Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you on Wednesday
night. Just a reminder, we looked at
the principle of faith promise. Will everybody agree there's a
principle and that principle is based upon giving outside of
your locality. That principle is based upon the
grace of God. That principle is based upon the
debt that we owe to the gospel. And just as the church at
Corinth and, and the other churches of Aki and the churches
of Macedonia, Paul was trying to get across to them that they owe
a debt to the church at Jerusalem.
And now they're in a situation that we can help them and that
they did. So we looked at the we looked at
the principal and then last night we looked at the
performance. And Paul had challenged the
church to just do what they had gotten on board a year earlier.
Now tonight we're going to look at the process of giving.
In other words, what does giving actually do?
What what is going to happen? Paul is going to explain to them
in Chapter 9, this is what will happen if you're involved in
this offering that we are taking up.
So let's begin reading in verse number one.
Man, I got cornbread and chili laying on me right now.
And so and I'm a windsucker. So we need some I'm I'm may need
some help here. I might bust a gizzard in just a
second, for as touching the ministering to the Saints, it's
superfluous for me to write to you.
For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of
you to them of Macedonia, and I basically let Macedonia know
that AKI was ready a year ago, and your zeal has provoked very
many. Yet have I sent the brethren,
lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf that I
said you may be ready. So here he is.
He says I'm sending some brethren ahead to make sure that
you have done what you said you will do.
And we already know from chapter 8.
He's challenging them based on the churches of Macedonia who
needed no prompting, but but had given and given of themselves
and such as that. Verse 4.
Lest happily, if they of Macedonia come with me, and find
you unprepared, we that we say not ye should be ashamed in the
same confident boasting. Therefore Paul said, I thought
it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go
before unto you, and make up before your bounty.
Where have you had noticed before that the same might be
ready as a matter of bounty, and not of covetousness?
But this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also
sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also
bountifully every man, according as he hath purposed in his
heart. Notice Paul never said how much,
he just said, Whatever God lays on your heart.
So let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity.
For God loveth A cheerful giver, and God is able to make all
grace bound toward you, that ye always having all sufficiency in
all things, may abound to every good work, as it is written.
He hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor, His
righteousness remaineth forever. Now he that ministered seed to
the sower both minister bread for your food and multiply your
seeds sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness,
being enriched in everything to all bountifulness which causeth
through US Thanksgiving to God. For the administration of this
service not only supply the want of the Saints, but is abundant
also by many thanksgivings unto God.
Isn't that amazing that Paul said that if you give to this
offering in verse #12 not only will it supply the need of the
Saints, but it will also be by many thanksgivings by God.
That's awesome. Whilst by the experiment of this
ministration they glorify God for your perverse subjection
under the gospel of Christ and for your liberal distribution
unto them and into all men, and by their prayer for you, which
long after you, for the exceeding grace of God in you.
Thanks being to God for his unspeakable gift.
Wow. Now, first thing somebody's
going to say, you're going to preach that whole chapter.
And the answer is yes. So Lord, help us tonight.
I pray. Thank you for those that are
here tonight, those that have been here the last few nights,
and what we've learned, Lord, about the principle of giving by
faith. And the principle of faith,
promise, mission, giving, the performance of it.
Lord, as we saw last night as Paul challenged him, just to do
what God's laid on your heart. Do what you promised, do what
you were excited about a year ago, being reminded that Jesus
Christ is the great equalizer in giving and receiving, but he is
also the example when it comes to giving as he gave it all to
that we might be saved. And so I pray tonight that we
also, we might understand what does giving do?
What is the process that takes place in the life of a believer
and in the life of a church? And then I pray that by the end
of the night you would speak to our hearts on this matter of
faith, promise, mission, giving once again in Jesus name, Amen.
Thank you so much for standing. You may be seated.
I appreciate it so very much. You know, a lot of people act
like they don't want to talk about money, and they certainly
don't want the preacher to talk about money.
And here's what I found as a pastor for close to 36 years,
actually. Yeah, actually 37, closer to 37
years as pastor. If you ever preach on money one
time, then there's going to always be that element of people
say all he ever does is preach on money.
I preach on money when it's in the text.
If it's in the text, I'm going to preach on it.
And here it's in the text and it's been in the text in chapter
8 and chapter #9. And so while people don't maybe
like to talk about money, the truth is, is money is a part of
everyday life. I mean, I, I'm very, I'm very
serious about making sure that every dollar that I have is in
the, is in them, is in my budget, is in my YNAB.
You know what I'm saying? You need a budget.
