All right, brother, if you will,
let's turn to Matthew chapter six. This won't be my text, but
it'll be the first place we'll be looking at. Matthew chapter
six. I hope I can give you a gift
this morning. I worked pretty hard at it. I hope the Lord make you accept.
I want to give you a gift about giving. I want to give you a
gift about giving. I look back, I thought, I've
preached on giving several times. No, I haven't, unless I delete
the notes. I haven't taught you this yet.
I went through it. So a man taught me, and I thought,
I want to use his outline. That was a real good outline.
And then I got to studying, and there was a fellow older than
that man that taught me that had that same outline. And I
thought, hmm. Maybe it's a good one. Henry
did that a lot. He rehashed, as a fella accused
me one time, he rehashed Old Spurgeon as God taught him something.
And that truth was the same in Spurgeon's time. And I noticed
that Spurgeon, he got that from somebody else. And you know what?
It went all the way back, this outline, we ought to take note. That's why I hand out the bulletins,
got notes on the back. If you'd like to, write it down. If you
don't, that's okay. But maybe you can go back and listen to
the message. This goes all the way back to Paul. Paul gave us
this outline, and it goes back a little bit further than that.
That's where Paul got it from. This is a good one. I hope it's
a good gift to you. I put this off for a while, and
I thought, if the Lord gives us milk, and we hear that old,
old story, and we hear about our sin and cross, and that's
true, and that's right, and that's the basis of everything. It's
Him. He's all. But there's a little baby there
in the back that can't eat meat. She's got milk, don't she? Well,
there's another baby back there, you little fella. He can have
a little bit of solids, can't he? Start giving him some vegetables
and some meats. We've got to grow a little bit.
And I thought, what better time to preach on giving? What better
day of the year than today? What better time? Most false
preachers, they speak of giving often. And I've never met a faithful
God-sent man who has the Spirit with him that wasn't leery of
preaching on giving. We shouldn't be that way. The
Lord, He devotes two whole chapters to it and some over in 1 Corinthians
also. But in fact, every single message
we do preach on giving. We preach on what the Lord's
done for us, Him giving His Son for us, our need of Him giving
us something. That's every message, isn't it?
We just read that in Isaiah 9 for a scripture reading, unto us
a child is born. There was a human that showed
up, a body was made for him, but unto us a son was given. That's our gospels, something
was given, wasn't it? You reckon as faithful children
of God we ought to learn something about it? We have preconceived,
I know about that. No, we don't. God wouldn't waste
his time teaching us in his book and send us people to teach us.
That same message for a long time. We need to learn something. Grace is the source of giving. Did you know that? Giving is
a grace. That's the means of the motive.
That's the conduct which the Lord does it in this arena of
God-inspired, true giving. That's where it takes place.
It happens in a way of grace. People read there in Luke 6,
it says, give and it shall be given unto you. Good measure,
pressed down and shaken together and running over. Shall man give
unto your bosom, but with the same measure that ye meet withal,
it shall be measured to you again. People have a lot of, they know
a lot of scripture, and they don't understand a lick of it.
They don't know the gospel from a hole in the ground. Take that and
say, well, that's seed money, and if you give, you'll get more
back, and you'll get a better job, and it's hogwash. The Lord
may give you a better job. He may not. You may end up broke.
He said, I'll pour out blessings from heaven. He says, we'll pour
out gold-backed currency from heaven. He said, blessings. And that's why he said, man will
bless in your bosom. in your heart, not in your pocketbook.
That's where most people's love's right there in that pocketbook.
And they have all these other names that come up other than
covetous to call it. Oh, well, I'm this and I'm that.
No, you're covetous, God says so. The motive that is not of grace,
hear me, I should have preached this years ago. A motive of giving
that's not of grace is a false motive. What's the false? Now hear me,
and if the Lord applies this to us, it's just gonna hurt,
and that's okay. He's chasing us. He's gonna teach us something.
He's gonna keep us as He's promised He will. We gotta learn these
things. Giving is a grace. Well, anything that's not a grace
that's giving, it's a false motivation. And what are those? I'll give
you three of them. Duty. You gotta give at your duty,
and you got to. That's law, isn't it? We have
to. The other one is praise. Any
kind of reward. People praise you, you get your
name on something, quid pro quo. I give this, you give that. It's
an investment. That's wrong. It's not out of
duty. It's not out of some type of getting something back, a
reward, or out of fear. If you don't do this, God's gonna
make your mortgage rate go up and increase your fire insurance.
No, the Lord's people are, I've seen that happen too, use something
as a whip, like look what we did, you ought to be doing more.
That is wrong, that's sinful and God won't bless it. It's
not out of duty, it's not out of praise, reward, quid pro quo,
and it's not out of fear. Duty, the tithe, right? Everybody
knows tithe. There should be a tithe of all
the land and the Lord said everything. You gonna give me the firstfruits
of everything that's mine. Whatever breaks the matrix of
the womb, that's mine. Hannah knew that, didn't she?
