Here in Acts 20, every word that
Paul has said in this farewell address to the Ephesian elders,
he has said to them, follow me. That's what he's saying to them. But then listen here what he
warned them that the false prophets would do. Verse 29, For I know
this, that after my departing, shall grievous wolves enter in
among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall
men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples
after them." So what's the difference? How am I going to know the difference?
When Paul says, be ye followers of men, He's teaching here, be
ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ. Now, He has reminded
them, first of all, that He received this ministry. to testify of
the gospel of God's grace from Christ Jesus, the word, the gospel
himself. Paul received this word from
him and this ministry and he received it for one purpose and
it was to go forth and to testify, to proclaim, to declare the gospel
of God's grace in Christ Jesus. And he reminds them that it was
through this word of grace that they were begotten, that the
Holy Spirit gave them life, that they were born again through
this word. And it's through this gospel
that the Holy Ghost made them elders, made them overseers of
the church to go forth and preach this word of grace, just like
it happened to Paul. And so Paul says, therefore,
as I've preached the truth of this gospel to you, you do the
same thing for others. And he says here, he said this
in 1 Corinthians 4. Look there with me real quick.
Hold your place here in Acts 20. And you'll want to hold your
place in 1 Corinthians 4. We'll come back here again, or
at least to the book, 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 4, 15. Here's what he's teaching them.
Though you have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet you have not many
fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I have forgotten
you through the gospel. I preach the gospel of Christ
to you. You got a lot of people coming in Christ's name, but
you got somebody here that's preached the gospel of Christ
to you and through this word you've been given life. And he
says, wherefore I beseech ye, be ye followers of me. Now, He
reminded them of the example that he set before them and how
he preached this gospel to them. This is sort of some review for
you. He said, I preached it to all men, Jew and Gentile. He says, I preached it in every
place, public or private, this same gospel, in humility, trusting
Christ, the power and wisdom of God. And he says, I preach
repentance toward God. Repentance from self to God.
Repentance from the dead works of dead religion, of vain imaginations,
of vanity and sin that we are in our flesh to God. That's what
I preach, repentance toward God, and I preach faith in Christ
Jesus, faith in Him who is the author and finisher of our faith,
faith in Him who is the captain of our salvation, faith in Him
who is the head of the church on whose shoulder the government
rests. I've preached repentance from
everything else to God and faith in His Son. the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, now you take heed
to yourselves, and you feed the church, which he purchased with
his own blood. And the sheep food, the food
for sheep, is Christ the bread. And he says, and just as I came
to you, trusting him, and throughout my ministry I trusted him, even
now, he says in verse 32, brethren, I commend you to God, and to
the word of his grace which is able to build you up and to give
you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. Now,
here's our text for tonight. Paul reminds them of another
example he set before them. What I want you to get tonight
is that the word of the gospel of Christ cannot be separated
from this example that Paul is going to talk about here that
he set before them. I want you to see this now. They
go together. And I hope by the end of the
message you see why they go together. Verse 33, he said, I have coveted
no man's silver or gold or apparel. Yes, ye yourselves know that
these hands have ministered unto my necessities and to them that
were with me. There were some preachers that
came with him, Barnabas, different ones. He said, I ministered to
my necessities and to theirs, Timothy and Silas. He said, 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 how
he said, it's more blessed to give than to receive. Now nothing
Paul preached and nothing that Paul did was for personal profit. That's what he taught us when
he said about how I preach this gospel. Now we said, and in everything
I did, it wasn't for personal profit. He received some gift
from churches where he had preached already. But if he lacked anything
and he needed anything, Paul worked and he made up that which
he needed and he gave and provided for those that were with him,
that were there ministering with him because to free up the people to whom
he preached. Now, first thing I want you to
see is Paul got this light from Christ the same as he got his
gospel. He says here, remember the words
of the Lord Jesus who said it's more blessed to give than to
receive. That's where he got this light.
Every exhortation, every doctrine in the scriptures gets its light
from Christ. And here's the second thing.
The effectual grace of God made Paul to walk in this light. The
same that it made him come forth and preach this gospel, the effectual
working of God's grace in his heart made him walk in this light.
