The Christian Handbook - Christians - The Cheerful Givers

Father God, we asked that you would be with us. Look, God,

we don't want to do this without you, and so we trust you

and we hope that your spirit would be here among us as we are gathered

in your name to glorify you, singing songs, to hear your word,

preach, and we just ask that they've already started to work on our hearts,

to dig into our hearts, Lord God, to reveal the things that

need to be revealed, confirm the things that need to be confirmed, encourage

the things that need encouragement. Or God asked that we submit this time to

you and see you do an amazing work to your glory and your body's benefit.

And Jesus Name, everyone said amen. Okay. So we have been

in a series titled the Christian Handbook Fundamentals of the Faith. And in this

series, our goal has been to go through the fundamentals of what Christians believe

and how those beliefs impact and drive how we live our life, because beliefs

drive our actions. Right, So we're gonna look at our anchor text because

the last several weeks we've been looking at the topic of worship. So let's

look at our anchor texts really quick. We've been looking at this verse in

Romans. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of

God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing

to God. This is your true improper worship. So the last several weeks

we've been looking at that worship isn't just the songs that we sing, but

the lives that we live, that our whole life is offered to God for

his purposes, for his praises and his service. And this week we're gonna

be looking at another aspect of worship. Right, there's think about this.

Isn't this really cool that there's just so many ways that we get a worship

God in our day to day life. We get to look at another aspect.

You guys ready for this? Today's topic is giving whoa Yeah? All

right? Giving everyone's favorite topic at church. Right. So, last week

we looked at how our lives are here to worship God through our service to

Him, through our serving to one another. And when we serve one another,

we are serving God, and that is by giving him our time and

our energy to work and live out the gifts that He has given us to

serve him. But that's what the purpose of those gifts are for, and

that they're going to serve him by serving his body, serving our neighbors,

serving the world around us. But today we're gonna look at specifically how we

worship through the giving of our resources, things that He's given us, or

more specifically, we'll also be looking and touching on our relationship to money as

believers. But I hope today, as we learn about giving and that as

an act of worship, that'll be something that sets us free. Right.

Money, That's that's a topic, right, That's one of those topics that

we just don't want to talk about. We'd like to pretend that it doesn't

exist. We'd like to maybe it's a rough subject in our marriage, Maybe

it's a rough subject just in life, in our situations and all of these

different things. Money can be an uncomfortable subject. But I'm hoping today,

as we actually walk through what the Scripture has to say about money, what

it's used for its purposes, that it's something that we end up being able

to shift our perspective and our view on it in such a way that we

know what to do with it, and that that burden is lifted so recently

us as elders, we actually did a study on giving, which is available

to any of you guys if you want to check it out. But we

wanted to make sure that whatever we said from the platform in regards to giving

was accurate to what the Bible says. Right, we won't because we know

God's gonna hold us accountable. So we want to be very crystal clear on

what Scripture says and requires of us as believers in regards to giving. So

we wanted to make sure that we knew exactly what it said, everything was

in its right text, and for some of us there was kind of a

paradigm shift and how we view it, and so hopefully as we go through

scripture, we'll be talking about that today. So yeah, so you guys

ready to get into it. We're gonna die head first. So today's message

is titled Christians the Cheerful Givers. The cheerful Givers. As we saw in

our Roman's text, it's in view of God's mercies that we offer our bodies

as living sacrifices to God. Right, what's the song we just sang,

Jesus paid it all all to him. I owe that's in view of God's

mercies, right, And that's not owing in the sense of well, we

talked about it last week that there's there's a difference between you can owe someone

and be like, well, I guess some I have to do this,

but no, it's like, in view of God's mercies, we did not

deserve the mercies that were given to us, and so now we have this

opportunity as a response to who God is, what He's done for us,

to live our lives in such a way to honor Him and glorify Him and

give back the bare minimum that we do have. It's not very much.

But when it says that we offer our bodies as living sacrifices, this is

not just talking about our bodies, but it's talking about our entire lives.