Here's Sam, you'll take him. But giving, the grace that God
gives us to give, is not driven by duty. Love does not have a
formula to adhere to. This isn't driven by need. Well,
what do you need? If y'all married, you go home
to your wives, it's Christmas. You say, I'm gonna get you a
gift. Now, what do you need? I wouldn't eat her pie if she made you one.
She made poison. Is that love? That's not love. There was a preacher one time,
went and preached to a group of people, and they said, we
want to call him to be our pastor. And they sat around. There's about
five of them. And they said, what do you need? He kind of
took it back, because he wasn't used to hearing these kind of
things. And they said, well, I need whatever you need. Like,
how much it cost you to live is how much it cost me to live.
And they said, well, yeah, but what do you need? Wise, a wise
man. He said, you know what? I got
an idea. There's five of you and one of me. Let's put everything
we got in a big pot, and we'll split it six ways. They didn't call him to be their
pastor. And guess what? There's not a gospel work in
that city right now. Hadn't been. Love doesn't say what you need.
There's not a formula to adhere to. That's the letter of the
law. That's stoic. That's cold. And we'll see later. That's without
purpose. If we tithe, that's just math. You're not purposing
in your heart. To follow a tithe is contrary
to grace. I ain't got to these eight words
I'm gonna give you yet, but I gotta load this gun. I gotta tell you
what it ain't. Following a tithe is contrary
to grace. It is completely void of love
and compassion. It's just routine. It's just
math. It's just math. It's saying what must I do, not
what can I do? What's the minimum I gotta do
to get by, not can we do more? We gave a bunch of money last
year to some other places. That was a lot, Kevin. Could we do
more? You see the difference in attitude?
There was a treasurer that walked with some apostles, didn't he?
And he was covetous of that money. Name was Judas. I don't want
to be that way. I want to give. It's wrong for
duty. It's wrong for praise, record,
and sin. That's a whip in verse two, isn't it? People read Proverbs
three, they say, honor the Lord with thy substance, with thy
firstfruits. Don't matter what they need,
you just give it, because you want to, to him. Of all thine
increases, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy
precious shall burst out with new wine. They'll say, outside
of grace, if you do this, you'll get something in reward. That's
wrong. That's quid pro quo. That's not grace. That's not
grace. That's an investment plan. This
for that, without grace is the motivation that's wrong. It's
not giving to the Lord, it's giving to get. What about praise
as a reward? You know, Matthew six, look here
in verse one, Matthew six, verse one. Take heed that you do not your
arms before me and don't let anybody see what you're given
to be seen of them. Well, here's what you want me,
my family did. Don't tell me that. Oh, we was
planning on doing this. I've done this before. La, la,
la, la. I don't want to hear it. I ain't
equipped to hear that. He said, don't you do it be seen
to men. Otherwise you have no reward of your father, which
is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not
sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues
and in the street, that they may have glory of men. Verily
I say unto you, they have their reward. If you want to give something
big to the gospel or somebody in the church or something like
that, and you want people to know about it, you just got your
reward. That's all you're gonna get.
It's the praise of men, not the praise of God. Used to, and I've
talked about this when we quit passing a plate and we got a
box in the back. The history of that, I like the history of
it. I married a woman that's a historian. We have good talks. Used to, they would sell pews.
If you buy a pew, after separation of church and state, and the
state didn't fund the church no more, they'd lock the door. Ain't
nobody leaving until we get X amount of dollars. Or you could buy
a pew, you put your name on it, We'll send you a little card,
you make a pledge card, and you pledge to do it, we'll put your
name on the wall. Or they had little bags on the end of sticks,
and they'd shove it underneath your nose, make you feel guilty.
Make you feel like you have some fear in it, doesn't it? The Lord will not support His
work through guilt, reward, or coercion. He'll either do it
through grace, not through food stamps. Not through somebody
else doing it or the handouts of some other false church. It
ain't going to happen. He does it through grace. Not
coercion, not reward, and not guilt. You ain't gonna guilt
somebody into giving because you gave more. God ain't gonna
bless it. He does it by grace, by His grace. By us seeing how gracious He
is, putting love in our hearts, and then us wanting to do something.
Not driven to do something, drawn to do something. And then we
get the privilege to do that. Down to verse 16, Matthew 6.
Fasting is doing without, right? We get that? We always think
of food and water and all that, but that could be money too.
Did you know that? You can have a fast of money. I know what
that feels like. We could have a fast of self.
We could do without tending to ourselves and our comfort. And
are you telling me I gotta do something? We could have a fast
of time. Instead of me having all my free
time, maybe I could give up my time. We could have a fast of
prayer for others. Stop praying for ourselves and
looking out for our own good and praying for somebody else.
We could have a fast of bearing burdens. Instead of me just telling
everybody about my burden and bellyaching all the time, maybe
I could carry their burden. Let me put that in my backpack
for a little while. long-suffering, instead of me just being insufferable,
maybe I could suffer long. That'd be a fast, wouldn't it?
