Romans chapter 12. And our text will be found in
verse 13. The text will be found in verse 13.
The title of the message, The Grace. The grace of giving. The grace of giving. Now, the context of this verse
here, it says in verse 13, distributing to the necessity of the saints,
given to hospitality. Now, the context of this is found
in Verse 1, the Lord here by the Apostle giving very practical
application to the Gospel that He had displayed in the first
11 chapters, He says that, "...I beseech you, brethren, you who
are saved by the grace of God, you who are called and transformed
by the Holy Spirit, you who have been given gifts of the grace
of God, I beseech you, he says, that you present your bodies
a living sacrifice. Your bodies, not just your minds
and your hearts, but rather this body and all that we possess
is to be consecrated completely and wholly unto God. All of our
gifts and service are to be done in the name and for the glory
of Christ. This is reasonable." To who? Only believers. It is reasonable
for us. You see the man burning at the
stake. And what does he say? It is reasonable
for me to burn. It's reasonable for the furtherance
of the gospel and the glory of Christ. It is reasonable for
me to offer my life for the service of God. And every believer understands
this and knows this. But I believe what is more difficult
than offering a one-time sacrifice of this body is to offer a continual
sacrifice of this body. So then, in a sense, every believer
is a true martyr. We are a true martyr for the
things of Christ. We give this life. How do we
give it? Freely. Freely. His life is given freely in the
service of God. And so here in our text is one
of these gifts, the gift of giving and distributing among the saints
their necessities. Paul, after dealing with our
inner responsibilities of our service to Christ, of offering
our bodies in gifts and sacrifices to Him, After He tells us of rejoicing
in the hope and patience in our troubles and testings, we as
believers are to distribute to the needs of God's children. There's no doubt that we as believers
in Christ are to give to the poor of the world. There's no
doubt. When man has need, we should give it. There's someone
in need, someone who has some need that they're impoverished,
that they can't provide for themselves. No doubt it is good for us to
give, good for us to give to the poor of this world. He said
that in verse 20, if you look at that. He says, talking about
your enemies, it says, If thine enemy hunger, what do you do?
Feed him. Feed him. If he thirsts, what
do you do? Give him drink. Now we know what
this does. It causes them to be incensed
against you. It'll make them angry. But that's
what we're to do anyway. No doubt we're to provide for
the needs of our family, isn't that right? Paul says if we provide
not for our family, we are worse than an infidel. So to provide
for the poor and to provide for the necessity of our family,
these things are necessary. These things we should do as
believers. These are not matters of debate,
but rather reasonable service to be performed as believers
in Christ. Now Paul intimates that we are
especially to give here to the necessity of the saints. That is to all those who are
believers in Christ, to those of our own congregation as well
as strangers who hold the faith in Christ, who profess faith
in Christ. Now the word distributing means
communicating or to share, to share what we have. It is an idea of one who has
above what he needs and gives to the one who has below what
he needs. This matter of giving is not
exclusive to Christians, but it should be synonymous with
Christianity. giving should be synonymous with
great when you talk about giving you should be talking about christian
because that's should be synonymous with us for giving is not something
that is natural or reasonable true heartfelt giving is not
natural if we give based on natural human reasoning It is, we either give in order
that we should receive something, or we won't give at all. Now
that's human reasoning. Why do men give naturally? Because
they're supposed to receive something in return. That's natural reasoning. Otherwise, the natural man won't
give anything at all. If there's no benefit for him,
then he won't give at all. We by nature think of ourselves
first, isn't that right? We think of our desires, our
needs above others. But for the believer, giving
is part of the new nature. Giving is part of the new nature and
is reasonable as we consider the gift of God in Christ. This is what makes it reasonable
for us to give to the necessities of others, seeing we have received
the greater gift. Paul says in 2 Corinthians, he
says, You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though
He were rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through
His poverty might be made rich. Consider the great grace of God,
the gift of God. Consider the condescension of
Christ, who was God, who received all the blessings and honor of
heaven and glory and majesty, yet laid aside His right. laid aside his rights of deity
and subjected himself to the poverty and humility of humanity. He who is rich and honored became
a man. He who was praised was mocked. He who was honored was ridiculed
and crucified. He was rich in holiness, yet
for our sakes bore our sins in his own body on the tree. On the cross, crucified in great
sorrow, he died." Listen, this giver of life to me. What have you received? What
has he given? And what have you received? See again that God of His own
free grace chose us and gave us His Son to be our Savior.
Jesus freely agreed to be your Redeemer, freely came into the
world and suffered in your stead. The Holy Spirit, without any
merit of yours, without earning anything of Him, You were in poverty, in your
sin, and yet He freely came to you, not meriting His coming. And He gave you life. He gave us life, quickened us,
and what have we received? We have inherited all things.