It's a, it's the program that I use.
And so I have all of these categories that money's supposed
to go to. Now, what I didn't understand
was that I was going to have to make a like a budget line item
for grandchildren. I didn't realize that was going
to take place. But here's what I found out.
People spend money on things that are important to them and
everybody's maybe has a hobby or something they like to be
involved in, whether that's, you know, for me it's golf.
There's no golf equipment that cost too much.
There's no golf equipment that if it, listen, if I have to pay
a certain amount of money to cut 2 strokes, 2 strokes off of my
game, no amount of money is going to keep me from buying
whatever that new gadget is that's coming, coming out.
I like jackets. My wife says I have way too
many. And then I began to talk to her
about how many purses she has. So she doesn't talk to me about
my jackets if I don't talk to her about her purses.
One time I asked her, I said, Robin, do you know how many
purses you have? And she said, Jeff, do you know
how many golf bags you have? To which I said, OK, you got a
point there, all right. So you just don't don't mess
with my golf bags and I won't mess with your purses.
Somebody say Amen. So the truth is, is there are
things that we spend our money on because we might enjoy those
things like grandkids. And and so there is no girl in
America that is has a relationship with my wife who is
somewhere under the age of 10, basically between the age of 8
and 11 that she doesn't believe needs an American girl doll.
And she will do whatever she can to help them possess that the
that doll. Well, tonight we're going to
move to Chapter 9 where Paul literally in this whole chapter
talks about money and about the offering that we've looked at
the last couple of nights. Paul is writing to stir this
church up about what they had gotten excited about a year
earlier. Remember, Paul came to them and
he was preaching the message that we saw in Romans chapter
15, that they owed a debt to the gospel.
They owed a debt to the Church of Jerusalem and because of the
spiritual blessings that they had received from this church in
Jerusalem that Paul said the least that we could do is use
our carnal or money that we might help them in their need.
He boasted to the churches of Macedonia about the excitement
that the church at Corinth had a year earlier.
And when Paul literally writes Chapter 9, he is teaching us
about the true spirit of giving and what God does and the
process that takes place not upon, not only upon an
individual, because he's not really talking to an individual
here. He's talking to a church.
But we all know that churches are made-up of individuals.
They're made-up of the people inside of the church.
So he is going to teach the church about what can take place
in the church and the blessing that can come to the church if
they will give. Now here's what I want you to
understand tonight, and I'm going to look at this.
There are just certain things that happen when a church is a
giving church. There are certain things that
happens to an individual when they give with the right kind of
heart. Here's the way I look at it.
I, I call it a process. It's a process that takes place.
If anybody knows anything about college football, probably Nick
Saban is considered the Dean of college football over the last
15 years. And he wrote a book and I read
the book because I like college football and I like, I like
leadership books. I like to how how men lead other
men and, and things like that. I'm not an Alabama fan.
I'm a Tennessee fan. And you cannot be an Alabama fan
if you're a Tennessee fan. It's not allowed in the home.
It's not allowed. You cannot be.
But you can be a respecter of Alabama football.
And I do respect what took place there over the years.
I didn't always like it, but I respected it.
And so as I was reading the book, it is exactly what you'll
hear. You would hear Nick Saban say
when he would stand on Tuesdays or Mondays before the press and
he would begin to talk about the process of his football team.
And if you've ever heard Nick Saban say, he's talks about the
process, the process. And he has this whole formula.
He has this whole thing of how he starts out on day one in this
new football team because the old the the the seniors have
graduated, the freshmen have come in and so now everybody's
moved up one peg and he starts on day one with the process that
he wants to happen. Now, what is his ultimate goal
in this process? The ultimate goal in the process
that Nick Saban had for Alabama football was at the end of the
year that they would win the national championship.
That was the end goal of his process.
Then you could also go to a book like Moneyball.
Moneyball was a famous book that was written in the early 2000s,
late 1990s, a movie was made about analytics and baseball and
how that how that we are to take the analytics of baseball and
the quadrant, the quadrants of the strike zone and when to run
and when not to run and when to bun and when not to bun.
And and and and now they've come to the place where they got
trajectory and hit up on the ball and that all this kind of
stuff. And you know what they called
it? You know what you a process, if
you can follow this process, we believe that it will make help
us to win more games than we did last year.
Now I said that to say this giving has a process.
There's an end result of that process if people give with the
right kind of motive and the right kind of heart.
