All right, turn with me to 1
Corinthians 16. 1 Corinthians 16 and let's have
a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we're
grateful for this day. Thank you so much, dear Lord,
for your goodness and your kindness to us. That you would give us
a heart to even be here is such mercy and grace. And Lord, we
are truly gathered in your name. We're here for one reason only,
and that is to glorify your holy name. We desire to see your glory
today. And Lord, we desire to learn
from your word. Would you teach us? Would you
prepare us right now? Would you open our hearts, make
us ready to receive the things that you have to say? Would you
quicken us physically and spiritually? Lord, would you give us an alive
hearing today? Would you cause your word to
go forth with liberty? Would you send your spirit and
bless us, we pray. Lord, thank you for all of your
people everywhere. Thank you for all of the congregations
you've raised up, and Lord, we pray for them. We pray that you'll
bless each and every one. Each pastor who stands, each
brother and sister who hears, Lord, would you please bless
us? And Lord, we give you all honor and glory in salvation,
and we ask if it be thy will that you in mercy would save
more. Especially our children, Lord, please show great mercy
to our children. Our loved ones, our family, Lord,
would you help us? Would you cause us to grow? We pray, Lord, would you cause
us to grow in grace? And would you cause us to grow
in faith? Would you increase our faith?
And would you cause us to grow in love and grow in unity? And
Lord, would you conform us to the image of Christ? That's our
desire. Would you cause us to look more and more like our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ? We pray. Help us, Lord. Forgive us. And we ask all these
things in Christ's name. Amen. First Corinthians 16. These these Bible studies, our
Lord has much to teach us. And may the Lord give us a heart
to learn, a heart to learn. That's my prayer in this. Let's
read the first four verses of 1 Corinthians 16. 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,
whomsoever you shall approve by your letters, them will I
send to bring your liberality, your gift, your collection unto
Jerusalem. And if it be meet that I go also,
they shall go with me." Paul is talking to them about giving. He's talking to them about giving. He said in verse 1, concerning
the collection for the saints, the money that would be collected
for the ministry of the saints, for the need As it is, wherever
it is, they were going to send money to Jerusalem for the poorer
saints who needed some help. And we, it's on our bulletin
board, we send money every month to the saints in Mexico. Just
like we have a collection and we write a check and same thing
they're doing here. They're sending it down to Jerusalem.
And we distribute it wherever the Lord would reveal a need
to us. Giving is a subject that has
been greatly abused by religion. Greatly abused. And it makes
God's preachers want to back away from it. And with that being
said, may God in mercy cause us to never back away from his
word. Believers love giving, don't
they? They love it. They love it. You
don't say giving, oh no, I hate giving. No, believers love giving.
So may the Lord just cause us to see what he has to say in
this. Religion, though, has abused it, terribly abused it. And what
it is is greedy, covetous men. If you want to get in a good
business, get in religion. There's a joke. Since I became
a pastor, I've heard this joke. I can't tell you how many times.
Everybody says, oh, I want to be a preacher. They find out
you're a preacher. That's what I want to do. You work one day a week,
and you make so much money, it takes four men to bring it to
you. And they're about right. They're
all about right. If you want to get in a good
business, you get in religion. Get in religion. Greedy, covetous
men. Our Lord called them wolves in
sheep's clothing. They've used every tactic known
to man to hustle men and women out of their hard-earned money.
That's what they do. They hustle men and women out
of their hard-earned money. And they wouldn't dare preach
what God has to say about it. Because what God has to say about
it will set a man free from all that obligated burden. God has
no cards to sign, no pledges to make, none of that stuff.
He doesn't have any yard sales. You don't have to give your stuff
out of your garage. You don't have to give the stuff out of
your cabinets. There's no bake sales. He'll set a man free from
every bit of that. And in the place of that burden,
when God moves, and when He blesses His Word, He puts a heart of
love in here, in His place. Believers, if God has made sinners
to be believers, they do not need to be convinced to give.
They just don't. You don't have to twist their
arm to give. God's believers have a heart
to give. The heart of Christ is in them. That new heart is Christ's heart. Paul just finished saying, we've
been looking at it, that old man and that new man, that old
man is of the flesh, that new man is of the spirit, that old
man is Adam, and the new man is the Lord himself, Christ in
a sinner. And his heart is a giving heart. It just is. Every true believer
in this room has a heart to give for love's sake. Just for love's
sake. Because of what they've received
at the Lord's hands, you start just recalling how much have
we received at the Lord's hands? And the real question is what
have we not received at the Lord's hands? But because of that, out
of thankfulness, out of appreciation, they have a heart to give in
return. And with that heart to give, this is why Paul is writing
this. God, this is not Paul's writing.
