What's the fruit of the Holy
Spirit when he's transformed us by the renewing of our minds?
He said that we might be able to prove, to discern, test, and
approve of the will of God. What is the will of God? He's
been showing us this in each of these things he's been telling
us in Romans 12. And today we come to verse 13
and he says, distributing to the necessity of saints, given
to hospitality. It's our Heavenly Father's will
for those that he's called out of darkness and sanctified to
provide for the needs of other brethren that he has sanctified.
This is for the saints. It's to provide for their carnal,
temporal needs. That's what he's talking about.
In other scriptures, it's called communicating to the saints. Distributing to the saints. Also,
it's God's will that we be given to hospitality. The Greek means
pursue love for strangers. pursue love towards strangers. Not only are we to provide for
our brethren in our midst here who we know, but also for brethren
that we may not know, who are traveling through, or maybe they've
come in for a conference. We're to be given to open our
homes, to provide them a place to stay, and to provide them
food, or if they would rather, provide them lodging in a hotel
and cover their expenses. Given to this, pursuing opportunities
to do this. Our Lord Jesus said it is more
blessed, more happiness for us to give rather than to receive. If you want to be happy, do for
God's people. Do what you can for God's people.
Now brethren, God has been very gracious here to you so that
this is not a problem at all. In fact, I've been very, very
encouraged to see how much this congregation has helped other
churches and other individual brethren and our brethren here. It's really remarkable when you
look at at the report to see how much you've done this year
for others. And I'm so thankful for that.
I can't tell you how that encourages me. Paul called it fruit that
may abound to your count. It is fruit and it abounds to
your count. God is not unrighteous to forget
His people's works and what they've done for other saints, providing
for the necessity of saints. He says He's well pleased with
such sacrifices. And I'm so thankful. I'm thankful
to God because He gave you the grace to do it. And I'm thankful
to you for doing it. I really am. But, in other places,
I have encountered some who don't like preaching on giving. About 20 years ago, I was brand
new to preaching and there was a a brother at my home and he
was doing some work. He was helping do some things.
I'd been studying in 2 Corinthians 8 and just seeing all the good things that God
says in this ministry of giving and how His grace abounds toward
us and how it's all of Him. And I was blessed by it. And
I was just telling him some of the things I'd been seeing. And
he packed up and went home. He packed up his tools and left
and went on. And I just, that's the first
time I ever experienced that. And he told me that he had left
the former church he was in because the preacher preached on giving.
And I don't understand that. I really don't understand that
for believers. I really don't. Because our whole
gospel is on the message of giving. I stand here, every time I stand
here, I preach. on giving. That's my message. I preach on it every time I'm
here. Our gospel is the gospel of distribution, the gospel of
how Christ, God gave his only begotten Son. God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten Son. And whosoever believeth
on him shall not perish but have eternal life. This is our gospel. So my subject this morning is
the gospel of distribution. And the way we're motivated and
the way we're constrained to this is beholding what God has
given to us, how he has distributed to us, how our God has given
to hospitality toward his people. And so that'll be our first point.
We'll look at how God's given to us. And then secondly, we'll
look at this exhortation to us. Now first of all, the Gospel
is the good news of how God distributes to the needs, to the necessities
of His sanctified people. This is our Gospel. This is what
we preach. This is the good news. As we
come into this world, God's people have a necessity in everything. We have a need in everything. We came into this world and we
were the infant cast out into that open field. That's how we're
described. It's that infant that was just
cast out and left for dead. Look at Ezekiel 16. Verse 4, let's read verse 1. The word of the Lord came to
me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. This is what is being pictured
here, our abomination. And say, Thus saith the Lord
God unto Jerusalem, Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land
of Canaan. Thy father was an Amorite, thy
mother a Hittite. We're, in scripture, that's considered
an illegitimate child. That's what we were. As for thy
nativity and the day that thou was born, thy navel was not cut,
neither was thou washed in water to supple thee, and thou was
not salted at all, nor swallowed at all. None eye pitied thee
to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee.