That's everything we have, everything we are, is to be offered to God

and for his purposes. Now, the biblical reason and motivator is that we

do so in view of God's mercies. We have to remember that if we

start talking about these things where like this what you gotta do, this is

what you gotta do, This is what you gotta do. Any practical side

of Christianity, if you don't have the underlying belief feels like a weight that

crushes you. And so it's extremely important that we remember our starting place,

which is in view of God's amazing mercies. Because in view of God's mercies

on our life, we deserved nothing but wrath punishment, and now joyfully we

get to owe everything to Him, to the one who saved us and loved

us and set us free. But it's also because of this mercy that we

need to remember that we are not our own, but that we belong to

God. Let's look at first Corinthian sixth nineteen through twenty. Do you know

that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you,

whom you have received from God. You are not your own, You were

bought at a price. Therefore, honor God. We through bodies, we

are not our own. We are God's. And this is good news.

We're gonna talk about that in a second. But we don't live for ourselves.

We live for God. But the best part is that we need to

go a little bit further. It doesn't stop at us. We're not the

only thing that's God's. Not only do we belong to God, but everything

belongs to God. Everything's his right. We looked at it months ago at

this point. Who's the creator God? So who's this all belong to God?

Right? Let's look at this Psalm twenty four one. The entire the

earth is the Lord's check, and everything in it, the world at all

who live in it, nothing gets out of that right, everything is God's

I love. We have these things called the New City Catechism, little books

question answer that you can go through with your kids. Honestly, they're really

helpful as an adult, just to kind of help solidify our our our beliefs.

And one of the questions, it's the first question, it's question number

one in the book. You open it up and the question is this what

is our only hope in life and death? And the answer that we are

not our own but belong to God. Then we're not our own, that

we are God's. And do you see how it says this. It doesn't

say what's our obligation, what's our only obligation in our life and hopefully not

our death. It doesn't say that it's what our is our hope. So

if we if we can't view being God's and belonging to God as our hope

in our life and our joy in this life and in our death. Then

we need we need to check on what's going on here because we are his,

we belong to him, so for not our own, and everything's God's.

But what does that make us? Well? In Matthew twenty five,

I'm want to kind of paraphrase this text a little bit so you can go

look there. But it's in Matthew twenty five, Jesus gives a parable and

it's about a man who goes on a long or who's about to go on

a long journey. And this man calls his servants to him and entrusts them

with his money. One servant he gives five bags of gold, two bags

of gold, and another he gives one bag of gold. Then the man

goes away and eventually returns after a long while later. When he comes back,

he goes to those same servants to see what he's what they have done

with what he's given them. Now, the one who had five had taken

it, taken what his master had given him and put it to use and

gained five more. And it was the same exact thing with the one who

was given two bags of gold, he had gained two more. And the

master replies, with well done, good and faithful servant. You have been

faithful over little I. Where is it you've been faithful over little? I

will set you over much Enter into the joy of your master. But the

last servant had hit his master's money in the ground for fear of losing what

was given to him. And we're going to pick up there, and I'm

really sorry. This is kind of the low point in the text, right,

so just brace yourselves a little bit. This is what the master has

to say to that servant. His master replied, you wicked, lazy servant.

So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown, and gather

where I have not scattered seed, Well, then you should have put my

money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I return I would have

received it back with interest. So take the money of gold or the bag

of gold from him, and give it to the one who has ten bags.

For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance.

Whoever does not have even what they have will be taken from them.

And throw that worthless servant outside in the darkness. Whether there will be weeping

and gnashing of teeth oof. So what's the point of this? What do

I want us to see in this? What I want us to see in

this specifically, is that everything that we have has been given to us by

God, meaning we are but stewards of what is actually his. God has

given us everything we have, It's all his. Everything that we've been given,

even our own life, is his. So that makes us stewards of

His belongings, his possessions, his things. The understanding of this is extremely

important when it comes to how we approach giving, and the reason is because

we usually start from a place of everything being ours. This is mine,

this is mine. I don't think this is mine. You can't take this

from me. It's mine, and we even sometimes act that way towards God.

Why'd you take that from me? How dare you take that from me?

