Let's read the first nine verses
together. Moreover, brethren, we do you
to wit, I want you to be aware of the grace of God bestowed
on the churches of Macedonia. How that in great trial of affliction,
the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto
the riches of their liberality. For to their power and ability,
I bear record, I am a witness, yea, and beyond their ability,
they were willing of themselves, praying with us with much entreaty,
insisting that we would receive the gift that is an offering
and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering of the saints."
money to the church at Jerusalem. And this they did, not as we'd
hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord and unto us
by the will of God. In so much that we desired Titus
as he had begun, so he would also finish in you. Paul told
Titus to come to Corinth take up an offering for the church
at Jerusalem, which was in great need. And he said that he would
finish in you the same grace also. Therefore, as ye abound
in everything in faith and utterance or able to speak the gospel and
preach and knowledge and in all diligence and your love to us,
see that you abound in this grace also. I speak not by commandment,
not given in order, but by occasion or example of the forwardness
of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love. For you know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet
for your sake He became poor, that ye, through His poverty,
might be rich. Now, giving is the subject, and
it is not necessarily the subject I want to deal with,
but it's a necessary subject. We do deal with it at least every
couple of years or so. But this thing of giving to support
the gospel, to maintain the church is both a privilege and our reasonable
service or duty of every member of God's church or family. Like any family has different members, but they're
all members of the same family and that's What we are, we're
a family, we're God's children, we're brothers in Christ and
members one of another. And as with any family, you live
in a house and you have expenses, you have work to perform, duties,
jobs that must be performed, bills to pay, work to do. So
it is with this family. It's no different. We are a family
and we have a house and a yard and bills to pay and work to
do. And the Lord had the Apostle
Paul write these things down in detail, at length, in these
two chapters. Not just these two chapters,
but other places, to tell us, to teach us as his children,
as he would teach his children, the father, to tell us not only
what giving is, but how we are to give and even what we are
to give. And he uses many words or principles
which sum up what giving is. The first word you'll find in
verse 7. Look at it. As you abound in
everything, faith, utterance, knowledge, and this church, my,
my, we have the gospel, we have the knowledge of the truth, the
gospel. He says, see that you abound
in this grace also. This grace. Giving is a grace. It is a grace. Peter wrote in nearly the last
verse, he said, grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Remember that? That's one of
the last things he said. Grow in grace. That is, grow
up in the graces, the graces of God. And now, to grow in grace
in this time is to learn to give more. When you grow in grace,
the grace of giving, you learn to give and grow up in that. I mentioned a family. A family
is many members. You have fathers, mothers, young
adults, toddlers, infants and babies. Okay, the first few years,
a babe, an infant, And even little children don't contribute much
to that. In fact, an infant doesn't contribute
anything. But the point is, little children
at first are provided for, they're fed, they're clothed, they're
housed. Someone else does all the work
for them until they begin to grow and realize or they're taught
by their parent, that, hey, this is a big house, and you eat the
food, and you wear clothes we buy you, and this house needs
cleaning. And we begin to teach our children,
don't we, chores. We teach them that you need to
have your part. You need to contribute a little
bit. We're not asking much of them,
are we? Well, the older they get, And if they start becoming
full wage earners, if they start earning as much money as dad
and mom and still living at home, well, it's just reasonable that
they would pay for food and so forth. And this is what it is
to grow and grow. We have a family here. We grow up and we learn to do
our part, that we are partakers of these graces. We should be
contributors to that grace. Look at chapter 9, verse 1. He says, touching the ministering
to the saints, so that is the giving for the necessity. Support is superfluous for me
to write to you. Meaning, that's a big word, but
it's Bible. Meaning, it's something obvious,
something that is very obvious that shouldn't have to be taught,
shouldn't have to tell or teach something that's so obvious.
That's what he's saying. Now, I look back on my life as
a son. And I'm ashamed of myself for
how little I did to contribute to my home. Aren't you? I'm ashamed. I look back and I was so well
cared for. And I remember my mother, as
I grew older, one of my chores was to sweep the basement. I
had a pretty large basement. That's about all, or the garage,
that was my, or take out the garbage. I used to think I was
somebody because I always heard somebody take out the garments.
That was my job. Well, what did I actually contribute
to the house? But I remember grumbling about
that. I wanted to go play. It didn't take any time at all.