Nobody did, and we couldn't do it for ourselves. We were as
helpless as a newborn. But thou was cast out and opened,
filled to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou was
born. And look at this, and when I
passed by thee. Thank God for grace, he passed
by his people. And I saw thee polluted in thine
own blood. And I said unto thee, when thou
was in thy blood, live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou
wast in thy blood, live. Look now at verse 8. He says,
now when I passed by thee and looked upon thee, behold, thy
time was the time of love. It was love. It was the time
of love. And I spread my skirt over thee. Christ covered us
in his righteousness and I covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto
thee, covenant when they said the Lord God and thou becamest
mine. See how He distributed to us? Look at Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10. Jesus, verse 30, Jesus answering
said, a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and
fell among thieves which stripped him of his raiment and wounded
him and departed leaving him half dead. That was us. We fell
among thieves. They robbed us. They stripped
us of all our raiment and left us in a ditch. Just left us. Look what it says here. By chance,
there came down a certain priest that way. And when he saw it,
he passed by the other side. There we were. We were cast out. Self-righteous religion saw us,
and it didn't help us. Passed us by. He says, and likewise
a Levite, when he was at the place, he came and looked down
and passed by the other side. The law couldn't do anything
for us. The law passed us by. just left us in our state. But
a certain Samaritan, they called Christ a Samaritan. They called
him of Samaria. He's the one, the certain Samaritan. As he journeyed, he came where
he was. Christ came where we were. And
he saw him, and he had compassion on him. And he went to him, and
he bound up his wound. Christ came to us and bound up
our wounds, poured in the oil of the Holy Spirit and the wine
of His blood, that precious balm, and He set Him on His own beast
and He brought Him to an end. He brought you to this end right
here. And He took care of Him. Christ is taking care of us.
And look at this, and on the morrow when He departed, He took
out two pence and gave them to the host and said unto Him, Take
care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again,
I will repay thee. Christ has brought us, healed
us, and continues to care for us, and He'll care for us all
our days. This is how He's distributed to us. Sin bankrupted us. Sin left us orphans and widows. In the Scripture, orphans and
widows are the most helpless. An orphan is somebody who has
nobody. In Scripture, he has nobody.
He doesn't have brothers, sisters, father, mother, nobody to care
for him. And the widow's the same. In
the Scripture, the widow's somebody who has no children, no near
kinsmen, nobody. They're called widows, indeed.
They're widows. And the picture there is of you
and me who are totally, thoroughly helpless. Totally helpless. And know I pity this. Nobody
had compassion on us. They stole our clothes. We lost
all in the fall. We lost everything. They took
our bread. We had no life, nothing to eat. Burned down our house. We had
no place for shelter, no refuge. Spiritually, we were in abject
poverty. We didn't even have basic needs. that God distributed to the needs
of His people. He gave His only begotten Son.
And the Lord Jesus distributed to the needs of His people. Look
at 2 Corinthians 8. We'll come back to 2 Corinthians
8 in a moment, but just look at this one verse here. Look
at verse 9. that day when I was showing this
to that fellow. Look here, 2 Corinthians 8 verse
9. For you know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes
He became poor, that you through this poverty might be rich. You know, it's one thing to be
born into poverty and never know the difference. It's another
thing to be rich and then come into poverty. Our Lord Jesus
Christ was rich. He was rich. But for the sake
of His people, He willingly, willingly came to this world
and gave all He had and became poorer than anyone. Totally poor. He did that and took joyfully
the spoiling of His goods for the sake of His poor people. How rich was He? This is He that
created all things. This is He of whom Scripture
says cattle on a thousand hills are His. He owns the hills. He owns the cattle. He owns the
gold and silver in the hills. He owns everything. All souls
are mine, He said. He owns everything. Our Lord
one day I can just picture him sitting there and he watched
a bird fly into its nest and he saw a fox, watched it go into
its den. He said, the birds have nests,
the foxes have dens, but the son of man hath not where to
lay his head. Never owned a piece of grass.