I hope the Lord teaches here. Look here in verse 16. Moreover,
when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they
disfigure their faces. Oh, that's so sad. That's what
he's saying. He's mocking them. They ought
to be mocked. They disfigure their faces, that they may appear
to men to fast. Look how sorrowful I am. Look
how heavy my burden is on me. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward." And when everybody's feeling sorry for him, that's
all they're going to get. But thou, he speaks to his children.
When you fast of money, it feels like you're starving to death
from the word of God, and you're just in the deepest, darkest depression
you've ever seen, or of time, or of food, or whatever. When
you fast, anoint thy head and wash thy face. You get cleaned
up and go services. That thou appear not unto men
to fast, but unto thy father, which is in secret. And thy father,
which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. I knew a
lady laboring one time tremendously for the furtherance of the gospel
and was getting anything but praise and reward. This is the
opposite. And a faithful old believer told
her, I said, you ain't just doing this for people. You're doing
this to the Lord. This is unto the Lord. I want to have a message
of reconciliation, but if it's a message of condemnation, it
don't matter to me and the message don't change. The same thing
I gotta say, I gotta say. To give something in return,
that's not love. It's not grace. Duty, not grace. Reward, not
grace. And fear. Fear. We know what
this text says. The Master's given us understanding
concerning them. But sometimes people take a text
and they use it to whip people. And they say, well, a man robbed
God, Malachi 3. You've robbed me. But you say,
where have we robbed thee? And he says, in tithes and offerings.
You're accursed with a curse for you have robbed me, even
this whole nation. Oh no. That's quid pro quo, isn't
it? Also, but scary. That's the negative
side of it. Instead of planting a seed and
getting something in return, that's not planting a seed and not getting
something in return. That's not motivation to give. I want to
be clear. I want to be as clear as I can. We are saved or we are damned
by works. Hang with me. Either we stand
in our own works and what we did and what we didn't do and
the duty and reward and all this stuff, and we perish forever,
or we live in the person and the work of Christ and what He's
done. And we have a new heart in Him
that He's given us and we're born again. And then we have
the motive of gracious love. It's one of the two. Either there's
a new creation in us that's gonna live forever, or there ain't.
Just like man preaching the gospel. Either the man preaches the gospel
or he don't. Ain't no in between. It's just so. We need the Lord
to teach us how to love. Like we looked last hour, the
Lord's going to teach us how to talk and how to walk. And we need
to be taught how to pray. And we need to be taught a lot
of things. But you know what? We need to be taught how to give
too. He gave. We're going to be lucky. We're
going to have to learn how to give. How to give? I need to know how to give. I
need to know when to give. I was taught that by, there was
a, she, my mother, I'll tell you, she's gone, Lord now, and
my father, he's gone too. Boy, what examples I had how
to give and when to give. One time I said, I'm gonna buy
a whole mess of air conditioners and send them somewhere. Mom
said, that ain't a good idea, don't you do that. If them people want
air conditioners for their pastors, they need to do it. And I thought,
well, okay, I'll just hush and try to learn something. About
five years later, I learned a lesson she was teaching me. And you
know what happened? A church called me and said, can you come
put an air conditioner in for us? I said, I'll be down there tomorrow. I got
to do it anyway. Lord was gracious, wasn't he?
Well, we need to be taught how to give, when to give. We need
to be taught why to give. Why do we give? Well, it's what
we do. No, it ain't. That's duty. We're to give for
his glory. We ain't giving to the church.
You ain't giving to the pastor. You're giving to God. It's his. Somebody
says, well, 10% is mine, or 10% is his, 90% is the Lord. You
got it all messed up. It's 100% his. It's 100% his. And we give it to his glory and
for the furtherance of the gospel. And what's that? That's the betterment
of the saints. 486 people downloaded, or messages
were downloaded in Switzerland last month from this place. That's
you supporting this gospel. We preach Christ. a whole mess
of them, Iowa, all over the place, all over this world. And all that's to the praise
of our Redeemer. Now in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, let's turn over there. 2 Corinthians 8. Both of these chapters are given
to us to teach us something about giving. With that, there is no
reason for any of us to be ill-informed or to be ignorant about this
subject. There ain't no excuse for us to be dumb when it concerns
us. We ought to know exactly what
it says. And believers that have a new spirit in them, they're
made teachable. They want to be. Do you want to learn? I want
to learn how to serve God, don't you? I want them to teach me.
Do you want to be taught? And believers, they want to be
well taught, and they are well taught in this area. And I want
to give you eight words. This is as old as 2 Corinthians
chapter 8. This outline. I want to give
you eight words, and if you want to write them down, take them
home and study them. Be like the Bereans. See if I'm lying
to you. and not hand-pack the preacher, okay? This ain't sharpshoot
and stump the chump. See if this is what it says.
I gave it Book of Dawns. I think he covers it too, but
write these down. Study them at home. Go learn what this means.
This is what God says we are going to give and how to to honor
him. I want to know about that, do
you? Paul writes to Corinth, and he tells them about how abundant
Macedonia gave, and they were poor. Corinth was rich. That
place was expensive. Macedonia was poor. But God gave
them liberty, and he gave them power, and they made Paul take
this abundant gift to minister to the saints. They said, here,
we're gonna provide for you going around preaching. And he said, I ain't
gonna take it. And they said, yes, you are.