Now just as historical prospect, I think I said this called I've
only been a member of three churches, The church I was saved
in while I was in the military and the two churches that I've
pastored for the last 36 years. The church at at Nam Noster
called Calvary Baptist Church close to 12 years.
And now just was able to celebrate my 25th anniversary,
which is unbelievably how fast that has gone by 25 years.
Now here's what I want to tell you about both of those
churches. Both of those churches were led
in faith promise, mission giving.
I led the church in Knob Noster, which really didn't have a big
faith promise. I continued that process of
faith promise when I went to when I went to Bream Baptist
Church in October of 2000. Now let me tell you about those
churches. They're not perfect, neither one
of them, but they've been blessed by God.
And let me tell you why they've been blessed by God is because
of their attitude in giving towards missions.
Now, we as a church, just listen to this.
Now I'm going to talk about Bream Baptist Church for just a
second. We've started 34 churches in
America. I'm not even talking about the
churches that have been started out of our church as far as
missions in the foreign field. We've got church plants.
We have, we have like 45 or 50 churches in El Salvador.
That was started by one man with one church.
And then that church started another church and that started
another church. They had a Bible institute and
men went out from that church. And then the civil war in El
Salvador came and our missionary had to leave El Salvador, his,
his, his family with gunfire going all the way.
He went down to southern Mexico, Kumtani Row in that area there,
and he started with, he got a man got saved.
They started with one church and then he had a Bible institute
and people started getting saved.
Men started calling the preach. And we probably got 30 churches
in Mexico. And then we could go to, we
could go to Germany, Jim Garrison, we could go to Canada,
Larry Harrison, Yukon Territory, we could go to Albania, King, we
can go to Australia where we started three churches in
Australia with several missionaries that I trained, a
couple from Calvary Baptist up there, Bruce Carr.
Then Butch Schrope is over there out of our church, Mike Meredith
out of our church. And so I'm not, I'm just saying
in America, we've started 34 churches.
We're in the process right now of talking about the 35th church
plant. Our 34th is brother Shane
Mallard, and y'all support him. That's our 34th church plant.
Shane's doing a great job down there.
It's a blessing. We have another young man in our
church that we believe is getting ready to go out and
start our 35th church. Now, what does that take to do
that? Number one, it takes a man who
has a burden to go somewhere #2 it takes a stick to itiveness to
go there and it and that's it. That's all it takes.
And it takes a church helping them to go to that place.
So really what it means though, as far as a church, listen to
this. For a church, it means that you
must be willing to give up your best, the best people in your
church to go out and start churches.
We're not trying to build a Kingdom at Berean Baptist
Church. We're trying to build the
Kingdom of God. And, and, and every church
should be a part of building the Kingdom of God.
Now that's a good time to say Amen right there.
So our church has been willing not only to give money, but to
give our people to go out and plant churches.
Now remember what we learned on Monday, not Monday night,
Wednesday night, that we're always going to owe a debt,
right? There's always going to be a
debt that we owe. Even if you have a home that's
debt free, you still owe taxes, You still owe insurance, monthly
electricity. And and here's what is amazing.
Nobody pulls up to the gas pump because if they take that thing
off and stick it in there and start taking get putting the gas
in it, nobody yells at the gas pump.
And says, I can't believe you're, you're charging me this
much. You know what they do?
They pay it because they want to drive.
Remember, several years ago we had a gas shortage.
Things were getting a little tight.
Gas prices were moving up. And I stood up one day in church
and I said, let me tell you what's going to happen.
I said, you know what's going to happen if gas goes to $6 a
gallon? And they all sitting on their
edge of the seat. Oh, Pastor Abel's has got great
wisdom. You know, he's going to give us
something good. I said, here's going to come.
Here's what's going to happen. If gas goes to $6 a gallon,
you're going to pay it because Americans love their cars and
they love to get to wherever they need to go, and they'd have
to drive to work. Is everybody understanding what
I'm saying? You you pay money for the
things. That you like.
And nobody says I can't believe they sent me another insurance
bill. I can't believe they sent me
another electricity bill. I can't believe they sent me
another tax bill. This is, this is November and I
just got my, I got my taxes in, in, in an e-mail.
They don't want to send it to you in the mail.
They want to make sure you get it right away.
And I'm like, I'm not going to pay.
You know what? I pay my taxes the last day of
the year. That's when I pay mine because I
want to keep it as long as I can.
But the debt to the gospel also needs to be paid.
And when you as an individual gives and as a church
corporately gives, God's got a process that he wants to.
Talk to you about. God has a process that He wants
you to follow so that you can give honor and glory to God by
sending the gospel all over the world.
