Early in the morning, our song
shall rise to thee. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and
mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, all the saints
adore thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy
sea. Cherubim and Seraphim falling
down before thee, which wert and art and evermore shalt be. Holy, holy, holy, though the
darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may
not see. Only Thou art holy, there is
none beside Thee, perfect in power, in love and purity. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. All thy works shall praise thy
name in earth and sky and sea. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and
mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Please be seated. Good morning. I love that hymn. That is our prayer every time
we come together, that the Lord will be pleased to do for us
what he did to Isaiah. In the year that King Uzziah
died, Israel was in a very bad place in the year the King Uzziah
died. He died in shame, and Isaiah
went to church to plead for the Lord's mercy. And he was afraid
that God would leave them to themselves. And the rest of that
verse in Isaiah chapter six, verse one says, in the year the
king Uzziah died, I also saw the Lord. There's his hope. And there's our hope. Our fear is that the Lord would
leave us to ourselves and we are in a mess, but when we come
to this place, our hope and our prayer is that we will also,
in addition to that problem, see the Lord. High and lifted
up. And the seraphim hovered over
his throne, and each of them had six wings, and with two they
covered their eyes, and with two they covered their feet,
and with two they did fly. And they cried one unto the other,
holy, holy, holy. It's the Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth is filled with
his glory. If the Lord is pleased to bless
us like he did Isaiah, we will leave this place with the same
spirit that Isaiah had when he left church that day. He said,
Lord, here am I. Here am I, send me. Would you open your Bibles with
me to the 20th chapter of Acts, Acts chapter 20. Let's go to our Lord in prayer,
ask his blessings. Our heavenly Father, we come
into thy holy presence thanking you that we have an advocate.
We have a sin bearer. We have a substitute. One who
stands in our stead, presenting to you his righteousness. Lord,
his perfect work of redemption on our behalf. Lord, we pray
that you would give us eyes of faith that we might set our affections
also on things above where Christ is seated at thy right hand,
that we would find him to be our all in all. Lord, that you
would bless us in the mess that we're in, the mess of our own
sin, the conflicts of this world, and Lord, all the uncertainties
that you would cause us to bow before Thee and to find our rest
and our hope and all of our salvation in Your sovereign grace. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. In Acts chapter 20, the Apostle
Paul is summarizing his instructions, if you will, his
admonitions, his encouragement to the elders of the churches
around the area of Ephesus. And he summarizes everything
with this statement, look in verse 35, I have showed you all
things how that so laboring you ought to support the weak and
to remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, how he said,
it is more blessed to give than to receive. You would think somewhere
in the gospels that that statement would be recorded from the lips
of our Lord, but it's not. This is a summary statement,
not only of the apostle Paul to the elders, but is the summary
statement of the nature and person of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. This is the only place this statement
has been found, and yet how often we hear it quoted. We could look
at this statement like many unbelievers look at it, think, well, I'll
just, you know, you hear people say, well, it just makes me feel
good when I give. And that's fine, except that
more times than not, that good feeling is nothing more than
self-righteousness. Or we could look at this statement
as a rebuke. We're all self-serving. None
of us give as we ought. And we could look at this statement
in that light and be rightly rebuked, justly rebuked for our
self-serving and self-preserving way about ourselves. But all
that would do is put us under the letter of the law. The letter
of the law says, thou shalt not. And those kind of rebukes, generally
do change behavior, but only for a short period of time. And
then, you know, that fades away and we go back to our self-serving
and self-preserving ways. I want us to look at this statement
as a summary of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who gave everything. for the salvation of his people.
And I'm convinced of this. You know, giving, and I'm not
talking about just financial giving, I'm talking about in
every way, giving in worship, giving in time, giving in, yes,
treasure, and giving in talents, what, you know, giving encouragement. Giving is the result of receiving. You know, the letter of the law
says, if you give, then you will receive. And the spirit of the
law says, if you receive, then you will give. So I want us to, I've had several
of you say to me, you know, when I come to church, I'm so selfish.