Our inheritance, how great is our inheritance? We've inherited
all things. So as the grace of God was bestowed
upon us in the gift of salvation, how should we not then freely
give these lesser things to the necessity of God's people? These lesser things. If there was any ever a needy
person, wasn't it us? We were sinners, rebels, haters of God. Haters of God. We were condemned
and sentenced to eternal hell. And this world, this world was
our holding cell. The law was our jailer. Our sins
were our chains. God was our judge and executioner. We were in our chains of sin. In our very chains of sin, we
were demanding our rights. We demanded of God to give us.
We thought God owed us something. Isn't that right? By nature,
men think God owes them something. Well, you made me this way. You created me. You owe me. No. Let me tell you what God
owes us. He owes us hell. Now that's what
He owes us. And if God were to give you what
He owes you, He'll give you eternal death. That's what He'll give
you. That's what you've earned. You've earned that and nothing
else. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us. In that while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. He by His death, in the Son of
God by His death, took our chains of sin off of us and laid them
on Himself. He bore our shackles in His own
body on the tree, and God poured out all that you earned. All that you earned, God poured
out on Him. And then the law that once was
our jailer demands now our freedom. Now, isn't that a wonderful thing?
When I think of the law, you should be happy. You know why?
The law demands your freedom. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. What the law could not do, and
it was weak through the flesh, God sending His Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh, and for sin, He had what? Condemned sin in
the flesh. Why? That the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. The
law of God is fulfilled now by the gift of Christ. In this world
that was our holding cell is now our inheritance. Not as it
is now, but as it shall be, pure and holy. All things are ours
now. What a gift. What a gift! Paul says in 1 Corinthians, Therefore
let no man glory in men, for all things are yours. All things are yours. And discussing
the distribution of the saints, let us look now at this example
of Holy Scripture. What kind of giving church are
we to be? What kind of giving saints, seeing
what God has given, seeing what you now possess, it's yours. Righteousness, peace, forgiveness,
pardon, peace, heaven, earth, all is yours. Christ and God
are yours and you're His. Now that's what you have. You
have everything. Now, seeing that we have everything,
how then are we to perform this reasonable service? Well, let's
look at an example. Go to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 8, and we'll
spend the rest of our time here looking at this example so as
we might know how to give. Because this church of Macedonia
is a wonderful example of a giving church. Look at verse 1. The Apostle says, moreover, brethren, we do you to wit the witness
of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia.
Now what's this grace? How that great in a great trial
of affliction the abundance of their joy. and their deep poverty
abounded under the riches of their liberality for to their
power i bear record gay and beyond their power they were willing
of themselves praying us with much intrigue that we would receive
the gift and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering
to the states and this they did not as we hope but first gave
their own selves to the Lord and unto us by the will of God."
Paul commends this church of Macedonia for giving to the necessities
of the church of Jerusalem. Now, Paul makes mention of this
even in Romans. When he talks about this in chapter
15, he talks about how Macedonia and Achaia made contributions
to the poor saints at Jerusalem. At this time, the church of Jerusalem
was suffering a great famine in that land. It was horrible.
Men were starving. Families were suffering. They did not have daily necessities.
And the church of Macedonia, when they had heard this and
the apostle came to them, they were so moved by the necessity
of these saints That they gave liberally, abundantly, not out
of their abundance, but rather out of their poverty. They gave. They gave. They were moved and
provoked by the grace of God to give, and they gave not with
begrudging hearts. They gave out of love. Out of grace. And so then I've
got several things about this church, about five things here. First thing I wanted to see is
that Paul wants us to look at this church. That's what he told
the church at Corinth. He said, Moreover, brethren,
we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on this church.
Now, it would do us well to look at this church as an example.
He said, I would do you, we do you well to look at this church.
If you want to know how we are to give, this is the example. This is the pinnacle example
of a giving church. A giving church is one that has
been given grace. A giving church is one who has
been given grace. It's one that understands, clearly
understands, and knows personally of the gift of God that is in
Christ Jesus. If you don't know this as a church,
we will not be a giving church. That's just sure. If we do not
know what great grace has been bestowed on us, we would not
be a giving church. We who have been blessed with
great privilege of hearing of the grace of God in Christ, if
we understand it, we will be the greatest of givers. You remember that church of Ephesus?
They had a bunch of knowledge, didn't they? They understood
it with their minds. What did Christ say? He said,
You have one thing against you, you have left your first love.