Who are you to take that from me? And He's like, I'm

God, I gotta do what i want. I'm God. Right. But

when we realize that everything we have actually belongs to and is God's, then

we can start to approach giving properly. And what do I really mean it

like buy this? And what I mean is that there's a mindset that's involved

with it, right, Do you ever spend money that's not yours? Pretty

easy? You're like, they told me to go here, I am you

know what I mean? You got the company kind, you got whatever it

is you're swiping away hopefully whatever for whatever purposes they've given it to you,

right, or is it gonna be in trouble? But it's always easier to

spend money that is not yours. It's always easy to give way things that

do not belong to you. So at this starting place we're gonna do is

jump into our text that we'll be spending most of our time in today,

and that's in second Corinthians nine. We're gonna start in verse six for some

quick context though, Paul has heard that the believers in Corinth want to contribute

and give to help with meeting the needs of the saints abroad, and so

he sent messengers ahead of time to have the people in Corinth prepare the gift

that they had promised, so that people when they showed up basically wouldn't be

like, where's the gift and they're like, oh right, So they he

sent him ahead of time to get him prepared. And actually we see this

he kind of sums us up. In verse five, he says, so

I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish

the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. Then it will be ready

as a generous gift and not as one grudgingly given. Right. So they're

prepared, They're ready to give. But we're gonna see here is that not

only this, that's the context, but not only what is We're going to

see his addressing them in regards to giving. We're going to see a lot

of things that are really helpful for us as a mindset of how it looks

to give, what it means to give, and why we give right,

So how to give, why we give, what to give? We're gonna

get right into it. So, starting in verse six, he says this,

remember this, whoever so sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows

generously will also reap generously. This is God's word. This is this is

scripture here, and this is a picture that's very commonly used in the scripture.

This is a picture. Let's look at a couple of places in Glacier

six seventh through eight. Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked.

A man reaps what he sows. Whoever shows to please their flesh, from

the flesh will reap destruction. Whoever sows to please the spirit, from the

spirit reap eternal life. One more in James three eighteen says peacemakers who sew

in peace reap harvest of righteousness. So there's a sewing and reaping. Sewing

and reaping imagery that's given to us in multiple places in scripture, but here

specifically, Paul is now going to employ the same thought in regard to giving.

Now, there's one aspect where this is just reasonable advice. Right,

any financial advisor was like, if you want to get anything out of your

investment, you're gonna put more into it. That's just how it works.

Or if you are a farmer. I don't know if any of us are

farmers, but if you are a farmer, it would make sense that the

more seed is scattered, the more you could expect from it. Right,

the more you could expect to reap from what you have sown. But what

I do need to say really quickly about this verse. I don't know about

quickly, but we'll try what I do need to say about this verse is

that this verse has been abused time and time again basically as the Christian version

of a get rich quick scheme. That's what this verse has been used for,

and the reason that false beliefs like the prosperity gospel or the health and

wealth gospel, which is kind of the idea that if you believe in Jesus,

you'll you'll become rich, and you'll be healthy, and you'll get all

good things as it pertains to what the world would call good, as it

pertains to what the world would call rich or abundant. So it's by the

world standards that you'd become rich. But the reason that those beliefs have flourished

is because it plays on one of man's worse sins and not one of them

actually a couple, and that is of greed and covetousness Matthew six twenty four.

Jesus strives to make it very clear no one can serve two masters.

Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be

devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve or serve both

God and money. He uses serving language. Let's look at another one Ecclesiastes

five ten. This one's just a punch to the face. Whoever loves money

never has enough. That's whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.

This too is meaningless. First Timothy six ten. For the love of money

is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have

what wandered from the faith, and not only that, pierced themselves with many

griefs, literally got more problems. Right, money makes a crummy god,

and it never satisfies. But this doesn't mean that money's bad. Okay,

it's gonna sound like the big bad money boogieman, right, but it's not.

That's not the case. It's the love of money that's a problem.

Because money is just a tool. Money is just a resource. Money is

just a thing. We usually have an issue with money because we think it's

ours. But when we realize that it's all gods and that He has given

us, You're given it to us as stewards, we can start to have

the right attitude towards money. But this verse, just because it's been abused,

if you can go back to that verse six, whoever so sparingly,

just because this verse has been abused. Doesn't mean we get to overcorrect and

say it doesn't mean what it is saying. Okay, that's as true.

We don't get it overcorrect. We want to overcorrect. That's that's depending how

you're raised. You want to overcorrect. And anything that smells like health and

wealth or God's just gonna bless you and do all the things you like with

as as it makes you the center of the world, you want to overcorrect

and run from that. But this is in scripture. This is God breathed

and inspired, so we must believe it. And that is that is,

if you give generously, you will reap generously. That's a biblical truth.