I just want to receive. And I understand that. That's
a good, that's a good selfishness, if you will. Lord, I need to
receive from you. I need to receive forgiveness
of my sin. I need to receive grace. I need
to receive a spirit of hope and light and understanding in life. Lord, I'm on the receiving end
of my relationship with you. And if the Lord is pleased to
give us those graces, then giving will be the result of it. The
letter of the law says, if you serve God, he'll bless you. And
the spirit of the law is just the opposite. The spirit of the
law says, no, I have blessed you. I have blessed you. And
when we're brought to believe in the success of that blessing,
the work that Christ accomplished on Calvary's cross in saving
his people, then serving him is just the result of that blessing,
isn't it? The letter of the law says, well,
you know, if you forgive, then God will forgive you. No, it's
just the opposite. It's just the opposite. If you
receive forgiveness, then you'll be forgiving. You see how the
spirit of the law and the letter of the law reverses itself? And so men look at this summary
statement of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is more
blessed to give than to receive. And they think, well, if I just,
you know, if I'll just give more, then I'll receive more. Now let's
look, let's look rather at how much the Lord gave. in saving
us. You know, the letter of the law
says, if you have faith, God will bless you for that faith
with salvation. You see, we get the cart before
the horse, don't we? We get the effect before the
cause. And where the spirit of grace
is, no, I have saved you. And as a result of that salvation,
you will have faith. You will have faith. So rather than us looking at this
as a, as a rebuke or as a correction, or even as an encouragement to
give more, let us look rather at how much the Lord has given
us. You know, the unbeliever hangs the hope of their salvation
on what they give. The Lord made that clear in Matthew
chapter seven, when he spoke of separating the goats from
the sheep on the day of judgment. And he was saying to the goats,
I was hungry and you didn't feed me. I was naked and you didn't
clothe me. I was a stranger, didn't take me in. I was in prison
and you didn't visit me. And what does the unbeliever
say to that rebuke? Lord, when did we see you like
that? Lord, we've had a prison ministry, and we've had a soup
kitchen, and we've had a homeless shelter, and we've been doing
all these things all of our lives. And the Lord says to them, depart
from me, you workers of iniquity. Now, the word iniquity means
it does not measure up. You see, the unbeliever is looking
at what they're giving for the hope of their salvation. And
the Lord says, no, your salvation is not determined by what you
give, it's determined by what you receive, determined by what
I give. I came into my own and my own
received me not, but as many as received me, them, to them,
I gave the power to become the children of God. So I want us
this morning to think about receiving rather than giving, because I
know, I know this, that if the Lord blesses us as the receiver,
The result of that will be that we'll be givers. The believer on the other hand,
when the Lord says, I was naked and you clothed me and I was
in prison and you came and visited me and I was a stranger and you
took me in and I was hungry and you fed me, what does the believer
say on the day of judgment? They said, Lord, when did we
see you that way? And do those things unto you. Lord, we've
been unprofitable servants all of our lives. And the Lord said,
in that you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did
it unto me. You see, this is not a matter
of fulfilling people's physical needs out in the world. If you
have an opportunity to help someone in the world and they have a
need, you're gonna do what you can do to help them, but that's
not what our Lord is talking about here. in that you've done
it unto the least of these my brethren, you've done it unto
me." Now, preaching is not a one-way street. When we preach, when
I preach, we're preaching. We're preaching. The church is
preaching. The church is involved together
as the body of Christ presenting the gospel. which clothes the
naked with the righteousness of Christ. It feeds the hungry
with the bread of life. It delivers those who were in
prison to sin. It takes the stranger and receives
them in. You see, this is the preaching
of the gospel, which every child of God is a part of. Every believer
is a part of that. It is more blessed to give. Now the word blessed means to
be happy. It means to be content. It means
to be fulfilled. Who is the most blessed man? Who was content, completely content
in his relationship with his heavenly father? Who was happier
than any other person? I'm not talking about a silly
happiness. I'm talking about the joy of the Lord that keeps
one's heart at peace with God. It's that blessed man of Psalm
chapter one, isn't it? Blessed is the man. Blessed is
the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. Who is
the blessed man who never walked in the counsel of the ungodly?
Not me and you. We've walked in the council of
the ungodly. Blessed is the man who has never stood, never stood
in the way of sinners. Who is that blessed man? It's
the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? Who is that blessed man who
never sat in the seat of the scornful? It's the Lord Jesus
Christ. So it is more blessed to give
than to receive. And the last thing I wanna do
this morning is rebuke you and me for not giving as we ought. That's already obvious. What
I want us to see is how much that blessed man gave of himself. And I want us this morning to
be on the receiving end. And the giving, in whatever form
it takes will be the result of that. It is his nature to give. He cannot receive anything. The
Lord's in need of nothing. He said, if I was hungry, I wouldn't
tell you. What are you going to do for me? You and I can't,
improve God or help God out or do anything for God? Yeah, we
all have religious friends and acquaintances. And it seems like
every time I meet somebody that's bound up in religion, one of
the very first things they want to tell me is what they and their
church are doing for God. You know, as if God is some sort
of dependent deity that wouldn't be able to get along without
them. You know, and they say things like, well, we're the
hands of God, and we're the feet of God, and we're the eyes of
God. No, we're not. God's eternal. Man's only been
here for a little while. God was never in need of anything
when he created us, and he's not in need of anything now.