Every word is inspired by God. God the Holy Ghost is moving
Paul's pen. And with that heart to give,
God, through his word, teaches his people how to give. They have a heart to give. They
already have that. Through the word, God teaches his people
how to give. Through the Apostle Paul, God
has given us, right here, when, who, how much, and why. Everything we need to know about
giving is right here. Every single thing. All right, now let's begin
by asking this question right here. This is where we'll start.
Does God need our money? Does God need for me to give? Turn with me over to Psalm 50. Psalm 50 verse 1 says, The mighty God, even the Lord,
hath spoken. This is God speaking. Alright,
this is God speaking. Look with me at verse 10. He says, For every beast of the
forest is mine. And the cattle upon a thousand
hills. If anybody has cattle, as you're
working those cattle, you think about the fact these are God's
cows. These are not mine. These are
God's cows on a thousand hills. Verse 11, God said, I know all
the fowls of the mountains and the wild beast of the field. They're all mine. He said in verse 12, if I were
hungry, I wouldn't tell you. For the world is mine and the
fullness thereof. It's all his. It's all his. All the gold in
the hills. And all the silver in the mines
belongs to Him. It's all His. Every ounce of
it. God does not need anything we
could give Him. Nothing. Everything we have,
He gave to us. He gave to us. What do we have
that we have not received? So the answer is no. God does
not need our money. And giving, this is so important,
giving is not about raising money. This is so important. Giving
is not about raising money. It's not about raising money. It has nothing to do with that.
What we need to do right now is bring in some money. That's
not what it's about. Not at all. Giving is not about raising money. We are not supporting this ministry. We're not. Well, I tell you what,
now this thing's going to follow me. I'm worried about some things. It does not fall on me. It does
not fall on you. You are not supporting. Isn't
that relieving? Isn't that relieving? You're
not supporting this ministry. God is. If it's God's ministry,
if God raised it up, if God is doing it, God is supporting it. If every soul in God's ministry
quit giving altogether, the ravens would start flying over dropping
bread and dropping coins and dropping. A bird would go pick
up a hundred dollar bill on the parking lot and fell out of his
mouth. And I'm not kidding. That's what happened to Elijah.
He went, God, there's a famine in the land. He went down to
the river and he said, how am I going to eat? God said, I'm
going to tell the ravens to bring you bread. We're not supporting
this ministry. God is. God is. It has nothing
to do with raising money. Well, then why do we give? Why
has God given us a heart to give and why is it so important that
we give? I will tell us all that giving
is vital. It's very important. Why? Turn
with me to 2 Corinthians 8. Now two chapters right here,
2 Corinthians 8 and 2 Corinthians 9 are both about giving. That's what the whole chapter
is about. I have a heading on each of my pages. One of them
says the liberality of the Macedonian churches. Paul is talking, he's
praising them for how generous they were. My other heading says
Paul exhorteth to a bountiful almsgiving. He's telling them
to give bountifully, liberally. Here in 2 Corinthians 8, he calls
giving a grace, and that's the thing we need to understand about
it. A grace is a gift from God, and giving is a gift from God,
just like faith is, salvation. It's all a gift from God, and
the heart of liberal giving is a gift from God, and he calls
it a grace. That's what he keeps saying over
and over. Now, 2 Corinthians 8, verse 7 says, Therefore, as
you abound in everything, in faith, Paul's telling them, I
want you to grow in faith. I want you to believe God more.
I want you to trust God more. Abound in it. Therefore, as you
abound in faith and utterance, he's saying, I want you to talk
about Christ more. I want that to be all of your
conversation. Football's not important. Christ
is. I want you to grow in utterance.
He goes on to say, and knowledge, I want you to know more. I want
you to read this word more and know this word, and I want it
to well up inside you more. And in all diligence, he's saying,
I want you to come to the services more. I want it to be high priority
on everybody's list, more, more, in all these things. He said,
and in your love to us, I want you to love each other more.
I want that love to grow, not go down. I used to love him a
lot, but now we're not so close. No, he says, I want you to love
more. All right, he says, see that you abound in this grace
also, this grace of giving. He said, I speak not by commandment. God did not tell me to write
this as a commandment. He said in verse 8, but by occasion
of the forwardness of others. He's talking about the Macedonians
who were a wonderful example. And he said they did it willingly.
He said, I'm saying this by permission, not by commandment. The forwardness
of others. and to prove the sincerity of
your love." He said, I'm telling you to grow
and increase in this grace of giving to prove the sincerity
of your love. That's why. Our giving is a confession
of our obedience to him. He's given us commandment in
his word to give, hadn't he? And it's a confession of our
faith in Him. We have X number of dollars.