Caveat. Paul is going to explain the purpose of us reaping generously. Okay,

so I need you all to stay with me. Please don't tune out,

Please keep on listening as Paul. Before he does that, before he

explains it, he's going to tell them how to give. He kind of

gives some motivation. This seems like motivation. First, he's gonna get to

tell them how to give. In verse seven, each of you should give

what you've decided in your heart to give. Each of you should give what

you have decided in your heart to give, meaning this is between you and

God. Meaning we need to be intentional to give it, thought to bring

it to God and see what He has placed on our heart for us to

give. He goes on to say, not reluctantly or under compulsion. We're

gonna camp really quick and posit these two. Not reluctantly, not under compulsion.

Let's look at not reluctantly. This means don't give begrudgingly. Please.

No, that's how we act when we think it's ours, when we think

it's been taken from us. This again comes from our view of money,

whether it is correct or incorrect. Where does our reluctancy come from when it

comes to giving our finances and resources? Fears, anxiety, worry, greed,

covetiousness, the love of money. Our reluctancy comes from a place of

either having made money our God or the worry that God won't provide for our

needs. You've either made God or money our God, or we either don't

or we don't trust Ours to provide for us, and either right, this

is a heart problem. And if we fill out this reluctancy within us,

we should ask why, so we can fix him. Second, he says,

not under compulsion. Now, for a lot of us in our church

experience growing up, this might be the only church has a stigma. Right,

you go there, you get the giving message, You get the giving

message, You get the giving message. Maybe you hear the gospel. That

is unfortunate. Churches should be gospel machines right to get the gospel to the

believers, and the believers take it out to the world. Sometimes they just

turn into these giving storehouses where they just build up and you see the sky

scrape or raise into the city, right, and they end up making a

name for themselves. This comes from and we experience these weekly tithes and offering

messages. Maybe the improper view that we give so that God will give you

more for yourself. And Paul is saying here when we give, it is

not something that is to be forced upon us. This is not something that

is required from believers as a matter of law, but as a matter of

grace. And what do I mean by this? And this is actually brings

me to one of the big paradigm shifts of lately. A lot of us

growing up in church may have heard that Christians are commanded to tithe. If

you're not, you're sinning. If you're not, are you actually a believer?

What is a tithe? Let's start there. A tithe simply means a

tenth part of something, or to give a tenth. Tithing in the Bible

was commanded to the Israelites, that was God's nation, God's people, under

the law of Moses, to give the Lord one tenth of the protest of

their land and of their animals. And there are mainly three different tithes.

So if you go go type and tithe in Google or whatever else you're gonna

use, go go look up the word tithe and go look at all the

contexts, and you will see that there are three primary reasons. There was

three primary purposes that the tithe was there. The first one was to provide

the people of Israel will give a tithe to provide for and support the Levites

who were to serve at the tent of meeting for the people of Israel,

that was their tabernacle, that was their temple. They gave to provide for

the Levites who did not have an inheritance, who did not have a possession,

they didn't have land. In the same way that the others did so

those other tribes would give of themselves to bless the Levites who served exclusively the

Lord. The second tithe was the was used for celebration feasts. They're throwing

parties, so everyone contributed. That's the dunkin version of way of putting that.

Okay, that's not how they fled it in the scripture. But that's

the third tithe happened every three years. It was brought in to their they're

different towns, are then into their towns to feed the levites, the foreigners,

the orphans, and the widows. Tracking with me, it's kind of

information me now. In the book of Malachi, the Lord is angry with

his people, the people of Israeer, because they have failed to keep his

tithe in accordance with the law that he had given them. And he says

Malachai three seventh through ten. Ever since the time of your ancestors, you

have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me,

and I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty. But you

ask, how are we to return? Will the mere mortal rob God?

Yet you robbed me? But you ask, how are we robbing you?

In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse your whole nation. Pause

pause, He says, your whole nation. We're gonna break this up to

just really quick, your whole nation. Because the tithes was there to provide

for the nation of Israel. The Levites ran ran that they were they were

they were theocratic God was their king. God was their god and ruled the

nations. And his hands and feet his servants were the Levites. And the

way that they provided for it was through the tithe. Kind of look at

tax like, that's kind of that's kind of what it was to provide for

that nation. The second thing is that he says you are under a curse.

Now, why is this significant. That's because in the Old Covenant,

the Law of Moses given on sound Mount Sinai to Moses. The way that

that covenant worked is it consisted in obey me and I will bless you.