That it is better to give than to receive. That's the second
thing. Every doctrine receives its glory
from Christ. And every doctrine is made effectual
in the heart by the Holy Spirit through Christ the Light. And
here's the third thing. He did it for the glory of Christ. It all redounds. It's all for
the purpose of the glory of Christ. Now, turn back over to 1 Corinthians
9. 1 Corinthians 9. He says, If we've sown unto you spiritual
things, the gospel, the gospel of the grace of God in Christ,
1 Corinthians 9-11. If we've sown unto you spiritual
things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?
If others be partakers of this power over you, or not we rather,
there was some coming into the church at Corinth who were saying,
teaching them to give, and they were becoming givers, and they
were giving to these false prophets. He said, if they're exercising
this power over you, shouldn't we rather? But, nevertheless,
we have not used this power. He had the authority, he had
the power to command them to do this, but he says, we've not
use this power, but have suffered all things, here's the reason
why, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ." Now, he spent
all this time in Acts 20 talking about the importance of the gospel
of Christ, and now he's teaching them the reason that I worked
and supported myself and those with me, and didn't compel you
and constrain you and make you to support me. was because I
didn't want the gospel to be hindered. It was for the word
he preached. It was for the gospel he was
preaching that he did the thing he did. Now, look over to chapter
10. Let me restate these points to
you. Every exhortation, every word Go to 1 Corinthians 10. Every word throughout the volume
of this entire book is going to only be understood in the
light of Christ. We've got to begin with Christ
if we're going to understand why it's being taught. And it's
only going to be made effectual in the heart by Christ working
in you effectually through the Spirit of God. And every exhortation
in the volume of the book concerning our walk has the end and chief
purpose of making you, the believer, invisible. As you hold forth the light,
lest you should hinder the gospel of Christ. The carnal man won't
get this, can't grasp this, carnal religion can't grasp this, but
the light which regenerated sinners that have been visited by divine
visitation, the light that they're going to behold in you, the believer,
is your aim for them and your dealings with them and everything
you did with them was for them not to look to you, but to look
to Christ. It's called subjection to the
gospel of Christ. The carnal mind is enmity against
God and he can't subject himself to the word of God. It's one
way men deny the power of God. They can't just subject themselves
to the fact that this gospel saves. God saves through this
gospel of Christ, his son. Now look here, 1 Corinthians
10 31. Everything's done to make you
invisible that you can give this gospel. Now watch this, 1 Corinthians
10 31. Whether therefore ye eat, or
drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. This is what Paul said, that
the gospel is not hindered, that they can hear the gospel, see
Christ in the gospel, and not be looking at you. And he says,
give none offense. Now watch this. Give no offense,
neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, those that are without,
Jew or Gentile, nor to the Church of God, nor to brethren, even
as I please all, in all, not seeking mine own profit, but
the profit of many, that they may be saved. Be ye followers
of me, even as I also am of Christ. Do you see that? Everything's
to be done to make you, when you look at a candle in a dark
room, and you sit and you enjoy that flickering flame in the
darkness and how it lights the room, you're not looking at the
candlestick. You're looking at the flame.
You're looking at the light of the candle. These words of exhortation
and everything you just read, did you notice how it was all
connected with the purpose of it being God and His Son? It's all so that they don't see
the candlestick, but they will hold the light they're shining
for. This is godly giving, right here. It is giving needy sinners
the gospel of Christ. The gospel, the power of God
unto salvation. Giving them the gospel. Here's
the second thing. It's giving no offense in anything. whether it's a good work or an
evil work. No offense in anything. And it's
giving the weak, the weaker brethren, freedom from temporal burdens
by providing for them. So they're not over-cumbered
by the temporal things and provisions of the world, and they can hear
the gospel and rejoice in the gospel. And it's all for this
end purpose, that the gospel be not hindered. I just can't
press upon you how important this gospel... The Word, Christ is the Word
and this is the Word through which the Word is going to make
us alive and feed us and build us up and grow us and keep us
in Christ. The worship of Christ through
the preaching of the gospel is of all things most important
because the one who is set forth by God's true messengers is Christ
Jesus who must have all preeminence in all things. I remember a time when I had
this tough, tough year or so, and I was just kept asking the
Lord to give me, I had seen His grace, I had beheld His grace,
I had experienced His grace in being able to save in the most
trying time. And it grew me. It made me want to just support
the work. It made me want to have a job. And I was asking, Lord, give
me a job that I can make some money because I just want to
support the gospel. Now, I see the importance of
this gospel. I want to support a pastor. His
family, the church, so that there be no hindrance that they can
hear this gospel preached. We got a place people can come
and hear this gospel preached. So the Lord gave me a job and
I was making plenty of money. And I was supporting the work,
not a tithe, not a tenth. This was faith. It was just trusting
God and just from my heart overflowing with what He had done for me.