He didn't even own his burial plot. He didn't even own the
place where they buried him. He became poor. He became totally
poor. You see Him in the Garden of
Gethsemane? This is He who cures the souls of men. But to do that,
here He is in soul agony. Sweating great drops of blood. And I don't know what was taking
place there. I don't know what all was happening
there. But I know Scripture says He strove against sin unto blood. And I'm sure he was being tempted
by the devil. But he prayed to the Father.
That was his only place of refuge was the Father. There he is sweating
great drops of blood. This one became a man of sorrows
acquainted with grief. The one who was the joy of heaven
became a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He was stripped naked. He was crowned with thorns and
he was mocked and he was nailed to the cursed tree. And this one who knew the joy
of his father because he was bearing the sin of his people,
he was rejected forsaken of the Father in perfect wrath and justice. So that he cried out, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That's poor. That's poor. It was to bear the
justice of his people that God demanded of his people. It was
to justify these guilty people. It was for our sakes that we
may be made rich. Has He distributed to our necessities? Has He distributed to our needs? Has He pursued hospitality and
brought us home? Has He done that? We were dead in sins. Dead in
sins. He gave us life. Sent the gospel
to us, the incorruptible seed, and sent the Holy Spirit to us,
and He gave us life. What kind of price can you put
on life? Spiritual life. Life from the dead. We were guilty. He gave us righteousness. He
distributed to us righteousness, free. free because it cost him
everything. We were unholy, he gave us a
pure heart. He made it so we can come in
to the presence of holy God right now in prayer. We were without God, without
hope in the world, without Christ, and he brought us to his house.
He adopted us. He made God to be our Father
and He brought us into His house amongst our brethren and He gave
us a multitude of sisters and brothers and fathers and mothers. He gave this to us, given to
hospitality. Believer, you have in your possession
right now, you and I have in our possession right now things
far more valuable than gold and silver. Far more valuable than
money. Far more valuable than any temporal
thing in this world. We have that in our possession.
The unsearchable riches of Christ. The unsearchable riches of Christ. Some believer might say, well,
have you seen my temporal condition? I'm not rich. Well, William Huntington said,
believers have a handbasket portion. A handbasket portion. He said
you take a rich father, his daughter's getting married and he gives
her a large sum of money or some big extravagant gift and gives
it to her all at once. You take a poor father and he
doesn't have that to give that way. He says, I'll send you a
handbasket every day with a little flower in it. I'll send you some
cloth to make you some dresses. I'll send you some necessities
to you every day. That girl ends up receiving more
than the other. Because her father provides her
needs every day from then on. Every day. God gives us a hand basket portion. Grace for today. Look at Matthew
6. Verse Verse 24, He says, No man can
serve two masters. Our God knows this. He knows
this about His people. It's impossible to serve two
masters. You can't do it. He says there,
He'll either hate the one and love the other, or else He'll
hold to the one and despise the other. Here's what He means.
You can't serve God and the world. You can't serve God and the world. You just can't. Somebody's going
to suffer. Either you're not going to give
Christ the time that you ought to give Him, you're going to
give it to the world, or you're going to give Christ the time
you should give Him and not give as much to the world. But you
can't do both. You can't do both. Therefore
I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall
eat, what you shall drink, nor yet for your body, what you shall
put on. Is not the life more than meat
and the body than raiment? Is there not more to life than just living to pursue temporal
things? Is there not more to life than
that? He's teaching his people to be content with such things
as we have, and not to be ambitious for this world, and not to try
to... I remember when I left from home and went to Nashville,
and I was going to pursue a job that was going to require everything
of me. And I can remember when I left,
my grandfather said, be careful. You will be in the fast lane
before you know you're in the fast lane. Oh, no, no, no, no. That won't happen to me. I won't
be deceived. He was right. He was right. I found myself trying to hear
the gospel preached and I couldn't hear it. I found myself, my mind,
while I'm trying to hear the gospel, my mind was on my work.