And we do that through our faith, promise, mission, giving.
So I think I've got three things here, maybe, maybe 4.
What does the process of giving look like?
All right, look at verse #1 I'm sorry.
Look at verse #2 because I'm not going to go back to verse #1 for
I know the forewarnedness of your mind, for which I boast of
you to them of Macedonia. That AKI was ready a year ago.
Now notice what it knows, the next words here.
Your zeal has provoked very many.
So the first thing that giving does is it provokes other
people. It provokes other people to
give. Now, we don't do this in our
church, and I know some churches do, and we used to do it back in
the early days. We might have done this at
Calvary, I can't remember, but we did it in the early days at
Berean. And I can't do it anymore
because half the people don't turn in their faith promise
mission cards till the, till the end of the month.
I say, well, you got the whole month to do it.
And so they're like me paying my taxes.
They don't do it till the last Sunday.
But we, but I remember early we would, we would set up the
projector, you know, and we'd have somebody over there on the
calculator and, and we would look at the, we would look at
the first one and we'd say 20. Dollars.
They put the $20 up there and then somebody would say 150 and
we have people in our church that give $150.00 a week and
they'd. Put it up there and then and,
and so everybody that is sitting there and listening that
somebody that gives $20 or like somebody gives $40 and it
provokes them. You mean there's somebody in our
church that gives $150.00 a week and then somebody might say $300
and you go, are you serious? And I say yes.
And, and when you, when that process begins to take place and
people begin to see and nobody, we don't put no name on it, but
it's just a process of it provokes other people based on
what they're giving and they have to think about what they're
giving. And so, so the process takes
place just like when Paul came to Corinth and preached to them,
you owe a debt. They said, hi, we're excited
about it. And Paul goes down to Macedonia
and tells these churches about the forewarnedness of of
Corinth. And they go, yes, we want to be
on board too, even though they didn't have a lot of money.
Remember what it was said about Macedonia?
It said things like great trial of affliction, deep poverty
abounded. And that's the kind of churches
that were in Macedonia. You know, every pastor that I've
ever known love loves Hebrews. 10/25.
Every preacher can quote Hebrews. 1025 and they're like
not forsaking the assembling is ours of ourselves together as
the manner of some is that's how much the boys you see today
approaching. And you know, that's in the
Bible, and you know what that means?
That means God's people should assemble themselves, and they
should. And you can't assemble unless
you all come together. And what the preacher's trying
to say is come to church, be in your place.
But I want you to listen to the verses before Hebrews 10/25.
I want you to listen verses 21 through 24.
Here's what it says. And having a high priest over
the House of God. Let us draw near with a true
heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts
sprinkle from an evil conscience, and our bodies
washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that
promised. And then look at this.
This is what I want you to see. And let us consider one another
to provoke under love and the good works.
Then it says, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves
together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another,
and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
Did you notice there it says that God wants us to provoke
unto love and to good works among the brethren.
So in a church listen, I always say this, if we have some, some
something that happens in service that maybe was out of
the ordinary, like somebody got saved or the invitation went way
longer than it normally does or something, or the music was just
over the top, which it is at Bren.
It blows my mind. Or the little kids sing and
they're like and one of them picked their nose while they
were singing. Do you don't want to miss?
That, but you'll miss that if you're not at church.
So I'll always say, well, if somebody ain't here tonight, go
home and tell them what they missed or go call them on the
weeks. I know you should have been
there. And then most of them today, I
say. Well, we saw it on live stream
preacher. It ain't the same.
As being there. And here's what I want to say
about this. I kind of like the idea of
considering one another because that's what Paul had done as he
had played the two churches of the Macedonian churches.
The zeal of the Macedonia, the the zeal of the Corinth
excitement had had had got the Macedonian churches fired up,
and now Paul is trying to turn that around and tell the church
in court what Macedonia is doing.
What is he doing? What is he doing?
He's doing the process of giving, and that is that it
provokes other people. There's nothing wrong with
asking people to give by faith and then you in turn promise to
do that again. He didn't tell them how much to
give, but rather to give what they had promised.
And in verse three of our text tonight he says this, Don't let
my boasting of you be in vain because I boasted of your
excitement. And Paul said, don't let my
boasting of you be in vain. The greatest motivation in
giving is that it pleased the Lord not to be seen of men in
the 1st place now. I'm going to go through this
process right now. I'm going to do this.
I want you to listen to me and I'll tell you what I'm doing
when I get to the end. In 1969, and I've gone back and
looked the records of bringing Baptist Church.