And I'm ashamed of that. I'm ashamed of that. Now my parents,
who provided for me all those years and still do so much for
me, they apologize to me when I do things for them. I've got 50 years to make up,
man. 50 years to repay. What do we owe our Lord? I'm ashamed looking back as a
young member of the church. And I remember the church was
so generous, so many things were done, big church, a lot of things
to do. I was ashamed. I look back and
I'm ashamed of myself. I'd like to make up for it. I
sure would. Look at verse 13 and 14 of chapter
8. Verse 13 and 14. Everything I say to you this
morning, I say to myself. He says, I mean not that other
men be eased and ye be burdened or vice versa, but by an equality. An equality. That's a word. Equality. That everyone, that
is, should do their part. No one should carry the burden
of the finances and so forth. This church operates on anywhere
from $6,000 to $6,500 a month. That's what it takes to meet
our expenses. If you stop and think about that,
and look around, count the heads, somebody is giving, and giving
generously, because we don't have too many folks do it, nor
any real rich people. But equality, everyone. And we should ask ourselves,
what if everyone gave as I did, or did not give as I did? did or worked or did the things
that needed to be done or did not do as I do? Could we pay
our bills? Would things get done? That's a good question to ask,
isn't it? Good question. So in a family,
to grow in grace means to grow to understand that we've received
great grace. This is the next word, love.
He says, I speak not by commandment, I'm not giving you an order.
Law won't make a person general. No. Love will. Grace, the grace of God, if we
see his bountiful grace to us and his love, that will. Verse
8, I speak by the occasion or example of others. that you prove the forwardness,
or that is, the insistence of others, that you prove the sincerity
of your love. Love. Do we love the Lord Jesus
Christ? Do we love this gospel? Do we love this body of believers,
this church, these people? And he says, use the example
of others. He used the church's at Macedonia
up there in verse 1 through 3. He said, I do you the wit, I
remind you, I want you to be aware of the grace of God bestowed
on the churches of Macedonia that even though they were going
through trials and afflictions and persecution and so forth,
they were so full of joy, the abundance of their joy, and yet
they were in deep poverty. These are not rich people. But
yet they abounded, they were liberal in their giving, and
to their ability and beyond, they just insisted that we take
this generous, generous gift to the people at the church at
Jerusalem. Now, the churches in Macedonia,
we went through the book of Acts recently. Churches in Macedonia
are Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, and a few others. But Philippi,
if you remember, that's where Lydia was. Remember? Remember
how it started? Paul went down to the river,
there were some women, and Lydia was down there. Well, who's Lydia?
Well, she's not some wealthy. She's a traveling salesperson,
sells cloth. Then the Lord saved a jailer. Remember that? A jailer? Now,
what's a deputy jailer make? We know some people who are deputies.
They don't make any money. And then there was a sorceress,
a woman, an out-of-work fortune teller. She lost her job when
the Lord saved her. She's a palm reader. But these
weren't rich people. Boy, they were rich in faith.
Rich in grace. Rich in love. Rich toward God
and faith. And they did way over and above. Paul said, when he said, not
as we had hoped, he meant we'd hoped they'd give something,
but they just astounded us. It went so far beyond what we
hoped. Now brethren, I do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed
upon a church in Claremont, West Virginia. We don't have to go
very far at all to see the grace of God and the love of God so
proven, displayed. The church in Claremont, West
Virginia, as you know, where Brother Scott Richardson was
pastor for so many years, a bunch of coal miners, aren't they,
Dan? Coal miners, blue-collar workers, hard-working people,
just like that. Just like that. And they have
over the years so faithfully, faithfully and generously supported
the gospel. As we would say, they have put
their money where their mouth is. They have supported Brother Scott,
missionaries, Way beyond what you would think they would be
able to. And then when Brother Marvin
Stoniker was called, Brother Scott was stepping down. When
he went up there, for five years, they supported two pastors. Two pastors! And just like that. A missionary, along with the
missionaries, giving gifts. They gave a huge gift to Pike
when it was floated the first time and the second time. And Brother Tommy Robbins in
Sylacauga. Just keep it coming. It's just a little old group
of working class. I do you to wit of the grace
of God. on the church at Fairmont. What
an example. But now here's the supreme example. They proved their love. Here's
the supreme example. Look at this. Verse 9, 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 rich. Boy, if that won't do it, nothing
will. The Lord literally, why did the
Lord not have a home? Why did the Lord have no place
to lay his head? Why did he only have the clothes
on his back and the shoes on his feet? Well, not only to have
compassion on the poorest of the poor, but to show us that
God will meet your needs and we only have need of food and
rain. He said that and He lived it
and showed it. That's all you need. And that
God will provide your very next meal. You don't provide it, He
provides it. And to show us that, and also
to show us that He gave That God will repay. That God will
repay someone who gives it all for others. He who was rich for ours and
left everything, gave it all that we might be. We're poor,
but we might be rich. All right, now what does he have?
