Let's turn to Romans 15. Good to have Cyril and Lenore
back with us. Romans 15. Let's begin in verse 25. He says,
but now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints. For
it has pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain
contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. It has
pleased them verily, and their debtors they are. For if the
Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their
duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things. When therefore
I have performed this, and have sealed to them this fruit, I
will come by you into Spain. Now the church at Jerusalem,
God used them to send forth preachers, preaching the gospel of Christ,
and through the gospel, God saved his elect in Macedonia and Achaia,
established his church there. And then, in God's providence,
he caused the churches at Macedonia and Achaia to prosper. But at
the same time, he caused the church at Jerusalem to fall on
lean times. And that was a test. When God
did that, it was a trial. And whatever comes to pass in
our lives is a trial God has sent. It's a test. And God thinks we're gonna fail
at ourselves but by God's grace, we're going to pass his test.
And by God's grace, they passed it. He gave them a heart to want
to take up a collection and send an offering to the needy brethren
at Jerusalem. Now, we're approaching a time
in this church that I've been looking forward to since the
day I came here. When I came here, we had Something
like 20 plus children. And now those children are grown. God has saved many of them. And
some of them are starting to marry and you're having children.
So it's good to see the next generation. That's an exciting
time to see God doing that. But there's other churches that
are coming to the phase where many of the saints are going
home to be with the Lord. And we've been profited by those
churches. They sent the gospel to us. We
were profited spiritually by God using them to preach the
gospel to us. And so their debtors, we are. We owe a debt to them to help
them, just like they helped us. when we were beginning. God says
here, it hath pleased them verily. They were very pleased to help
their needy brethren at Jerusalem. God's saints are not grudging
givers, they're cheerful givers. Scripture says, every man, according
as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give. We don't tithe. God's saints don't tithe. Tithe
is a tax, a law that you had to pay. God's children give according
as your purpose in your heart. There's a huge difference, a
huge difference. It's not grudgingly or of necessity,
for God loved with a cheerful giver. What makes a believer
pleased to provide for older congregations, for pastors, widows,
and brethren that are in need? God's sake's pleased to do it.
We see how richly God has blessed us using them to minister to
us. Nothing's more valuable to God's
people as Christ and the gospel. We have nothing that we possess.
I don't care what you possess or how much you possess. God's
people possess nothing as valuable as Christ and this gospel, nothing. Nothing. God used those saints
to bless us in spiritual things. And so our heart is, it's no
big thing if we bless them in carnal things. To repay them with the lesser
in value when they've given us the greater in value, that's
no big deal. That's no big deal. I want to
show you here the riches of Christ and his blessings. And then I
want you to see the constraint of those riches, and then a word
of application. Now Christ and all his blessings
are our true riches. Now get that, believer, because
the world, you have a sinful heart that's trying to convince
you that what this world has to offer is valuable. And we
have this nature with us all the time that what the world's
offering is of great value. We grow up being taught to try
to accomplish what we can and we got this vision of riches
being success. And God says just the opposite
in his word. Christ said, it's virtually almost
impossible for a rich man to enter into heaven. as impossible
as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. It's not
impossible, but without God's grace it would be. Because riches
corrupt. Riches make you think you have
salvation in riches. But when Christ comes, God's
purpose in saving his people is to show us his riches toward
us. Ephesians 2.7 says he saves that
in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of
his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Exceeding
riches. We're born unprofitable, bankrupt,
poor, needy, sinners. We're in the deep poverty of
depravity as we come into this world with nothing. We have nothing. And when we leave this world,
we're leaving this world with nothing that this world has offered. Nothing. We had nothing to pay
God's law. We had nothing to make us accepted
with God. We could earn nothing that would
make us accepted with God. God chose his people by free
grace. Free grace. He did it in Christ. He redeemed us and regenerated
us by free grace. It didn't cost us anything. It's
described throughout scriptures as great riches. Great riches. Paul said, unto me who am less
than the least of all saints is this grace given that I should
preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Do you believe that these riches
are truly the unsearchable riches of Christ? That's how much value
God puts on His Son and all blessings He gives us in His Son. Unsearchable
riches. God our Father gave the unspeakable
gift He gave the unspeakable gift. He gave His only begotten
Son. That's the manner in which God
loves. For God so loved. After this
manner, God loved. He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believeth on Him
should not perish but have everlasting life. Christ freely justified
His people. He freely justified us. It does
not cost us because it cost Him everything. He paid the purchase
price, His precious blood to redeem us from the destruction
of the curse of the law. He paid the price. He paid the
price. He poured out His blood as the
price of redemption and bought His people. He calls us His purchased
possession. In whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace. We first experience these riches
when Christ is formed in us. And that too is called Christ
being formed in you so that he becomes your hope of entering
into glory, that's from God's riches. Colossians 127, to whom
God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this
mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. This is a
mystery to the world and it was a mystery to us until God made
us know Christ by forming Christ in us, and that's according to
the riches of his glory. God makes us know Christ is everything. He's all. Of God is Christ made
unto you wisdom. And He's all wisdom. He's the
only wisdom there is. He's all righteousness. The only
righteousness we have, the only righteousness there is to have
is Christ. He's all sanctification. It's
such a shame and so sad when sinners attribute holiness to
themselves. Christ is our sanctifier. He's
our sanctification. Christ is all in redemption.