And in the midst of this, as I began to work harder and harder
and progress in the job and what have you and get more responsibilities
in the job, Throughout the week, a lot of times, I would either
be working or I'd just be too spent to go and I just started
missing some midweek services. And a pastor, my pastor, was
talking to me one day and he reminded me. He said, Clay, you're
a part of the Sunday service. I was teaching the kids. And
he said, you're a part of the Sunday service. And he said,
that means every eye is on you. And he says to me, he said, now
it's important that you not only teach them, but you show them
that everything else is secondary. Christ is preeminent completely. And I realized that though I
was doing everything to provide for him and his family in the
church, And though my motive was is that the gospel wouldn't
be hindered and that everybody would see Christ and be able
to come and sit and hear Christ and rejoice in Christ, I was
being counterproductive to the reason I was even doing that.
Our giving or any other good thing that we might do matters
absolutely nothing. If the love of the Lord Jesus
Christ is not preeminent in our hearts, so that those around
us behold that he is preeminent. He is preeminent. So you can't
separate the word of the gospel from the reason for these practical
exhortations and what it is that we do. Why do we do these things?
It's that the gospel of Christ be not hindered. So that all
behold that there is nothing, nothing as important as hearing
the Word of Life, the Prince of Life, Christ Jesus, the Lord
of Glory. This is how God's going to save.
This is how He's promised to save from the beginning. So in
every word, in every word that the Lord teaches us in His Word,
And in every aspect of His dealing with us in our lives, in our
homes, in our community, in our jobs, in trials, in good times
or in trials, whatever. Seek to behold first the Kingdom
of God and His righteousness. Christ Jesus the King, the righteousness
of the Lord our Right. Behold Him. Seek to behold Him
first. In this word, in every word of
it, and in every aspect of our life, because everything that
exists in this world, in heaven, in earth, in the world, in the
church, in your family, in mine, visible, invisible, exists for
one reason, that in all, Christ Jesus, the dearly beloved Son
of God, might have all preeminence, for it pleased the Father, that
in Him should all fullness dwell." Now, I'm saying that to you because
we don't just merely preach about giving without declaring why. You want faithful husbands and
faithful wives? We don't want to just create
faithful husbands and faithful wives. The religion of the world
is serving that purpose. And God's using it for that purpose,
to make the place a little bit better for His brethren. But
we want to hear of Christ the husband, who was faithful to
His bride, and who brings His bride into subjection to Him.
And therein, through faith in Him, He'll make us faithful husbands
and faithful wives. We don't just want to have faithful
sons and daughters. I want to have obedient children.
I want you to have obedient children. that obedience to be created
not because they're just scared of us and want to serve us because
they're afraid if they step out of line we're going to yank a
knot in their rear end. We want it to be because they've heard
of Christ the faithful son and they trust Christ the faithful
son and they're constrained by the love of Christ the faithful
son who was faithful to God his father. We want faithful workers. We want to be faithful workers
and faithful bosses. But not just to be men-bleasers,
not just to be faithful workers and faithful bosses, but we want
it to be from the heart that's heard of the faithful servant
of God and rejoices in His service toward God for us. We want to
be in submission to Him who said, I must be about my father's business.
The one who said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Who
said, I'm the faithful one. That's why. We want faithful
church members. But not just to join the church,
not just to come and join in with a religious organization. We want them to be faithful church
members because they've heard of Christ, the head of the church.
