1 Corinthians chapter 16. And we'll read the first four verses.
Now concerning the collection for the saints. As I have given
order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week,
let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered
him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And when I come,
whosoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send
to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem. And if it be meet
that I go also, they shall go with me. Now our subject is concerning
the collection of the saints. The ability to give is a grace
that God gives just like faith, just like having a knowledge
of God, just like having the love of God in your heart. The gift of giving, being able
to give is a grace given by God. Look over at 2 Corinthians 8
and look at verse 7. 2 Corinthians 8 and verse 7. You might want to mark this. We'll
probably be back to this chapter again. It says here, as you abound
in everything, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and
in all diligence, and in your love to us. All of that came
from God. That was a grace given by God
to them. He says, see that you abound
in this grace also. And He's talking about giving. Now, we don't have a problem
with giving in this church. This is a very generous congregation
and I think it's partly because we don't shy away from the message
of giving. We don't shy away from preaching
on it. It's in God's Word, so it ought to be preached on. And
I know there are places that don't preach on it, and we don't
preach on it and make it a focus, but when we come to it in Scripture,
we deal with it. And so that's the way to handle
all Scripture. So in this passage though, our
text today, the Lord teaches us very clearly how we're to
go about this grace of giving. Now, first of all, back in our
text, 1 Corinthians 16, first we see who we are to provide
for. Who are we to provide for? Verse
1, now concerning the collection for the saints. This doesn't exclude us from
helping somebody who's not a believer. But our primary concern, the
ones we're to be providing for in this earth, are the saints.
And this gives me great peace because God uses His saints to
provide for His saints. And for instance, God controls
everything about our state in this life. He gives one a need
at one time, And at that same time, He gives another abundance. Well, in a little while, He may
reverse that and give the one a need and the other abundance. But by doing this, what God does
is He sees to it that the burden doesn't fall on one saint or
one church to provide for the saints. It's equal because This
one has a need at one time, this one has the abundance. And then
later, this one has the need, this one has the abundance. And
he does that so that there's an equality. There's an equality. Look at 2 Corinthians 8 again. It says in verse 13, For I mean
not that other men be eased, and ye be burdened, but by inequality. that now, at this time, your
abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance
also may be a supply for your want, that there may be equality. As it is written, he that had
gathered much had nothing over, and he that had gathered little
had no lack. That's taken from the Exodus
16 when the Lord gave, He rained down manna from heaven. And you
remember he told them to go out and gather the manna. And so
they went out and those that gathered much brought theirs
in and those that gathered little, they brought theirs in. But when
they put it together and they dispersed it, they all had plenty. They all had plenty. And our
Lord said this. Remember when He sent His ministers
out to preach the gospel, He said, When you went out without
purse, without script, script was money. You went out without
a purse, without script and without shoes. And he said, lacked ye
anything? Lacked ye anything? And they
said nothing. God provides and He uses His
saints to provide. Whenever we were looking at buildings,
I was down in Tennessee at a conference and a lot of the pastors were
talking. And they were talking about how the members of their
churches wanted to help us so we could get in a building. And
one of the pastors said that the members in the congregation,
the church had come into some abundance. And some of the members
were talking and they said, they told the pastor, they said, you
know, we're not in the banking business. We're not just trying
to collect and sit on this like banks do. He said we need to
use this to help the church in New Jersey get a building. And
now here we are. We're in a building. And so I
know your spirit. I know what God's done for us
that as we have abundance and other churches have need, what
will we do? What will be our spirit? We're
not in the banking business. We're not supposed to just sit
on this. We're supposed to put it in circulation and help the
Lord's people. So that's what we do. That's
the spirit of it. Now secondly, he says here the
time to give, verse 2. Now this is very important, very
instructive. He said upon the first day or
the first of the week. Upon the first of the week. He's
talking about the first day of the week. 1 Corinthians 16 verse
2. Upon the first day of the week. We give our offering on the first
day of the week, the same reason we meet on the first day of the
week, the same reason that we use first things, the best of
things in the Lord's house when building it, furnishing it, what
have you. And it's because in everything
that we do, God is first all the time. Christ must have the
preeminence all the time. Whenever they were in the wilderness,
the first thing, the very first thing that God told them to do
was set up the tabernacle for worship. Wherever they traveled,
the first thing they would do was to get that tabernacle set
up for worship. He said, On the first day of
the first month shall thou set up the tabernacle of the tent
of the congregation. And then He said, In the first
day you shall have a holy convocation, you shall do no servile work
therein. And He said, And thou shalt not
delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors. Thy firstborn of thy sons shalt
thou give unto Me. Everything that they did had
to be first. And if you looked at that temple,
Everything they used to build that temple and to furnish that
temple was the very best. You know, a lot of times, this
building, this land right here is an example of it. This land,
as I researched the deed when we were purchasing this property,
this land right here was given to the church by somebody. Why
did they give this land to the church? Well, at that time, this
land flooded worse than it does now. It's only a 1% chance now
this land flooding according to the elevation survey, the
flood survey. But, back then, this land wasn't
worth anything. And you'll find that to be the
case a lot of times. in places where folks will blow
the trumpet, they'll make a big deal about how they're giving
something to the Lord, but it's just a piece of land they can't
use or that's not worth anything. Well, the Lord says that's not
what He'll have from His people. It must be first. First day of
the week, first in our thoughts, first of your fruits, and here's
why. Christ is the first fruit. Christ is. It all pictured Christ. Christ is the first fruit. Look
back there at 1 Corinthians 15 and look at verse 20. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 20.
Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits
of them that slept. Colossians 1.18 says, He is the
head of the body. That's first. He's the head of
the body. the church who is the beginning. He's first. He's the beginning.
He's the firstborn from the dead. He's the first to die for the
sins of His people, to bear the justice of God, the first to
go into the grave, and to come out of that grave, the firstborn
from the dead, never to die again. There were some others who died
and were raised again, but they died again. Christ was the firstborn
from the dead to never die again, to sit at God's right hand. That,
God said, in all things, that in all things He might have the
preeminence. God is saying, Don't fit Christ
in to your lives to worship Him. He is saying worship Him and
arrange every other detail of your life around the worship
of Christ. He is first. He is first. Why? Because whom
He did foreknow, He did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of His Son. Why did He do that? That He might be the firstborn
among many brethren. God was going to have His Son
have the preeminence and He is going to have it in the hearts
of His people. So we meet to worship on the first day of the
week, we give of the first fruits and we give that which is first,
best because we are thanking and acknowledging to God that
everything we have is of His hand. Every single thing we have
is of His hand. everything. Christ said, Seek
ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. It doesn't
mean make you an itemized list and put Christ first and then
everything else comes now second. It means all the time Christ
is to be first. All the time. Now, thirdly, who
should give? Who should give? Verse 2 says,
Let every one of you Every one of you. 1 Corinthians 16, 2. Let every one of you. Now He
is speaking to us who God has saved by His grace. The only
person that is going to understand anything about why we give and
the only person that is going to do this cheerfully is somebody
that has seen what God has done for them. He is talking about
God's saints. This is for Christ's body, His
members, because His body, His members are our body. It's our
members. Do you give anything to your
earthly members, to your earthly body? Or do you grudgingly say,
I can't give to that member because, no, you think that would be absurd. That's all members of my body.
That's the church. These are all members of my body.
For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether
we be Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, and have all been made
to drink into one Spirit. Do you remember the early church?
When God poured out the Holy Spirit in abundance on them.
We don't have the abundance of the Holy Spirit like they had
in the early church. I do pray, and Scriptures bear out, God's
going to do that again. He's going to pour out His Spirit
in abundance again. But when He did that in that
early church, They had all things common. They had all things common. The multitude of them that believed
were of one heart and of one soul, neither said any of them
that aught of the things which he possessed was his own. But
they had all things common. You say, that sounds like socialism. That sounds like communism. Earthly
governments have tried to imitate it. But you cannot legislate
what God creates in the heart by grace. If it's just of a man
and it's just by law and it's just by an earthly government,
what you'll have happen is the person who could be bringing
in more won't bring in as much because he knows he's got to
give it to that other person. And the person who doesn't want
to work won't work because he knows I'm going to get it from
the other one. And they take advantage of each
other and try to find ways to cheat the system. But when God
does this in the heart, You don't have any problem saying what's
mine is yours. Have at it. Have at it. There
have been a lot of times that some of you have called and said,
hey, can I take your truck to do this and that? Take it. You
know, I mean, whatever you need. It's yours. It's yours. We're one. We're one. That's
why every one of us. Then look at the motive here.