He's our redeemer. The scripture says, Isaiah 13,
12, God said, I will make a man more precious than fine gold. Even a man than the golden wedge
of Ophir. I don't know what the golden
wedge of Oprah was, but it was a gold bullion like what we see,
you know, a block of gold, but it was so pure. It was the finest
gold you could find on this earth. God said, I'm going to make a
man more precious than that fine gold. You know who that man is?
He's Christ. When he is revealed in a sinner,
he becomes the one thing needful, more precious, more valuable,
more rare, and wanted and desired and needed and enriching than
any fine gold in this world. Behold, I lay in Zion a chief
cornerstone, elect precious, God said, like a rare jewel. And unto you which believe, therefore,
he is precious. We're talking about the person
now. The person, he's precious. He's more precious than fine
gold, the God-man. He comes to you in conversion.
And here's how He becomes precious to you. He counsels you. He's
the counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father. He comes
and He counsels us. What does He counsel us to do?
Revelation 3.18, I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the
fire. He's that gold. It's His righteousness. It's been tried on the cross
in the fire of God's wrath and He never wavered. He's proven
through and through to be the Holy One, the Righteous One. He says, come to me and buy this
gold. Buy a white raiment to cover
your nakedness. That's His righteousness. Get
eyes salved so that you can see. That's His righteousness, His
wisdom, His knowledge to make you behold Him. I counsel thee
to buy me gold, he says. Well, you just said I don't have
anything to buy with. You just said I'm bankrupt. I
don't have anything. How can I buy this from him? You know what the purchase price
is for this gold? You can't bring anything. You
gotta come empty. He says, ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. He that hath no money Come ye
buy and eat. Come ye buy wine and milk without
money and without price. That's strange. How do you buy
something without money, without a price? Here's how you do it. Incline your ear and come unto
me. Hear and your soul shall live. That's how you purchase this
gold. You hear him and you come to him. Trust in Him with nothing. In my hand no price I bring.