Make him take it. And the Lord gave him liberty
and power to do so, and he made them. And so they gave their
selves to the Lord, the scripture says, and after they gave themselves
to the Lord, they gave to Paul and Silas. Now here in verse
eight, or verse five, 2 Corinthians 8, verse five. And this they
did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the
Lord. That has to happen first. The Lord has to draw us to him,
and unto us by the will of God. This is something God does. Well,
we're the mains. Yeah, you're the mains. You're
the tool. He's the craftsman. We're his workmanship. This is
God. This is how he works. I will
watch him work. Now verse seven, here's our first word, grace.
Grace. Therefore, he's talking about
what Macedonia did. He was talking there to Corinth.
He said, therefore, as ye abound in everything, in faith, and
in utterance, and in knowledge, and in all diligence, and in
your love to us. Oh, that's grace, isn't it? The
Lord's to work that and do that in us. See that ye abound in
this grace also. This is important, God says it
is. He gives a warning, he said, you better be, this is dangerous.
That means it's dangerous. He said, see that you abound
in this grace? This is a grace, and we want to abound in it.
Paul says, God was gracious to you in everything. He gave you
utterance in preaching, in supporting missionary works and sending
people out, make sure this gospel goes forth. In knowledge, he
gave you doctrine, and in biblical knowledge and wisdom, and being
diligent. Fervent for the gospel of Christ, hardworking, labor,
industrious people. God was gracious to you in love.
He came to you and he shed his love abroad in your hearts. That's pretty gracious. He gave
us his son who was God is love. He came to us and did that. Now,
with all that in mind, everything he's done for you, Coriam, see
that you bound in this grace also. Giving is a grace. It's a grace. Just like the grace
of God's love towards us, just like that gracious gift of faith
he gives us to believe the faith of Christ, to believe in Christ,
his unmerited favor, that's what grace is, we didn't do nothing
to get it, in redemption. He bought us, we're bought with
a price. Christ shed his blood for us. Giving, just like those
things, is a grace of God too. And he does it. There is no such
thing as a person who is truly born again that's not a giver. That's so. Because they're made
in his likeness. They have Christ dwell in them.
He's a giver. He makes us givers. Those to
whom God has been merciful, what are they? Merciful. Those whom God's been, he's just
suffered long with me. That'll make me what? Long-suffering. Not short-tempered, not acting
like a little kid, like a teenager. It makes me long-suffering. We
look through all those fruits of spirit. The ones that the
spirit to us is love. He puts that spirit in us to
love. He's loved us, we're loving. If he's made joy in us, we're
joy. Peace cools cucumber, cools the other side of the pillow.
Long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Paul says, against such there's
no law. Do that all you want. Forgive all you want. Suffer
long, as long as you want. Knock yourself out. You want
to serve God? Here you go. Get after it. And those things
God has given, he's given his son for us. Isn't that right? Those that he's given his son
for, they give. John wrote, he said, Beloved,
let us love one another for God, for love is of God and everyone
that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not
knoweth not God. That's a strong statement, Kevin.
That's a strong statement the Lord said. If they don't love,
they're not tender hearted, they're tender hearted in them, they
don't know God. for God is love. In this was manifest the love
of God towards us. Because that God sent his only begotten son
into the world that we might live through him. He gave his
son, only son, that he loves. How he worded it from Abraham
to Isaac, wasn't it? Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we ought, the words of debt of gratitude, we ought also to love
one another. What an easy thing that is. It's
called natural. It's instinct to the new man.
You can't keep from it. Don't love your daughter. You
don't love your son. You can act like it for a little bit,
you can't keep from it. It's in us. Shouldn't we love? Should a child of God forgive
others? Should we suffer long? Should we bear burdens? Shouldn't
we give? Shouldn't we give? Giving is
not just money. That flesh, that's carnal. I said that the other day about,
oh, you better off now than you was four years ago. Does your
mind go to fleshly things? Well, no, my back hurts more.
I ain't talking about the carnal. I'm talking about the spirit.
Ain't God taught us something and grew us and established us
and gave us peace more than he did back then? Everybody talks
about giving, they think of money. It ain't just money. Money's
the easiest thing on earth to get. It's just a legal tender.
All it is is a representation of me changing time, effort,
or something else. That's all it is. It's just a
marker. Make it wood. It don't make a difference, whatever
it is. It's just a representation of my time and effort and all
those things. Well, what's time effort that I have that's honoring
to the Lord? In Matthew 25, he didn't say
nothing about money. He says, the king shall say to
them on his right hand, come, you blessed of my father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungered and you gave me meat. I was thirsty and you
gave me drink. Well, ain't you gotta buy meat?
You could hunt it. We ate deer meat those days, it was delicious.