Don't obey me and I will curse you. That's how the Old Testament,

the Old Covenant worked. So he's saying you are under a curse your whole

nation because you were robbing me bringing the whole tithe into the storehouse so that

there may be food in my house, right, because that's what it was

for, to provide food for them. Test me in this, says the

Lord. Right, and here's here it is. Do this and I will

bless you. Test me in this, says the Lord God Almighty, or

the Lord Almighty, And see if I will not throw open the floodgates of

heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to

store it. Now. Like many times in the Old Testament, this is

a classic case of God's people, the nation of Israel, not obeying God's

law, and God's setting them a prophet and saying, why aren't you obeying

what God told you to do? He's there to rebuke them, and Jesus

actually does the same same thing when he shows up to the people under the

law in the first coven them. He shows up and he says this.

He's actually mad for the opposite reason. He's mad that they're so intent on

keeping the tithe but they neglect other parts of the law. Let's look at

it, he says, woe to teachers of the law and Pharisees, you

hypocrites. You give a tenth of your spices, mint and dill and human,

but you've neglected the more important matters of the law, justice, mercy,

and faithfulness. You should have practiced the later without neglecting the former.

But when the set time had fully come, Oh nope, nope, nope,

that was that's the next verse. So he's sitting there and Jesus is

speaking to those under the law, and those who were under the law that

was the Jewish nation, that was the Jews. He was saying to them,

you are keeping parts of the law, but the expectation of the laws

that if you're going to try and keep the law, you have to keep

all of it. If you fail in one place, you bray all of

it. But we know that no one could keep the law perfectly. No

one can keep the law perfectly because we're plagued by and ruled by sin,

which is why we need Jesus. And that's actually what Jesus came to accomplish.

Let's look at it. But when the set time had fully come,

God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law,

to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.

So to all who have put their faith in Jesus, we are under are

no longer under law, but we are under grace. And Romans six fourteen

just says that plan is day for city shall no longer be your master,

because you're not under the law but under grace. So what about all the

verses that tell Christians to tie, Well, frankly, if they don't exist,

they're not in the New Testament. You don't have to take the old

the Commandments to the Israelites and the people of Israel for their theocratic system,

and now take those laws and apply them to Christians. Any time that the

believer is addressed in the New Covenant in regard to how they are to give,

the tithe is never brought up. And why is that, Well,

it's because we are no longer under the law and its regulations in regards to

giving. Okay, I got a track with me. Stay with me here.

We are no longer under the law's regulations as it regards giving, but

are under a new and better covenant and that of grace and eternal life.

But this doesn't mean that Christians don't give. On the contrary, as we

see Jesus commands. He commands us to give and be generous towards others,

just as God is towards us. God is the standards, no longer the

law that we look to to go like, well, how do we do

this? What is it? But we look at what God gave and we

live to reflect who He is in our lives. So we have this new

standard that we have set. We're no longer to give from a place of

being under the law and the compulsion to give a ten percent we're now in

to in view of God's mercies, offer everything we have. So now for

those of us, because here's the deal, I'm not hating on the tide.

That's not what I'm trying to do here. Okay. Now for those

of us who have given ten percent and seeing the blessings from that, that's

a real thing. There's a lot of us who've grown up, had our

years and decades and lives of being believers and given a tithe and seeing it

be blessed. But why why is it blessed? I think we need to

realize that it's not because we were obedient to the law, but it's because

those who so generously reave generously. And here's the deal. That doesn't mean

okay, now stop giving ten percent. That's not what I'm saying this just

means that we need to consider the reason that we're doing so in the first

place, and once again bring the conversation to God in accordance with today's text.

Consider our heart and what we have decided to give and do that.

And there's a reason for that that we would give what has been decided in

our heart, not with reluctancy or compulsion. And this is the reason for

God loves a cheerful giver. Right, We're not talking about a begrudging giver.

We're talking about a cheerful giver because we view God and what he is

given. The way I kind of put this is that he wants us to

give out of the gratitude of our hearts, not the requirements of the law.