He said, the cattle on a thousand hills are mine. What are you
going to do for me? You need me. I don't need you. I don't need you. Oh, when Paul
was preaching to those philosophers at Mars Hill in Athens, he said
to them, remember, he saw the deities that they had, and all
those deities that the Greeks worshiped were in need of something
from man. And he said, I perceive that
you are very superstitious. You're very superstitious. You've
got a God who needs you. And you've got lots of them.
And you've got one God here that's the unknown God. That's the God
I'm going to preach to you. The one you don't know. Because
the one you don't know needs nothing from you. He doesn't
need your decisions. He doesn't need your will. He
doesn't need your works. You are in complete need of him.
and he needs nothing from you. And so Paul went on to say, this
God that I'm preaching unto you, neither is worshiped with man's
hands as though he needed anything, seeing that he giveth to all
life and breath and all things. The very breath that you draw,
you need him for. The very life that you have,
you need him for. He needs nothing. He's not worshiped
with man's hands. He's not worshiped by man's will
or by man's works. There's nothing we contribute
to it. We are in complete need of him. Now, I would say this also, that
in order for God to give to us, he first had to give something
to himself. And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ did on Calvary's cross. God Almighty required, he required
justice. He required righteousness. He
required satisfaction. He required holiness. And when
the Lord Jesus Christ went to Calvary's cross, he wasn't making
an offering of himself to us. He was making an offering of
himself to his heavenly father. And the father saw the travail
of his soul and the father was satisfied. God almighty saw his
righteousness. He saw the justice that was being
satisfied in the sacrifice that Christ was making of himself.
And God said, God was dealing with God on Calvary's cross.
God had to give to God before God could give anything to us. Why did God create us in the
beginning? For his glory. And what is his
glory in? His glory is in giving to his
people. That's where his glory is. God's
glory is not in what we give to him. God's glory is in what
he's given to us. It is more blessed. to give than
to receive. The great, eternal, glorious
giver is the blessed man who has given of himself first to
his father and then to his people. And the consequence of that is
that we'll be giving Not because it makes us feel good or because
we're trying to establish a righteousness or because we're obligated to
give. No, we'll give out of a heart
that's filled with gratitude for what he's given unto us. Luke chapter 12, turn with me
there. Look at verse 30. The Lord has just spoken to the disciples
about not fretting over the needs that you have in this world.
And he says, for all things, for all these things, verse 30,
do the nations of the world seek after, and your father knoweth
that you have need of these things, but rather seek ye the kingdom
of God, and all these things shall be added unto you. Again,
you see, we get the cause and effect messed up, don't we? Well, if I just get things in
order, and get what I need physically and then give to God what I need,
then I'll have the kingdom of God. No, the Lord says, you seek
ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Set your affections
on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of
God. Look to Christ for all of your righteousness. Be a receiver,
be a receiver of God's grace. and all these other things to
be added unto you. Fear, here's what I want you
to see, verse 32. Fear not, little flock, for it
is your father's good pleasure to give to you the kingdom. Don't
be afraid. Oh, why are we so afraid? We are. It's our unbelief, isn't
it? It's our unbelief. It's because
we think that our blessings are determined by what we give. It is your father's good pleasure
to give to you the kingdom. Sell that you have and give your
alms and provide yourselves bags of wax not old and a treasure
in heaven that faileth not. Where no thief approaches, neither
moth corrupt. For where your treasure is, there
your heart will be also. There's another place where we
get cause and effect messed up. Well, if I just get my heart
in the right place, then I'll put my treasure in there. No,
the Lord says where your treasure is, there your heart will be.