Well, what about, you gotta buy a bottle of water. This is the
only generation, our forefathers would laugh at us for buying
water. Just go get it. I was a stranger, you took me
in. I could be in a tent or a house or whatever. He was compassionate
because I took you in. Naked, and you clothed me. I
was sick, and you visited me. You just checked on me. Well,
it's my old faithful brother so-and-so. When was the last
time you talked to him? Six months ago. Well, you ain't that close. I was in prison, and you came
to me. What did I answer? Lord, when
will we see you in any of these things? We never saw you in prison and
sick. He's in a great position. What
are you talking about? King answered, said, Verily I say unto you,
inasmuch as you've done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you've
done it unto me. Who are we forgiving? Are we
really forgiving them? Is that an act we're doing? That's
what happens because we've done, he's done it to us. Are we really
giving to somebody else? We're giving to the Lord. Are
we giving to San Diego Grace Fellowship whenever we make an
offer in that little box with a hole in the top of it in the
back? No, we're giving to the Lord. And it ain't out of duty,
it ain't out of fear, it ain't out of quid pro quo. because
of grace and because of love. Love. Verse 8. That's the next
word. First word, grace. Second word,
love. 2 Corinthians 8, verse 8. I speak not by commandment,
but by occasion of the forwardness of others, to prove the sincerity
of your love. You practice the grace of giving.
Not by commandment, not by math, but by love. And that proves
how sincere the love of Christ is in you. I ain't give no more
of that. Well, then don't. If you're still
under bondage, do that. Your generosity out of love will
prove the love of Christ in you. Ordering you to give would not
be grace. Paul said, I speak not by commandment. That ain't
grace. I'm not making you do this. For me to set an amount
of money, you've got to give. That's not grace. He says, just
do it in love. Do whatever's in your heart to
do. This is not what we love. This has to do with who we love.
Look in verse nine. For ye know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ that Though he was rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. That
elder served the younger. Saw it last hour too, didn't
we? He had to be made poor so we could be blessed. He had to
be made sin so we could be made his righteousness of God in him. Love is what led the father to
give Christ. This isn't legal. This isn't
doctrine. This isn't armchair theology. Love did it. Love. He said, for God so loved
the world, he gave. He gave his only begotten son.
It was love that calls the son to give himself. He said, I'm
the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. How much does that cost? It ain't got nothing to do with
money, does it? He gave his life for the sheep. He said, even as the
Father knoweth me, even as the Father loves me, even so I know
the Father. The way the Father loves me is
how I love the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. It's
cause of love. Love. He gave his life because of love.
That's gracious, isn't it? The biblical way, the scriptural,
God-honoring way to give is from a heart of love. That's it. Paul said, though I bestow all
my goods to feed the poor. That's not tithing. That's all.
A double L. If I give everything I got to
feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, if I lay
down my life and I don't have charity, I don't have love. That's
what charity means. Charity means love. That's pounding
in my head. I don't know if I'm pounding it in your head. I hope
I do. Charity means love. If I don't have love in doing
this, it profiteth me nothing. Nothing. You can hand out all
the soup kitchens you want to. If you ain't doing it because
Christ loved you first, it don't matter nothing. Giving is a grace. Giving is motivated from a love
for Christ. What's the next word? It says
in verse 12, 2 Corinthians 8, 12. If there be first a willing
mind, love, not need, and firstfruits, Why on earth would I give my
firstfruits without knowing the need? What's the need of us to
give our firstfruits? Want. Willingness. Willingness. If there first be a willing mind,
it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according
to that he hath not. Not grudgingly, not because we have to, not because
we want to get a reward or out of fear, but willingly. I want
to. There's a lady that sends me
a check every month. She's older, and I said, you ain't gonna do
that. She might be listening to this. I told her, I said,
you stop that. I don't need that. And she says, I can and I want
to. Now you take it. Just like those at Macedonia
did to Paul. Now we can and we want to. The Lord gave this to
us. Now you posh and take it. He's giving it to you. What's
the scripture say? God loveth a cheerful giver. Cheerful giver. He didn't give
his son just because he had to, but out of love he wanted to.
He was willing. That's what that kinsman redeemer
had to be, wasn't it? Had to be related, had to be
able, and had to be willing. Willing to redeem us. Us Moabitesses. I have a cursed land and a cursed
generation from our cursed great-great-grandpa. He willingly did that. Willingly
laid down his life. Willingly is the only way God
will receive it. It says the amount does not matter. You give
according to a man hath, not what he doesn't have. Christ
willingly laid down his life. He had. He is life. And he laid down his life for us. That body that was prepared
for him, he willingly laid it down. Willingly. And he had it
to lay down. That's something. It says, according
to a man hat, don't you ever sign a pledge card. Don't you
ever say what God's going to do or might do, or here's what
I want to do down the future. He ain't done that yet. It ain't
what you're going to have. It's what you have right now. And
if you ain't got it, don't worry about it. A fellow came up to
me one time. He said, man, I don't know if
I can give this month. I lost my job. And I said, well, don't give.
The Lord didn't increase you. It's that easy. If the Lord was
concerned about the money, he'd have kept your job. He ain't
concerned about the money. It's all his anyway. Willingly. pledging to say what we're gonna
do, and we ought to purpose things, but to declare we're gonna do
something, that's sinful, it ain't good. It's according to
what a man has, not what he's gonna have. And however much
that may be, more or less, it must be willing in that day.