Verse 2. You pass this by But every word
in God's Word is important. Verse 2, Upon the first day of
the week, let, let every one of you. You see, this is the
motive. Let. That means it's not by law. It's not required by law. This is grace. The motive is
grace, let. Does anyone here enjoy paying
taxes? You enjoy paying taxes? You're
just thrilled when that time of year comes around, oh I can't
wait to give Uncle Sam my money. Well, the old covenant tithe
was a tax. That's what it was. It was required
by law. It was required by law. But believers
don't tithe. We don't tithe. We give. We do it freely. We do it from
a motive of grace. We do it cheerfully because of
what God's done for us. Go back to 2 Corinthians 8 again. 2 Corinthians 8, look at verse
7. I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians 8. Well, I marked it down wrong,
but here's the verse. I've got the verse written down. every man according as he purposeth
in his heart, let him give not grudgingly or of necessity, for
God loveth a cheerful giver." Let him give according as he
purposes in his own heart, let him give not grudgingly or of
necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. Giving, this is a privilege
of God's children. Chapter 9, verse 7. God's children don't give grudgingly. And this is not for those who
would give grudgingly, or disgruntled, or tight-fisted. It's not for
them. Because a person that has that
heart, something's wrong with the heart. Something's wrong
with the heart. They haven't beheld what God's
done. There's a problem there with
the heart. When a person gives in that spirit,
he's paying a tax and he's not giving at all. And so it's not
for him. God loves a cheerful giver. Those
who God has revealed himself to, they are cheerful givers. And we give acknowledging this
is what we know Everything came from God. Remember David? Remember
what he said? They gave so much, he gave so
much out of his own house for the building of that temple.
And all the children of Israel did. And when they got finished,
he said, O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared
to build thee for a house for thine holy name cometh of thine
hand and is all thine own. He said, all we've done is give
to you what you first gave to us. And now what's the script?
What hast thou that thou didst not receive? What do you have
that you did not receive? No matter where you start, you've
got to trace it back to the first cause God gave it. So why would
we act as though we didn't receive it? And that's what it is. In
anything that we are grudging about, we're acting like, I earned
this and I provided this, but God gave it. What do you have
that you did not receive? If thou didst receive it, why
dost thou have glory as if thou didst not receive it? Romans
11.35 says this, Who hath first given to him? Now think about that. Who has
first given to God? Who has been one that gave to
God before God gave to you? And He says, if you can find
somebody, it shall be recompensed unto him again. Because of him
and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever
and ever. You and I have nothing that we
didn't receive from God. That's what makes you a cheerful
giver. That's what makes you a cheerful giver. God is my provider. And he's faithful, he's promised,
he will provide. Then the manner. What's the manner
of this giving? Look at verse 2. 1 Corinthians
16, 2. He says, Lay by him in store. Set it aside, lay by him in store. Now, this is important. It's
simple, but it's important. We should not only be willing
to give, saying, you know, I'm going to do this or that to ourselves,
but to actually do it. There's a lot of times when we
tend to have good intentions and think about what we'll do,
but then we don't do it. And he says, no, do it. Go back
now to 2 Corinthians 8. I think I might have it written
down right this time. 2 Corinthians 8. He says, I speak not by commandment,
I'm not commanding you to do this, Paul said, but by occasion
of the forwardness of others and to prove the sincerity of
your love, to show that you really do love. Verse 10, And herein
I give my advice, for this is expedient for you, Now here's
what he's saying, "...who have begun before, not only to do,
but also to be forward a year ago." A year ago, this is what
happened. Some had expressed this desire
to give, to help the needy saints. But a year passed and they hadn't
done it. And so look at verse 11, "...now therefore perform
the doing of it." that as there was a readiness to will, so there
may be a performance also out of that which you have." He says,
don't just be willing to do it, but do it. Now look at the example
he gives. Illustration, verse 9. For you
know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though He was rich.
Now you think about this. In eternity, Christ Jesus the
Lord entered into a covenant with God the Father saying, I
will be made of flesh like unto these you've given me by your
grace. I will be made under the law and I will redeem them that
are under that law. I will glorify you, Father, in
declaring you righteous and showing how that you can be just and
still justify your people and be their justifier. He made all
these promises. I'll build your church. I'll
establish your church. I'll be the head over that church.