The one that God the Father entrusted all the government of His church
to. The one whose church is His body, the fullness of Him, whose
promise that He will edify every individual member through the
word of this gospel. making the whole to be one, united,
no schism in the body. That's why we want faithful church
members. So on this subject of giving
here, Paul says, this is why I did it. Paul didn't go around
saying, now y'all make sure you know that I'm working now and
not causing you to do it. But he's leaving now. And he
said, I preach this gospel to you. And he said, and as I did
it, you know how that I didn't make it burdensome on you. I
didn't put any burden on you for one reason, that the gospel
be not hindered. Now, when he was there, Paul
preached about giving. He wrote to the Ephesians about
giving. He preached everywhere he went about giving. Let's think
about how Paul preached about giving, and we'll understand
how that you can't divorce the Word of this Gospel from the
reason that we're givers. He wasn't trying to just create
preachers. He was trying to preach the Gospel of Christ so that
Christ, through His effectual working in them, would make them
preachers of Christ in Him, crucified. He wasn't trying to just create
givers. He was teaching them who Christ is, what He's done,
why He did it, where He is now, so that they would be made givers
of the Word of Life, givers of the Gospel. That they would make
sure that in everything they gave no offense and that in everything
they took all burden away so that men could behold the Gospel
of Christ. Let's hear what Paul might have
preached. We know what he preached because we can read it. But here's
the first thing. that I've written down, the triune
God and the Lord Jesus Christ is the giver. You want to be
a giver? You've got to learn who the giver
is first. He's the giver. God the Father gave His only
begotten Son. This is the record. God has given
eternal life and this life is in His Son. And God said for
that reason, because He gave Him, He said, hear Him. Hear Him. The Lord Jesus Christ
said, I give my life for the sheep. I give, I give my life
for the sheep. No man can come to me, to the
Father, but by me, he said. And the Holy Spirit gives sinners
a true understanding directly from God the Father and our Lord
Jesus Christ. I'm gonna read John 16, if you
wanna look there, John 16, 13. He's the giver, the Holy Spirit's
the giver of the truth, the understanding in the heart. Verse 13, Howbeit
when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into
all truth, for He shall not speak of Himself. Look down at verse
14, He shall glorify me, for He shall, this is Christ speaking,
for He shall receive of mine. and shall show it unto you. All
things that the Father hath are mine. Therefore said I that he
shall take of mine and shall show it unto you." So you see
that God the Father gave His Son, God the Son gave His life,
and God the Holy Spirit gives you an understanding that Christ
is all. You and I were too poor, we were
too needy, we were too bankrupt to even know that we didn't have
anything to give to God. We were trying to be givers so
we could get God to give to us. We were trying to be faithful
husbands and fathers so He'd give us something, so we could
earn something. Religion is going about trying
to give something just to get God to give to them. The Lord
said, if I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you. The world is mine and
all the fullness thereof. He said, the silver is mine,
the gold is mine. He said, Lebanon's not sufficient
to burn, and the beasts thereof for a burnt offering to satisfy
me. We got nothing to give to Him.
Salvation's not about us giving Him something, it's about what
God's given. It's the free gift of God to
those He chose in Christ. Let me read a few verses in Romans,
if you want to look there. Paul's constantly talking about
this gift, this free gift. Romans 6. Romans 6, 23. The wages of sin
is death. That's what we earned. That's
what we earned. But the gift, the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Look at Romans
5 there. Romans 5, verse 15. Not as the
offense, so also is the free gift. The free gift is different
than the way the offense came about. For through the offense
of one Adam, many died. Much more, the grace of God. Unmerited, free, the grace of
God, and the gift by grace, by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded
unto many. Go over to Ephesians chapter
2. Ephesians chapter 2. Verse 8, For by grace are ye
saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift
of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. He said, 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? So that's the first thing we
see. The giver is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit in Christ Jesus who laid down His life, who is the express
image of God, the one that God the Father and God the Holy Spirit
says, look at Him. Look at Him. And then here's
the second thing. I said to you that all the doctrine
has its light from Christ. That's what I just tried to show
you there. If you're going to understand what are we giving
for? Why are we giving? What's the purpose of giving?
It's because Don't give if you're not trusting the giver. Don't
give if you're not sold, if you're not just cast all your care,
lock, stock and barrel on the free justification that you have
in Christ, that Christ is your all, that He's everything that
God requires of you. Don't give anything, because
if you do, you're going to give expecting God to give you something,
unless you're totally trusting God. See that you don't have
anything to give. Praise is all we have to give. Praise. Praise. Now, I said that was Christ-alike.