But that's for that day, according to a man hath. Not according
to he hath not. I can't promise something I don't
have. The Lord's the giver of life.
He's promised life, he has it to give. You see how it's all
dictated on him? We gotta know him first, don't
we? Portion. That's the next one. Look back at 1 Corinthians
16. 1 Corinthians 16, verse 2. It says, upon the first day of the
week, Let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered
him. We give in proportion to what
God's given us. Who maketh thee to differ? The
Lord makes us to differ, don't he? John the Baptist said this,
that a man can receive nothing except it be given for him from
heaven. What if I give to the Lord, not the church, not the
pastor, not even my brethren, but I give to him? It's going
to be in proportion to what the Lord gave me. and it's given
to him. Paul said in Colossians 3, Whatsoever
ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men. Not
unto men. We give in proportion as he hath
prospered us. Those that have more, they can
give more, and they want to give more, because they know it's
the Lord that gave the increase. And those that have less, they
give less. And when I had less to give, I asked the Lord, I
like giving. Can you give me more to give?
Can I pray more? Can I have more time suffering
long? Can I bear the burdens of my
brethren more? What's money? Do you see that, all these fruits
of the spirit? That's just money. He gave me money. I was able
to give more. When I'm able to give more, I ask the Lord to
increase me more so I can give more. And you know what? He's
faithful every time I've done it. Peace, faith, what can I do more? That's
love, isn't it? Or like, eh, eh, I don't want
to do that. I've done enough. That's not
love. Love wants to do, love does something. I've told you
that 500 times. Love does something, and it wants to do something.
It has a desire to do something. Me and a friend of mine was talking
to each other the other day. Somebody told him he was on a fixed income.
It was in passing. And I thought, you know, everybody's on a fixed
income. Everybody's on fixed income. You got what you got.
You ain't got more than you got, and you ain't got less than you
got. It's fixed for that day. Now tomorrow might be more, tomorrow
might be less. But it's fixed. It's what the Lord's prospered
you. That's it. Might change, but that's all
you got. And if the Lord grows us in grace, and he grows us
in this love, and makes us willing, we grow. don't we? And he gives
us more to handle. That's scriptural too. Not like
I've done enough, I've finished the course, I've run a good race,
and I'm 30. I retired at 35, partially. If we had moved someplace
cheap, I wouldn't have had to work again. I'm 35. God's put
me on this earth. I'm gonna work till I can't.
I'm gonna preach till I can't. That's acceptable, isn't it?
That was the parable of the talents. That Lord said unto him, said,
well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful
over a few things. I will. What's God going to do?
If he makes you faithful over a few things, I will make thee
rule over many things. Lord, let me do that. And he
let me do a little bit more, and it's all his doing. I want to
do. I'm able to preach to all you
people this morning. Do you think I want the Lord for me to preach
to 200 people? 2,000 people? 2 million people? It's his doing. Don't you want
to grow? I want to grow. I want the Lord
to use me. I'm his. He bought me. I don't
want to sit there and twiddle my thumbs. That's what old brother Spurgeon
said. You all know it, right? What's the key to Spurgeon's
success of his ministry? My people pray for me. Do you
think of people sitting around twiddling their thumbs in their
basement going, well, we love old brother Spurgeon. No, they promoted
the man. The penny press, and you go on,
people was down there, two of them would go take shorthand
notes while he preached, because they didn't have recording devices.
And then they would compare their shorthand notes, and then they
would type it out long form, like some old Gutenberg printing
press or something. Mining their P's and their Q's. They'd get
them backwards. And they promoted that man, because
that was God's man sent to them. They loved their pastor, and
they wanted other people to hear their pastor preach. They wanted it to grow,
too. And God blessed it, didn't he?
We're not taxpayers. Do you understand that? We're
sons and daughters. He says there in verse 13, back
in 2 Corinthians 8, verse 13, he said, for I may not, remember
we was talking about proportion, as God increased us, for I may
not that other men be eased and ye burdened. Well, I just don't
wanna, that's toxic out there now, and this world's getting
worse, and this Egypt's getting worse, and this Moab we're living in
is getting worse, but now you do it, you go work your hiney
in on it. Paul said, I'm not having other people be eased
and you be burdened. You ain't gotta carry this whole thing
on your shoulders. but by equality, equality, that now at this time,
your abundance may be a supply for their want, and that their
abundance also may be a supply for your want, that there may
be equality. There's a blessing to give as
it is received. There's a blessing on both ends, isn't there? Not
that one's eased and the other one's burdened. The Lord gives
each of us differently. He gives each of us, whether
it's a work ethic, love, strong backs, whatever it is, but it's
all His. It's all His. 100% of it's His. If it's all His, if He's given
me two biscuits and five fishes, five sardines, What do I care
if you have two biscuits? Here, have a biscuit. Have two
and a half sardines. It's fine. The Lord gave it to
me. He'll give me more. That's faith. That woman gave
the two mites. It wasn't that she gave all she
had. That's what the Lord said. She gave all she had and believed
in God. This is it. He gave it to me in the first
place. If he wants to, he'll give it to me again. And what he does is
right. That's faith, that's believing God. If we believe God, he's
gonna teach us and make us willing in this grace and this love.