And when we give it away, you don't get anything for it. You
don't get anything in return physically, materially, right?
You're not buying something. You're giving it away, and so
we look at our need, and I see this, and I say, well, if I give
this away, then I'm not gonna have as much as I had before.
Faith says, God gave it to me. God can give it again. He can
give it 100 times over if He wants to. It's a confession of
our faith, and our giving is a confession of our love for
Him and our love for His people. We confess our love. by giving
to the ministry of his saints. Didn't he say, inasmuch as you've
done it to the least of these my brethren, you've done it to
me. Verse 9 right here says, For ye know that the grace, the
gift, the giving of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he
was rich Yet for your sakes, he became poor. That's something
we cannot enter into. We just cannot imagine being
well off and giving it all away. We just can't imagine that. But
he was rich, absolutely rich, and for our sakes, he became
poor that you, through his poverty, might be made rich. What is that
talking about? We know what he's talking about,
don't we? The more a believer falls in love with the gift that
Christ gave. Right over here in 2 Corinthians
9 verse 15 says, thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. What was it? For God so loved
the world, he gave his only begotten son. His only begotten Son. That's how He, and this is amazing,
that's how He measured His love for us. That's the price he put
on his love for us, the amount of his love for us. He gave the
unsearchable riches of his own son. And the more a believer
falls in love with the gift that Christ gave, the more he'll fall
in love with giving in return. It's just the way the Lord has
caused his people to be. He gave to prove his love for
us, didn't he? And we have a heart to prove
our love in return, the exact same way. So giving is our blessing. It's not our burden. It's not
our commandment. Giving is our blessing. It's
our blessing. And the Lord himself said, it's
more blessed to give than to receive. Now, go with me back
to our text, back to 1 Corinthians 16. The Apostle Paul has given us
some wonderful instruction here for giving. Verse 1 says, Now
concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order
to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Now he's about to tell
us when, who, how much, and why. The first one's when. Verse 2
says, Upon the first day of the week. Sunday. This is the first day of the
week. The Apostle John over in Revelation 1 called this the
Lord's Day. And the reason is because this
is the day the Lord rose from the grave, and this is the day
that all the saints originally started gathering together to
remember that. They were always meeting on the
Sabbath, weren't they? It was always Saturday. It was
always Saturday. By law, it was all by law, but
then Christ died He was buried, he arose, and as soon as that
took place, everybody in a heart of thankfulness and a heart of
love and a heart of remembrance started meeting on Sunday, the
day he arose, the day he paid all the price, put it all away.
So the point though here is, he says on the first day of the
week, and the point of this is not a particular day. If you
forget your check on Sunday, it's okay. Tuesday's fine. And some people get paid every
week. Some people get paid bi-weekly.
Some people get paid monthly. All that's fine. All that's fine. The point of it is not a day. It's not a day. Go with me over
to Proverbs 3. Proverbs 3 verse 9 says, Honor
the Lord with thy substance and with the firstfruits of all thine
increase. The firstfruits, everything that
our Lord gives to us. If we want to confess our obedience
to Him. and our faith in him and our
love for him, then we, out of obedience, must give our first
fruits. He says this over and over again,
our first fruits, and what that means is not what's left over
at the end. What if we stood up here and
taught the way this flesh naturally categorizes its priorities. What if we stood up right here
and talked in the way this flesh mentally puts its priorities? And what if we stood up and said,
make the Lord fifth in your life? Always put him fifth. Mortgage? 401k, car, vacation fund, and
then whatever's left over, give that to the Lord. The truth of the matter is wherever
we give our first fruits, it's a confession of where our heart
lies. Isn't that what our Lord said?
He said in Matthew 621, where your treasure is, there will
your heart be also. We know what he's saying there,
don't we? We know exactly what he's saying. It's a confession
and whatever we give ourselves to and give our substance to,
that's where our heart lies. May God cause our hearts and our substance and our first
fruits to lie with him and lie with his gospel. and lie with
the ministry of his people. We will never lose when our heart
is right there. We'll never lose. I promise you,
we'll never lose. When a believer has a heart to
literally buy the truth and sell it not, it will never be a loss. It will never be a loss. Look
right here at Proverbs 3 verse 9 says, Honor the Lord with thy
substance and with the firstfruits of all thy increase, so shall
thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out
with new wine." Religion is not saying that. God is. God is. He said, give, it shall
be given unto you, good measure pressed down and shaken together.