It was consuming me. It was taking me away like a
riptide just pulls you down the shoreline. And I didn't know
it. I didn't know it. This is what
our Lord is telling us right here. You can't serve God and
the world. But He says to us, take no thought. Don't be anxious. Don't be worried
about what you're going to eat and drink. Remember what we saw
Thursday night? Is anything too hard for the
Lord? Anything? Look here. He says, behold the
fowls of the air. They sow not, neither do they
reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth
them. Are you not much better than
they? Which of you by taking thought, which of you by worrying
and being anxious and troubled over what's going to happen tomorrow
can add one cubit to a statue? We can't add one second to our
life. We can't promote ourselves in
this world. We can't climb the ladder just
of ourselves. We can't add any honor to ourselves
just of ourselves. We can't do that. So what's all
the worry and anxious and being so burdened the cares of this
world. Why take you thought for raiment?
If you can't do that, why take you thought for what you're going
to wear? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.
They toil not, neither do they spin. They're not out there worried,
troubled, and anxious. And yet I say unto you that even
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today
is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more
clothe you, O ye of little faith? You see what the Lord's doing
here? He's teaching us why we don't have to be troubled and
worried so that we don't serve the world. He's teaching us this
so that we don't feel like so much is on our shoulders that
we have to we have to sell ourselves for nothing. He says this, therefore, verse 31, therefore
take no thought saying what shall we eat, whether shall we be clothed,
for after all those things the world seeks. That's what he's
saying. Unregenerate, heathen, that's what they're seeking after.
For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these
things. But now watch. Seek ye first. Seek ye preeminently at all times,
every day, all the time. Seek ye preeminently the kingdom
of God and His righteousness. That's Christ and His righteousness. Seek Him preeminently. And all
these shall be added to you. God will give you, He'll meet
your needs. He'll meet your needs. Take no
thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow take thought for the things of
itself. There's enough evil today. You
don't have to worry about tomorrow. God's going to provide. He gives,
He distributes to the necessities of His people. Day by day, basket
portion. He gives us everything we need
day by day. Egypt had those granaries full
And boy, they really thought they were safe. Well, they were
much more safer when they were out there in that wilderness
without any granaries, without any fields to plant in, and God
was giving them manna day by day. Day by day. Our Heavenly Father says, no
good thing will I withhold from them that walk uprightly. How
do you walk uprightly? Christ just told us. You seek
preeminently Christ and His righteousness. God Almighty. All things are
yours. Remember that? All things are
yours. He said things present, things
to come, this world, life, death, all are yours. And you're Christ's.
And Christ is God's. Earthly homes and riches and
all the things we accumulate, the moment you die, just like everybody else. Then
will these things matter at all? Then will they matter at all? But you see, we have an earthly
house, I mean a heavenly house that never perishes, it never
diminishes in any way. It's eternal in the heavens. That's what these people have.
When you survey all these unsearchable eternal riches, Thank God for
His unspeakable gift. He's given us all this in His
Son. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became
poor, that you through His poverty might be made rich. Now secondly,
I want to just speak just a second on this exhortation to us. He
says this is for saints. This is for their needs. A saint
is somebody that God the Father sanctified before the world was
made. by divine election. A saint is
one that Christ has perfected forever by His one offering.
A saint is one who's been sanctified by the Spirit of God and regeneration. Our Father's will is to have
His children take care of His saints, to take care of their
needs. Now there's no sanctified child
of God, you, me, or anybody else who can boast in distributing
to the necessities of a brother or sister. We can't boast in
it because all of this is of grace. Everything. Listen to
Acts 4.33. Stop speaking of the early church.