It's the Lord's vineyards, it's his harvest, we just work here.
We're just servants. Here's the next word, everyone.
It said back in 1 Corinthians 16, upon the first day of the
week, let every one of you lay by him in store. That's not just
the rich, but the poor too. Not just the old, but the young.
Not just the young, but the old. See how I said that backwards?
Not just you of working age, if you're outside of working
age, whether young or old. Not just the men, but the women.
Every believer. This is a giver. And something's
God given to them for them to share. Everybody's been given
something. Like I said, this ain't just legal tender. This
is time, money, prayer, long-suffering. I'll save it to the end. I'm
not saying you're going to do it. Do it. The woman gave more than
them all, but the amount's not important, is it? This is a grace.
This is from love. This is a willing trust in the
Savior to sustain us as he's promised he will. And if that's
the case, it's going to be liberally. The son trusted the father, didn't
he? That's his obedience. His obedience is our obedience.
It was perfect. I won't be like that. I won't
trust him. And it's liberal. Look here in
2 Corinthians 9, verse 6. But this I say, he which soweth
sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully
shall reap also bountifully. He gives us the picture of a
farmer. Something we can understand. That's plainness of speech, isn't
it? God fed me. It ain't fancy. It's not complicated
speech, words. It gives us a picture of the
farmer. The more seed you throw out, the more crops come up.
Isn't it? God has sowed his word liberally
among this nation. There's a great revival in San
Diego County right now. There's a great revival in Malawi,
and in the Philippines we was preaching last night, and Australia,
because how many people deserve to be saved? God's poured out
his blood liberally on us, hasn't he? Covered all of our sins,
removed them all as far as the east is from the west. So why
wouldn't we sow more? If a farmer gets that, like I
want corn to grow and I never let go of the corn. It ain't
gonna germinate in my hand and pop up and go through all the
V stages of corn growth and not gonna eat a kernel of corn. It's
gotta be broadcast. We gotta have an open hand. People
said, let me hold a dollar. That's how you used to, when
I was a kid, they'd ask for money. That's all you're doing is holding
it. It ain't yours, you can't ingest it. Just happen to be carrying
it right now. We just hold money and things
and family. I have talents. God gave me five
talents, that woman and them four children. I'm just hoping
they're his, they're his. Job said that the Lord gave,
the Lord take away, blessed be the name of the Lord. He doubled
everything he had, but he had the same amount of children at
the end. No, he still had the first amount. This is real important, let's
stick with it, okay? God's gonna teach us something. His liberality, that's what I'm
trying to tell you. That's impressive to me. I'm
awestruck. A sinner like me, God would abundantly,
exceedingly pardon and give me life everlasting in the nature
I can't stand to be conformed to image his son. I'm poppin'. I'm poppin'. That baby in the back, David,
if I hold your baby after service is over, is that baby mine? You
got two fists to say it ain't, yeah. That's ridiculous. If the Lord's given me something,
my wife, my children, all those things, it's His. It's His. Now,
I may have to hold it, not drop it, and do the best I can with
the knowledge He's given me to adhere to it. He's a God of means. But it's his, it's his. A farmer
holds that seed in his hand, it's never gonna spring up, it's
never gonna ripen, it's never gonna feed anybody if it stays in his
hand. And the Lord tells us to broadcast this gospel. Do we
hide it underneath, do you just stay up on a mountain all the
time? And maybe we'll put a little Facebook post every now and then,
or we're gonna put our shoulder to it and get this gospel out there
so people can hear it. I got brothers and sisters out there.
And if not, Christ's name, His glory needs to be proclaimed
whether they're my brothers or sisters or not. I want to do all I can,
liberally, with everything in me. I want to give myself to
the word as I'm commanded to do so, so I can preach the word
and prove myself faithful. God has to do that, and I want
him to do it in me. Money, yes. That's just paid. Somebody's got to pay that lot
bill. You can sit around and be like, well, let's just wait
on the Lord for that lot bill to get paid now. That's just money. What
about mercy, wisdom? I want wisdom. Kindness. I want to tell about Christ by
wisdom. I want to tell about Christ who was kind to me. Tenderness,
love. We sow in faith, trusting our
Father, and he's the Lord of the harvest. It says in verse
six, 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 purposeth in his heart, so let him give,
not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver.
And God is able to make all grace abound towards you. Purpose,
that's the next word. Purpose. Let every man according
as he purposeth in his heart. If we tithe, we don't purpose.
It's just math, right? There's nothing in our hearts. We're just following accounting. But when the Lord puts it in
our heart, like, you know, I've been thinking about them a lot. I think we
can really help him out, whatever it is. For a tape ministry somewhere,
or to support somebody traveling. Somebody paid for Don's plane
tickets all over his nation and world. And we found out who it
was after they died, but put it in our hearts. God puts it
in our hearts to purpose it. Should we purpose to do this?