Our church was started in 1966. Next year in May, we will
celebrate our 60th year anniversary.
And so we were a church for three years before we started
Faith Promise. Before that, we were.
A lot a light, a lot like a lot of.
Churches. And that day they would give
percentages of their general fund to admissions.
And it was always a small, small amount compared to what you can
do for the Faith Promise. So in 1969, if you were alive,
if you weren't, well, OK, I was nine years old in 1969, Church,
our church was three years old. Our first year of Faith Promise,
we gave listen to this, listen to this, listen, listen, Linda,
listen $1050. That is $20 a week.
That's what our church gave. 1969.
Now I'm not going to go through the whole process but in 1995
I'll just Fast forward to 1995. We gave $68,000 which is about
$1300 per week. In the year 2000 of October I
became the pastor and our church had given $88,000 to missions
which was about $1700 a week. Now let me say this, the church
that I had just left in Knob Nostir gave over 70,000.
So when you compare the 2 sizes of the church, the church in Nam
Noster was giving way more in proportion to the church at
Bream Baptist Church. And I saw this and it fired me
up. I'm like what's wrong with these
people? So I came up with this plan and
I got there in October. We're going to have our faith
promise our we always have ours in April, usually the first or
second week of April. And I stood up before the church
and I said, hey, listen, we're going to have a special guest
preacher. It's going to be here for our
faith, My Faith Promise mission Conference.
You need to give, give. He needs a good love offering.
I said, we got to have these missionaries and they're like,
oh, who's it going to be? Who's the 1st?
Who's brother Abel's bringing in to be the first missions
conference preacher? And I told him who it was.
It was me because God kind of laid on my heart.
Why don't you preach the first mission conference?
Why don't you lay your burden out for the church and son, I
was not easy on them. I've never been easy on anybody.
Have I had it? No, I'm not easy on anybody.
And I'm telling you, that year we went from 88,000 for the
first time in the history of our church in 2001.
A hundred over $100,000 for the first time, $131,000 is what we
gave in 2001. That's $2500 per week.
Now, for the last 10 years at Bryn, we've given over $300,000
per year. Last year we gave just a little
bit over $307,000 and we've given as much as $320,000.
It's over $6000 a week now. Here's what I just did.
I tried the best that I could just to provoke you.
To think about, think about it because.
Collectively we're exhorted to give look at verse 5.
Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren that they
would go before funded you and make up before your bounty where
of you had noticed before, and the same might be ready as a
matter of bounty and not of covetousness.
Did you notice that word bounty in there is used twice?
You know what a bounty is. You ever watch the Western and
they have a bounty on somebody and they'll have the little or
the cartoon that has a little thing, $500 bounty.
Do you know $500 like in 1882 was a lot of money.
So when he uses the word bounty, you know what he's doing.
He's using a term of generosity. We're not talking about tipping
tithing. We're talking about a good
offering. And and so the idea is that
bounty equals a generous gift because Westerns and bounty 100
means a generous reward. And Paul is exhorting no
pressure, but rather says, let your generosity be a matter of
bounty and not something squeezed out of you.
Meaning is a matter of covetousness.
So #1 giving will provoke others.
Here's the second thing that giving does.
Giving will make provision for the one who gives.
All right, look at what it says in verse 6.
But this I say, now here's what he's saying.
Here's the provision. If you sow sparingly, you shall
also spare, you shall reap also sparingly.
If you sow bountifully, you shall also reap bountifully.
Every man as he is, according according as he has purpose in
his heart. So let him give, not grudgingly
or of necessity, but God is a but God loves a loveth, A
cheerful giver. You know, last night we saw this
over in verse #8 of chapter 8 where Paul said, if you want to
prove the sincerity of your love, my advice is that this
will be profitable for you. Well, this is kind of the same
idea. He says he said over in chapter
8. He said, I want to give you my
advice and remember what we said last night, even though Paul is
writing, I want to give you my advice that this is under the
inspiration of the Holy Ghost of God.
And so it's not just Paul giving advice, it's God giving advice.
And God says, let me give you some advice about giving.
It's expedient for you. It's profitable for you here.
Paul says it will make provision for you.
In other words, if you sow a little bit of seed, you're going
to get a little bit of grass. If you sow a lot of seed, you're
going to get a lot of grass. And what he's saying is we reap
by the measure we sow and we reap as we sow with the right
attitude. That's what he meant by verse
number 7. And our giving must come from
the heart because we're not to be sad givers, which is
grudgingly. We're not to be mad givers,
which is of necessity. We're to be glad givers because
that's cheerful giving and the word, you know, many people know
this, but the Greek word where we get cheerful giving is the
word hilarious. So it means when we give, we
should laugh about it. It's hilarious.