The other John, what does the Lord have now? He who was the
poorest of the poor, what does he have now? Everything. God gave it all back and more. He gave everything to him. Earth
is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Now I remind you that
everything we have belonged to him. It's not our own. He gave
it. to us, and he said, now it's
mine. Remember that story of the pearl
of great pride? It's mine. You think back where you came
from, where you are now, what all the Lord has given us. He's
given it to us. He's given it to us. And what
do we have? We have not received. And he says, now, it belongs
to me. And I'm telling you. And I showed
you by experience. I showed you. He did not fear. I showed you. Cast your bread
on the water. You will see it again. That's
what the Lord said. You will. You will. So he did that by example. Love
is generous. Love is sacrificial. That's what
our Lord is to us. Generous. Sacrificial. Love is extravagant. Love does more than the law.
We, during Christmas time, we all kind of decided It was getting
out of hand. Christmas can get out of hand.
It gets so expensive. We all decided, well, let's set
a dollar amount on this and that and the other. My parents and
us, we agreed, let's not even exchange any gifts. Well, did
anybody abide by that? No. I knew they wouldn't, so
I didn't either. I've never had a son. Always
wished I'd had a son. I couldn't get into buying dolls
and doll clothes and babies, but we did. Now I have a son-in-law
and I love when Christmas comes around. I get to go to Lowe's
and buy all the gifts that a boy would love. Supposed to get two
or three. I'm not going to abide by that. I'll get as many as I want to.
This is what we agreed on, do this, but that's not what love
does. Love is extravagant. It's extravagant. It is not, our Lord, extravagant
with us. Nancy, we have not only what
we need, we have about everything we want. That's us and our children. That's
us. We ask for a little thanks, a
little obedience, and we shower them with gifts. How much more
have we received? It's the nature of love. It's
the nature of love to show great generosity and kindness. Do you
love your own? Sure you do. Are you generous?
Sure you are. Do you love the Lord? The Lord
reminds us in verse 9, here's another word, that we are rich.
He said you through his poverty might be rich. Actually, verse
14. Verse 14. At this time, he said,
by an equality, at this time you're abundance. This church
at Corinth was rich, they had abundance, while the church at
Jerusalem did not. And he said, there may be a time
when you don't, and they do, but it'll work out. They'll send
it back. Guarantee it. But we are rich. We are rich. Increased with goods.
Yes, we are. No believer should ever talk
about hard times right now. Do you hear me? The generation that went through
the depression is about gone. Those that really know something
about hard times, there aren't many left. Do you hear me? If you have a home, you're rich. If you have all the food you
can eat, you are rich beyond... belief by two-thirds of this
world. Two-thirds of this world lives
in poverty, not knowing where their next meal will come from.
We have brothers and sisters in Mexico, and some of you have
been there, who will never, ever, ever, ever own a house with a
shingled roof over it, or a floor with linoleum on it, let alone
hardwood. Or a car, that's out of the question.
a motorcycle out of the question. They will never, all their life,
will not own a motorcycle. So it's really ungrateful to
talk about hard times. It really is. The problem is,
and to the average American, hard times means not being able
to pay for a second car. or not putting money in savings. That's the average American hard
time. The problem is, speaking for
myself, we accumulate so much stuff over the years that we
have trouble paying for all of it. That's the problem. Like I said, we've got brothers
and sisters. We don't have to look far to find somebody It's
really poor. We're really going through a
hard time. It always has and always will. And we forget where
we came from. We forget where we came from.
We take for granted what we have. We forget where we came from.
I'll start with myself. Ben and I first got married. We lived in a little apartment
about the size of the nursery and our study. That was it. 30, it wasn't that big. It was about 20 by 30. 600, 700
square feet. I had an old car, a truck that
I, a wreck that I built up and fixed up. She had a little Volkswagen. We were happy as larks. As we'd say, a hog in mud. We
didn't need anything. We had no debts. We had no debt,
period. Just rent. We paid $125 a month
of rent and thought, how are we going to make this payment?