Paul is going to go on to help our understanding of giving, and

he says in verse eight, and God is able to make all grace abound

to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things, at all times,

you may abound in every good work. This is so important. We

as humans may have the tendency to not think about others in meeting their needs

because we're so concerned with our own being met. It's reasonable we live in

drying times. Eggs cost more. That's just a reality, right. We're

concerned with our own needs being met. But Paul here is reminding them that

God has given to us not only what we need for ourselves, but even

more so so that we can also bless others everything that you need, all

sufficiency in all things at all times, so that you may abound in every

good work. So we're taken care of, and the things He's given us

also helped take care of others. And when it comes to our worries,

Jesus has to say this. Therefore, I tell you do not worry about

your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body what

you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more

than clothes. Look at the birds of the air. They do not sew

or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they can? Any one of you

worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about

clothes? See the flowers of the field grow, they do not labor or

spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon, in all his splendor

was dressed like one of these. Why because their heavenly Father clothes them.

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here

today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe

you, you of little faith. So do not worry saying what shall we

eat, or or what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink?

Or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after all of these things,

and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. He knows our needs.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will

be given to you as well. There's an order. God gives us everything

we need for our own needs to be taken care of, but not just

that, but more so so that we even have what we need to take

care and do the good works that He is prepared for us. So this

means we can confidently seek out living for God, knowing he will take care

of us and provide for our needs to do the work He has for us.

And the next verse is a quote from the Psalms. It's a let's

look at it, and then we'll go to the Psalm. As it is

written, they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor. Their righteousness endures

forever. Let's look at this wholesalm beach. It's really incredible. It looks

at the righteous person's life. Praise the Lord. Blessed are those who fear

the Lord, who find great delight in his commands, or their children will

be mighty in the land. The generation of the upright will be blessed.

Wealth and riches are in their houses, and their righteousness endures forever. Even

in darkness, Light dawns for the upright, for those who are gracious and

compassionate and righteous. Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely,

who conduct their affairs with justice. Surely, the righteous will never be

shaken. They will be remembered forever. They will have no fear of bad

news. Their hearts are steadfast doing what trusting in the Lord. Their hearts

are secure. They will have no fear. In the end. They will

look in triumph on their foes. They have freely scattered their gifts to the

poor. Their righteousness endures forever. Their horn will be lifted high in honor.

The wicked will see and be vexed. They will gnash their teeth and

waste away. Now look at this. The longings of the wicked will come

to nothing, will come to nothing. Our hope is sure, Our hope

is amazing. We get to look forward with hope. We don't think that

this life is all that there is. Here we see this beautiful picture of

the righteous person who dwells in security because they trust the Lord. Their trust

is in the Lord and not in earthly possessions which will fade. They give

freely and generously because of their trusting the Lord to take care of them.

And yet we see the wicked person has put their faith in something that is

going to come to nothing. Paul goes on. He says, now,

he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, will also supply

and increase your storehouse of seed, and will enlarge your bank account. Nope,

and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. It says of your righteousness

that God gives us what we need to be used for His works. To

what end that through our giving and generosity we grow in righteousness, that we

start to be more like our savior, or savior who is himself giving and

generous. Look, let's look at the next verse verse eleven. You will

be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.

There it is again, they're both there. Your righteousness is going to grow,

which I think the way we can think about is our responsibility before God.

What he's given us is going to grow because we will also be enriched

in every way every way. It says it right there, Not so that

we can spend it on ourselves, but so that we can be generous on

every occasion, and through us, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

It's meeting needs into the glory of God. The way I kind of

put this is that God gives so that we can give, and then God

gives us more so that we can give more. It's that simple. He

gives us so we can be we can freely give. God doesn't give us

more so we can spend more on ourselves. But when we're faithful over a

little, he makes us faithful over much. When he gives us the much.

That doesn't mean we can all all of a sudden become faithless. That's

not how this works. It's we've shown ourselves to Steward well what He's given

us, so he blesses Us with more to continue to steward to that end

that when we are given more, so that we can be even more effective

and fruitful in the good works he has prepared for us. And Jesus actually

has a parable about this, and it's pretty brutal, but we're gonna look

at it. Let's look at it. And luke. Someone in the crowd

said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

Jesus replied, man, I don't know. I love how this is

put and man like I feel, I can feel like I can see Jesus

to be self head up with some of these questions. Man who appointed me

a judge or an arbiter between you? Then he said to them, watch

out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed. Life does not

consist in an abundance of possessions. And he told them this parable. Listen

to this. This is this is Jesus said, this the ground of a

certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, what shall

I do. I have no place to store my crops. Then he said,

this is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build

bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I'll say

to myself, you have plenty of grain laid up for yours for many years.

Take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry. But God

said to him, you fool, this very night, your life will be

demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?