Just come to Christ clinging to Him. Now when God makes Christ
your wisdom, what He does then is He makes the gospel real to
you. He makes you understand what
you are, you're a sinner, and He makes you understand Christ
is all you need. And when you, Christ has made
wisdom, as Paul said, we have the mind of Christ. And when
he's done that, now you have true wisdom. Go over to Proverbs
3, I'm sorry, Proverbs 3. I'm looking at some of the wisest
people on this planet right here in front of me. You know, the
world talks about its wise people and how wise they are and what
have you, but the wise people in this world are those that
God's made wise, those that God has made wisdom. Proverbs 3.13,
listen to this now. Happy is the man that findeth
wisdom. And if you want to, you won't
be doing anything wrong if you want to make that a capital W
in your Bible, because that's Christ. Happy is the man that
findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding, for the
merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and
the gain thereof than fine gold. She's more precious than rubies,
and all the things that thou canst desire are not to be compared
unto her. Length of days is in her right
hand and in her left hand, and honor. That's Christ. Look at
Proverbs 20. Look at verse 15. Proverbs 20
verse 15. There is gold and a multitude
of rubies. There's a lot of valuable jewels
in this world. But the lips of knowledge are
a precious jewel. The lips of Christ Jesus, our
wisdom, speaking into our heart, is a precious jewel. Proverbs
24, look at verse 4. He says, by knowledge shall the
chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches. By this
knowledge, by Christ being made wisdom unto you, the chambers
of your heart The chamber of your spirit, the chamber of your
soul is filled, completely filled with precious and pleasant riches. The doctrine of Christ. You understand
something of Him. Our hearts are comforted, being
knitted together in love unto all riches. Now listen to what
He calls all riches. All riches of the full assurance
of understanding. to the acknowledgement of the
mystery of God, to the acknowledgement of the gospel, and of the Father
and of Christ, listen, in whom are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge. If you know God, if Christ has
made wisdom be you, you know the one in whom are hid all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Every gift he gives is rich blessing. but they're rich blessings only
by Christ and in Christ. The faith that God gives is precious
faith. Listen, the trial of your faith,
he's talking about your faith here, being much more precious
than of gold that perishes. It's much more precious than
gold, though it be tried with fire. Paul said we've obtained
like precious faith. Why is it precious? This counterfeit
faith that men are talking about where they boast about how they
believed and boast about how they make it through everything
because I got my faith and my faith is strong and all that.
That's a counterfeit fool's goal. Faith is precious that lays hold
on Christ and rests in Christ alone. That's precious faith.
That's the gift of God. That's the gift of God. And every
need we have, brethren, not only all these spiritual riches we're
talking about, but every need we have. See, Christ went to
the cross and fully justified his people. He went to the cross
and fully made us the righteousness of God in him. And so God's glory
demands we not perish. And so as we go through this
life, having given us the richest treasure He can possibly give
us, God's gonna provide your needs in this life. This is how
we have contentment with God. This is why contentment with
Godliness is a great gain, because we know everything we need, we
have in our Heavenly Father and in His Son, and He will provide
everything we need. When we get discontented, it's
not because he hasn't provided our needs, it's because we want
something that we can't get. But the need we have, he provides
it. Listen, my God shall supply all
your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. What do you need? I mean need. He's gonna provide it. He will
provide it. Don't worry about it. He said that. He said stop worrying
about it. Your Heavenly Father knows you
have need of these things. To worry about our need in this
life is like a worldly gentile man, he said. A worldly man that
doesn't know God. We know God. We know God has
a rich treasure of the full supply of everything we need. He owns
everything. You look past by somebody and
there's a big mansion on a hill and there's a man that appears
so wealthy and he has all this money and all these valuables
and all this different stuff. That all belong to him. That
belongs to your God. And you know what he says? All
things are yours. As one of the old preachers used
to say, that man's just paying taxes on it for you. It's yours. And whatever you need, God'll
provide it. God'll provide it. Secondly,
having these riches and seeing what great richness we have in
Christ, this constrains us to provide for our needy brethren.
Listen, he said there, look at the text again, he says verse
26, it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain
contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. It pleased
them. It hath pleased them verily.