Now look at us. Man, old man, old man. Rich. You know, usually. Gabe, not too long ago, came
here, lived in a little apartment on Walnut Street, and started
teaching down in this, in this, in the basement with one student. No wife. Oh, my, look at you
now. Look at you now. I remember when
we came here, you and Steve were living in a little trailer off
of a six mile post road. No children yet, expecting. Real
soon expecting. Look at you now. Sam, living
at home. No wife. Every woman in Franklin
County is chasing you though. But no good ones available. Did
he give you a good one? And look there sitting beside
you. We're rich. Rich. We forget that. We forget where
we came from. Forget. Forget. Oh, my. Now look at verse 11. Here's another word. He said,
do it. Perform the doing of it. There's
a readiness to will. You're willing. Then do it. You ready? You willing? Do it.
Don't say you will. Don't think about it. Do it. Do it. Performance. Someone once said, one good performance or work is worth
more than a hundred good intentions. It's not the thought that counts.
Oh no, it's not the thought that counts. It's the act. It's the
act. I thought about it. I didn't
do it. Why didn't you do it? I didn't
do it for myself. Look at chapter 9, verse 5 and
6. Chapter 9. He talks about abundance
and bountiful. He said, I thought it necessary
to exhort the brethren that they would go before you and make
up beforehand your bounty. That the same might be ready
as a matter of bounty, not of covetousness, but bounty. This I say, he which soweth sparingly
shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall
reap also bountifully. That means give bountifully,
give generously. Now, the Lord said over in Luke,
I was going to have you turn, but I don't want to go too long.
The Lord said over in Luke's Gospel, He said, God measures
to us with the same measure that we measure out. That's what He
said. With the same measure you measure,
it will be measured to you. He said, with the merciful. Do we need mercy? How much mercy does the Lord
give us? We need mercy. He says, you show
mercy. I'll be merciful. You show mercy.
I'll be more merciful than you are. Oh, a whole lot more. He said, you need forgiveness?
How much forgiveness do we need? The Lord says, I'll show you
forgiveness way over and above you'll ever show anybody else.
I'll show you through my love for you. He said, give. And it will be given to you.
Same. We have a lot of needs, don't
we? And the Lord meets them every day, about them, over and above
what we need, like I said, what we want. Verse 7 there of chapter
9 says, God loveth a cheerful giver. God loveth not a grudgingly,
oh, here I have to, or of necessity, oh, I'm supposed to, or I have
to. My duty, know God loveth a cheerful giver. That's the
word. One thing we love so much to
see in our children is when they begin to exhibit on their own
a little bit of this sharing, you know, a little bit of sharing. We have to come down hard on
them not to be selfish, don't we? We really do. Everything
they have, they give it to them. And they turn around by nature
and just hoard it, don't want to share it. And not only that,
they want what the other child has. That's us. That's all of us by nature. But when they begin to show,
and we've got to teach them, keep teaching them, when they
begin to show a little bit of that sharing nature, oh, what
are we going to do for them? What would we do for them if
they show, exhibit some of that? The sky's the limit. So it is with our God. God loveth
a cheerful giver. And look at verses 12 and 13.
He says, experiment. Experiment of this service, of
this giving. God is glorified. And thanksgiving,
verse 12, thanksgiving unto God by many. And verse 13, experiment. Something you will experience.
The word experiment means something you experience, something you
go through, something if you do it, you experience it. It's
an experience. We don't really learn anything
until we experience it, do we? Are you with me? We don't really
learn anything until we experience it. We live by faith. We say
we live by faith. The just shall live by faith.
And speaking of myself, how often do we really do anything by faith? You understand what I'm saying?