It says, With great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus. And great grace, great grace
was upon them all. Neither was there any among them
that lacked. Because as many as were possessors
of lands or houses, sold them and brought the prices of them
that were sold, laid them down at the apostles' feet, and distribution
was made unto every man according as he had need. Look back at
2 Corinthians again and look at chapter 9 and listen to this. 2 Corinthians 9. and look at verse 8. This is one of my favorite verses
of the Scripture. Listen, 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. Look at verse
11. being enriched in everything
to all bountifulness. He'll enrich you in all things
to all liberality, which causes, through us, thanksgiving to God. It all goes back to God's glory.
He gives everything you need in this process of distributing
to saints and of being hospitable. He gives everything, the heart
to do it, He gives the need to do it. He gives everything to do it.
There's nothing that came of us. He gave it all. Remember
what David said? Who am I and who is it of your
people that we can give so in such abundance? Everything we're
giving to you, David said, Lord, it came from your hand. Look
there in 2 Corinthians 9, look at verse 10. He that ministers
seed to the sower both ministers bread for your food and multiplies
your seed sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness. He gives you the heart. He gives
you the willingness. He gives you those fruits of
righteousness. He increases those too, just
like he does the natural gifts he gives. He gives it all. He even gives the grace so that
if we're the one in need, He even gives the grace so that
you will receive the gift given. We're usually too proud to receive
something from our Reverend. And He even humbles us and gives
us the grace to receive when we have a need. Reverend, if
you have a need, don't ever, don't ever that you give from your brethren.
That's a privilege to them. That's a privilege to them. They
wouldn't be doing it if God hadn't given them grace to do it. What
you can give, and what God says here, this is why we give. This is why it's more blessed
to give than to receive. What you can give is thanksgiving
to God. Thank God for them. More return to a believer than
anything. Thank God. Glorify God. He's
the one who gets all the glory. Our Father says, freely you have
received, freely give. Freely give. The Gospel is founded
upon giving. Everything about it is upon giving
and upon the spirit of giving. Buying and selling are not known
in the Gospel unless you're buying without money and without price.
It's free. He's free. Payments for the law. Gospel is a gift. Do you get that? Payment. The law required a tax, a tithe,
a payment. Gospel is a gift. And everything to do with it
is a gift. God gives freely to us. We give freely to His people.
That's why God loves a cheerful giver. If a man's not a cheerful
giver, he's out of kilter with the whole economy of the Gospel,
with the whole economy of grace. Everything's freely given. That's
how this Gospel is. And our motive is the free grace
of Christ to us. It's the free grace of Christ
to us. Listen to 1 John 3.16, Hereby
receive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us. And we ought, we ought to lay
down our lives for the brethren. But of whoso hath this world's
good, and seeth his brother have a need, and shuts up his bowels
of compassion for him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? And yet
we say, if I have to help my brother in need, and I won't, I must not know that everything
I have is given to God. He gives everything. So brethren,
that's why I'm thankful to God for the heart He's given you.
Because everything is from Him. Everything. Alright, let's stand
together. Father, thank You for this Word. Thank You for giving us all things. Thank You for the heart You've
given to Your people in this place. We're thankful, Lord,
that You've made Your people cheerful givers. But Lord, it's
all because of Your unspeakable gift. We behold what You've done
for us, and we're debtors. We're debtors to minister to
those that You've used to minister to us in spiritual things. What
is it if we give to them our carnal things? Lord, help us
to be helpers to your older congregations that are taking home some of
the members to be with you and their numbers decrease. Lord,
help us to minister to them. They've ministered to us abundantly
in spiritual things and temporal. Help us to minister to them.
And Lord, use us any way you see fit. You make it clear, you
open the door, and use us any way you see fit. First and foremost,
to distribute the gospel, but secondly, our carnal things and
to be conspicuous with our homes that you've given us. Thank you,
Lord, for this unspeakable gift we have in Christ. It's in his
precious name we pray, amen.