He didn't say where your heart is, there your treasure will
be. Where's my treasure? My treasure's in Christ. My treasure
is Christ. So there my heart will be and
where my heart is, where I am. You see, we try to, we try to fix
the heart by what we do. The Lord said, no, no, you receive
and everything else will take care of itself. I love it when
the Lord said, if you, being evil as you are. And we are,
we're sinful, we're selfish, we're self-serving and self-preserving. We keep what we have and we,
you know, we'll give the scraps, you know, to somebody else or
to God, you know, after we've served ourselves. If you being
evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, And we do, we give to our children,
don't we? How much more your heavenly father,
who is not evil, will give good gifts and the Holy Ghost unto
them that ask Him, that ask Him. Why do we not have what God gives
us? He said, it makes it clear, you
have not because you ask not. You have not because you ask
not. Lord, I need to receive. You know, people leave religious
services all pumped up to go out and do more. Lord, I need
to be a receiver. I'm the one in need. That's why our Lord said to that
woman at the well in John chapter four, if you knew who it is that
saith unto thee, give me a drink, You would ask of him and he would
give to you living water. If you knew who I was, who I
am, you'd be asking me for my mercy and for my grace and for
my spirit, for my gifts, you'd be on receiving end. Oh Lord, give me that water,
she said. And the Lord did. And this woman
who lived in constant shame, that's why she was at the well
in the middle of the day. She didn't go with the women
early in the morning, because they were all talking about her.
She'd been married five times, and the man she'd lived with
wasn't her husband. She was ashamed. Our Lord showed mercy on her.
And he still does the same thing to shameful sinners. Shows them
mercy. Well, that shame went away after
she received She went back down into Sychar, the scripture says,
and started rounding up everybody. Come, meet a man who told me
everything I ever did. Is not this the Christ? Now, the Lord took away her shame.
God takes away our shame, then we've received grace. And if
God be for us, who can be against us? She became a giver only after
she was a receiver. Always works that way. Scripture says the man can receive
nothing except it be given to him from heaven. You can't receive
faith unless God gives it to you from heaven. Can't draw your
next breath unless God gives it to you from heaven. Can't
do anything. You wouldn't have what you have
except God gave it to you. I said, well, I worked hard for
it. Who gave you the mind and the physical ability to work?
How many people in this world don't have any ability to work? Their minds and their bodies
are twisted and they couldn't do anything, completely dependent
upon someone else. Who gave you that mind? Who gave
you that body? Who gave you the desire to get
up every day and go to work? Is he everything we had? A man
can receive nothing except to be given to him from heaven. It is more blessed to give than
to receive, yes. But for me to give, I first have
to receive. I have to receive everything from God. Everything
I have. It's his nature to give. He's
in need of nothing. He's the glorious, eternal, self-existent
I Am. He's dependent upon nothing.
He's the creator and sustainer of all things. He's infinite
and eternal. He's all He needs to be within
Himself. Why? He's created everything
so that He can give from Himself. He exists within Himself. We
exist and everything else exists because He's created us. So he says, for God so loved
the world that he gave, he gave. Here's a demonstration of it
is more blessed to give than to receive. He gave his only
begotten son. And you know, that word world
is never used in the Bible to describe each and every individual
person of the world. Here in John 3, 16, it is used
to describe the Gentile world outside of Israel. The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking
to Nicodemus, who thinks that only Jews can be saved. And the
Lord said, no. Well, God so loved, yes, even
those worldlings out there outside of Israel, those pagans that
he gave his only begotten son. That whosoever believeth on him
should not perish, but have eternal life. Who were born. Who were born, not of the will
of flesh, nor the will of man. This is the same man the Lord
had just said to him, Nicodemus, except you be born of the spirit,
you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. The spirits act like
the wind. You've got to receive the spirit
of God. You've got to be on the receiving end for everything.
Well, if I just contrite enough, and I pray hard enough, and I'm
repentant enough, and I believe hard enough, God will reward
me for saving me. No, he won't. No, that's a works
gospel. When you receive from God, you
don't give anything for it. You receive freely what he has,
freely. Our Lord said, who maketh thee
to differ? The Lord made a difference between
the Egyptians and the Israelites. And he makes a difference between
his children and the reprobate. And he says, who maketh thee
to differ? What do you have that you did not receive? Brethren, I want us to be receivers
this morning. I want the Lord to just bless
us. with the gifts of his grace and
with the realization of how, how loving and merciful and kind
and compassionate he's been toward us in spite of ourselves. In Romans chapter 11, verse 35,
the scripture says, Who has first given unto him that he should
recompense again unto them? Now, a paraphrase of that verse
would say, would be like this. You think you've given something
to God that would obligate him? God's not gonna be obligated
by me and you. Romans chapter eight, verse 32.