That the Lord has promised, and we can't see how, but we do what
he says anyway. How often do we actually do that? I'm guilty. I say I believe God
is sovereign. I say that, and it's easy to
say, but it's another thing to step out by faith. Now, false religion, I've got
to say this, false religion bribes people. That's how they get people
to give money and all. They bribe people. They say,
if you give then you do this, you do this, God will bless you,
you'll get rich and so forth. Well, maybe not. You'll have
all you need. I promise you that. But they
say that. God will bless you. And that's
how they give. Well, who wouldn't do that? A return on your investment. Yeah, I need a bigger car and
a bigger house. If I just do this, if I invest
in this, I'll get more. Yeah, that's right. Well, that's
a good deal. That's not the motive. No, no, the motive is the love
of God and the grace of God. But here's the motive. Whether
I have anything or not, I've got to have this. I've got to
have this gospel. I've got to have it. There's
got to be a place for my kids to come hear the gospel. They're
going to perish without this gospel. I'd rather us live in
a shack. It's an experience. It's an experience,
and we live by faith that we do so little acts of faith. And all right, how much should
we give? That's really not the question,
although I'm going to tell you. should be, how much can I? You remember the law said this
is what you're supposed to give. But love says, I want to do more. I want to do more. The Lord God
of heaven instituted tithing. The law is good. Everything our
God instituted was not to make people miserable. But it was
good. It was right. It was just. Our
God is just. That means fair. The word just
means fair. All right. The Lord said give
10 percent. Just bring 10 percent. That's
all. He said just 10 percent. You
make a thousand dollars, bring a hundred dollars. That's what
he said to the children of Israel. 10 percent. Money, so forth. Ten percent. That supported the
tabernacle. That supported the temple. And
yes, the Levites. There were probably some sons
of Korah that thought, who are those Levites? They don't do
anything. Here I am working and I have to give my money to them
while they're sitting on their butt and I have to give them
their... You know what God did to those
fellows? You know, life revolved around
that temple. around the sacrifice. There wouldn't
be any children of Israel if there wasn't that tabernacle. If God hadn't set up that tabernacle
where the sacrifice was, God would have killed them all. Because
they're a bunch of worthless people, aren't they? What made
them of any value was their worship in God, true God, true Christ,
and so forth. He said, this is life. This temple,
everything revolved, life. Life, as they knew it, revolved
around that temple. They watched, and there was a
lot to support. All right, our Lord set that
down, that law. The reason He did that, if He
hadn't said that, they wouldn't have given anything. Ten percent, that's reasonable. That's what the law said. And
that is reasonable. Ten percent of gross income or
possessions or whatever. But now we're not under the law
are we? No. We don't have to give exactly
ten percent. We can do more. We should give at least ten percent
and I venture to say if everyone in here at least did that, We
wouldn't have a bill to pay. I'm certain of it. But grace
and love says, that's not enough. I want to do more. Someone says,
we can't afford it. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
chapter 16. 1 Corinthians chapter 16. Back a few pages. We can't afford
it. Let me ask you this, why can't
other people? No, we all got the same bill.
We all have the same expenses. Yes, we do. We all have the same. I remember a young preacher one
time went to a place and they were wanting a pastor. They were
wanting a church there, a pastor. And this young preacher went
there and there were about five or six families, five or six
men. They met with him. And they said, we'd like for
you to come be our pastor. You would, well. And so they
began talking and all that, and they said, how much do you need
to live on? And the young man in great wisdom
said, well, how much do you need to live
on? I've got the same bills as you
do, you know. And you want me to leave my home
and quit my job and come here? I've still got to have a home
and a job and so forth. And then he said this, and I loved it.
He said, I'll tell you what, let's do it. We've got five or
six men here. Let's split. Let's put everything
on a financial sheet. Let me see what you make. And you see what I make. And
we'll split it six ways. That's reasonable. Did they call him? No. Is there a church there? No. No. I thought that was pretty wise,
wasn't it? Pretty wise, wasn't it? Reasonable. Reasonable. Well, 1 Corinthians 16. I can't afford it. Verse 1. Now
concerning the collection for the saints, see, he deals with
it again. I give an order. As I've given
order to the church at Galatia, this is an order, upon the first
day of the week, first day, that every one of you lay by him in
store, that is, make sure you have it, as God hath prospered
him, that there be no gathering, no lack, nothing needed, first
day of the week, before you pay anything, before you pay any
bill, pay this one. This is a principle all through
the Old Testament. First fruit. Bring the first
fruits. First fruit. And first day of the week, before
we paid, Internet, TV, cell phone. Went 6,000 years without electricity,
running water, indoor plumbing, cell phones, internet, and TV.