And running over shall men give into your bosom. For with the
same measure that you meet with all, it shall be measured to
you again." Religion didn't say that. God did. God said it. Look with me at Malachi chapter
3. Last book of the Old Testament. Malachi chapter 3 verse 8 says, Will a man rob God? Yet you have
robbed me. But you say, wherein have we
robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. You
are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me, even this
whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into
the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove
me now herewith, saith 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." Is he saying
if we give, he'll make us rich? No way. No way. His blessing does not necessarily
come by way of money. I mean we do need things and
he provides materially for us. But usually there must be individual
cases where the Lord gives materially to individuals. He raises up
with a certain heart for his gospel. There are things that
need to be done. But usually, generally, riches
are a curse. Usually riches are a curse. It's not the blessing. Usually
riches are a curse. But he said, this is what he
said, you give and I'll bless you. Now I would love, I spent
so much time on this. I would love to explain that
away. Just to be anti what religion
says. I would love to. I'd love to
find scriptures that explain that away. Religion tries to
get people to make an investment. They're offering at least a 10%
return on your investment. I hate that. I hate that. You know, if somebody was going
to give a present to somebody else only for the purpose of
getting something in return, don't give it. Don't give it. You know why we give? Love. I just want you to have this. That's the only reason. That's
it. Love. And I really would, I would love
to explain all this away just to be absolutely opposed to what
religion says, what they tell people, but I can't. I just can't. This is what God says. So, when
do we give? First. We give first. Now, I'm
almost out of time, and I'm not going to stop. I'm just going
to, I need to finish all of this together. So I'm going to very
quickly tell you these other three things that he has to say
about this, okay? Look with me back in our text,
1 Corinthians 16. The next question is who? Verse two says, upon the first
day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store. Every one of you. Man, woman,
old, young, and I'll tell you what I was thinking about. Even our children. All right,
now, may the Lord give us an understanding of what I'm about
to say. Don't read into this too much. We don't have to go
break all their piggy banks and tell them, you gotta give 10%.
There's a point in life, a while back, a lot of us men who have
children here started talking about the fact that, you know,
it was kind of like a light bulb moment. Our children don't need
to be coloring while this is going on. We need to teach them
to hold a Bible. And if they can read, I mean,
if they can read, there's a point where they're too young, but
if they can read, they need to follow along in their Bible.
And we need to teach them to listen intently. This is able
to make them wise unto salvation. And I believe the Lord is blessed
in that. I really do. I can see our children's faces. We have some kids who are really
listening. And my prayer is that God will
bless it. Save their souls. Well, this hit me too. You know, Hannah and I give just
like everybody else. And we give on behalf of our
family. But the point of giving is not
for us to just do our part. Well, all right, we have a budget
out there. And if you do the math, we have
this many families and every family needs to give. All right,
so we have to do our part. That's not the point of giving.
The point of giving is for me to want to have a heart to give
and Hannah to have a heart to give whatever the Lord has blessed
us with. And I believe we would be very
wise to, when the time is right, there's an age where children
just can't understand it. There's an age when they can.
There's an age when we can sit them down and start talking to
them about why we come here, what we're doing here. who we're
worshiping and why we have a heart to support it. We are not giving
to Gabe Stoniker. I'm the biggest draw on this
congregation. You look at my salary. You look
at all the things that you all have lovingly provided me. I'm
the biggest expense here. We're not giving to Gabe Stoniker.
We're not giving to the church and the mortgage and the lights
and the water. We're giving to God. We're giving to God. And if our children, when the
time is right for them to understand, there's a time when they don't
have any money. And then there's a time when birthday rolls around,
Christmas rolls around, grandparents get involved. I've seen my girls
end up with $150. And I'm like, man, I'd love to
have that. Well, maybe we would be wise
to teach them, if you ever have a heart, if the Lord would ever,
if you'd ever want to Give back unto your Lord. The Lord gave
you all that, honey. The Lord used this person, and
the Lord used that person. God gave you every bit of that.