This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves. But

it's not rich toward God. When we're faithful with what God gives us,

we end up actually using. We get to end up actually using the blessings

He's given to us for the purpose God intended them for, which is what

blessing others. Right, we have these barns, He's like, I made

sure your barn's full, and now'll give the rest away. But usually we

think like this, We go like, well, I need a bigger barn.

I need another garage for my next car. Right, That's that's usually

how we think through these things. And there's a purpose to these things of

how we can be generous with what He's given us. In Matthew, Jesus

tells us you are the light of the world. A town built on a

hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under

a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand, and it gives

light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light

shining before others, that they may see your good deeds and do what glorify

your Father in heaven. Our our obedience to use what God has given us

for his purposes result in praises to God. We don't do these things to

be seen and get the glory for ourselves, but we do them as our

proper response to what God has done for us. And this is our testimony

to those around us of our great God that he takes care of us.

We can give freely because we know we're freely taking care of Verse twelve,

This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people.

This tells us what. This tells us what the purpose of giving is.

For it tells us why we give. We see our purpose of giving,

and that is to supply the needs of the Lord's people. And what

are those needs. We're not going through all of them. I'm gonna say

what they are. If you want to come ask me for the verse reference.

I'll give it to you, okay, but I just have it.

Here's a list. Because there's a list, this message could have been one

hundred years long. Okay, I'm trying. We give to our brothers and

sisters who are in need. We give to the poor, we give to

our enemies, we give to those who teach and lead the church, and

we give to those who are on a mission for Christ abroad, that is

missionaries. We give to meet the needs of the body, and there's all

kinds of needs that we all together get to give of ourselves to help meet

the needs of so we meet the needs of around that are around us.

That's what we're all here for. Like we talked about last week, the

hand does something for the summitch that the stummy can't do for itself. That's

just a reality. But working together, they're blessed. They would be able

to provide for each other in different ways. And the thing that's amazing about

the result of that is that not only when we give of ourselves to meet

each other's needs or our needs taken care of, but we all get to

glorify God like genuinely, we get to go thank you God for taking care

of me through so and so. Thank you God for blah blah blah,

helping me out, get this job, pay for this, take me on

a ride there, do these different things, give me an extra shirt,

give me all the baby clothes, all of the things, whatever it is.

We get to be a blessing to each other, and it results in

God being praised. That's a good thing. He's were literally worshiped because of

our obedience. And it's not that we do that to earn anything. No,

we're just grateful. We love our God, we love our Lord,

and so we get to live out in such a way that honors Him,

and other people are so blessed by it that they can't help, even if

they don't believe in God, to go. Thank God, right, that's

a blessing. I want to live my life that way. I don't perfectly,

none of us do. But I think that's such an exciting, amazing

and beautiful picture that we have the opportunity to be a part of. And

we're gonna look in these last few verses and I need the band to come

up, he says. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves,

others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the Gospel

of Christ and for your generosity and sharing with them and with everyone else.

Right, are obedience that comes and accompanies our confession. Right. Sometimes Christians

get a bad rap because like you don't look anything like Jesus he seemed to

give. I've only seen you complain about what's being asked of you, or

complain when I've asked for help, And in their prayers for you, their

hearts will go out to you because of the surpassing grace God has given you.

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. Right, So we'll look

back when when God gives us so that we can give, and then he

gives us more so we can give. The people around us are only gonna

be blessed by that, and they'll have God to think. And that's good

for us. That's the way that we can actually get to live out our

lives in a way that glorifies Him actively, and that is that we help

to meet the needs of others. We were being obedient to God and proving

to walk out the things that we say that we believe. Right, But

if we don't believe these things, we're not doing nothing. If we don't

believe that God it's gonna take care of us, if we don't believe that

it's his and that's ours, there's no way we're doing this stuff because I'm

gonna live in accordance with those believes, which is keep it from myself,

build bigger barnes, and even what I do have, I'll end up losing.

This message isn't here like like it's not a beat up message or anything.

It's just like we're talking about giving. That's just what it says.

That's just the Bible, that's scripture. That's what God has to say about

giving. In our church. This church does that. Do we have opportunity

to do it more, of course, But here at this church, over

the last decade, we've spent tens of thousands of dollars to do things like

help build widows homes, and some of us have even given more to make

the fight down there to then give our time and our energy to help build

those same houses. You know what happened, You're resulted in praises to God.