I'll call out my people. I will not lose one. And in the
end, I'll bring them all to you, perfected, without spot and blemish,
and present them to you, Father." The Lord said that in eternity. And He was rich. He was equal
with the Father. He's one with God. He had the
glory with the Father before the world was made. He had everything. He needed nothing from us. And
yet He made that promise. But did He go through with it? If He would have just made that
promise, you and I wouldn't know if He was sincere about it. But
what did He do? When the time came, He came. He came forth, made of a woman,
made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.
And He walked this earth. It says He was made poor for
us. He gave everything that could possibly be given. Here is Him
who made heaven and earth, who made the stars, the moon, all
things in the universe, and all things in earth. And He walked
this earth and He said this, Foxes have holes, the birds have
the air and nests, and the Son of Man has not where to lay His
head. He was despised and He was rejected
of men. How poor did He become? He was
wounded by God, by the justice of God. for our transgression. He was bruised like corn is ground
to pieces in a... what's that thing called? Anyway,
He ground like a corn bruised for the sin of His people. And
by His giving of Himself, till there was nothing to give, nothing
left to give, by that brethren, look at what it says, that you
through His poverty might be rich. But you see, He didn't
just say He would do it. He didn't just intend to do it,
purpose to do it. He went through with it. He did
it. He did it. And by that work He did, now
we know the sincerity of His love. By this we see the love
of God and He laid down His life for us. And He says now we ought
to lay down our lives for one another. Alright, here's the
next thing. How much should I give? How much
should I give? Verse 2. Let every one of you,
1 Corinthians 16, 2, let every one of you lay by him in store
as God hath prospered him. That's your rule, that's your
measure right there. As God has prospered you. You see, we're not under law.
We are not to just take 10% like the law required. We are under
grace. We are under grace. And it says
here, Yield as God has prospered you. Now how has God prospered
you? How has He prospered you? Ephesians
1.7 says, In Christ we have redemption. What is the value of that to
us? Redemption from the curse of the law, from the bondage
of our sin nature, and one day from this cursed world. We have
it. Redemption through His blood. What's that blood? What's the
value of that blood to us? Precious. Precious blood. And we have the forgiveness of
sin. What's the value of knowing God
will never ever charge one of His elect with sin ever again? What's the value of that? Can
you put a price on that? He did it according to the riches
of His grace. What's His grace? What's the
value of that? not according to our works, not
according to any good or evil in us, simply according to His
free sovereign grace, unchanging grace. Wherein He's abounded
toward us in all wisdom and all prudence, making known unto us
the mystery of His will. What's the value to you of knowing
God and knowing what He's done for us and having this mystery
revealed to you? He has prospered us, hasn't He?
He has prospered us. And He says in the ages to come,
He is going to show you the exceeding riches of His grace toward us
in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Paul said this, he said, unto
me who am less than the least of all things is this grace given,
the unsearchable riches of Christ. On this subject of giving, turn
to Mark 12. Mark 12, the subject of how much. I want you to see here that the
Lord doesn't measure our giving by how much we give. That doesn't
determine whether or not a person is given much or little by how
much they give. What makes the determination
is how much is left over. How much is left over. Listen
to this, Mark 12 verse 41. Jesus sat over against the treasury
and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury. And
many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor
widow and she threw in two mites which make a farthing, about
like a penny. And he called unto him his disciples,
and he said unto them, Verily... You know when the Lord says verily,
this means this is super important. Verily I say unto you that this
poor widow has cast more in than all they that have cast into
the treasury. For all they did cast in of their
abundance. They had plenty, and they had
plenty left over. But she of her want in her poverty
did cast in all that she had, even all her living. You know
why she did that? You know why Christ is commending
her for that? She gave all because she beheld how God had given
all for her and provided all for her. He spared not His own
Son. I don't want to hear excuses.