And if you would like to say thank you, there's a little box
right back there, and you're welcome to put it in there. Now,
I don't want to sound religious. I don't want to sound anything
other than I think we would be wise for every you give in thanks back to our
God for all that he's done for us. All right, now here's our
next question. Verse 2 says, upon the first
day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store. How much? As God has prospered him. as
God has prospered him. We should not give what we don't
have, and we shouldn't withhold what
we do have, as God has prospered us. As he increases us, our giving
should increase. And as he decreases us, the Lord
gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
If God decreases us, don't feel guilty. Our gifts should decrease. God is doing it. He can give
me a billion dollars or three. And so I respond to what he's
doing. Whatever he's doing, I just respond
to that. All right, somebody's going to
say, well, yeah, but give me a number. Give me a number. Is
it 10%? Is it 10%? Here is my only answer. to that. Our Lord, I'll tell
you in a second, here's my answer to that. Why would we want to
limit ourselves to 10%? That's my answer to that. Why
would we want to limit ourselves to anything? Knowing that he
said your barns are going to be filled, your wine presses
are going to break bursting with new wine. Knowing that he said,
if you try me, I will open up the windows of heaven, and I'll
pour out a blessing to you, if you try me. I used to hear Brother
Henry say all the time, you know, people say, I can't afford to
give. His answer was, I can't afford not to. Can't afford not
to. And why would we want to, and
I'm not talking about return on investment. I hope I've set
all that up. but out of love. Why would I want to limit what
I could give to my children if it was good and right for them? That widow that had two mites,
you realize what a blessing it was for her to throw boats? She went down to the bank and
she said, empty my account. Two mites. God recorded her in the word
of God. She received the great blessing
of giving all that she had. Proverbs 11 says, the liberal
soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall water himself.
We cannot out give the Lord. I tell you how, if the Lord gives
me some money, I will be so grateful. If he provides my bills, if he
keeps some water on at my house and lights on at my house, I'd
be grateful. But you know what I want from him? I want him to bless
my soul. I want him to give me a fervency
for his word, for his gospel, for his people, for his ministry. That's what I want. Oh, what
a blessing. Wouldn't you love to come to
the end of your life and not be tired of this? Wouldn't you
love that? Wouldn't you love to be just
more fervent then than you are now? What a blessing. What a blessing. Our Lord said,
what a man sows, that will he reap. And when it comes to this
thing of 10%, most people say, well, that's an Old Testament
thing, and it was. But there's an account where our Lord rebuked
some Pharisees. They were proud of themselves
for tithing. And this is what he said, you've
omitted the weightier matters concerning the judgment and love
of God. And he said, these ought you
to have done and not to leave the other undone. He said, you
still ought to give that. But he's saying you should have
done more. You should have done more. And. Anyway. Anyway, you know, we. The Lord has blessed us so much.
He's blessed us so much. Horatius Bonar used to say, if
you give 10%, you're under the law. You are. You're just under the bondage
of the law. And he said, if you give less than 10%, you're an
outlaw. He said, the only thing to do is get more. You know, a man will hear that
and he'll say, I make $100,000 a year. You realize how much
money that is? Yes. And God gave it. Yes. May God give me a heart
to realize there are people who don't have floors. There are
people who walk around in their house on dirt. And some of them are believers,
God's children. And if he's given me $100,000,
what's giving back $20,000? Just to say thank you. All right,
here's what I'm going to say now. Well, do I have to do this? You're putting me under a lot
of bondage. You're making me feel guilty.
You trying to hustle me? No. You don't have to do this. We could put some tape across
that slot in the box. You don't have to give anything.
What I'm saying is you get to if you want to. You have permission
to do this. You can give it all if you want
to. You can give it all and while
you enjoy the blessing, our Lord said it's more blessed to give
than to receive. And while you enjoy the blessing
of giving to God's ministry and to God's saints and everything
that is good in God, you can rest in his promise. He said,
I will refill your storehouse twice as fast as you can shovel
it out. That's what he said. When should we give first? Who
should give? All of us. How much should we
give? How much has God prospered us?
Here's the last question. Why? Why? He said that there
be no gatherings when I come. Paul didn't want to get there
and everybody start taking up money and him look covetous.
He wanted to prove I'm not in this for the money. I'm not here
to get money. With that being said, too, don't
feel guilty for having a 401k. Don't feel guilty for paying
your mortgage off. Don't feel guilty for those things.
The Lord has given us all things richly to enjoy. And with that
being said, may God give us all a heart not to take every dime
he gives us and make a big pile. Just gather it up into a big
pile when he comes. In the day that he comes or calls
us out, that pile won't do us any good. No good at all. So
I'm going to close with this verse of scripture. Go to 2 Corinthians
9. 2 Corinthians 9. I just love this. I love this verse. 2 Corinthians 9 verse 7. It says, Every man, according
as he purposeth in his heart, whatever God has laid on your
heart, so let him give, not grudgingly, or of necessity, for God loveth
a cheerful giver." That's why. I mean, do we need any more reason
than that? God loves a cheerful giver. We give because there's so much
joy in it. It is just nothing but happiness. May God teach us and our children
the joy of giving, the joy of it. Okay, you're dismissed.