. That's

what we'll share. The things that we have is what

we'll share. So if we want to feed on positive

things but you're only taking in negative things, it probably

won't happen. So we only give what we have. Another

thing to think about is that humans tend to as

the humanity in us in a church or as a

group of believers, we tend to think like spiritual consumers

rather than spiritual contributors. That's the humanity in us. So

what comes out of that many times is well, the

church didn't take care of me, they didn't ask me,

they didn't recognize me, and no one invited me. Instead,

of saying, well, I missed that person at church. I

wonder about this family. They need some help. Is there

anything I could do to lighten someone's load? So we

tend to be spiritual consumers rather than contributors because of

the old man in us, and we tend to just

default to that so many times. If you're turning your

bibles to Exodus chapter thirty five, I'd like to read

some verses from the Old Testament. This is God's thoughts

on giving and contributing Exodus chapter thirty five. We'll read verses.

Start with verse five, verse four, Read to verse nine

Exitus thirty five four and Moses spake unto all the

congregation of the children of Israel, saying, this is the

thing which the Lord commanded you, saying, take ye from

among you, and offering unto the Lord, whosoever he is

of a willing heart, let him bring it. And offering

of the Lord gold and silver and brass, and blue

and purple and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats hair

and rams skins dyed red and badger's skin, and sham wood,

and oil for the light, and spices for anointing oil,

and for the sweet incense. And onyx stones and stones

to this to be set for the ephod and for

the breastplate verse tenses, and every wise hearted among you

shall come and make all that the Lord make all

that the Lord hath commanded a couple of things you

see in this when God was commanding, This was commandment

was given up in the up on the mountain, and

when Moses came down. You remember the time Moses came

down and broke the commandments or broke the tablets, and

then he went back up and brought some more down.

And these are some of the commands that came from

on top of that mountain. God had a plan. He's

going to build a build a tabernacle. He's going to

do great things for these people, so they have a

center worship area. But a couple things stick out. When

God asked them to give, He asked them to give

their special things, their valuable things, the things that meant

the most to them. And it was of the things

that they had, like we talked about before, two things,

the valuable things and the things that they had. When

God when when when he was talking about distributing to

the saints, he was talking about giving from us, giving,

not not some grand thing that we're going to help

people with, but giving from what we are, what we have,

and what's important to us. This is the Old Testament,

non New Testament. On Corinthians twelve talks about Paul is

exhorting Paul is exhorting the Christians to share with the saints.

He said is that there should be no schism in

the body, but the members should have the same care

one for another, and whether one member suffer, all the

members suffer with it, or one member be honored, all

the members rejoice with it. He's talking about getting inside,

getting inside of the minds and the hearts of the

people around you. He wasn't talking about philanthropy. He wasn't

talking about, Okay, you've made good this year, so you

need to share. You need to give this and do

good things, and somebody puts your name on a list somewhere.

He was talking about finding out what's inside, what burdens

that your members are carrying. He's talking about He says

that we should not only distribute to the saints or

the necessity of the saints, but we should enter into

fellowship with them. We become partners with them, We share

with them, or in other words, we feel the burden

that they're carrying their brother beside you. What burden does

he have, sister beside you? What's going on that they're

so down, that they're struggling, or do you even know

if they are not? It, says Paul, is indicating that

we should. We are in there. We are with them

and their hardship, feeling at ourselves. We've kind of entered

into a partnership with their predicament. Whatever the issue is

they have, we're part of that. It's ours too. And

he knew. He knew that some have more and some

have less. Some have more suffering, some have less suffering,

Some have more money, some have less money, somewhat more

maybe internal battles that you can't see. Some have less.

Some just go through life wide open and looks like

there's no issues. The next one's kind of struggling all

the time. He knew that. And we tend to look.

We tend to look at the ones that go on

wide open, as they've got it together. They don't even

need me. If you'll get inside, if you'll take the

time to get inside the heart or the mind or

the understand the burden of the of the people around you.

You'll you'll be amazed. Everybody's got their battle. Everybody's got

their struggle. I don't care how fast they're flying or

how much money they have, things to things to think

about with this. We're all special and we all have

special things to share. We've been blessed with things specific

to me, to you, and people need that. That's why

you're here. Share it. Obviously, we talked about the vulnerability

of sharing. Something that's special to you might be gone,

maybe nobody will notice it, maybe the person won't even

acknowledge it. So we need to also accept it. If

we're the one that's flying fast, if somebody stops us

and cares enough to offer some encouragement, take it, be humble,

and take it im. Galatians there's a couple verses that

speak to this. Galatians two ten says only that we

should remember that poor the sand, which was also very

was forward to you, and Galatians six says bury one

another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Verse

ten says, as you have therefore opportunity to let us

do good unto all men, especially unto them who are

of the household of faith. And going back to the

illustration we talked about in the early Church. In the

early Church, they were modeling this virtue, this thing of distributing,

this thing of contributing to the to the saints around him,

to the believers that have had come to Christ. Many

of these, most of these were first century Christians. Most

of them or many of them were probably split up families.