Now, it's Christ-alike through the Holy Spirit that God works
in the believer. To do that which is well-pleasing
in His sight, whether it's giving, being a faithful husband, a faithful
wife, a faithful son, a faithful daughter, any of these things,
a faithful master or boss or whatever it is. He works affectionately
in the heart to make us do this by faith. He does that. Watch
this. Ephesians 3.7. How did Paul come to do this? He said, I received this of God,
of Christ. Ephesians 3.7, he says, Wherefore
I was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God
given unto me by the effectual working of his power. That's
how I was made a minister. That's how I came to you in the
first place. It's by the gift of the grace
of God, by his effectual power working in me. Over in Ephesians
4.7, He says, and unto every one of
us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. And when He ascended, He gave
gift. He gave apostles and pastors and teachers. He said, I'll give
pastors after my own heart. Everything is given by Him. Affectual grace means our Lord
makes every believer a giver from the heart. That's what He's
going to make every believer a giver from the heart. not by
something I've done, not by something you've done, not by something
mama and daddy did, but he does it effectually in the heart.
You remember, and it's this, you're gonna, you're gonna, men
are gonna see this light, but you're not going about trying
to make them see this light. trying to see you and I'll give
you an example we saw this a few several sermons ago but when
Paul was talking there about about following me over in Corinthians
he said there in 1st Corinthians 4 15 he said you've got all these
instructors in Christ but you've got not many fathers for in Christ
Jesus I've forgotten you through the gospel and he says and for
this cause I sent My beloved son, Timotheus, who's faithful
in the Lord, who will bring you into remembrance my ways, my
teaching, which be in Christ as I teach everywhere in every
church. God the Father gave His Son,
and He gave His Son, and He effectually worked grace in the heart of
Paul, and He gave him grace to be a minister of the Gospel.
And you know how it showed? You know how? You know the light?
It wasn't that Paul was going around trying to make men see
he's a giver. It was that he says, God gave
me His Son. and save me, and I'm going to
give you Timothy, my beloved son, and he's going to come and
preach God's son to you." Because that's what God did to me. He
said, that's why I gave that there would be no hindrance so
that you might behold the gospel of Christ, the weaker brethren.
So first it's from, the doctrine has to be from the light of Christ.
Secondly, to be effectual in our hearts, it's worked by the
Spirit of God, making it effectual by His power in our heart, by
the gift of grace in our heart. And then thirdly, the end purpose
of it all is to glorify Christ the light. Isn't that right? Paul said, or the Lord said,
freely ye have received, freely give. Look at 1 Peter 4.10. 1 Peter
4.10. Right after the book of James,
right after the book of Hebrews, James, then 1 Peter. 1 Peter
4.10. Look at this. I love this. What did the Lord
mean by that? Freely ye have received, freely give. Peter
says it. Verse 10. 1 Peter 4.10. He says this. As every man hath
received the gift, Even so, minister the same one to another as good
stewards of the manifold grace of God." How did you receive
it? Freely it was given. Freely you
received, freely give it. And look what he said, if any
man speak, speak as the oracles of God. Say what God says. If any man minister, do it as
of the ability which God has given you. that God in all things
may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom be praise and
dominion forever and ever. Amen. That's exactly what Paul
is teaching the Ephesian elders as he leaves them to feed the
church of God. He says, now that I'm leaving,
now that I'm leaving, he says, now I'm not going to be with
you anymore. So I'm going to remind you of
what I have done for you. And he says, I taught you the
gospel of Christ. I taught you that Christ is the
giver. Eternal life's in God's Son. He's the giver. I taught you
this. And he said, and I showed you
that I trust Him by providing for myself and providing for
those that were with me so that this gospel wouldn't be hindered.
He didn't set this example. just to make them do something.
He didn't preach this gospel just to make them do something.
He did everything He did that this gospel, that God worked
through this gospel and make it effectual in their hearts.
Now, any light, so-called light, that turns men from Christ, I
don't care if it's telling them to be givers. As good a deed
as it is to give to the poor, If that gospel is not getting
its light from Christ, which I've tried to show you here,
how He's the Giver, if it's not been wrought affectionately in
the hearts of the people by Christ, but they've been constrained
and compelled and made to feel guilty if they don't do it, then
it's not going to be for the glory of Christ. It's light It's
sparks that men have kindled themselves, and they're trying
to walk in themselves and glory in other flesh. They've taken
away Christ, the key of the gospel. He's the key to unlock the mystery
of this thing. And I'll give you proof of this.