They're debtors they are. When that's our spirit, I'm a
debtor to them, how can I not pay them? For if the Gentiles
have been made partakers of their spiritual thing, the great valuable
thing, it's their duty also to minister to them in carnal things,
lesser things. Now God doesn't produce anything
but willing givers. That's all. Willing givers. And it's by the constraint of
his love and his grace. It's God alone who made us to
differ from anybody in this world. We didn't do it. There was nothing
about us. There's nothing we did. He made
us to differ from everybody in this world. And everything we've
ever received from the first breath to the last breath, He
gave it. Every blessing we have in Christ,
He gave it. He freely gave it. Every temporal
blessing, He gave it. He freely gave it. He alone makes
us to differ. We have no reason to glory in
ourselves, only in Him. Only in Him. We came into this
world covetousness, covetous for temporary vain gain. That's how we were born. You don't have to teach a child
to try to take more than the other child has. Whatever it
is they're playing with, you don't have to tell him to take
it all and try to claim it as his own. He'll do it. We're coming
in this world covetous to have more building blocks than our
neighbor. And we thought that was success
and that was wealth. Now we know treasures of wickedness
profit nothing. but righteousness delivereth
from death. That's our treasure, righteousness. Now we know Christ alone, Christ
alone is our protector, not money. And I know I'm not gonna be foolish here. I know every one
of us, if we lose some money, a lot of money, I know we panic. It's just how we are, but we
ought not to. That's not our salvation. It's
just not our salvation. The name of the Lord is a strong
tower. The righteous runneth into it
and is safe. But the rich man's wealth is
his strong city. He thinks so. Listen, it's a
high wall to him in his own conceit. That's conceitedness to think
I've earned this, it's mine, it's gonna provide for me, I'm
gonna be fine. Have you ever seen folks who
God just, they had everything and God just took it from them? I know you're young, you have
ideals of how things are gonna go in your life and goals and
all those things you wanna accomplish. Just know this, at any point,
God who gave it, can take it away, whatever it is. The sun's no sooner risen with
a burning heat, but our flesh withers as grass, and the flower
thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perishes.
So also is the rich man, he fades away in his ways. Our Lord said, lay not up for
yourselves treasures upon earth. Lay not up for yourselves treasures
upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, where thieves break
through and steal. Lay up for yourselves treasure
in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, where
thieves do not break through nor steal. Why? Why should I
do that? What's he telling us? What's
the message of that? He's telling you where your treasure
is. That's where your heart will
be. If your treasure's in the stocks you have bought, your
heart every morning will be to get up and read the report. If your treasure's in the word
of God, your heart will be to get up and read it. So, we can't serve two masters,
we can only serve one. And whichever one we serve, we're
gonna hate the other one. And the Lord teaches this to
His children in our heart. He teaches us this. And you know,
when He teaches you, He doesn't teach you all the same. You know,
there's some people that are a lot less covetous than other
people, believers. Some believers are more covetous
than other believers. But He makes every believer know
this, that's not my riches. That's not my riches. to glory
in earthly riches is to glory in something I did and put stock
in something besides God. So we're constrained. We behold
Christ and we behold that he's our pearl of great price. He's
the treasure hid in the field and God's taken us to that treasure. He's revealed that jewel to us
and given us that jewel and we possess him. And He's the one
thing that'll never be taken from you, believer. Think about
that. No matter what you possess, no matter what you have, Christ
is the one thing that'll never be taken from you. That's a rich
possession. And it's Him and His love and
His redemption and what He accomplished for us that constrained you to
want to help a needy, poor brother. Now lastly, here's the word of
application. If the Gentiles have been made
partakers of their spiritual things, their duty also is to
minister unto them in carnal things. Now when Christ has created
a new man, in you, and he's done that in some of you. He's blessed
you with the unsearchable riches of Christ. Free justification,
free redemption, free preservation, free glorification. Everything
that we have, he's given it to us free. An everlasting covenant
order in all things ensured. An eternal inheritance waiting
for us. So you and I are debtors to God. We're debtors to God. We're debtors
to those God used to minister to us. Don't you believe that? I really believe that. I believe,
I love my pastor. I love the men God used to minister
to me. I love them more now that I'm
a pastor because now I understand a little bit better of what they
did. but I love them because God used
those earthen vessels, just nothing, nobody. But he put that treasure
in those earthen vessels and God enriched me with that treasure. That's what he's done for us,
brethren. And in all those brethren that are there that were used
to send the gospel forth, whereby we heard the gospel. We're here
because of that. This church exists, God raised
this church up through using other brethren to do this. How great a debtor are we to
them? All these riches I've been talking about, God used them
to give it to us. We're debtors to them. We're
debtors to them. So we see that it's no great
thing to minister carnal things that God gave us. And God provides
and God shall supply. It's no great thing to use those
things to give to them when we consider the great richness of
these spiritual things. Paul said, if we saw unto you
spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal
things? I just wish, I'll tell you what
is a sad commentary. I've heard folks talk about,
you know, well, I don't like a message on giving. Why would we feel that way? Covetousness? Our whole message is about giving.