And he did just fine. First up, before you bring to
the Lord firstfruits. And you watch and see. If there
ain't something left over, you watch and see. He said that in
Malachi 3, he said, you prove me. Malachi 3, the Lord said,
you prove me. He said, you give, let me read
it to you, Malachi 3, jot it down, read it for yourself. He said, you bring in to the
storehouses, mead into my house, and you prove me now therewith,
And I'll open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing
that you'll not be room enough to receive it." That's the way the Lord does
things. Back in our text, chapter 9, when the Lord said, Will a
man rob God? Will a man rob God? Yes, he will. Yes, he will. Will he get away
with it? No, he won't. And the Lord is the one we get
all our peace, all our comfort, all our joy, all our consolation,
all our peace of mind and heart and spirit, and mark it down. With the merciful, he will show
himself very merciful. With the generous, he will show
himself very generous in giving peace and comfort and so forth. He just does. 2 Corinthians 9,
verses 8, he says, God is able to make all grace abound toward
you, that you always have all sufficiency and all things may
abound unto every good work. It's written, Psalm 112, he hath
dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor. Why did he give
to the poor? That they might turn around and give. His righteousness remaineth forever.
He still does that. Now, he that ministereth seed
to the sower, The fellow that sows, he goes out there and sows
seed. He casts it out. Why? He's going to see it again. He'll
minister bread for your food and multiply your seed. And I
know, once again, I don't have to tell you what false religion
does. I'm not going to address that again. They say things like
this to unseed faith. just so they can get rich. That's
not it. Paul dealt with that. He said,
I'm not telling you because I need anything. I'm not doing it for
my sake, Paul said. I'm not doing it for my sake. He said, God
forbid that you would think that I'm not going to do it. Paul
said, I'll go to work before it appears that I'm doing it
for my sake. No, no. He says in verse 11, I can't
afford to. Well, this is why you can't afford
to. We don't give by faith. But being
rich in everything, verse 11, all bountifulness that causes
through us thanksgiving to God. It will be an experience of God's
wonderful bounty to us. And you'll watch as God makes
your every need. This church is a family. It's
not a business. And we've always operated it
as a family operates. Love and trust. I have many regrets
about things I've done, things I haven't done, things I've said,
the way I've said them, things I haven't said. I have many regrets. Conscience bothers me about many
things. Young preachers. Brother Mahan one time said to
Todd Nyberg, God have mercy on a church with a 25-year-old pastor. Todd was 25 at the time. And
it's true, because young men are generally very, in their
zeal, they're too zealous and they become self-righteous and
they become hard and mean and so on and so forth. And if it's
too much, God will bring them down, but He'll bring them down.
And I have, you know, many regrets about many things, but finances
is not one of them. My conscience is clear. Completely
clear. You know me. You know me. We operate like a family, and
you have trusted me over the years, and I have not betrayed
that trust. Have not extorted one dime. By God's wrath, by God's wrath.
Love and trust. And we've had treasurers who we have trusted,
men who have handled the money. And money comes in from other
places. It has. It hasn't in a long time,
but it has. Thousands of dollars, hasn't
it? Which we could have pocketed, but nobody's. Lot of doubt. Lot of doubt. Men that we have
trusted have done such a good job. Brother Henry, treasurer
years ago. Would you trust him with all
your earthly money? I would in a heartbeat. In a
heartbeat. Others. Dan Ogle back there. Such a trustworthy man. Brother
Stan did it for so long. And now Brother Mac. Trustworthy
man. We trust them. We trust them,
we love them, we know them, we trust them. That's how we operate.
Don't have business meetings. I've done business with local
banks and they can't believe, you know, we don't take votes
and, you know, we don't have business meetings and so forth
and everything just works just fine. My wife does our finances,
Mindy does our finances. I don't have a clue what's in
our checking account until she tells me. Hey, we need this or
we need that. I trust her implicitly. Okay? And that's the way we have operated
over the years. And for a while, we would do
an extensive, very meticulous, Dan was very good about this,
a meticulous financial report. And I felt so sorry for him.
I'm telling you, every penny was accounted for and I appreciate
that so much. I didn't demand that of my wife,
Dan. But I felt sorry for you. And so we took a page from the
Fairmont Church, who has never done that. They have a man who's
been the treasurer for 50 years, Dan. Fifty years, same man. And you would trust him with
your life, wouldn't you brother, Gabe? And he's put a financial
report up there. We have $5,000. We spent $49.95
and we have $5 in the bank. That's it. Everybody's happy. So we've tried that, but evidently
we're going to have to do a little bit more and we're going to.