We dedicated those houses. We got to pray with them and love on

them and care for them. We gotta see how to bless their life.

They were living in a corn husk and now they have a door with a

lock on it and they have a bed to sleep in. We've given thousands

of dollars a bless of this community with meals in the holiday season, and

then we give more of our time and our energy and our gas money to

go pack and then deliver those meals and then go into people's homes that we

would never get to do otherwise and pray with those people and show them love.

That's an encouraging way to use resources. Right. That seems kind of

positive rather than going through the McDonald's line again. Right, And our own

church, we've met our own needs, and we meet our own needs,

and we long to continue to do so in the future by having a place

to meet, paying for staff members, having resources to help those of us

who fall on hard times, because that just happens. And we've gotten to

bless and take care of one another. That's what we're here for, to

bless and take care of each other. In God's Church and through God's Church.

God blesses us so that all our needs are met and we can accomplish

the mission that He has given us. And when we give, We get

to do it with joy and gratefulness of heart, looking to Christ, who

gave everything for us so that we could have everything in him. Christ has

given us everything that we could ever need, which I think we get to

exclaim with Paul when we look at God's grace, we say things be to

God for his indescribable gift. Now we're gonna go into a time of response,

and I want us to actually be able to put into practice what we've

learned about today and that. Okay, but let me tell you what I

am saying and what I'm not saying. What I'm not saying is let's make

today's the biggest offering yet that Roos has ever seen. That's not what I

am saying, because that would be too shortsighted and we'd missed the point,

I think. But what I am saying is let's make or but as we

talk about today, as it regards the rest of our lives as believers,

as cheerful givers, what I want us to do is go home this week

and talk with her spouse, take it to God and actually ask him right.

God's given us these things, and most of them looked things. I'm

gonna go do this now. Awesome, Thank you. I really appreciate that

we don't even give it a second thought of like why do I have what

I have? Why has God given me what I do have? When have

we ever taken that? And go, Okay, God, I don't know

why you gave me this. I'm open head with it because I recognize you

could take it away just as fast as you gave it. But I'm grateful

for it, so I want to make sure that I use it how you

want me to. That's when we have to practice. But let's take it

to God. Let's let's let's go with our spouse, go buy ourselves whatever

we need to do, and ask God what he wants to do with what

he's given you. How can we make it practice a regularly giving as to

use what God has given us to meet the needs around us, trusting that

He will also take care of the needs that we have. That's what I'm

saying, Like this is this is is a long game thing. We have

a whole lifetime of God blessing us. So I don't want to make it

just about today. So let's be prayerful and intentional about this week and then

put it into action. And then our hope is that we would see God

be praised and his truth shown true as he confirms his promises as we walk

in obedience to him. Okay, would you guys please stand so if you

did come prepared to give today, you will have the opportunity to do so.

And if you need prayer, the others are gonna be on the side

to pray with you for any any need that you have, anything going on

in your life, we want to pray with you. We believe not in

who us being magical or powerful or anything like that, but we believe in

the heavenly Father that we pray to. So I'm going to close with two

verses and then a quote, and I was just it's pretty cool. And

then we'll worship our great God. Okay, so let's look at Proverbs thirty.

Keep falsehood and lives from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches,

but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise I may have too much and

disown you and say who is the Lord? Or I may become porn or

poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. And the

quote is from Saint Augustine and says, God is always trying to give good

things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them. Let's

pray, Lord Jesus, we need you, We depend on you. We

know that you provide every need for us, and so we asked Lord that

as we consider how we are to use this life. You've given us the

resources, our jobs, our family members, everything that you've given us,

Lord God, we recognize from you first, and so we want to put

it into action and make the most of it as you've given it. And

we asked that you would make that clear for us as we bring it to

you, Lord God, So please put it on our hearts. Help us

continue to be dependent on you, Lord God, as your scripture says.

Help us not have so much that we would forget you, Lord Lord God,

it would be so poor that we would dishonor your name. But give

us exactly what we need for each day to be met and be satisfied in

who you are, so that we can serve you every day, trusting that

you have us in your hands as your own possession for your own purposes.

Lord, use this time help us glorify you as we sing about how you

gave it all. And Lord God, to let it be in the view

of that mercy that we consider how we live our own lives. Lord,

we love you, we thank you, We give you this time. Draw

us to yourself, call on us to live out who you called us to

be. Gee's name, everyone said, and Amen,