When my old Pharisee rises up and starts trying to make excuses,
I don't want to hear it. He spared not His own Son, but delivered
Him up for a bunch of God-hating enemies. Now, how shall He not
with Him freely give us all things. You know something that text
means? It means justice demands it. That God with Christ give
us everything. Righteousness, holiness, redemption,
forgiveness, and every other earthly provision we need. Righteousness
demands it. Because Christ bought that for
His people. So that's why she did what she
did. Do we believe God? Do we really
believe God? Listen to this. When you want
to experience peace and believing, trust God enough to try to out
give God. And you will experience peace
and believing. I'm telling you that. Listen to this, what God
Himself said now. In Malachi 3.10, He said, Bring
ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine
house, and prove me now. You know what that means? Test
me. Put me to the test. Try me now
herewith. In tithes and offerings, He told
children of Israel, Prove me with it. Test me with it. Test
me with it. He said, sayeth the Lord of hosts,
if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a
blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall
not destroy the fruits of your ground. Neither shall your vine
cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord
of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed, for you shall
be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. That doesn't
mean that He's going to make you rich if you give. That's
not what He's saying. It means that God has promised
His people He will provide everything we need. And when He says, test
me, you try to out give me, God said, and you watch, you won't
be able to do it. That's what He's saying. You
won't be able to do it. He won't be able to do it. He's
able to make all grace abound towards you, so that you always,
having all sufficiency and all things, may abound to every good
work. As it's written, He hath dispersed
abroad, He hath given to the poor, His righteousness remaineth
forever, and He that ministers seed to the sower, ministers
bread for your food, and He multiplies your seed so, and He increases
the fruits of your righteousness. We cannot We can't bring forth
anything. We can't make the fruit not fall
off the vine before the time. We can't make the rain come down
from heaven. We can't make the plant come
out of the earth. We can't produce any fruit whatsoever. Everything that is produced by
a sinner, God produced it. And everything that is produced
for the sinner, God produced it. And the way He makes you
willing to do anything for Him is He gives it. And He gives
the ability to do it. And He gives the substance to
do it. And then He blesses the doing of it. You see, everything
is of God. Everything is of God. Now here
is the end purpose. Verse 2, that there be no gathering
when I come. Now that's very, very important
and here's the message here. You know, it's so much easier
to concentrate on the message when you come in and you have
time to sit down and relax and read the bulletin and prepare
your heart to worship. I realize we're in a new building,
we're driving a new distance to get here and so Sometimes,
right now, there's been a couple times we've, you know, so far
we've missed it a little bit. That's understandable, you know,
it's a new building. But when you get here and you
sit down and you have time to take, that bulletin takes so
long to prepare. I mean, I almost spend an entire
day on nothing but preparing that bulletin. Me and Frank Tate
were talking about this, about how long you spend on it, and
then a lot of times you just see people walk right past it
and not even pick it up. I mean, it takes a lot of time.
And it's so that you can come in and sit down and open it up. It's something I've preached
in the past. And you can take it and read it. A little brief
article about it. And read some articles from our
brethren and men of the past. But it's to prepare you to hear. And when you do that, you get
a blessing from the message. You're ready. And you get a blessing
from the message. Well, giving is the same way. If we just, last minute, write
out a check or take some money out and throw it in the offering
plate, then no thoughts in it, nothing, you don't get any blessing
from that. We don't want to ever put this
grace on auto bill, you know, where it's just automatic and
there's no thought in it. He means here, do this ahead
of time so that when I get there, you're not running around trying
to gather everything up, so that you've taken some time to think
about these things. what God has done for you, how
Christ is first, how that everything comes of His hand. And so that
you can take time and actually pray and thank God for this whole
ministration here is for our benefit. You see, this is what
we fail to realize. The person doing the giving is
being blessed even more than the person to whom you give.
Christ said that. He said it's more blessed to
give than to receive. If you go through this ministry
properly, it's for your own benefit. God's provided us this for our
own spiritual benefit. And that's what He's saying.
I pray God now use that and teach us Like I said, we don't have
any issues with this. You're abundant givers. But it's
so good to know this, isn't it? So good to see why. Everything
has a purpose in God's house. Everything. Alright, let's stand
together. Father, Your tender mercy to
us is always just amazing. When we look and see how every
little detail that you teach us and everything that you give
us to do is not for your benefit, it's to teach us and to benefit
us. And Lord, something like this
that could be so easily looked over, you teach us through it,
show us how it's for your glory and your honor and the good of
your house. and for our own personal edification. Thank you Lord for this and make
us cheerful givers. Make us understand everything
is of you and everything is through you and it's to you. You are
the center of everything. Make it so in our hearts that
we might truly arrange our life around the worship of Christ.
Make it so, Lord. Everything else is to not be
a faithful steward of the goods You've put into our hand. Make
us faithful stewards, Father. Thank You for this grace. Thank
You for the ability. Thank You for the abundance You
always provide. We thank you so much. We're sitting
here in a new building because you've given this grace to other
saints and to your saints here and shown us how faithful you
are. Thank you, Father. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.