It was not this family joined the church and this

family joined the church and this one didn't. It was

parts of families. It was this son and this dad

and this this mom over here that seen Christ and

said that's what I want. And when she went forward

or he went forward to follow Christ, to join that church,

to connect with those believers, her family ostracized her. They

were out there, you get out. And it's still happening

today in in the in the Middle East. You're out,

don't come back. And in fact, they they persecute just

like they were then. So these these loaners, these family

people that were split off from their families and following

Christ were loners. They were alone. And so now the

Christians are getting together to say, hey, let's help each other.

It's what our job is. That mom needs some basic

necessities for her little one, that dad needs a job,

they need some clothing, they need, shelter, they need, and

so the story goes on where they started to sell

this property over here to have some money to help

these people. And that's the story where Anonius and Sapphira

took off on a binge. But these people cared about

each other and understood the battles and the struggles that

they were that each one was trying to carry, and

reached out and did what they could to help. Obviously

money was part of it, but probably a lot more

of it was. Encouragement was beyond money. Here's a coat,

but also here's a bed you can sleep in, and

some food to eat ex force as it was distributed

to each as they has had any need. Second Corinthians

talks about in verse nine as there's a bunch we

could read through, but i'll just hit and miss talks

about uh. Chapter Second Corinthians nine talks about for as

touching the ministering to the saints. And this is back

to the same discussion about ministering and about caring and

and and and helping respies. Therefore, I thought it necessary

to exhort the brethren that they should go before unto

you and make up beforehand your bounty. And then he

says verse six, But this I say, he which so

is sparingly shall also reap sparingly. He which soeth bountifully

shall reap also bountifully. And this is talking about the

generous or the concept or generous giving. It's an understood concept.

The more generous you are, the more these things come

back to you. And it's not talking about it can

be talking about money, I suppose, but I think it's

talking more about the more you give of yourself, the

more you share with others, there's more. All of a sudden,

you have more friends, you have more connections, You have

more people that care about what you think. You become

a safe person. You become a person that people can

trust and depend on because you're watching out for people,

and then in turn will watch out back for you.

Ver seven sets of Roman. According as the purposes purposes

in his heart, So let him give not grudgingly or necessity,

for God love us a cheerful giver. On down in

that chapter talks about supplying the want of the saints.

So in another place, in First Grantings, it talks about

it says now concerning the collection of the saints, whereas

as I've given order to the churches of Galacia. Even

so do ye upon the first day of the week,

let every one of you lay by him in store

as God has prospered him. And this is talking about

our offering basket, sharing the things that we have from

the week of work, sharing our resources. I have a

few things, a few points that I thought of when

it talks about contributing to the saints, to the needs

of the saints, and obviously it's a lot more than

just the sporadic Sunday offering. But there's things we can contribute,

contribute to the people around us, like we talked about

from us that are special to us, that are blessings

and things that God has given us. And many times

those things that God has given us are things that

we grew up with that maybe my dad taught me

that your dad didn't teach you, or my mom showed

me how to do cook this meal, and your mom

wasn't much of a cook. So it ends up being

I learned I know something about this that I can share.

The six things here, I'm going to go through them

little points for you to think about. I thought about

writing a graph on the board, and and a graph

with just contributions, and then split it up, split it

up and like a like a round graph with pies

of what you contribute to. What does your contributions look like?

You can think about that a little bit. But but

I thought of things that maybe your brother, you give

something to your brother, or maybe you give something to

your mom or some family member, or maybe your neighbor.

You know, a load of firewood to your neighbor, or

so many little things that we do. But when it

talks about distributing to the necessity of saints, how big

of a pie do we have for the for the

necessity of the saints? For the fellow believers that we

work with, how big of that circle are we going

to do we have for that for them? So number

one we can give is prayer, spiritual support, spiritual values.

I think about time on our knees for others. It's

just simple time on your knees. Nobody knows it, nobody

sees it, nobody asks about it. It's just there, or

is it? And then I thought about time praying with

others In John seventeen, is we call it high priestly prayer.

It's where Jesus was praying for his disciples. And I

don't know how many of the disciples were there, but

I maybe it's just me. But if I was following

someone and he stopped and he prayed for a half

hour for me, wouldn't that be fascinating? Like what do

you do when somebody mentions your name in a prayer?

You know how far that goes for you? How long

you remember that? Praying with others for others? Number two

is time listening here something so valuable to us humans.