Now listen, if we love Christ, we will love the brethren. And
if we love the brethren, no doubt we'll give to the necessities
of our brothers. Necessities. Christ says, He
that is forgiven much does what? Loves much. Loves much. Oh, that we should be such a
shining example of God's grace in our giving, that God would
manifest through us the great honor of giving to the work of
Christ. That we should, by the grace
of God, be allowed to take part in this furtherance of the gospel. But you say we're small, we're
poor. How can we do this? It's the first objection in our
poverty. We say, how can we be such an
example to other churches who are much greater, much larger,
much more capable? Notice the second thing about
this church. Look at this. They were not only a church that
knew of the grace of God, but they were a poor church. Look
at verse 2. How in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy, and
listen, and their deep poverty, abounded unto the riches of their
liberality. These churches, this church was
in great affliction and persecution for the gospel sake. They were
hated by the world, persecuted by their government, and despised by false religion. And not only this, but these
churches were very poor. Now, Paul is using this because
the church of Corinth was very rich. He is showing this to their
shame. They were a rich church, and
yet the church of Macedonia was in great trial, affliction, and
deep poverty, and yet they abounded liberally. How that must have put shame
on that large church. And listen, they gave themselves
liberally. That word means with singleness,
with singleness of purpose. They had one mind to give. You ever heard of a person with
a one-track mind? They just can't get off of something. They just focus. Their concentration
is beamed on something. And that's what this church was.
Their concentration was to give to this liberally, singly, generously,
with great haste. And they gave with a grateful
heart. This is how a believer is to
always give. with the grace of god in our hearts as unto the
lord we should not give of our vast wealth but rather let us
is believers give of our lack of way you wait for more to give more who does it we do in their right
we always say well if i had more guess what i'll give more if
i just Is that how that works in the scriptures that always
have did God always give you more to give more or did he Take
of your necessity and then provide for your needs That's always
the way it works in scripture We give not of our wealth, but
of our want Know that this Know this, that God will try
our heart, not so much in the best of our times, but rather
in the worst. Isn't that when we are tried?
We're tried in the worst of times. This church of Macedonia, they
heard of a need, and they were tried in the worst of their times,
when they were under great tribulation and when they were in deep poverty. That's when they were tried,
and that's, believer, that's when we're going to be tried.
We'll be tried in this. And I pray for this church that
we would have the same heart as this church. Does God not
know your need? Has He not supplied everything
you've needed? He always does for His children.
You know, I long for the heart of that widow. If you want a singleness of heart
of how to give, you remember that widow who gave her mite. You remember the Lord was standing
there at that treasury and He was watching people put money
or put their possessions into that treasury. And it wasn't
until the widow came and she put the two mites, she put those
mites in there. And the Lord stopped and called
His disciples and said, this poor woman has cast more in than
everybody else. For they all did cast in of their
abundance, but she casted in of her want." And she didn't cast half. She
cast everything. Now, did the Lord rebuke her
for that? Now, you know you needed that. Now, you know you needed
one of those. You could have gave one to the
church, one to God, and kept one for yourself. No, He commended
her for it. And that's exactly what this
church of Macedonia did as its widow. They cast not of their
abundance, but of their want, of their poverty. And in doing
so, though it was a small in comparison, I imagine that other
churches may have given a bunch more. I'm talking about may have
given more money than the Church of Macedonia. But percentage-wise,
it didn't. These people gave much of their
want and necessity, and that's how we're to give. We're to give
our want, not of our wealth. How many people you suppose give
more to their cell phone company than they do the church? I know people got four or five
hundred dollar bills and yet what do they do? They throw a
hundred dollars in the plate or something. I'm saying in comparison. What if they were to give all
that they have? Then you're talking about giving.
Notice the attitude of their giving in verse 3. He said, "...for
their power I bear record, yea, beyond their power they were
willing of themselves." In other words, giving, it must be of
a willing heart. Now believe me, we should not
claim to have the grace of giving if our heart is kicking against
giving. That's a hypocrite. On the outside, oh, I love to
give, and on the inside, you just eat up with anger. I've
seen men like that. They just don't want to give.
And when they give, it's like, oh, pulling teeth. Take it! No! Keep it! That's not giving. Don't put it on a display. No,
giving has to come from the heart. These people did it from the
heart, willingly. And so we're to do, if we're
to give, we have this gift of grace, then we're to do it willingly.
Remember, God doesn't need your gifts, He owns it already. Whatever
you have is owned of God already. But if He's willing to use it,
should we not give it? If God is willing to take what
we have and use it for good, the good of His people, the good
of the church, then we should be willing. Verse 7, Therefore as you abound
in everything in faith, and in utterance, and in knowledge,
and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that you
abound in this grace also. Paul says, don't miss out on
this. It's a blessing. It's a blessing. To give with a willing heart
for the service of Christ is a blessing. Over in chapter 9,
He says this, You sow sparingly, you'll reap sparingly. He that
sows boundedly shall reap boundedly. Every man according as he...
Listen, purpose in his own heart, let him give. Whatever you purpose,
give what you purpose. Whatever God puts on your heart
to give, that's what you give. You give what God puts on your
heart to give. Why? For God loveth the cheerful
giver. And so let everyone, as the Lord
has supplied us, give on purpose, not grudgingly. If this is a stumbling block
to you, if you feel hard-hearted toward this and the gospel, then
don't give. Don't give. I remember Ananias and Sapphira.