It's hilarious that you can give 10% a tithe and God can do can
help you with 90% of your income better than 100%.
That's funny. That's what your coworkers
think. But it's even more hilarious if
you go past the tithe and you give generous offerings because
that's cheerful giving. I don't like mad givers and I
don't like sad givers. I like glad givers you know I am
not a fan of. Trees, and you may love trees
and I'm not listen, I don't like trees, I like grass.
I'm one of those guys that say, hey, stay off my lawn, You know
what I'm saying? Get off my lawn.
Can you not see that? I've lined it and fertilized it
and watered it. Greatest thing I told my wife,
man, I used to water grass, water grass, water grass.
We built a house in 2019. It's got a water system in it.
I love standing out there watching that.
Goes off at 6:00 in the morning 3.
Days a week. Plus, I turn it off, which I
usually don't because I want my grass to be beautiful.
I want to walk in my bare feet through the grass.
I don't want no dog doing its business on my grass.
I don't want no cat on my grass. I want grass.
And you know what happens if you have trees?
It too much shade. You can't get the grass.
I got one. I got one tree in my front yard
and it's beautiful and I talk to it all the time.
If you ever shade out my grass, you're going down.
Well, the first house we bought when we moved to Springfield had
27 trees. I was mad the day I bought the
house. I was mad but.
But we had gone through so many houses and I was trying hard to
find a house. We finally found this house.
We were able to purchase it, but it had 27 trees.
That's ridiculous. So I came up with a plan.
It's called a chainsaw and I was going to take down these trees
and I was going to take down these trees and I kept some over
the shade of the house and different things like that.
But that y'all had this beautiful yard but you couldn't
grow anything in it. So I started cutting trees down,
cutting trees down, cutting this lady next door to me, she, she
had one of these porches that came out kind of look down upon,
you know, where we were at. And one day.
Don't you love people who ask you things like this?
What are you doing? I hate.
I can't stand stupid, you know what I'm saying?
It just annoys me if you're cutting down trees and somebody
sees you cutting down trees. Why do they?
Ask you, what are you doing? And I said, I wanted to say,
what does it look like I'm doing?
I'm cutting down trees. She goes, you can't do that.
I said, excuse me, She goes, those trees are beautiful.
You can't cut those down. I said, I own this property.
This ain't China. I'll cut down every.
I probably cut down more trees than I would have just because
of her attitude. So I cut down a few extra trees.
So I finally had these trees where the sun would actually
come down, and now all I got is dirt.
So I go to a man in our church named Dan Fortner who knows
everybody and everything about Springfield.
I said, Dan, I'm getting ready to redo my yard.
Where would you suggest that I get my seed?
And he goes, go down the Nixa hardware.
They have 27 grain. They have 20 to 7 different
kinds of grass seed. I didn't even know that existed.
So I go down there, I had my square footage.
I had my little piece of paper. I went into the the grass
ologist guy. You know, the guy knows grass.
Ologist says the guy knows all about grass or Umunovics.
I don't know what you call them. The guy that knows about grass,
I told him my grass seed story. I told him how much I had and
and he said I said how much do I need whatever and I can't
remember. I think it was like he said I
need like 8 lbs, let's just use that and whatever he said.
I said well give me £20 and the guy look at me and he said well
Sir, you don't need 20 lbs. I said are you trying to sell
grass seed or not? Had you'd rather sell 8 lbs of
grass seed? Or you'd rather spend spend.
Or you'd rather sell 20 lbs of grass seed and he's.
Like, Oh well, what a goober. OK, I'll sell you 20 lbs, he
said, why would you do 20 lbs? I said the biblical principle,
if you sow bountifully, ye shall also reap bountifully.
And I'm telling you right now, I sowed that seed, put that hay on
top of it. I might have shot a squirrel, I
might have thrown a rock at a bird.
I might have run a cat off of my property.
I can't. I can't.
I'm not going to incriminate myself, but I so grassy.
Does anybody want to guess about what I got?
Grass. Thick grass.
The kind you can walk through and fertilize.
And when I sold that house? Prettiest yard in the
neighborhood, bar none. Do you have?
The prettiest yard in your neighborhood now?