We cannot help people until we know what they are,

the things they deal with. So many times we don't

need an answer when we're going through life. We don't

need answers necessarily right now, but we do need someone

to listen to us. Sometimes we need to think outside,

think out loud a bit, and some of us are

better at it than others. But there's so many times

things are going in in our minds that are turmoil.

It feels like the solid thoughts and the and the

basic emotional feelings are just kind of rolled up together,

and it's just it's just kind of a cluster in

your head. And when somebody says, what do you have

to say? What's going on? What's and you can and

it tumbles out. When it starts tumbling out so many

times is as it comes out, you can start separating

the emotional feelings and the and the solid thoughts. You

just need somebody to do that. We need to be

the person doing that. Sometimes when then when those thoughts

and feelings come out, because they start to get more

clear for us, Oh, this is what I was thinking,

this is this is what my feelings were, this is

this is why I was so frustrated. This is why

I couldn't figure this out. We all have a basic

need to be understood, to be heard. Time in the

listening year Number three encouragement, care, gratefulness. Again, humanity needs encouragement,

We need care, We need emotional a boosts. Once in

a while, we all need to hear that was a

good job. All of us need to hear that once

in a while. Not just a little five year old.

Sometimes a big fifty year old needs to hear that.

Sometimes we all need to hear an empathetic that's too bad?

What can I do to help? That goes a long ways.

Sometimes you can't help. Sometimes I can't help, but the

thought is pretty valuable. Another encouraging thing is gratefulness from

a fellow believer. Is just grateful. He's happy, He's guess

what happened to me today? This is a good thing.

Number four Hospitality and goodwill something you can contribute. Provide

a place for someone to kick their shoes off, a

place to have some coffee and a donut, a place

with an atmosphere that allows us to feel safe enough

to open up or to cry. We all need that,

maybe some more than others, but we all need that.

How much are you giving of that? Number five Our talents,

our skills, our experience. I've been gone long enough that

there's enough new people that I don't know what all

of your skills are like I used to. But I

thought about in our church the people I can point out.

Lady a while back was cutting some kindling or splitting

some kindling and chopped the end of her finger off,

and Mike and Luela helped her put it back on.

Who would you call when your fingers cut off? I

think about the little projects that people live and do.

It's their life, it's their experience, it's what they grew

up with. And when I run into a predicament and

I don't know how to fix this, I call that

person because they've done this a thousand times and they

know how to They like, they have answers. They well,

try this, use this, do this, fix it this way,

bring it over. I'll help you fix out. I'll come

over there and help you. Our skills, our experiences. One

of my experiences is because of a dude dirt because

I've done dirt work. Most of my life is installing septics,

and I've got calls from communities all over. Hey, Phil,

something wrong with a septic. I know it's a horrible

thing to be remembered at, but somebody can be helped

a little bit. And the number six, the last one,

gifts resources, money, things you can contribute. And this discussion

can go on and on. As time goes on, you

learn so much about giving and how to give and

how much you should give. But I thought about it

as a young person. This group of young guys here

that go out and make good in their job. How

much should you give? What do you think is important

for contributing to the Saints. It's so easy as an

eighteen year old or a twenty year old and the

school offering comes through, and why don't have any children

in school? And I spent my time. I gave my

ten years and you move on in the school offering

bounces from one low to the next low. And if

you're eighteen and you have a day job, a good job,

you need to be given lots. I think we'd all

give a little more. But I think that as you

get older and you've got responsibilities, and you got a

house payment, and you've got a couple of little children

in hospital, there's so many things that it's hard, it's tough,

it's not an easy, easy thing. And to let the

fifty five year olds take care of this isn't a

good backup plan. And I thought of I thought of

our discretionary spending that we do, all of us. If

you're a gun guy, you go down to the gun

shop and pay a thousand dollars for a gun, or

maybe summertime here a voter camper or I don't know, books,

And there's so many things we spend our money, discretionary

money on. But I thought of it, what happens if

we would just plan to double that whenever we spend

one thousand dollars in a gun, and we give a

thousand dollars in the offering the next Sunday, or ten

thousand on a camper, then you put ten thousand. Just

something in my mind I was thinking about, I have

not been good at that. I'm not given very well.

So many more things, so many more times I could give,

when I didn't because I'm protecting this, or because I

got behind over here in closing, just to reiterate, we

can only give what we have and what we've been giving.

But remember, we have so much to give. We've been

blessed with so much, and and I think the money

part is a very small part of what we can give.

But I thought of it how that there are people

that give money and they're good at it, and that's

all they do. They just give money. But if you're

given like the list we talked about, if you're given

your time and some experiences and given someone a listening

year and given some positive feedback, if you're contributing like that,

you'll probably give money too Hebrews thirteen sixteen. But to

do good and to communicate, forget, not for such sacrifices,

God is well please in the niv It says, do

not forget to do good and to share with others.

Thank you,