He says to. Did he purpose to save us? Or
was it just math? He purposed to do it, didn't
He? All things work together for good, then we called Him,
or He is on purpose. He saved us on purpose, in the
heart, willingly, out of love, out of ability the Lord gave,
out of liberality. You know what? Let's do this,
this, and that. We just did it. Somebody might go rewind this.
You know what we did. We took a check to somebody that
needed it. And boy, did they need it. And I didn't even know
they needed it. And then they said, I really needed this. And you
did that. We all pitched in together and we took it to them. Purpose. Purpose. Let's do it. Let's go
visit somebody. Let's write a letter. Let's give
a call. Let's pray for somebody. Let's provide for a missionary
work. I want to. I want to get this gospel out
of here. If it's laid on your heart to help those that are
the widows of faithful pastors, That's a purpose in your heart,
isn't it? That's not 10%. Purpose. What if God only shed
his blood for 10% of your sins? There's still grace in that,
even God's faithful preacher sent after his own heart. That's
12 tribes of Israel. The Levites had to live off of
that. And so that's 11 left. 11 given 10%, that's 110%. Even
his law is wonderful. Even his majestic law, it's gracious. It's built right in there. Peter was talking to Ananias,
and he said, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy
Ghost to keep back part of the price of lamb? Remember Anastasius
said, well, it's usually if you want to sell it, sell it, it's
your business. But they said, oh, we sold it, and we're going
to further it to the gospel, we're going to help the church
out, and they gave some money. And Peter knew that they'd lied about it. And he said, why Satan filled
you to do that? That's so, he said, you've lied
to the Holy Ghost. Peter didn't say you've lied
to me, because that's who you give to, the Lord. She said, while
it remained, was it not your own? Whenever you owned it and
after it was sold, was it not in our power? You could do anything
you want with that. It's gotta be willing. And now
has convinced this thing in thy heart. You've conceived it in
your heart. Ananias' purpose was to sell that and make himself
look good, like he gave a whole bunch to the church and it was
a lie. He lied to the Holy Ghost. It wasn't just Peter and everybody
else. They seen it. They sinned against God. That's what he's
saying. Against thee and thee only have I sinned. He didn't
know that yet, Peter was telling him. He said, you can conceive
this in your own heart. Thou hast not lied unto men,
but unto God. I want the Lord to give me purpose to serve him
and for it to be truly for Christ and for my brethren. And this
giving's performed in and of means and people, but it's unto
the Lord. It's unto the Lord. All that,
everything he's done for us and everything he purposed to do
for us, Is this just something on a piece of paper, or did he
do it? We're about there in John. Is it finished? He said he came
to do his father's work. Did he do it? He did it. I know
it's super simple. Here's the last word. Perform.
Perform. Now do it. Do it. 2 Corinthians 8 verse 11. Now therefore, perform the doing
of it. Do it. Money? Yeah, whatever, money. Be merciful.
Forgive. Have sound wisdom. Long-suffering. Love one another. Be kind to
one another. Be tender to one another. Don't just talk about
doing it. Do it. Well, it'd be nice if
we did this. Do it. Brother Mahan said that,
Paul Mahan. He said somebody was telling
him, he said, well, the church ought to do this. He said, who you think a church
is? That's you. Do it. I would say if you wanna paint
this wall red, don't paint this wall red, okay? We'll try to
keep our walls the same color. Do it, perform it, get after
it. Has the Lord been gracious? Did
he do it in love? Was our kinsman redeemer willing?
Did he give the right proportion as our propitiation? Was his
blood applied liberally? Did he save by accident or did
he save on purpose? And did he perform it? He did. I wrote this down the
other day. Don't normally do this, but I'm
going to turn to Romans 12. Verse one. Look at chapter 11, verse 36.
Speaking of Christ, Romans 11, 36, for of him and through him
and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. I beseech you, therefore, brethren,
therefore, Brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is
your reasonable service. This ain't hard, this ain't,
I can't believe he'd say something like that. The Lord's revealed
this to us, this is reasonable. I'm mad at somebody, well get
over it. You was enemies against God and
he forgave you, so that's right, I forgot about that. Maybe I
ain't so mad after all. performing. It's reasonable.
Reasonable service, isn't it? And then we think of today, this
whole nation getting ready to celebrate Christmas. Was it reasonable for him to
come to us? It seems unreasonable. He would die for somebody like
me, and live for me, and die for me, and be punished for me,
forsaken for me, and be risen for me, and intercede for me.
But then we go back to the beginning, don't we? Boy, that's gracious.
That's in love. He did that willingly. Oh, it
was abundant. It was abundant. That's something, man. That beats
a baby in a manger, don't it? Little trinkets. I pray the Lord
be with you and your families this week, and no midweek service.
Enjoy the time with your families, time off from work and time off
from school. And Lord, we'll meet again next
Sunday, and we'll finish out this year meeting together, so
thank you.