Well, of course I do. And if you don't believe me,
come look at my grass. He that soweth bountifully shall
also reap bountifully, God says. That if you give correctly, it
will make provision for you. We money is seed, that's all it
is. The more you sow, the more you
reap, and used wisely, it will bring a great harvest.
And basically we're just channels through whom God works
to meet the need of other people.
God, you know why God bless us? You know why God bless us?
So that we can do it again next year.
Look at verse 11 being enriched and everything to all
bountifulness which causeth through US.
Thanksgiving to God. Now here's the third thing.
And I think I'll be done all right.
I think it's time to be done. This is the most obvious giving
will provide the needs of others to whom you give to look at
verse #12 for the administration of this service not only supply
at the want of the Saints, but is abundant also by many
Thanksgiving unto God. Did you see that the
administration of this service or of this money or of this
grace or of this offering supply not only supply at the want of
the Saints. So that means it does supply the
want of the Saints, but there's also God who has many
Thanksgivings. Now that's the most obvious of
all. Well preacher, I would I could
even told you that. Well, you're not preaching, but
I'm going to tell you giving correctly provokes other people.
Giving correctly makes provision for the giver, but giving
correctly also meets the needs of the missionary.
Or who we give to. And that's the most obvious of
all this ministry, this service is not just about meeting the
material needs of the Saints in Jerusalem, but it also leads to
many expressions of Thanksgiving to God.
So Paul is saying this, this offering is not just a practical
exercise. It is it has a spiritual
dimension to it. It elicits worship and
Thanksgiving to God from whom those who received the gift and
the Corinthians generosity had a Kingdom impact that goes beyond
just meeting spiritual material needs.
And the overall message is that the ministry of financial giving
can produce both tangible and intangible spiritual blessings
when done with the right motive. Well, of course it's going to
meet the need of the of the of the missionary, but it's not
just that God's involved in it. So therefore giving is a part of
our worship. I've had people say to me, well,
giving's not part of your worship.
Well, yeah, it is. Yes, it is.
It's it's a part of our according to this, it's a part
of many thanksgivings unto God. When we, I told you last night,
I think it was when we were building the Knob church in Knob
Noster that, that church building, I think I look back on
it and that's, that's how her dad got saved.
If we hadn't been building that church building, I don't know
that we'd ever got Pat Rodriguez to come to that church.
But through that and the. Testimony of the men and the
preaching of God's word and what I had church had done for their
family. Pat got saved.
But while we were building that building, I, I think I told you
this, I can't remember, but. We were getting.
Yeah, I did. I said something about last
night, we're getting ready to have our mission conference.
And remember how Paul, he was kind of it, it seems like in
chapter 8, he was, he was kind of apprehensive of trying to get
the churches of Macedonia to help because he knew their
situation of poverty and and deep affliction.
He knew that. And he just maybe he kind of
felt like, well, let's, let's let's be easy on him.
And they said no, take we let us get involved.
We want to be involved. We we know.
What we're going through. So, So what during that same
mission conference, one of our men, our dear men, Brother Sam
Varghese, who was the 1st man that I ever baptized as a
pastor. I had I had baptized a few women
and a few teenagers, but brother Sam was the very first man that
I ever baptized. And then I brought say he's in,
he's in from India. Sam Varghese is an Indian from
India. I remember the first time I said
Indian giver. He used to he come to me and
pass that pastor. I'm so confused.
I don't understand what you mean by.
And I was just talking about God's not an Indian giver.
God don't take away what he gives you like in salvation.
And Sam who is AI was talking about the saying that we use but
Sam is an Indian from India. He was totally confused.
And I was like, Oh well, yeah, well, I guess I better be
careful how you talk about Indians.
Indians, Indians lot. Not chief Indian but Indian over
in India. So I did the best I could try to
explain it to him, but. Brother Sam came into our home
and before he ever got married, we brought him into our home and
my wife taught him phonics because, you know, the accent of
an Indian, you know what I mean? You know.
Well, that's the way he talks, brother, don't, don't get
offended, all right? People from Haiti, they talk
different too, you know what I'm saying?
So my wife taught him phonics and I got 2 little kids sitting
there, like 6 and seven years old, and she's teaching them
phonics and she's teaching Brother Sam phonics.
And I taught Brother Sam what it meant to be a Baptist and I gave
him Baptist history and Baptist doctrine and, and then I taught
him about a football. Not this soccer stuff, you know,
kicking that. That's not football.
You understand what I'm saying, son?
Yeah, I'm talking about that oblong thing and football 1st
and 10. Do it again.
He had no idea, you know, and I taught him about football.
I said, listen, my wife will teach you phonics.