He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Our
God is a giver. He's just a giver. He's not a taker. He just keeps
giving. And he can't give any more than
he's given. He's given his all. And once
he starts giving, he doesn't stop giving. He doesn't stop
giving. He just keeps giving. Keeps giving repentance and grace
upon grace. He keeps giving light and mercy
and love and truth. He just keeps giving. And we love him because he first
loved us. It's the love of Christ that
constraineth us and it's the goodness of God that leadeth
us to repentance. We're not doing something to
obligate God or to make him recompense to us, to reward us with something. We do what we do as unto the
Lord because we're grateful for all that he's given us. God's people are thankful people,
they're grateful people. James chapter four, that's that
passage. We won't turn to it right now,
but that's that passage that speaks of where do wars come
from among you? Do they not come because you,
you, you, you seek and you, I mean, you, you want to consume it upon
your own lust and, and, and the Lord rebukes us for, you know,
not for being so self-centered. And then in, and then in verse
six, Here's what God says, but he giveth more grace. He giveth
more grace. In spite of the fact that we're
so selfish and self-centered and so taking all the time, he
continues to give more grace. Well, that'll make you grateful,
won't it? That'll make you want to be a
giver. And not out of obligation or anything else, but out of
gratitude. Why do men not have what God
has to give? Because they will not receive
it freely. They will not receive it freely.
That's why they won't have Christ. That's why they won't have the
gospel. That's why they won't have grace. They want to pay
for it. They want to bargain with God.
They want to obligate God. They want to do something. They
will not have a gospel that gives to the Lord Jesus Christ all
the glory for being the only giver in this relationship. They
want to be, you know, Somebody gives something to you, you feel
obligated to give something back to them, don't you? That's natural
among men because we're equals. But, you know, God, we're not
going to obligate God. We're not going to, oh, you're
not going to force him to save you because
you made a decision or prayed a prayer or worked a work or
did this or did that. No. Matthew chapter 10, verse eight
says, freely you have received. Freely you have received. Freely
give. No one's obligating you. Yeah,
I would say to every person here, you don't wanna come to church,
don't come to church. You don't wanna give to the work of the
ministry, don't give. Don't do what you don't wanna
do. Freely you have received. Freely
give. God loves a cheerful giver. We
don't come to worship out of obligation or out of duty or
out of requirement. It's not a chore. We come out
of gratitude. We worship God joyfully. For
all the life and breath and blessings that he's given to us. delight in worship. It's the
overflow of our hearts filled with gratitude for the great
giver. It is more blessed to give than
to receive. It is the character of our God. You know the suffix ship means
the character of something. So if we say we have a friendship
The character of our relationship is friends. And the word worship
is the word worth-ship, or worth-ship. The character of our worship
is to acknowledge his worth, his glory, and his honor. So
we come together in order to in order to worship Him, and
He inhabits the praise of His people. Even in our worship,
we're not giving anything to God, He's giving to us. We kiss the hand. That's what
the word worship means. It's to kiss the hand like a
dog of its master. The other night, Jennifer, my
daughter, was showing me on her telephone a camera that she has
in her living room that shows what the dogs are doing while
they're gone. And John and Jennifer were away
from home. And Jennifer showed me her camera. She said, look.
And John's dog was laying on the sofa with its head up on
the armrest, staring at the front door. Now, do you suppose that when
John came in, that Jennifer had to tell the dog, now get up and
go welcome your daddy? No, that dog was living its life
to worship its master. And as soon as he heard any movement
around that front door, that dog was bolting to the door to
worship John. That's the only kind of dog I
want is a dog that'll worship me. That's what dogs are supposed
to do, aren't they? You can relate to that. Some
of you have dogs that are the same way. Lay there for hours,
just waiting for its master to come home. Delighted in being
able to meet him and kiss him and love him and be loved by
him. That's what worship is. It's not an obligation. It's
not a duty. Those who have received grace
have it in their hearts, just like that dog has it in his heart
to worship its master. Forgiving won't be an obligation. Well, you know, I'm obligated
to forgive. No, be ye kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. You see, if you
are a receiver of being forgiven, you won't have any trouble forgiving
others, because you'll know that your offense against God is much
greater than any offense that anyone's had towards you. Forgiving
is the result of being forgiven. Yes, it is more blessed to give
than to receive, but we have to receive something before we
can give, don't we? And God had to receive something
before he could give. You see, if you believe that
every breath you draw is a gift from God, then you'll be inspired
to redeem the time that you have and use it to his glory as best
you can. If you believe that the talents
that God's given you, he gave to you, oh, you'll desire to
use them in some way for his glory. Every possession you have
is on loan to you from God. You've got nothing except that
which is given to you from heaven. You see, giving is the result
of receiving. Whether it be time, talent, treasure,
worship, forgiveness, it is more blessed to give than to receive
because the blessed one gave of himself that we might receive. And those who have received will
give. Amen? All right, let's take a
break. Yeah.