About what God's given to us. That's our message. We ought
to delight, and God's people do. God's people do. You know that woman that had
that alabaster box of very precious ointment? There's something she
had saved for, she had Spent a year's wages to buy this box
of very precious ointment. And she brings that box. I bet
she protected that box. I bet she made sure nobody stole
it, kept it hidden away because it's so precious. She didn't
want to get around anybody that might take it. I bet she protected
that precious box of ointment. But when she got to Christ, what'd
she do? She broke it open and poured
it on him. She let it go. Why? Because Christ was more
precious to her than that precious ointment. That's what it is when we look
at our brethren, born of the same spirit of Christ as we are,
one in Christ as we are, one with us in Him, when we're truly
constrained by the love of Christ. Christ is more precious to us
than anything we possess. And so whatever we can do for
his cause, whatever we can do for his name, whatever we can
do for his brethren, fairly it pleases us to be able to do it. I pray God would make us like
Moses. Moses was the heir of the richest,
most powerful man on this planet. I don't know who they say today
the richest man in the world is, but at that day, Pharaoh
was the richest man in the world. And Moses left it all. Why? He esteemed the reproach of Christ,
greater riches. He esteemed the worst part of
following Christ, to have to be reproached for Christ. He
esteemed the least of what it is to follow Christ as greater
riches than all those riches in Egypt. Why? Because he had respect unto
the recompense of the reward. He had respect unto what the
recompense was. He would have Christ. He would have eternal life with
his Redeemer. That was greater riches than
all that stuff. I want to end with this. Sinner,
you sitting here don't know God. Listen to me carefully. I know
you have ambition for riches in this world. I know you have
ambition to you know, the shiny cars and the big house and all
the different things you probably have ambition for. If it's not
that, it's something else you want to enrich yourself with
in this world. But listen to this. If you will give yourself
to hear this word and study this word and seek the wisdom of God
like you give yourself to seek those worldly things, God says
he'll give you that wisdom. Listen, Proverbs 2.3, if thou
cryest after knowledge, if thou liftest up thy voice for understanding,
if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as hid
treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find
the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom. Out of his mouth, through the
preaching of this gospel, comes knowledge and understanding.
Now if you can do it, if you can give yourself to seek it
that way, it's because he's already sought you and found you. And
you're going to give him the glory for that. But hear what
he said. You have a desire to read this
word and something else has your attention and you think, well,
I could go do that and make some money or whatever. Seek his word. Seek the thing that's the most
valuable. Give yourself to it. God says, I'll give you the wisdom
of Christ. That's what he said. And for you, brethren, go to
2 Corinthians 9. I just want to read this, but
let's look here what he says to us. Verse eight. God is able, 2 Corinthians 9.8,
God is able to make all grace abound toward you. that ye always,
having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good
work. The parentheses tells us he does
it. He ministers to you seed, he
gives you the ability to sow it, and he makes you bring forth
bread. But look down at verse 11. Here's how we have sufficiency
in all things and abound. Being enriched in everything
to all bountifulness, which causes through us thanksgiving to God. All this he gives to you makes
you turn around and give God the one thing that he desires
from his people, thank you. That's it, thank you. For the
administration of this service not only supplies the want of
the saints, that's a good thing that happened, but it's abundant
also by many thanksgivings unto God. It also causes much thanksgiving
to God. Because by the experiment of
this ministration, they glorify God for your subjection to the
gospel of Christ and for your liberal distribution unto them
and to all men. And they pray for you, which
long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you. And Paul
beheld all that. All of this giving in Christ
and all of this ministration of giving and how it redounds
to the glory of God and God gets all the glory in it. And it's
like he just broke out in wonder and said, thanks be unto God
for his unspeakable gift. It's a gift to us is what it
is. And it's unspeakable. I pray
God make us, you are generous givers, I pray God make us even
more generous givers for his cause and for his people, amen.
All right, brethren, let's stand together. Lord, thank you for this word.
We ask you to bless it now and truly enriches. or take away
from us the covetousness for worldly gain, and make us truly
value Christ as the one thing needful. We pray you be with
us, Lord. Forgive us our sins, in Christ's
name, amen.