The reason we left that was I felt sorry for this man. So we're going to do it. We have
needs right now. This is our business meeting. This is the business. We have
needs right now. The church has need issues. We have maybe around $2,000 of
unpaid expenses we need to meet. right now, and the greatest part
of that was a, remember me telling you we had a heat pump, our nursery,
the heat pump went out. We've got babies in there. I
have two. Two babies in there. And I asked
that you give, and I didn't tell you to do what I didn't do. I
have babies in there, and so I gave toward that heat pump. But we didn't get much money
for that, and so we took out... I'm going to tell you, okay? We took out $2,000 out of our
health account to pay for that. That hasn't been paid for. That needs to be paid for. Other expenses, we help the church
at Pikeville and we've helped individuals and so forth, which
we should. It is our obligation and it should
be our heart's desire to help every brother and everyone in
need. Now James said, if you see a
brother in need and you don't help him, how does the love of
God dwell in you? It doesn't. So it is our... Brother Mike
Kelly, when we went down there to help Piteville, I wish everybody
could have gone. It was the worst work I've ever
performed in my life. The dirtiest, the nastiest. Dangerous
for health and so it's a wonder everybody there didn't get typhoid
and didn't get E. coli and so forth. Nobody did,
not one person did. But it was awful wasn't it? But
it was the best experience of my life. Best experience of my life. I've never enjoyed working there. I took them a check from you
all. Oh, that pleased me to no end
to be able to take a check down there to them, to do for them. Same way of going to Mexico.
But we can't do that in place of or in lieu of our business. You give generously. When I asked
to give for a cause like Pipe Bowl, and you did, and I bless
God for that, commend you for it, but we can't do it in place
of our bills. We've still got every week the
same bill. And that happens sometimes. That
happens sometimes. If you're absent, if we're absent,
I'm talking to you as a family. If you're absent, and this church
lives from check to check, it does. If you're absent, we really
do need what you would have given had you been here. We really
do. You can't miss a house payment
or a car payment, can you? We can't either, so we need that. We have needs. We have needs,
great needs around this building. If you look around, we do. Our
roof is getting in sad shape. Our parking lot is in really
sad shape. We've needed some kind of handicap
access for years, and I have been studying that and have even
got some estimates on it, and it's very expensive. There's
no way we can actually do it without taking out some kind
of a loan. But nevertheless, something's got to be paid for.
Missionaries, including the radio, it's about
$1,000 a month. that we give toward the actual outreach of
the gospel and the missionaries. And I told Dan, you remember
me telling you that before you pay anything, before you pay
me a check, write a check to Walter and Cody. And I told Mac,
I told you the same thing. And that's what we do. We're
not going to let those men go without money. That's vital. And I can't tell you what all
they do that is so costly. Right, Dad? The things that Walter and Cody
have done over the years out of their own pocket, I wish I had time to tell you
that. Oh, way over and above what we give them. And I'd love
to give them a raise every so often. Cody not long ago said to me,
he said to my dad, he said, Paul needs to come down here every
year. Every year. And other pastors
do that. Some twice a year. And I don't
go there for a vacation. I do not. No sir. No sir. I put my heart into it. Preaching. That's why I go. And I go there
from you. It costs money. It costs a lot
of money. Anywhere from $2,500 to $3,000.
We're not going to let Walter and Betty and Cody and Linda
pay for anything while we're there. Gas and food. We're just
not going to do that. We're not going to go stay in
their house and let them pay for it. No sir. It's costly. Well, he just besought us that
we would come, so we agreed to. We agreed to. We're going to
come. Fannin's going to go with us. I'd love to go there with
everybody here so you could see what I'm talking about. I'd love
for you to go with me so you could appreciate it more. You
could hear the messages in English. At any rate, it's costly. And someone has already bought
our airfare there. Someone who cannot afford it. Cannot afford it. I know. And I know how blessed that person
is too. Brethren, I do you the wit of
the grace of God bestowed upon the churches in various places,
and here. The grace of God bestowed upon
this little group has just been so bountiful, just beyond belief,
how much the Lord has blessed that. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, don't you? How that he that was rich, yet
for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might
be made rich. We're so rich. So rich. And if
we don't have another blessed material thing, we've got to
have this. We've got to have this. Our children
have got to have this. Do you? Do you? Okay. The Lord bless them. Thank you.