You remember those two? They gave with a lying spirit. They lied to the Holy Spirit. They put on a show of giving. And you remember, they reserved
some from themselves. They pretended to give all, but
they reserved some for themselves. Because they sought the preeminence
in the church. They sought some power or privilege
in the church. And you remember what happened
to them. Peter said, look, it was yours. You didn't have to
give it. It was your possession. You could
have done with it as you pleased. The problem is, you gave and
lied to the Spirit about it. And God killed them and manifested
that they weren't true believers at all. And so believers, let us not
give out of duty. Not tithing. No such thing in
the New Testament church as tithing. You pay attention, if you all
tithe, you need quit. You need quit. We won't be able
to afford the light bill. We just won't. Give. How? As you have been given. Give. For what? The furtherance. The purpose
is the furtherance of the Gospel. The gifts of believers are to
be used for the preaching of the Gospel, for the furtherance
and the calling of God's elect. And pay attention, as you give,
God will give to you. Isn't that what Christ said?
Give and it shall be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down,
shaken together, running over shall men given to your bosom.
For with the same measure you meet with all, it shall be measured
to you." Now, men take that, and those liars, they'll try
to steal from people. The sheep have been sheared so
much, it's been cut to the bone by these fools who say, God,
you give God a dime, He'll give you $100. I do not doubt that God gives.
If you give, God will give you. I'm sure God will take care of
you. Believer, He will. He always has, physically. But
really, money is the least gift that God can give. So if we give,
what blessing, what return should we desire? Spiritual blessings. These are things that God pressed
down and running over, God gives to those who are givers. You remember that widow of Zarephath?
She's sitting out there. God commands Elijah, go on out
there, and I've commanded a widow. Now, she didn't know anything
about it. She didn't hear from God. She didn't hear a voice or anything,
and yet here he shows up, and he says this, Go fetch me some
water and make me a piece of bread. And she says, whoa, I'll
get you the water, but look, I've only got this little bit
of meal and oil left, and I was going to make a cake for me and
my son, and we're going to just die. We don't have anything else. Now, that's poverty, isn't it?
But the prophet said, you go make me one first, and bring
it to me, and then make for your son. You know, they did that
for three years. Three years. Now, I'm going to ask you something.
You suppose that was pleasant? Every morning, that woman had
to get up and make him one first out of that meal and oil. And
pray there was some left for her and her son. Yet, every day,
there was some left. Now, did her giving of this make
her exempt from trouble? No, her son died. Her son died. You suppose your generosity and
giving to the furtherance of the gospel is going to be without
loss. It's going to cost us. And the flesh will feel the pain. But you remember what happened.
Her son died and she received a greater blessing. What was
the greater blessing? Her sin was exposed. And her need of
a savior was revealed. The greater blessing! The greater
blessing was her salvation! And you know, God restored that
child to her as well. So did she not receive more than
she gave? You bet. So it is with us. We always will receive more than
what we gave and then let us see that our giving is to the
Lord It says in verse 5 and as they did as we not as we hoped
But first gave their own selves to the Lord and to us True givers give to the Lord
and look if you have a need and I give to you it really should
be to the Lord I'm doing this for the Lord. I am doing this
and for the grace of God, to display the mercies of God to
my fellow man, distributing to the necessity of the saints."
Now listen, this matter of giving, I know that many in this day
are looking for handouts. I know they are. I know people
do anything in the world to get the church to support them. A
lot of them are capable of working, and they don't. Now listen, the
Apostle said this, if a man doesn't work, he shouldn't eat. That's
just simple, isn't it? The church is not meant to give
handouts to people who are capable. We are meant to give to those
in need, to those who are lacking, to those who have great suffering. I think of some people that don't
work, they're just holding out for upper management. They're
too good to push a broom, too good. No, that's not what we're
talking about distributing to the wants. That's want. We're talking about necessity,
things that people need. clothes and food, things. Now
if a man's without a job in the church, we are to provide for
him until he's capable of doing such things. Women, widows, people
of necessity, we provide for them. And we do all this for what? For the furtherance of the gospel.
So that this gospel might be honored and not mocked. What kind of, do you suppose
if we weren't a giving people that this world would ever desire
to come and hear? No. We do it to honor our master. Distribute the necessity of the
saints. Let us take knowledge of this church. Let us follow
this church and give not out of our wealth but out of our
poverty for the glory of God. and this you've done this i commend
this church my family and i have not suffered
one not one thing that you have not provided that is commendable for this
congregation it is commendable And I'm telling you, it is a
grace, it's a gift that you're capable of giving. Let us be
thankful for it. May God cause us to grow in this
grace. For the glory of His name.