Right now, our whole nation, and it's affecting the whole
world, but our whole nation has gone green. That's nothing wrong
with that. Provide for the earth and try
to keep the waters clean and try to keep it from being polluted. And everybody's going after it,
everybody's doing it. But not because the Creator's
been set forth, not because God has been set forth and it's worked
affectionately in their heart and they're doing it for the
glory of Christ. It's creature worship. It's worshipping the
creation more than the Creator. Worshipping the creature more
than the Creator. We can get men to do anything. That's not
hard. Not hard at all. But get them
to stop doing and to trust Christ. You can't do that. You can't
do that. And it's only when Christ has
made us to stop doing and to trust Him that He makes us fit
to be used by the Master. Sanctified forever could work
then. And I want you to notice something here in this, in Acts
20 now. Paul still doesn't compel or
constrain them by his authority to do this. But listen to what
he said. He said, I've showed you, down there in verse 35,
I've showed you all things how that so laboring you ought to
support the weak. Why didn't he say, now I'm going
to be checking in on you, and if you're not doing this, he
just said, I've showed you this is how you ought to do it. And
he left it at that. He did the same thing in this word of his
deed, of his example, that he did when he got to the end of
talking to them about preaching his gospel. And he did it for
the same reason. because he said, I've commended
you to God in the word of His grace which is able to build
you up. If you're going to do this, it's going to be by God,
by His grace, by the word of His grace, for the word of His
grace, for the setting forth of the word of His grace that
needy, helpless, destitute, bankrupt sinners will be given the gospel
of salvation that's going to save them. And if it's done for
any other reason, you're just a tinkling brass, sounding brass
and a tinkling cymbal. You might as well go join up
with the YMCA. That'd do you more good than
joining up with that religious organization. And here's why
he did it. He said over in 2 Corinthians
9.8, And here he's talking about temporal giving, but this is
true of everything he's taught us in this 20th chapter and everything
he's set forth here for these elders. 2 Corinthians 9, verse
8. God is able to make all grace
abound towards you, that ye, always having all sufficiency,
in all things might abound to every good work. Look down at
verse 13. And he says, and by this experiment
of this ministration, he's talking about giving right here. He says,
they're going to glorify God, and here's why. for your professed
subjection unto the gospel of Christ. See that? Because you're subject to the
truth of Christ. To Christ who is the truth. And
for your liberal distribution unto them and to all men. And
look down now at this next word right here. Verse 14. They're going to pray for you.
They're going to thank God for you because they long after you.
Here's what they're going to be thankful for. The exceeding
grace of God in you. How'd it come about? The word
of the gospel. the light. That's how you heard
and understood that this work is, you understood this work.
It's through Christ the light. If he don't shine the light on
this word, on anything about this word, you'll go do these
things or not do these things, whichever it tells you to do
or not to do, thinking that you have life in those things, not
realizing that the life is Christ it, Christ our eternal life.
You'll search the Scriptures, they can in them you have life.
And these are they which testify of Christ. Everything is testifying
of Christ. And he says in verse 15, thanks
be unto God for His unspeakable gift. Do you see? Do you see
the three things that we saw here now in all this? Make sure you get this. All doctrine
is understood only in the light of Christ. And if Christ is not
preached beginning to end, then you're not going to understand
why. You might do something, but you won't know why, and you
won't do it for the right reason. Secondly, it's through this gospel
of Christ, of Christ the Light, that Christ Himself is going
to enter in through the Spirit and make you trust Him and make
you willing to do that which He said. And then thirdly, the
end purpose of it all is for the glory of Christ, who is all
our salvation, that other needy, helpless, bankrupt sinners just
like you will get this gospel of Christ. And we saw this as the godly
giving, right here. Giving needy sinners the gospel.
Giving no offense in anything. And giving the weaker brethren
freedom from temporal burdens so they can see Christ. All for
the glory of Christ. You know that's what Christ did
for you who believe? He gave you the truth, the gospel. He is the truth. And He gave
you that truth. He gave no offense in anything
that He might be the spotless Lamb of God and redeem you from
all your sin and make you perfectly accepted in God Almighty. And
in that, in those two things, He relieved you of every burden
that you have. That's giving. That's godly giving. And who's going to get all the
glory for it? He is. He is.