I'll teach you football and how to be a Baptist.
And I can tell you right now he is a number one Baptist from the
top of his head to the bottom of his toes.
And so, so during that mission conference that I told you about
last night, on the Thursday night of the meeting, we
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Thursday night of the meeting,
Brother Sam comes into my office and said, preacher, you got a
minute? I said, sure.
He said, and we're, we're in the middle of this building project.
We're right in the middle of it. And, and we would move into that
building the next April. This is in September.
So we're still in the old building.
And he goes, preacher, I want to talk to you.
I said, OK, he goes. I, he, people usually that know
me already know what I'm going to tell them when they ask me
something. But sometimes they just need to
hear themselves say it so that I can reaffirm what they need to
hear. And he said, and he was getting
out of the military. He was right in the process of
getting out of the military. And he said, preacher, he goes,
I just want to talk to you for a minute.
I said, OK. He said, I really feel like God
wants me to give four times the amount of money right now that I
that then I've given this year and he's getting ready to get
out of the military. And I said, well, Brother Sam, I
don't know what to tell you except just perform the doing of
it if that's what God wants you to do.
Kind of like I told you that story last night.
Of that man, he said, I know. Will you pray with me about?
It I said, sure. We got down on our knees right
in my office and I laid my hands on Brother Sam and I said, God,
whatever you're doing in Brother Sam's life, make it real to him.
Show him the truth, Show him what you want him to do and then
help him perform the doing of it.
And I said, Amen. We got up, we went to the
meeting and I know I didn't think anything else about it.
And next day or two, I asked Brother Sam.
I said he went to a job conference, job fair and I asked
him about thing, you know, and he said he told me he got a job.
He said I got a job at UMB bank and I'm going to be a very low
level tech guy. And this guy was he's so smart
and it makes me cry how smart he is.
I'm not that smart. I'm dumb as a rock.
Anyhow, so, so one day how we do it on time.
I I wasn't going to go past 8:30 and I'm not.
So one day I needed the church van, the oil changed and Brother
Sam was the secretary. He was the treasurer.
So I went by his house and he was sitting in his room.
He he lived him and his wife lived in A1 room house.
I mean, when I say that they had a living room, a bedroom and a
kitchen, that was it. It was real small, probably 700
square feet, 600 square feet. And he's sitting in his in the
middle room and he's got all these books around him.
And I said, Brother Sam, what are you doing?
I'm in his house needed a check sign.
We didn't have a we didn't, we didn't have a check.
We didn't have a credit card. We paid everything cash or
check. I said, hey, I'm, I got to get
the church van oil changed. And I said, he said, what are
you doing? He said, well, there's a,
there's a problem going on at the bank.
It's a Microsoft problem. And he said they called me in
and asked me if I could help. And he had all these books open
and within two days, Brother Sam figured out what needed to
happen to fix the problem at the bank, at the UMB Bank, saved
them thousands and thousands of dollars.
And through that process, they sent him to Seattle.
And he became, you may not understand this, but back in the
day they used to have what was called Microsoft engineers.
And they sent him and he became a Microsoft engineer for UMB
Bank. And he tells me one day, a
preacher, I got a raise. I said good because I know
Brother Sam. He's a giver and if he he got a
raise, that means more tie somebody say Amen.
That's that. I'm just saying Amen.
Now go one year later. Now listen to this one year
later we're in the mission conference.
But now. We're in the new building.
Her dad got saved. We're in the new building and
Brother Sam knocks on my door in my new office that I could look
out and see the B2 bombers. He goes.
Can I talk to your preacher? I said, yeah, He goes, you
remember that conversation we had one.
He comes to me on a Thursday night of mission coverage.
He said, you remember that, that conversation we had one year
ago? Not on Thursday night.
And I'm looking at him like, no, because my wife can tell you I
can't remember what I ate for breakfast.
He goes, you know, I told you about what God was doing in my
heart about mission. I said, oh, yeah, brother.
Oh. Yeah, we prayed here and we
prayed over the other office. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I said, how's that working out for you?
And he said, Preacher, I got another race today.
I got another race today. They called me in the office, he
said. As of today, I am making four
times the amount of money that I was making this time last year.
And you know what I said to him, brother, you should have gave 10
times more. What's wrong with you, you know?
What giving does provokes others.
You know what giving does makes provision for the giver.
God said it. I didn't say it.
God said it. I didn't say it, God said it.
And #3 it provides for the needs of those we give to and and.
Truly, it is more blessed to give.
Than it is to receive. Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.